Hard Ten

Texas team regrets 100-0 win

I was talking to my communication law class today about virtue and law. In its Miami Herald vs. Tornillo decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a newspaper couldn’t be compelled to provide space for a “right of reply.” The High Court noted that “a responsible press is an undoubtedly desirable goal, but press responsibility is not mandated by the Constitution and like many other virtues it cannot be legislated.”

A good point. You can’t legislate a virtue because as soon as you do, it’s no longer a virtue — people are just following the law.

This story about a girl basketball team’s 100-0 win over an opponent illustrates the point well:

The private Christian school defeated Dallas Academy last week. Covenant was up 59-0 at halftime.

A parent who attended the game told The Associated Press that Covenant continued to make 3-pointers — even in the fourth quarter. She praised the Covenant players but said spectators and an assistant coach were cheering wildly as their team edged closer to 100 points.

There is no mercy rule in girls basketball that shortens the game or permits the clock to continue running when scores become lopsided. There is, however, “a golden rule” that should have applied in this contest, said Edd Burleson, the director of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools. Both schools are members of this association, which oversees private school athletics in Texas.

There shouldn’t have to be a mercy rule. People should just know how to show mercy. That’s virtue.

Same words, different delivery

A comparison of rhetoric from Obama and Bush. Rather enlightening.

Smoke on the Water (Oh yes I think so)

This is awesome.

Hopes for the Obama Presidency

Instapundit offers this hope for the Obama administration:

I agree with Barack Obama on some issues and disagree on others, but my hopes for the Obama presidency have mostly to do with tone. By reaching out to conservative columnists, and by going out of his way to say that he thinks George W. Bush is “a good man,” Mr. Obama has made some efforts to transcend the nastiness that has emanated from much of the Democratic Party over the past eight years, where open hatred of Mr. Bush and Republicans has been a major source of social bonding. That is a wise move on his part, as it makes it less likely that Republicans will return the favor. Venomous hatred by the opposition seriously harmed the Clinton and Bush administrations, and Mr. Obama will have a much more successful presidency if he can avoid similar problems. Whether this approach succeeds or not, however, will depend on whether his followers go along; in this, it is an early test of President Obama’s ability to lead.

As a recovering Clinton-hater, I take responsibility for my part in creating the backlash in tone that enveloped the Bush administration. I think Obama will help all Americans realize that a venomous hatred for the other party serves no one.

Glenn Reynolds goes on to call for an end to the federally mandated drinking age of 21 as a step toward ending the “war on drugs.” I support both proposals.

Read Peggy Noonan’s column as well. She made the same point:

There was not a sentence or thought that hit you in the chest and entered your head not to leave. But it was worthy, had weight, and was adult. In fact, Mr. Obama lauded a certain kind of maturity: “In the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.” This was a call for a new nobility that puts aside “petty grievances and false promises” that have marked the oral culture of our modern political life. He seemed to be saying that the old, pointless partisanship of the past does not fit the current moment.

Inaugural Address Highlight

Great words:

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society’s ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.

To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

Some people hate to admit that there are regimes in the world far more repressive than the United States. These people also believe that America shoulders the blame for all the ills in the world. Glad to see Obama doesn’t fall into this camp.

Obama’s emotional intelligence

From Andrew Sullivan’s Obama column, some great points:

He doesn’t charm like Clinton did and Bush tried to. Unlike both men, but especially Clinton, he appears to have no need to be loved by everyone in the room. He often finds it hard to disguise how tired he feels. He is capable of evoking enormous inspiration, but he has yet to be able to hide it when he is bored. There is a wryness to his conversation and a dryness to his humor, both of which are sustained by an intellect of power. The revered liberal jurist Larry Tribe has said that in decades of teaching at Harvard Law School, he has never had a cleverer student than Obama. I don’t think he’s exaggerating. Intellectually, Obama is in Bill Clinton’s league. But what he has over Clinton is emotional intelligence to buttress his grasp of policy.

What he gets, what he seems to intuit, is how to make others feel as if they are being heard. This is simple enough in theory but hard to pull off consistently in practice. His model is to figure out what another person needs and, if it helps Obama to get what he wants, to provide it.

He sensed that Hillary Clinton needed independent respect in defeat. He couldn’t give her the vice-presidency, which she desperately wanted, because it would have given her a dangerous rival power base if they succeeded. So he offered her the next best thing, and she, unlike her husband, was smart enough to say yes.

He realised that Rick Warren was an egomaniac and wanted some kind of platform, so he gave him a largely symbolic role at the inauguration and allowed Warren to preen. He knew that what Washington pundits really craved was not the truth, but a sense of their own importance. So he let them throw him a dinner party.

He sensed that McCain was in deep emotional withdrawal after his horrifying and crude descent into raw partisanship last autumn. And so he celebrated the old, bipartisan McCain and asked for his support in the Senate.

This is not typical for politicians in any climate and era. In the post-Clinton, post-Bush divide of the US, it’s a shock of sorts, and one most Washingtonians have yet to absorb. More shocks, I suspect, are to come, as people begin to realise that the new politics Obama promised is actually more than just a marketing device for a campaign.

Sullivan makes an offhand reference to Emotional Intelligence, a real psychological term. Here’s the wikipedia definition: “Emotional Intelligence (EI), often measured as an Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ), describes a concept that involves the ability, capacity, skill or a self-perceived ability, to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one’s self, of others, and of groups.”

Emotional Intelligence is hard to come by. I think it’s Obama’s greatest asset.

MLK on a black president

Here’s Martin Luther King predicting that the United States could elect a black president in 40 years. Only missed it by a few years.

Good politics

When was the last time you read about a president-elect consulting with the losing party’s candidate:

Not long after Senator John McCain returned last month from an official trip to Iraq and Pakistan, he received a phone call from President-elect Barack Obama.

As contenders for the presidency, the two had hammered each other for much of 2008 over their conflicting approaches to foreign policy, especially in Iraq. (He’d lose a war! He’d stay a hundred years!) Now, however, Obama said he wanted McCain’s advice, people in each camp briefed on the conversation said. What did he see on the trip? What did he learn?

It was just one step in a post-election courtship that historians say has few modern parallels, beginning with a private meeting in Obama’s transition office in Chicago just two weeks after the vote. On Monday night, McCain will be the guest of honor at a black-tie dinner celebrating Obama’s inauguration.

I think we need to tone down the hype and expectations about Obama a tad, but we should all acknowledge that this guy is bringing something to the presidency that we haven’t seen in a long time.

Martin Luther King would be proud.

NY Times explains its mistakes

Here’s the explanation from the New York Times public editor for why a fake letter made it into the paper:

In his nine years as editor of letters to the editor, Thomas Feyer figures he has read a million letters — and spotted more than one fake. But on Dec. 18, he was taken in by an e-mail message from someone claiming to be Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, who said Caroline Kennedy’s bid for the Senate was “a dynastic move” and “not very democratic.”

Feyer knew Delanoë to be outspoken and not always diplomatic, so he didn’t heed the little alarms that this might be a hoax: the e-mail address was paris.com instead of paris.fr, and there were none of the required contact telephone numbers. Feyer also should have been suspicious because the message carried an ad at the bottom, unlikely with government communication. But he said the fact that the real mayor’s name was in the originating address helped persuade him that the message was genuine. He has since learned how easy it is to create false e-mail addresses.

The letter was lightly edited and sent back to the writer for approval, as required by Times policy. Although there was no response, the letter went in the paper on Dec. 22. When the real mayor’s office objected, The Times apologized. “There were warning signs, “ Feyer said. “I should have held the letter.”

Having read that, I can’t believe that editor still has a job.

Read the other mistakes. They are equally ridiculous.