It doesn't get any better than this terrific column by Maureen Dowd.
Teaser:
Carly Fiorina, the woman John McCain sent out to defend Sarah Palin and rip anyone who calls her a tabula rasa on foreign policy and the economy, admitted Tuesday that Palin was not capable of running Hewlett-Packard.
That’s pretty damning coming from Fiorina, who also was not capable of running Hewlett-Packard.
I once had a friend, an emigré musician from the Soviet Union, who insisted, "Listening to Shostakovich played by a non-Russian is like listening to a monkey reciting Shakespeare." While he was exaggerating (I think)--there are some fine performances of Shostakovich by Western perfomers, even if they might not strike Eastern Europeans as idiomatic--I wonder if there's not some merit in his claim. The Shostakovich afficionados I've encountered insist, for example, on the superiority of recordings by conductors like Kirill Kondrashin, Yevgeny Mravinsky, and Rudolf Barshai, by the Borodin String Quartet, and by soloists like David Oistrakh and Mstislav Rostropovich. Mention, on the other hand, the symphony recordings by Bernard Haitink, and one will often receive withering dismissals.
I'm not sure how Shostakovich die-hards regard recordings by the likes of Bernstein, Slatkin, or the Emerson String Quartet that have received some acclaim in the U.S. I will admit, though, that some of the Shostakovich recordings I find most compelling are by performers from Western Europe and the United States. (Yes, I even like Haitink in some of this repertory.) Recordings that stick out in my mind include Ormandy's classic account of the Fourth (which, alas, I've not heard in about 25 years, so my opinion today might be less favorable), Bernstein's Seventh with the Chicago Symphony, Previn's first recording of the Eighth (with the London Symphony), and both of Karajan's recordings of the Tenth. I've also been happy with the Emerson's recordings of the quartets, which I actually prefer to the Borodin's. But I've not had that much experience with the Eastern European recordings. Certainly I'm in no position to make recommendations.
I've brought up this topic because I've been thinking about recordings I've heard of the long, often texturally sparse slow movements in a number of Shostakovich symphonies (especially nos. 5-8 and 10). These movements puzzle me. I just don't get them. (I note, however, that the slow movements in the later symphonies, especially 11, 13, and 15 don't pose the same problems for me.) Perhaps I've not heard the performances that will unlock them for me: maybe I need to hear some of the classic recordings by Kondrashin and Mravinsky. Or maybe the movements themselves presume listening practices other than that with which I'm familiar. Are there listening practices characteristic of Eastern European audiences that Western listeners tend not to share and that make works by composers like Shostakovich more challenging? Or it it just me?
I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology.I’m confused: is Dobson recklessly shifting between first and third person as he describes his own theology? Later, Dobson complained about McCain and Obama, charging, “They don’t give a hoot about the family.” I guess that puts the two candidates in pretty good company. I recall a certain rabbi with leadership--nay, messianic!--aspirations who declared
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.Let us thank the good Lord that we have Dr. Dobson to blow the whistle on this mischief!(Matthew 10:34-38)
Almost two-thirds [of polled Wisconsin Democratic primary voters] said Mr. Obama would be more likely to unite the country and about 55 percent considered him more likely to improve foreign relations.Uniting the country is no small thing, even if it is not, strictly speaking, a policy issue. Few presidents have changed the tenor of public discourse--Reagan was arguably the last--a not insignificant accomplishment in a deliberative democracy such as ours. Further, as an African American, Obama may be uniquely suited among current American elected officials to bridge some of the racial divisions that still exist in this country. Yet the poll results do demonstrate that Obama’s appeal extends to the area of hard policy. That 55 percent who expressed confidence in Obama’s approach to foreign affairs may be more in tune with the candidate than many pundits are willing to admit. After all, Obama has expressed his willingness to open high-level talks with some of the country’s adversaries in the Islamic world, a gesture that, if realized, will express a renewed attitude of American humility in world affairs. Nor can anyone doubt the steadfastness of his opposition to U.S. saber rattling in the Middle East. The same cannot be said for Clinton, who remains much more hawkish on Iran than the situation may warrant.
Estimates this morning by major news organizations of the total number of delegates Obama and Clinton are all over the place. Some give Obama the lead, others, Clinton. But does it matter at this point?
The earliest estimates I saw this morning (circa 6 a.m., Eastern Time) gave Clinton about an 80 delegate edge over Obama. That's not the big victory Clinton needs to gain more momentum, and, I think, any deleterious effects on Obama's momentum are minimal and reversible.
Obama may have an advantage going forward. Super Tuesday favored Clinton because she is better known than Obama (or, at least, voters think they know her better). It's not surprising that, at this stage in the campaign, she's going to do better when competing in many states at once rather than one or two. Yet the next four weeks, that is, until the March 4 primaries in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, and Vermont, there are fewer simultaneous primaries each week in vote-rich states. If South Carolina is a reliable guide, Obama may do better when he and Clinton are both focusing on a small handful of states holding simultaneous elections. (I'm assuming that, since Obama and Clinton were both already rather well known in New Hampshire, the former's Iowa victory did little to change the minds of voters who may made their minds long before.)
In short: Super Tuesday was a wash for the two Democratic candidates. Now the race begins in earnest.
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