"Five Myths about the Midterm Elections"

"MYTH: The losses Republicans suffered this election were no different than what you usually see in a President's sixth year in office.

"REALITY: Redistricting minimized what might have been a truly historic shellacking." (Time)

Hmm. This is always true, no matter which party is in office. Gerrymandering always solidifies the safety of incumbent seats.

This one, however, I agree with:

"MYTH: The election was all about the war.

"REALITY: It's the dishonesty, stupid."

Shooting at Annapolis Mall.

"At least four people were shot at the crowded Annapolis mall last night,
including an off-duty Secret Service agent who opened fire on a teen involved in a food court gunfight.

"At least six shots rang out just after 7:15 p.m. near the Cingular wireless store in the Westfield Annapolis mall, police and witnesses said, sending hordes of panicked shoppers running for cover." (Capital Online)

I grew up in Alabama but went to high school in Annapolis, MD. I do my Christmas shopping in this mall every year.

Will people judge Hillary Clinton because of Nancy Pelosi's leadership style?

It makes sense that they probably will. In my mind, the two are linked because of their political party and positions of power. Even though I disagree ideologically with them, I'm excited that women are reaching these positions.

I hope that judgments about women in power can be withheld until enough women have reached these positions to make a legitimate judgment. It's a huge amount of pressure to be the first.

ADDED: I forgot to link to the article which made me think about this in the first place. It's a London Telegraph piece titled "Republicans plot to bring down Pelosi...and Clinton with her."

The walk to Kudu (coffeehouse).

I took some pictures on the walk to the coffeehouse I'm in now. This is College of Charleston's main building, Randolph Hall.




















ADDED: The front of this building faces the cistern, where there was an orchestra concert that I took pictures of last week. Those pictures are here.


The faculty offices at CofC are in historic houses, not huge buildings. This is the Philosophy and Religious Studies house, where I spend a lot of time:




















The houses promote a relaxing atmosphere. A lot of meetings I've had with professors have taken place on the porches of houses like this, where there are benches and swings. They're much more conducive to good conversation than traditional offices.

Judith Regan attempts to justify her decision to print OJ's "If I did It."

Regan was beaten by her husband and went through a horrible ordeal to get him convicted. She tries to explain printing OJ's book in light of her past:

"My son is now 25 years old, my daughter 15. I wanted them, and everyone else, to have a chance to see that there are consequences to grievous acts. That the consequences of pain and suffering will ultimately be brought upon its perpetrators. And I wanted, as so many victims do, to hear him say, “I did it and I am sorry.” (Newsweek.)

If she wanted to show her son and daughter that there are consequences to horrible actions, she wouldn't have provided a forum for a killer to gloat about his actions and how he flouted the justice system. He's bragging about how he escaped punishment, and he's making money from it (possibly for his children -- though I'm skeptical). Regan says that she's not making money from the deal:

"What I do know is I didn’t pay him. I contracted through a third party who owns the rights, and I was told the money would go to his children."

However, her stock is surely going up from all the publicity, and OJ is taking pleasure from the whole thing: "malignant narcissism" as Regan calls it. But "malignant" means harmful, and OJ's narcissism -- thanks to Judith Regan -- is getting OJ exactly what he wants.

"We'll succeed unless we quit." -- President Bush

Open-ended justifications make me suspicious. This one could go forever: "If we quit now, we'll lose." could be used indefinitely. It reminds me, in a bad way, of divine right of kings. "God put me here, so God approves of everything I do."

Bland, uninformative articles annoy me.

Magazines like Time and Newsweek present a special challenge for journalists. The weekly magazines present news to the masses, people who are more interested in current events than the most apathetic portion of the population, but who pay for their news magazines as sources of entertainment. They'll only keep reading as long as it's interesting, and the writers have to reduce complex stories to their most important parts and frame them attractively to keep readers. This either results in brilliant philosophical brevity, or unfortunate pieces like this one.

To be fair, this is a summary of the Time story on Pope Benedict XVI and Islam; the whole story might be more substantial. But I came away from this one having learned nothing and feeling like my time had been wasted. Take a chance! Do something proactive! This article just describes the situation as it is with minimal historical context. Boring.

News for you to read while I go to the gym.

The election made me tired of rigorous political analysis, so I've neglected it for a few days. My interest will return soon and solid posts will follow. In the meantime...

The killer cookies sent to the Supreme Court justices were Ann Coulter's fault. David Lat at Above the Law explains why.

Inside Fox News: How to be Fair and Balanced (Slate)

CNN's story of the day is about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' wedding. Aren't there more important things going on?

A man passes out while driving and slams into a house, knocking a hole in the wall.

The hole reveals 58 dogs and 2 cats in cages inside the house.

Secret Santa

"For 26 years, a man known only as Secret Santa has roamed the streets every December quietly giving people money."

He started with $5 and $10 bills. As his fortune grew, so did the gifts. In recent years, Secret Santa has been handing out $100 bills, sometimes two or three at a time, to people in thrift stores, diners and parking lots."

This is in Kansas City, Missouri.

Killer cookies.

There was a plot to kill all nine Supreme Court justices last year with cookies. Yes, really. But the worst part is that each package had a note saying that the cookies were poisoned.

"Every member of the Supreme Court received a wonderful package of home-baked cookies, and I don't know why, (but) the staff decided to analyze them," the Fort Worth Star-Telegram quoted O'Connor as saying at the legal conference November 10 in the Dallas area. "Each one contained enough poison to kill the entire membership of the court."

The letters did not seem to pose much of a real danger since the threatening note told the recipients the food was poisoned. In court papers submitted with the plea agreement, prosecutors said each of the envelopes contained a one-page typewritten letter stating either "I am" or "We are" followed by "going to kill you. This is poisoned."

"Contraception, abortion foe to head family-planning office."

"The Bush administration, to the consternation of its critics, has picked the medical director of an organization that opposes premarital sex, contraception and abortion to lead the office that oversees federally funded teen pregnancy, family planning and abstinence programs.

"The appointment of Eric Keroack, a Marblehead, Massachusetts, obstetrician and gynecologist, to oversee the federal Office of Population Affairs and its $283 million annual budget has angered family-planning advocates." (CNN)

Restated: Keroack is head of an organization that opposes contraception, and he's now head of the federal office that oversees teen pregnancy and family planning programs. I don't think it's possible to overstate how proactively irresponsible this is.

The Netherlands is considering a ban on burqas.

Does this mean they're progressive because they're banning something oppressive, or would the ban itself oppress women by taking their right to wear what they want?

Would such a ban ever be considered in the US? (Assuming that women are wearing burqas in the US. I've never seen it here, but I did see several women wearing burqas and walking behind men in Turkey. It was unsettling -- not because it was a huge cultural difference, but because the woman looked so subservient. Is it subservient if the woman chooses to wear a burqa? That probably depends on her individual situation.)

"The burqa, a full body covering that also obscures the face, would be banned by law in the street, and in trains, schools, buses and the law courts. The cabinet said burqas disturb public order, citizens and safety."

I've never thought about it before, and it's probably not a practical consideration (yet), but there is a public safety issue involving people covering up their faces. During Halloween I saw several stores with signs banning Halloween masks inside the stores, and that makes sense. If the face is completely covered, there's no accountability because identity can't be verified. The stores were afraid of being robbed. I'm not aware of any cases of crimes being committed by women wearing burqas, but if it becomes a cultural norm to cover the face completely, it is a possibility.

Just a picture...

...of friends and me in Greece. I love this picture because it looks like an album cover from the '70s.

"And, just like that, drinking and shooting and driving fast and screwing are cool all over again."

Andrew Wright deems Casino Royale, the new James Bond movie, "Really, really, really good."

Can OJ Simpson be charged with anything for his "If I Did It" stunt?

OJ is coming out with a book called "If I Did It," which I talked about here. He's also doing a televised "confession" telling how he did it, if he did it.

"If Simpson did end up in court, could his televised "hypothetical" confession be used against him? Yes. The fact that he's beginning every sentence with "If I did it … " might give him a little bit of wiggle room, but it doesn't grant him any kind of immunity. His hypothetical confession will still be damning if it reveals any new information about the case that only the killer could have known.

Slate's The Explainer explains under what circumstances OJ Simpson could land in court again.

"I think we should pity them..."

Matt Frei of BBC News doesn't have much respect for America's electoral process.

"Forget America's notoriously low turnout - this year saw a bumper crop of voters bloated by popular anger with the Bush administration.

"I think we should pity them and marvel at their dogged determination to have their voices heard. "

Pity? That's a strong word.

"...And once the voter has emerged from the electronic voting booth, blinking into the daylight, and has the misfortune to switch on the TV, what does he
find? The circus has already moved on to the next race: The Big One. The Main Dish. The presidential elections of 2008. Americans live in a perpetual election campaign and the next one has already started."

Do Americans look at other nations like this? Do we point out disagreeable qualities in their political processes and harp about how we pity them? If an American columnist wrote that they "pity" a nation, they'd be attacked with a tidal wave of indignant responses.

The "perpetual election campaign" critique is common. We've heard that one before. But the rest of the column is here -- Frei has more to say.

I find outsiders' perceptions of our political system interesting. The pretentiousness that Americans are attacked for exists other places as well.

Rolling Stone has Borat's only out-of-character interview.

Sacha Baron Cohen talks to Rolling Stone as himself. This surprised me (from the RS interview, which took place in a restaurant):

"Baron Cohen continues to grill the waiter: "What kind of fish?"

"It soon becomes clear that he is not merely curious or vegetarian or allergic to peanuts. He keeps kosher and is making sure that there is no shellfish, pork or other forbidden food or food combination in the dish. A devout Jew, Baron Cohen also keeps the Sabbath when he can, which means that he doesn't work from Friday evening to Saturday evening."

It's been well publicized that Baron Cohen is Jewish, but it turns out that he's very devout.

"Borat essentially works as a tool," Baron Cohen says. "By himself being
anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice, whether it's anti-Semitism or an acceptance of anti-Semitism. 'Throw the Jew Down the Well' [a song performed at a country & western bar during Da Ali G Show] was a very controversial sketch, and some members of the Jewish community thought that it was actually going to encourage anti-Semitism. But to me it revealed something about that bar in Tucson. And the question is: Did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti Semitism."

It's understandable that people who grew up in parts of the US where there weren't many Jews would be indifferent to the anti-Semitism in the song. Sure, books about the Holocaust were read in elementary school, but lingering racism just isn't made real unless you've had personal experience with it. My guess is that those people in Tucson would have reacted differently if the song had been about African-Americans, because that particular horror took place in their own country and they've been taught more about it. In any case, that paragraph seems to go easier on the Americans. The next one doesn't:

"I remember, when I was in university I studied history, and there was this one major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw. And his quote was, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.' I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but I think it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic."

And here's the tease so you'll buy the magazine and read the rest of the article:

"There are two things Baron Cohen doesn't like talking about: his background and his creative process -- how he creates his characters, how he procures interviews with highly inaccessible figures like Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump, and how he gets them to take seriously his preposterous questions.
..."

McCain for President!

A job on John McCain's presidential campaign is perhaps the one thing that would convince me to postpone law school. Just, you know, putting that out there.

McCain/Rice '08? Maybe that's a little too much to hope for.

“Anything that might sully their sexiness—a long-standing drug problem or boorishness toward small pets.”

-- People managing editor Larry Hackett, on what the man deemed Sexiest Man Alive should avoid doing while "wearing the crown." The winner this year is George Clooney, for the second time.

How much of the internet is pornography?

The US government participated in a study which has concluded that about 1% of internet pages contain pornography. The study also evaluated methods of blocking minors' access to porn, and found that content filters are the most effective way to block pornography. They work between 89 and 98% of the time.

The study is significant because it validates a US Supreme Court decision from 2004 that overturned the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which Clinton had signed into law. The act required pornographic websites to get a credit card number before people could access the sites, in theory to verify age. But the problem with this act was that it could only apply to US companies, not overseas ones. It created a substantial burden on adults wanting to access those websites while not doing much to protect children.

The Supreme Court upheld a law in 2000 that required libraries receiving federal funding to install filters on their computers, which makes much more sense as a law.

This is interesting:

"About 6 percent of searches yield at least one explicit Web site, he [Phillip B. Stark, the California professor who oversaw the study] said, and the most popular queries return a sexually explicit site nearly 40 percent of the time."

OJ Simpson: "If I did it, here's how it happened."

This is repulsive. OJ Simpson wrote a book and is doing a series of interviews describing, "theoretically," how he would have murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman if he had done it.

The obvious (and now irrelevant) ethical issue is OJ's culpability in the first place. The trial was probably flawed, but because of double jeopardy he can't be tried twice for the same offense even if he confessed publicly. Double jeopardy is limited to being tried twice by the same sovereign, or authority, but he's clear on that because the murder happened in California and he was tried in California.

His book and these interviews are exploiting the public's obsession with this trial. He's also exploiting a painful situation and renewing the agony of the victims' families, who have already lived through it once. And what about Fox's responsibility? Is Fox being unethical by profiting from a mistake that the justice system made?

I think so.

Christopher Hitchens stands up against Borat...

...and says the movie shows that "Americans are almost pedantic in their hospitality and politesse."

Hitler: Time Magazine's Man of the Year.

I'm in History 102, even though I'm a senior, because it's required and I kept putting off taking it. The next oldest student in my class is a sophomore. Oh well, I can deal with it.

We're studying World War II now, and my class gasped when this picture came up on the professor's powerpoint slide. That's right: in 1933, Adolf Hitler was Time Magazine's Man of the Year.

"I don't know about marijuana's effects on the mind, I don't know if it has medicinal properties..."

"...but I do know this: marijuana will cause your body to be thrown in jail." -- Judge Carr in class this morning.

"...patients are treated to patronizing encouragement, a capricious merits-and-demerits system and open contempt."

"...Moreover, the “integrity” of the patients, which mostly means their willingness to rat out fellow inmates for common young-women stuff like swearing, smoking in the bathroom, getting tattoos and trading prescription pills, is constantly called into question. It’s exhausting. And after all this restraining of their evil ways, the women can only conclude that they are undisciplined, depraved and out of control..."

It sounds like my high school experience, but it's really from a New York Times review of "Thin," a documentary about anorexia treatment.

The citizenship test is getting an overhaul.

"In an effort to make the citizenship exam more meaningful, the federal government said Monday it will test an exam that relies less on trivia and more on an applicants' grasp of American democracy.

"[...] The current test is heavy on historical facts and includes questions about the colors of the U.S. flag and the name of the form used to apply for citizenship. The new exam will ask about the Bill of Rights and the meaning of democracy." (CNN)

This sounds appropriate. The Bill of Rights and democracy are the foundations on which the rest was built, and having a citizenship exam that focuses on the most important aspects of the country is a good idea.

"All U.S. citizens -- not just new ones -- could brush up on their civic knowledge, said Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative think tank that supports the assimilation of immigrants.

"It's also good for the people who are already here, because there will be fewer problems and fewer friction if we all understand what America is all about," he said."

"Fewer friction?" Less friction? Anyway, if only we could all agree on "what America is all about." It sounds like this is a good change to the test, but let's not idealize it.

"I would ban religion completely."

"...there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion," he said. "From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organized religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate." -- Elton John, via CNN.com.

It's sad that this is his perception of religious people, but I don't doubt that he's encountered a lot of hateful religious people because he's such a public gay man.

There's a pervasive idea around now that we should tolerate everything and disapprove of nothing ("to each his own" and all), but should we tolerate sets of beliefs that are intolerant? This argument (against tolerating intolerant beliefs) is the strongest I've encountered against cultural relativism. I've heard it used against Islamic fundamentalists.

The view that I've settled on is that everyone can believe whatever they want to believe. You have the right to believe that the sky is green or that gay people are sent from the devil, but you don't have the right to treat people badly because of your beliefs.

I believe that hell resembles Alaska more than a fiery pit, but I don't hate on Eskimos.

It's not an airtight, rigorously logical position, but it's one I can live with.

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

The groundbreaking for the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial is today in DC. I spent my freshman year of college at Villanova University, where we studied some of Dr. King's writing and speeches. Everyone has heard parts of the famous "I have a dream" speech, but his other writings were most interesting to me. Here's "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

Castro's cancer.

It's been pretty apparent that Fidel Castro is ill, but CNN is reporting that he has cancer of the stomach, colon, or pancreas.

The first Muslim congressman ever in the US.

Keith Ellison of Minnesota will be the first Muslim ever to serve in Congress starting in January, and Slate catalogues the reaction to his election.

Dispatch from the library.

G. Love and Special Sauce is at the Music Farm (a small venue in Charleston) tonight, but I'm at the library doing homework. Trying to do homework. Intending to do homework.

Okay, offering moral support to my roommate who is actually doing homework.

I've been a fan of G. Love since high school, and this would have been my fourth time seeing him play. I saw him in Columbia, SC a few years ago in a tiny show with maybe 100 people in the audience, and again in Philadelphia in a sold-out show at the Electric Factory. Oh well, there will be other shows.

"A Visit to the Gayest Place on Earth."

Noel Black at The Stranger describes the design of Ted Haggard's church, calling it "the gayest place on earth," and Benjamin Nicholas comments on hooker ethics. He says that Mike Jones, the gay ex-prostitute who outed the reverend, violated the ethical code of the "profession."

I love the irreverent writing style of The Stranger, partly because of how well they do it, and partly because I know I couldn't get away with it. The content is consistently interesting: topics that we think about but wouldn't bring up as legitimate questions about things in the news (like the "gay decor" of Ted Haggard's church).

Music Under the Oaks

I went to see the College of Charleston orchestra today, which played in the Cistern. It was about 80 degrees and beautiful.

The Cistern is this wide open outside area shaded by huge oak trees. Graduation is held here every year.

Not the end of partisanship, but...

"So voters kicked out Republicans but did not swing to the left. For the most part they exchanged moderate Republicans for conservative Democrats."

Ann Althouse discusses the new moderate Congress here.

McCain for President.

Have you started thinking about who you want to run for president in '08? I'm hoping that what succeeded in this election -- moderate candidates from both sides -- will succeed in the next.

"Evangelical Haggard claims he was molested by Republican Congressman."

Oh, how I love The Onion.

UPDATE: "Meat now America's number 2 condiment."

I love The Onion x2.

An accurate interpretation of the election results?

I've read about a hundred different interpretations of the election results, but this one strikes me as most accurate:

"The GOP strategy of the past several elections - of mobilizing its most committed voters at the expense of appealing to swing voters in the middle - is fading fast." (CS Monitor.)

When I said that this is the most accurate, I mean that this account matches my experience. The people I know at college who usually vote straight Republican voted for a mix of Republicans and Democrats this time, because they weren't happy with what the Republican party was doing. Isn't this the most rational way to vote: look at the issues, look at the recent past and vote for who you think will work in the direction of your goals?

The BBC calls the war in Iraq the "American project in Iraq."

"President Bush himself seemed to get the message. He was open to new ideas, he insisted. He was not stubbornly clinging to the mantra of "stay the course."

The debate has been heated, at times over-heated. " (BBC)

How would a carbon tax work?

Timothy Noah explains.

Vandals behead a statue of George Washington.

"Vandals beheaded a statue of George Washington at one of the world's largest cathedrals and left a dollar bill on what was left of the neck, police said Friday.

"The damage was discovered Sunday at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, near Columbia University, Officer Kathleen Price said." (CNN)

Any speculation on what the dollar bill means? It must be a political statement. Maybe they were saying that America's current leaders have sold out -- exchanged the ideals of the founding fathers for money. (Halliburton? Enron?)

SC Amendments

Even though it's irrelevant now, the Charleston City Paper has a comprehensive (and quite funny) guide to the amendments that you voted on if you voted in SC.

Pelosi's ambitious agenda for the first 100 hours (hours?) of her speakership.

"Pelosi also has said that in the first 100 hours of her speakership she will push for action implementing all 9/11 Commission recommendations on national security, raising the minimum wage to $7.25, eliminating corporate subsidies for oil companies, allowing the government to negotiate Medicare drug prices, imposing new restrictions on lobbyists, cutting interest rates on college loans and supporting embryonic stem-cell research." (CNN)

Notice that the national security goal is the first listed. I'm encouraged by the Dems' hopeful stance and ambitious goals. The party in power is always calling for bi-partisanship, and although I'm skeptical, I still hope that they both will mean it this time. At least for a little while.

One more time.

Since Borat came out this weekend and everyone has been asking, I'm republishing the links that I posted a couple weeks ago:

"Newsweek follows up on the "regular" people who appeared in Borat and their reactions as they find out they're in a soon-to-be blockbuster movie. The Explainer describes the release forms they signed, and how the crew convinced them to sign away their rights to sue. Linda Stein was one of those people, and tells her story in more detail here."

Which is better: to stay steady in your ideology and vote for candidates whose views align with yours...

or to choose candidates who you perceive to have integrity, and vote for them even if you disagree with some of their positions on the issues?

Candidates are people, so of course they are fallible. But ideologies can fail us too. Strict ideologies can't adequately address every situation. For example, conservatism advocates small government, but conservatives hailed No Child Left Behind as a fix for our broken school systems. There are many other examples of government interference in daily life that self-identified conservatives have hailed, especially in times of national crisis or recession. The same is true the other way around, with liberals and contradictory policy.

I just don't see politics as choices between right and wrong. It's a game: what policy is best for society? What candidate will most effectively advocate that policy? How can we balance the interests of everyone?

Ever since I've been old enough to care about politics, Republicans have been in charge. The reversal on Tuesday may prove that the system works; people were unhappy with the way things were going and demonstrated their discontent at the polls.

So I'm going to reserve judgment of the new leadership until they produce something to judge. The answer to my question above is this: blind commitment to either -- ideology or candidates -- is foolish.

"CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Part of a Nazi leader's speech was played over the public address system before a high school soccer game, prompting an apology by the home team's principal.

Forestview High School principal Robert Carpenter said neither he nor his team's coach knew about the speech before the 90-second excerpt was played during warmups Saturday, according to a letter he sent Monday to visiting Charlotte Catholic High School.

The speech, by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, was in German. Carpenter said in the letter the team had adopted the slogan "On to victory," and a German exchange student who plays on the team had taught other students how to say the phrase in German.

"Some of our more zealous students sought to capture this slogan in German and to play it on the PA," Carpenter wrote."

Oops! The principle apologized.

News of the day:

Rumsfeld "steps down" (...was asked to leave.)
Dems take Congress.
Dems take Congress.
Dems take Congress.
Partial birth abortion debated in the US Supreme Court.
Speculation on the future by Republicans.
Faith Hill shows her true stripes (accidentally.)

I've spent today frantically running around and catching up on work after being gone all weekend. More substantial commentary is on the way.

Red Soup

"I'm enjoying your delicious foods. I go to a restaurant named McDonald's. I eat 600 packages of red soup named ketchups." -- Borat

Madam Speaker speaks:

"Maybe it takes a woman to clean house." -- Nancy Pelosi

Sexist?

"Number of civil rights voting complaints 'low.'"

"It will take a day to sort out exactly what complaints were received," one of the officials said. Justice Department officials would not comment on any specific problems that arose Tuesday." (CNN)

Would a poll worker choking a voter count as a "civil rights voting complaint?" (Houston Chronicle)

Wonkette

Ha! Wonkette is at the CNN blogging party too. And they don't even do real news...

[Irrelevant gossip: My roommate in Greece was a student at NYU and good friends with Alex Pareene, the editor of Wonkette. Alex was discovered very young (he's younger than I am,) and I've heard some very embarrassing/amusing stories about Alex. Let's just say it made me want to read Wonkette regularly.]

So sleepy, but...

I'm staying up to watch the Daily Show/Colbert Report hour long election show at 11. Right now I'm watching CNN and checking various news sources online, but can you imagine the frenzy at Comedy Central? They have to have people watching all the news networks for funny footage, plus a group of staffers handling phone calls and emails from viewers submitting funny pieces of local networks' election coverage(s?).

For me, election day is like a birthday that comes every 2 years. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert celebrate with me every other year.

CNN projects Rick Santorum defeated.

How can they project results at this point? The data they have is from exit polls, and it's only 9:30. This might be right, but at this point win/loss projections are just glorified wishful thinking.

CNN blog party.

Our little Election Returns Party is tiny compared to this one. CNN is sponsoring a blogging party: they flew in bloggers from all over the country and have them in a room, blogging all at once. They keep cutting to shots of the bloggers on CNN.

I hate the word "blog." I'm always hesitant to tell people "I'm a blogger" because it sounds so antisocial, like I'm holed up in a dark room all day hunched over my computer. Hey, CNN recognizes us!

I was pleasantly surprised when the man behind me in line to vote today said "So you're a blogger" in a tone of recognition, like one would say "So you're a musician" or "So you're a student." Usually people say it in the same tone that one would say "So, you're an...undertaker."

News on voter intimidation: there is no news. Less than last time anyway.

"Justice Department officials reported that the number of calls to the Voting Rights Hotline dipped sharply on this national Election Day compared to the last, with roughly 200 calls having rolled in by 6 pm EST. At the same time on Election Day 2004, 1,200 calls had come in."

And yet the lack of news is still front page news. Although I suppose any interference should be news, because any interference is unacceptable.

"He was on Saved by the Bell, and this is what his life has come to?"

"...I'll be bagging groceries before I'll be dancing with the stars." -- Dr. Ford, chair of CofC's political science department, about Mario Lopez on Dancing with the Stars. Why are we watching Dancing with the Stars at the election returns get-together? Good question.

Amendment 1

Amendment 1 is the "marriage amendment" in SC that would double-ban gay marriage. Gay marriage is already against the law in SC, but the amendment would add the ban to the state constitution. Amendment 1 is passing with about 75 percent support at this point.

Gov. Sanford was turned away from the polls.

The governor of my own state, Mark Sanford of SC, forgot his voter registration card this morning. His license listed his address in Columbia, not Sullivan's Island (about 20 minutes from Charleston) so he was sent to the voter registration office to get new card. He came back and voted about an hour and a half later.

You'd think that his staff would have taken care of this little detail. It's comically egregious.

Election Returns "Party"

I'm here now, at the political science department Election Returns "Party." There are about 20 of us here, half with laptops, watching the returns on the news. There's a professor (who I don't know...hmm) with a remote, switching between CNN, Fox News and Friday Night Lights (they're showing the returns at the bottom of the screen.) I want to watch CNN, but majority rules (ha, majority rules. Get it?)

Ok, Charleston. Exit polls are showing mostly Democrats winning, but exit polls are always skewed that way. I didn't know why until today, when I heard an interview with the RNC chair Ken Mehlman on the radio. Exit polls are conducted by volunteers, and for some reason a majority of the volunteers are women. Women are more likely to approach other women walking out of the polls, and women voters are more likely to answer women pollers (voters are not obligated to participate in exit polls.) Since women tend to be Democrats, the exit polls reflect it. Also, since the most efficient places to conduct exit polls are in densely populated urban areas, polling places in metropolitan areas have more exit polls. And which way do urban areas lean? Bingo, Democrat.

So exit polls leaning left is built into the system -- it's not some huge conspiracy against Republicans, as Rush Limbaugh was alleging today on the radio. However, I think exit polls are going to be misleading anyway. And they're only useful for satisfying our impatience; they're not the actual result.

...But here I am, watching the exit poll results come in with a bunch of other people.

I'm back!

I'm back in Charleston and soaking up the news coverage because I didn't have internet in Birmingham. I voted right when I got back to the city -- before even going home -- but now that I'm here it's time to be productive again.

[I listened to Rush Limbaugh on the way home for as long as I could stand it, and he was ranting about the Democratic conspiracy to disrupt voters at polling places. I voted at an elementary school by my house, and tonight was uneventful. No evil Democrats bullying anyone.]

Sibling Revelry

I've been in Tuscaloosa for the past few days, which explains the lack of posts. I'll pick back up on Tuesday. I have to drive back to Charleston early(ish) so I can get back in time to vote. The political science department is having an election returns "party" on Tuesday night, so I'll be there and update as I watch the returns.

My brother is 20 and a sophomore at the University of Alabama, and his college experience is very different from mine. College of Charleston is wonderful, but it doesn't have a football team (one of the most popular CofC t-shirts says "College of Charleston Football" on the front, and
"STILL UNDEFEATED" on the back. I own one.) We went to the UA game on Saturday -- my first time going to an Alabama game:

















It's been about 5 months since I've seen the rest of my family, so it's been nice to hang out with my brother this weekend. I'm applying to the law school here at UA, so I'm taking a tour early tomorrow morning before I leave.

A joke from Jonothan Broadbent.

A linguistics professor was lecturing his class. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. But in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative remains negative. But there isn't a single language, not one, where a double positive creates a negative."

A voice piped up from the back, "Yeah, right."

"Dick Cheney to Spend Election Day Hunting."

Hunting...Democrats, perhaps? This was the headline of a Fox News story, and it made me laugh.

How to beat Stephen Colbert if you're not a bear.

Do you have an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor or The Colbert Report coming up? Slate has you covered with guides to surviving the experience: How to Beat Bill O'Reilly and The Colbert Retort.

BBC coverage of the US elections.

BBC.com has a good reference map for the elections coming up. Click on your state.

The latest on the Colorado pastor...

This is the newest in the story about the Colorado pastor, Ted Haggard, who was publicly accused of having an affair with a male prostitute and buying drugs from him. Haggard admitted that he bought meth from the man, but said he never used it.

Meth isn't something that you seek out and buy unless you've used it before and know what it's like. Most people (including myself) wouldn't even know how to use meth! And if he wanted to get into drugs, common sense says it would have started with something else. It's a sad story either way, but I don't buy his version.

Bama Drive

I'm driving to Tuscaloosa today for fall break. My brother is an undergraduate at University of Alabama and I'll be staying with him for a few days. I met Governor Sanford and went to a fundraiser for Lt. Gov. Bauer yesterday, and I'll write about them tonight.

Cheers!

Letters to God...

...found in the Atlantic off the New Jersey coast.

"Just because you're smart doesn't mean you're not crazy..."

"...and just because you're crazy doesn't mean you're dumb."

-- Judge Carr in class this morning. The class? Constitutional Rights of the Accused.

The first case of genital mutilation recorded in the US.

"This was a violation of her rights as a child, her rights as a woman, and most of all her rights as a human being, she will never be the same." said Fortunate Adem, the mother of a 7 year old girl whose father was just convicted of genital mutilation, the first such conviction in the US. The father was sentenced to 10 years in jail.

This practice, and the idea behind it, are appalling. It deprives women of sexual pleasure for life, besides causing horrible pain and infection. This man deserves more than 10 years in jail.

Bush's approval ratings.

The BBC has a comprehensive graph of Bush's approval ratings. This is over the last year, and this is over the last five years. It tracks the ratings according to Fox News/Opinion Dynamic, Gallup/USA Today, and CBS News/New York Times polls. Look at the differences, especially this year. The Gallup/USA Today line seems the most reactive -- look at how it jumps up and down from July-September. Maybe USA Today readers are most sensitive to economic factors, such as gas prices.

Conventional wisdoms says that the NYT's respondents would be the most liberal, and they are generally the lowest source for approval ratings of the president. However, they're not as reactive as the Gallup/USA Today respondents; the NYT line is pretty consistent. What could that mean? General disapproval, no matter what the economy does? Also contrary to conventional wisdom, the Fox News respondents were not consistently more approving of the president. I wonder if presidential approval ratings are indicative of Republican party approval ratings -- and if the graph will change after next week.

"Are you a Jelly Belly?"

That was the title of a memo sent to a police department in Florida by Police Chief Paul Goward. In it, he asked that the officers "take a good look" at themselves and get into shape (CNN) if they needed it.

"In his memo, titled "Are You a Jelly Belly," the chief never singled anyone out, and apart from the title, didn't call anyone names.

"Instead, he provided a list of 10 reasons police officers should be in shape. He said overweight police poorly represent the profession, poop out when chasing suspects and might have to resort to "a higher level of force" if a criminal got the upper hand in a fight. He said out-of-shape cops are a liability to the city and their families.

"Take a good look at yourself," he wrote. "If you are unfit, do yourself and everyone else a favor. See a professional about a proper diet and a fitness training program, quit smoking, limit alcohol intake and start thinking self-pride, confidence and respectability. And stop making excuses for delaying what you know you should have been doing years ago. We didn't hire you unfit and we don't want you working unfit. Don't mean to offend, this is just straight talk. I owe it to you."'

Chief Goward was fired because the memo offended some of his officers.

Police work is physical, and being in shape is relevant to the job. I don't see any reason why this would be inappropriate in a police department.

How does a person become a Cock-Fighting Lobbyist?

This is an ad by Andre Bauer's campaign for Lt. Governor accusing his opponent, Robert Barber, of "earning over $500,000" as a cock-fighting lobbyist. It's probably not the best angle to attack your opponent from if the words make people giggle. Cock-fighting lobbyist. Ha.

And this ad by Robert Barber's campaign isn't likely to be effective either. The biggest accusations are that Andre Bauer is "too liberal" and used his influence to get out of a speeding ticket. As a Republican, the "too liberal" charge isn't credible, and the speeding ticket allegation will only make the frat boys rally around him.

John Kerry regrets that his words "were misinterpreted."

Kerry issued a non-apology apology today for his "botched joke" at a campaign event yesterday.

"Kerry said he regrets that his words "were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended."'

That's like saying "I'm sorry you were insulted" after you "accidentally" make a joke about your mother-in-law's bad cooking. Come on, he mangled the delivery of a joke and in print it looks like he insulted the troops in Iraq. I highly doubt that he personally thinks American soldiers are uneducated or too dumb to be in college, but he did owe them the courtesy of a real apology.

I'm glad the troops are taking it in stride though:

If you're in Charleston, this is for you.

Tomorrow, Nov. 2 from noon-2:00 there's a meet and greet hosted by College Republicans in the Stern Center ballroom. Governor Sanford and Lt. Governor Andre Bauer will be there, along with Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom and Thomas Ravenel, a candidate for State Treasurer. The fundraiser for Lt. Gov. Bauer is tomorrow evening from 6-8 at the Patriot's Point Harbor Hilton.

"I'm telling you, I'm not going to let these guys lie and smear, and they put their whole machine out to do it, and they ought to apologize."

That's John Kerry demanding an apology for the Republican demand for an apology for his comment about soldiers in Iraq being uneducated. Got that?

He's also, by "mutual agreement," canceling his scheduled events campaigning for Democrats who are up for reelection. Kerry's not up for reelection this year.

John Kerry's "botched joke."

Kerry delivered a speech to college students in California today and opened with this:

"You know, education -- if you make the most of it, you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

He's refusing to apologize, though he called the remark a "botched joke" meant for the president. Here's what he was supposed to say:

"I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq."

He was supposed to make a joke at the president's expense, and ended up calling American troops lazy and uneducated. That is one huge Freudian slip.

"Promisekeepers on crack."

Eileen Finan of Newsweek reports on a group of Christian men who meet together and "let guys be guys."

'"In most churches, you'll see flowers and ferns at the front," says Stine. "That's saying," This is a place that a woman has composed." So GodMen sought to create a place where men could admit to flaws without being judged bad Christians and be unapologetically male, including plenty of rock and roll and sex talk."'

Flower arrangements mean "a woman composed this?" What? That's horribly sexist. And talking about sex and rock and roll is "unapologetically male?"

Of course there are differences between men and women, but asserting them like this strikes me as wrong the same way militant feminism does. Both -- aggressive feminists and these men -- are over-expressing certain attributes, asserting how important they are and how they shouldn't be ashamed of those characteristics. We should be past this by now.

Blotter cry fo' help of the week:

"I have a problem. It's my rock. I needs help." (Charleston City Paper)

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Borat comes out this weekend. College of Charleston gave out free passes to see an advanced screening of the movie a few weeks ago, which I attended and wrote about here. It opens nationwide this weekend, so critics' reviews are coming out now along with a deluge of TV ads. The ones I've seen prominently feature a quote from Entertainment Weekly: "Borat: Funniest movie ever?"

New York Magazine's David Edelstein frets over the "squirm comedy" aspect of the film: making the audience laugh at the discomfort and embarrassment of an actual person. Edelstein has a point. The people who interacted with Borat didn't know what they were signing up for, and their responses are actual humiliation, not acting. Or maybe we're laughing because we're embarrassed for ourselves. The people represent a cross section of Americans from all over the nation in all different industries, so the audience is sure to relate to at least one of them. I squirmed when the road-tripping USC fraternity boys in the movie delivered their drunken racist and sexist rants, because I know guys like that. Guys from that walk of life are some of my closest friends, and their prejudices were being exposed.

Scott Renshaw at the Charleston City Paper thinks the movie succeeds because of Sacha Baron Cohen's dedication to the character of Borat. Once you've seen the film, that statement is difficult to argue with.

O'Reilly v. Letterman: Round 2

Bill O'Reilly came back for round 2 on Letterman last night. I didn't watch it last night, but I did find it on YouTube today. There's some genuine animosity here.

Andre Bauer fundraiser on Thursday.

The Charlestonian is an organization that meets weekly for different social and networking events. My friend and coworker (ok, I'm a receptionist in his office, but I can still say "coworker") Scott Key founded it two years ago, and there are now over 6,000 people on the mailing list.

Scott put together a fundraiser for Lt. Governor Andre Bauer's re-election campaign. It's at the Harbor Hilton at Patriot's Point from 6-8:00 this Thursday, Nov. 2. There will be a wine tasting and Lt. Gov. Bauer will be there; it'll be a great chance to meet Andre and people involved in local politics and business.

I also think it's important for college students to be active in community events. Too many people my age (I'm 21) are intimidated by situations like this, but by this time we should be comfortable socializing with people older than us. If we're not comfortable talking to people older than us, who'll speak for my generation in the long run? Besides, we're seniors in college, and we'll have to do this next year anyway.

I'll probably be there early, so give me a call.

Since tomorrow is Halloween...

...you'll have to tolerate a few more creepy posts.

The Stranger's Dan Ruisi discusses the moral dilemmas involved with taking a job at "Bodies: The Exhibition," the traveling museum of preserved corpses.

"This man was stunning when he was alive."

I almost passed out at the Holocaust museum -- I would not survive this exhibit.

Katie's Revenge

A ten year old girl named Katie was murdered, and Katie's killer was put in the same prison as her cousin.

Ready for the creepiest part?

Katie's cousin forcibly tattooed "Katie's Revenge" on her killer's forehead.

Red Bull and teenagers.

Fox News has an article speculating on the amounts and dangers of energy drink use by teens. New brands are being created daily, and the drinks aren't regulated by the government.

There's no evidence that these drinks are actually dangerous, although nasty side effects can make you feel sick for a few hours. I "overdosed" on caffeine once studying for an exam by drinking too many coffees with extra espresso in a row, and although it didn't hurt me in the long run, I was nauseated and shaky for 5 or 6 hours.

Energy drinks are self-limiting in a way. The website www.energyfiend.com has a calculator where you enter your weight and favorite energy drink, and it tells you how many you'd have to drink for it to be deadly. I'd have to drink 115 Red Bulls to kill myself, according to the Energy Fiend calculation. I'd be shaky and sick to my stomach after 3, so that's not going to happen.

Since the "deadly amount" of these drinks is so impossibly high for normal people, and because caffeine causes people to be nauseated way before that point, energy drinks sound like the safest way to consume caffeine. Even if some reckless teenager drank as many as they could in a row, they'd be vomiting way before the toxic point. Caffeine pills would be a more logical target of ominous articles like this one.

Expats and art.

Rolf Potts muses that expats seem to be all talk about art and writing when very little quality art and literature actually results:

"If you're a self-styled bohemian writer, however—if you aspire to live the life of a Henry Miller or a Charles Bukowski—you are by definition obligated to seek a seedy variation of authenticity. You can't settle for video games and fan conventions. To truly embrace your fantasies, you must actively booze, brawl, and womanize until you've achieved something resembling oblivion. And if you don't have the money, courage, or social cachet to do this in your hometown, moving overseas to indulge your inner misanthrope is a sensible and time-honored solution. In nearly every expat setting I've visited as a traveler—from Prague to Phuket to Porto-Novo—there seems to be this notion that being a writer has more to do with drinking and screwing than actually writing."

There does seem to be a prevalent idea in creative circles along the lines of "If only I could have extraordinary experiences, I could be a great writer." (or artist, etc.) But if you're actually talented, you should be able to take "ordinary" experiences and express them in captivating ways. It's more challenging to take an interesting photograph of a house in Kansas than a beach in Greece.

Obligatory pop-culture reference: the 2002 movie Orange County is a (surprising) source of commentary on this subject. [SPOILER ALERT] The main character decides to stay at home and go to community college so he can be with his friends and family instead of attending Stanford.

I'm a huge advocate of travel and being independent. I think it's vital to get out on your own and test yourself, to have solitary experiences. But Potts does have a point: extraordinary experiences do not always, or even often, translate into extraordinary art. Talent and practice are needed for that.

Ahoy maties!

Did you dress up for Halloween this weekend? I'm wondering when I'll be too old to dress up. Probably when my friends stop throwing Halloween parties, which I hope will be never.

I have a firmly-held belief that Halloween costumes should not be sexual. Scary and funny are fair game, but not sexual. Yes, I am staunchly anti-sexy (slutty) Halloween costumes. Because of that, I steer clear of costume stores and usually put one together from the thrift store dollar-bin. Last night I was a pirate, and laughed a hearty pirate laugh at the shivering girls dressed as sexy nurses. Sorry to break it to you, but blue skin and icy hands are not sexy. Hey, those girls were accidentally scary! Maybe their costumes did succeed after all.

Guess the political party and win.

"What Tennesseans will get will be a Jesus-loving, gun-supporting believer that families should come first, that taxes should be lower and America should be strong. When Tennesseans send us to the Senate, that's what they'll get in my votes and that's what they'll get in the kind of leadership that we have not had in the Senate over the last six years."

Democrat Harold Ford or Republican Bob Corker?

I'll give you a minute.

You're wrong. It was Democrat Harold Ford in a Fox News interview with Chris Wallace.

Party Politics

Drudge has a good synopsis of the allegations flying in the Virginia Senate campaign between incumbent Sen. George Allen (R) and his challenger Jim Webb (D). This is an incredibly strange campaign because Webb has written several books that contain racy material. I haven't read his books, so the passages might be appropriate in context, but out of context they really do sound strange and creepy.

Don't write novels if you're planning to run for office.

Party Crashing

Wonkette crashed the party (opening? celebration? publicity stunt?) for John Ashcroft's book, "Never Again."

A party with John Ashcroft? Sounds like a wild and crazy time.

Party Schools

Ann Althouse is a law professor at the University of Wisconsin law school in Madison, and she has a great blog that I read daily. The police in Madison are planning (CNN) how to deal with the college and law students who have, in the past, celebrated Halloween in a mob of up to 100,000 people. Playboy named it the number one party school in the nation this year, a distinction which its students have hailed and administrators condemned.

It must be a mixed blessing for colleges to make the lists of top party schools. They usually don't keep their party-school designation for more than 2 or 3 years in a row because money is thrown at the police and campus security forces to crack down on partying, but free publicity isn't a bad thing.

"I guess I could sing..."

Ever do karaoke?

"I've never had the opportunity to be in a room where there was a karaoke setting, but I guess I could sing..."
-Aretha Franklin at the Americans for the Arts National Arts Awards at Cipriani, NYC

"I am more touched than a congressional page."

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, is (apparently) cured of a rare disease.

British twins are born with different skin colors.

One was born with black skin, one with white. The mother is of mixed heritage, and the father is white. (MSNBC)

At least Cheney didn't shoot anyone this time.

The VP is in Charleston tonight for a fundraising event, and apparently several roads were closed for security reasons around the venue. I was just listening to the traffic report on the radio and people were calling in, ranting about how insensitive Cheney was for "waiting until 5:30 on a Friday to come to Charleston." The rants were funny, but I don't think this visit will help the SC Republican party much. Those people were pretty angry.

CNN has a new feature that summarizes the content of news stories in bullet form above the article. Above this article on Cheney's recent remarks on torture, the summary doesn't do much to clarify the content:

Story Highlights
• VP Cheney agrees in interview it's OK to dunk terrorists in water to save lives
• White House rejects accusations that statement endorses "water boarding"
• Rights group says Cheney statement is a "clear endorsement"
• President Bush: "This country doesn't torture"

Wayfarers!

I am thrilled about this 80's revival thing that is happening right now. If I had $89 I'd buy these sunglasses.

Rumors on the internets.

President Bush uses The Google to look up rumors on the internets.

A Question of Priorities.

I have an op-ed in the GSO that came out today. Since it's out already and they don't update the website regularly, I can reprint the whole thing.

When I was a little kid, I was told by the big kids in my neighborhood that "snipes" were small creatures living in the woods which could be caught with plastic grocery bags. I begged them to let me come along when they set out "snipe hunting" one night, and stood bravely with my "snipe trap" (plastic bag), ready to catch one of the furry critters. I finally realized that snipes didn't exist after I was left alone in the dark woods for half an hour, the big kids safe inside their warm houses a block away. I had been the victim of a dirty trick.

The Charleston city council defines "snipe" a bit differently. According to the "Snipe Sign Ordinance" passed by the council, snipes are "leaflets, handbills, posters, flyers, announcements or any other advertising and informational materials that are tacked, nailed, posted, pasted, glued or otherwise attached to trees, poles, stakes, fences, buildings, or other objects" Snipes are illegal, and the fine assessed for each flyer is $1087.00 -- or up to 30 (THIRTY!) days in jail.

I am quite positive that there are criminals in our city more deserving of jail time than the mediocre band posting flyers about their weekend gig at the Music Farm.

Violent crime in Charleston is soaring. In the first half of 2006 there were 13 homicides -- more than any other full year in the past decade. When was the last time you went a week without finding a Community Watch Alert in your Edisto email account detailing the robbery or assault of a fellow student? The city council must be partaking in the crack that is abundant in Charleston ghettos for them to conclude that colored pieces of paper deserve their attention now, when the murder rate is on track to double 2005's.

In a warning letter to the community, Sgt. Dan Riccio ominously declared that the city will "...increase our enforcement of the laws applicable to this type of illegal activity and will prosecute violators of these laws." Police officers will enforce the ordinance, handing out tickets for those sinister enough to engage in the "illegal activity" If you hadn't read the first part of this article, you might have thought this paragraph was about drug dealers or, say, car thieves.

So the city council has given officers, whose plates are already full from dealing with real crimes, the extra duty of saving our city from the "visual blight" of illegal flyers? They have to be kidding.

Even at the local level, public policy is a game of allocating resources. Time and attention spent enforcing laws in one area diverts it from another. By passing this ordinance, the City Council has failed miserably at their primary job: appropriately prioritizing the needs of Charleston citizens.

Is keeping Charleston litter-free a good thing? Sure. Should it be a current priority? Absolutely not. There are much more pressing concerns in Charleston right now for the city council to be snipe hunting.

The news is boring me.

I need some frivolity, and I'm sharing it with you.


Learn how a restaurant critic stays slim (NY Magazine.) The last two restaurants I worked at gave the servers food every once in a while, and on those lucky days I freaked out the kitchen staffs by jumping up and down in response to particularly wonderful dishes. I've learned to contain my enthusiasm (physically), but expressing it as a food critic is on my list of dream jobs. (Tip: the key to my heart lies in an astonishingly good creme brulee.)

Michael Agger thinks the iPod wasn't all that revolutionary: "[Steven] Levy, a senior editor at Newsweek, is a prime example of the boomers who think the iPod is revolutionary. But really, they're grateful, because it's made them feel cool again. " IPods have made it a lot easier, and more common, for people to be in their own little worlds no matter where they are. It's increased the amount of time that we spend listening to music, but it also made music more of a solitary experience. A concert is a communal experience; iPod listening is not.

More on the border fence.

Media bias:

"President Bush signed a bill Thursday authorizing 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to give Republican candidates a pre-election platform for asserting they're tough on illegal immigration." (CNN)

Does CNN have a mind-reader on staff? How could they know this? It's believable that the president wanted to help Republicans in the midterm elections, but CNN is positioning this as his primary motivation. It's plausible, but it's purely speculation.

An assertion of speculative political motivation has no place in a news article, unless the article is reporting on the response of others to the particular action. If this had said "Critics say the president was hoping to give Republican candidates a pre-election platform for asserting..." then it would be (appropriate) reporting on the response.

Anyway, some of the issues here:

-National security and a country's right to regulate its borders.
-The PR angle: Does the US want to be seen as a fenced-in country? What will this do to our relationship with the Mexican government?
-The money: Is this the most efficient way to secure the border? Will it even work? Could the money be better used elsewhere?
-Is this closet racism or classism? There's no proposal to build a fence on the Canadian border, where (theoretically) the same threat exists (people or materials crossing the unregulated border illegally.)

There are many other issues involved, and feel free to comment.

I was in San Diego this summer, in the area where much of the fencing will go. The only regulation on the border going into Mexico was a red light that turned green when you paid a toll.