This is certainly distressing. I lived in Kuwait for two years after the Gulf War and still have Kuwaiti friends there. When I left nearly ten years ago, they were optimistic about liberalization over the next decade or two. They were hoping it would be well under way by now. Unfortunately, it's going in the opposite direction.

I'd really love to return to see how the mood has changed over the past decade. Especially toward us. They were still in love with their American liberators when I left, but the honeymoon had definitely subsided. American expats by and large all employed the same barometer to gauge the level of Kuwaiti enthusiasm for us: the ease of smuggling alcohol into the country.

I was in and out nearly every month for business reasons, and it didn't take long to learn how to get a half dozen bottles in every time. I was up to something like a dozen in a row, and even when you did get caught, it was usually one for you, one for him (the customs agent). But it really started tightening up in my second year. In the last few months I got hauled into the back twice for a strip search--a comical version of a strip search, where they were too embarrassed by even partial nudity to let me pull more than one article of clothing up or down at a time, and certainly never my boxer shorts. But they were harrowing at the time, and the second time I was forced to sign an Islamic oath written in Arabic, with all the blanks to be filled in later and that one really scared the crap out of me. Scared right out of smuggling, which was a big deal, because there was nothing to do for entertainment but get drunk until the weekly FedEx packet arrived with a fresh video or two.

Hmmmm. Reading this, I'm starting to see why they might not like us, but the booze never flowed as freely anywhere in the country as when the royal family members threw a party. It's not like everyone wasn't aware of it ...

Oh God, I'm way off track. It's such a complex world over there, and it's idiotic to try to capture it in a few paragraphs. I wanted to say that it's sad about the liberals biting the dust (and of course it's liberal in the broader sense of a liberal democracy, which both Republican and Democratic Americans will lament.) 

The AP story also mentions in passing at the very end that only 15 percent of the citizens--which make up less than a third of the population to begin with has the vote, but doesn't explain about the levels of citizenship (first class citizens, second class, etc.) . . . It's really a slim minority voting, so you have to wonder if this is indicative of the full population or not. Or worse in the wider population.

I'm getting insatiably curious to find out what's really going on over there. All I need is one really gullible magazine editor silly enough to send me over there for a month.

I've been delinquint in crediting the person who saved my blog technically. It was spitting out thousands of errors to Mac users and some others, and Mike Ditto overhauled the code for me. Also showed me how to do several other things, so I'm much less likely to continue screwing it up in the future. His blog is here. And you can always find it and several other local bloggers in the left column, under the "Eight Great Denver Blogs" heading--which now includes eleven.

Please don't hesitate to email me if anything looks screwy in the future (or now). I won't be insulted, I just want to know what's broken. I have no idea what some of you on other platforms are seeing.

Great discussion going on over at a CalPundit comment thread on lessons of the McGovern campaign. (CalPundit's original post here.) It was in that comment thread where I first wrote a version of the post immediately below, then decided to bring it over here as well. Because you, my loyal readers deserve to read it here yourselves. Heeheehee.

A Melanie--who was a grown up at the time; I was 11, but already devouring Time magazine each week, which in my infancy I mistook for a great magazine--pointed out this:

McGovern lost for a wide variety of reasons, people were reluctant to changes horses while Viet Nam was still going on, backlash against the anti-protests, and the fact that McGovern ran a lack-luster campaign (Dave, I was already a grown up at the time, know the man, he's bright and personable, but the campaign was completely outmaneuvered by Nixon.)

Which got me thinking: Wasn't '72 also the year of the Eagleton fiasco? My memory was that Eagleton, the Veep nominee was discovered (to have seen a shrink? or something that seemed just too horrible in 1972), quickly became an albatross, but wouldn't quit, McGovern wouldn't fire him for the longest time, and got cast as a spineless jellyfish for his handling . . . And then no one else would join his doomed campaign, except (Sergent Shriver? was that his name?) At least that's how it was portrayed around my kitchen table at the time. Didn't seem at all pleasant.

I just remember one event after another like that all fall, as Melanie points out. Not to mention the other factors she alludes to. But now it's just his liberal politics?

And a John said this (among other things):

I think I agree with Mr. Cullen that McGovern's defeat had a lot to do with his personality, and also that his personality showed up what many people saw as the wussiness of his policies. And there's another way that Lieberman is like McGovern - they're both huge wusses. The one thing we don't need in a candidate is a wuss. And one who's sold out to business interests, at that.

Thank you John. Just the word I've been too much of a wuss to through out there. I really don't want a quasi-Republican like Lieb running the country to begin with, though I did like some of his thoughtfulness running for Veep. But who is he kidding? As likely to be embraced by the country as Phil Graham.

Now that man (Graham) was delusional. Maybe because he rose as far as the U.S. Senate, he thought the anti-charisma he joked about could be overcome. WRONG! Senators aren't really expected to lead, presidents are. (Perhaps that's why senators almost never get the top job this century. Governors are required to lead, and they keep grabbing the oval office. Paul Gigot said on This Week this morning, that if you want to be president, don't run for the senate. Did he have it backwards? Maybe the rule is: Don't be the sort of person who would get elected to the Senate.)

And as long as we're naming wusses, I keep hoping Kerry can work his way out of wussdom, but I don't think it's likely to happen. (Maybe wuss is the wrong word for him. He's obviously a courageous man, and I think he's got plenty of backbone. But he comes across really weak. Whiny? Just not someone who lights up a room.)

Edwards does not have the wuss problem, just the used-car salesman mystique.

The truth is, every election cycle, I'm amazed at how many--shall we call them wuss-perception candidates--fill out the field.

And I have to blame the press, of which I am a member. They look at the most preposterous factors in choosing their front runner. First on the list is usually name recognition, meaning all the outcasts who lost the last time lead their retarded lists. (Precisely how we got Al Gore, AND George senior. Pres losers selected for veep because they lost out on their own bid. George road the Reagan coattails in the first time, but that was it.)

But the press will never ever use a word like wuss, and they won't factor in the obvious factors, like Lieberman's voice, which alone will turn most of the electorate against him. (If he were ever nominated, consider how many people would close the curtain and quietly wonder how they could stand hearing that incessant whine for four years.) Does that seem petty? I'm sorry, it's a job requirement. Try to picture Winston Churchill leading the British through WWII with that voice. Yes, it can be overcome. Look at the current dufus's speeches. But consider what a dufus he is. And how closely he squeaked out a victory over that dufus Gore.

Lieberman, for God's sake, hire a voice coach if necessary. Find a different line of work.

Beltway pundits, get a clue! You always spend half of September and October (of the election year) chatting about how the voters are more interested in the the candidates' personalities, and the intangibles of perceptions of honesty and leadership. Yet you spend the previous year winnowing the field with a whole different set of preposterous criteria (like adding 100 points for each previous humiliating loss). You whittle it down to a pair of goofballs no one is interested in electing.

Thank goodness we seem to have at least one candidate making an end-run around the press this time. I know Dean has his problems. He may still fall flat on his face. But the one reason I was attracted to him so early is that it takes just one encounter with him to realize: Hey, this is a guy the country could really fall in love with. This is a guy you could respect and admire, and want to line up behind?

John Edwards? He's the kind of guy you could come up with on a spreadsheet, assigning 10 points for Southern base, 20 for fresh young vitality, 5 for good-looking (OK, 40 for good-looking; who are we kidding?) . . . I always get the impression that this is the analysis the Sams and Cokies and Tim Russerts have done, and see him as a obvious contender, and can't get past the obvious. He's thoroughly unimpressive.

When are they going to learn?

Well, the knock everywhere on Howard Dean these days seems to be that he's The New McGovern, destined to bring the entire party down around him like George did in 1972.

There may or may not be something to that, and I'm still mulling it over myself, but here's the one thing that runs through my mind every time I hear it:

Didn't Watergate have something to do with McGovern's lanslide defeat?

I was only 11 at the time, but I read All the Prez Men, and various other things at the time, and my impression was that the Nixon boys determined early on that McGovern was the weakest candidate, and through its dirty-tricks campaign and various other activities helped knock most of the others out. (Most notoriously, Muskie--who everyone thought was the strongest candidate--with the Canuck Letter.)

Now McGovern might have been weak because of his policies, but he had a damn weak personality, too. I always liked the guy, but I always thought he came across as a big weanie. I couldn't see this guy getting elected regardless of his stand on issues.

Which brings me to the wider frustration I have: WAY too much extrapolation from a few tiny bits of data. People draw the most remarkable conclusions sometimes. I realize we only have these elections 2.5 times a decade, but still. Each election occurs in a discrete time, with the country in a particular mood, and often the personality of the candidate has as much or more to do with his success than his issues.

So why do we look back on certain collosal failures and see them so strictly in terms of the issues, and assume those issues have to be electoral anathema?

Maybe the guy was just a big dork, and the CREEPs saw that, knocked his opponents off, ran against him and laughed all their way to the White House. For a year or two.

(There may be quite a bit I don't know about this. Anyone who knows the history better, or has an alternate theory, please jump in.)

More here.

The Supremes rarely do interviews, but This Week bagged both Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Breyer today.

There's been a lot of speculation that she was getting ready to retire, and would do it now so Bush could appoint her replacement. This from AP:

O'Connor dodged questions about whether she would retire soon after 22 years on the court.

O'Connor, who was appointed by Republican Ronald Reagan, denied published reports that her husband told people on election night in 2000 that she wanted Republican George Bush to win so she could step down. Asked if people can take from her silence about her future that she intends to remain at the court another year, she said only: "I assume so."

That last comment could be read a bit ambiguously, and I wondered if that was her intention when I read the AP story. But having just watched the show, she could not have been more emphatic. Verging on disgusted that anyone should even think otherwise.

The AP story also has some moderately interesting quotes from each of them, and it said ABC released a transcript which I'll try to find. But being AP, they didn't capture even a whiff of the discussion. It was head and shoulders above any of the crap normally broadcast on those lame Sunday morning shows. Closer to a Charlie Rose segment. A fair number of pedestrian questions, but the answers were much better than the queries deserved. A thoughtful discussion emerged. Really nice. (And for the first time they persuaded me that cameras should not be brought in to that court. It's a relatively minor issue, but remarkable that they could turn me around in such a brief discussion.)

The show also had an interesting discussion on Dean, I'm told, which I'm about to watch now. (Interesting because George Will wasn't there? They replaced him Paul Gigot.)

(Thank God again for Tivo. Tivo tivo Tivo. What are all you people doing without Tivo?)

Update:

It was a very interesting discussion on Dean, and also on what the justices said. Very nice point about the justices emphasizing that a key to their deliberations is that all nine speak very candidly about what they really feel. No bullshitting in an attempt to win people over with BS arguments they don't really believe, but which they think are more likely to con somebody.

The panel then discussed how that was so refreshing, and the reverse is what they hear all the time from disgusted voters and TV viewers. Too much crap, we don't believe these people. Amen to that.

And how ironic that George Will was missing from the discussion. Would he have noticed that they were all describing him to a tee (in contrast to the justices). How refreshing the discussion was without him lobbing in a bunch of crap. Ninety percent of the stuff coming out of his mouth is pure bullshit. Ann Coulter may be a shrill, vicious simpleton, but at least she spits out what she really feels. (Or else she's a great actress.) George Will is way smarter than the crap coming out of his mouth.

WARNING (posted later): There are rumblings this site might be bogus, tilted unfairly toward Kucinich. (Why don't some of my anti-liberal Colorado blogger friends take it and see how you fared?) Much more in the comments section of CalPundit's post here.

Interesting little site out there called selectsmart.com, where you can answer 16 questions about issues, select a priority on each, and receive a response ranking of all the presidential candidates, with percentage compatibilities for each. (Heard about this on TalkLeft, who heard it from CalPundit, who heard it from Julian Sanchez, who heard it from . . . who cares, but this blogging thing can really be powerful, can't it? (I know I'm arriving late to this party, but I'll express my belated enthusiasm anyway.))

Hmmmmm. Pretty interesting. Of course it leaves out the most important criteria, like integrity, candor, leadership (ability to motivate), etc. but you'll just have to assess that stuff yourself. It's not a bad exercise to take those elements out and get an unemotional take on who you're compatible with strictly on issues.

(And I'm hoping someone tries this and improves upon it. I was a bit annoyed at some of the questions mixing too many different ideas together. And the high/low/medium priorities may seem sufficient on first blush, until you take the test and realize you have to give equal (top) weight to five or six different categories.

(First time I was undisciplined and had eight highs and only three lows. I forced myself a second time to go 5-5-6 and the differences changed slightly, but not radically. It did drop Edwards below Dean.) And I was slightly annoyed that lots of minority/fringe-issue questions were on there, but none about gays. Still, it's not a bad first shot. They or somebody else will come up with something better.)

For now, I was a bit surprised to see just how Green I was. I knew I was green on green issues, but didn't realize I agreed with them on EVERYthing. You can limit results three different ways, but I included everything: announced, unannounced and formally withdrawn. And my winner was . . .

A generic Green Party Candidate. Not only my #1 choice, but 100% compatibility. Wow. Too bad it will be Ralph Nader. And too bad he'll just screw things up for the Democrat. (By the way, I don't think Ralph is the right guy for that position anyway. Is he really a close fit for the Greens? Seems a little sell-out to run somebody just because they've got the name recognition. Especially when you're an idealistic party who can't win anyway).

I was more surprised to see Dennis Kucinich as my top announced candidate (96%), though that zeroes in on the problem with this approach. I'm very leery of an interventionist foreign policy, so I answered a high-priority question which I'm sure aligned me with him, but the issue is much more complex than that, and I do NOT feel comfortable with his position. He's been too extreme on a lot of issues for me, but when you limit the choices on each issue to two or three broad categories (for, against or middle-ground) he was obviously scored as a direct hit. That's pretty lame. So I'm in the ballpark with him on more things than the other announced candidates, but so what? I would lay money I'm much closer to Dean and Kerry on most issues--with no impact to my score--but disagree with them outright on one or two issues, which dropped their scores. I'd rather be very close on most things and have a few honest disagreements. This test needs a lot of refinement.

Hennyway: Next came Dean at 81%, Edwards at 79, Kerry 78.

Interesting to find Hillary at 76, and surprising to see Gen. Wes Clark at 61. Again, the Clark score illustrates two big limitations to this test. You can click on each individual for a summary of their take on several major issues, with direct quotes from them. On every item addressed there by Clark, I not only agreed in a general sense, but his responses reflected my views almost precisely on very complex issues. (So I'm wondering where I'm so opposed to him--everything else?)

Here's my suggestion for a much better test, though it will take more time and therefore appeal to fewer people: On each issue, include key statements made by the various candidates, and have us rank each of those responses from 1 to 10 (if we're limited to Shrub and the 9 announced Dems). That would really hone results in on the precise solutions we are compatible with.

The clincher with Clark though, is how each response on the page they had on him was suffused with wisdom and insight. Reminds me why I'm so attracted to him as a candidate: to me it's not just a matter of a guy choosing A, B or C on an issue, I want to hear his reasoning. I've "met" some candidates who seem to be coming to a lot of the same conclusions as me in a very general sense, but I'm thoroughly unimpressed with how they got there. (Or often baffled about how they got there.)

More than any other candidate, I'm impressed with the way Clark's mind works. He draws from a wide pool of personal experience and a deep well of historical knowledge. And he consistently takes the long view. So many politicians seem to react to each little event or issue in a vacuum, with a short-term, short-sighted solution. He looks much wider, considers the side-effects and unintended consequences, and how those can build up over the years and undermine or overwhelm the short-term gain.

I haven't seen a lot of that from the rest of the field or with any recent politicians, save Dean and McCain. I see a lot of that in each of them, though if I had to rank them in that regard I'd put Clark way out in front at #1, Dean probably 2 and McCain 3--though I've seen McCain in action much longer and I could be premature on Dean. And I really ought to put Kerry in there, maybe as a #4. I have a lot of respect for him, though I have a hard time seeing him ever setting an electorate on fire. And I haven't watched him enough.

I certainly wouldn't put our current Fearless Leader anywhere near that class. And Clinton, he's a tough one to assess. I wouldn't put him quite in the above class either--a bit short-sighted for my taste, I think, though he mostly disgusts me for other reasons. (Like sincerity and candor. Ugh. Made my skin crawl, sometimes.)

All that said, I was shocked to see McCain come in at only 14% compatibility. And I was ready to vote for him last time.

And Shrub is nearly dead last at 4%--AND a dufus. Man, what a horrible combination. No wonder I'm so disgusted with the goofball.

And Gore is also a stinker for me at 37%, Bradley worse at 33. God, no wonder I was so morose last election. Of the four final contenders, the best anyone rated for me was 37%. And three of the four were charisma-free, with the final two in desperate need of personality implants.

Things are looking much brighter already.

Wow, I certainly spent a lot more time on this test than expected. It appears I learned a great deal about myself and my choices for president from working with it, so I have to heartily recommend it, as long as you're willing to spend a few minutes clicking through to the page on individual candidates and analyzing what it all means to you.

Finally met a bunch of other bloggers in person last night, at a 5th of July bbq hosting by Vodkapundit's Stephen Green and his wife Melissa. Very nice people. Very interesting discussions. What a great group.

Links to all of them and a few more here.