Two for one today!
A Cyber Monday special!
Goodbye Joe and Steve!

A Bye-Ku for Joe Sestak

Joe for President!
No idea who you are
Too late – Joe is done

A Bye-Ku for Steve Bullock

Steve Bullock is out.
The winnowing continues.
Only 16 left.

The editor regrets to announce that there are no pictures in this installment of bye-kus, because both these people are so obscure nationally that there are no sufficiently silly pictures of them to be found.

It sure is a sick burn that Steve Bullock’s bye-ku ended up being about everyone except Steve Bullock, isn’t it?

A Bye-Ku for Bill de Blasio

Back to NYC
No more helium talks for
Groundhog Assassin.

A 2020 guest series by Anne Maloney, inspired by James Taranto. This one’s a bit late, but that’s my fault, not Dr. Maloney’s. Ahem.

A Bye-Ku for Kirsten Gillibrand

Back to the Senate
White House not the reward for
Shaming Al Franken.

A Bye-Ku for Seth Moulton

Strove for the center
But Dems want only left turns
Back to Salem, Seth.

A 2020 guest series by Anne Maloney, inspired by James Taranto.

A Bye-Ku for Jay Inslee

Back to Seattle
chilly climate never warmed
to Pres. Jay Inslee.

A 2020 guest series by Anne Maloney, inspired by James Taranto.

A Bye-Ku for John Hickenlooper

A Hickenlooper
Cannot be the President
His name’s too funny.

A 2020 guest series by Anne Maloney, inspired by James Taranto.

A Bye-Ku for Eric Swalwell

Back to Golden State
With your viral Eric hair
Not bold, big or good.

Furthermore, any behavior or language which is unwelcoming—whether or not it rises to the level of harassment—is also strongly discouraged. Much exclusionary behavior takes the form of microaggressions—subtle put-downs which may be unconsciously delivered. Regardless of intent, microaggressions can have a significant negative impact on victims and have no place on our team.

There are a host of behaviors and language common on tech teams which are worth noting as specifically unwelcome: Avoid “well, actuallys”—pedantic corrections that are often insulting and unproductive…

—Vox Product Team Code of Conduct, published 10 November 2015

“Philosopy majors actually earn a lot more than welders.”
—headline, Vox, 10 November 2015

“There is a better way to run presidential debates.  Actually, there are several.”
—headline, Vox, 5 November 2015

“Democrats are in denial.  Their party is actually in deep trouble.”
—headline, Vox, 19 October 2015

“Why the reasonable-sounding ’40-hour workweek for Congress’ idea would actually backfire”
—headline, Vox, 5 October 2015

“Russia says it’s bombing ISIS in Syria. It’s actually bombing their enemies.”
—headline, Vox, 30 September 2015

“Researchers said a popular antidepressant was safe for teens. It was actually deadly.”
—headline, Vox, 19 September 2015

“Kudzu hasn’t actually taken over millions of acres. These other invasive species have.”
—headline, Vox, 25 August 2015

“E-cigarettes and health — here’s what the evidence actually says”
—headline, Vox, 24 August 2015

“How Obama’s Clean Power Plan actually works — a step-by-step guide”
—headline, Vox, 5 August 2015

“USA’s Mr. Robot actually does everything True Detective pretends to do”
—headline, Vox, 29 July 2015

“Which Republicans actually debated one another, in one chart”
—headline, Vox, 7 August 2015

My personal favorite, because it is simultaneously so completely disconnected from reality and so darn smug about it:

“The truth about ‘political correctness’ is that it doesn’t actually exist”
—headline, Vox, 28 January 2015

Two brief points in Vox‘s defense:

(1) The Vox Code of Conduct does call my attention to an important and useful fact. I never realized before why so many Vox headlines made me want to punch Ezra Klein in the philtrum. I now recognize that the word “actually” nearly always has that effect. (Indeed, very nearly everything Vox publishes has this effect, even without using actual word, because, as others have already pointed out, “Well, actually…” pedantry is Vox‘s founding principle and guiding light.) I am grateful to Vox for calling my attention to this, and will genuinely try to reduce my use of the word “actually” in day-to-day life – not because I feel a moral obligation to avoid microaggressing or any of the nonsense this team believes, but because I like persuading people that I am right, and this word doesn’t help me do that.

(2) Many of these articles are actually quite good (ha ha).  In many cases, we need more articles like them, and more people talking about them.  Happily, this Code of Conduct does not apply to the people writing them; it implicates only the Vox “product team,” which runs the site infrastructure.  The problem is not with the articles. The problem is with the Code of Conduct, which is written so vaguely, and so broadly, that it makes essentially all factual disagreements – including the many disagreements that are necessary if you want to build good software or have a functioning civil society – potentially punishable by termination.

Of course, defenders will point out that it will be enforced only selectively, against “genuine problem employees”, and not broadly, against everyone who technically violates the letter of the rule (since that would include everyone). But that selectivity makes it worse, not better: we all know from long experience that enforcement will be selectively deployed against the only true “other” of the journalism world: conservatives — the Brendan Eichs, the Robert Oscar Lopezes, and anyone else who dares express or (G/god/dess/es forbid!) act upon wrongthink.

Nobody on the Vox Product Team is going to get fired for sharing and supporting Vox‘s article, “The Truth About ‘Political Correctness’ is that It Doesn’t Actually Exist” over lunch, even though it is a pedantic, unproductive “well, actually” microaggression of an article.  But suppose a Vox developer brings a copy of Kevin D. Williamson’s equally pedantic, unproductive, microaggressive article, “Bradley Manning Is Not a Woman” to lunch, and admits, politely, that he agrees with Williamson — or, heck, suppose he doesn’t bring the article to work, doesn’t say anything about it, but simply retweets a link to it, on his own private Twitter account, while he eats his french fries.  Under this Code of Conduct, as written, do you think he’d last all the way to the end of the day, or be escorted from the building before leaving the cafeteria?

Vox‘s journalists would never agree to work under these conditions.  Vox‘s developers shouldn’t have to.

Sadly, it’s not just Vox where this is happening.

There’s another voice in my head that believes everything everyone says about themselves, all the time.  This trusting voice is no less important in politics than the cynical, and should also be consulted from time to time… but, if you want to read “Flattering Assessments of Presidential Candidates,” go read their campaign websites.  Here are the unflattering ones.  Some are certainly accurate, others may not be, but consider them my worst fears for each candidate:

Mike Huckabee
Used to have the desire, skill, and ambition to be a leader, but, as the America he envisions recedes into the past, is content to vent his spleen and be warmly applauded for it by crowds that miss his America as much as he does.

Jeb Bush
A “compassionate conservative” who still kinda knows how to talk to Republicans, but is secretly seething that they have abandoned so much of what “his” party stood for. Sort of the Mike Huckabee of establishment Republicans.

Ben Carson
A once-rising star who let the plaudits go to his head and will now burn like Icarus.

Chris Christie
An intensely ambitious, furious man, with no particular principles beyond a vague affection for balanced budgets and low taxes, who’s willing to say anything to win… as long as it fits the elaborate superhero character he’s woven for himself, the Bombastic Budget-Cutter. Willing to play dirty in a state where dirty is part of the tradition.

Hillary Clinton
The opportunist’s opportunist. While an intense progressive at heart — a soulmate for Sanders — she has sold out so many times and so hard (even standing by a husband she secretly despises) it’s impossible not to see her as Claire from House of Cards every time she opens her mouth. The real tragedy of Hillary Clinton is that, unlike her husband, she’s no good at selling out.  Her many betrayals have bought her nothing but a truckload of distrust from all sides; her resume has lots of glitzy titles but none of the accomplishments she sacrificed her principles for.

Ted Cruz
The embodiment of conservatism’s worst instinct: the overwhelming desire to rend the flesh of insufficiently conservative conservatives, even at the cost of ceding power to progressives. Justifies this with an elaborate mythology wherein “energizing the base” matters more than persuading persuadables. The scariest thing is he might be right.

Carly Fiorina
An articulate, believing, even inspiring conservative who keeps looking at her resume and can’t understand why she never wins any elections or runs any successful businesses. Has not yet realized that a good chunk of it is not about belief, but managerial talent and luck, neither of which she has enough of.

Lindsey Graham
Half-Chafee, half-troll, Graham is running to ensure that an increasingly anti-establishment GOP stands for the same values he has stood for his entire career: corporate welfare and the military-industrial complex. Vain enough to think he might make a difference.

Bobby Jindal
Infinitely frustrated by the fact that his political career was torpedoed by bad timing, bad luck, and a single bad State of the Union rebuttal, Jindal refuses to give up, and is thrashing out, looking for the attention he desperately needs wherever he can get it.

John Kasich
Smuggy McSmugSmug.

George Pataki, Lincoln Chaffee, Martin O’Malley
Vain, highly insulated men with no sense of proportion. Just astonishingly vain.

Rand Paul
A man of principle who made a conscious decision to compromise a little of what he believed in for the sake of attaining power, but, when that didn’t seem to be enough, kept going, and got lost somewhere along the way.

Rick Perry
I can’t bring myself anymore to care about Rick Perry enough to write something mean about him. (Never mind, I just did.)

Marco Rubio
Drastically inexperienced (no more experienced than Sen. Obama was!) young’un who is so scared of making missteps that he makes missteps by trying to avoid making missteps.

Rick Santorum
A principled, intelligent, and consistent conservative, who has genuinely synthesized the social, economic, and foreign policy legs of late-20th-century conservatism into a single, cohesive, plausible platform… which is precisely what makes him so scary to so many. The Bernie Sanders of the Right.

Bernie Sanders
A principled, intelligent, and consistent progressive, who has genuinely synthesized the social, economic, and foreign policy legs of late-20th-century progressivism into a single, cohesive, plausible platform… which is precisely what makes him so scary to so many. The Rick Santorum of the Left.

Donald Trump
If you need me to explain the problems with Donald Trump, you are one of the problems.

Scott Walker
An intensely ambitious man with an attachment to conservatism that runs deep only because he has lived with it for so long that its convenience has become conviction, not because he has any particularly clear basis for it, intellectual or otherwise. Fortunately for him, he has learned expertly the art of following The Conservative Script and only answering questions when it serves his purposes, so it’s easy not to notice.

Jim Webb
The Lindsey Graham of the Democrats, with perhaps a little bit of the Jeb Bush “why can’t my party believe in all the things it believed in the ’90s?” to go along with it… with the important difference that establishment Democrats (unlike establishment Republicans) do not actually miss the days when economic conservatism and social moderation reigned supreme in Washington, leaving Webb without an audience.

Well, that was grim.  I think I’m going to go back to deciding who to vote for based on who has the best 404 page.