It is, of course, the 12th anniversary of 9/11. And it is now “Patriot Day,” which is an especially stupid name because we already have “Patriots’ Day,” which celebrates the Battles of Lexington and Concord. But it is an offensive holiday even still. It became a holiday immediately after 9/11 during the time when George Bush Jr was saying things like, “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” The idea most clearly is that either you go along with whatever harebrained policies the government decides on or you are not a patriot. That, of course, goes entirely against the founding principles of this country. I remember in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, I did not feel any sense of pride and patriotism. It was a horrible event. But almost immediately, it led us on a terrible journey that ended with rights infringed upon, widespread torture, and many tens of thousands of deaths—most of them entirely innocent. So to me, 9/11 is a symbol of a terrible attack on our country and how we then reacted to it in about the worst way possible. It does not honor our dead.

In 1522 the great naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi was born. He was the major force behind the Bologna botanical garden. Poet James Thomson was born in 1700. British composer William Boyce was born in 1711. Here is his Overture No. 4 in D Major:

The astronomer (and mystic) James Hopwood Jeans was born in 1877. Author D. H. Lawrence was born in 1885. I’ve never much liked him but I’m sure I would like him more if I could be scandalized by his work as readers where during his lifetime. Modern composer Harry Somers was born in 1925.

Songwriter Alan Bergman is 88 today. With his wife Marilyn, he wrote the song “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” And, I’m sorry, but I still rather like it. I like pop music that at least tries to be adult. And the Bergmans have been married for 55 years as of this year.

The film director Brian De Palma is 73. Playwright Gerome Ragni is 71. He co-wrote Hair. The great guitarist Leo Kottke is 68. Here he is on Austin City Limits about 20 years ago:

The fine screenwriter Tony Gilroy is 57. He also directs. I’ve only seen Michael Clayton, but as mainstream films go, it is about as good as it gets. Here is perhaps the best scene in the film with the great Tom Wilkinson:

Actor John Hawkes is 54. Dance music (I guess) creator Moby is 48. And singer Harry Connick Jr is 46.

The day, however, belongs to the great writer William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry, who was born in 1862. He is mostly remembered today for the surprise endings of his stories. You know the kind of thing: the psychologist helps a boy who claims to see dead people only for it to be revealed that the psychologist himself is dead. No wait… How about this: a couple each sells their most valuable possession to buy the other something for that possession. It’s old hat now, but I’m sure at the time it was every bit as affecting as The Sixth Sense. What’s more, “The Gift of the Magi” still works as a Christmas story—a lot better than most Christmas stories.

What I especially like about Porter is that his past is unclear. Maybe he embezzled from a bank he worked at. Or maybe he was just incompetent. This same dynamic is true of Cervantes who may have stole tax receipts or maybe just screwed up. Regardless, they both spent time in jail and then went on to do their best work. And all of that work came relatively late in their lives. Of course, it didn’t come that late for Porter, who died as a result of his heavy drinking at the age of 47.

Happy birthday William Sydney Porter!

About two weeks ago at the New York Times, Annie Lowrey wrote what I think is a very important article, In Obama’s High-Level Appointments, the Scales Still Tip Toward Men. It is based on an important fact: women are no better represented in the Obama administration than they were in the Clinton administration. This is interesting given that the two administrations are separated by almost two decades. Now it is true that Obama is doing better than Bush, but that’s to be expected; Democratic presidents are not supposed to be sexist racist homophobic assholes. So we really should get better, especially considering that there are far more women who are what today passes for an acceptable political appointee.

I think the problem is not that Obama is sexist, because he clearly isn’t. But he very much has the “old boys club” mentality. I’ve written about this in the past. Obama is very insular—equally as much as Bush Jr was. I never would have guessed that before he was elected, and in fact, that was what I considered the best argument for him. But now, he seems to value comity above getting the best solutions. I think we have seen this throughout his administration, from the economic stimulus to same sex marriage.

But the best example comes with the Federal Reserve and who is going to replace Ben Bernanke. The obvious choice is Janet Yellen. Not only is she extremely well qualified for the job and second in line for it anyway, she would be the first woman to ever have the job. I don’t mean to suggest that Obama is unaware of these facts. But all of it seems to be trumped by the fact that one of his “boys,” Larry Summers, wants the job. So it doesn’t matter that Summers has been catastrophically wrong about really important things for the last 20 years; he’s one of the insiders and Obama wants to give the job to him.

I had major problems with the Clinton administration—especially on economic policy. But it is at least true that he tried to get many and varied opinions on issues. And that was reflected in the excellent job he did in terms of filling his administration with women. I think Obama is doing a worse job because he isn’t like that. And there’s even a bit more. My limited experience in corporate America shows that women are at least as good if not better than men in terms of work and skills and brilliance. But women are almost never self-promoting bullshitters. And that’s why, even after most people are not explicitly sexist, men are still far more likely to head companies and important institutions like the Federal Reserve: because people buy all the bullshit.

Matt Yglesias noted something really telling about how Obama fills vacancies in his administration. In Lowrey’s article, she quotes Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco defending Obama’s hiring practices. But she’s been a big victim of those practices:

I think the problem is that Mastromonaco is “merely” competent. She wasn’t “exciting.” And if this sounds kind of like how teenagers manage their love lives, it isn’t a coincidence. Obama seems to be a little hung up on the idea that some people just have a magic spark that makes them great at their jobs. My experience in the world is that intelligence and hard work are the only things that matter. Obama’s magic thinking has led to sub-optimal policy, but also to a less diverse administration.

This morning, Jonathan Chait wrote what I thought was a pointless article about President Obama’s speech last night. But he offered up a great subtitle, “The East Room wouldn’t give him his deposit back.” That about sums it up. While watching it I wondered what the hell he was doing on prime time. He was making the case for war. But he was also talking about a negotiated settlement. There was a lot of cognitive dissonance going on. For example, he wanted us to know that Syria was only negotiating on chemical weapons because the United States was planning an attack. He said that we needed to keep up the pressure. And in order to do that he was… calling off the Congressional vote?

The administration would have us believe that Syria is negotiating only because the United States will use its military to uphold truth, justice, and the American way. But that isn’t what’s going on in the minds of Putin and Assad. Just like everyone else in the world, they can see that Congress is not going to give Obama the authorization to go to war with Syria. So they must assume that Obama will just go it alone. God knows there is precedent for this. What they may not realize is just how committed our not really loyal opposition is. The House Republicans are itching for a reason to impeach the president and if he went to war without getting their approval, they would impeach him faster than you can say “Monica Lewinsky.”

Given all this, I wonder if Assad isn’t interested in this chemical weapons deal as a way to jump start a broader deal to end the civil war. Probably not. It is more likely that he is looking back at Gaddafi and Hussein and thinking, “It doesn’t matter what the law says, this country will not stop until I am dead.” After all, despite the totally illegal and unjustified war in Iraq, Hussein is still dead. But regardless of what Assad is thinking, I hope that this chemical weapons deal will lead to a broader agreement on the civil war.

The worst part of Obama’s speech last night was when he hammered on the intelligence. As it is, I don’t much care if chemical weapons were used and by whom. It is terrible, of course, but there are all kinds of terrible things happening in the world that we don’t seem to care about. There are two problems with the focus on intelligence. First, it implies that the issue is the intelligence, as if everyone would be in favor of an attack if only we knew. Second, I know that the intelligence is less solid as he says. Yet he was claiming that we “know.” Sorry, but I don’t buy that. There have got to be uncertainties and the fact that he doesn’t admit that makes me think they are large.

He said that we are not the world’s police force. But then he went on to admit that yes, we are the world’s police force. Because we are “exceptional” (Oh, how I hate that word!) we are the only ones to do it. Well, he’s completely wrong when he claims that we have the moral authority to do it. We are at best in murky waters. And I still don’t understand why 110,000 deaths were just fine with us, but these 1,400 deaths (a number I continue to be skeptical about) do matter. The whole idea that chemical weapons are wrong because they are indiscriminate strikes me as absurd. Modern warfare doesn’t exactly have a “front.” Civilians are everywhere and bombs are indiscriminate.

I’m not that fond of Lawrence O’Donnell, but I thought he nailed the issue last night on The Last Word:

It seems to me that Obama’s speech last night was for face saving. He could have just canceled it. But he seems to want to continue to make the argument that regarding Syria, he is a righteous one. It doesn’t much matter to me. As long as we get a negotiated settlement, he can brag all he likes.

Paul Krugman reminded me of an old theory of mine. I’m afraid that Krugman looks at as a kind of conspiracy, but it isn’t that at all. At least, it isn’t a conspiracy that anyone responsible is aware of. Basically, it is a way in which Republican presidents are almost guaranteed re-election, while making Democrats much more likely to lose.

It is all based on the fact of political science that the single most important factor in the re-election of a president is the economic trend. Regardless of how good the economy is, if it is improving, the president is likely to be re-elected. If it is getting worse (even if it is still strong), the president is likely to be thrown out. Thus, if a president were really smart, he would cause the economy to tank for the first half of his term and then allow it to improve in the second half.

Of course, even I don’t think that presidents are that cynical. Anyway, they don’t have that much control of the economy. But there is a natural process that causes this effect to take place anyway. Economic policy in this country is now totally out of whack. Democrats have good economic policy ideas that range from quite liberal to quite conservative. Republicans now have pretty much all bad economic policy ideas. Basically, there are two: cut the taxes of the rich and cut spending on the poor. Now, cutting taxes on the rich isn’t terrible, but it does very little good for the economy because the rich already have more money than they can spend or invest. Cutting spending on the poor is terrible because it simply slows the economy.

When presidents first get into office, they have their greatest power. Normally, their big proposals are passed in the first two years or even the first year. This means that Republicans get in and enact policies that harm the economy. But two to three years in, the economy adjusts and finally starts to grow. This happens just in time for the Republican presidents’ re-election campaigns. Remember: it doesn’t matter how bad the economy is, only that it be improving! Thus Republicans have a distinct advantage in this regard.

Democrats, on the other hand, enact policies that improve the economy. So things really do get better the first couple of years of their presidencies. But during the last year or two, the effects have run their course. There may be lower unemployment as the president faces re-election, but it will likely be stagnant or even going down a bit. Thus, for all the good work the president did on behalf of the economy actually works against him.

It is hard to see this effect directly because the Federal Reserve has an enormous impact on the economy. But look at the following graph of civilian unemployment since 1972:

The beginning is complicated. Ford really should have won in 1976; I think we can blame that loss on Nixon. The 1980 election was changed because the Fed created a recession to get inflation down. But when the Fed lowered interest rates in 1983, it made Reagan look really good and assured his re-election in 1984. Bush Sr road the Fed wave into office, but then lost partly just because of cyclical effects, but also because he stopped spending like a drunken sailor. Clinton does his thing. Bush Jr stole the election. (Just look at the graph!) But Bush is the best example of this effect. His policies make things worse but the harm stops when he is up for re-election. Obama gets the same free pass into the White House that Reagan did. But the crisis was so bad that he managed to slide into a second term.

This was the main reason that I feared Romney getting elected. I was sure that he was going to have this kind of effect on the economy and that he’d get re-elected because things were finally getting better in 2016. But it might not have worked out that way. Romney might have had a Democratic arc. After all, the economy was still terrible in January. He probably would have made the Bush tax cuts permanent and that would have been good for the economy. The Republicans are always against Keynesian stimulus when a Democrat is in the White House, but they love it when a Republican takes his place. So maybe Romney would have been a one term president too. Things are so bad, all bets are off.

The main thing is that Republican economic ideas are generally bad and Democratic economic ideas are generally good. And this means that Republicans have a distinct advantage in controlling the White House.

On this day in 1659, the British Baroque composer Henry Purcell was born. Here is his In vain the Am’rous Flute:

Architect John Soane was born in 1753. The father of pragmatism Charles Sanders Peirce was born in 1839. Expressionist painter Marianne von Werefkin was born in 1860. Physicist Arthur Compton was born in 1892.

Animal actor Rin Tin Tin was born in 1918. And the great paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould was born in 1941.

Golfer Arnold Palmer is 84 today. Screenwriter Bo Goldman is 81. Singer-songwriter Jose Feliciano is 68. Speaking of animal actors, Bill O’Reilly is 64. He is a truly awful person. Actor Amy Irving is 60. One of the worst film directors ever, Chris Columbus is 55. And another not very good film director, Guy Ritchie is 45.

The day, however, belongs to actor Colin Firth who is 53 today. I like him well enough, but I give him the day only because he is one of Andrea’s crushes. I still maintain that Matthew Macfadyen makes a much better Mr. Darcy than he does. But he’s still very good:

Happy birthday Colin Firth!

Over at The Guardian, Mark Weisbrot reminds us of something important, If There’s a Syria Diplomatic Deal, Thank Congressional Resistance to a New War. The article is mostly about all of the uncertainties in the case for war that liberals and conservatives in Congress have been pushing. The point is well worth making because the administration—especially Kerry and his minions—are arguing that the negotiated settlement regarding Syrian chemical weapons is only happening because they’ve been so belligerent.

This is amazing when you consider that if it had been up to Kerry, we would have attacked Syria a week and a half ago. They are also claiming that Syria’s acceptance of the deal proves what we didn’t know before, namely, that Syria definitely has chemical weapons. Just hold the phone! The one thing the administration has claimed throughout this whole thing is that Syria’s chemical weapons were not open to debate. We absolutely, positively knew that they had them. This wasn’t like Iraq where intelligence sources simply believed there were WMDs. But it turns out that in addition to everything else they’ve been lying about, they’ve been lying about this too.

So we get it coming and going. We knew Syria had chemical weapons before a negotiation was under way so we were right to threaten an attack. And once the negotiation is under way, we were right to threaten an attack because it proves Syria had chemical weapons all along. By this logic, there is no conclusion other than that Kerry was right about all his chest pounding and foot stomping.

What it really all means is that if a country has a very big military, other countries will try to appease it when it starts talking war. So if the United States starts talking about nuking Venezuela, other countries really will step in and see if they can calm the situation—even providing America with goodies that it wants. But that doesn’t mean that America is right to go around threatening countries that it doesn’t like. What’s more, if an equal amount of effort had been applied to negotiation, the Syrian civil war might be over by now.

At this point, the Obama administration appears to be taking the Russian deal very seriously. This leads credence to my opinion that Obama simply blew it and found himself in a situation where he felt he had to do something because of his careless talk of “red lines.” But I still don’t know what to think of Kerry who sounds as belligerent as John McCain. I don’t think it’s fake. I no longer think he is just being the “good soldier” in the administration. And I certainly don’t think this Russian deal was planned. I think he just wants to be on the front political lines of a “blood good war.” How the mighty have fallen.