Isaac Laquedem

ThURLsday IX

This ThURLsday I visited No Credentials, a new blog by Rose Nunez. Most of the posts have an academic theme -- I would say that her typical post cheerfully punctures a self-inflated literary or academic critic -- and in between the intellectual posts are little gems such as this one, from August:

Instead of spending my evening writing about an unpleasant episode in college, I went to the Lane County Fair, had a beer, listened to the Doobie Brothers (they're still around, and they still sound good), and scritched a bunch of affectionate goats.

Governor Kulongoski rescues the Mayaguez

A further reaction to the Governor removing Diana Goldschmidt from the Oregon Investment Council: maybe it will do for him what the Mayaguez incident did for Gerald Ford.

In 1975, the Cambodian navy captured a United States merchant vessel, the Mayaguez, which it said had intruded into Cambodian water, though it was 90 miles offshore. (The ship was 8 miles from a small island claimed by Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.) President Ford asked the Cambodian government to release the ship and its sailors. Cambodia did not respond. He asked again. Cambodia did not respond. He asked again, this time saying in effect "If you do not release the Mayaguez and its crew then I will not be happy." Cambodia did not respond. So he sent the Marines, who landed in Cambodia, shot up the port, retook the ship, rescued the crew, and left. And for the rest of his term, no foreign government messed around with Gerald Ford.

I didn't expect the Governor to remove Ms. Goldschmidt from the OIC. I think he's sent a strong message to the legislature and the nomenklatura that no one is so powerful or so well-connected as to be immune from being replaced.

Good for him, I say, and high time. In fact, I'm so pleased that I'll say it again. Good for him.

Governor removes Diana Goldschmidt from investment council

I was surprised to read this morning that Governor Kulongoski had asked Diana Goldschmidt to resign from the Oregon Investment Council, the state agency that supervises most of the state's investments, and when she refused, removed her from the board.

I was even more surprised to see no comment from Jack Bog yet, but I'm guessing that he'll weigh in by nightfall.

I don't know whether Ms. Goldschmidt did anything improper. So far the only evidence is the series of amazing coincidences (and "amazing" is an understatement) surrounding OIC's investment in Texas Pacific's bid for Portland General Electric the week that Neil Goldschmidt was asked to serve on the new PGE board. But she and the governor are learning a lesson that eluded Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon: to retain the respect of the governed, a government has to avoid the appearance of impropriety, and those who work for it have to not just follow the rules, but be perceived to be following the rules.

UPDATE: Here's Jack's comment, from the early afternoon.

Harry Cohn, campaign manager

The Bush and Kerry campaigns remind me of the story told of the late Hollywood producer, Harry Cohn, apparently one of the most disliked of men, even by Hollywood film studio standards. It is said that at his funeral, after finishing the traditional prayers the rabbi asked if anyone in the chapel would like to say a few words about the deceased.

No one stood up.

The rabbi asked again, more plaintively. "I know that Mr. Cohn was not universally admired, but someone here must be able to share a few words that might ease his family's sorrow?"

No one stood up.

Finally the rabbi said, "All right, I know that Mr. Cohn was widely hated, but cannot one of you say something positive about a man who, whatever his faults may have been, has paid the final price and left behind a grieving wife and children?"

At this, a man in the back called out, "His brother was worse."

The President and Senator Kerry are running a Harry Cohn campaign: they each say that the other guy is worse but they won't say anything about themselves. And if that's all the campaign they're going to run, we may as well let Kitty Kelley select our Presidents and save us the bother of voting.

Nader on, hurricanes off

Our man in New Mexico reports that today the New Mexico Supreme Court put Ralph Nader back on the ballot. I sense that he's either a Naderite or an active Republican; he cheekily adds the following note: "The hurricanes in Florida seem to have stopped immediately on Nader being put back on the ballot." He goes on to ask if Mount St. Helens might be expressing its opinion on the Oregon Supreme Court keeping Nader off the ballot. I haven't the heart to remind our M. in N.M. that the volcano is in Washington.

The Oregonian follows Isaac

I had a chance today to read the Oregonian's endorsements of Jim Francesconi for Mayor and Nicholas Fish for the City Council (The Oregonian, Sunday, September 26). Most notably, the Oregonian endorsed Mr. Fish over his opponent, Sam Adams, reversing its (their?) position in the primary, when it endorsed Mr. Adams over Mr. Fish. In the spring, the Oregonian said that Mr. Adams' experience in City Hall as chief of staff for Mayor Katz gave him the edge over Mr. Fish, who has never held elective office. This week, the Oregonian endorses Mr. Fish.

The editorial rightly points out that Messrs. Fish and Adams are both strong candidates who would be assets to the City Council. It changed its mind, not because it lowered its opinion of Mr. Adams or raised its opinion of Mr. Fish, but because it believes that Tom Potter will be elected mayor, and that as Mr. Potter is (was) a city hall insider, the council should have an outsider for balance.

You read it here first on May 5, when I said, "The City Council does its best work when it has a mix of insiders and outsiders. Francesconi and Adams are insiders; Potter and Fish are outsiders. For this reason I suggest voting either for Francesconi and Fish, or for Potter and Adams: in either case one insider and one outsider (my personal choice is Francesconi and Fish, simply because I know them better)." It's flattering to see the Oregonian coming around.

Explain the Bush-Kerry race in 90 seconds, in Japanese

Our man in Tokyo writes with some interesting questions. He is about to be interviewed on the leading Japanese television network as an expert on the United States (he is a radio and television personality himself and is not an academic). He asks me how I think most Americans see this election.

It's easy for me to say what I think about the election. It's not so easy for me to give a fair summary of how Americans think; for one thing, it's tempting to assume that most Americans think the way I do, a theory that's disproven every time the Nielsen ratings are published.

I answered along these lines: this has turned into a war election, with the progress of the war in Iraq being the main question and the undercurrent being the Vietnam War and the two candidates' participation in it. The candidates aren't talking about their own virtues much, but are mostly saying simply that the other guy is worse. And neither candidate is reaching out to the center; they're both playing mostly to their own partisans. How would you answer?

He asked another interesting question: which candidate would be better for Japan? He, and many others in Japan, want to know.

We lose sight of how fortunate we are to live in the United States. We don't worry about which politician in Japan, or Britain, or France, or Germany -- or even in Canada and Mexico, our two neighbors -- would be better for the United States. (Most Americans can't even name the leader of either country.) And we don't realize how intently many other nations watch our elections. In 1976 I had an engaging conversation with a college student in France who wanted to know why Chappaquiddick kept Edward Kennedy out of the 1976 Democratic primaries and what his prospects were for 1980. I haven't heard lots of people here talk about J.-M. Le Pen.

First the service was bad, and then...

The staff at Soprano's Italian and American Grill, in Lake George, New York, probably doesn't want to serve Humberto Taveras again; he left a tip of just $2 on a $77 dinner bill on September 5. But Mr. Taveras probably doesn't want to eat there again, because when he refused to leave a higher tip, the restaurant had him arrested.

Sometimes it IS too early to teach your children

Not that I think today's parents push their children more than did parents of yesteryear, but based on what I overheard at some recent gatherings of parents, I have the uncomfortable belief that I could sell a million copies of a book entitled "Teach Your Fetus to Read," and most of the buyers would be serious.

Now Nader's neither on nor off

Our man in New Mexico reports that this afternoon the New Mexico supreme court issued a stay of the Bernalillo County court's ruling kicking Ralph Nader off the New Mexico ballot. The court ordered the New Mexico secretary of state not to destroy the Nader ballots (previously printed) and not to distribute any ballots until the court issues a further order. So as of right now Mr. Nader's off the New Mexico ballot, but so are President Bush and Senator Kerry.

Meanwhile the Oregon supreme court upheld Secretary of State Bradbury's decision to invalidate just enough of the Nader petitions to keep Mr. Nader off the Oregon ballot. The Nader campaign will try to attract the attention of the United States Supreme Court to get Mr. Nader on the Oregon ballot.

Even if a majority of the Court would privately like to see Mr. Nader on the ballot under the theory that his presence helps President Bush's campaign, I predict that the United States Supreme Court will duck the Oregon case rather than intervene in the election before the votes are cast. It's much more profitable for the butcher to put his thumb on the scale when the customer's in a hurry and isn't paying close attention.