Cheat Sheet
The Best In Brief
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The House of Representatives has reversed its earlier decision to torpedo the American economy and passed the bailout bill today on its second try by a vote of 263-171. The bill is more-or-less the same as the version rejected on Monday, except for some minor adjustments, like an increase in the amount of personal savings that the government will insure, and old-fashioned pork inducements. Congressmen who switched their votes cited increased urgency in the economy over the past week.
The pundit consensus on Sarah Palin: Not awful! The smartest piece on last night’s big debate comes from Politico. Palin, the authors note, exceeded the media’s gruesomely low expectations. And yet “it is hard to count any objective measures by which [Joe] Biden did not clearly win the encounter. She looked like she trying to get people to take her seriously. He looked like he was running for vice president.” Beyond Palin’s ability to recite talking points and stay on the offensive, the bigger problem is that McCain is hemorrhaging support in the polls. With a month till the election, there’s “little reason to suppose that not-that-bad is good enough.”
And now for something completely different: Peggy Noonan’s Palin valentine in The Wall Street Journal. Palin’s chipper performance seems to have touched Noonan’s fondness for the politician as leading man—leading lady, in this case. “She was the star. He was the second male lead, the good-natured best friend of the leading man,” she writes. Admitting Palin’s “syntax did not hold” and that she occasionally sounded like an infomercial, Noonan is nevertheless convinced that her pitch to Joe Six-pack will change the election. “Sarah Palin saved John McCain again Thursday night. She is the political equivalent of cardiac paddles: Clear! Zap! We've got a beat!”
It came a little over an hour into the debate. Palin had just said, “Say it ain’t so, Joe,” and unfurled a Reaganesque “there you go again.” Then she winked at the camera. Bloggers spent the night puzzling over this come-hither gesture, with one (Megan McArdle) speculating it was Palin’s signal that “viewers are supposed to come up to her hotel room with a bottle of champagne after the debate.” Another added that it was cuter than Bush’s wink. But the best interpretation comes from Ezra Klein, who observes, “She winked. I'm serious. Satire is dead. Only deadpan reenactment is up to the task.”
Hold the Hitler comparisons. Conservative nationalism may be resurgent in Europe, but the movement is free from Mein Fuhrer's shadow, writes Ian Buruma in a smart Los Angeles Times column. The right's resurgence in countries like Austria and the Netherlands isn't anti-democratic so much as it is populist—a reaction against the entrenched liberal interests that have ruled Western Europe since the Second World War. Xenophobia is rampant, but it is also, crucially, non-violent, and its true target is political elites, not immigrants. "Tolerance, European unity, distrust of nationalism and vigilance against racism are all laudable goals," Buruma writes. "But promoting these aims without discussion, much less criticism, has resulted in a backlash."
When Moses discovered the Israelites worshipping a golden calf, they were punished with death and plague. What misfortune, then, will befall Marc Quinn? His new sculpture, "Siren," is a life-size 18-karat golden statue of Kate Moss—thought to be the largest golden statue built since ancient Egypt. Moss, one of modern art's most popular muses, is depicted here having what appears to be a pre-jog stretch. The $3 million sculpture is showing as part of the uncomfortably-named "Statuephilia" exhibition at the British Museum. Idolatry never looked so good.
Dick Clarke takes to U.S. News to warn that Al Qaeda might be planning a spectacular attack to influence the American elections. John Kerry is still convinced that Osama bin Laden’s 2004 Halloween tape cost him a narrow victory in Ohio. Clarke notes that Al Qaeda has stepped up its attacks: first on the American embassy in Yemen, its first embassy attack in a decade; and later on the Islamabad Marriott. Allegedly, the network has European operatives prepared to slip into the United States. Says Clarke, “At the very least, expect another Halloween video from the scary man in the cave.”
People have been wondering what depravities Oliver Stone will visit on George W. Bush in his upcoming biopic “W” (Oct. 17). But a clever profile in the Times of London notes that the two men are in many ways similar: Both enrolled at Yale the same year; both have big-time “Daddy issues”; etc. Indeed, Stone is not without sympathy for Bush: “It is a human portrait of a man, not meant to insult people who believe in what Bush believes in,” he says. Stone continues: “You laugh in your mind, because Bush is a goof-ball, because he’s awkward, but at the same time he has a stubborn-ness, a John Wayne ethos, an anger, an impatience, that make him fascinating. You may hate Wayne’s politics, but you may well enjoy his company on screen.”
Three years ago, The Independent interviewed five Afghan women for a story on female emancipation. Today, three are dead and a fourth has fled after a botched assassination attempt that killed her husband. Jihadists have been targeting female teachers, parliamentarians, journalists, civil servants, and security officials, whose successes threaten Taliban mores. The most recent of The Independent's former subjects to be killed is Malalai Kakar, Afghanistan's leading policewoman. "It is most important that now women try to get to positions of power to stop things like that happening again," said a policewoman who worked with Kakar. "It is dangerous. But we cannot go back to those days again."
If you’ve ever thought of trying your hand at screenwriting, read this beautifully over-the-top rant by former agent Nancy Nigrosh first. Nigrosh, who repped Kathryn Bigelow among others, paints screenwriting as a bloody, Darwinian struggle: “Screenwriters not only routinely and eagerly replace each other, they are tactical in their competitive quest for credit.” The poor schlub who writes the first draft often finds himself shafted for money, credit, and the champagne toast at the premiere. “The screenwriters who do not receive credit lose their sense of professional self worth. … It is as though they never existed.” Now back to that novel…
Theater rarely generates raves like this, but the superlatives come springing off the page in Ben Brantley's review of "The Seagull." Brantley crows that Ian Rickson's staging is "the finest and most fully involving production of Chekhov that I have ever known." Chekhov's classic ensemble play takes theater itself as its subject, exploring the relationships between its four artistic leads. Big names like Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Saarsgard strut their stuff on stage, but their individual talents hardly distract from the play's "society of equals," which "turns loneliness and restlessness into a stuttering pyrotechnic display." "The Seagull" runs on Broadway through December 21.
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