What the article fails to acknowledge is Smith’s talent as an actor; how is his persona any less acceptable than that of Bogart or Grant–similarly rote character actors who found super stardom while pulling the same act over and over again. Smith is a regular, pleasant guy who can pull off pretty much any role within the range of “kind of likable protagonist.” He’s not Daniel Day Lewis, or Gary Oldman.

Is trash cinema a problem? I mean, I guess. Great films are made every year: most of them simply don’t make a ton of money or star a huge star. Why crap on Will Smith because he’s successful?

A good question, and fair enough. But would Sonny — or would you — go so far as to argue that, because he is successful, nobody is really justified in complaining about him? Or is it his regular pleasantness, added to his success, that disentitles us to complain? Because the thrust of the anti-Smith argument (a phrase I hope never to use again, FYI) is that precisely his ability to cash in so hugely on his regular niceness — as opposed to his striking features, arresting vocal delivery, amazing acting chops, or whatever — opens up a legitimate ground for criticism. Or at least prevents us from having to celebrate all that is Will Smith. Will Smith doesn’t make trash films. He makes popcorn films, which — if you trust the market — are ‘worth’ even more than what he’s been paid for them. He’s just like us, or like the average reasonable American, at least onscreen. What nags is that he’s so much better at monetizing that average reasonable Americanness than we are. Why him? There are some good reasons, some not so good; some contingent and some pretty well fixed. I’m inclined to give him a pass, but not other people, and for similar reasons. And if it’s not possible to criticize Will Smith, it’s not possible to criticize those other people. And we can’t have that.

a lot of the things I find unpleasant about my own side of the partisan divide these days - the team-player mentality, the tendency toward cocooning, the obsession with policing orthodoxy, etc.

In a way, it’s an easy critique to lob, but that’s a reflection of how ingrained the cocooning has become. But it’s funny: friends with widely-ranging and different political philosophies are accused of their own brand of insularity. It’s difficult to imagine how to eliminate the inside/outside dynamic even in a world of burst cocoons. And this is why ‘Washington’ and ‘coastal elites’ come in for the scorn and annoyance they attract — when they work together to do the good work of depoliticization, it looks like an inside job; but when they work against each other, in the spirit of politicization (behold the culture wars and academia), they are rightly derided for crude, self-congratulatory, anti-intellectual tribalism. Not that we should pity ‘the poor elites’, whoever we decide they are. But we should be clear on the ways in which the deck of public opinion is stacked against them. The main thrust of Ross’ critique is that partisan team-ism isn’t just an elite problem, and the hope behind it, which I share, is that people who share a political philosophy can manage to do so in a worthwhile and effective way without shacking up in a large and impenetrable cocoon, whether in DC or across the country. It strikes me that this boils down to a plea for political philosophy itself — a thing that’s neither pure partisan politics nor a pure hunt of the mind for truth.

in a nation that holds itself up as a citadel of free enterprise, the government has transformed from a reliable guarantor into effectively the only lender for millions of Americans engaged in the largest transactions of their lives.

Before, its more modest mission was to make more loans available at lower rates. Now it is to make sure loans are made at all. The government is setting the terms and the standards of Americans’ biggest loans.

[...] The new reality is scorned by libertarians and conservatives, who fear state intrusions on the market, and by populists and progressives, who dislike the idea of education and housing increasingly resting upon the government’s willingness to finance it.

“If you’re a socialist, you should be happy,” said Michael Lind, a fellow at the New America Foundation, a research institute in Washington. “But you should really wonder whether you want people’s ability to pay for housing and college dependent on the motives of people in Washington.”

That’s about as plainly stated as I’ve seen it. When it shows up thus in the New York Times, it must be bad. Still…seems like a pretty broad anti-socialist consensus, right? But all the parties involved remain caught in the grip of spending. Sacred cows must be gored. And if we don’t want to start by limiting home ownership and college attendance — since rolling these things back now seem inconceivable — we may just have to start with massive health-related spending and then the defense budget. Hard cheese, as the English say. But ask yourself, as you wend your way through this ugly and foreboding garden: what is the alternative? We always imagined that American intervention abroad could spiral out of control. At a time of crumbling infrastructure and bureaucratic incompetence, how could it be that it’s snapped its moorings at home, too?

To wit:

Though he has an affinity for facts and figures, Romney has the ability to break down complicated economics into simple terms.

“This is not in people’s heads-this is reality. People are hurting across the country,” Romney said, rebutting Phil Gramm’s judgment that the U.S. is a “nation of whiners.”

Just so. But Gramm never should’ve been allowed to say that. Would Romney be damned on a McCain ticket to a life of Captian Obvious-style damage control? There are worse ways to lay the groundwork for a ‘12 campaign. Could the world withstand four years of weak, shifting government, only to be confronted by the death warmed over of a Romney-Clinton race? From whines to whimpers…

He cited statistics compiled by Bishop that found that in the 1976 presidential election, only 20 percent of the nation’s counties voted for Jimmy Carter or President Ford by more than a 20 percent margin.

By contrast, 48 percent of the nation’s counties in 2004 voted for John Kerry or President Bush by more than 20 points, Clinton said.

“We were sorting ourselves out by choosing to live with people that we agree with,” Clinton said.

Maybe. But the New Englanders and the Southerners who voted Democratic and Republican in 1976 haven’t moved around much since then. In fact, they’ve been diligently training their children to be even more partisan versions of their Nixon-era selves, which is sort of hard to imagine but apparently true. Who’s really been moving around? Rust Belters fleeing to the Sun Belt; urban whites fleeing to the ‘burbs; Mexicans streaming into border states; Asians into California? Have I missed any major movements? Oh yes: liberals into conservative mountain states like Colorado, New Mexico, and even Montana. Even, if I dare say so, Virginia and North Carolina. If Clinton is right, where are these purple states coming from? Polar partisanship is growing within states, not across large-scale regional encampments.

One can, and should, make the case that in fact large parts of the country that were radical or reactionary in the mid-’70s have chilled out today by quite striking degrees. San Francisco and New York City are vastly less insane than in those horrible years. And unquestionably the flat-out racism and Buchananite pitchforkism that moved through the South along George Wallace’s career trajectory has been modulated, dispersed, sold off, or caved in.

Bill Clinton, in short, is projecting, again, something he’s very good at doing very convincingly. But do not believe him. Self-sorting in America produces a gentler, not a more savage, nation. It is fluid and constant, always reassessing itself and creating gray areas, and it must not be confused with deepening and entrenching partisan attitudes among people and groups with longstanding political and cultural allegiances that travel wherever they go. This polarization is less a matter of population-sorting than it is politician-sorting: ritualistic disagreement on issues that should fall under the ambit of reason and common sense, and grotesque, animatronic agreement on issues about which Americans should once again have some kind of actual choice.

The most optimistic course of events would still leave 120,000 to 130,000 American troops in Iraq, down from the peak of 170,000 late last year after Mr. Bush ordered what became known as the “surge” of additional forces. Any troop reductions announced in the heat of the presidential election could blur the sharp differences between the candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, over how long to stay in Iraq. But the political benefit might go more to Mr. McCain than Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain is an avid supporter of the current strategy in Iraq. Any reduction would indicate that that strategy has worked and could defuse antiwar sentiment among voters.

And so it is. By luck and pluck, those great, classic, and providential talents of Ours Truly, we have managed to dive into the squalid, squanderous pursuit of faux-empire on the cheap-yet-costly and come out, more or less, on top — but for the colossal debt burden that has far outstripped the sort of bluffman’s game that beat the Soviets. Anything more in the trillions register could be backbreaking; but still, despite the IndyMac situation and the general Fear knocking around, we can bear the bloated burdens we’ve ginned up to date. As long as the Iraq weights are steadily, studiously lifted, we can recover. It’s cold comfort that ‘recovery’ now sounds a lot like coming back down to pre-surge levels; we need more, and faster. But there’s no doubt that Obama is now being backed into a certain kind of corner. The hilarity, if you like morbid jokes, revolves around the possibility that even given this awkwardness Obama may make the better C-in-C when it comes to swift yet prudent de-escalation in Iraq. Obama still has a weird trump card: being a better McCain when it comes to managing the staged and nuanced withdrawal from the field.

It’s not ‘anti-war sentiment’ that drives Americans. It’s anti-expensive occupation that keeps the home fires burning. McCain has a strong case to make that, as Mr. Surge, his prophetic powers of insight will power him through the next sequence of seeing the war through to its proper windup. But Obama has what might be an equally strong case that anything McCain can do, he can do better. Obama’s candidacy is in no way tied to things going wrong in Iraq.

So perhaps it boils down to Domestic Issues after all. And here McCain has the advantage — but for his incoherent, sloppy, boring, wearying, strained, contradictory, grating, trite take on domestic issues. In an added crusher, Obama must move in McCain’s direction in order to translate his crisp, sweeping themes into Actual Policy. And probably for this reason it’s been a Summer Bummer all the way ’round. To the best champion of Luck and Pluck may go the spoils — and here’s an example of what doesn’t fly:

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

Repulsive. Really? After all this? Bush has lost 9 out of 10 grounds of respect among normal human beings. A person simply does not behave like this. It’s gross, a grossly broad parody of Americans and Americanism at its luckiest and pluckiest. These are mindbendingly onanistic antics on a level Nixon would never have hallucinated. These are the kinds of things you expect from the fraternity pledge everyone winds up deciding to blackball out of the nausea and embarrassment associated with having once thought he might make a top-notch Brother.

So which will make a better rhetorician of American luck and pluck? McCain, with his endless paeans to sacrifice? Or Obama, with his drumbeat of solidarity and living up? The jury is out, my friendsch.

Perhaps you have been called a snob for drinking — ugh — a Heineken. Possibly you have rebuked yourself personally for ordering one of those increasingly bizarre American microbrews, things with names like Cerberus Triple Dog Head Froth Bock, Inglourious McBasterd I.P.A., or Fanatical Aborigine Stout. Or maybe, somehow, you have finally simply tired of living the High Life. If so, read on.

THE IMPORTS

There are essentially three things to look for in an import beer:

(1) An extraordinarily high alcohol content, often advertised on bar menus as “dangerous!”;

(2) Unsurpassed complementarity with local liquors; and/or

(3) A degree of smoothness and flavor that annihilates the American competition.

THE CONTENDERS

(1) Delirium Tremens - Belgium’s famous pink elephant beer. Alc. vol. 8.5%. Drink it with a bucket of steamed mussels and half a baguette. When I first sipped this explosion of fruity, heady, even flowery goodness (yet so manly), back in 1998, this beer was nowhere near as popular in Stateside as it is now. The Delirium Nocturnum isn’t as widely available, but I’m not quite as keen on it. DT scores big points on 1 and 3, but if you’ve tried it with a shot of Belgian liquor, notify me immediately.

(2) Negra Modelo - That squat, dark bottle. That oh-so-peelable gold flake label. It’s perfect for micheladas, which means it’s perfect with tequila (if you’re not sipping yours in tandem with a shot of sangrita). Again, there’s a sister beer — Modelo Especial — that’s pretty good, but the bad Spanish-English puns fall flatter with that one, and the Especial is more commonly found in cans.

(3) Boddington’s - One day the devil will try to drive me mad by asking whether this or Guinness is my favorite beer. Asking this question is my version of trying to work out the square root of 7, a handy trick for anyone who has read A Wrinkle in Time. Like Irish Guinness, Manchester-brewed Boddington’s is superbly smooth and creamy. But it’s a little more thirst-quenching, just a little lighter (though you still get that great pour), and no idiot has greenlit an awful bottled version that tastes like water from a wishing well with too many pennies in it. Also no moronic ads. Pick up a four-pack of pint cans. Bottom line: stand a pint of Guinness next to a pint of Boddington’s, and you’re staging the beer version of Mulholland Drive. Still, it’s difficult to envision sipping this along with a neat glass of Bombay Sapphire, and I’m hesitant to find out why.

(4) Tsingtao - pretty cool in the late ’90s, this is probably the only safe import coming out of China, and the only one you should harbor no moral qualms about purchasing whatsoever. Everybody drinking Heineken would experience a life transformation if this beer were suddenly to replace their old standby. Much crisper, much more flavorful yet subtler (none of that metallic bite), Tsingtao also — finally! — fulfills criterion 2, making an excellent complement to Chinese herb whiskey. Alas, the only place I have found Chinese herb whiskey (in two varieties) is the Good Luck Bar, in LA at the intersection of Sunset and Hillhurst.

(5) Sapporo - three words. Okay, three sentences. Karaoke. Sake. The big bottle. Almost makes me want to fly to that hot and happening Dallas joint Sushi Sapporo. Almost.

THE ALSO-RANS

(1) Kingfisher - because I haven’t come across any good Indian liquor, and because the function of Singha is largely to put out the fire raging in your curried, tandooricized mouth, I find there is really only one good complement to this beer: Reihan.

(2) Cruzcampo - dude! It looks like a can of Coke. Kinda. Enjoy with a bullfight, but for the love of God, stay away from the Shandy.

(3) Grolsch - love that flip top. But would you really drink one without it? Alternative: brew your own brew, put it in flip-top bottles. Suddenly it’s a worldwide phenom. Easy.

(4) Foster’s - Say it with me now: Beeeeeahh. But this giant can from Oz (?) belongs in the category of sentimental favorites only.

(5) Peroni - whenever I drink Italian beer, I feel like I am getting ripped off. Why? I don’t know. All I know is my thoughts keep circling back onto those cool-looking but totally useless airplanes the Italians produced during the Second World War. Do not go to Jack’s and pay $4.50 a bottle for Peroni. Please.

* * *

This should be enough to see you through the DC summer as it enters into perma-sweat phase. Bathtub of fun courtesy Flickrer mikepirnat.

Our regulator has emphasized that we have continued to maintain the highest capital rating, and we are in the market everyday. We’ll continue to do so. — Sharon McHale, vice president for public relations, Freddie Mac

And for that matter:

Those institutions, Fannie and Freddie, have been responsible for millions of Americans to be able to own their own homes, and they will not fail, we will not allow them to fail. They are vital to Americans’ ability to own their own homes. And we will do what’s necessary to make sure that they continue that function. — John McCain

Russia accused Georgia of bringing the South Caucasus to the brink of armed conflict - comments which both Ms Rice and Nato condemned as “unhelpful”.

Sounds like ‘the usual’ when it comes to official frowning over Moscow — a reaction that can’t be separated from America’s reflexive support for the increasingly erratic and obdurate Mikhail Saakashvili (a known egomaniac and possibly sexomaniac who, coincidentally, was educated in the States). But read between the lines a little, and this article — which is not a white paper on US-Russian relations, but is still revealing — tells a different story.

Compare and contrast:

* Ms Rice said before her arrival in Georgia that Russia had made “a number of moves… that in fact have not been helpful in terms of the frozen conflicts there”.

* Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer also reacted strongly to Russia’s comments, saying: “This is unhelpful rhetoric that will not bring parties closer.”

* Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said Russia was “deliberately escalating” tensions in Georgia’s separatist regions.

Pretty pussyfooting rhetoric from the US — notably, even weaker and more roundabout than that coming out of Europe. Could it be that purported ‘Russia expert’ Condi Rice recognizes the extraordinary idiocy involved in needlessly antagonizing the Russians over an issue with the most vanishing of marginal returns to the US? A free and independent Georgia is in American interests, true (all the more reason to pressure Saakashvili for eroding both qualities in the pursuit of personal power). But nothing the US can or should do can resolve the ‘frozen conflicts’ in question by bringing Abkhazia and South Ossetia back into the fold. Indeed, seeing as how the indefinite paralysis of the frozen (but melting) Russo-Georgian conflicts seems so clearly not in the interests of the United States, here’s a wild idea:

The US should broker a peace between Russia and Georgia that involves the official removal of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgian jurisdiction. In plain language, the US should pressure Georgia to accept the Russian position, and the US should clarify, stabilize, and legitimize that position by securing the (token) independence of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russian peacekeeping forces should remain — even increase. And the territorial integrity of the remainder of Georgia should be guaranteed by treaty.

Such a plan resolves a set of conflicts that (1) makes it impossible for the US to treat Georgia like a regular, normal state (and possible future member of key European institutions); (2) interferes with a productive US-Russian relationship; and (3) persistently risks a wider war that greatly complicates the geopolitical situation in the Middle East and Europe alike, and would damage key relationships across the entire frontier of the West. It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s as close to one as I can conceive. What’s clear is that the status quo is untenable, and will change to our disadvantage if we do not elect to help change it first.