Liberalism

American Justice

2008-07-23T15:37:00.002-05:00

This is what passes for justice in this country today:

In March 2007, Australian native David Hicks, who was a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, became the first person to be sentenced by a military commission convened under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Last February, Col. Morris Davis, the lead prosecutor in Hicks’ trial, told the Australian that the Pentagon “leaned on” him to rush Hicks’ trial, even though at the time he “had no regulations for trial by military commissions.”
[...]
Bush administration political appointees appear to have meddled in Hicks’ case in order to help their key conservative ally, Australian Prime Minister John Howard. In early 2007, Howard was facing a serious electoral challenge from Labor leader Kevin Rudd, who eventually went on to defeat him. Hicks’ incarceration at Guantanamo Bay was a contentious issue in Australian politics at the time.

In February 2007, Vice President Dick Cheney visited Howard in Australia, where the PM lobbied for the trial to “be brought on as soon as humanly possible and with no further delay.” A month later, Hicks was sentenced and released back to Australia with critics airing suspicions that Cheney had interceded.

In October 2007, an anonymous military officer told Harper’s Scott Horton that “Cheney interfered directly to get Hicks’s plea bargain deal” as “part of a deal cut” with Howard.

Unbelievable. Yet investigation and impeachment of Cheney remains "off the table."

Today's nitpick: "Kenner" IS "New Orleans"

2008-06-05T10:08:00.002-05:00

After McCain's impressively lame "that's not change we can believe in" speech, the lefty web is rife with lines like this:

Yesterday evening John McCain gave a speech near New Orleans...

I've got some news for y'all. I grew up in Louisiana, and none of my friends ever talked about going to Kenner or flying into the Kenner airport. Kenner is "New Orleans," like Richardson is "Dallas" or Galena Park is "Houston." It may offend some of you, but I don't know anyone (except maybe a native) who talks about going to the Bronx to see the Yankees or going to Anaheim to go to Disneyland. Everybody knows that the auto industry is centered in Detroit, although as far as I know Detroit itself actually contains few if any auto plants these days. So bashing McCain for only being "near" New Orleans or for saying he was pleased to be in New Orleans when the CNN Chyron clearly said "Kenner" is just idiotic. He was in New Orleans. He wasn't in the damaged part of New Orleans, like John Edwards was when he announced his candidacy, and one can ask if McCain ever bothered to go visit the Lower 9th Ward (he wouldn't even have needed a platoon of Marines to escort him).

"Water Treatment" != "Waterboarding"

2008-05-22T11:00:00.002-05:00

This is brilliant:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/21/water-treatment/

Murat Kurnaz, “freed from Guantanamo in 2006 after a personal plea from German Chancellor Angela Merkel,” detailed the gross abuses he underwent in U.S. custody yesterday. Kurnaz said he was subjected to “water treatment” which involved a “strong punch” that forced him to inhale water. Asked if this was waterboarding, Kurnaz said “water treatment” is different:

ROHRABACHER: You suggest that you were waterboarded in your captivity. Is that correct?

KURNAZ: No, it’s not waterboarding. It’s called “water treatment.” There was a bucket of water.

ROHRABACHER: Was a cloth put over your face and you were put on a board?

KURNAZ: There was a bucket of water. And they stick my head in it and at the same time, punch me into my stomach.

Rohrabacher responded: “The CIA is claiming that only three people have been waterboarded. And this may be a loophole that they’re suggesting that’s not ‘waterboarding.’”

And since it's not waterboarding, it's not torture. Therefore, the President was not lying when he told us over and over and over that "we do not torture." Brilliant!

Liberalrob Hates the Troops

2008-04-23T11:25:00.001-05:00

Posted on Megan McArdle's blog today:

One of my favorite movies about military culture is "A Few Good Men" (I'm also partial to "The Caine Mutiny"). Its plot clearly illustrates what I consider to be the main issue we're discussing here: line personnel with the most honorable of motives are ordered to commit a violation of the official code of conduct, because their commander thinks it necessary to enforce discipline. The thing goes south and they wind up accidentally killing the soldier the commander was trying to "train," and then rather than owning his ordering the action up front the commander tries to cover it up (or at least his involvement). When the commander is called to testify at the court-martial of the line Marines, he makes a long-winded speech about honor and duty and warriors manning the walls while effete sheeplike citizens sleep soundly in their beds secure in the safety he provides through his leadership; what moral right can the sheep then claim to criticize the manner in which he provides that safety? But the fact remained that he ordered the commission of an act that went against the code of conduct governing the military, and ordered that a crime be committed; and regardless of how lofty and high-minded his intent might have been, he did order that violation. So he was punished for it. We are a nation of laws, not of men, even in the military.

I have absolutely no criticisms at all for most of the people who carry out the orders and do the fighting and dying in Iraq, Afghanistan, and everywhere else they are called on to do it. They are all heroes. Like those Marines in A Few Good Men, they do need to exercise some basic moral judgment in carrying out orders; you don't give up your knowledge of right and wrong when you take the oath, and that's what some of the displeasure here is about. But I realize that there often isn't time to think about whether what you're doing is the right thing to do, and there is a lot of conditioning to push our troops to default toward following orders without questioning them; so a heavier responsibility HAS to fall on the commanders who are giving those orders. Those are the people who most deserve scorn, those people like Col. whatshisname Miller who came up with the interrogation regime used at Guantanamo and then exported it to Abu Ghraib. Where's his court-martial? Beyond that, where is the investigation into the people who ordered Col. Miller to come up with those techniques? Where is their indictment and trial?

That's what I'm talking about, whoever wants to think I "hate the military." I don't hate the military. I hate what's being done with it (and to it).

The Coveted Liberalrob Endorsement

2008-02-19T12:07:00.002-06:00

With the Texas primary exactly two weeks away, and early voting starting today, I suppose it's time to decide who I'm going to pull the lever for on March 4th. Bill Richardson was my previous choice but he's no longer available. So, it's either Hillary or Barack. I'd be happy to vote for either of them, of course. Both are preferable to McCain.

Hillary was always the brains of the Clinton "team," or at least it seemed that way to me. Not that Bill was a dummy but Hillary seemed more ideological somehow. Probably it was her heading up the first universal healthcare initiative that gave me that impression. I also admire her strength and perseverance in being able to stand up to the relentless press hatred she's had to endure. She also does have experience being a national leader and being on the national (and global) stage. She's a known quantity.

That also cuts against her in my estimation. Not simply that she is a "divisive figure" (which is one of many execrable press-hate memes she's faced), but that she is too close to the Democratic "establishment" for my comfort. It was the Clintons who brought the DLC to national prominence and control of the Democratic Party agenda. Unfortunately the DLC turned into a corporate advocacy group, perhaps not as bad as the American Enterprise Institute or Club for Growth but certainly of that ilk, and I'm opposed to maintaining and expanding their influence in the party and the nation. It's not clear to me how aligned Hillary is with the DLC but given the past association it is a concern. I have also felt that Hillary is too willing to compromise with Republicans in the name of "getting things done," which is a huge mistake and misapprehension of their unity and fanatical opposition to any Democratic initiatives. It's also clear that while possibly not an elitist Hillary certainly is of the elite, and the nation needs to get some leadership that is not of the "ruling class" at some point. Voting for Hillary kicks that can down the road another 4 years.

So what of Obama? The first acceptably-moderate black man to run for President and have a reasonable chance of winning is a powerful symbol, especially for someone like myself who grew up in the South. Having a black man elected President would be the strongest possible statement to the racists who remain in this country, that their intolerance and hate is no longer viable; a relic of a sad and tarnished past that will inevitably disappear. Barack is a powerful public speaker, yet powerful without being strident. He has chosen to run on a generally positive basis, playing up hope for the future and a reunited sense of America as a good nation. He has a great personal story and is of humble origins. And he has Oprah's endorsement :)

My problem with Barack is his message, or more precisely the content of his message; I have no problem with the tone and I do agree that Republicans have won elections by focusing on sunny, rosy optimism. I simply don't think personally feel that rosy optimism is all I want in my candidate for President. I also
want to know specifically what my candidate will do to enact the programs I support, and this has been sadly lacking from Obama's statements. While Hillary has also been light on specifics, her long track record to a degree substitutes for detailed policy proposals; Obama's lack of history leaves this an open question. Also, given the hugely difficult situation 8 years of Republican misrule has inflicted on us, I would prefer to have someone with demonstrated experience at the helm rather than an unknown, if talented, newcomer.

So, when it comes down to it, I will be voting for Hillary Clinton on March 4th.

Happy New Year

2008-01-21T10:55:00.000-06:00

A little late.

I will be 41 on Thursday. Starting on the downslope of life. Isn't this a time when you're supposed to be inspired to do something to make your life worthwhile?

My man Bill Richardson bailed early, as did Dean in 2004. Guess there's no room for you unless you're a media darling.

On Columbus Day

2007-10-09T16:17:00.000-05:00

A day late, yes, I know. I posted this on Megan McCardle's blog at The Atlantic:

The point I want to make on the Columbus discussion is to admire the vision and determination to organize and execute the expedition, while deploring what he did subsequent to the initial voyage's success. While he didn't "discover" America he did "re-discover" it, and the voyage was indeed an epic worthy of remembrance. The horrors that came after are also worthy of remembrance, and I think it is fitting that Columbus Day serve both purposes.

Monthly post

2007-09-28T10:02:00.000-05:00

Just to disturb the spiders and dust bunnies around here...

Nothing in particular to say though.

It's not hate

2007-08-06T13:31:00.000-05:00

I keep getting accused by my friends of simply being partisan, of hating Republicans for being Republicans. It's simply not true. First of all it's not hate. If one hates something, one takes steps to physically eradicate it. I hate cockroaches. I hate wasps. I hate yard work. That's quite different from saying you hate a person. I hated people in grade school; not many, but there were a few. And always, I later looked back and wondered why I wasted so much time hating that person rather than getting on with what was important in life. Sometimes, I ended up making friends with people I had earlier hated.

Glenn Greenwald said this last Friday on the subject of partisanship and "progressive" Democrats at the Yearly Kos convention:

There are many mythologies about what are the defining beliefs and motivations of bloggers and their readers and the attendees at Yearly Kos. One of the principal myths is that it is all driven by a familiar and easily defined ideological agenda and/or a partisan attachment to the Democratic Party. That is all false.
The common, defining political principle here -- what resonates far more powerfully than any other idea -- is a fervent and passionate belief in our country's constitutional framework, the core liberties it secures, and the checks and balances it offers as a safeguard against tyrannical power. Those who fail to defend that framework, or worse, those who are passively or actively complicit in its further erosion, are all equally culpable. With each day that passes, the radicalism and extremism originally spawned in secret by the Bush presidency becomes less and less his fault and more and more the fault of those who -- having discovered what they have been doing and having been given the power to stop it -- instead acquiesce to it and, worse, enable and endorse it.

I don't hate Republicans. I disagree with them, I want to convince them why they are wrong to believe what they believe, but through reason not coercion. I am a Democrat and vote 100% Democratic not because I just love Democrats, but because they support more of the things I believe in than Republicans do.

The Fake-ibuster

2007-07-18T15:05:00.000-05:00

Man, that was one of the worst filibusters of all time. Everything scripted on both sides, no passion (except Mary Landrieu, and that was apparently only because she was tired of the Republicans accusing the Democrats of Hollywood grandstanding; yeah, like they NEVER did any of that). When you think of filibusters, you think of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (obviously) and Huey Long reading long lists of pot liquor recipies into the official record. This was just 36 hours of 10-minute speeches, some of them delivered with all the panache of a wet cardboard box.

Where were the colloquys, with Senators on each side of the aisle engaging each other seriously in substantive, point vs. counterpoint debate on the merits of their positions? Where was the passionate denunciation of Republican obtuseness, of the President's folly? At the end I was almost forced to agree with the Republicans; what did this really, in the end, accomplish? It wasn't on network TV, or even Fox or CNN; unless people tuned in to C-SPAN2 they may never have known it was happening. And then in the end, when the cloture vote was finally taken, rather than halt the Senate at that point and demand that, since the Republicans obviously felt it was necessary, debate on the Levin/Reed amendment continue; instead of that, the Majority Leader pulled the bill. What an anticlimax!

I can understand the desire to not be seen as obstructionist yourself. But come on, this is supposed to be a filibuster! Make them filibust! Keep the Senate in session until doomsday if that's what it takes. Your approval rating can't go any lower, just like the President's, so what is there to lose?

E-mail to Richard Cohen

2007-06-20T17:24:00.000-05:00

Sent to Washington Post sage Richard Cohen after his hacktackular column and chat.

Mr. Cohen:

I have a few observations on your recent column about Scooter Libby. I tried to raise these in the chat but apparently I came too late (and I'm sure you were hit with an avalanche of questions and comments, so it's not surprising).

The four main points I want to raise are these:

1) CIA Director Hayden confirmed to Congressman Henry Waxman that Valerie Plame Wilson was considered "covert" under the applicable statutes at the time her identity and employer were revealed. I find it difficult to understand how you can continue to maintain the opposite after this revelation by the man currently in charge of the CIA, who was brought in after the revelation and therefore cannot have any axe to grind, and who cannot be considered a partisan opponent of the Bush Administration and Scooter Libby.

2) You insist that there is no underlying crime because Libby himself did not initially reveal Valerie Wilson's identity. It seems to me that Libby's crime was obstructing the investigation into the revelation of the identity of a covert agent, not his faulty memory. Whether he himself committed that particular crime is not relevant; he obstructed the investigation and that is why he is being punished. Why do you disagree with that position, when a jury of 12 Americans agreed?

3) You have called for a commutation of Libby's sentence because he himself did not initially reveal Valerie Wilson's identity; that is now known to have been the work of Richard Armitage. But how is that different from the sentence of Charles Colson, who did not himself participate in the Watergate burglary? Like Libby, all he did was remain loyal to his superiors and participate in obstruction of the investigation of actions he did not himself commit.

4) You have said that high government officials should not be "called to account for practicing the dark art of politics," presumably referring to whatever dirty tricks they might engage in in the name of partisan politics. But isn't there a line that cannot be crossed in that regard, where the "dark art" subverts our political system and runs afoul of the law? And regardless of whether these violations of law might be trivial, are not high government officals expected to take responsibility when they do cross it? Further, do not high government officials have a duty to assist in the investigation and correction of these abuses, no matter how minor, and not obstruct such investigations?

Thank you for your time.

==========================================================

Let's just say I'm not shedding any tears for poor Scooter.

But who gets to be Max?

2007-06-18T17:07:00.000-05:00

Ran across this on TPM while catching up from the weekend:

Holly vowed he would never again use unarmored vehicles for convoy protection. He went to his primary shipper, Public Warehousing Co. of Kuwait, and ordered a change. PWC hired ArmorGroup, which had armed Ford F-350 pickups with steel-reinforced gun turrets and belt-fed machine guns.
Other companies followed suit, ramping up production of an array of armored and semi-armored trucks of various styles and colors, until Iraq's supply routes resembled the post-apocalyptic world of the "Mad Max" movies.

Nothing says "progress in Iraq" like comparisons to a post-apocalyptic action film in which a desert area plunges into anarchy, with roving bands of well-armed militias struggling to maintain order.

I remember when I first got the game "Car Wars", how cool it was to have cars and pickups with machine guns and flamethrowers and all the James Bond stuff, and you would get together with your buddies and design cars and have them fight each other. Lotsa fun.

And there was "The Road Warrior" (the sequel to Mad Max, but the first one seen by a wide audience here in the U.S.), but for the most part those guys just had crossbows and boomerangs. Shotgun shells were a rare commodity. So it wasn't as cool as Car Wars; but it was a movie and not a game so you could see Mel Gibson taking it to The Humongous and his gang. And of course Virginia Hey as The Warrior Woman. But I digress.

I think it's sad that all we've managed to do after the hundreds of billions spent and thousands of lives lost is to recreate the conditions of the Car Wars universe. Instead of the M.O.N.D.O.s we have the Mahdis. It's all there. Roads of death, walled fortress enclaves, the works.

We need to get out of the way. Now.

Random Ranting Room

2007-05-16T13:15:00.000-05:00

If you find you way here from one of my posts on another blog, this is a place to leave me feedback or whatever. I haven't posted here in forever...with so many other bloggers doing such a fine job posting, I haven't felt much of a need to post on my own. It's kind of a catch-22; since almost nobody comes here to discuss things, I don't post, and since I don't post, anybody who comes here probably thinks this blog is dead. Which, effectively, it is...but since it's just a personal blog anyway, I suppose that's OK.

Amanda Marcotte resigns from Edwards Campaign

2007-02-13T11:31:00.000-06:00

Since Pandagon is being hammered, here's what I was trying to post over there:

I'm sorry it came to this, Amanda. You'll be freer to speak now, and that's a good thing, but I know it's a loss and it has to hurt.

I meant everything I said, on the Edwards blog and when I commented on Atrios' blog yesterday. You would have brought Edwards something he badly needed, fire in his message. He's going to have to work extra hard now to erase his milquetoast liberal image, without your strong voice to lead the way. And his obvious cave to a bunch of religious nuts doesn't sit well with me as a secularist either. I don't care that he found your posts personally offensive; if he wants to be the President of all the people he's going to have to respect and defend those who feel strongly that organized religion intruding in people's private lives is inappropriate. I don't doubt that Edwards probably didn't know anything about you until his campaign manager told him he was going to fire you and was giving him a heads-up. The whole handling of this feels like D.C. consultant triangulation, not in keeping with my understanding of how Edwards operates at all.

I hope some day a candidate comes along that can have a blog where issues are openly and frankly discussed, instead of just being a watered-down lovefest over press releases. Apparently Edwards wasn't that candidate.

Glenn Greenwald asks a good question

2006-12-07T12:28:00.000-06:00

With regards to James Baker:

What possible rationale exists for listening to someone who urged us to pursue a course that is the greatest strategic disaster in our country's history? A person who said this should be shunned, not idolized[...]

If you go to a doctor for an operation and he completely botches your surgery and you lose an organ due to his abject ineptitude and recklessness, you don't go back to that doctor for repair surgery; you find another one. If you go to a lawyer who almost destroys your company through complete ignorance of your basic legal obligations, you don't stay with that lawyer in the hope that he will get you out of the disaster he created for you; you retain another one.

Yet here we are, revering and listening to and following the same dense, amoral people who could not have been more wrong about everything they recommended and asserted prior to this war, while we scorn or (at best) ignore those who were so right.

True enough. But let me say a few things in Baker's defense (much as it pains me to do so):

1) Despite Greenwald's disparaging it as "Friedmanesque," implying that career civil servant and experienced diplomat Baker was as unqualified as newspaper columnist Tom Friedman to be making such statements, Baker did in fact say (as Greenwald himself quotes):

The only realistic way to effect regime change in Iraq is through the application of military force, including sufficient ground troops to occupy the country (including Baghdad), depose the current leadership and install a successor government. Anyone who thinks we can effect regime change in Iraq with anything less than this is simply not realistic.

This position goes right along with Gen. Shinseki's statement when he estimated it would take 200-300 thousand troops to occupy Iraq. We did not have sufficient ground troops. We did not send sufficient ground troops. The administration hunted around until they found a general (Franks) who assured them that they could conquer Iraq with the troops available, and they put him in charge. James Baker didn't have anything to do with the planning and execution of the administration's Iraq strategy, what there was of it. To now go back and pillory him for the poor execution of a strategy he had nothing to do with is simply wrong. James Baker did not advocate the invasion of Iraq with insufficient troops to pacify the country.

2) James Baker is not advocating "stay the course," no matter how much Glenn and many many others would like to portray him as doing so. If he were, why would the President be spending so much time trying to discredit and dilute the ISG report? Obviously I haven't read the report and have to rely on second-hand analysis of its findings; but from what has been reported so far, it doesn't seem to me like "stay the course."

3) James Baker is not solely responsible for this report. He is the co-chair of the ISG with Lee Hamilton, another experienced and respected public servant. And while there may be a few "wildly extremist, warmongering" types in the ISG, there are also voices of moderation- and the report was unanimously submitted. Greenwald may be skeptical- to put it mildly- of the expertise of the people on the ISG commission; but they are all at least as qualified as Greenwald, and most have a lot more time in public service. Hamilton and Baker have been in government for as long as I've been alive (and, I suspect, as Greenwald has).

I hate bashing Glenn Greenwald. He is one of the brightest lights of the progressive blogosphere, and I love his work (even this trashing of Baker is well-argued and understandable). But this is one case where I think he is perhaps being a bit overzealous. It's all too easy to look at people who supported a policy that ultimately failed for whatever reasons and say "well, these are unserious people who should be ostracized." But if you do that, if you insist on 100% success as a condition of respecting someone's policy recommendations, you're quickly going to run out of people from whom to get recommendations. Look at the recommendations themselves, and judge those. That's what a Liberal does.

Blaming the victims

2006-10-19T10:25:00.000-05:00

Billmon goes all wobbly and maudlin over our collective lack of cojones, which caused us to permit the unleashing of the horrors of genocide in Iraq:

We were all complicit. I was complicit. Because I was afraid -- afraid to sacrifice my comfortable middle class lifestyle, afraid to lose my job and my house, afraid of the IRS, afraid to go to jail.

Well, sure. I suppose what we should have done, in hindsight, is take to the streets in protest. After all, that's what our parents did in the 60's, right? Burning draft cards, holding mass rallies, Abbie Hoffman speechifying...

Brought that Vietnam War to a swift termination, didn't it? (News flash: it didn't.)

I see more and more of this now. We Americans who oppose the war but don't get out there and march in the streets and lob eggs at City Hall and pelt cops with rocks and garbage are the new "Good Germans." We are as much to blame for the deaths of 660,000 Iraqis and counting as the Sunni death squads and Shia militias who pulled the triggers, swung the swords, and knotted the ropes. All of that blood is directly on our hands.

Bullscheiss. That blood is not on my hands. I didn't vote for these bastards, I didn't formulate the ridiculous plans that ignored the postwar period, I didn't lie to the American people about the danger we were in. The last time I looked, advocating armed insurrection against the United States was the very definition of treason, written in black ink in the Constitution, and the punishment prescribed is death. Surely we know enough by now to realize that mere marching in the streets would not be sufficient to change the President's mind about his Iraq policy. So short of futilely taking up arms against my own country, what do you propose I could have done to avert the catastrophe?

No, I don't accept the responsibility for this. The difference between me and the "Good Germans" is that I am not actively aiding and abetting my government in its lunacy. I am not denouncing my neighbors, I am not keeping silent in my public statements, I am not trying not to know what is going on 10 miles down the road or halfway around the world. That is a critical difference and we must not lose sight of it. If we are responsible for genocide, which I also deny, it was not instigated by me. It was perpetrated by the galactically irrational people we have allowed to be elected to run our country.

660,000 dead Iraqis is indeed a tragedy. And I don't deny that by removing the civil structures (such as they were) that had been in place in Iraq under Saddam and not replacing them with equally strong structures of our own, we left a power vaccuum that could be filled by these bloodthirsty gangs. It is South Central L.A. writ large. But in my opinion it was only a matter of time before this happened anyway. These deaths, this horror, was going to occur without our having to lift a finger. It happened in Rwanda, it happened in Somalia, it happened in Ethiopia, it is happening right now in Sudan. Armed sectarian violence occurs all the time without our involvement, and in every case there are tragedies and noncombantant deaths and stories of atrocities to chill the soul. The only difference, the ONLY difference, is that in Iraq our American troops are stuck in the middle of it. The Iraqi Shia in the south have always wanted to go after the Sunnis in the center and west. The Kurds in the north have always wanted their own autonomous state. These things were GOING TO HAPPEN. All we did with our blundering was move up the timetable a little.

Blame me as a genocide denier if you want. It's a (theoretically) free country. But our troops didn't pull the triggers (not all 660,000 of them), and they aren't swinging the swords. The genocide, if there is one, is on the hands of the Sadrists, Sunnis, and Kurds doing the killing. Not us, and not me. I am a victim of this administration's arrogant incompetence too.

Crikey, Steve Irwin's gone

2006-09-06T08:22:00.000-05:00

Posted on Atrios' blog:

When I was young (in the 1970's) one of my favorite shows was "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" hosted by Marlin Perkins. That show was the ONLY show of its kind on the tube in those pre-cable days. Nowhere else would you see wildlife in their natural environment, or learn about the efforts of naturalists to preserve them in the face of the ever-expanding human encroachment on their habitat. That show, more than any other, made we aware of environmental issues and shaped my views in ways that still affect me today.

After "Wild Kingdom" went off the air and Jacques Cousteau's (the other great 70's TV naturalist) "Undersea World" sank beneath the waves, there were practically NO shows about animals on TV that I was aware of. Even with the coming of cable, and the National Geographic specials and TLC and Discovery, none of the shows really engaged me like "Wild Kingdom" had done.

Then I was flipping channels one day and saw this goofy Australian straight out of central casting talking about crocodiles. I was born and raised in Louisiana so I'm quite aware of their not-quite-cousins (alligators), and he seemed really excited so I stopped to watch. At the end of the show it hit me: this was the first naturalist since Marlin Perkins who really made his work INTERESTING, even fun to watch. Steve Irwin blazed a trail for the resurgence of the TV naturalist. His ability to connect with the audience and make wildlife understandable to people who may not know the first thing about King Brown snakes other than as menaces to be killed was a priceless gift. All of us, especially those of us on the left who are supposed to view the environment as something to be preserved rather than merely as a source of raw materials, have lost one of our most valuable advocates. It's not too much of a stretch to compare his loss to the natural world with JFK's loss to the United States politically, or Princess Diana's to the world, in terms of love and respect for a fundamentally decent person who tried to do their best.

The Scenic Route to 9/11

2006-09-06T00:43:00.000-05:00

ABC is putting out this "docudrama", called "The Path to 9/11." So far everything I've read about it says that it's a Clinton hatchet-job; it's all Clinton's fault, you see, because he didn't kill Osama.

The lefty blogosphere is of course not taking this lying down. I posted my own comment to the official blog of the movie:

I bet moderating the comments here is a fun job.

9/11 is simply too highly charged for a fictionalized "docudrama." How many
"docudramas" were made about Pearl Harbor? "Tora Tora Tora" stuck with the
facts, and was highly acclaimed. "Midway" went for docudrama and invented a
nonexistent story for Charlton Heston's character, and was not nearly as good as
a result. The Kennedy assassination? Oliver Stone's "JFK" forsook accuracy for
"docudrama," and the real-life Jim Garrison disavowed it.

When you deal with historical events, especially those that were traumatic like
Pearl Harbor and 9/11, as filmmakers you have a duty to remain faithful to the
actual history. Any deviations in the name of "drama" are almost inevitably
going to be seen as cheap theatrics and will tarnish your effort.

Tri-weekly open thread

2006-07-27T14:31:00.000-05:00

Anybody reading this? Is this thing on?

Dogged Off

2006-07-07T12:17:00.000-05:00

I got involved in the Roger Ailes/Bob Somerby dustup on FireDogLake over the past couple of days. Ailes posted a snarky screed on Joe Klein and John Harwood's weekend talk show appearances, calling Klein and Cokie Roberts (who is the daughter of Democratic Party legend T. Hale Boggs) "Republican reporters" who were supposed to balance the conservative-leaning reporters they appeared with. Somerby took Ailes to task in July 5th's Daily Howler, saying:

But Klein and Roberts aren’t “Republicans;” that’s a childish way to discuss the enduring problems with their work as pundits (problems we have discussed for years). More specifically, as anyone who watched This Week would know, that post completely misrepresents what actually occurred in Sunday’s roundtable.

I don't read all of FDL every day but I do know that it's a very popular blog on the Progressive "side" of the internets, so I wandered over there to see what the response to this accusation might be. FDL is a high-traffic blog that makes multiple posts during the day, and I figured someone must have seen this post by the time I got to it. If not, I wanted to let them know about it, because an allegation of misleading and misrepresentation shouldn't be allowed to stand on a blog that prides itself on being a leader of the reality-based community. I was a little surprised to see no mention of the Daily Howler post on the day's topics, either as a front-page article or in the comments. So I ventured onto a then-recent post that was more or less an open comments thread and posted a very mild link to the Daily Howler.

Predictably a bunch of white knights sprang up to defend their favorite blog from my perceived attack. It didn't matter that I didn't accuse FDL of anything, just passed along that they had been called to account in public; the very fact that I had posted a link to something critical made me a "concern troll" and a "Somerby shill." It truly was a bizarre mirror image of what I would have gotten had I gone onto Redstate or Free Republic and defended Al Gore or said something positive about his movie. People, if you're reading this, you have to learn how to tolerate differing viewpoints and not knee-jerkingly attack anyone who happens to disagree with you or says something critical. I know it's asking a lot, but please, we should make the effort.

Anyway, as I said it was predictable if a bit disappointing to have it actually happen. I suffered through it and kept cool, and eventually Christy Hardin Smith posted a comment that some sort of response would be forthcoming.

Today, Ailes posted his response to Somerby. And once again, it is a snarky, innuendo-filled "defense" that spends much time condescendingly explaining to Somerby (and us) how things work in the world of Roger Ailes:

Somerby says: It’s bad to characterize Klein as a Republican because he sometimes says things critical of the Republican Party in general or specific Republicans in particular.

I say: When you become a serial purveyor of fraudlent talking points concerning Democrats which are indistingiushable from Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman’s Greatest Fundraising Speeches, you deserve ridicule. And that includes the insult you earn from the content of your running commentary: Republican.

Oh, sure, I could have accused JoeK of having "Millionaire Pundit Values" or of "typing up scripts." I could have called him a "fake," or a "celebrity." Indeed, I could point out that JoeK "want[s] to trash major Democrats only," and then express the most profound bewilderment as to Joe’s possible motive for doing so.

Instead, I called him a Republican. I did it my way.

So now we know: telling the reading public that Joe Klein is a Republican (an utter falsehood) is exactly the same as saying he has Millionaire Pundit Values, or that he is a fake (DINO I assume), or that he is a celebrity (which is somehow a bad thing). Ailes buys into the wingnut strategy of making shit up about the people you disagree with; it works for them, doesn't it? Why not do the same, see how they like it.

The comments below Ailes' piece again ranged on both sides, some defending Somerby and some defending Ailes. Actually very few defended Ailes per se; for the most part the anti-Somerby commenters were more interested in trashing Somerby as a has-been or never-was than in explicitly backing Ailes. One of the early comments mentioned some "Somerby shill":

27. BarbaraB says:
July 7th, 2006 at 1:26 am

Thanks for coming by, Roger. We had a Somerby shill in here on Wednesday who kept insisting that Jane and/or Christy drop everything they were doing in order to justify your piece or refute Somerby’s charges. Various members of the community (including the goddesses themselves) told the shill to take a hike, which eventually he, she or it did. Tiresome while it lasted, though.

That would have been me, BarbaraB. I would challenge little miss perfect to find one single comment where I demanded that the FDL people "drop everything they were doing." I merely suggested that some kind of response, even one from Ailes himself, would probably be a good idea; it's what I would do if it were my blog and someone made me aware of a similar thing. Apparently that's too hard a concept for BarbaraB however. Sorry I was so tiresome to you, perhaps a quick nap would help.

So that's the story so far. We'll see if it goes any further. I just felt that since comments at FDL were turned off before I had a chance to comment, I would do it here. I'm a bit irked by the experience and needed to get this off my chest.

Where's Waldo?

2006-06-30T15:44:00.000-05:00

Yes this blog is languishing. I haven't had much inspiration lately, not sure why; it comes and goes. For the most part I've been commenting on other blogs, mostly David Brin's and Pandagon, but you might find me popping up in lots of different places.

Professional Journalists

2006-05-23T10:47:00.000-05:00

Bob Somerby pointed out yesterday just how professional these highly-paid Washington journalists are:

A CARTOON PRESS CORPS: Only Elisabeth Bumiller could overlook the mordant humor in her presentation. At the start of this morning’s “White House Letter,” she describes the press corps’ conduct during a recent plane ride:
BUMILLER (5/22/06): Reporters en route to Arizona on Air Force One last week opted to watch the movie ''King Kong'' in the press cabin. Not so Tony Snow, the new White House press secretary and former Fox News commentator, who told reporters that he spent the flight in the staff cabin watching Gen. Michael V. Hayden's confirmation hearings to be the new C.I.A. director—on CNN.
Got milk—and cookies? While Snow watches Hayden’s confirmation hearings, the “press corps” chooses King Kong!

Of course, they're not being paid to cover the confirmation hearings; they're being paid to cover the President. But how are they going to know what questions to ask the President if they can't be bothered to keep up with such an important event as a confirmation hearing? And don't tell me that this wasn't an important confirmation hearing; this was a hearing for the man who will be in charge of this nation's premiere civilian intelligence agency, an agency that is under fire all the time now for incompentence and political infighting.

Man, I obviously went into the wrong field. I still haven't seen King Kong. (The Peter Jackson version, that is.) That would be sweet to get paid to watch movies.

The Press Corpse

2006-05-01T17:24:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend Digby put up several excellent posts, including one on the constitutional crisis we find ourselves in due to the President's decision that "in a time of war" he has the ability to interpret the laws as he deems fit. At the end of his piece he reflects on the press corps' apparent eagerness to bash the Clinton administration endlessly on any subject no matter how minor or personal, while they seem unable to bring themselves to similarly attack the current incumbent:

"But you really have to wonder why they were so rabidly and openly anti-Clinton, to the point of trying to affirmatively help the Republicans drive him from office, while this time trying to extract promises that the Democrats won't hold Bush accountable for anything he has done."

Following is my take on this question, which I emailed to him:

Bob Somerby looked at this a while back, discussing Clinton biography "The Survivor" by the Washington Post's John Harris:

"Why did the mainstream press corps show so much disdain for Bill Clinton? He wasn’t ironic enough, Harris says—and they were jaded by Nam, of course, which had happened twenty years in the past! These explanations are amazingly bad—but they’re pretty much par for the course when members of the Washington press corps try to explain their own cohort’s misconduct. Weird explanations inevitably follow when reporters take on this vile task. (Links to examples below.)

Yes, reporters love to give strange “explanations” for their cohort’s misconduct. But there’s something they love even more at such moments—they love to make their group disappear. We weren’t there, they love to say, as they ignore their own cohort’s misconduct. And so it goes as Harris attempts to explain the Whitewater mess."

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh082505.shtml

He never gets around to giving his personal opinion on why the press corps decided to (try to) torpedo the Clinton administration. In light of that, I have to give Harris' explanation (which Somerby considers "bad") credit for at least a little plausibility. I can easily believe that the Washington press corps could have become so insular that when the outsider Clinton arrived, replacing the much-beloved Reagan/Bush team that had governed for 12 years, that they would have felt some petty resentment and allowed that to color their reporting.

But beyond that, we have the Right-Wing Noise Machine constantly hammering away at Clinton's credibility and character; how many members of the mainstream media were regular listeners of Rush Limbaugh, even if only on drive-time radio? How many of them were closet conservatives or simply subscribed to the "where's there's smoke" line of reasoning that all these right-wing radicals couldn't possibly be making EVERYTHING up? And what was the role of the emerging consolidation of media into large conglomerates? Conglomerates run by people who might themselves be right-wing conservatives, or at least people sensitive to the endless and raucous charges of "liberal bias" if they attempted to defend the President? Was there pressure, subtle or otherwise, to emphasize stories critical of the President and downplay stories supportive of him? Was this a sort of "payback" for the destruction of Nixon, the Iran-Contra coverage which tarnished Sainted Reagan, the "Borking" of Bork and the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings?

It's all pieces of the puzzle. They didn't like Clinton the outsider, the uppity, arrogant hayseed from Arkansas. A new generation of reporters were replacing the Watergate era crew as those reporters advanced, retired, or moved on to other projects. They didn't like the fact that he was getting laid by interns and they weren't, or they simply knew that sex sells and lurid, illicit sex sells a lot. Perhaps they felt bad on some level for tarnishing earlier administrations, people they had known and worked with for 12 years. They lost sight of their ethical responsibility to REPORT the news, not CREATE the news (assuming they even knew that they had such a responsibility, and that blowhards like Limbaugh did not and were not in fact journalists). As a group, they simply decided they were going to punish Clinton and they proceeded to do it. And it was so much fun, and they did so much business because of it, that they decided to continue it with Al Gore (and for a short, critical time, Howard Dean).

Not only do we face a constitutional crisis; we face a crisis in the role of the press in society and the concept of jounalism itself. We have arrived at a time where we need to question just what it is that we are working towards as Americans, how our institutions should operate in pursuit of that goal of a more perfect union, and even what those institutions ought to be.

Will Pryor is running for Congress

2006-04-26T21:33:00.000-05:00

...in my district, TX-32. This is a "safe Republican" district created by Tom Delay's gerrymandering scheme a few years ago. Nevertheless, I think that a strong Democratic candidate could win here, especially if incumbent Pete Sessions' involvement in the Jack Abramoff scandal and a shady California defense contracting deal turns out to have been more than just coincidence. At least, I hope that enough Republicans are rational enough to see that Sessions has supported disastrous policies and should be replaced.

But I'm not sure Pryor is that strong Democrat. If you go through his campaign web site, everything you see points to an accomodational, "consensus-building" style. I understand that and it's even admirable- in the right situation. If the political opposition were capable of being persuaded by logical argument, or if they were willing to work with you on some sort of quid-pro-quo basis, then reciprocal flexibility and cooperation is appropriate. But when the opposition is NOT so inclined and instead continually votes against any initiative from your side on strict party-line votes, being flexible and trying to work with them is just being a sap. And when the policies they fight so hard for are in fact counter to the ideals this country was founded on, and harmful to the long-term interests of the United States, then you not only have reason to object strenuously, but you have a duty to fight just as strongly against their misguided positions. So far, Pryor has not expressed a willingness to do this.

I will support Will Pryor, by default if for no other reason; and I will do what I can to help him find the strong voice he will need in order to represent me in the manner in which I would like to be represented. I have already sent him several e-mails pointing out changes I think he should make and positions I think he needs to explain more fully; and he has promised changes to his website soon.

Oh, now I get it

2006-03-09T15:31:00.000-06:00

So THAT's why abortion should be illegal:

Commenting on illegal immigration, [Georgia State Senator Nancy] Schaefer said 50 million abortions have been performed in this country, causing a shortage of cheap American labor. “We could have used those people,” she said.

From Jesus' General. Can't make this stuff up.