Friday, July 18, 2003

Recommended Reading

Paul Krugman makes what may well be a significant connection: The premise that Bush lied about the economy to justify tax cuts just as he lied about the uranium (and maybe a couple other things) to justify the war in Iraq. Here's a couple of key sentences from Krugman...

There's no mystery about why the administration's budget projections have borne so little resemblance to reality: realistic budget numbers would have undermined the case for tax cuts. So budget analysts were pressured to high-ball estimates of future revenues and low-ball estimates of future expenditures. Any resemblance to the way the threat from Iraq was exaggerated is no coincidence at all. And just as some people argue that the war was justified even though it was sold on false pretenses, some say that the biggest budget deficit in history is justified even though the administration got us here with cooked numbers. Some point out that Ronald Reagan ran even bigger deficits as a share of G.D.P. But they hope people won't remember that in the face of those deficits, Mr. Reagan raised taxes, reversing part of his initial tax cut.

Now, I don't know that all that's quite true or quite fair. I mean, don't most government projections of deficits turn out to be way low? That doesn't make them all fibs. But if Democrats want to paint a negative image of G.W. Bush, there it is: He lies and unlike the previous White House occupant, lies about things that genuinely harm or even end lives. I mean, even a lot of folks who liked Clinton didn't think you could believe everything he said. But the majority of Bush supporters have this thing about his "character" and personal integrity, and if he takes a hit there, it could really do some damage. Right now, he can't really argue that deficits aren't out of control or that everything's going precisely the way he wants in Iraq. If Democrats make those into issues not just of competence but of deception, Bush could be in a lot of trouble.

I'm not necessarily looking forward to that. One of the political tricks I've often thought was underhanded was the selling of a so-called "Pattern of Deception." It usually translates to, "We're not going to be content to convince you that the opposition lied about A and B. We want to convince you that establishes a pattern so you should assume they're also lying about C, D, E and everything else." I don't think that's fair. Wasn't fair when Republicans did it to Clinton...won't be fair when Democrats do it to Bush...

But it does seem to work.

• Posted at 12:56 AM · LINK

Blogging From the Con

Well, the good news is that as you can see, I got the first-string laptop working again before I left. The bad news is that first time I connected to the Internet, it got infected with what seems to be the "g" variation of the W32.opaserv.worm. This is a nasty little beast that has Norton Anti-Virus popping up every few seconds to inform me that it has quarantined this or that unwanted file. I think I've managed to remove it but then I thought that the first four times.

But forget about that. Let's talk about the Comic-Con International here in San Diego. Let's talk about a convention so big, you could fit ten other conventions inside it and still have room for a Boat Show. Let's talk about an exhibit hall so large that folks look around and figure they'll never see it all, so why even start? Today (yesterday by the time this'll get posted), I wandered part of the area actually devoted to comic books, chatted with friends and hosted three well-received panels. The first was the Seduction of the Innocent panel with Al Feldstein, Kurt Busiek, Grant Geissman and Dwight Decker. Seduction of the Innocent, for those who don't know, was a book written 50 years ago by a man some have called the Josef Mengele of comics. His name was Dr. Fredric Wertham and his premise was that comic books — especially those of the horror and crime variety, the kind Al Feldstein was then editing and writing — were a major corrupter of America's youth. A Senate subcommittee seized on this concept and actually held hearings to determine if the government should censor or otherwise regulate the comic book industry. Wertham was a star witness and the main rebuttal came from William M. Gaines, who was then the publisher of the comics Mr. Feldstein was producing. At the panel today, we showed some video clips from the hearing and also from an interview with Judge Murphy, who was the first head of the censorship board that most of the publishers instituted as a solution to the problem. (Some have said the cure was worse than the disease.)

We followed this with a little treasure — a segment from a 1967 episode of The Mike Douglas Show, on which Dr. Wertham appeared to plug his latest book, A Sign For Cain. The other two guests were Vincent Price and Adam West, and after praising Price as a great actor, the doctor launched into an attack on a recent Vincent Price movie, fixating on the ghastly image of a bathtub full of blood. It was an odd debate with Price making Wertham look pretty foolish — a superfluous task, as the doc was doing a fine job of that on his own. (I wish I'd had time to show more of the interview, or of another appearance Wertham made with Mike Douglas. On that episode, he had his thesis pretty well demolished by Mike's co-host of the week, Barbara Feldon.) I'll write more about this at a later date, hopefully on a disease-free computer.

Following that panel, I did two "spotlights" — one interviewing Sal Buscema, who drew darn near every Marvel comic at one time or another. The other was with Stan Goldberg, who is now the most prominent of the Archie artists but who, at the birth of "The Marvel Age of Comics," was the firm's entire coloring department. Two very fine, fascinating gentlemen.

Not much more to report except that the convention staff is anticipating a staggering turnout the next few days. It was possible to get around in the exhibit hall today. I'm not sure that will be true of Saturday or even tomorrow. There is so much enthusiasm in that room...so many people travelling from all over the world to be there, so much commerce related directly or indirectly to comics, it makes you wonder why most of them sell so poorly.

• Posted at 12:25 AM · LINK