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Yglesias

World War II Marred By Poor Plotting and Unrealistic One-Dimensional Characters

By Matthew Yglesias on Jul 12, 2010 at 4:44 pm

Infobox collage for WWII 1

Via Robert Farley, someone at last has the guts to take on the overrated critical darling also known as World War II:

Let’s start with the bad guys. Battalions of stormtroopers dressed in all black, check. Secret police, check. Determination to brutally kill everyone who doesn’t look like them, check. Leader with a tiny villain mustache and a tendency to go into apopleptic rage when he doesn’t get his way, check. All this from a country that was ordinary, believable, and dare I say it sometimes even sympathetic in previous seasons.

I wouldn’t even mind the lack of originality if they weren’t so heavy-handed about it. Apparently we’re supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be? And that they diverted all their resources to use in making ever bigger and scarier death camps, even in the middle of a huge war? Real people just aren’t that evil. And that’s not even counting the part where as soon as the plot requires it, they instantly forget about all the racism nonsense and become best buddies with the definitely non-Aryan Japanese.

Not that the good guys are much better. Their leader, Churchill, appeared in a grand total of one episode before, where he was a bumbling general who suffered an embarrassing defeat to the Ottomans of all people in the Battle of Gallipoli. Now, all of a sudden, he’s not only Prime Minister, he’s not only a brilliant military commander, he’s not only the greatest orator of the twentieth century who can convince the British to keep going against all odds, he’s also a natural wit who is able to pull out hilarious one-liners practically on demand. I know he’s supposed to be the hero, but it’s not realistic unless you keep the guy at least vaguely human.

These are all fair points. In terms of gritty realism and morally complex drama, you can make mine the Napoleonic Wars. The anti-hero at the center of the action has a great plot arc, the horses look cool, and the whole metric system conceit is so clever I’m surprised people don’t use it in practice. Even the North American spinoff is pretty interesting. It’s just too bad they didn’t let well enough alone after Elba—the TV movie special felt pointless and tacked on.

Health

Kyl Takes Credit For Preventive Health Provisions In Health Law That He And All The Senate GOP Opposed

By Igor Volsky on Jul 12, 2010 at 4:25 pm

Republicans responded to today’s swearing in of Dr. Don Berwick to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) by condemning President Obama for recess appointing the nominee. One by one, the GOP took to the Senate floor to argue that they would have welcomed a debate on Berwick’s qualifications in a fair and open hearing. “For anybody to suggest that Republicans are to blame for the fact that Dr. Berwick’s nomination didn’t come to a vote or wasn’t brought to the senate floor is sheer fantasy,” Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) insisted. “We have not held up the nomination. We have not protested a vote.” “We’ve been critical of Dr. Berwick. Since when has that been a crime?”

Kyl began with the standard Republican talking points. He claimed that Berwick will ration health care for American seniors, deny payment for services that were not cost effective and import British health care to America. But then, in an apparent effort to criticize Berwick’s view of prevention, Kyl took a turn for the unexpected and suddenly took credit for the preventive service provisions in the health law:

KYL: Another couple things about Dr. Berwick. He’s expressed disapproval for costly cutting-edge medical technologies and said prevention services like annual physicals, screening tests and other measures were over demanded. Well, one of the things we did in the health care legislation was to provide a lot of different incentives for preventive care, for screening to try to help people avoid illnesses on the theory that it would be a lot cheaper if we didn’t do a lot of treatment that was unnecessary. If you could identify in advance that an individual had a need for some treatment, maybe you could catch the disease, say the cancer, for example, early and not have to have the expensive treatment, the end-of-life kind of care that frequently is very, very expensive.

Watch it:

Kyl’s use of the pronoun “we” is surprising, since every single Senate Republican voted against the preventive provisions in the health care bill when they voted against the measure, and many in the GOP now want to repeal the entire law — including the very preventive screenings that could “catch the disease.” Kyl is co-sponsoring a measure to repeal the entire law.

Still, he isn’t the only Republican to take credit for some of the health care law’s more popular provisions. In April, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) took credit for provisions that would outlaw rescission of coverage and allow children to stay on their parents’ health plans for longer. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) similarly issued two press released praising the law’s “standards for the tax exemption of charitable hospitals” and its improvements of “Medicare payments to doctors in rural states like Iowa.”

Politics

Kyl Takes Credit For Preventive Health Provisions In Health Law That He And All The Senate GOP Opposed

By Igor Volsky on Jul 12, 2010 at 4:00 pm

Republicans responded to today’s swearing in of Dr. Don Berwick to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) by condemning President Obama for recess appointing the nominee. One by one, the GOP took to the Senate floor to argue that they would have welcomed a debate on Berwick’s qualifications in a fair and open hearing. “For anybody to suggest that Republicans are to blame for the fact that Dr. Berwick’s nomination didn’t come to a vote or wasn’t brought to the senate floor is sheer fantasy,” Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) insisted. “We have not held up the nomination. We have not protested a vote.” “We’ve been critical of Dr. Berwick. Since when has that been a crime?”

Kyl began with the standard Republican talking points. He claimed that Berwick will ration health care for American seniors, deny payment for services that were not cost effective and import British health care to America. But then, in an apparent effort to criticize Berwick’s view of prevention, Kyl took a turn for the unexpected and suddenly took credit for the preventive service provisions in the health law:

KYL: Another couple things about Dr. Berwick. He’s expressed disapproval for costly cutting-edge medical technologies and said prevention services like annual physicals, screening tests and other measures were over demanded. Well, one of the things we did in the health care legislation was to provide a lot of different incentives for preventive care, for screening to try to help people avoid illnesses on the theory that it would be a lot cheaper if we didn’t do a lot of treatment that was unnecessary. If you could identify in advance that an individual had a need for some treatment, maybe you could catch the disease, say the cancer, for example, early and not have to have the expensive treatment, the end-of-life kind of care that frequently is very, very expensive.

Watch it:

Kyl’s use of the pronoun “we” is surprising, since every single Senate Republican voted against the preventive provisions in the health care bill when they voted against the measure, and many in the GOP now want to repeal the entire law — including the very preventive screenings that could “catch the disease.” Kyl is co-sponsoring a measure to repeal the entire law.

Still, he isn’t the only Republican to take credit for some of the health care law’s more popular provisions. In April, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) took credit for provisions that would outlaw rescission of coverage and allow children to stay on their parents’ health plans for longer. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) similarly issued two press released praising the law’s “standards for the tax exemption of charitable hospitals” and its improvements of “Medicare payments to doctors in rural states like Iowa.”

Yglesias

University of California Moving Toward Increased Price-Gouging of Students

By Matthew Yglesias on Jul 12, 2010 at 3:57 pm

UC_Color_Logo 1

Information technology has drastically increased productivity in most industries dedicated to the assembling, packaging, and transmission of information. But the field of higher education appears superficially resistant to the trend—tuition keeps skyrocketing. And Kevin Carey observes a nice case study in the dynamics as the University of California launches a new online degree-granting program:

Long term, the idea is to expand access to the university while saving money. Tuition for online and traditional courses would be the same. But with students able to take courses in their living rooms, the university envisions spending less on their education while increasing the number of tuition-paying students – helpful as state financial support drops.

Normally the idea is that if you invent a cheaper way of producing something, you take advantage of that to reduce prices and increase sales volumes. That’s more profit for you, but also more surplus for consumers. But here the school is planning to just increase margin. It’s bad for students, but also the sign of a dysfunctional marketplace. At any rate, Carey seems too bashful to point it out, but he published an excellent Washington Monthly article about a year and a half ago that lays out these dynamics very well.

Update

CORRECTION: The post in question was actually written by Chad Aldeman. Apologies for the error.

Alyssa

Wise Words

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jul 12, 2010 at 3:45 pm

kepkanation sets me straight on my complaints about The Dry Land:

I think in part this only feels tired and overdone, and like she’s playing the “kicky, curvy Latina girlfriend” because the majority of the movies about Iraq and Afghanistan so far have made the deployments about white guys with their white buddies and their white girlfriends/wives (think Brothers, which was, sure, a remake from the Dutch, but Americanizing a movie shouldn’t necessarily mean keeping it/making it white; Stop-Loss;Hurt Locker; etc). At least here there’s not just the Latina girlfriend but also the Latino former colleague. Movies about the war should start looking a bit more like the face of war; that doesn’t seem like a waste of Ferrara’s time or talents.

I do think one problem I have as a critic right now is that I burned myself out really aggressively on war movies for a piece I wrote last summer. I loved The Hurt Locker and liked In the Loop, I think in part because I’m having a hard time with movies that reduce soldiers to trauma victims. I want that to be true in life as well as in art, I want things to be lest bad, less grinding, less far from the end than they are. But kepkanation is right that representing the full range of experience that soldiers have is the most important thing, both aesthetically and politically.

Economy

Can Obama’s Nominees Push The Federal Reserve To Do More About Unemployment?

By Pat Garofalo on Jul 12, 2010 at 3:32 pm

San Francisco Federal Reserve President Janet Yellen

San Francisco Federal Reserve President Janet Yellen

Last week, the Washington Post ran an article reporting that the Federal Reserve is weighing “new steps to bolster growth” in light of the exceedingly sluggish movement of the labor market (and the Fed’s mandate to maximize employment). Though the actual steps that the Fed is reportedly considering are quite small, it was good to see that the Fed is at least looking at additional steps to jolt the lagging economy.

This week, the Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on three candidates for the Federal Reserve Board nominated by President Obama, giving lawmakers ample opportunity to ask how realistic it is for the Fed to do more about employment and whether Obama’s nominees think such steps are warranted:

More often than not, the dour economists who staff the central bank tend to worry mostly about inflation, which the Fed can generally try to keep in check by calibrating interest rates. The second mandate — to promote jobs — gets less attention, in part because the Fed’s powers are less direct. Janet Yellen, the San Francisco Fed president whom President Obama nominated to be the central bank’s vice chairwoman, has argued that in times like these, the Fed should probably be more worried about jobs than inflation.

“I’m one who believes that persistently high unemployment tends to depress inflation,” said Yellen. “Behind these numbers is flesh and blood — millions of people who struggle every day to make ends meet.”

Of course, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has already acknowledged that the Fed could be doing more to boost employment, but that it likely won’t do so. As Paul Krugman wrote today, “the Fed was supposed to be intellectually prepared for this situation. Mr. Bernanke has thought long and hard about how to avoid a Japanese-style economic trap, and the Fed’s researchers have been obsessed for years with the same question. But here we are, visibly sliding toward deflation — and the Fed is standing pat.”

Back in January, there were stories of Fed members pushing for “more policy stimulus,” yet we’re still here with 9.7 percent unemployment and a central bank that is sitting on its hands. Can Obama’s nominees make a difference? If the Senate asks the right questions, we may get a clue this week.

Politics

Angle Claims She Opposed Construction Project Because It Received Stimulus Funds — Even Though It Didn’t

By Amanda Terkel on Jul 12, 2010 at 3:19 pm

During a recent appearance on conservative host Alan Stock’s radio show, a caller asked Republican Sharron Angle, who’s running for Nevada’s U.S. Senate seat against Harry Reid (D), “if she would have intervened on behalf of MGM Resorts’ CityCenter complex the way Senator Reid did. In 2009, CityCenter experienced financial struggles during its construction. The project’s bankruptcy appeared imminent. Reid called several banks on MGM Resorts’ behalf, and the project averted bankruptcy.” Angle told the caller that she would not have done so. A local news reporter tried to follow-up with her after the interview:

Angle also expanded on her comments regarding CityCenter. “It’s kind of like shifting the chairs on the Titanic,” she said. “You only shift jobs from one place to another, when we know that when we put those jobs at City Center, it was jobs that were taken away or business that was taken away from other areas. So, really it actually injured the economy of other businesses.”

Her response has generated significant controversy in Nevada. A spokesperson for MGM Resorts responded, “Ms. Angle’s statement is ridiculous on its face. Senator Reid’s support of our significant private investment in Las Vegas came during our company’s darkest hour. He saved, not only 10,000 construction jobs and 12,000 permanent private sector jobs at CityCenter, but the jobs of 50,000 employees at our other resorts that would have been jeopardized had our company followed CityCenter into bankruptcy.”

This weekend, Fox 5 in Las Vegas caught up with Angle at the state GOP convention. As the Plum Line’s Greg Sargent points out, Angle attempted to backtrack on her remarks by saying that she opposed the MGM project because it received stimulus funds:

What I said on the radio is that I would not have voted for the stimulus for the City Center. And the reason is because what happened there was Harry Reid rewarded some friends at the expense of other businesses in town. Stimulus does not work and we’ve seen that with the unemployment rate going up.

But as Fox 5 notes in its report, Angle’s explanation is bogus, because the City Center never received any stimulus funds:

FOX 5 ANCHOR: But I listened to that interview, and the caller asked Sharron Angle, would you have called the banks as Harry Reid did to get them to open up some lines of credit to the City Center so they could continue construction after their partners pulled out. That’s what she was asked, and she said, no I would not. And tonight she told you, no that’s not what I said, I said I would not vote for the stimulus — but the stimulus had nothing to do with the construction of City Center. Was anyone able to follow-up with her on that?

FOX 5 REPORTER: No. We were not allowed to ask any sort of follow-up questions. I tried, and another reporter tried, and we were told just one question each. Again, only four questions for the assembled media that was there. [...]

FOX 5 ANCHOR: Well, sometimes following these candidates is sort of like being Alice in Wonderland. Up is down and black is white. So maybe the next time we can try to get some clarification.

Watch it:

In the past, the far-right Angle has also said, “I am not in the business of creating jobs.”

Yglesias

Americans Fuzzy on What “Progressive” Means

By Matthew Yglesias on Jul 12, 2010 at 3:14 pm

Gallup did a poll on the political identity “progressive” and found that most people don’t know a lot about political ideologies:

Progressive Political Label -- Embraced, Rejected, Uncertainty About, Among All Americans as Well as by Ideology and Party ID

I only wish the same level of scrutiny were applied to assertions about whether the public is “liberal” or “conservative” where I believe there’s strong circumstantial evidence that many people just don’t understand these terms in the way political and media professionals understand them. For example, when you break these things out by race you find that whites are more “liberal” than blacks, which simply doesn’t describe either voting behavior or views on issues correctly.

At any rate, the release of this study prompted some discussion I saw recently about the merits of the liberal/progressive label switch. I used to hate this move, but lately I think better of it. Or, rather, I think that “liberal” just doesn’t work very well to describe a specific political tendency in the United States. If you look at us in international terms and with the traditional definition, then it’s clear that America is a pretty liberal place, that both the Democratic and Republican parties are pretty liberal, that public opinion in the United States is liberal, and that elite opinion is more liberal. You also see individuals with at least a few illiberal ideas in both the “right” and “left” political coalitions, and you see important disagreements among people with liberal values about public policy questions—the disagreement about whether or not taxpayer financed public schools are a good way of providing an important public good is an important question, but it’s not really a question about liberalism.

In that light, I’m comfortable saying I’m both a liberal and a progressive and the importance of the labels really depends on what it is we’re talking about. The move I want to avoid, however, is the one that posits a sharp dichotomy between “classical” liberalism and 21st century American liberalism or that holds that the policy agenda of the Cato Institute or the Reason Foundation is identical to the “real” liberalism.

Climate Progress

Bill McKibben reviews “Straight Up,” challenges me to offer 350.org advice. I accept!

By Joe Romm on Jul 12, 2010 at 2:47 pm

Cover image of Joe Romm's book, Straight Up: America's Fiercest Climate Blogger Takes on the Status Quo Media, Politicians, and Clean Energy SolutionsBill McKibben “” some-time guest blogger and the author most recently of the must-read book Eaarth — has a challenging review of my book Straight Up in the Washington Monthly.

He literally challenges me to talk more about political movements on this blog, such has the one he cofounded, 350.org.  I accept.

Indeed, I issue a challenge of my own to 350.org to change its focus and get more political! I’d love to hear your thoughts — and I’m quite sure that McKibben would, too.

So I’ll mostly dispense with the parts in which he explains why you should buy the book if you’re interested in climate or the Web — “this book””a collection of some of his thousands of blog posts””is a good way to think not only about climate but about the uses of the Web” — and cut to his challenge:

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