Month: August 2008

Clueless

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by hilzoy Cernig at Newshoggers posted an excerpt from a McClatchy article on Pakistan that includes this astonishing statement: “”One thing we never understood is that India has always been the major threat for Pakistan,” said former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain, now the president of the Middle East Institute.” Just. Shoot. Me. Now. … Read more

Mark Salter And ‘The One’

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by hilzoy

Watching McCain’s new video, ‘The One‘, I remembered a recent New Republic piece on Mark Salter:

“Salter is still McCain’s chief wordsmith as well as a top campaign operative and, for all practical purposes, McCain’s brain. (…) “Salter’s just spent so much time with McCain that I don’t know if McCain’s figured out Salter or Salter’s figured out McCain,” says former McCain media adviser Mark McKinnon. Another person friendly with both men calls it a “mind meld.” But Salter not only channels McCain better than anyone. He has also demonstrated a one-of-a-kind instinct for how to craft McCain’s public image. Over the years, he has taken the raw material of McCain’s biography and temperament and turned it into a compelling narrative that supersedes politics–one about an independent-minded war hero who celebrates courage and humility, demands individual sacrifice, and excoriates vanity.”

This is the particular passage that the video brought to mind:

“But nothing seems to rile up Salter like Obama himself. In a February speech drafted by Salter, McCain cracked that he did not harbor the “presumption that I am blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need”–clearly a taunt aimed at Obama. Salter recently told The Boston Globe that Obama’s campaign is based around a “messianic complex.” “Yeah, I think politics have changed,” Salter said to me, referring to Obama’s campaign. “The politics are: ‘Elect me!'”

Like Jean Rohe, Obama also provoked Salter into some intemperate typing–even before the campaign began. After Obama and McCain differed over ethics reform, in early 2006, Salter wrote a long and overheated letter under McCain’s name ripping Obama for “self interested partisan posturing,” leading to unhelpful press chatter about McCain’s temper. (Salter says Weaver often jokes about removing the “send” button from his keyboard.)

All the more galling for Salter is his belief that Obama the candidate is lifting from McCain’s oeuvre. Obama has recently described his transformation from a selfish young man who thought “life was all about me” to an adult who realizes “that life doesn’t count for much unless you’re willing to do your small part to leave our children–all of our children–a better world. Even if it’s difficult. Even if the work seems great. Even if we don’t get very far in our lifetime.” Salter hears in this an echo of McCain’s longtime account of outgrowing his troublemaking and self-centered youth to find a higher purpose in serving others. (“I often regret that we didn’t copyright ‘serving a cause greater than your self-interest,'” he cracks.)”

Think about the last paragraph I quoted …

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The One

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by hilzoy Very, very quick note: I am absolutely no judge of these things, but I think this new McCain video truly jumps the shark: It has been reported for a while (though alas I can’t find it now) that the McCain campaign refers to Obama as ‘the One’, with contempt. I don’t think that … Read more

It’s Official

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by publius The FCC has officially ordered (pdf) Comcast to stop blocking traffic (I posted on this last night in more detail). I’ve embedded the press release below. The actual order isn’t out yet, but I’ll have more when it does. One thing that comes through in the press release though is that the FCC … Read more

Get Back in Line

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by Eric Martin Seriously, this country needs at least 8 years of Democratic leadership to even begin cleaning up the mess the GOP has made.  There will be pushback of course: Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Friday it has held meetings with U.S. store managers warning them of issues that could arise if Democrats win … Read more

The Way You Look Like You Do

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by Eric Martin So in addition to being too popular, too charismatic and too eloquent to be President, Barack Obama is apparently too physically fit as well.  Those are some serious drawbacks.  If we can confirm that Obama is also exceedingly intelligent, displays good judgment and is competent, this guy’s gonna be downright unelectable.  [UPDATE: … Read more

The Comcast Decision – Why It Matters

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by publius

Assuming no last-minute shenanigans, the FCC will approve an order today reprimanding Comcast for “throttling” BitTorrent traffic (background here and here). This is extremely big news for several reasons — but primarily because it advances the ball on net neutrality in critically important ways.

For the foreseeable future, the real action on net neutrality will take place at the FCC. That’s because both the advocates and opponents of net neutrality have enough congressional support to maintain a filibuster, but not enough to overcome one.

So at the FCC level, there are two primary obstacles to imposing real net neutrality requirements — (1) legal; and (2) political. Tomorrow’s decision will help on both fronts — and will help a lot.

Legal

The most common legal argument against net neutrality rules is that the FCC currently lacks authority to enact them without additional legislation. I disagree with that argument, but it’s a fairly close question that requires some quick and dirty background on telecom law.

The FCC, like any agency, only has the power that Congress gives it. Thus, the scope of the FCC’s authority comes from the Communications Act (which incorporates the 1996 Act).

The Act however has a funny quirk — it sees the world in buckets. Under the framework the Act establishes, all communications services are classified and placed into a specific regulatory “bucket.” The type of regulations the FCC can adopt therefore depends upon what bucket it’s dealing with. (The buckets are actually statutory “titles” such as “Title II”, “Title III,” etc.).

The problem, however, is that the buckets are based on the assumption that a given company will only provide one type of service (remember that the Act was signed in 1934). For instance, there’s a bucket for “cable,” and for “telephone service,” and for “wireless/radio” (i.e., spectrum users). These buckets are outdated and don’t correspond to modern conditions where crazy things happen like cable companies providing “phone” and Internet services instead of just cable. For instance, your landline phone is regulated differently than your wireless phone because they fall within different buckets (cell phones are essentially glorified radios and thus fall within the “radio” regulatory bucket).

Obviously, these outdated categories create problems when new services emerge. The FCC’s answer to all this is a catch all bucket in which services are reclassified as “information services” (a/k/a Title I).

This bucket is generally considered unregulated. Thus, when the FCC wants to deregulate a service, it takes it out of the traditional regulatory buckets, and puts it in the “information services” bucket. Virtually all types of Internet access have been reclassified as “information services,” and are therefore largely unregulated. (This is what the 2005 Brand X Supreme Court case was about).

So what does all this have to do with net neutrality? Well, remember that broadband access is an unregulated information service — that is, it’s been put into the “catch all” bucket. To impose net neutrality requirements, the FCC therefore must slap a regulation onto a service that’s been reclassified and put into the deregulated catch-all bucket.

So that’s the million dollar question — can the FCC impose this type of regulation on an information service? For somewhat complicated reasons, there’s a pretty strong argument that it can (one that’s consistent with most of the case law), but companies like Comcast dispute that. For obvious reasons, they want to argue that the FCC can’t touch them.

With all that in mind, the really important part of tomorrow’s decision is not so much the Comcast case itself, but that the FCC is expected to recognize its legal authority to impose regulations on this type of Internet service. In doing so, it creates a strong legal foundation going forward for future net neutrality requirements (particularly given that courts traditionally defer to the FCC on this stuff).

But the fun doesn’t stop there — the decision also has important political benefits. Take it to the chorus.

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