more news that makes me angry

After a wonderful (if hurried) winter holiday in Denver and an also-wonderful visit by my fam to HK, I'm back in my dorm room again near Tai Po. At least it's not Seung Shui? But more on the whole triptych later. I just can't pass this up.

I like reading the NY Times. It's pretty good as a paper of record, as far as "mainstream" media goes, so I feel like I'm not going to miss too many significant events. I like a lot of their feature articles (the food section, cars, even sometimes real estate or fashion). And our politics are awfully close--they're huge Obama homers, for one. And they've locked up quite a stable of syndicated columnists. Maybe someday I'll broaden my horizons and start reading *two* papers each day, but I have a hard enough time justifying all my newsreading time as is. Oh, and I love their crossword, although now I think you have to pay to get the online version, so I've switched to the LA Times and Wash Post puzzles; I also like the bridge column, but that's mysteriously absent from nytimes.com, so that'll have to wait until I get a real job and can justify a subscription as a "status/luxury expense".

So yeah, the news articles that made me angry today weren't because the Times did a bad job of covering things, but rather because they picked really good things to cover that got me indignant.

First. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the Indiana voter ID law, and though the opinion won't be released for a while yet, the Roberts-led majority seems poised to not only uphold the law but also dispute the legal basis for the challenge in the first place. The ACLU used a "facial challenge", apparently common in voting rights cases, wherein the plaintiff does not have to prove that a particular individual WAS ALREADY disenfranchised, but just that the law could unconstitutionally disenfranchise them. The court apparently felt that Indiana's burden--voters who lack current gov't-issued ID cast provisional ballots which they then have to report to their county seat with either the ID or proof that they cannot pay within ten days--was not a particular hardship.

Here's where I get angry: Chief Justice Roberts, who's from Indiana: "County seats aren’t very far for people in Indiana.” The Times then notes, "Mr. Smith replied that the county seat in Lake County was a 17-mile bus ride from the county’s urban center of Gary."

Talk about condescending! Maybe when you have a cushy federal bench job that only requires you to hear cases once or twice a week it's easy, but most people have jobs that keep them busy during the hours that a county clerk's office is open. It's hard enough to get to the bank and back on your lunch hour! Maybe, maybe if election day were, I don't know, some kind of NATIONAL HOLIDAY or something it would seem more reasonable to me, but not as the law stands. Employers are not allowed to bar employees from voting if it conflicts with work (or something like that... I know there's a little protection), but a trip to the county seat is something else altogether, especially if it's undertaken on a day other than election day itself (is my understanding of voters' legal protection).

The plaintiffs then alluded to the situations of old people (an expired driver's license is NOT permissible under the law) and the indigent.

Scalia: “Why are we arguing about whether there is one-half of one percent of the electorate who may be adversely affected and as to whom it might be unconstitutional? This court is sitting back and looking at the ceiling and saying, oh, we can envision not the case before us, but other cases. Maybe it’s one-half of one percent or maybe it’s 45 percent, who knows. But we can imagine cases in which this law could be unconstitutional, and therefore, the whole law is unconstitutional. That’s not ordinarily the way courts behave, is it?”

I have to admit, I didn't read the plaintiff's briefs, so he may have a point that they're seeking more relief than their claims justify. But his reasoning is kind of absurd. That's *exactly* what the facial challenge procedure is intended to do. And if the government accepts that travel to and from a welfare office is sufficiently burdensome on the indigent to reimburse their bus fare, I don't understand how a trip to the county clerk (with proof of inability to pay for or otherwise secure a passport or other gov't issued ID, no less) is not a substantial burden.

I'm kind of hoping, actually, that the law is fairer than I give it credit for, and that the plaintiffs' demands are more stringent than the article alleges, because otherwise there is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for this shrugging off of this case and the plaintiffs' claims. Voter disenfranchisement may be a partisan issue (due to who is being disenfranchised), but the tenor of the questioning excerpted in the article goes beyond bringing partisanship onto the bench. Ugh.

Second. A discussion by a former pollster and stats guy about why Hillary's NH victory was so "surprising", at least based on opinion polls taken in the last couple weeks. He suggests that people unwilling to answer surveys, who are on average poorer and less educated than the general population, were also people who strongly favored Hillary over Barack (which he attributes, in part, to race). Now, this kind of racism sucks, but it's not the reason I wanted to bring your attention to this article.

In primary election cycles, it seems that the impression of momentum is more important than the actual results. That's why the 2004 Iowa result crushed Howard Dean, the "expected" winner, why Mitt Romney is currently seen as being "in trouble" despite a stronger cumulative finish than any of the other GOP candidates, and why McCain all of a sudden disappeared from the conversation after the SC primary in 2000. Commentary seems to dominate substance when it comes to American politics in general--debates over bills etc are meta-debates over agendas, and elections are interpreted as meta-elections that show momentum or decline. Despite a relatively close finish, the 2008 NH primary result will in all likelihood be a significant setback for Obama's campaign because of its role as a meta-election. Instead of a remarkable show of support in a state many felt would strongly back his opponent, a few (apparently erroneous) polls now make it sound like Obama somehow faltered, that Hillary somehow made a comeback in a place where she had long been considered an overwhelming favorite. And that sucks.

It makes me feel like I ought to donate to the Obama campaign again, which I guess is a good net result, but gamesmanship is being allowed to outvoice the actual results (the People's Voice), which sucks.

Oh, and also today, Maureen Dowd excoriates Hillary in her column. It's scary vicious. But two article links is definitely enough for one blog post.