When the Tiger Chastises the Lion for Being a Predator

The Orwellian nature of the US response to Russian action in South Ossetia and Georgia has been comical at best, and a bellicose display of overt hypocrisy at worst. As I wrote mid-August, US leaders were able to simultaneously declare "the days of spheres of influence behind us" and sign a missile-defense pact with Poland (to compliment the existing deal with the Czech Republic) to, in essence, extend their sphere of influence. Thus, they went a step further than the typical hypocritical foreign policy stances and were actively engaged at that precise moment in exactly the thing they were speaking out against.

It is certainly a mark of supreme arrogance to engage in such practice, to make it so blindingly clear that the rules one would apply to others shall have no application to oneself, and perhaps in a bygone era the US's argument would have flown. But the Iraqi occupation is not yet a thing of the past, and the moral standing of the US, already shaky, has worn perilously thin. Here was one predator to another saying, "Thou shalt not eat meat." And the entire Western world nodded in unison.

The US continued its campaign of unintentional brevity yesterday, by withdrawing from a nuclear pact with Russia (at least temporarily), as a means of punishing them and teaching them those lessons we never felt beholden to ourselves. But, it seems, recent history has caught up to the administration, as they withdrew that proposition today.

The Bush administration, after considerable internal debate, has decided not to take direct punitive action against Russia for its conflict with Georgia, concluding that it has little leverage if it acts unilaterally and that it would be better off pressing for a chorus of international criticism to be led by Europe.

Their aversion to unilateralism is perhaps a few years too late, but laudable nonetheless. Of course, the underlying accusations are the same, the Bush administration just realized it has no leverage. They still believe that only certain nations are allowed satellites, only certain nations are granted retaliatory action, and only certain nations are to be given so much as a matter of weeks to withdraw its forces from a country.

That this comes from a country that invaded a country that had performed not a single act of aggression towards it (Georgia, however, did attack Russian citizens in South Ossetia), and a country that still occupies a country more than five years after it declared the end of a war, has met with only miniscule cynicism speaks volumes as to the waning influence of reason and logic in American politics.

The reality of the situation can be debated, but no matter the conclusion of such banalities it remains true that none in power are concerned with the outcome of such an argument. Reality does not matter. Reality is not indicated by truth or objective assessment, but by success. That is to say, that which breeds the desired result shall stand as reality. If the ends sought should change, so, too, will 'reality' be bent to serve them.

Though they may plea otherwise, the dealings of the past three weeks have been nothing if not overt exertion of spheres of influence, those despised relics from the past. Georgia's inclusion in NATO, and by extension, further isolation of Russia, is all that is sought, and the arguments are being bent around that goal (inevitability, rather). Standards of democracy do not apply. Even such basic tenets of forward-progressing time do not apply, as Georgia's initial incursion into Ossetia has been effectively flushed down the memory hole.

Such assaults on logic and reason are not merely tolerated, but celebrated. The realpolitik of a new generation, citizens, pundits, and journalists alike stumble over each other to play the game better than the next. Citizens can be expected to be overly credulous. On foreign policy, pundits range between 10 and 9.5. But journalists should provide a voice of reason, or at least an honest accounting of facts. That they don't is the pillar of the degradation of American democracy, for without an independent, functional media corps, democracy ceases to exert the will of the people and rather begins to merely echo the sentiments of the ruling class.

This doesn't have to be so. But as long as the economics of today's corporate media dictate producing news as cheaply as possible, journalists will continue to rely on the easiest source of that news: the very people they're meant to cover. As long a journalists defer to their subjects to preserve open channels of communication (what was once called propaganda), they fail the population in performance of their nominal task. If journalism was meant to be mere repetition of the company line, it would be sufficient for the government to also be the sole source of news.

Assuming that the majority of Americans would be adverse to a Ministry of Truth for a new era, the time has long since passed to begin calling on journalists to perform their jobs effectively. Cheap sources of news are not necessarily the best sources of news. Sometimes stories must be worked for, sought out, recovered from the abyss. At the very least, journalists could begin by pointing out conspicuous absurdities in the government line, such as those that have propagated themselves surrounding the Russia-Georgia conflict.

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The Ivins Case Revisited

***Update Appended 8/10 @ 1134 CDT***

Tuesday, I made the case that the failure on the part of the FBI to present a viable case against Bruce Ivins and likewise of American journalists to be sufficiently skeptical of that proposition was independent of the eventual resolution to the scenario. Indeed, there will likely be no resolution, as there is no longer anyone to prosecute and closing the case precludes further investigation proving someone other than Ivins is responsible (if he, in fact, is not).

Under enormous pressure, the FBI has since outlined its case, which shapes to be exactly as I suspected it was from the start, a collection of circumstantial evidence lacking anything remotely definitive which will avoid serious scrutiny for lack of a living suspect. The government released a substantial stack of documents which prove to be nothing more than a series of warrant applications and findings. In other words, as Ivins lawyer states, "it was an explanation of why Bruce Ivins was a suspect," but offers nothing in the way of conclusions.

The FBI, of course, assures the skeptical among us that they "could prove his guilt to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt," a task surely far easier when the jury is purely hypothetical. Again, of Ivins' guilt are innocence I am not sure, but what remains clear is that he provided the FBI with the perfect fall guy, a suspect who acted strangely enough to present himself as a plausible suspect with the added bonus of never forcing the government to test its hand in court. Once the media predictably forget about the case in a week's time, seven years of bumbling ineptitude will be safely down the memory hole.

And that, really, is all the government is after. For all the time given to assuring us that the government is in good hands and providing safety against foreign terror, the only tangible proof in that direction is their inability to protect the country from domestic attack, much less foreign, failure to ascertain the responsible party for those attacks, and a wildly-expanding bureaucracy no more capable of preventing testers passing weapons by TSA screeners. By posthumously prosecuting Ivins in the court of public opinion, the government can point to success in the national security arena without the threat as in previous instances of facts painting a different picture down the road.

The Ivins case, though predicated on the flimsiest of evidence, provides a salve for an ailing government which, though given seven years, is no closer to closing the gaps which stood wide open in 2001. Here, the FBI is aided immensely by the lack of an accused able to stand trial and a complicit media more than willing to play their role without question.

Throughout, there has been scant mention of Steven Hatfill, as any mention of the previous suspect in the case may beg the question: "If you were so wrong on Hatfill, are we now to believe that you've nailed it on Ivins?" Pleasing enough to the FBI, no one seems to have been so impolite as to ask such an impropriety.

The script for the two individual accusations could not be more similar: the FBI launching a baseless allegation built upon scant evidence and a media more than willing to spit it out to a credulous public without digestion or investigation. Yet no one seems the least bit apprehensive about performing an encore, even if the last act closed with the government forced to pay Hatfill $5 million for destroying his reputation and career. Fortunately for Hatfill, he still has his life.

The Ivins suicide is, in some respects, a self-fulfilling prophecy. The FBI exerts ever-growing pressure on the scientist, accuses him of murdering American citizens in cold blood, Ivins becomes paranoid as a result, folds under pressure, and presto he opens the door for the government to point and say, "See. Would an innocent man do that?" We see the same tact in foreign policy, where we perform unprovoked attacks on countries meant to provoke a response, and if it comes we say, "See they're a danger to their neighbors."

I claim no omniscient knowledge of Ivins' guilt or innocence, but I can lay claim to historical literacy, something that is sorely lacking on the American scene. Americans have long lacked even basic competency in linking events together through time, viewing each occurrence as a separate instance completely disconnected to everything that happened before. Clearly this is a deficiency, as holding such a talent might allow gullible observers to see the public prosecutions of Hatfill and Ivins as two sides of the same coin. If the memory of the American public was longer than 48 hours, questions beneficial to the search for the truth might be broached, and lives might be saved in future acts of the tired play. But I'm not holding my breath.


***Appended 8/10 @ 1134 CDT***

Apparently, the FBI agrees with me:

FBI official John Miller said that "what we have seen over the past few days has been a mix of improper disclosures of partial information mixed with inaccurate information and then drawn into unfounded conclusions. None of that serves the victims, their families or the public."

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Nothing to See Here, Move Along

After lying dormant for six or seven years, the topic of Anthrax has assumed the role of Lazarus and again forced itself into the national discourse, though most likely for just as brief a stay as the first. To understand just why it has been away for so long is not difficult, as one need only recognize that the perpetrator of the 2001 attacks is most likely home-grown, and therefore of no use to an administration in dire need of a them.

That is not to say they didn't try, of course.

When the anthrax attacks occurred, Iraq was immediately fingered by some experts and many neoconservative hawks as a possible source; ABC News quoted three unnamed government sources as saying the powder in the letters matched the type produced in Iraq.

Even though most serious analysts were highly skeptical that the tainted letters came from Hussein, the mere possibility that Iraq could have maintained a stockpile of anthrax was enough to convince many people that it was a looming threat.

ABC's ineptitude in this case is par-for-the-course in American journalism, where the government leaks things to the media it thinks will help its cause and the media dutifully act as stenographers for those in power. Totalitarianism has its bludgeons and gulags. America has its complicit press.

Afghanistan, though by this time was assuredly the source of the WTC attacks, was simply not sexy enough a target. One of the most backward and poorest countries in the world, the pot at the end of the rainbow would surely not be filled with gold. Most of Bush's top aides had been praying for a disaster to link to Iraq since the late 90s under the umbrella of the PNAC, and thought for sure they could manufacture one in the Anthrax attacks, helpfully guided by gullible journalists with an unquenchable thirst for access to government sources.

Unfortunately for Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, facts presented at least a fleeting obstacle, though one in its waning days of influence. Once the attacks were believed to be of US origin, they were duly forgotten and discarded, as though domestic terror is not in fact terror at all, at least not terror that can be used to propagate fallacies about foreign nemeses. The people that died, however, remain dead to this day, comforted little by the lack of utility found in their deaths.

Seven years later, 'unnamed government sources' are back, slowly sowing the seeds for another disappearance of the topic, this time in the form of a dead scientist. Completely ignoring their previous credulity in the public prosecution of Steven Hatfill, the media bandwagon is once again taking passengers, destination to be determined by the US government. Journalistic timing couldn't be more impeccable, as it was only late June of this year that the government settled with Hatfill for its propagation of lies about him in the initial phase of the story. No bother, all the more reason to blindly jump after the next government target without question.

I don't pretend to know the guilt or innocence of Bruce Ivins, no one does, but the story reads to me like so many we've read before, with endings well known. There was Hatfill. Richard Jewell in the Atlanta Olympics bombings. The constant rehashing of the Jon Benet case. And of course, the story of the pretty, affluent, blond girl in Aruba that insists on keeping Nancy Grace compelling me to throw a blunt object at my television on a nightly basis. Aesop was no more proficient in providing ample guides on how to proceed, but reason-be-damned, sensationalism must rule the day.

Others have examined the details of the FBI's shaky case in much more detail than I wish to, and they are worth reading, but in doing so, they seem to be placing the verdict in the hands of the outcome. The final fate of the case, however, has no bearing on the lack of integrity involved all around.

Journalists are widely being used as tools of the FBI in the case, waiting patiently to write unquestioningly the next tidbit of information passed onto them by the government, and in that way are no better than journalists used to perform their patriotic duty a century ago by printing stories of bombed American ships in order to instigate war with Spain, though the ships were done in by the US itself for precisely that function. The tale, though the players are different, is well-worn and remains transparent.

The argument over the state of journalism in America shouldn't be over liberal versus conservative, but rather over competency versus sheer ineptitude, the latter a defining characteristic of all but a select few American journalists. Whether Ivins is proven in some way guilty at the end of this parody is unimportant. It will do nothing to obfuscate the fact that there has been no actual reporting on the case at all, merely rote repetition of unnamed government sources weaving the tale most beneficial to their cause.

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Why American Journalism Fails

Are. You. Kidding?

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Ducking the Point

Yesterday, I examined the New York Times piece detailing the Pentagon's efforts to promote its policy in the media via retired military officers who were less-than-retired from positions from which to profit from the war.

Predictably, supporters of the war were less than impressed with the article. Specifically, Max Boot and John Podhoretz, writing at Commentary. To take on Boot's objection first:

Hold the front page! Heck, on second thought, hold three full inside pages as well. Notify the Pulitzer jurors. The New York Times has a blockbuster scoop. Its ace reporter, David Barstow, has uncovered shocking evidence that . . . the Pentagon tries to get out its side of the story about Iraq to the news media.

After getting past the obligatory condescension, Boot opens with the premise that the Pentagon deserves to disseminate its side of the story. Undoubtedly, this is fair, but Boot misses the point in framing his argument this way. Namely, that the Pentagon wasn't simply disseminating its side of the story. It is more than welcome to do so, as that's what press conferences are for. I do contend, however, that portraying the presentation of its talking points as efforts of a detached, autonomous group of retired generals who in fact were being fed their lines offstage is not comparable.

The Times piece illustrates as much when it claims, "the access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon."

It is the effort to conceal the influence of the government propaganda mechanism that, by its very existence, exhibits the folly of Boot's supposition. These military men were not rolled out as agents of the Pentagon's "side of the story," they were presented as objective commenters expressing their own opinions.

The second objection is perhaps more thoughtless than the first:

As I read and read and read this seemingly endless report, I kept trying to figure out what the news was here. Why did the Times decide this story is so important? After all, it’s no secret that the Pentagon–-and every other branch of government-–routinely provides background briefings to journalists (including columnists and other purveyors of opinion), and tries to influence their coverage by carefully doling out access. It is hardly unheard of for cabinet members–-or even the President and Vice President–--to woo selected journalists deemed to be friendly while cutting off those deemed hostile. Nor is it exactly a scandal for government agencies to hire public relations firms to track coverage of them and try to suggest ways in which they might be cast in a more positive light. All this is part and parcel of the daily grind of Washington journalism in which the Times is, of course, a leading participant.

Here, after yet more condescension, Boot employs the well-worn tactic of 'yeah, well everybody does it.' It would not be much further for Max to have opted instead for the 'well, they started it' routine.

He seems to be suggesting that because the Times relies on government sources--and thus access--that it's merely part of the game for the Defense Department to spread half-truths and outright lies to the public, and thus nothing to be concerned about. But, really, all he's doing is illustrating a second issue, as I noted yesterday:

..the crux of our journalistic problem in the States can be found [here:] In an effort to gain--and maintain--access to 'sources' or 'government contacts,' journalists have sacrificed skepticism. How can we expect journalists to speak truth to power when they rely as their main sources on cogs in the incarnation of that power?

So in saying that journalists do it too, Boot thinks he's made a point of some significance, though clearly in reality he has simply illustrated the second half of the main point, that journalism as a whole relies too heavily on access and succombs to the pressures to maintain that access, sacrificing integrity in bits and pieces along the way.

Certainly, the Times failed to turn the spotlight back on itself, which it absolutely should considering its performance from 2002-2004, but in saying so Boot does not dispel the central theme of the article. He merely extends it to its logical conclusion. This is not, I think, what he had in mind, but I won't argue his point.

Yesterday's article merely covered but one spoke in the propaganda wheel. My objection to Boot though, is that he sees the collection of spokes circling the hub but doesn't think to throw a stick in between.

Podhoretz, contrary to Boot's proximity to a logical conclusion, simply spins toward the edge without hope of re-gaining traction. He's not really sure what all the hubbub is about since the Pentagon was simply looking for "good coverage."

But, of course, it's not 'good coverage' that is of concern. It's, well, 'false' coverage. The Times:

Mr. [Robert] Bevelacqua, then a Fox analyst, was among those invited to a briefing in early 2003 about Iraq’s purported stockpiles of illicit weapons. … Mr. [Robert] Maginnis said he concluded that the analysts were being ‘manipulated’ to convey a false sense of certainty about the evidence of the weapons. Yet he and Mr. Bevelacqua and the other analysts who attended the briefing did not share any misgivings with the American public.

One…participant [of a hosted trip to Iraq in Sept. 2003], General Nash of ABC, said some briefings were so clearly ‘artificial’ that he joked to another group member that they were on ‘the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,’ a reference to Mr. Romney’s infamous claim that American officials had ‘brainwashed’ him into supporting the Vietnam War during a tour there in 1965.

Podhoretz's opening salvo:

I think, based on many years of experience working at various newspapers, that there is an explanation for the extreme length — 7800 words — of the story and the fact that it manages to find nothing more than an effort by the Pentagon to get good coverage. The Times thought it was on to something very big, ended up with something very small, and then took what little they had and tried to make a silk purse from the sow’s ear that was reporter David Barstow’s investigation.

Claiming "many years of experience working at various newspapers" is nothing more than an erroneous implication that his conclusion is not to be confused with mere opinion. He knows about papers, so you just shut your mouth and listen to him, okay?

His conclusion?: That the Times failed to persuade a fanatical believer in the war, namely John Podhoretz, and thus must admit that they "tried to make a silk purse from the sow's ear." Mind you, Podhoretz offers nothing in the way of support of his thesis, but he knows papers, so that would just be superfluous.

Barstow’s endless tale reveals nothing more than that the Pentagon treated former military personnel like VIPs, courted them and served them extremely well, in hopes of getting the kind of coverage that would counteract the nastier stuff written about the Defense Department in the media.

Both Boot and Podhoretz mention the length of the article several times, ostensibly in an attempt to elicit sympathy from the reader for their having to have turned a page or two. I can think of no other reason to continuously mention it, other than perhaps some relationship I've missed regarding the inverse nature of article length and accuracy.

Other than that, though, this sentence is incredible. First, the Pentagon didn't have "hopes" they would receive friendly coverage. They had a team of military men they knew to be sympathetic who had an added financial incentive they were unlikely to opine against. There was no hope involved.

Second, neither Boot nor Podhoretz ever broach the subject of whether the information provided was true. They both seem adamant that the Pentagon's side should be included, even if delivered under cloak of darkness, regardless of its veracity. That journalism should be a vehicle for truth seems anathema to both theses.

Maybe they believed the Pentagon, maybe they didn't. But whether it was being honest with the American people clearly is of minimal concern. Both pundits are merely concerned with the right of the propaganda machine to exert its influence on public discourse, not the right of the public to honesty.

My favorite line:

I intuit that this story, which features extensive use of Freedom of Information requests...

One need look no further. The obvious disdain Podhoretz has for the mere idea that the public has even limited access to facts from within government illustrates clearer than anything I can imagine why he must cling to his dismissal of the story. One would suppose, based on this aversion to government documents being viewed, that he would support the alternative method of public fact-finding endeavors. Namely, that the public would graciously accept the government talking points delivered to them in stealth form. After all, if democracy can rest on nothing else, shouldn't it be able to preside happily over the ignorance of its constituents?

Other than eliciting a chuckle or two, I have yet to find after several readings any significant analysis of why the story was unimportant, misleading, inappropriate or any other adjective.

Podhoretz feels strongly about the issue, we are left with no doubt about that. But all one can ascertain from his parable are his imaginative suppositions as to the process of development of the piece itself. Even the phrasing of the title--What the Times Was Up To--in the form of the affirmative rather than the inquisitive leaves no question as to his premise.

It can be surmised, I guess, that somewhere in America, someone was clamoring to hear John Podhoretz's opinion as to how the story came to be printed, though I'm at a loss to comprehend where this might be.

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Truth From Power

Another day, another incredible revelation of the true scope of the Orwellian fantasy world that has been constructed in just a few short years in the United States.

Not that it should come as a surprise. That pundits and military analysts began selling a fallacious stock of goods in the run up to and in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq is not news. That it was the product of active collusion with the Pentagon and the Bush administration should, though, elicit more outrage than it probably will.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

It is in that last sentence that I believe the crux of our journalistic problem in the States can be found. In an effort to gain--and maintain--access to 'sources' or 'government contacts,' journalists have sacrificed skepticism. How can we expect journalists to speak truth to power when they rely as their main sources on cogs in the incarnation of that power?

Often in the media, there is a drive to present 'both sides' of a story. This is to be applauded, certainly, but only if both sides are playing fair. To have a supporter of the war who speaks glowingly of it of his or her own misguided volition is one thing. To present someone who is simply relaying the Pentagon's talking points in order to defend a policy upon which their financial standing depends is entirely another.

If the government talking points were trustworthy, journalism wouldn't be necessary. We could simply read the White House press releases and be done with it, assured that "we are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia" or "2+2=5" and move on with our lives. But that isn't so.

One of the most essential feats for a budding dictatorship is to render control of the press. There's a reason for that. There's a reason that the people of North Korea, some of the poorest and most downtrodden in the world, don't rise up against a 5-foot-tall laughingstock of a man. Military force is certainly part of that, but control of the press goes even further toward explaining how a small percentage can control the masses.

We need journalists as a check on power, not beholden to it. The press in this country presided over the marginalization of the war opposition, often holding up these financially-dependent military analysts as evidence of their folly. But the folly lies with journalists. Having spent a year graciously disseminating the government line in the run-up to the war, pleasantly granting air time to false prophets, and failing to present the slightest bit of skepticism, it is time journalists come clean.

Journalists have a duty to American citizens. A duty that lies in skepticism and truth. The White House disseminates its own line, there's no reason for the press to engage in the redundancy of doing that as well.

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Client 9 From Outer Space

What people, politicians or not, do in their spare time doesn't pique my interests in the slightest, so I'm not about to get caught up in the whirlwind of moral posturing surrounding Gov. Eliot Spitzer's implication (note: not arrest) in a prostitution ring. However, one statement he made during his brief press conference on Monday has stuck with me all day:

I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas, the public good, and doing what is best for the [people].

This comment really sums up my thoughts on the matter. Too often in American politics we get caught up, with the help of a sensationalist media, in personality stories and forget about the issues that matter.
If you're a conservative, what matters should be limitation of government largesse, lower taxes, free markets or any number of other conservative issues. Liberals, likewise, should worry about their ideas about social justice, climate change, civil liberties or whatever.

What any particular conservative or liberal does, even if it's illegal, shouldn't stand as an argument against a movement or compendium of ideas and values. What Larry Craig does in a men's restroom can't possibly serve as anything but fodder for satire and personal attacks. It has nothing to do with taxes, trade, abortion or anything else. Certainly, as Glenn Greenwald points out, there's an element of hypocrisy involved, but that again speaks to the individual not the world view.

As the media spends the first half of this week concentrating all its attention on Gov. Spitzer, the battle over FISA continues to go on in the House, new revelations continue to surface regarding the scope of the domestic surveillance program, major lenders are caught in both legal and financial trouble and the economy continues its slide. None of this goes away simply because the media looks the other way.

The amount of hand-wringing over this incident will continue to mount. Republicans who thought private lives mattered in the 90s then changed their minds last year, will once again care. Democrats will have traveled a parallel but inverse path, and still none of it will matter. Because, as Spitzer says, politics isn't about individuals. It's about ideas. We'd all be best served to return to an honest debate over ideas than to continue on this dead-end path of debating personalities and personal narratives.

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Things I'm Tired of Hearing

Journalists: please stop putting 'maverick' in front of John McCain's name every time he's mentioned.

This has become what I can only describe as dogma among the news and opinion media, and I defy anyone to find a single article or op-ed about McCain that doesn't include the word 'maverick' somewhere in the first two paragraphs. Problem is, it's not at all an accurate depiction of the man.

Clearly, he acquired this moniker from his tendency to buck the party line on issues like tax cuts, torture and often the weight of the Christian Right in the party. But a maverick would not suddenly change his stance on nearly all these issues when it came time for an election. If he did-and McCain has-he would be a politician, and that seems to me a title lacking in distinction.

So enough, already. McCain has done what every other politician running for nomination has ever done, and that's run for his base. He's run this campaign as a Republican, not an independent. Of course, he's just posing for the cameras as a Republican now, but a real maverick would have some principles.



"It's the undecided voters he or she is after."

This statement has the dual effect of sounding as if the speaker has made a point of some significance while simultaneously presenting an argument any first grader could wrap his head around.

Of course it's the undecided voters they're trying to sway. By definition, decided voters have already, well, decided. So what's to sway? This argument is both pointless and popular.

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