Last Post of the Semester

As I continued in The Crossing, it continues to get more interesting and confusing as most McCarthy books do. The main conflict so far seems to be between the protagonist, Boyd, and a she-wolf that has been walking around hunting the cows that are roaming free. In one scene, McCarthy sis something I have never seen him do before. He showed the book from the perspective of the wolf. This threw me for a loop for a little while. The wolf’s thoughts were rational and coherent, though fairly simple. McCarthy explained the wolf’s situation and background about how its mate had died in the jaws of a trap. This makes the wolf very difficult for Boyd and his father to catch, as she digs up and overturns all the traps. Once again I am a little surprised at McCarthy’s knowledge of somewhat antiquated things like wolf trapping, which he explains step by step, or horse breaking in All the Pretty Horses. I guess being from an upper-class suburb makes me kind of surprised he is so knowledgeable about these things, but it goes back to McCarthy’s history as a wonderer. Once again, in The Crossing, McCarthy fails to break any gender barriers with his female characters. Boyd’s mother is rarely seen and when she is, it is in the stereotypical female role of cooking, clean, and communicating for the family. I think this book has started out faster than All the Pretty Horses and has pulled me in more in the first few pages than ATPH did, but I can’t imagine this wolf hunting is the main conflict in the book, so it will be interesting to see what twists the plot takes.

New McCarthy Book

Now that I have finished my commentary on The Running Mate, a very good book I would recommend to anyone interested in politics, I have started reading The Crossing, the sequel to All the Pretty Horses and the second book in The Border trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. I may or may not be able to finish it before it is due in the library on Jan. 12 though… But it is very interesting to compare and contrast The Crossing with both ATPH and The Road. Of course, McCarthy style is still the same, with long awkward sentences followed by short equally awkward ones, no quotation marks, and dialect within the quotations. The Crossing also seems to be set somewhere in Texas though that has not been clearly defined yet. There is another dark, introversive character like John Grady Cole, named Boyd who I believe will be the protagonist, but that could also be his younger Billy. (I can’t help but think who would name their kids Billy and Boyd.) But there are also differences in the books already. Boyd seems more attached to his family than JGC was which leads me to wonder what is going to happen to make Boyd leave home, as he surely will. McCarthy also has put a lot of figurative language into the beginning of The Crossing which is a literary device I do not remember him using in either of his two other books I have read.

I liked The Road and I like ATPH even more, so I wonder where The Crossing will fall once I (hopefully) finish it.

Ethics in Politics

One topic that is brought up almost incessantly in The Running Mate is ethics in politics, more specifically in elections/confirmations. The main character, Senator Charlie Martin, is forced to make several ethical decisions, first in the confirmation of his friend from war to the post of Secretary of Defense, and then in his own reelection campaign.
His friend up for confirmation, Sly Parkinson, was discovered to have abused dieting pills, and later female member of his staff. However, he was easily the most qualified person for Secretary of Defense being a brilliant military mind. The questioned posed by the situation is, should a person’s personal actions affect their job, and in this case even Parkinson’s good friend Charlie Martin had to say yes, and vote against his confirmation. The question gets a little stickier when you get into the less egregious sexual actions of people such as Bill Clinton and Newt Gringich. Did their actions affect their ability to do their jobs? Probably not. But did their action disqualify them from hold as high of offices as President and Majority Leader? That is where people get into arguments?
Another ethical issue that was addressed in the book is what information can you use against your opponent in a political campaign. Charlie Martin’s political opponent had a radio show in which at one point he condemned “partial-birth abortions.” Martin’s staff found out that his opponent’s wife actually had an abortion fairly late in her pregnancy. Martin debated furiously within himself about whether he should use that information in an add. It would be devastatingly effective and almost guarantee him the win, but it would also be very cruel. It was a difficult situation for both candidates that perplexes me still after thinking about it for awhile. I don’t know what I would do.

Backwards Discrimination

After finishing The Running Mate there are several political and literary ideas that can be discussed. One political idea was mentioned only once, in passing, but in was very poignant and I kept thinking about it the next few days. The situation comes up as Senator Charlie Martin is going to meet the Senate Majority leader and is bring along his homosexual and HIV positive press secretary, Hilton Devereaux. Martin wants to walk despite the frigid temperature and Devereaux’s protests.

“Come on, Hilton don’t be such a sis–” Charlie stopped abruptly, turned crimson.
“You’re such a liberal,” Hilton said.

I believe Hilton uncovered a serious truth about most members of the Democratic party. They are so worried about not being offensive to various minorities that they actually end up being less sensitive to minorities. It is backwards discrimination. An example would be crime. There are some Democrats who would believe almost no Africa-Americans are guilty of the crimes they commit but are merely victims of their situation. Holding such expectations of responsibility, I think is more discriminatory to do this then something like racial profiling. The same thing could be said about providing clean needles to drug addicts. If we are going to spend taxpayer’s money on people who are breaking the law, why not make specific lanes for people who are driving under the influence. No one who even propose the latter and yet the same logic doesn’t hold true for clean needles because Democrats do not want to discriminate in anyway against anyone. (Just to set the record straight the government should provide clean needles because it works, and preventing HIV is a heck of a lot less expensive than treating it.)

OTW Appears in The Running Mate

First of all, I have to write about the reference in the book made to the movie we watched in class recently On the Waterfront. The exact quote is, “Lanny assayed a modified Marlon Brando: ‘You coulda been a contender. You coulda gone all the way.’”
This quote brought to mind many other similarities between The Running Mate and On the Waterfront. I think Charlie Martin’s days in Vietnam were similar to Larry’s boxing days, and now Charlie has settled into the life of a politician, but has some moral doubts about it. If fact we recently found out, Charlie had a son with a Vietnamese girl he had no idea about. I believe this ethical dilemma may push Charlie over the edge like Joey’s death did to Terry. It will be interesting to see how Charlie handles his moral dilemma differently than Terry or Joe Keller.
Another theme brought up in the book is the effect of the war in Vietnam. There is really no way for anyone in our generation to understand that effect in the slightest. However, its effects are still prevalent today in ways as important as John McCain’s presidential candidacy. It is almost impossible to imagine a world that does not bear the scars of Vietnam. It is also difficult to imagine in the war we are waging currently is going to have as lasting of scars on the world. We have already seen one veteran of Iraq run for public office in Ashwin Madia and without any doubt there will be many more to come.

Charlie Martin in Real Life

In the first few chapters of The Natural the end of the main character, Charlie Martin’s, presidential campaign is revealed in classic Klein style. There is a girl working for Martin’s campaign who mistakenly thinks Martin, who is known somewhat for his promiscuity, is making a move on her. This scandal all but ends what is left of Martin’s primary campaign. This scene is dripping with irony because is this particular incidence Martin actually wasn’t trying to seduce the girl, but he had in many instances without being caught. This irony is an interesting literary technique of Klein’s and is particularly interesting to think about, because it can almost certainly be applied to real politician have been caught at something they didn’t do, but not caught at something they did.
Another interesting trait of Charlie Martin is that he is both a veteran and a Democrat, something stereotypically not seen very often. Klein himself is an adamant supporter of national service, and is disdainful of Democrat who are unknowledgeable about foreign policy and military affairs. In fact, Martin is politician who has never really existed in the real world. He come from a folksy, Midwestern background, was a war hero in Vietnam, and is a Democrat. If a politician with this kind of background did exist, I personally would think he would they would have a distinct advantage over most other politicians. Charlie Martin is, in some ways, the ideal candidate for me, for Joe Klein and perhaps for much of America.

Annotated Bibliography

Lynch, David J. “Does Tax Code Encourage U.S. Companies to Cut Jobs at Home?” USA Today. 20 March. 2008
David J. Lynch is a frequent contributor to USA Today write most often about economics and finances. The article explains the claims made by the Democratic candidate in the presidential primary of 2008, Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, that they would close the tax break for companies who outsource jobs to foreign countries. Lynch informs the reader that the tax actually just postpones the tax on overseas profits, but it does provide incentive for corporations to create jobs overseas. He also provides several perspectives on what could be done about the loophole.

Greenhouse, Steven. “Offshoring Silicon Valley.” American Prispect. 19 (2008): 18-20.

Steven Greenhouse is a veteran economic journalist for the New York Times. In his series, The Big Squeeze: Tough Time for the American Worker, he writes about the effect of offshoring on many US industries. In this article Greenhouse writes about the offshoring of the technological industry, which was supposed to be safe for overseas competition. It focuses on the plight of Myra Bronstein, who worked as a software tester until a Indian immigrant was hire to do her work for six percent of the money. Greenhouse includes many warnings for prominent economist about the dangers of offshoring.

Starting "The Running Mate"

While I have only read the (rather lengthy) prologue of The Running Mate so far, I can already easily distinguish this as a work of Joe Klein. First of all he does something very interesting. The main character Charlie Martin was a minor character in Klein's previous book Primary Colors. It is extremely interesting to see the events of the campaign which Primary Colors was centered on in the eyes of a candidate we have only briefly met before. I’m sure at some point I will find myself rummaging through Primary Colors for every reference to Charlie Martin. Another theme that I can already see emerging is the intrusiveness of the press into politicians’ personal lives. As even my previous posts demonstrate, this is an issue that is very prevalent in almost all of Klein's writing. It is a strange twist of point-of-view to see this practice in the eyes of a candidate. Another thing commonly found in Klein's books is the resemblance of the politicians to Bill Clinton. This particular character, Charlie Martin, is similar in his allegedly promiscuous behaviors and enormous capacity for learning policy. Martin is also a singularly unique politician just as Clinton was. I am certainly looking forward to the rest of the book, but I am a little concerned it is going to be too similar to Klein's books on Clinton and therefore be a little redundant. When I can recognize the signs of an author’s writing in the first few pages, it may be a sign I should move on to a new writer.

Possible Themes

After finishing The Natural I was trying to think of what Joe Klein’s theme for the book was. There seem to be several that can be pulled out.
The first, and the most prevalent in the book, I thought was the wasted potential of the Clinton presidency. Klein obviously has heaps of respect for President Clinton, especially with regards to the president’s emotional radar, his ability to sense the emotional needs of his audience and deliver on them, which made him such a great public orator. Klein also appreciates Clinton’s incredible policy knowledge and desire for reform, but despite these admirable qualities of the man, the administration was bogged down by scandals, indecisiveness, and disorganization. Klein speculates that the disappointment in the administration was not so much because of these reasons or for the policy failures such as healthcare and the Israel-Pakistan negotiations, but because of his inability to inspire the increasingly apathetic public.
Another extremely prevalent theme was Klein’s belief that both the media and the politicians went ballistic about the personal lives of not just the president, but many other public servants of his time. The Clinton presidency seemed to start the era of investigations, where you must have a spotless public and personal record in order to be a politician. If not, you will be ripped to shreds be destructively partisan investigation committees. The media aides this by further prying into politician’s lives and reporting the unimportant, negative stories of government leaders’ personal lives.
One of the things I found most interesting about the book was its perspective. Since it was published in 2002 Klein did not know many of the things we know now when he wrote it. One of the most memorable instances of this is when he writes how President Bush’s success relied so much on the help of others. It is interesting to think about this now in the context that the president has some of the lowest approval ratings of any president in history.

Fiction v. Nonfiction

I think I speak for most of my peers when I say most of my rather limited background in literature has been in fiction. Not only have I chosen to read mostly fiction books, but it seems like we read mostly fiction books in school as well. The Natural, being a nonfiction book, brings up some discussion points that we have not addressed this year.


For instance, perhaps because I am so familiar with his writing, I find myself wondering about Joe Klein’s point-of-view. He does not try to hide his familiarity and relationship with the subject of the book, Bill Clinton. I doubt this relationship effects Klein’s writing, except for enabling him to write a more interesting story, but I have to wonder if his ideologies perhaps do. It is fairly clear in his writing that Klein is slightly left leaning, and especially identifies with the New Democrat principles. In my mind, this seems to create in his writing a slight bias against Old Democrats such as George Stephanopoulos and Hilary Clinton, and especially against their projects like healthcare reform. One bias of his that I find refreshing however is against the media’s enjoyment of reporting stories with little merit, but that embarrass politicians.

Another major difference between the two genres I personally find is that in nonfiction books there is generally less to analyze. Often the writer tries to simply present information with out adding easily analyzable aspects. For instance, there is usually far less use of literary techniques in nonfiction books. The author also usually tries to make their theme fairly explicit which does not allow for as much interpretation. With all this being said however, I believe nonfiction books can be very interesting and I am looking forward to the rest of The Natural.

Second Quarter Outside Reading

This quarter I have decided to continue my reading of Joe Klein, this time with his published works. I have already gotten two books of his, The Natural, which seems to be a fairly short easy read, so I also plan on reading one of his novels, The Running Mate. After these two books I will have pretty much read all his works so I may finally be able to move on to a different writer for Third Quarter.

Foregone Conclusion?

In this last week before the election, the American press and public seem to almost think the election is a foregone conclusion in a victory for Obama. However there is still interesting analysis to be made. Joe Klein wrote a very interesting column this week about why Obama will most likely win on November 4, and also about the exclusive interview he had with Obama a week ago. An interesting anecdote Klein recounts is the story of Obama’s meeting with General David Patraeus. Obama and Patraeus differed on the issue of whether to institute a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. Instead of just peacefully disagreeing with Patraeus, Obama made a gut decision to have a constructive discussion about the issue. I think this shows both Obama’s impressive knowledge of the issues as well as his temperament which many Americans have found appealing. Another interesting topic Klein discusses is how Obama, Patraeus, and McCain want to deal with Afghanistan. It seems, though Patraeus hasn’t admitted it in so many words, that Patraeus and Obama favor negotiating with the Taliban. It seems to me if two smart men with ideological differences like these two can agree on a course of action, it is most likely the correct one to take. Klein once again reinforces the idea that Obama’s even-keeled temperament is remarkable, and that it is the factor that caused many American’s to vote for him. In an audio breakdown of the interview, Klein makes a comparison that is very interesting that I had not heard yet this election year. The thing we seem to get a lot more of from Obama than our Presidents in recent history is maturity.

MInnesota's Sixth Congressional District

This past week I have been brushing up on my more local politics, especially the 6th Congressional district race between Rep. Michele Bachmann and Elwin Tinklenberg. After reading a series of articles in the Star Tribune, I must admit I have an almost extreme bias against Rep. Bachmann. The first article, about their debate, was merely the foundation. One of the things I dislike about Bachmann is her strategy to make any somewhat controversial remarks made by an opponent into a insult to one group or another. This could be seen when she called James Carville’s questions about Palin’s experience “offensive to American women.” It could also be seen in this debate when she used a car accident caused by an illegal immigrant to support her border patrol agenda. Tinkleberg replied, "I think it's just a little untoward to exploit a tragic situation to advance a narrow ideological agenda,” to which she said he was being “highly offensive.” I don’t know, but I thought Bachmann’s remarks were the offensive one’s and Tinkleberg was just being reasonable. Bachmann made several more divisive comments during th debate that seem to be typical of her.

The next article both shocked me and made me somewhat embarrassed that Bachmann is a Minnesotan. Apparently, while on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Bachmann said that she believes Obama has “anti-American views,” he had a “very strong association with Bill Ayers,” and while she was at it she called for an “exposé” of liberals in Congress, to see if they hold these same “anti-American” views. Sounds like someone’s calling for a rebirth McCarthyism. This is really just a continuation of the theme of the last article. Bachmann seems to be constantly negative, poorly informed, and almost childish in her attacks. After watching the video, I find myself a staunch supporter of the Tinklenberg campaign.

The third article really made me smile. It always makes me happy when Republicans feel the aftermath of their unintelligent remarks. It seems after Bachmann interview on Hardball, there was an incredible influx of support for the Tinklenberg campaign. Something like $450,000 in 24 hours. The notion that this embarrassment to Minnesotans may not be reelected makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Running Out of Time

As the election creeps one week closer, the Obama campaign is wishing the election were held today. They currently hold momentum that has been so far unprecedented in this campaign. Joe Klein comments on this in his new article, “The Obama Surge: Will it Last?” Klein writes about Obama’s success in the debates. Klein has written several times that Obama’s advantage has been twofold, he has been calm and collected and he has been able to offer clear solution to the problems facing America today. Klein uses his answers in the debates, saying healthcare is a right, not a privilege or responsibility, and explaining the economics of the financial bailout as examples of this. I personally thought Obama was by far the more presidential candidate in all the debates, even more so then the mainstream media. The most interesting part of Klein’s analysis is that American citizens are finally judging Obama on the content of his cool, collected character, instead of his race. However in the article, Klein does present some criticism of Obama. While Obama has been more truthful with the American public than most candidates in recent memory, Klein realizes the American public will demand more from a president in these troubled times.

Klein also wrote this week on Swampland his review of Palin and the public’s response to her so far in the campaign. I agree with his opinion that Palin was an extremely unqualified choice that McCain made without the necessary information. It also brings up the point, that I also agree with, that McCain would have rather chosen Joe Lieberman for his Vice President, and most likely would have had a better chance to win if he had done so. Also, I think the Vice Presidential debate would have been fascinating if it had been between Lieberman and Biden.

Bad News for GOP

As the election season heats up, politics this week has been getting even more interesting. Firstly, I found an article on Swampland showing the most recent poll of Minnesotans which has Al Franken ahead of Norm Coleman by 9 percent. Officially, the Star Tribune poll has Franken at 43% Coleman at 34% and Dean Barkley at 18%. This is a meaningful poll because for the first time, one of the candidates is leading the other outside the margin of error of the poll. I personally find this poll very interesting because I never thought that Franken would have a chance at winning in Minnesota, but I’m not sure how I feel about the race in general. I have felt that many of Coleman’s attacks on Franken have been unfair and many times false. However, I have my misgivings about Franken representing our state, though I have to say as of now I am favoring him.

I also read Joe Klein’s most recent “Anger vs. Steadiness in the Crisis”, which is all about the different temperaments of McCain and Obama. In Klein’s opinion, part of Obama’s recent surge in the polls has been due to his much calmer approach to everything from the bailout to the debates. In some ways Obama has been forced into this position. It is almost impossible for an angry, black man to be elected President. Accuse me of playing the race card if you want, but with John McCain’s recklessness and risk taking, he would not be in his current position. Klein ends the article with an analogy I have heard in many political articles recently. It seems John McCain’s only hope is to try for yet another Hail Mary pass, similar to his choice of Palin as his VP and to suspend his campaign to work on resolving the economic crisis.

Bailouts, Debates, and Crapshooting

There was a lot of action in the world of politics this week. Firstly, I doubt anyone could have escaped hearing about the massive bailout proposed in an attempt to save several major financial corporations. Joe Klein gives his own take on the dealings and how they might influence the presidential campaign here. He writes that it will be a difficult task for both candidates to gain the trust of the people of America aster they have been promised reform time and time again. He also brings up a point which I think should be very important in this election. The reason we are in this mess in the first place is the ridiculous amount of deregulation that was allowed under the Bush administration and with the support of, yes, Senator McCain. Indisputably, what we need right now is regulation, and I personally cannot understand why anyone would think a career deregulator like John McCain would be better suited to do this than Barack Obama.
In this week we also saw our first presidential debate of this election season. In this article, Klein writes what he saw in it. He seems to share the view of most pundits that the debate was fairly equal, the slight edge going slightly towards Obama because he held his own in a field that was supposed to be McCain’s specialty. He believes that in substance Obama was the winner, recognizes that substance rarely is what viewers stake away from debates. In that respect, he admits McCain and Obama were even on matters of style and tone. However, in a more recent post on the blog Swamland, found here, he has a different angle. He seems to think that McCain came off a snobbish by implying Obama was inexperienced, while making more mistakes on foreign policy than Obama.
Another interesting post of his can be found here. It comments on a New York Times article about his “unseemly” though not illegal connections to lobbyists in the Indian gambling scandals. The more interesting part in my mind however is the part about how McCain is an avid craps shooter. This plays in unimaginably well into his recently garnered reputation of a reckless gambler, exhibited in his choice of Gov. Palin among other things.

"John McCain and the Lying Game"

Well, Joe Klein took a turn for the hateful towards John McCain's campaign this week. In his In the Arena column, which can be found here, he really goes at them. This is honestly one of the most partisan articles I have read by him, which just goes to show how fed up he really is with the recent shift of politics towards the smear campaign. Klein is usually fairly moderate with a slight liberal twist on occasion, but this article is in no way a slight twist.
He says, "... John McCain has allowed his campaign to slip the normal bounds of political propriety" and, "McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the problem is in both degree and kind." While I obviously do not follow the campaign as closely as Klein, I fully agree with his examples. One of the most sleazy attacks, for example, was that McCain accused Obama of wanting to have sex education for kindergartners, while the truth is that Obama merely wants to inform them on the dangers of predators. These dishonorable attacks bring back memories of a certain 2000 election where McCain was on the receiving end of the mudslinging.
And there is no doubt Klein is alone in his calling out of the McCain campaign. Perhaps most prominently, the past SNL opening skit was a spoof of a McCain political advertisement session. This displays another reason why Klein is one of the best political analysts there are. He writes about what other people will be talking about a week before.

Joe Klien's New Article

In a new and interesting column by Joe Klein in this weeks issue of TIME, he argue the the New VP candidate Sara Palin is representative of an America that no longer exists. The McCain campaign champions her as an average American coming from an average American community, But Joe Klein argues, how many people many people still live in rural America. He states, Palin is an average American of fifty year ago. Now, our citizens make their ------ in city businesses, and our food is made by big corporations, not farmers. However, he also says that this strategy, however flawed, may work. He argues that America today is more nostalgic then it used to be. The cause of this he says, is the absence of recent military success in wars like Vietnam and Iraq. Klein is well known for his dislike of political dishonesty, lauded this as a smart strategy, but was disappointed in the McCain-Palin for distracting Americans from the issues. In one of his latest posts on Swampland, he is also disappointed in McCain's defense of his remarks that the economy is "fundamentally sound." The McCain campaign defended this comment saying that he meant he had confidence in the hardworking Americans. Klein posted that of course every candidate in this election believes in the American worker, but by simply saying the economy is sound instead of actually saying how he will fix it, McCain is disrespecting the American working class.

First Day Blogging

I had to put up something to make my blog actually look functional. I think I have decided on a basic theme for my outside reading this quarter. I will be reading the columns, blog, and possibly a book by my favorite political writer, Joe Klien. Since we are in the middle of a historic election season, I figure its a good time to keep up with politics, and there is never a bad time to keep up with Joe Klien who in my opinion is one of the most brilliant political analysts and writers of this day and age. I plan on reading his weekly column in TIME, called In the Arena, the blog he contributes to on time.com, called Swampland, and possibly a book he wrote called The Natural. I personally think Joe Klien will be a facinating topic for my outside reading this quarter, and I think if you continue to read my blog, you will agree.