It's news — in the NYT — that a lot of black people these days think they'll be better off in the South

It's "an inversion of the so-called Great Migration" — in which black people moved "to the industrializing North to escape prejudice and find work."

About 17 percent of the African-Americans who moved to the South from other states in the past decade came from New York, far more than from any other state, according to census data. Of the 44,474 who left New York State in 2009, more than half, or 22,508, went to the South....

The movement is not limited to New York. The percentage of blacks leaving big cities in the East and in the Midwest and heading to the South is now at the highest levels in decades, demographers say....

“New York has lost some of its cachet for black people,” [said Spencer Crew, a history professor at George Mason University who was the curator of a prominent exhibit on the Great Migration at the Smithsonian Institution]. “During the Great Migration, blacks went north because you could find work if you were willing to hustle. But today, there is less of a struggle to survive in the South than in New York. Many blacks also have emotional and spiritual roots in the South. It is like returning home.”...

The Rev. Floyd H. Flake, pastor of the 23,000-member Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Cathedral in Jamaica, Queens, said he was losing hundreds of congregants yearly to Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

“For decades, Queens has been the place where the African-American middle class went to buy their first home and raise a family,” Mr. Flake said. “But now, we are seeing a reversal of this as African-Americans feel this is no longer as easy to achieve and that the South is more benevolent than New York.”

The South is more benevolent than New York.

"People grew up in church, so a lot of us lived in shame."

"What did we do? We wandered around lost. We married men, and then couldn’t understand why every night we had a headache."

From a NYT article about how it's a lot easier to be gay in the South than it used to be — with special attention to gay people with children:

A large number of gay couples, possibly a majority, entered into their current relationship after first having children with partners in heterosexual relationships, [demographer Gary] Gates said. That seemed to be the case for many blacks and Latinos in Jacksonville, for whom church disapproval weighed heavily.

"We're still on our feet, and much to the amazement of many, we're getting there, folks, we're getting there."

Huckabee reemerges.

He won the South. Did he win it because of something about the South, or because he has so little money that he had to concentrate it somewhere?

Ed Rollins, Huckabee's chief political strategist, said he would be astonished if Huckabee has spent more than $10 million on his candidacy....

But Huckabee focused his limited resources almost exclusively on the Southeast, with old-fashioned, retail politicking. He presented himself as the only true social conservative in the race, jabbing at Romney as a flip-flopper as he pulled conservatives disenchanted with McCain into his orbit.

"Conservatives had the opportunity to pick a real conservative in the South," Rollins said. "And they did."

Even as McCain was claiming the mantle of front-runner in his victory speech last night, he was compelled to congratulate Huckabee on his sweep of the South. "Not for the first time, he surprised the rest of us," McCain said.

So McCain is handling this gracefully. Meanwhile, Romney has been a clod about Huckabee:

Over the past weeks, Romney has said repeatedly that Huckabee was more a nuisance than a threat, a candidate who should drop out of the race and leave it to the only two Republicans who could reasonably claim to be contenders for the nomination. Huckabee complained during last week's California debate that he was being treated as a third wheel....

Romney supporters and aides continued to show Huckabee little respect despite the Super Tuesday victories....

"He deserves credit for hanging in there and being the winsome personality he's been. We've all enjoyed him," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a Romney backer. "But everybody knows Mike is not going to be in the final two. That hasn't changed."

Coming from a campaign that isn't doing very well, that haughtiness is ridiculous. "We've all enjoyed him"? That's so patronizing. It's got to push the religious conservatives even more strongly toward Huckabee. And it gives Huckabee more material for his folksy jokiness:

"I've got to say that Mitt Romney was right about one thing — this is a two-man race. He was just wrong about who the other man in the race was. It's me, not him."

"Not only will I won’t quit, I can’t.”

Not only will I won't make fun of Huckabee talk, I don't want to. I think it's cool... and probably Southern, and I'm guessing Southerners will won't appreciate it.

Another debate? Democrats... CNN...

Wolf Blitzer is still blabbing... 8 minutes into it! He's stumbling oddly. What the hell?

8:23 ET: Clinton sounds stressed and intense. When Obama speaks, she turns and faces him, as if her sheer presence might intimidate him. When it's her turn, she challenges him on multiple grounds, including his recent praise of Reagan.

8:26: Obama tries to respond, and Hillary interrupts him and denies that she referred to his statement about Reagan. She's trying to throw him off and make him lose his cool. He'd started out the debate seeming quite relaxed, maybe too relaxed. Now, he's sizzling. Edwards is begging to get a chance to speak. But Hillary has been attacked, so she has the right to respond. "We're just getting warmed up," she says with some relish. It gets very tense, but at some point both Hillary and Obama are saying that Reagan's ideas may have been distinctive and transformative, but they were bad ideas. Shaking things up, Hillary throws in the charge that Obama represented a "slum landlord" in Chicago. Obama fails to insist on his right to respond, and Blitzer picks this point to let Edwards in. Obama was wronged there, I think.

8:39: Lots of talk about the mortgage problems, and then Blitzer goes back to the "slum landlord" issue and gives Obama a chance to respond. (Not that he has much to say about it... which is perhaps why he didn't demand response time earlier.)

8:43: "You never take responsibility for any vote," says Hillary to Obama. She keeps up the pressure, accusing him of always having an "explanation" for his bad votes. There are all those "present" votes, she says, and we need a straight answer. Hillary came into this debate well-armed, and she's succeeding in throwing him off. Obama is sweating visibly.

9:04: "Of course, the surge was able to pacify some parts of Iraq" — Hillary slips in the concession that the surge worked, even as she is saying that there is no military solution. It just goes to show you can say everything if you really try.

9:07: Edwards wants to know if the others will commit — as he has — to removing all combat troops from Iraq in their first year. Obama goes first and blows a lot of smoke. I don't hear a "yes." Blitzer doesn't pin him down. Was that a yes or a no? Now, it's Hillary's turn, and she waffles too. But, to me, Edwards is the one with the worst substantive position here. Nevertheless, I must say that Obama and Hillary were asked a simple question, neither answered, and they got away with it.

9:11: After the break: Fisticuffs!

9:15: We return from commercials to see that they are rearranging the furniture. Wolf Blitzer informs us that they are rearranging the furniture. I'm annoyed. They had plenty of time to rearrange the furniture during the commercials. Why am I supposed to watch them rearrange furniture? Of course, the break isn't over. This was pure fakery. We're supposed to be titillated by Wolf's repeated assertions that after the break there will be no rules. So put up with some more break, will you?

9:23: Hillary says she's on a "mission." I think the other 2 said they were on a mission as well. This "no rules" part of the debate seems like squishy blather. Or is it me, losing my focus?

9:28: "A race where you've got an African American, a woman... and John."

9:31: "Do you think Bill Clinton was our first black President?" Funny to hear Obama asked that straight out. Bill Clinton had a great "affinity" for black people, he says. He goes on about white southern men, growing up through changing times in the south. Hillary nods knowingly in the background. Obama: "I would have to investigate more Bill's dancing abilities... before I could accurately judge whether he is in fact a brother."

9:40: Is Bill Clinton too big of a presence in Hillary's campaign? Blah, blah, blah, "at the end of the day," blah, blah, blah, she's the one who is running for President. And "ultimately, it's really not about any of us"... it's about people... and their stories... Total non-answer. Ridiculous.

9:47: Edwards: Who will be tough enough and strong enough? Who can go everywhere in America and compete — head to head — with John McCain? I give him credit for trying. In this context, how is he supposed to say the white man is the best bet?

9:51: Obama says he can beat John McCain too. He can "attract independents and some Republicans." Yeah! Obama is the one of the 3 who's most likely to interest non-Democrats, because he's a different kind of candidate. And Hillary can get some because she's more of a centrist. Edwards is the least likely to get them, I think. For some reason, Obama announces that he's "a proud Christian" and gets big applause. "A proud Christian" — is that a good phrase? I thought "pride" was a sin.

10:00: Doesn't this thing end after 2 hours? One more question... "on this important day." Why would Martin Luther King — if he were alive today, and unfortunately he's not — vote for you? Edwards: poverty, poverty, poverty. This question provided on more opportunity for Edwards to say "poverty." Obama: "I don't think Dr. King would endorse any of us." I like that. Hillary: change, values, blah, blah... And it's over.

POST-DEBATE UPDATE: Here's video — via Instapundit — of that first big interchange between Hillary and Obama:



Obama quote I noticed this time: "I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes." This was after Hillary claimed she never mentioned Ronald Reagan and brushed off whatever Bill may have said.

"If you’re a southern conservative and you can’t make it in South Carolina, it’s over."

Said Bill Bennett on CNN, bullying Fred Thompson, who might say that lumbering to a slow start is the right way for an adult to handle a campaign.

Why were the polls so wrong? Did people lie about voting for Obama?

Was it "the Bradley effect"?

ADDED: Mickey Kaus considers the Bradley effect + 3 other theories:

2. Lazio Effect. No ganging up on the girl! First, Edwards turns on her in the debate. Then Obama says she's merely "likeable enough." Then the press disparages her anger, mocks her campaign and gloats over its troubles. They made her cry! And then that mean macho John Edwards goes and says the crying makes her unfit to be president...

And she was also mocked — I heard it on Rush Limbaugh — for trying to get the Lazio effect going. Which would be a veritable Lazio vortex.

3. Feiler/Skurnik Effect: ... The familiar Feiler Faster Thesis holds that voters are comfortable processing information at the vastly increased speed it can come at them. Jerry Skurnik's "Two Electorate" theory holds that voters who don't follow politics are much less informed than they used to be, which causes polls to shift rapidly when they do inform themselves. Put these two together...

The Feiler/Skurnik Effect magnifies the significance of any events that occur in the final day or two of the campaign.

If this theory is true — or even if the campaigns think it's true — look out! (Good for blogging, though.)

4) The Congestion Alert Effect: I remember when the Southern California transportation authorities installed a state-of-the-art series of electronic signs alongside the freeways to give motorists instantaneous warnings of traffic delays. The signs don't do that any more. Why? It turned out that when you warned drivers of congestion on Route A, they all took Route B, leading the latter to become congested instead of the former. Similarly, independent voters in N.H. were told by the press that the Democratic race was a done deal--so they voted in the closer, more exciting Republican race....

A primary is not an election, so this kind of funny business is always part of the mix. I remember when my father voted for McGovern. He was damned pleased about it and assured me that's what everyone was doing. And here's the final electoral map for 1972. I was crushed. How dishonest!

Let's talk about the New Hampshire primary.

Are you watching the results on TV? What channel? I'm hanging out on MSNBC at the moment. I knocked NBC the other day, so I want to make a point of saying I love listening to Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw, who are on Chris Matthews' show right now. I was doing a little CNN before, but it got a little too Lou Dobbsy, so I changed channels. And let's give Fox News equal time. (I'm back in New York City, and I had a hard time finding Fox News, which isn't clustered with the other news channels the way it is in Madison. The New York cable channels are annoyingly jumbled.)

Anyway, the polls close soon. Are you all excited?

ADDED: Hmmm... Mitt Romney was arrested long ago for sledding on an ice block on a golf course. And he was once in a car accident in Paris in which some French cop wrote "Il est mort" on his passport. (Source: Fox News.)

AND: Fox News is saying Obama wins, but it's not a blowout, so Hillary can claim some species of victory. And McCain over Romney, but "too close to call."

MORE: Zombie! Will Hillary fight her way back?

AND: MSNBC calls the Republican contest for McCain, while the Democratic race is too close to call! Ooooo!

AND: Mitt: "Another silver." He wants the gold, but who's done better than 2 silvers (and Wyoming gold)?

MORE: Wow! What a disappointment for Obama-lovers. Can it be that Hillary and her crying turned things around? Did people see how much Bill Clinton wanted to keep going and feel sympathy? Or is it a case of: New Hampshire voters not wanting to be told what to do? But when I read of the huge turnout, I assumed a big Obama victory. I guess her collapse was quite odd, and the news that it wasn't real makes sense.

AND: Huckabee speaks. Expresses enthusiasm at doing at all well. "This ole southern boy... in New England...."

AND: McCain speaks. The chant is "Mac is back." He can't call himself "The Comeback Kid," because he's not a kid. But it's a great comeback. "I'm going to New Hampshire, and I'm going to tell you the truth.... I talked to the people of New Hampshire. I reasoned with you." Did anyone ever concede like that before? I reasoned with you. Beautiful. [ADDED: Mmmm.... "concede" isn't quite the right word!]

AND: Uuuuggghhhh.... I'm reeling in shock! Hillary overcame The God Obama? Noooooooo!

AND: Did people just get disgusted with the hype?

"Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"

Mike Huckabee asks the NYT reporter. The reporter, Zev Chafets, portrays Huckabee as rather sly:

Romney, a Mormon, had promised that he would be addressing the subject of his religion a few days later. I asked Huckabee, who describes himself as the only Republican candidate with a degree in theology, if he considered Mormonism a cult or a religion. ‘‘I think it’s a religion,’’ he said. ‘‘I really don’t know much about it.’’

I was about to jot down this piece of boilerplate when Huckabee surprised me with a question of his own: ‘‘Don’t Mormons,’’ he asked in an innocent voice, ‘‘believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?’’

Earlier in the article, Chafets also references the devil — who, I think, appalls most NYT readers not because they fear Hell but because they fear those who concern themselves with the famous old supernatural malefactor. The context is that Huckabee is glowing over the endorsement of Tim LaHaye, author of the ‘‘Left Behind’’ series:

Recently [LaHaye] donated a hockey rink to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, although some members of the faculty there deride ‘‘Left Behind’’ as science fiction. Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, has no such reservations. He considers the ‘‘Left Behind’’ books, in which the world comes to a violent end as Jesus triumphs over Satan, a ‘‘compelling story written for nontheologians.’’

Is Chafets trying to get readers to think that Huckabee is more benighted than a Liberty University professor? What actually is the difference between viewing the books as "science fiction" or as a "story for nontheologians"? Is it that those faculty members "deride" the story while Huckabee finds it "compelling"? But those unnamed faculty members don't stand to benefit from the endorsement of a very popular author, and there's actually nothing inconsistent between ridiculing the scenario in those books and acknowledging that the story works very well to engage some people in thinking about religion.

Satan horns his way into the article again when Chafets sits down to lunch with Huckabee:

Lunch with Mike Huckabee is a study in faith-based dieting. He has lost 110 pounds in recent years, a feat he chronicled in a book, ‘‘Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork.’’ This has given Huckabee something to talk about on daytime television. More important, it has lent him evangelical street cred. An important part of the evangelical narrative is overcoming the devil. But Huckabee was seemingly born born-again. Luckily for him, gluttony counts as a sin, Crisco as a Christian chemical dependency. By the time he reached 40, Huckabee had packed more than 300 pounds onto his 5-foot-11 frame. Then he began wrestling, calorie by calorie, with Satan.

Huckabee ordered soup and a sandwich without drama or comment and began talking about rock ’n’ roll.

Damn! Why won't Huck give Chafets the religious nuggets he so craves?

This is his regular warm-up gambit with reporters of a certain age, meant to convey that he is a cool guy for a Baptist preacher. Naturally I fell for it...

... but not hard enough to resist adding Satan! to the text of the article even though Huckabee apparently hadn't even mentioned religion at this point.

... and asked who he would like to play at his inaugural. ‘‘I’ve got to start with the Stones,’’ Huckabee said. The governor regards 1968 as the dawning of ‘‘the age of the birth-control pill, free love, gay sex, the drug culture and reckless disregard for standards.’’ The Rolling Stones album ‘‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’’ provided the soundtrack for that annus terribilis.

Satan again! Is Satan tempting Chafets? And why not tell us about "Sympathy for the Devil"? That came out in 1968. "Satanic Majesties Request" was released in 1967 and contained candyass songs like "She's a Rainbow." Maybe the editor decided it was high time to strike one Satan reference.

But Mike Huckabee wanted me to know that he believes in the separation of church and stage.

"Church and stage"? Oh, so that's not a typo? It's a Huckabee joke that's been processed into near imperceptibility.

You put all that Satan into the article and then you don't let us get the feeling for how he really talks about Satan? And the big quote everyone's going to get from the article is the one I've put in the title to this post, which leaves Huckabee — perhaps a kindly and humorous guy — looking... devilish.

"Mitt Romney stood up, and vetoed in-state tuition for illegal aliens, opposed driver's licenses for illegals."

"Mike Huckabee? Supported in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants. Huckabee even supported taxpayer-funded college scholarships for illegal aliens."

That's Mitt Romney's new ad.

Meanwhile, Ryan Lizza has this big piece in The New Yorker about the Republican Party's embrace of "nativism." Excerpt:

“[Immigration] does appear to be the issue out here wherever we are,” [Mike Huckabee] told me. “Nobody’s asked about Iraq—doesn’t ever come up. The first question out of the box, everywhere I go—Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, it doesn’t matter—is immigration. It’s just red hot, and I don’t fully understand it.”

Romney has not been similarly reflective in trying to discern the source of the issue’s power. Rather, he has quickly and easily adopted the negative code words of the anti-immigration movement—“sanctuary cities,” “amnesty”—and has tried to attach them to Giuliani and Huckabee. In doing so, he became the first top-tier candidate to seize the Tancredo mantle. My own sense, from talking to Huckabee, a Southern populist, and McCain, a border-state senator, is that they are genuinely appalled by Romney’s tactics, not only because of the damage to their campaigns but also because of the damage they believe he’s doing to the Party’s image....

[L]ast week, Huckabee, too, found his inner Tancredo: he announced the Secure America Plan, which included tough language about enforcement and pressuring illegal immigrants to return home. This leaves McCain as the only Republican candidate who hasn’t folded in the face of Romney’s attacks. At the press lunch in Virginia, after McCain had discussed his warm relations with several candidates, a reporter asked about Romney. “I’ve never known him,” McCain said icily. “I’ve never had a relationship with him.”

Obama's "The One," says Oprah.

"Apathy is the attitude that disappointment is normal." That's a quote that stood out for me, listening to Oprah Winfrey introducing Barack Obama in South Carolina. I'm watching the video at that link and thinking about how well the familiar Oprah style translates into the political setting.

At first, Oprah sounds hoarse and yells too much, but she settles into things by saying "South Carolina" over and over, talking about her own southern roots, thickening her southern accent, and confessing that she's leaving her comfort zone — "stepping out of my pew." That's an image that combines her beloved TV show and her roots in southern religion. She deftly unites modern TV-pop psychology and old-time religion.

She eases into talking politics. She's never done this before. She's stayed away from politics. She's had apathy, she says, but now she's inspired. To say that is to unite psychology and religion and politics. She increases the sound of the southern preacher in her voice so it makes you start thinking of Martin Luther King just before she says, "You know, Dr. King dreamed the dream." The audience responds with a churchly "Yeah." But we don't have to merely dream anymore. "We get to vote that dream into reality." She still hasn't said the name "Barack Obama," but the listener is on edge expecting the invocation of the name. "The reason I support Barack Obama is because he speaks to the potential inside every one of us."

Thus she presents Obama as an embodiment of our political, religious, and psychological needs. I'm saying "our," even though the presentation is strongly aimed at black people, because I don't lose the sense that she is speaking to the country as a whole. She ends with an image from the old television movie "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," in which the ancient black woman is asking one young black person after another, "Are you The One?" This too combines the psychological, the political, and the religious — religious, because who is "The One" but the savior of mankind?

She tells us some people think that Barack Obama ought to wait. She equates that with the old message that black people ought to have waited for equality. In this rhetoric, to tell him he should wait feels racist. But Oprah never accuses anyone of racism. She never even mentions the name of the rival who wants us to think that she is ahead of him in line. Oprah keeps the positive message in front. This is inspirational. Barack Obama is The One, so allow him to emerge into his rightful place, and we will all be fulfilled, saved... and — why not? — well governed.

ADDED: The photo at the link — to the NYT — says a lot. Oprah and Michelle Obama are standing together under a sign that, cropped, reads "We can believe in." Barack Obama is pointing at them with an active gesture that makes me think he's using his miraculous powers to unite the two women — to unite us all. Believe!

"I don't care if they call me crazy, the new time will go ahead."

Says Hugo Chavez, creating a new time zone for Venezuela, setting the clocks back half an hour.

Science and Technology Minister Hector Nacarro praised the measure.

"I see it as a very positive thing that while there is light we can be in it," he said.

And President Chavez said earlier this year that schoolchildren would arrive for lessons with more energy as a result of the change.

"These children have to get up at five in the morning... they arrive at school dead tired. And why? Because of our time."

Fiendish time! It's ruining everything!

Actually, this isn't the only half-hour-off time zone:

Canada's Newfoundland province is half-an-hour out of step with other Atlantic provinces.

Pakistan is only half-an-hour behind India, while Nepal is a mere 15 minutes ahead of its large southern neighbour.

Western Australia and South Australia observe a 90-minute time difference across the state boundary.

However, the remote border town of Eucla and the surrounding area, home to a few hundred people, operates on its own time zone, 45 minutes ahead of Western Australia and 45 minutes behind South Australia.

"The late Gambino crime boss John Gotti was for ordering the hit [on Rudy Giuliani], and had the support of the leader of the Colombo crime family."

This was back in 1986, back when Giuliani was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and had indicted the heads of the five families. The Gambino and Colombo families said yes, but the other 3 said no, and it did not happen.

I doubt if any blogger will consider it inapt for me at this point to note that Bill and Hillary Clinton once did a commercial where they play-acted roles associated with the fictional TV crime family "The Sopranos."

In this world, there is the real and the fake.

Orin Kerr devastates Frank Rich...

... with facts that Rich should be quite embarrassed not to have checked.

ADDED: Rich also asserts that Thomas never turns a critical eye on Republicans. Rich stresses Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and writes:

One former Nixon White House colleague, Pat Buchanan, said on "Meet the Press" last weekend that it was no big deal for Republican candidates to skip a debate before an African-American audience because blacks make up only about 10 percent of the voting public and Republicans only get about a tenth of that anyway....

Mr. Thomas seems ignorant of this changing America. He can never see past his enemies' list, which in his book expands beyond his political foes, Yale and the press to "elite white women" and "paternalistic big-city whites" and "light-skinned blacks."

But as I wrote back here:

At page 178, of "My Grandfather's Son," Justice Thomas, who was chairman of the EEOC, states that his "main quarrel with the Reagan administration... was that it needed a positive civil-rights agenda, instead of merely railing against quotas and affirmative action."

At page 179, he writes: "Too many of the president's political appointees seemed more interested in playing to the conservative bleachers..." He suspected this was because "blacks didn't vote for Republicans," so there was little to be gained by helping them. As proof that his suspicion was right, he notes that he offered to help the Reagan reelection campaign "only to be met with near-total indifference." A "political consultant" told him "straight out that since the president's reelection strategy didn't include the black vote, there was no role for" him.

So Clarence Thomas wrote explicitly about the exact issue that he "seems ignorant of" to Rich. Yes, of course, he seems ignorant to you, Frank Rich, because you knew the attitude you intended to take and you had your assumptions all lined up when you wrote this idiotic tirade.

Take another look at the column, and you'll see that Rich got most of the material for his column by watching television. I've added some boldface to point this up:

Since kicking off his book tour on "60 Minutes" last Sunday, he has been whining all the way to the bank...

It's useful to watch Mr. Thomas at this moment, 16 years after his riveting confirmation circus....

This could be seen most vividly on "60 Minutes,"...

Bill O'Reilly may have deemed the "60 Minutes" piece "excellent," but others spotted the holes. Marc Morial, the former New Orleans mayor who now directs the National Urban League, told Tavis Smiley on PBS that it was "as though Justice Thomas's public relations firm edited the piece." On CNN, Jeffrey Toobin, the author of the new best-seller about the court, "The Nine," said that it was "real unfair"...

[Thomas] asserted to a compliant Jan Crawford Greenburg of ABC News last week...

Did Rich even read the book?

The Erwin Chemerinsky mystery.

LA Times columnist Dana Parsons says:

... I'm not going to pretend to have penetrated in the last 24 hours the mystery of why UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake tore up the contract Tuesday that he offered Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky a month ago to become the first dean of UCI's law school.

But make no mistake: There is a mystery to be solved. And the answer goes far, far beyond Drake's statement Wednesday that he has "come to the very difficult conclusion that Professor Chemerinsky is not the right fit for the dean's position at UC Irvine at this time."

Who got to Drake, who's been chancellor since mid-2005, and told him that Chemerinsky, a well-known constitutional scholar and acknowledged liberal commentator, isn't the guy for UCI?...

Did a deep-pocketed cadre of conservative donors put the heat on Drake to rescind the offer?

Or did the impetus for the Dump Chemerinsky movement originate with the UC system's Board of Regents, which would have to approve the contract?...

You may think I'm avoiding the obvious, but I'm not: Yes, I know conservative Orange County businessman Donald Bren has pledged $20 million to the new law school and will have his name on it....

Could be, but it's almost inconceivable to me that UCI would offer Chemerinsky -- or anyone -- the job without, if only as a courtesy, telling the man the school is named after....

With a mystery to be solved, the bad press for the nascent law school will rage on and on.

And there is another mystery. The school had a huge interest in an amicable separation with Chemerinsky. Could those who are acting for the school have failed to perceive that there would be devastating bad press? The school has trumpeted its ambitions to become a top tier school. I have to assume they tried to avoid an ugly public breakup. Unless they are shockingly incompetent, there must have been an attempt to reach an agreement with Chemerinsky to create a public appearance that would flatter both him and the new law school. They could have papered over the discord with a nice statement that Chemerinsky wished UCI well but had come to appreciate the depth of family's attachment to Duke and that UCI regretfully accepted that decision and remains convinced that he would have made a wonderful dean. So why did the nastiness boil over where we could see it?

I mean, look at the original press report, based on Chemerinsky's version of the events:

In a showdown over academic freedom, a prominent legal scholar said Wednesday that the University of California, Irvine's chancellor had succumbed to conservative political pressure in rescinding his contract to head the university's new law school, a charge the chancellor vehemently denied.

Erwin Chemerinsky, a well-known liberal expert on constitutional law, said he had signed a contract Sept. 4, only to be told Tuesday by Chancellor Michael V. Drake that he was voiding their deal because Chemerinsky was too liberal and the university had underestimated "conservatives out to get me."

Chemerinsky came away from the experience ready to attack. Why? Is it possible that Drake wanted this? Notice it's not the "conservatives" -- whoever they are -- who are saying political things about Chemerinsky. It's Drake, making assertions about unnamed individuals who are interfering with Drake's preferences. I feel sure that Chemerinsky would not misquote Drake. If there were nothing more from Drake, I would suspect that he and Chemerinsky were working together for a more independent UCI law school.

But:

Later Wednesday, however, Drake said there had been no outside pressure and that he had decided to reject Chemerinsky, now of Duke University and formerly of the University of Southern California, because he felt the law professor's commentaries were "polarizing" and would not serve the interests of California's first new public law school in 40 years....

Drake said he worried that the controversy had the potential to harm the university's reputation. "It was the most difficult decision of my career," he said in an emotional interview, his voice at times quivering.

He sounds quite pathetic.

Chemerinsky and Drake agreed the new dean's dismissal was motivated in part by an Aug. 16 opinion article in the Los Angeles Times, the same day the job offer was made. In it, Chemerinsky asserted that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was "about to adopt an unnecessary and mean-spirited regulation that will make it harder for those on death row to have their cases reviewed in federal court."

But Drake and Chemerinsky split sharply on what role the article played in the decision to fire the incoming dean and whether academic freedom was at stake.

"Shouldn't we as academics be able to stand up for people on death row?" Chemerinsky said.

Drake said "we had talked to him in June about writing op-ed pieces and that he would have to focus on things like legal education in this new role, and then here comes another political piece. It wasn't the subject, it was its existence. What he said doesn't matter."

Another political piece! The procedures leading up to the imposition of the death penalty are a quintessential legal issue. "What he said doesn't matter." Who believes that?

"Obama knew he should vote for Roberts' confirmation, but voted against for purely political reasons."

Beldar reads the Washington Post and paraphrases.

Elsewhere on BeldarBlog -- where baiting Senators is a way of life -- Beldar is begging Senator Kerry to sue him:

I'll waive any statute of limitations defense. I'll waive service of process. Hell, I'll meet you at the federal courthouse doors for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division (you have diversity jurisdiction), and I'll even pay your filing fee!

I love the part about diversity jurisdiction. We need more blogging about jurisdiction....

If you don't like the garish peasants we chose to illustrate the article on opposition to immigration reform, you're prejudiced.

I should have written about this on Sunday, but it annoyed me too much. Let me force myself. This is an attempt by the NYT public editor -- Clark Hoyt -- to respond to criticism about the pictures chosen to illustrate an article about opposition to the immigration bill. (My contribution to the criticism is here.)

Hoyt notes the criticism:

[P]hoto editors looked at pictures to illustrate [Julia] Preston’s story and chose a color photo of another outspoken opponent of the immigration bill, Monique Thibodeaux, for the front page. For inside the paper, they picked a picture of two congressmen and two leaders of Grassfire.org, all in business suits, and a photo of [William] Murphy, smiling, with a gap where his tooth used to be, sitting beside an American flag on steps outside his house.

The blogosphere went wild. Two radio talk show hosts in Southern California reproduced the photo of Murphy on their Web site under a headline that said, “You are not a redneck!” They accused The Times of portraying anyone against the immigration bill as “riff-raff like this guy below.” The words “redneck” and “riff-raff” never appeared in Preston’s article in The Times.

At The Times, the reader call-in line was overwhelmed. And, at last count by my assistant, Michael McElroy, the public editor had received 1,267 e-mail messages, many with the theme, as one put it, that “I’m against the proposed Senate bill on immigration, and I have all of my teeth.” E-mailers called Murphy a “toothless freak” and worse — and these were the people who agreed with him about immigration.

Does Hoyt think the Times should be ashamed? No, you should be ashamed!

“I think it is discriminatory to say all toothless people who represent controversial positions shouldn’t be used,” [said Michele McNally, the assistant managing editor in charge of photography.] “This is a very big country that has a variety of styles and types.”...

I think all those people who have been complaining about Murphy’s photo owe him an apology. They assumed that, because he was missing a tooth, he was missing a brain. They also assumed that editors at The Times shared their prejudices and were attempting to ridicule opponents of the immigration bill.

Yeah, how dare we assume?

What is the point of the public editor column if he's not going to do anything more than repeat whatever defense the editors serve up and blame the critics for daring to criticize? Go read the whole column, and you'll see the drivel I've edited out -- how Murphy is actually a decent human being with feelings. What tripe!

This doesn't address the criticism at all. Whether Murphy and Thibodaux are smart, competent individuals or not, the NYT deserves criticism for using them to obtain the images that would make the the opponents of the bill look like small-minded rustics. It looks -- to a lot of readers -- as though the Times used the photographs in order to stir up the prejudices and assumptions of the readers. When we call you on that, you respond that we're prejudiced and we're making assumptions and pretend you had nothing of the sort in mind. It's not prejudiced to notice when a newspaper is counting on prejudice.

The public editor ought to have gone into depth about how newspapers can manipulate opinion through the use of images and what the proper ethical standards are and analyzed whether the NYT violated those standards. Instead we get the photo editor's shallow defense and a lot of padding about how the guy in the photograph lost his eye and his tooth and how he has friends and family who love him anyway. Ridiculous.

About that suggestion of mine that reading classes should use nonfiction books.

This post has really stirred people up.

Look, my main point is efficiency. Kids need to learn to read, and they should also be learning science and history too, so why not combine the two tasks? Reading would still be taught and, in the early years, would be the central focus of the lesson, but the texts would have an added benefit of getting started learning other academic subjects.

I'm not saying fiction isn't worth reading. I'm saying that it can be held for after hours pleasure reading. Frankly, I think this would increase the love of fiction. Here's this shelf of books that you can read when you finish your other work. You can take them home if you like. I think this would give them an aura of excitement. There are lots of people who have fiction forced on them and avoid it once they're out of school. My father would get passionate about his hatred of "The Return of the Native," which he was forced to read. Me, I read "The Return of the Native" and all of Thomas Hardy's novels on my own and loved them. Look at how kids read the Harry Potter books on their own. Put them outside of the classroom and let kids see them as a leisure treat.

In saying that, I don't mean to say they are just for fun and that there's nothing deep. I'm saying that reading fiction books is or should be intrinsically rewarding and that intrinsic reward is best felt when you are exercising free choice. And I also think that the depths in fiction are best absorbed in a free environment without an authority figure trying to lead you or tell you how to think. Much good fiction is about challenging authority, and I worry that authority figures will choose fiction that they approve of because it teaches the values they like. That's not my idea of how good fiction works.

Another thing I'm not saying is that we shouldn't have literature classes. I've been talking about reading classes, those learn-to-read sessions very young students have. Those students aren't delving into the subtleties of themes and language and so forth. I have no problem with literature classes that teach students how to analyze texts in some fairly deep way, as long as they don't destroy the pleasure and love of art. So perhaps literature classes should be elective.

I'm also not opposed to teaching history and science through the kinds of novels and storybooks that present the information accurately. And I think a history class could very well have students read novels that had an effect on history or how people think about history, like "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or "1984." I've taught a couple "Women in Law and Literature" seminars myself. (We'd read a court case and a novel that dealt with the same subject as the case.)

Finally, I'm not saying that young kids should be given badly written, boring text books as their early readers any more than my critics think they should be given badly written, boring storybooks. That assumption, at the core of many of the criticisms I've read, is so perverse that it makes your whole argument seem to be in bad faith. Or perhaps you have only read nonfiction when it was imposed on you by a teacher and you have never discovered its intrinsic rewards by reading it on your own free choice. I'll bet if you had a shelf of books for kids to choose for their free time and it had some nonfiction books like this one, lots of kids would pick them over fiction. And I think a lot of boys would be grateful and some girls mind be inspired to go into careers that are more common for boys.

Writing this post, I discovered that I'd written on this topic before, inspired by a WaPo article called "Educators Differ on Why Boys Lag in Reading":

"A lot of teachers think of reading as reading stories," said Lee Galda, professor of children's literature at the University of Minnesota. "And in fact, a lot of boys, and not just boys, like nonfiction. But we keep concentrating on novels or short stories and sometimes don't think of reading nonfiction as reading. But in fact it is, and it is extremely important."

Teachers and parents have said boys generally prefer stories with adventure, suspense and fantasy and tend toward reading nonfiction stories and non-narrative informational books, as well as magazines and newspapers.

I wrote:

Maybe it would be easier to say that everyone wants to read what interests them and quite properly rebels at being told what to read. (Maybe boys just rebel more conspicuously than girls.)

It's one thing for the biology teacher to insist that you read a biology book, but if teachers are just trying to get kids to read, why shouldn't they provide a broad selection and give kids a chance to discover what they find interesting? It looks as though the biggest problem is that teachers are pushing too much literary fiction on kids. English teachers tend to be people who enjoy that sort of thing, but most people don't read it on their own. Why should we have an appetite for stories? And why should our appetite for stories be about elegantly described characters and their relationships (as opposed to adventure and fantasy)?

I used to take my sons to the bookstore and let them find whatever they were interested in. We used to hang out at Borders nearly every day, and I usually ended up buying a book or two. What did they want? Humor, especially in comic form (like "Life in Hell"). Collections of amazing science facts and other things that did not have to be read in linear fashion. (This was a big favorite.) Books about movies and music and other subjects they were interested in.

And here's another old post of mine, describing a group of 3 boys I saw at Borders, getting more excited about a book than I've ever seen kids get. But good luck getting your local teachers to include this one on their pleasure-reading shelf:



ADDED: Some email:

As a very young boy (7-11) I never bothered reading one book of fiction (Lord of the Rings changed that for me at the age of 16). All I read as a child were books on dinosaurs and books on the middle ages.

When I entered 7th grade and we began studying the 13th century, I knew more about early feudal crop rotation and the politics of southern France than my 8th grade teacher....honestly. I also knew the difference between the paleozoic and cretaceous periods. I also read books about lasers...college level books that I had no business reading (and despite not understanding any of it I enjoyed the reading.)

I had the pleasure of teaching English in South Korea for 3 odd years. I ditched the "learn English" type books in favor of beginning science and history books early on. I tell you, the boys AND girls had a fantastic time learning English while reading about how the early Greeks figured out the Earth was round, or how photosynthesis works.

I also made the poor kids memorize poetry, but that's neither here nor
there.

UPDATE: Among my many critics, I want to give the prize to this guy for writing "Althouse correctly notes that reading comprehension skills among high-school students are on the decline" -- not because he gave me credit for something but because I never said anything about reading comprehension skills among high school students! I hope he does an update, something like: Althouse correctly notes that reading comprehension skills among bloggers are on the decline.

"Kraft singles on white bread was one of this President's most requested lunch items."

Writes Walter Scheib, former White House Executive Chef, fired by Laura Bush in 2005. Don't mess with the chef. He knows those embarrassing facts about you, like the way you like processed cheese and white bread, and is not afraid to tell the world.

Scheib, a professionally trained cook with an outstanding CV even before he started work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, tells me flatly that making lunch for Bush was "not very challenging and didn't really require any of my professional training".

But according to Scheib, this is not a making a partisan or political statement. During our conversation over coffee in a swish New York bar, he does refer to the burgers and 'dogs to which his first Presidential employer, Bill Clinton, was partial. Yet Scheib's book, White House Chef, part memoir, part cookbook, clearly shows who he preferred working for, and why, during his 11 years in the basement kitchen, even if his professionalism - and presumably his desire to work for the big guns again - rule out any the dishing of any serious dirt....

"The White House is a private home," says Scheib. "And the important thing is to achieve what residents want - whether that's a bowl of chicken soup when they're not well or a state dinner for 900 people. Each is important and I submit that the chicken soup may even be more critical to your long-term success."

Scheib, or "Cookie" as President Bush liked to call him, is frustratingly discreet when it comes to talking about his tête-à-têtes over toast with his employers.

Aw, Cookie. I guess he's not a rat. But now the book's no fun at all! Weren't you ready to go to the bookstore and check the index for all the Hillary stuff? Check out the acknowlegements:

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, for taking a chance on me - you literally changed my life and I'll be in your debt forever - and President William Jefferson Clinton, for your good humour and social grace - I actually believe it when you say you are happy to see me. President George W Bush and First Lady Laura Bush - it was my pleasure to serve you."

Miaow. But when I mention this to Scheib he mumbles and says only, "Well, the temperament of the two families is substantially different."

"Both first ladies had eclectic palates," Scheib reveals. "Both presidents on the other hand, if you'd opened a barbeque or rib joint in the basement, would have been happy as clams...."

And if you'd opened up a clam joint in the basement, they'd've been...

When Bill Clinton swept into the White House with his forceful wife at his side, it was Hillary who decided to bring a new type of cuisine to the White House and it's never ending stream of guests. Less than two years after moving in, she began searching for an experienced chef. "There was this idea that great cuisine should be driven not by complicated techniques but by tremendous, fresh, ripe, spectacular, seasonal ingredients. It should be a flavour-driven concept. She wanted someone who could modernise the White House menu by moving away from the traditional French style and towards modern American cuisine." Scheib says.

In other words, Hillary was up on what had been the most well-known food trend of the previous 20 years. She's so amazing!

Surprisingly neither Bill nor Hillary ever asked for any cooking tips.

So Hillary didn't want to make cookies, Cookie?

Bill liked smoked mozzarella and pepperoni calzones with spicy tomato sauce, Southern fried chicken and Porterhouse steak (24 ounces, no less) with béarnaise sauce, while Hillary requested dishes such as curried Cornish hen, tuna melt with no-fat cheese, and cabbage rolls with shredded turkey and mixed vegetables.

Which food preference suggests better aptitude for the Presidency?

While the Clintons had been an inclusive group, who made staff a part of their extended family, the situation was distinctly different with the Bushes - from day one.

"With Laura it was simply, You're in a domestic position. We respect your professionalism, we like what you've done, everything is fine, but you're not our friend,'" says Scheib. "And a lot of my classic training was suddenly no longer necessary."...

The new President was into simpler food than his predecessor. "He didn't like soup or salad, or anything green," says Scheib. "He really just wanted beef and anything that could be prepared in Tex-Mex style. There was little challenge in preparing the President's lunch."

He really just wanted beef and anything that could be prepared in Tex-Mex style. Actually, that food preference seems really presidential to me. I mean if you were a PR person and it was your job to make up a lie about what your candidate eats, wouldn't that be the best lie?

President Bush was also reluctant to dine with his wife if she had friends over for lunch or if she was having anything fancy'. "He wanted one of his go-to items such as a cheese sandwich or a peanut butter and honey sandwich on white toast with potato chips," says Scheib.

Sounds right to me. I remember reading that Jackie Kennedy liked to have just a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. Suddenly, it seems completely elegant, doesn't it?

The book is "White House Chef."

The immigration deal.

In the Senate:

The bill would provide an opportunity “right away” for millions of illegal aliens to correct their status, said Mr. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. It would emphasize family ties as well as employment skills in weighing how soon immigrants could become legal residents, he said.

But it would also emphasize improved border security and would call for “very strong sanctions” against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, according to Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania.

Both senators acknowledged that the bill, whose general terms are agreeable to the White House, is likely to come under fire both from the political right and the political left — decried either as “amnesty” or as “not humanitarian enough,” as Mr. Specter said....

Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at Cornell University, said: “The legislation taking shape in the Senate represents a major philosophical shift. It tells the world that we are emphasizing characteristics that will enhance our global competitiveness, like education and job skills. We would not rely as much on family background as we have in the past.”

I haven't written much about immigration because I see it as a complex policy issue that needs a pragmatic solution. I have no ready-made ideological response. So I'll just say I hope they figured it out as well as they could, congratulations for agreeing on something, and thanks for extracting this issue from the 2008 presidential campaign.

Unlike me, Mickey Kaus is constantly talking about immigration. I have never understood why he's so heated up about it, but since it's his thing, let's see what he's saying:

This is looking more and more like the Bush administration's domestic version of Iraq: a big risky gamble, based on wishful thinking and nonexistent administrative competence, that will end in disaster. What disaster? 1) Lower wages for struggling unskilled--and semi-skilled--American workers (including, especially, underclass men) even when the labor market should be tight; 2) Income inequality moving further in the direction of Latin America--maybe even to such an extent that social equality between the rich and their servers becomes difficult to maintain; and 3) A large semi-assimilated population along our southern border with complex, understandably binational allegiances--our own Quebec. ... Actually, I can see why some Republicans might not be so bothered by (1) and (2). But what about Democrats?