Carl Levin says, "Summer is for holding"

About a year ago, I noted that Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) had placed a "hold" on the nomination of Peter Flory to a position in the Defense Department. For those of you unfamiliar with the term (or too lazy to click the link), a hold is an informal power of Senators to delay indefinitely a vote on, well, pretty much any subject. It also, when it's used to derail confirmation procedures, leaves key positions unfilled and people's careers in limbo.

Levin had no bone to pick with Flory--instead, he used the hold as leverage against Flory's then-boss in an attempt to get some documents. President Bush ultimately gave Flory a recess appointment, but it seems that Levin has developed a taste for these underhanded holds.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports that Levin has holds out on two more security-related appointments, those of Ken Wainstein (for the position of Assistant Attorney General for National Security) and Alice Fisher (Fisher whose recess appointment as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division has run its course). Levin has nothing personal against these two appointees, but it seems that both of their names have been mentioned in connection with the Pentagon's Guantanamo policies, and Levin knows an opportunity when he sees it.

Of course, neither Wainstein nor Fisher is accused of supporting the interrogation tactics which so concern Sen. Levin. The problems are 1) that Wainstein's name appears in some emails which show that the FBI disapproved of the Pentagon's approach at Gitmo, and 2) that Fisher may have been at a meeting where the situation at Gitmo was discussed. So how much sense does it make for Levin to skewer the appointments of two people who, the information seems to suggest, agree with his position? Plenty, once you realize that he's only using them as pawns to get after more information--though the information he's already been given as a prize for his actions has failed to satisfy him.

And two key national security positions sit vacant.

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Carl Levin, Senate, Hold, Flory, Wainstein, Fisher, FBI, Guantanamo, Gitmo, National Security

Political Polls: A Cautionary Tale

The next time you hear a reporter ask an elected official about some poll showing "the mood of the nation," or the next time you think that an election result might be fraudulent because it's contrary to an exit poll (which, we're repeatedly told, are hyper-accurate), consider this story:

The owner of DataUSA Inc., a company that conducted political polls for the campaigns of President Bush, Sen. Joe Lieberman and other candidates, pleaded guilty to fraud for making up survey and poll results...

According to a federal indictment, Costin told employees to alter poll data, and managers at the company told employees to "talk to cats and dogs" when instructing them to fabricate the surveys...

Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Chang said on several occasions when the company was running up against a deadline to complete a job, results were falsified. Sometimes, the respondent's gender or political affiliation were changed to meet a quota, other times all survey answers were fabricated.

A note here, to forestall some potentially frothing comments: I'm not going to say that 95% of the country loves George Bush or that most Americans think the Iraq war is going swimmingly. But I'm one of those that has learned to take whatever the press tells me with a grain of salt, especially if it's presented to me in easy-to-digest numerical form.

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Polling, Polls, Pollsters, Politics, Fraud, Salt

Movie Review: A Perfect Fit

[Trying to return to blogging after a significant layoff. I've discovered, though, that such a goal requires a serious effort to overcome the inertia that builds up. So I'm going to begin with something light.]

My sister-in-law rented two movies last night; and based on a coin flip, we watched A Perfect Fit, a self-described psychological drama which (it was represented to me) garnered some critical acclaim in the independent-film world. I had never heard of the film, nor was I a devotee of the lead actor (a guy by the name of Adrian Grenier who apparently has his own HBO series), but I'll watch anything once.

Let me be extremely clear on this point: this is a terrible film.

The story concerns a shy guy who's having difficulty overcoming the trauma of his childhood. He wants a nice, happy relationship, but just doesn't have the guts to go out and pursue one. He's also, we're told right at the beginning, seriously unstable--prone to convincing visions of betrayal and murder, for example. So when he does finally hook up with the girl of his dreams (after having cyber-stalked her), we know this is going nowhere but bad.

OK, first off, raise your hand if this plot sounds familiar. Everyone got their hands up? Good. Now, I'm not saying every plot has to be unique, but some variety in the theme would be nice. But while the plot is hackneyed and full of holes, this is not where the film falls down. Its shortcomings are instead focused in the areas of writing, directing, acting, and cinematography.

I would have shut this movie off after about 20 minutes were it not for two things. First, there were some strange plot/visual elements that I wanted to see tied together (they were not). Second, the girl-of-dreams was played (not entirely unconvincingly) by Leila Arcieri, who is extremely hot. But in the end, I didn't buy the plot, I never started caring about the characters--not even a little--and the writing displayed high-school level sophistication.

But don't take my word for it! If you've heard good things about this film and want to rent it, here's my advice: watch the "Behind the Scenes" material first. It will give away plot elements, though nothing that isn't immediately obvious. The reason I suggest this course is that Ron Brown, the writer/director, has difficulty describing what his own movie is about. Ditto Grenier and Arcieri. As my wife aptly noted, they sound as though they're giving a sixth-grade book report. "The movie is about relationships. The main characters are..." and so forth.

Now you may ask why I even bothered to watch the DVD extras after such a disappointing film (I even watched the "NOW AVILABLE" [sic] bit from the production company). The answer is that I wondered whether I'd missed something. It doesn't generally happen, but I thought maybe, just maybe, there was some large theme I'd ignored. Nope--I got it all on the first pass.

There was one thing that got me thinking about the film: Arcieri says, very offhandedly, that Brown had been working on the project for a long time. This made me think back to a signal experience I had about six years ago.

I'd been working, tinkering really, with a novel for about two years at that point. I knew what I wanted it to be, I knew where I wanted it to go, and I was (slowly) getting it there. It had, however, become something of an effort to sit and work on it. But it had become massive enough that to simply cast it aside felt like failure. So I persevered.

Then one day I saw The Tao of Steve starring Donal Logue. It was enjoyable, it had its moments...but it was, in the end, thoroughly mediocre. While I was sitting in the theater, I had the clearest sense that someone had been working on that project, pushing it ever forward, for quite some time. And then I knew, I knew deeply, that some projects that are (to borrow a financial term) too big to fail would really be better off if they never saw the light of day.

A Perfect Fit isn't nearly as good as The Tao of Steve. It's almost as if Ron Brown bet someone $50 that he could get a movie made, and he was really eager to collect. This is a stinker to skip at all costs.

Technorati Tags:
A Perfect Fit, Leila Arcieri, Movie Reviews