Stripes at 45: A Patriotic Movie

  Many posts have discussed patriotism and American exceptionalism.

Stripes premiered 45 years ago today.  Two years ago, Rich Cohen wrote at WSJ:

Released in 1981, “Stripes” is the story of a burnout named John Winger who, seeking direction, joins the Army. It was the first summer after the election of Ronald Reagan, whose campaign had been powered by the eerily familiar slogan, “Let’s Make America Great Again!” It was a time of high inflation, simmering tension with a communist rival and deep polarization in our politics.

In other words, a moment much like our own, which might explain why Murray’s speech still speaks so powerfully to my own teenage kids. I can’t think of a better statement of what ails us and what still makes America and Americans exceptional.

“We’re not Watusi,” Murray tells his fellow grunts in a moment of disunity and crisis. “We’re not Spartans. We’re Americans, with a capital ‘A,’ huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We’re the underdog. We’re mutts!…But there’s no animal that’s more faithful, that’s more loyal, more lovable than the mutt.”

Murray played it for laughs, and it was funny, but it was serious too. It celebrates our tolerance, stick-to-it-ness and ethnic jumble. It’s John Winthrop’s City on a Hill remade in the shadow of “Saturday Night Live.” I rank it with FDR’s First Inaugural and Lincoln at Gettysburg. It’s the speech we need today.

...

 This silly speech in a silly movie expressed a powerful truth. The Germans of World War II were all the same because they were all the same. We are all the same because we are all different. Which means those differences don’t really matter. Our ancestors came to this country to leave all that B.S. behind. It was the American creed rephrased in the vernacular. It was beautiful. 

Only later did I fully appreciate that Murray, along with screenwriters Harold Ramis and Len Blum, had given us a great gift: a way to love our country without feeling gullible, sentimental or corny.

Universal Nation

Many posts have discussed immigration.

James Pethokoukis at AEI:

Abroad, the American way of life had become, in his phrase, “the pervasive, persuasive, universal model” worldwide, encompassing consumer capitalism, popular entertainment, and democratic institutions. (“Isn’t that what the number one nation is supposed to be about?,” he asked in his 1991 book, The First Universal Nation.) Unlike Rome or Britain, the United States didn’t rule by conquest. It persuaded, absorbed, and broadcast. (And this was before the internet.)

Three decades on, Wattenberg’s framework seems as valid as ever, even if public confidence in it has weakened.

Start with the 2026 Winter Olympics. Of roughly 230 athletes on Team USA, according to The Seattle Times, seven are foreign-born and another 31 are the children of immigrants. Just one story: Top men’s figure skater Ilia Malinin—the American-born son of two former Olympic figure skaters who competed for Uzbekistan. A George Mason University student, he helped push Team USA to gold in the Olympic team event over the weekend. But the medal count here is secondary. On a global stage designed to celebrate peaceful national competition, the US presents itself as a country whose identity is beneficially additive. A success sequence worth celebrating and not screwing up: Global talent enters American institutions and then successfully represents the country back to the world.

Then consider the Super Bowl halftime show headlined by rapper Bad Bunny. The most American of spectacles briefly became a Spanish-language celebration of Puerto Rican identity. Talk about a cultural flex. I doubt many other countries’ signature sporting event would hand its stage to a performer singing anything other than that country’s primary language. What audiences here and globally saw was a country roomy and confident enough to absorb and amplify an identity rather than suppress it. The NFL certainly sees Wattenberg’s universal nation as an asset to its global ambitions.

America today is unsure of itself in ways it likely wasn’t 30 years ago when it became the planet’s only superpower. And our journey toward universality is hardly a walk in the park. It never has been. (Wattenberg: “We are becoming a universal nation at home; we come from everywhere. We are a ‘wondrous race,’ although, Lord knows, it’s not always easy, and we self-inflict more than a few wounds. Still, as demonstrated, it’s worked, and it’s working.”)

Looking Back on The West Wing

Past posts have discussed politics and the entertainment media.

Becca Rothfeld at WP  writes about the old TV show The West Wing:

“In Bartlet’s America,” wrote the New York Times’s James Poniewozik in a thoughtful reappraisal last year, “voters reward you for fighting lies and fearmongering with facts and reason. Good intentions and great oratory win the day. Well-meaning people reach across the aisle and reason with their colleagues. Politics is an earnest battle of ideas, not a consuming war of all against all.”

But “The West Wing” is a vastly more cynical show than many of its admirers remember, which why it is also a more compelling work of art than many of its skeptics assume. It is not, in fact, a paean to good government and the dedication of White House bureaucrats, nor is it an homage to good-faith debate or a portrait of political rationality. Rather, it is an honest and often quietly wrenching exploration of the Machiavellian maneuvering that corrupts even the most well-meaning people in politics.

White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer), Deputy White House Chief of Staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) and President Bartlet — spend most of the show fretting over PR disasters and comparatively little time worrying about matters of political substance. In the episode after Bartlet brushes CJ off, Sam tries to persuade an official from the Office of Management and Budget to recalibrate the poverty index — not because he believes the agency’s calculations are wrong, but because the new measure would deem an additional 4 million people impoverished, which would look bad for the administration. In another episode, Josh agrees to append a provision to a health care reform bill — not because he thinks it is a good idea (indeed, he has not researched the proposal) but because the addition will persuade a recalcitrant senator to sign on. When Bartlet’s staffers take a more active role in shaping legislation, it is almost always by negotiating with politicians on the president’s behalf and almost never by advocating for policies on their own merits.

Trump v. Freedom of Expression

Ted Johnson at Deadline:

In an early morning rant, Donald Trump went off on Seth Meyers‘ late-night NBC show, declaring that “Comcast should pay a BIG price” for shows that he calls “political hits.”

In Trump’s 1:24 a.m. ET post on Truth Social, he said that he had watched Meyers’ show recently. Meyers’ humor for years has been biting when it comes to Trump, with his segments also serving as a form of commentary.

Trump wrote, “How bad is Seth Meyers on NBC, a ‘network’ run by a truly bad group of people — Remember, they also run MSDNC. I got stuck watching Marble Mouth Meyers the other night, the first time in months, and every time I watch this moron I feel an obligation to say how dumb and untalented he is, merely a slot filler for the Scum that runs Comcast. These guys should be paying a lot of money for the right to give these ‘in kind’ contributions to the Radical Left Democrat Party. These are not shows or entertainment, they are simply political hits, 100% of the time, to me and the Republican Party. Comcast should pay a BIG price for this!”

Trump has long bashed Comcast, NBC and MSNBC. During his first term, he suggested pulling the network’s FCC license after he got angered by an NBC News report. Ajit Pai, who he appointed FCC chair, later noted that the agency licenses stations, not networks, and that news programming was protected by the First Amendment.

But Trump’s appointee as chair of the FCC during his next term, Brendan Carr, has suggested that the agency can examine complaints over news programming, including one that challenged the way that 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris. He also bashed NBC for featuring Harris on Saturday Night Live in the final show before the election, warning that it was a violation of equal time rules. The network gave Trump’s campaign time the next day, but Carr warned that other third-party candidates may have been denied airtime.

David Enrich and Katie Robertson at NYT:

Reporters and editors at national newspapers are increasing their reliance on encrypted communications to help shield themselves and their sources from potential federal leak investigations and subpoenas.

Multiple media organizations are evaluating whether they have enough insurance coverage to absorb a potential wave of libel and other litigation from officials who have already shown an inclination to file such suits.

And a nonprofit investigative journalism outlet is preparing for the possibility that the government will investigate issues like whether its use of freelancers complies with labor regulations.

With President-elect Donald J. Trump returning to the White House, media outlets large and small are taking steps to prepare for what they fear could be a legal and political onslaught against them from the new administration and Mr. Trump’s allies inside and outside the government.

For nearly a decade, Mr. Trump has demonized and tried to delegitimize the media. He has attacked reporters as “the enemy of the people.” He has repeatedly sued news organizations. In his first administration, the White House at times barred out-of-favor journalists from attending events.

But the early indications are that his new administration could be more hostile to the press. For example, Mr. Trump’s choice to run the F.B.I., Kash Patel, said before the election that a new Trump administration would “come after the people in the media.” Brendan Carr, the expected chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, recently raised the prospect of revoking federal broadcast licenses for television stations that he perceived as biased against conservatives.

 But even if FCC does not license networks themselves, it can cause trouble for media companies.  On September 15, 1972, Nixon discussed using it to punish The Washington Post.

PRESIDENT: The Post has asked -- it's going to have its problems.

HALDEMAN: (Unintelligible)

DEAN: The networks, the networks are good with Maury [Maurice Stans]coming back three days in a row and --

PRESIDENT: That's right. Right. The main thing is the Post is going to have damnable, damnable problems out of this one. They have a television station.

DEAN: That's right, they do.

PRESIDENT: And they're going to have to get it renewed.

HALDEMAN: They've got a radio station, too.

PRESIDENT: Does that come up too? The point is, when does it come up?

DEAN: I don't know. But the practice of nonlicensees filing on top of licensees has certainly gotten more,...

PRESIDENT: That's right.

DEAN: more active in the, in the area.

PRESIDENT: And it's going to be God damn active here.

DEAN: (Laughs)

PRESIDENT: Well, the game has to be played awfully rough.

How to Handle Hecklers

A number of posts have discussed antisemitism and the Israel-Hamas war. 

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld teaches pro-Ham hecklers/protesters who paid money to heckle at his show the DOs and DON'TS of their craft.

"You need to go back and tell whoever is running your organization: We just gave more money to a Jew.'"
pic.twitter.com/ff9biqrSCH

— 🚨 Katherine Brodsky (@mysteriouskat) June 23, 2024

Conservative Country Songs

Many posts have discussed the politics of popular culture.

Rolling Stone:

EVEN ACROSS THE whole history of the genre, unabashedly conservative country songs are harder to find than non-fans might think. Nashville’s prevailing ethos has always been far more focused on entertainment than on stirring up trouble on sensitive issues, even from a side many core listeners might find sympathetic. But at least since our culture war found its current form during the Vietnam years, twang-infused songs that take up right-wing arguments keep popping up — most recently in the form of Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” and Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond.” (The latter song is a complicated case, since its own creator doesn’t see it as conservative — but many of its most vocal initial fans did.) In the wake of those two songs topping the charts, here’s our look at the most conservative country tunes of all time. (And yes, there are also plenty of progressive-leaning country songs, too, from Maren Morris’ “Better Than We Found It” and Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow” to almost anything by Jason Isbell.)

Racial Identity is Fluid

David Byler at WP:

Many Americans assume race is a constant: something people are born into and that — like their birth date or country of origin — simply doesn’t change.

But for a surprising number of us, race is a fluid concept. Polling data show that roughly 8 percent of adults jumped from one racial category to another in recent years. And that has important political implications for the Republican Party.

The best data on race-switching comes from panel surveys conducted by academics. These studies — such as the General Social Survey, the American National Election Studies and the Cooperative Election Study — ask a representative sample of Americans about their views and identities and then contact them again four to eight years later to track how they have changed.

...

In recent elections, some voters changed their race and their vote at the same time.

For example, 59 percent of multiracial Trump converts — that is, mixed-race voters who passed on Mitt Romney in 2012 but voted for Donald Trump in 2016 — also switched their race to White. Among multiracial voters who didn’t support Trump or Romney, only 4 percent moved into the White category.

Juliana Jiménez Jaramillo at Slate:

Ricky and Lucy were considered one of the first interracial couples on television, even though Desi Arnaz, who played Ricky on I Love Lucy, came from a white Cuban family. Despite being white, television executives opposed his casting, saying the public wouldn’t go for a “Latin” as the husband of an “All-American girl.” It was only after Lucille Ball insisted that they reluctantly agreed.

His whiteness wasn’t enough for him to go unnoticed, but it did allow him to get as far as he did in show business in 1950s America. A CBS creative consultant on the I Love Lucy 50th Anniversary Special, Alex Abella, who is Cuban-born himself, said to Hispanic magazine in 2001, “If Desi were black or had black blood, he wouldn’t have had any success or been allowed on the air. Americans could accept him because—like it or not—he was white.”

Slavery and GWTW

 At The Ankler, historian David Vincent Kimel writes about deleted scenes in the script of GoneWith the Wind.

Remarkably, much of the excised material in my Rainbow Script was a harsh portrayal of the mistreatment of the enslaved workers on Scarlett's plantation, including references to beatings, threats to throw “Mammy” out of the plantation for not working hard enough, and other depictions of physical and emotional violence. Had these scenes remained in the final film, they would have stood in startling juxtaposition to the pageantry on display at the premiere in Atlanta. At the time of production, GWTW’s romanticization of slavery led African American thinkers like Ben Davis to call it “dangerous poison covered with sugar.” William L. Patterson went even further, describing it as “a weapon of terror against black America.” These voices were in the critical minority in the twentieth century, but over time, scholars have increasingly emphasized GWTW’s promulgation of the mythology of the Lost Cause, an interpretation of the Civil War that romanticizes the struggle as a war of Northern aggression that desecrated Southern honor and culture.

The article starts with a remarkable revelation about MLK: 

At the Atlanta premiere of Gone With the Wind on December 15, 1939, the 10-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. was dressed as a slave. It was the second night of an official three-day holiday proclaimed by the mayor of Atlanta and the governor of Georgia. King’s choir was serenading a white audience, directed to croon spirituals to evoke an ambiance of moonlight and magnolias for the benefit of the movie’s famous producer, David O. Selznick.

"America First"

 Sarah Churchwell at WP:

Popular memory, as captured by Wikipedia, currently credits Woodrow Wilson with coining the phrase “America First” during his 1916 presidential campaign. Wilson certainly popularized it, in a 1915 speech urging native-born Americans to view hyphenate immigrant Americans with suspicion and to demand of naturalized citizens: “Is it America first, or is it not?” But he didn’t originate it.

At an 1855 “American convention” held in Philadelphia, the American Party adopted a platform that would have sweepingly denied political and civil rights to immigrants. Speaking during a downpour, a nativist politician from New York told the crowd, to cheers: “American as I am, I decidedly prefer this rain to the reign of Roman Catholicism in this country … I, as an American citizen, prefer this rain or any other rain to the reign of foreignism … I go for America first, last and always.”

“America first, last and always” may sound simply patriotic, but since the 1850s it has consistently invoked nativist restrictionism and economic protectionism, and often urged isolationism. It has often accompanied anti-immigrant violence and conspiracy theories. In 1876, an anti-Catholic editorial called on every American “in this Centennial year, to renew the declaration of independence, to declare himself and the nation free, as it ought to be, from the thraldom of every foreign power — whether England or Rome — and to begin again where our forefathers began, with America first, last and always.”

During the latter decades of the 19th century a widespread belief developed that Britain supported free trade as part of a secret plot to thwart the growth of American industry; Republicans responded with a protectionist tariff and “America First.” Well before Wilson, in 1888, Benjamin Harrison promised home labor and protectionism under the “Republic Banner” of “America First, the World Afterwards!” in an election fought over tariff policy.

Knowledge of Issues and Events -- Including The Slap

Many posts have discussed public knowledge of issues and events.

88% of Americans have seen, read or heard about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars— on par with the general awareness of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and well ahead of other major news events. https://t.co/GLz8apXW1R pic.twitter.com/vLqdQiOjpE

— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) April 1, 2022

Serious Cold Open on SNL

Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York performs Prayer for Ukraine. Saturday Night Live.

Popular Culture and Extremist Recruitment

Marc Fisher at WP:

The far-right groups ... including white supremacists, self-styled militias and purveyors of anti-government conspiracy theories — have created enduring communities by soft-pedaling their political goals and focusing on entertaining potential recruits with the tools of pop culture, according to current and former members of the groups and those who study the new extremism.

They approach young people on gaming platforms, luring them into private rooms with memes that start out as edgy humor and gradually grow overtly racist. They literally sell their ideas, commodifying their slogans and actions as live streams, T-shirts and coffee mugs. They insinuate themselves into chats, offering open ears and warm friendship to people who are talking online about being lonely, depressed or chronically ill.

The pathways into the kind of extremism that led to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, threats against lawmakers and last year’s armed confrontations at state capitals nationwide are often initially anything but ideological.

“All these people who stormed the Capitol and later said, ‘What did I do wrong? I didn’t think it was illegal’ — they want what we all want: belonging, friendship, cultural meaning,” said Robert Futrell, a sociologist at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas who studies white-power movements. “We gloss over that too often, but in any movement, there’s a festival atmosphere. They gain a feeling of power from being surreptitiously connected through things they enjoy, like music. This is much more complex than just an ideological movement.”

Before conspiracy theories take root, before people decide to break the law because they think society is somehow rigged against them, there is first a bonding process, a creation of connection and camaraderie that encourages members to believe they will now be privy to answers that outsiders cannot know or understand.

“You have neo-Nazis, eco-fascists, conspiracy theorists, and what unites them is the culture, not the ideology — the videos, movies, posters, memes,” said Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremism.

De Facto Chinese Censorship of US Films

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian at Axios:

China's box office is projected to soon surpass the U.S. as the largest film market in the world.

• "Access to that market can make or break the success of a major Hollywood film," said James Tager, the author of a recent PEN America report about how the Chinese government censors the U.S. film industry, and how the industry responds by self-censoring.
• But the Chinese government tightly controls access to the market, excluding films that include content it dislikes, and blacklisting individual actors or film studios that have previously participated in activities the Chinese Communist Party doesn't like.

...

Movies also have an almost unmatched ability to instill widespread public sympathy for vulnerable groups and to prolong remembrance of crimes against humanity, such as the Rwandan genocide, depicted in "Hotel Rwanda."

• But the last time a major Hollywood studio made a movie that presented a vulnerable group as the victim of Chinese government aggression was in 1997 with "Seven Years in Tibet" starring Brad Pitt.
• The Chinese government responded by slapping a five-year ban on Columbia TriStar, the production company that made the film — a response that cast a chill over the U.S. movie industry.

The result: Film studios now go out of their way to ensure their movies avoid topics or depictions of China that might fall foul of China's censors.

• "The most significant effect of this censorship and self-censorship is completely invisible, because it involves the movies that are never made," said Tager. "What major Hollywood studio would make a movie about what is happening in Xinjiang, with the internment of over a million Muslims?"
• “For 10 years, you haven’t seen any bad Chinese guys,” said Schuyler Moore, a partner at Greenberg Glusker. “If I saw a script with an anti-Chinese theme, I would advise my client that that film would never be released in China.”

California Drives Out Movie Production

Jen Maffessanti at the Foundation for Economic Education:

In fact, in 2017, only ten of the top 100 movies produced that year were made mostly in California.

It’s no secret that the entire state of California is experiencing a large and sustained out-flow of residents, but Los Angeles County, in particular, is showing the biggest losses. The question is why.

Why is the film industry abandoning its Mount Olympus?...

Sticking with labor costs, California has the second-highest minimum wage in the country at $13 an hour, though that’s set to increase to $15 an hour by 2022. And though there’s still some back-and-forthing going on regarding the notorious AB5 law, many businesses in the state are being told they need to hire their freelancers as (far more expensive) permanent employees.

Not only that, but California’s real estate and housing markets are among the most expensive in the country, a trend that shows no real sign of improving. The state’s zoning and building regulations make innovation difficult. Special preferential political treatment of the California agriculture industry has led to water rationing for individuals during drought conditions.

Take the high costs in California, combine it with fewer people going to the movies, and the result is a shrinking profit margin for production studios.

In fact, drinking water isn’t the only beverage subject to regulation in California. Furthermore, the state’s 2019 kerfuffle with electricity provider PG&E’s rolling blackouts for customers during high winds is also largely a problem created by the meddlesome state government.

Once all of these factors—and the above list is by no means comprehensive—are taken into account, California has the highest poverty rate in the US.

It isn’t that filmmakers don’t want to film in Los Angeles—they do. But all of these combined constraints significantly increase the total costs of filming and producing in California. Heck, not even films set in Los Angeles are being shot in Los Angeles these days.

Production is moving overseas or to states such as Georgia, with generous tax incentives.

The entire state is seeing residents of all kinds leaving. In 2018 alone, the state saw a net loss of about 190,000 residents. That’s slightly more than the entire population of Shreveport, Louisiana. According to a recent UC Berkeley poll, about half of the people still living in California have considered leaving. For Hollywood, history is repeating itself. When asked why, 71 percent cited the high cost of housing and 51 percent said it was because of the high tax burden.

Grace, Reconciliation, and a Veteran

On Saturday Night Live last week, Pete Davidson mocked Dan Crenshaw, a GOP congressional candidate who had lost an eye during combat in Afghanistan.  It was an ugly joke.  A week later, though, he apologized to Crenshaw on air, and the segment turned out to be remarkably moving and patriotic.  Crenshaw -- now a representative-elect from Texas -- not only accepted the apology with grace and wit, he mentioned Davidson's father, a New York firefighter who gave his life on 9/11.

It is a perfect clip to watch on Veterans Day.

Stephen Colbert and Patrick Wilson Sing the National Anthem at Citi Field

A number of posts have discussed the national anthem.  Here is a respectful (and surprisingly good) rendition.

Using Pop Culture to Counter Russian Disinformation

Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Jaffe at WP report on Russian disinformation in 2016. Richard Stengel, the undersecretary for public diplomacy at the State Department, tried as early as 2014 to push back.

Stengel’s best bet was Michael M. Lynton, then the chairman of Sony Pictures, who had grown up in the Netherlands and immediately understood what Stengel was trying to do. He recalled how in the 1970s one Dutch political party sponsored episodes of “M.A.S.H.” to portray America as sympathetic to the antiwar movement. A rival party bought the rights to “All in the Family” to send the message that U.S. cities were filled with bigots like Archie Bunker.

But Sony’s agreements with broadcasters in the region prevented Lynton from giving away programming. Other studios also turned Stengel away.

Back in Washington, Stengel got Voice of America to launch a round-the-clock Russian-language news broadcast and found a few million dollars to translate PBS documentaries on the Founding Fathers and the American Civil War into Russian for broadcast in eastern Ukraine. He had wanted programing such as “Game of Thrones” but would instead have to settle for the likes of Ken Burns.

“We brought a tiny, little Swiss Army knife to a gunfight,” he said.

Dab

Four years ago, Rep. Loretta Sanchez did a "Call Me Maybe" video.

At The Los Angeles Times, Christine Mai-Duc reports on the California Senate debate between Sanchez and Kamala Harris:

After being interrupted by the moderator several times, Sanchez finally stopped, pausing to strike a pose as Harris looked on. 

What happened next was at first a mystery.

For viewers at home, the camera showed just a reaction from Harris, who bit her lip and looked to the audience, eyes wide. To see Harris' face, go to 55 minutes and 29 seconds in the video below.

Laughing, Harris says, "So, there's a clear difference between the candidates in this race."

But a photo captured by Los Angeles Times photographer Rick Loomis appears to show Sanchez in a pose resembling "the dab," a dance move created by rap group Migos and popularized by NFL star Cam Newton.

 

Those in the room were left to wonder what exactly the pose meant, Loomis said, but it did not seem to be a curtsy or a bow.

Then, this Twitter video surfaced: It does appear that Sanchez, in fact, "dabbed."

Did Loretta Sanchez #dab at end of Senate debate with Kamala Harris? What do you think? @NBCLA pic.twitter.com/YeAb0zYWsj

— Adrian Arambulo (@AdrianNBCLA) October 6, 2016

The Shallows

Peggy Noonan writes:

In the past 18 months I talked to three young presidential candidates—people running for president, real grown-ups—who, it was clear to me by the end of our conversations, had, in their understanding of modern American political history, seen the movie and not read the book. Two of them, I’ve come to know, can recite whole pages of dialogue from movies. (It is interesting to me that the movies our politicians have most memorized are “The Godfather” Parts I and II.)

Everyone in politics is getting much of what they know through the internet, through Google searches and Wikipedia. They can give you a certain sense of things but are by nature quick and shallow reads that link to other quick and shallow reads. Sometimes subjects are treated in a tendentious manner, reflecting the biases or limited knowledge of the writer.

If you get your information mostly through the Web, you’ll get stuck in “The Shallows,” which is the name of a book by Nicholas Carr about what the internet is doing to our brains. Media, he reminds us, are not just channels of information: “They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.” The internet is chipping away at our “capacity for concentration and contemplation.” “Once I was a scuba driver in the sea of words,” writes Mr. Carr. “Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

If you can’t read deeply you will not be able to think deeply. If you can’t think deeply you will not be able to lead well, or report well.

A Problem with "Designated Survivor"

Designated Survivor, a new series that premieres tonight on ABC, is about a low-ranking cabinet officer who becomes president after a terror attack wipes out most of the government.

Federal law (3 U.S. Code § 19) provides that the speaker of the House and the president pro tem of the Senate follow the vice president in the line of succession.  If there are vacancies in both jobs, it goes to Cabinet officers in this order:  Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of Homeland Security.

But there is a big problem with the series premise. From the law:

An individual acting as President under this subsection shall continue so to do until the expiration of the then current Presidential term, but not after a qualified and prior-entitled individual is able to act, except that the removal of the disability of an individual higher on the list contained in paragraph (1) of this subsection or the ability to qualify on the part of an individual higher on such list shall not terminate his service.

In other words, as soon as the House or Senate can reassemble and choose a speaker or president pro tem, that person takes over from the cabinet member serving as acting president.  The Congressional Research Service explains:

The House elects a new Speaker, who, upon meeting the requirements, i.e., resigning as a House Member and as Speaker, then “bumps” the cabinet secretary, and assumes the office of Acting President. The President Pro Tempore serving as Acting President could be similarly bumped by a newly-elected Speaker. Both persons would be out of a job under this scenario: the President Pro Tempore, by virtue of having resigned as Member and officer of Congress in order to become Acting President and the senior cabinet secretary, by virtue of the fact that, under the act, “The taking the oath of office
... [by a cabinet secretary] shall be held to constitute his resignation from the office by virtue of the holding of which he qualifies to act as President.”

In the show's scenario, most of the members of the House and Senate die in the terror attack, presumably meaning that there would not be enough to elect a speaker or president pro tem.  In such circumstances, the law allows for expedited special elections to the House. As a practical matter, though, it might take months to repopulate and organize the House.  In the Senate, on the other hand, the 17th Amendment gives states the choice of  gubernatorial appointment or special election.  Thirty-six states take the first route, allowing the governor to fill the vacancy until the next regularly-scheduled, statewide general election.  Fourteen states require a special election, but nine of them allow for a short-term appointment until the election takes place.  So it would probably be possible to reconstitute the Senate in a matter of weeks, at which time it would choose a president pro tem, who would then take over.

Maybe the series will explain this complication away, or perhaps just simply ignore it.