Is the Christmas card dead?

Author Nina Burleigh says the holiday photo is dead — and the internet killed it
Every year around the holidays, countless Americans sit down at their dining room tables to thoughtfully scribble pen-and-paper updates about how they are and what they've been doing with their lives to a select number of friends. These messages are usually written on the back of a recent family photograph (sometimes with Santa hats), before they're sealed, stamped, and mailed around the country, where they're displayed like a trophy over someone else's fireplace.
Could that all be changing? This year, especially, there seems to be a dearth of dead-tree holiday cheer filling up mailboxes across the country. In a recent column for TIME, author Nina Burleigh says the spirit once distilled inside the Christmas card is dying, and a familiar, if fairly obvious perpetrator killed it: The internet. "There's little point to writing a Christmas update now, with boasts about grades and athletic prowess, hospitalizations and holidays, and the dog's mishaps, when we have already posted these events and so much more of our minutiae all year long," she writes. "The urge to share has already been well sated."
[Now] we already have real-time windows into the lives of people thousands of miles away. We already know exactly how they've fared in the past year, much more than could possibly be conveyed by any single Christmas card. If a child or grandchild has been born to a former colleague or high school chum living across the continent, not only did I see it within hours on Shutterfly or Instagram or Facebook, I might have seen him or her take his or her first steps on YouTube. If a job was gotten or lost, a marriage made or ended, we have already witnessed the woe and joy of it on Facebook, email and Twitter.
Burleigh says the demise of the Christmas card is deeply saddening. "It portends the end of the U.S. Postal Service," she writes. "It signals the day is near when writing on paper is non-existent." It's true, says Tony Seifart at Memeburn — "my mantle is empty this year. In fact I haven't received one Christmas card yet."
SEE ALSO: The perks and perils of our newly indexed society
Let's not get too nostalgic just yet, says Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic. Research firm IBISWorld anticipates that purchases of cards and postage will be the highest it has been in five years — $3.17 billion total. And Hallmark, the industry's biggest player, has seen revenue hold steady since the early 2000s despite the financial crisis. We could also think about this another way: That desire to share, the willingness to inform, could just be extending itself beyond the physical form of the holiday photo.
No matter what time of the year, people now write contemplative letters with weird formatting to an ill-defined audience of "friends"; these are Christmas letters, whether Santa is coming down the chimney or not. There are reindeer horns on pugs in July. And humblebrags about promotions in April. There are dating updates in November. And you can disclose that you were voted mother of the year any damn day you please... For good or for ill, perhaps we're seeing not the death of the holiday card and letter, but its rebirth as a rhetorical mode. Confessional, self-promotional, hokey, charming, earnest, technically honest, introspective, hopey-changey: Oh, Christmas Card, you have gone open-source and conquered us all.
The spirit of the Christmas card is indeed alive and well. It's just not necessarily in a Christmas card.

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Massive PC, Console Game Discounts Ring in Holiday Season

Black Friday, the day right after Thanksgiving, is normally the day associated with electronics sales. And while the proponents of "Cyber Monday" and "Small Business Saturday" have tried to get in on the action, it's still common knowledge that Thanksgiving weekend is the best time to upgrade your PC or console game arsenal. Right?
Not according to online game retailers. Discounts of up to 80 percent off a game's retail price are taking place across the web, especially in online stores which offer games in the form of digital downloads (which cost nothing to make extra copies of). Here's a look at just a few of the sales going on right now, for Windows and Linux PCs, Macs, game consoles, and mobile devices.
Steam (Windows, Linux, Mac)
The annual Steam Holiday Sale is under way, and it's not just blowing hot air. Complete collections of every Steam game from publishers including Valve are on sale for around the price of one retail title, and individual games can be bought from each bundle for only a few dollars. Each day new sales are available, and most of them are massive, percentage-wise. They're tied to a personal Steam account (which will always be linked to the original name they were created with), but can be bought as gifts for others.
Also check out: Amazon.com's PC download sales, many of which are fulfilled through Steam and are discounted about as much. Amazon's lineup also includes many casual games, of the "$10 store discount rack" variety.
Humble Indie Bundle 7 (Windows, Linux, Mac)
The Humble Bundle crew has been offering cross-platform, name-your-own-price bundles of indie games for several years now, and their seventh numbered offering is timed right for the holiday season. Bundles are giftable, the games can be played on Steam, and you can choose how much of your purchase price goes to game developers and how much goes to select charities.
PlayStation Network (PS3, PSP, Vita)
Console gamers aren't being left out. The PSN Holiday Essentials sale is putting "more than 40 titles" on sale over the next three weeks, with a new selection available every week and even lower prices available to PlayStation Plus members.
Also check out: The Xbox Live Countdown to 2013 sale, with a "Daily Deal" every day until the end of the year.

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Red Hat shares up on acquisition and 3Q results

Red Hat Inc.'s shares jumped Friday on the software company's solid third-quarter results and plans to acquire cloud-based software company ManageIQ.
THE SPARK: Red Hat said late Thursday that it would buy privately held ManageIQ for $104 million in cash.
The Raleigh, N.C., company also reported that it earned 29 cents per share for its fiscal third quarter on an adjusted basis, up a penny from the prior year and in line with analyst expectations. Its revenue for the period increased 18 percent to $343.6 million, which beats the $338 million that analysts polled by FactSet had forecast.
THE BIG PICTURE: ManageIQ's software helps businesses deploy and manage private clouds. Red Hat said the deal will expand the reach of its public-private cloud setups for its customers. The acquisition is expected to have no material impact to Red Hat's revenue for its fiscal year ending in February.
THE ANALYSIS: Stifel Nicolaus analyst Brad R. Reback said that the company has been able to maintain momentum even in a difficult environment and he thinks the latest deal offers an interesting longer-term angle for its business. He thinks the company is well positioned to generate at least 15 to 20 percent billings growth in the future. He reiterated a "Buy" rating and a $65 price target on its shares.
SHARE ACTION: Shares gained $2.25, or more than 4 percent, to $54.86 in afternoon trading. Shares have traded between $39.19 and $62.75 in the past 52 weeks.

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Dozens of Android Games, Apps Discounted for Google Holiday Sale

The Google Play store -- that's the name of the Android "app store," or the "Android Market" for those of you new to the change -- is featuring dozens of game and app sales for Android smartphones and tablets. Well, actually, it's not; you can see some of the discounted apps on the front page, but there's no special section of the website or on-device market that says where the ones on sale are, or even how to find them. And the "Holiday Surprise" feature is only a handful of deals picked by Google itself.
Here's a look at some of the major game publishers' Android sales, along with discounted creativity apps and where to find more details.
Gameloft's "Android Christmas" sale
It may be too late for Hanukkah this year, but top-tier Android publisher Gameloft has put a dozen of its titles up for sale for Christmas just $0.99 . These games are normally in the $5-7 range, making them among Android's priciest.
Besides its licensed games based on movies -- like superhero films "The Dark Knight Rises" and "The Amazing Spider-Man," and (inexplicably) "The Adventures of Tintin" -- Gameloft is best known for creating mobile versions of popular PC and console games. Not in the sense that they are official ports, so much as that they're remarkably similar, to the extent that they arguably could be official ports if the serial numbers were filed off. With that in mind, several of its Modern Combat (which are totally not Modern Warfare) and N.O.V.A. first-person shooters (which are totally not Halo) are included in the sale, although the most recent installment of the former -- Modern Combat 4 -- is not.
Superhero fans may also want to check out Marvel Games' Avengers Initiative, which isn't a Gameloft title but is also on sale for $0.99 .
Square-Enix's "Winter of Mobile" sale
Best known for having invented the jRPG genre, Square-Enix has brought several of its most popular titles to Android, and most of them are discounted (from their extremely high launch prices) for the holidays.
Crystal Defender, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy have all received numerous 1-star reviews on Google Play for technical issues, and reviewers complain that the titles haven't been optimized for Android hardware. The Chaos Rings titles, however, fare much better with reviewers, and are much more steeply discounted as well, at $3.99 each compared to their usual price of $12.99. They're ports of the iOS originals, which were Square-Enix's first attempts at making "real" jRPGs for mobile devices.
SEGA's Holiday Sale
SEGA's games are on sale for the holidays across the board, on pretty much every platform. On Android, that mostly amounts to Sonic 4 (episodes 1 and 2) and Sonic CD, all of which are on sale for $0.99 . Strategy title Total War Battles and rollerblade platformer Jet Set Radio, meanwhile, are on sale for $1.99.
Creativity / productivity apps on sale
Android phones and tablets aren't just for gaming. If you didn't pick up Microsoft Office-compatible OfficeSuite Pro 6+ during Google's earlier $0.25 sale, it's discounted to $0.99 now from its regular price of $14.99. Autodesk's professional drawing apps, SketchBook Mobile and SketchBook Pro for Tablets, are $0.99 and $2.99 compared to $1.99 and $4.99 regularly, and the Jotter handwriting app -- which requires a Samsung Galaxy Note -- is half-off at $1.99.
Stay up to date
Many more Android games and apps are being discounted for the holidays. Apps such as (the aptly-named) AppSales can help keep you apprised of the latest additions. Meanwhile, the Android Police blog is maintaining an up-to-date "Enormous List" of all holiday sales.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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El MIDI, la tecnología que le abrió la puerta a la música digital, cumple 30 años

Un pequeño teclado y un ordenador portátil: hasta que apareció la tecnología MIDI, hace 30 años, nadie imaginaba que sólo con ese equipo se podría dar un concierto. Dicen los entendidos que para apreciar realmente el tema Shine on you crazy diamond , de Pink Floyd, es mejor escucharlo en vinilo.
Las emisiones de los sintetizadores estallan a través del crepitar de la púa sobre el disco, mientras la guitarra y la batería marcan un ritmo ondulante. Es un sonido enorme que define toda una época, y uno puede sumergirse por completo en el espíritu de esos años con esa versión en vinilo.
Pero más allá de la impresionante creatividad de la música, el sonido evidencia una importante limitación en la forma en la que los instrumentos musicales electrónicos se controlaban en aquel momento.
"Una banda como Kraftwerk, por ejemplo, utilizaba 200 teclados analógicos distintos", explica el músico argentino Cineplexx.
Pero la tecnología de la Interfaz Digital de Instrumentos Musicales (MIDI, según sus siglas en inglés) permitió conectar los instrumentos a una computadora y entre sí, lo que supuso un cambio enorme.
"Yo cuando doy un concierto utilizo un teclado con 20 teclas y un ordenador portátil", cuenta Cineplexx .
Con estos elementos es posible componer, secuenciar, programar, modificar y reproducir el sonido de cualquier instrumento, como "un vibráfono o un sintetizador".
Un lenguaje común
El protocolo MIDI nació en California, de la mano de Dave Smith, un fabricante de sintetizadores, que convenció a sus competidores para que adoptaran un formato en común que permitiera controlar de forma externa a los sintetizadores, con otro teclado o incluso a través de una computadora.
MIDI pronto se convertiría en el estándar industrial para conectar diferentes instrumentos electrónicos, cajas de ritmo, samplers y ordenadores. Esta tecnología abrió una "nueva era de procesamiento musical".
"Lo que hizo MIDI es permitir el nacimiento de los primeros estudios de grabación caseros", cuenta Smith en conversación con Tom Bateman, de BBC Radio 4.
El Prophet-600 de Sequential Circuits en acción


"Las computadoras eran lo suficientemente rápidas como para secuenciar notas y controlar el número de teclados y cajas de ritmos al mismo tiempo, y eso abrió paso a una industria nueva".
Fue un avance que tendría el mismo impacto en la música popular que la electrificación de guitarras, desarrollada décadas antes.
El nacimiento de la música dance
Alex Paterson , fundador de la banda de ambient dance llamada The Orb, tiene un estudio de grabación en su casa de Buckinghamshire, Reino Unido.
"Que Dios bendiga a MIDI", exclama al ser consultado.
"Fue como entrar en un sueño", cuenta, refiriéndose al sistema utilizado en 1990 para grabar el tema emblemático de la banda, Little Fluffy Clouds.
"Estaba todo allí guardado, listo para que tú lo lances, fue realmente increíble", recuerda.
Este control orquestado y secuenciado de los sonidos de sintetizadores, cajas de ritmo y samplers dio lugar a nuevas formas de producción: así nació la música dance.
Lo que hizo MIDI fue "separar la tecla del sonido", dice Cineplexx. Ahora se pueden crear órdenes digitales y asignarle a cada tecla los sonidos que se quieran.
El músico argentino ofrece una comparación interesante con las cámaras digitales y analógicas en el mundo de la fotografía.
"Hay quienes cuestionan la calidad", dice, pero destaca que en la práctica el MIDI proporcionó la posibilidad de escribir partituras digitales interpretarlas como se quiera con un pequeño teclado.
Libre acceso
El primer instrumento con capacidad MIDI fue un sintetizador llamado Prophet-600 - diseñado por Dave Smith - que comenzó a producirse en 1982.
Las computadoras Atari y Commodore 64, muy populares entre los aficionados a los videojuegos en aquella época, también podían utilizarse para controlar instrumentos MIDI a través de un cable con conectores DIN (de cinco puntas) en cada extremo.
La amplia disponibilidad del formato y la facilidad de su uso permitieron redefinir la música pop de los 80, le aportaron un fuerte sonido electrónico y engendraron muchos de los géneros musicales contemporáneos.
Dom Beken, coproductor de Alex Paterson, recuerda cómo la tecnología MIDI permitió que cualquiera pudiera crear "masivos paisajes sonoros". "Pioneros de la electrónica y antiguos punks ahora podían hacer cosas que enloquecían al público en las pistas de baile", dice.
Para Dave Smith, MIDI sólo podía triunfar si todos los fabricantes la adoptaban. "Tuvimos que regalarla", dice. La universalidad del formato fue quizás un ejemplo precursor de lo que ahora se denomina tecnología de código abierto (open source), para que cualquiera tuviera acceso.
"Por supuesto que hubiera sido divertido ganar dinero con ella", dice su creador californiano.
"Pero ese no era el plan".
Treinta años después, la tecnología MIDI se mantiene como uno de los componentes centrales de la grabación y producción profesional de música.

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Constitution Check: Is the Supreme Court partly to blame for Newtown?

Lyle Denniston looks at how the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment leaves legislators entirely free to write new regulations against gun possession in sensitive public places.
The statements at issue:
“The gun lobby, timid politicians and the Supreme Court continue to aid and abet rampant gun violence that is nothing less than domestic terrorism, carried out with weapons of mass destruction that are too freely owned and carried.”
– Arnold Grossman of Denver, author of a recent book, One Nation Under Guns: An Essay on an American Epidemic, in a letter to the editor of The New York Times on December 15, commenting on the mass murder of students in Newtown, Connecticut.
“This latest terrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School is no fluke.  It is a result of the senseless, immoral neglect of all of us as a nation to fail to protect children instead of guns…”
– Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, in a comment quoted in The Washington Post on December 15.
“The day before a gunman massacred 20 schoolchildren in their classrooms in Connecticut on Friday, lawmakers in Michigan passed a bill – over the objections of the state’s school boards – that would allow people to carry concealed weapons in schools.”
– Michael Cooper, New York Times reporter, in the opening paragraph of a story published on December 16 under the headline, “Debate on Gun Control Is Revived, Amid a Trend Toward Fewer Restrictions.”
We checked the Constitution, and…

check

Americans’ belief in their Constitution and in its power to right the wrongs in society leads them inevitably to look there for a solution to a tragedy like the killing of 20 students in their Connecticut classrooms. If only the Supreme Court could change its mind about the Second Amendment “right to keep bear arms,” lawmakers and judges might find a way to reduce gun violence.
As a search begins for ways to ensure that there are no more Newtown tragedies, it is not at all surprising that some would see a direct connection between the expanding constitutional right to have a gun–and that right is, indeed, expanding–and the occurrence of another massacre with guns. As is often true with such suggestions, it is too simplistic, as a matter of constitutional reasoning as well as practical reality.
Establishing a new constitutional right, as the Supreme Court did in 2008 in interpreting the Second Amendment to include a personal right to possess a gun for self-defense, does not ensure that such a right will not be abused. And neither does the expansion of that right to include carrying a gun in public places, as a federal appeals court in Chicago ruled just three days before the shooting in Connecticut. The Supreme Court had recognized a gun possession right within the home, and the appeals court said the logic of that extended outside the home, too.
Both of those decisions were based on the protection of a social value: the capacity to defend one’s self against an imminent physical threat. And neither one of them suggested that a school is a proper place to have a gun and have it ready for use. Indeed, both of those rulings left legislators entirely free to write new regulations against gun possession in sensitive public places, and to impose strict enforcement of such limitations.
Constitutional rights, however established, are never so absolute that they tell the people that “anything goes.” Having the right to practice one’s religious faith does not create a right to impose the tenets of that faith on others; one can try to persuade, but cannot coerce. Having the right to publish a newspaper does not generate a right to print absolute falsehoods that cause injury. Having the right to be free from police invasions of a home does not create a right to use a home as the headquarters of a criminal gang.
About Constitution Check
In a continuing series of posts, Lyle Denniston provides responses based on the Constitution and its history to public statements about its meaning and what duties it imposes or rights it protects.
Having a right, constitutional or otherwise, is an opportunity but it is not a license. And having Second Amendment rights is no different in that respect.
If Americans are persuaded that the courts are getting the Second Amendment wrong, and are convinced that cutting back on the amendment’s scope is a way to reduce gun violence, they have it within their political power to demand that legislatures apply that amendment sparingly, and they have it within their citizen power to try to get the Constitution amended.
And, when a new court case arises in which a plea is made to expand the Second Amendment further, there are opportunities for citizen activism, to try to help shape how that case will be decided.  That, though, is supposed to be an orderly process, in which the ultimate value is reasoned judgment, not bumper-sticker slogans and loose logic.
Amid the grieving over the Newtown deaths, and amid the new national debate that seems to be developing over what to do about such tragedies, reflection and creative imagination might well serve one of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment: the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center’s Adviser on Constitutional Literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 54 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court’s work.

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Report: GOP to try own tax hike as cliff talks stall again

Just hours after there was a reported breakthrough in fiscal cliff negotiations, there were signs on Tuesday that the GOP will move forward with a proposed tax hike, without involving the Democrats.
Politico and The Hill said House Speaker John Boehner was preparing a bill that called for a tax hike on households making more than $1 million a year. If the proposal is similar to other ideas floated out by the GOP earlier this month, the Bush-era tax cuts would remain in place for the non-millionaires.
“For weeks, Senate Republicans–and a growing number of you–have been pushing for us to pivot to a “Plan B.” I think there’s a better way. But the White House just can’t seem to bring itself to agree to a “balanced” approach, and time is running short,” Boehner said in prepared remarks.
The Republicans control the House and in theory, can pass almost any budget measure, but the Senate is controlled by the Democrats. What’s unknown is how many GOP members in the House would vote for any form of a tax hike.
Influential activist Grover Norquist, among others, are strongly opposed to such measures.
On Monday, President Barack Obama proposed a tax hike on households making more than $400,000 a year, backing off a previous pledge to see taxes on incomes of about $250,000. The Obama administration also proposed savings from spending and entitlement cuts between $930 billion and $1.2 trillion.
Boehner rejected that proposal, insisting the spending cuts match tax revenue increases. He says the Obama plan calls for $1.3 trillion in new tax revenue, and only $930 billion in spending cuts.
“Any movement away from the unrealistic offers the president has made previously is a step in the right direction, but a proposal that includes $1.3 trillion in revenue for only $930 billion in spending cuts cannot be considered balanced,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said in a statement.
The Obama plan also called for an automatic extension of the debt ceiling for two years.
“Most importantly, we’d lock in a process for tax reform and entitlement reform in 2013–the two big goals we’ve talked about for years,” Boehner said.
After the fiscal cliff talks broke down in November 2011, Republicans sought tax reform as a long-term solution to the nation’s borrowing problems.
The current GOP proposal realizes most tax revenue increases by closing tax loopholes and tightening other regulations.
If a deal isn’t reached by January 1, 2013, huge automatic spending cuts will go into effect, along with the restoration of higher tax rates for most Americans.
Economist fear the harsh measures will trigger another short-term recession.

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Why gun control, fiscal cliff issues are on collision course

Congress now faces two critical issues with an early January deadline, gun violence and the fiscal cliff, which could lead to an extraordinary session to start off the New Year.

Joint_Session_of_Congress
An intersection of the two hot-button issues is the prospect of deep cuts to the nation’s mental health system. But also on the radar is the distinct possibility that fiscal cliff and gun control debates could happen at the same time in Congress in January and early February.
President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner had been in negotiations about across-the-board cuts that would include spending reductions on Medicaid as part of any fiscal cliff deal.
According to a 2005 government analysis, about 60 percent of mental health care nationally is paid for by public funds, with much of that help delivered through Medicaid.
And on Wednesday, President Obama made it clear that easier access to mental health care, along with tighter gun laws and more education efforts, are the key goals of his new gun violence policy.
The Medicaid issue is, in many ways, a stumbling block in any fiscal cliff deal.
Earlier this year, the Obama administration offered to include $100 billion in Medicaid savings as part of a fiscal cliff settlement. But last week, the newspaper The Hill said the Obama team took that offer out of the talks.
But given the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings and the renewed push for mental health care programs, it would be very difficult for the Obama administration to cut any Medicaid funds.
In addition, President Obama tied the issues of gun control and the fiscal cliff together at his Wednesday press conference.
President Obama claimed Republicans were too focused on besting him in the fiscal cliff negotiations.
“If this past week has done anything, it should just give us some perspective,” Obama said. “If you just pull back from the immediate, you know, political battles, if you kind of peel off the partisan war paint, then we should be able to get something done.”
President Obama also demanded the gun task force, led by Vice President Joe Biden, deliver actionable recommendations in the next six weeks. Such actions would likely include a national ban on assault weapons.
In normal circumstances, any debate over the Second Amendment would be contentious in Congress.
The additional factors of the outrage over the Sandy Hook shootings, and the very real possibility that the fiscal cliff debate could spill into next month, could lead to a situation where Congress would need to debate both issues, under intense public pressure.
The GOP and Democrats are reportedly between $300 billion and $500 billion apart on a new budget deal that would avoid huge automatic spending cuts and tax revenue gains on January 1. (That gap excludes the $100 billion in Medicaid cuts that likely won’t happen.)
While Congress could delay part of the fiscal cliff cuts and hikes, global markets are on edge about the United States seeing another financial downgrade, and how the failure to reach a deal will affect investors.
Boehner’s Plan B to include a tax hike on millionaires as part of a House bill is apparently dead, after the White House said it would veto any such measure.
Now, Boehner has 11 days to put together another deal, find a way to get the Democrats to agree to it, and get it passed by January 1.
And if the fiscal cliff situation continues into January and isn’t resolved, the vote on a likely assault gun ban would soon follow.
The National Rifle Association will have a press conference on Friday to discuss its plan to contribute to measures to prevent another Sandy Hook situation.
But it’s widely expected the NRA will lobby hard to prevent a strict assault weapon ban from passing through Congress, where Republicans control the House.
Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

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Constitution Check: Who has the power to fill the president’s cabinet seats?

Lyle Denniston looks at the controversy over two Cabinet nominations by President Barack Obama, and how it further erodes the constitutional respectability of the nomination and confirmation process.
The statement at issue:
“With Chuck Hagel, a former senator from Nebraska, emerging as a front-runner to be President Obama’s next secretary of defense, critics are taking aim at his record on Israel as well as remarks he made about pro-Israel lobbying groups in Washington….For the White House, it is the second time a candidate’s record has come under fire even before a nomination was announced.  Last week, Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, withdrew her name from consideration for secretary of state after coming under weeks of withering assault by Republicans.”
–Mark Landler, New York Times reporter, in a story published on December 19 discussing the developing opposition from “Jewish leaders” to a potential Hagel nomination.
We checked the Constitution, and…

check

Article II, Section 2, clearly defines two separate powers over the selection of federal government officials, including those who will serve in the president’s Cabinet. The power to make the initial choice–the nomination–lies with the president, and the power to give “advice and consent” (or the power to advise and reject) lies with the Senate. Each, of course, may be influenced by outsiders exercising their First Amendment right to “petition” the government.
Ever since the Senate, in 1795, reacted to criticism of John Rutledge’s views on a peace treaty by rejecting his nomination to be chief justice, the American public has been able to claim a voice in the nomination and confirmation process.
But one may also assume that the Founding Generation believed that it would be better for the country to let that process work, hopefully in a reasoned exercise of informed discretion–and especially so when nominations to some of the government’s most powerful offices are at stake.
About Constitution Check
In a continuing series of posts, Lyle Denniston provides responses based on the Constitution and its history to public statements about its meaning and what duties it imposes or rights it protects.
It is true, of course, that this process has not been working very well, for many nominees, and it often deteriorates into the worst kind of partisan squabbling. Still, the constitutional ideal would seem to be to let the president and the Senate work their wills.
A popularity contest, even before a nominee has been chosen at the White House, might not help improve the official process. And a popularity contest may actually be a bad idea when it produces mostly distortion or misinformation about a potential candidate’s background.
Defenders of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as a possible nominee to head the State Department argue that that was the case with the attack on her before President Obama had settled on any nominee for that post. Similarly, defenders of Chuck Hagel as a possible nominee to lead the Pentagon are now claiming that the Rice episode is being repeated in the developing attack on him even before any nominee is named.
The White House may not have helped itself, in either of those cases, by allowing presidential aides to float the names of people who were on the president’s “short list” for either post, because that allowed opponents to start building their challenges in advance. It may be that the White House let the names be known in order to test the initial reaction–sending up trial balloons.
Even so, there is a constitutional question arising here: is the president’s power of choice being diminished, and is the Senate’s power of review being preempted? What happened to the traditional view that a president was more or less entitled to have a Cabinet of his own choosing, and to the traditional view that the Senate would give such choices a respectful hearing? The nomination and confirmation process, like so much else in official Washington, seems to be in trouble if not actually broken.
It is one thing to allow interest groups to have their say, as they certainly have a right to do, but it is another thing to hand over to them a power to veto, in advance, the president’s choice and to take control of the Senate process even before it has begun.
President Lyndon Johnson was famous for refusing even to propose a nominee, if the identity of the person he wanted to select became known in advance. That was not a good idea, and neither is it a good idea to keep the public out of the process before Senate hearings begin.
But neither is it a good idea, in constitutional or good government terms, to have the public dialogue be one that is dominated by opponents using smear tactics and half-truths. That approach has turned American political campaigns into a sorry spectacle, no doubt discouraging talented people even from running for office.
How many individuals, qualified to become members of the president’s Cabinet, would choose to give up that chance rather than run such an obstacle course? If there were sound reasons for opposing Susan Rice and Chuck Hagel for seats in the Obama Cabinet, those should have been aired. There could have been a serious dialogue about that, in both cases. That, however, is not what occurred, and the result was further erosion in the constitutional respectability of the nomination and confirmation process.
Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center’s Adviser on Constitutional Literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 54 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court’s work.

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The daily gossip: Ben Affleck is open to running for Senate, and more

5 top pieces of celebrity gossip — from Claire Danes' newborn baby to Psy's pricy new Los Angeles condo
1. Ben Affleck is open to running for Senate
In recent months, Ben Affleck has been in the news as much for his political activism as for his filmmaking — but would he ever give up the gridlock and constant scrutiny of Hollywood filmmaking for the gridlock and constant scrutiny of Congressional politics? "One never knows. I'm not one to get into conjecture," said Affleck during a Wednesday taping of Sunday's Face The Nation, reports USA Today. "I do have a great fondness and admiration for the political process in this country." Affleck refused to speculate any further, but just to be safe, rival politicians should probably keep a DVD copy of Gigli handy.
2. Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy have a baby
Claire Danes may spend at least 80 percent of her Showtime series Homeland sobbing, but the Emmy-winning actress has something to smile about this week: A newborn son. People reports that the baby is the first for Danes and husband Hugh Dancy. The couple named the child Cyrus Michael Christopher Dancy, forgoing a tradition of completely insane celebrity baby names in favor of something that's merely unusual.
3. Lindsay Lohan accused of keeping $200,000 worth of Million Dollar Decorators furniture
After the scathing reviews she received for Liz & Dick, you'd think Lindsay Lohan would be happy to appear in anything. But the New York Post reports that the tabloid fixture has decided to pull out of an appearance on Bravo reality series Million Dollar Decorators — though not before receiving $200,000 worth of furniture for her Beverly Hills home. Bravo has confirmed that Lohan "was not available for the reveal shoot," but that the series was "still able to capture the outcome" — so if you've always wanted to see Lindsay Lohan's house without Lindsay Lohan in it, you're in luck.
4. Brad Pitt and John Legend praise Obama's stance on marijuana
President Obama's decision not to make the federal prosecution of marijuana users a "top priority" has endeared him to thousands of extremely relaxed supporters across the nation — and at least two high-profile supporters: Actor Brad Pitt and singer John Legend. In a recent statement, Pitt and Legend offered "joint praise" of Obama's platform, says E! Online, presumably while snickering.
5. Psy buys a condo in Los Angeles
Hey, pricy condo! After dancing his way into our hearts earlier this year, viral-video sensation Psy has horse-danced his way into a $1.25 million condo in Los Angeles' exclusive Blair House in Beverly Hills, reports TMZ. The "Gangnam Style" singer reportedly paid for his new pad entirely in cash, an act of extravagance that even surpasses that of "galloping" through a stable in a blue tuxedo.

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