The Great Craps vs. Poker Debate
Last week Time published an entertaining look at the gambling habits of John McCain and Barack Obama. It seems that McCain is a big-stakes craps player while Obama is a small-stakes poker player. The article's authors clearly have their own ideas about what these proclivities say about the candidates: In their view, McCain is slightly reckless and Obama's cool, calculating, competitiveness is (yet another!) sign of what a very fine commander in chief he will be. THE SCRAPBOOK respectfully disagrees. It's not that the metaphor is silly (well, okay, it is), but that Time hasn't taken its own metaphor seriously enough.
If the assumption is that a man's choice of gambling reflects his character, then McCain's embrace of the craps table suggests that he's a well-balanced man capable of bridging divides and healing America. Craps is a social game where players win and lose together, where the bonhomie of the table is more important than your chip stack. As Jim Manzi notes, "a craps table is the last bastion of true democracy in America: a diverse group of people working together for a common purpose." McCain's gambling suggests a desire to see a rising tide of hard eights lifting all boats.
Most important, craps is entertainment, and a suitable pastime for a man taking leave of more serious matters. On the other hand, poker (at least when played correctly) is more like work. Time seems to put a great deal of stock in Obama's success as a poker player, noting how closely he studied his cards.
But a deeper examination casts some doubt on Obama's poker proclivities. "The stakes were low enough--$1 ante and $3 top raise--to afford a long shot," Time reports. "Not Obama. He studied the cards as closely as he would an eleventh-hour amendment to a bill. The odds were religion to him. Only rarely did he bluff."
As our colleague Sonny Bunch notes, this fits poker guru Phil Hellmuth's classification of a "mouse." The mouse is a cautious, conventional player who adheres to a strict, predetermined set of hand requirements. The mouse plays by rote, always backing away from confrontation and rarely losing, or winning, big. Bunch also catches a detail in the Time piece about a showdown between Obama and another player, in which they each held four-of-a-kind. The probability of getting four-of-a-kind in a five-card game is 624 in 2,598,960. The probability of two players getting them simultaneously is something like 1 in 1.6 million. Unless, of course, you're playing with wild cards. THE SCRAPBOOK absolutely will refrain from pointing out that only girls play acey-deucey.
But the last word on Obama's poker prowess comes from Steve Sailer, who notes Time's reporting that Obama's game was populated by "legislators and lobbyists." Quips Sailer, "[T]hat would have to be just about my number one tip on how to win at gambling: Be a state legislator and play poker against lobbyists."
Obama in Berlin
THE SCRAPBOOK was strolling across McPherson Square in downtown Washington the other evening when our eyes fell on a package in the grass. Ordinarily we are chary about packages lying in the lawn of a public park, but something prompted us to bend down and investigate--and are we ever glad we did.
The "package" turned out to be three premium cigars wrapped in some papers, and while our attention was first drawn to the stogies--we won't reveal the brand, but let's just say they weren't cheap--we noticed that the wrapper was, in fact, a memorandum written on Obama '08 letterhead, dated earlier in the week, and addressed from "DA" (campaign guru David Axelrod, perhaps?) to "BO" (not Bob Orben, we're confident).
"Kurt is very excited about your speech in Berlin," it began, "and says that if we can get the Brandenburg Gate venue, the whole damn population will turn out--it'll be even bigger than the Love Parade."
Had THE SCRAPBOOK stumbled on a confidential memo from the super-secretive Obama campaign?
He says that a couple of things are very important. First, while standing on the platform before you begin your speech, you need to maintain that eyes-to-the-future look, maybe raising your arms a couple of times to acknowledge the ovations, and smiling modestly. Second, everybody in the crowd is going to be thinking about JFK through tear-filled eyes, so you've got to say something in German. I know your foreign phrases are restricted to "Merci beaucoup" and "Si, se puede," but Kurt has sent along a couple of possibilities that we can work into the text: Hoffnung und Wechsel--Hope and change Ich liebe auch David Hasselhoff--I, too, love David Hasselhoff Ja, wir können--Yes, we can Wir sind die einzigen die uns selbst helfen können--We are the ones we've been waiting for Ich bin ein Berliner--I am a jelly doughnut Können wir uns nicht einfach vertragen?--Can't we all just get along? Ich bin der Sohn eines Afrikanischen Vaters und einer Amerikanischen Mutter--I am the son of an African father and an American mother Wir können unterschiedliche Meinungen haben ohne streiten zu müssen--We can disagree without being disagreeable If this doesn't get you back on the cover of Newsweek, nothing will!
Fathers and Sons
THE SCRAPBOOK is not ordinarily overflowing with compassion for the Reverend Jesse Jackson, but even our hardened hearts were softened by the open-microphone "scandal" in which Jackson is heard complaining that Barack Obama is "talking down to black people," and that he would like to (as the Washington Post delicately explained) "castrate the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee."
Oh, the humanity! Nevertheless, hidden in most press accounts of the "scandal" are some extraordinary words of far greater interest to THE SCRAPBOOK: The scorching statement, condemning Jackson's indiscretion, issued by--are you ready for this, psychiatrists?--his son, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.).
I'm deeply outraged and disappointed in Reverend Jackson's reckless statements about Senator Barack Obama. His divisive and demeaning comments . . . contradict his inspiring and courageous career . . . Reverend Jackson is my dad and I'll always love him . . . [but] I thoroughly reject and repudiate his ugly rhetoric. He should keep hope alive and any personal attacks and insults to himself.
Ouch! That "keep hope alive" allusion must have pierced the reverend's heart like a stiletto. And yet, throughout American history, how often have sons referred to their fathers in this coldly impersonal manner? Only once, to THE SCRAPBOOK's knowledge, when the future president John Quincy Adams, appearing on Meet the Press in 1798, was asked about President John Adams's controversial Alien and Sedition Acts. Drawing himself up in his Windsor chair, and shaking his finger vigorously at the camera, the younger Adams seemed to seethe with indignation:
It is, indeed, indisputable, Sir, that the Chief Magistrate of the United States is my Father, and that I owe to him the same allegiance that any Son would feel incumbent to hold toward his Sire. Yet I cannot refrain from Condemning, in the strongest possible terms at my command, these Insolent and Subversive measures that are loathsome to my Sensibilities and injurious to our Liberties! I can only conclude, Sir, that they reflect Dishonor and Impropriety in the President's understanding of his great Office, and must call into question Mr. Adams' very Judgment and Character.
At which point, Meet the Press broke for a commercial, and John Quincy Adams, not realizing that his microphone was still on, muttered to his interlocutor that, "were he not my honor'd Father, I should endeavor to [castrate] the President."