Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 188

Next-Gen Fame

Sarah Kessler traveled to Anaheim for this year’s VidCon, where famous YouTubers connected with more than 18,000 attendees:

Some kids are here to see beauty vloggers like Michelle Phan (6.7 million subscribers), who posts tutorials about makeup and life advice on her channel. Another, typically older, crowd prefers the Jon Stewart-esque commentary of Philip DeFranco (3.3 million subscribers) and the news-based comedy channel he created called SourceFed (1.4 million subscribers). Others enjoy following daily updates from a family of six that goes by the name “Shaytards” (2.4 million subscribers). The Fine Brothers (9.3 million subscribers), who mostly direct rather than star in videos on their channel, attract an audience that is half comprised of people older than 25, though you’d never guess it here. Other corners of YouTube, like the extremely popular video game YouTubers, aren’t even represented at VidCon, where teenage girls running after cute boy YouTubers are the most visible force.

Kessler notes that, already, “traditional entertainment companies are rushing to capitalize on [YouTubers'] popularity”:

It’s almost inevitable that the worship of authenticity, personal relationships, and equality between the fans and the famous, will take a hit at the expense of something much more profitable. Some draw parallels between YouTubers’ nascent fame and the early days of ESPN or CNN, which, before they became profit powerhouses, seemed laughable in comparison to network channels.

“I believe to my core that the next generation of media businesses will look more like Michelle Phan and Phil DeFranco,” says Bing Chen, YouTube’s former creator development lead, who recently left to found a startup that builds apps for YouTubers’ communities. “Michelle Phan is unequivocally this generation’s Oprah Winfrey, FreddieW has, with RocketJump, become this generation’s Steven Spielberg, Phil DeFranco and SourceFed has become this generation’s Jon Stewart, if not Rupert Murdoch and News Corp.”

(Video: Michelle Phan advises viewers on how to be unique)

The Strategic Dimension Of Obama’s Iraq Campaign

First, the good news. Some progress has been made in aiding the Yazidi refugees trapped on Sinjar Mountain:

Iraqi Kurdish security forces have opened a road to Sinjar Mountain in northwestern Iraq, rescuing more than 5,000 Yazidis trapped there after running away from fighters from the Islamic State (IS) group, a Kurdish army spokesman has told Al Jazeera. “I can confirm that we succeeded in reaching the mountains and opening a road for the refugees,” said Halgord Hikmet, a spokesman for the peshmergas the Kurdish security forces.

But with the president acknowledging that the new air campaign in Iraq will last for months (at least), there is obviously a strategic element to this intervention beyond the immediate humanitarian objective. Meghan O’Sullivan worries that by framing the campaign as primarily humanitarian, Obama risks obscuring those “equally strong” strategic goals:

Whatever the reasoning, relying solely on humanitarian arguments to justify American action could create problems for the Obama administration down the road. While the trapped Yezidis must be rescued, this is not the only objective that limited U.S. military force can and should achieve. In fact, if initial reports are accurate, the first airstrikes were not against ISIS at Sinjar mountain, which is near Syria, but against targets near Erbil, far to the east, nearer the Iranian border. Such strikes are welcome — Kurdish forces have fought alongside the U.S. in more than one war — but the rationale is more strategic than humanitarian. While Americans are unlikely to protest this distinction today, the White House may open itself up to criticism of overstepping its self-defined mandate if it continues to use limited airpower for strategic gains after the immediate humanitarian crisis is resolved.

Phillip Lohaus criticizes Obama for having no coherent strategy, arguing that he can’t take on the project of defeating ISIS while forswearing the deployment of ground forces:

Right now, the administration is only making things harder for itself. The President’s statement that he will send no additional American troops to Iraq, though politically soothing at home, also reassures ISIS that US involvement will remain limited. At home, the President has yet to explain precisely why the prospect of genocide was not reason enough to stay in Iraq in 2007, but that now, apparently, it is reason enough to strike. Amidst this strategic confusion, it’s no wonder that the President’s foreign policy approval ratings are at an all-time low.

Let’s be clear: no one is advocating for sending hundreds of thousands of troops back to Iraq. But, as evidenced by the presence of American advisers and now air strikes, the decision of whether we should involve ourselves or not has already been made. What’s less clear is whether the President has defined his objectives and whether he is willing to dedicate what is required to achieve them.

So mission creep is a real danger here, and the president’s pledge of no ground forces is in doubt, especially if he wants to cripple ISIS permanently. Such an objective could require thousands of American soldiers:

Military experts say tactical commanders will want more ground forces. Forward air controllers could provide more precise targeting information. U.S. advisers could support the Kurdish forces fighting the militants. And U.S. commanders may need to expand their intelligence effort on the ground. In turn, U.S. forces might need a forward operating base with a security perimeter, more force protection and a logistical supply line. Medevac capabilities may require a helicopter detachment and a small aviation maintenance shed.

“You’re talking about a 10,000- to 15,000-soldier effort to include maintenance, and medevac and security,” said retired Army Col. Peter Mansoor, who served as executive officer to David Petraeus during the 2007 surge in Iraq and now is a professor of military history at Ohio State University. “But that is the price you’re going to pay if you want to roll back [Islamic State]. You can’t just snap your fingers and make it go away,” Mansoor said.

Benjamin Friedman calls the goals of the intervention “a muddle”:

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that we should aide moderate opponents of Bashir al-Assad’s government. But aiding any rebels there hurts the main Syrian force going after ISIS. We cannot foster insurgency in Syria and suppress one Iraq without contradiction. The president says that the bombing in Iraq falls under the “broader strategy that empowers Iraqis to confront this crisis” by creating a “new government that represents the legitimate interests of all Iraqis.” He promises increased U.S. support once a new government forms. The implicit message is that if the next Iraqi government has someone other than Nouri al-Maliki heading it and takes steps to deal with Sunni grievances, more support will flow. But bombing ISIS might increase Maliki or some other Shi’ite leader’s security, reducing their incentive to give ground to Sunnis.

But Saletan doubts that this is the beginning of a new war, arguing that military intervention “doesn’t have to fit into a strategy for military victory”:

It can make sense on more modest terms, as part of a larger political process that is moving in the right direction and is driven by other players. When miscreants such as ISIS endanger that process, a timely use of force can contain the damage and preserve the momentum. We don’t have to wage a larger war in Iraq.

One of his reasons for thinking so:

ISIS will destroy itself. We don’t have to stamp out ISIS, because its growth is inherently limited. It picks too many fights and alienates too many people. It has already taken on the Iraqi army, the Kurds, the Turks, Iraqi Baathists, and many Iraqi Sunnis. Now it’s going head to head against Syria’s armed forces. As if that weren’t enough, ISIS went into Lebanon this week. ISIS also antagonizes civilians in its territory. People in Mosul are rebelling against its oppression. It won’t last.

Reihan supports the intervention but has qualms about the long-term implications:

I am a pessimist. Though I sincerely hope that the limited airstrikes authorized by the president will be enough to force ISIS into retreat, I don’t expect this gruesome war to end tomorrow. We need to start thinking about the Yazidis and the Christians and the other persecuted Iraqis who will need to find shelter somewhere other than Iraq. The United States welcomed as many as 130,000 refugees from South Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975. We might have to welcome just as many from Iraq in the years to come.

And Robin Wright warns of “a broader danger”:

The direct American presence may galvanize more jihadis to the Islamic State. There was no Al Qaeda presence in Iraq until after the United States deployed troops in 2003, an act that fuelled Al Qaeda’s local appeal, on territorial, political, and religious grounds. In Iraq and Syria, ISIS is now estimated to have between ten thousand and twenty thousand fighters, including a couple of thousand with Western passports and a hundred or so from the United States.

As the United States confronts ISIS, the dangers that Americans will be targeted at home grow. Last month, the F.B.I.’s director, James B. Comey, said that the domestic threat emanating from ISIS “keeps me up at night,” that ISIS was a potential “launching ground” for attacks of the kind that occurred on September 11, 2001. The Attorney General, Eric H. Holder, Jr., told ABC News that ISIS, particularly its American jihadis, “gives us really extreme, extreme concern. . . . In some ways, it’s more frightening than anything I think I’ve seen as Attorney General.”

Mental Health Break

Bollywood gets the David Attenborough treatment:

The Secret To ISIS’s Success

Josh Marshall passes along an email from a “TPM Reader who’s former US military intelligence/counter-terrorism ops and has worked as a military contractor in Iraq”:

Why is ISIL so successful? Simply put they attack using simple combined arms but they hold two force multipliers – suicide bombers and a psychological force multiplier called TSV – Terror Shock Value. TSV is the projected belief (or reality) that the terror force that you are opposing will do anything to defeat you and once defeated will do the same to your family, friends and countrymen. TSV for ISIL is the belief that they will blow themselves up, they will capture and decapitate you and desecrate your body because they are invincible with what the Pakistanis call Jusbah E Jihad “Blood Lust for Jihad”.

I have worked the Iraq mission since 1987 and lived in and out of Iraq since 2003. TSV was Saddam’s most effective tool and there is some innate characteristic of the Iraqis that immobilizes them when faced with a vicious, assuredly deadly foe who will do exactly as they have done to others – and they will unsuccessfully try to bargain their way out of death by capitulating. The Kurds are not immune to ISIL’s TSV -90% of which is propaganda seen on Facebook, Twitter and al-Arabiya. The Kurds have not fought a combat action of any size since 2003 and like the Iraqi Army it will take the Americans to give them the spine to get them to the first hurdle – they need a massive win to break the spell of ISIL’s TSV.

But Jonathan Freedland contends that the Islamic State’s stunning success is mostly thanks to the weakness of the Syrian and Iraqi states:

The state structures of both Iraq and Syria have all but collapsed. The result is a power vacuum of a kind that would have been recognised in the lawless Europe of seven or eight centuries ago – and which IS has exploited with the ruthless discipline of those long ago baronial warlords who turned themselves into European princes.

“Islamic State are jihadis with MBAs,” says [Iraq scholar Toby] Dodge, speaking of a movement so modern it has its own gift shop. He notes its combination of fierce religious ideology, financial acumen and tactical nous. “It’s Darwinian,” he adds, describing IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his inner circle as those strong enough to have survived the US hammering of al-Qaida in Iraq between 2007 and 2009. But what has been crucial, Dodge says, is “not ancient hatreds but this collapse of state power”.

But Robert Beckhusen thinks ISIS has major vulnerabilities:

Here’s the problem for ISIS. Since ISIS fighters operate semi-conventionally, they are easy pickings for these warplanes. It’s easier to hit vehicles and fixed artillery sites from the air than it is to strike individual insurgent fighters.

It’s possible ISIS has limited anti-aircraft weapons, including shoulder-fired Stingers it took from the Iraqis. Indeed, the loss or capture of a U.S. pilot is a terrifying prospect for the White House. But the bulk of ISIS’s anti-aircraft weapons are DShK and ZU-23–2 heavy machine guns that the terror group has used with brutal effectiveness against Iraq’s dwindling helicopter gunship force—but which don’t stand much of a chance against fast, high-flying fighter planes.

Others disagree that the group is vulnerable to airstrikes:

The problem, some analysts point out, is that airstrikes tend to be most helpful against troops when they are massing. As it stands now, IS is “too big and too dispersed,” argues Christopher Harmer, senior Navy analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. “They aren’t vulnerable to air strikes the way the Republican Guard was with their armored tanks and artillery tubes,” Mr. Harmer says. “Yes, ISIS has some of that – and we can hit it and should – but, fundamentally it’s a light infantry terrorist organization. You can’t beat those guys by dropping a couple of bombs here and there.”

Another way to damage ISIS is to lower its cash flow. Britain is taking steps to do just that:

Britain hopes a diplomatic initiative it introduced in the U.N. Security Council on Friday will contain Islamic extremists in Iraq and Syria by curtailing their fundraising. The plan is to quash their illicit oil and gold exports, prevent ransom kidnappings, and hobble recruitment to stymie the establishment of an Islamic caliphate straddling the two Middle Eastern countries.

How Long Will We Be In Iraq?

It could be awhile:

President Barack Obama said Saturday he doesn’t have an end date in mind for the end of American strikes targeting Islamic militants in Iraq or airdrops supporting stranded Iraqis fleeing those militants. “I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks,” said Obama told reporters before departing Washington for a family vacation. “This is going to take some time.”

If that’s true, Jack Goldsmith urges Obama to get approval from Congress:

If the President plans to engage in military operations in Iraq for “months” (and almost certainly longer) in an effort to address the militant threat posed over the long term there, then the case for doing so in reliance solely on his inherent Article II self-defense power just grew weaker, legally and especially politically, and the case for seeking authorization from Congress for the military strikes just grew stronger. As I noted yesterday, the case for seeking congressional authorization in this context was made forcefully and persuasively less than a year ago by President Obama himself, when he explained why he was seeking congressional authorization prior to military strikes in Syria. (The Syrian strikes were supposedly going to be “limited in duration and scope,” unlike the longer term strikes now planned for Iraq.)

Larison sighs:

As we know from previous interventions, the initial estimates of how long they will last and what they will cost are frequently wrong. If the administration expects that this “project” will last several months, it will most likely continue for a lot longer than that, and it will end up being a larger commitment that originally advertised.

Beauchamp unpacks Obama’s speech:

“Ultimately, there’s not going to be an American military solution to this problem,” President Obama said in his press conference on the Iraq crisis on Saturday. “There’s going to have to be an Iraqi solution.” This is the key line to understand if you want to grasp the administration’s approach to Iraq — and why the goals of the US military campaign are more narrow than you might think. …

If the United States can beat ISIS back in Kurdistan, why not elsewhere? That line about an Iraqi solution is the administration’s answer. In fact, the Obama administration has been consistent on this question since June, when ISIS first took control of big chunks of Iraq. They see ISIS as, at its heart, a political problem — one that can’t be solved solely with force. But the march on Kurdistan and the siege on Sinjar are narrow military problems, and thus merit military solutions. This distinction between military and political problems is at the heart of the Obama administration’s thinking on Iraq.

Obama further explained his thinking in an interview with Tom Friedman:

“I do think the Kurds used that time that was given by our troop sacrifices in Iraq,” Obama added. “They used that time well, and the Kurdish region is functional the way we would like to see. It is tolerant of other sects and other religions in a way that we would like to see elsewhere. So we do think it’s important to make sure that that space is protected, but, more broadly, what I’ve indicated is that I don’t want to be in the business of being the Iraqi air force. I don’t want to get in the business for that matter of being the Kurdish air force, in the absence of a commitment of the people on the ground to get their act together and do what’s necessary politically to start protecting themselves and to push back against ISIL.”

Dish Shirts: Last Chance For Premium Tees!

[Re-posted from earlier today]

Sales for our two premium tri-blend t-shirts have started to taper off, and since we screen-print them in bulk orders to keep the price down (one-by-one digital printing is a more expensive process), we will discontinue our first two designs this weekend. So if you still want one of these attractive premium tees, head here now and place your order no later than midnight Sunday EST. A quick reminder of the t-shirt details:

The first is a light blue one emblazoned with the Dish logo across the chest (see above on the right). Or if you prefer the baying beagle by herself, check out the gray Howler Tee (modeled above on the left). I love the lone howler myself – only other Dishheads will get it. We picked American Apparel t-shirts that use high-quality screen-printing and a higher quality tri-blend fabric that’s super soft, durable, and has a bit of stretch that retains its slim shape. There are sizes for both men and women – no generic “unisex” option this time around, as you insisted. We’ve also lowered the price by half compared with the t-shirts we did a few years ago.

So go here now to grab one before they’re gone for good. But if you’re one of our readers allergic to synthetic fabrics and can only wear 100% cotton shirts, that option will be available for the Howler and Logo designs next week, so hold tight. And the polo shirt – in navy blue or white – will continue to be available. One reader doesn’t care either way:

Is The Dish ever going to post emails from subscribers who do not give a fuck about your tee shirts? No, really. Some subscribers – well, me obviously – are simply not interested in advertising junk on their chests, even blogs.

Readers here, here, and here disagree. One more:

Okay, okay, I love the lone howler design too – not for its super-secret insideriness, but because the simple but attractive design can be appreciated by anyone, without wondering “D?SH?” I think the white-and-tan dog would look fantastic on a blue or brown background (probable on green or yellow, too), but the gray? Meh – it does nothing for me. When you have it on a blue t-shirt (light or dark), I will buy it. I promise. Even if it’s no longer the super-duper mega-quality wonder-shirt you’re constantly threatening to remove forever from our reach.

Stay tuned; we’re rolling out many color options for the 100% cotton shirts next week. And one final note on the higher-quality tri-blends you’ve been ordering: because they are screen-printed in bulk, the ordering process is a bit longer than usual, so we really appreciate your patience. Your shirt is arriving very soon!

A Poem For Friday

“Transmarine” by Carol Moldaw:

An open hull nudging reeds and sand,

she kept to herself the pleasure he provoked,

the undercurrent dimpling as he stroked,

and drifted, slackly moored under his hand.

Turning to him, she let him loose the knot,

drop the rope, and push his foot against

the pier to lift her free. Her muscles tensed;

he took her like a sail the wind had caught

and guided her until she guided him,

and when they were no place that either knew,

where sky and sea and shadow echoed blue,

they plunged—and were knocked back at the world’s rim.

(From So Late, So Soon: New and Selected Poems © 2010 by Carol Moldaw. Used by permission of Etruscan Press. Photo by Nikos Koutoulas)

The Tea Party Isn’t Over

Silver finds that incumbent Republicans still have plenty of reason to worry about primary challengers:

Between 2004 and 2008, just four of 39 Republican senators running for renomination, or 10 percent of them, got less than 65 percent of the primary vote. This year, five of 10 have fallen below that threshold: not only Roberts, Cochran and McConnell, but also Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, who both benefited from running against divided fields.

In fact, the average share of the primary vote received by Republican incumbent senators so far this year is 73 percent. Not only is that lower than 2004 through 2008, when incumbents averaged 89 percent of the vote — it’s also lower than 2010 and 2012, the years when the tea party was supposedly in ascendency, when GOP incumbents got an average of 78 percent.

He concludes that “there’s no evidence the threat from primary challenges has been reduced going forward. It may even still be increasing.” Bernstein isn’t so sure about that:

Think about general elections in districts dominated by one party. Sometimes, the out-party won’t even bother fielding a candidate, and the incumbent will receive 100 percent of the two-party vote. Other times, a certain loser can be found to at least show the flag. Depending on the district, that hopeless candidate might be destined for, say, 30 to 40 percent of the vote. If a systematic change takes place that makes it far more likely for hopeless losers to file in those districts, the average incumbent margin of victory is going to be much lower — but the chances of incumbent victory won’t change.

That might be what’s happening in Senate primaries. Whether it’s campaign finance, or institutional changes within the Republican Party, or some other change, it’s possible that it’s easier to enter races for hopeless losers who nonetheless are capable of running something resembling a real campaign, and therefore of winning a solid share of the primary vote. Without, in fact, making it any more likely that incumbents will lose.

But Waldman asserts that the “Tea Party wins when it wins, and it wins when it loses”:

That’s the magic of an insurgent movement like the Tea Party. A win strengthens it by showing its members that victories are possible if they fight hard enough. And because the movement has organized itself around the idea of establishment Republican betrayal, its losses only further prove that it’s doing the right thing. Furthermore, if ordinary Republicans have to become Tea Partiers to beat Tea Partiers (even if only for a while), the movement’s influence is greater, not less.

If You Can’t Say Something Nice

Melissa Dahl recounts her week of almost unrelenting positivity:

I decided to, temporarily, quit complaining. No shit-talking for one whole week. I went home and excitedly told my plan to my boyfriend, who laughed at me — a reaction signaling that maybe this was a bigger problem than I’d realized.

My little experiment was inspired by my friend Meena Duerson, who recently did her own seven-day complaining cleanse. “I remember noticing that I was venting a lot both at work, in conversations with friends, and at home with my husband, and it wasn’t cheering me up — it was stressing me out more,” she told me.

Dahl concludes that complaining has its upside:

In the end, my experience ultimately pushed me toward seeing the benefits of a little kvetching, something Robin Kowalski, a Clemson University psychology professor, has argued before. “There’s no doubt in my mind that complaining can serve some very beneficial functions,” she said. “For one, it’s a great icebreaker.” You’d never strike up a conversation with a stranger waiting next to you for a subway about how reliable the trains are running lately, after all. (And, as we’ve recently learned, small talk with people we don’t know is very good for us.) A little bit of negativity has some health benefits, too, as a study published last year found that pessimistic older adults were more likely to live longer, healthier lives.

Convicted In Court, Exonerated On Twitter

The Associated Press’ tweet (since removed) regarding Theodore Wafer’s conviction in the murder of Renisha McBride has caused an outcry on Twitter, inspiring the #APHeadlines hashtag. Yesha Callahan explains:

AP prides itself on being a respectable news agency, but last night it proved that it had no respect for the 19-year-old, whom Wafer shot after she approached his porch in the middle of the night last November after she crashed her car. Although he said he was “scared” and protecting his property, Wafer was successfully convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

Alexandra Brodsky adds some more context:

As many have pointed out on Black Twitter and blogs: The first tweet, which doesn’t even bother to mention McBride’s name, reduces her to the fact that she’d been drinking, clearly implying that this somehow made the killing complicated, if not acceptable. (Wafer isn’t mentioned either, but his mugshot is replaced with the smiling vision of a suburban homeowner. She is drunk; he has money.)

A sampling from the #APHeadlines feed:

Unruly Bus Passenger Removed by Law Enforcement Officials #APHeadlines http://t.co/kZueUDyigj

—
NIGris Elba (@hosienation) August 07, 2014

BREAKING: Woman violently beats Police officer's fist with her face. #APHeadlines—
Elon James White (@elonjames) August 07, 2014

War on drugs adds much needed diversity to state and federal facilities. #apheadlines http://t.co/LXP7kdOwN0—
Camelle (@scottcamelle) August 08, 2014

Meanwhile, Joe Coscarelli provides information on the conviction itself:

After less than two days of deliberations, four black and eight white jurors found a Michigan man guilty today of killing an unarmed woman on his front porch last fall, in a case with echoes of the Trayvon Martin tragedy, but now a much different outcome. Theodore Wafer of Dearborn Heights was convicted on all three counts in the shooting of 19-year-old Renisha McBride, including second-degree murder, manslaughter, and use of a firearm in a felony.

Nicole Flatow’s trial recap goes into more detail:

Wafer said in his testimony that he shot the gun right after opening the door and did not get a good look at McBride. He said he could not detect her gender or race; and did not question her in any way before pulling the trigger. But whether or not Wafer was aware of McBride’s race when he shot her, the shooting has generated national attention because of the racial dynamic — McBride was a young black woman, shot by an older white man. The case also revived controversy over expansive “Shoot First” state laws that allow individuals to deploy their guns in self-defense without a duty to first attempt retreat. In this case, Wafer shot McBride seconds after opening the door, and called 911 after he shot her.

In his own lengthy testimony, Wafer conveyed immobilizing fear over who was outside his door that night. While he initially told police after the accident that he deployed his gun by accident, he conceded at trial that wasn’t the truth. He said he didn’t know why he lied at first, speculating that perhaps he was in “denial” about what he had done.

“I wasn’t gonna cower in my house,” he said.

He later added, “she had her whole life in front of her and I took that from her.”