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Random commentary and senseless acts of blogging.
The first Republican president once said, "While the people retain their virtue and their vigilance, no administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can seriously injure the government in the short space of four years." If Mr. Lincoln could see what's happened in these last three-and-a-half years, he might hedge a little on that statement. Blog critics Gryffindor House Slytherin House Ravenclaw House House Elves Beth Jacob Prisoners of Azkaban Muggles
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Tuesday, August 20, 2002
For this site to continue what is becoming a tradition of beating on Bill Simon is possibly excessive and almost certainly superfluous, but he makes it so easy. Such as in his defense in this (now rather old) article: Simon took no further steps Thursday to discuss the suit or further explain his dealings, sticking to two scheduled appearances in Southern California. Speaking with reporters outside a Los Angeles High School, he noted that he was not named as an individual defendant in the case and never took the stand.
"The fact that I wasn't called is indicative of the fact that, frankly, I had very little involvement in this," he said.
Simon is a straight-shooting honest businessman, not a tricky word-chopping spinner like Bill Clinton, so I'm sure that when he made a big point of the true statement that he didn't testify in the trial, he didn't actually mean to neglect mentioning that he was deposed. He probably just forgot about it. After all, the depo was way back in May, and it only lasted 2 days with a transcript that runs 577 pages.
The transcript shows that Mr Simon does have some problems with his memory on quite a few points. My favorite one is this q & a:
Q: Have you, at any time sir, heard of . . . going into an investment where the Simon company has presented itself as being skilled, experienced or successful investors?
A: You know, I would have to scratch my head on that one. We have been involved in a lot of situations over the years, so off the top of my head, I don't remember a precise conversation on that respect.
So Mr Simon was for 12 years a manager and co-owner of an investment firm which never, to his recollection, claimed to have any skills or expertise in its own area of business. In international diplomacy, it seems, size matters. Or at least the belief that it does has lead to an explosion of new and grandiose embassies in Washington. Courtesy of Red Rock Eater. Monday, August 19, 2002
Slip Sliding Away The most recent polls from the Christian Science Monitor/Investor's Business Daily ae bad news for Bush. Approval numbers, both personal and job, are the lowest since 9/11, while both disapproval numbers are at new highs. Link from Counterspin. Sunday, August 18, 2002
Mo Bitchier Blues Most of my readers probably already read the popular Eschaton blog, but some may have missed this gem in the comments section to a recent Atrios post, where one Jeffrey Kramer, who doesn't seem to have a blog but clearly should, hits the bull's eye on feeble columnist Maureen Dowd: And even that wouldn't be so bad if Dowd could actually MAKE it amusing: but here we have a supposedly prime time performer who thinks she's opening the floodgates of mirth with the killer line "Oedipus, Schmoedipus." If Maureen Dowd earned a Pulitzer with this kind of commentary, then Andrew Northrup is entitled to at least two Nobel Prizes, and Dave Barry deserves to have human sacrifices performed in his honor. Preferably beginning with Maureen Dowd. Saturday, August 17, 2002
The full text and signers list of the Ashcroft letter I mentioned before is now available. Although an aide to one of the signers said when the letter was first publicized that "lawmakers did not want FBI agents to arrest casual users", the operative word there seems to be casual, since the letter does explicitly call for federal prosecution of users who allow "mass copying". The complete list of signers:
House Senate I want to comment on the recent Spinsanity attack on MWO, even though several fine bloggers have gotten there before me. Charles Kuffner goes philosophical, quoting Niebuhr to make his point, while Sideshow has perhaps the strongest post, hardly a rare occurence. Spinsanity is right in saying that MWO is usually harsh and sometimes excessive. But Brendan is entirely wrong in charging that it "pollute[s] the public discourse". The unfortunate reality is that the public discourse is already utterly polluted by the right wing smear machine.
Does this mean that MWO is justified in using the same tactics for opposing political goals? It doesn't, but MWO doesn't stoop to the tactics common on the right. It is factually reliable and it attacks individuals, instead of smearing 'liberals' or other meaninglessly broad categories of people.
The mainstream media loves to hide behind the pretense that they're merely passive observers reporting on the political process, not active participants who are shaping it. This allows them to evade responsibility for their real role. MWO gives them a level of accountability that is very modest indeed, just a public exposure of their dishonesty and an overflowing e-mail inbox, but even that seems to be more than quite a few of them are willing to accept. This tactic of encouraging e-mail campaigns seems to be the main reason why MWO draws a stronger response than other sites which have similar content - a graphic example of how very thin-skinned the big media types who love to destroy the reputation of others get when they are exposed to any form of criticism.
Spinsanity suggests that MWO will encourage escalating vicious rhetoric from the right: "The editors' claim that their actions are a justified response to the tactics used by others is both insufficient and, ultimately, circular: anyone who listens to Limbaugh, for example, knows that he often uses the same rationale. The reality is that, with liberals increasingly agitated, both sides will continue to escalate their rhetoric to the point of hysteria, all the while pointing wildly at each other to rationalize their actions." The reality is that Limbaugh, Coulter, et al used these tactics long before MWO existed. They won't play nice just because liberals agree to.
Let's be realistic here. Of the last two Democrats elected President in this country, one was accused, not only by fringe groups, of crimes that included mass murder and treason, then impeached for committing adultery, and the other wasn't even allowed to take office. People who claim that in this environment it's the Democrats who are going too far either aren't paying attention or are just giving their opponents an unsubtle request to roll over and play dead.
Monday, August 12, 2002
Safe House Republicans are now basing their hopes for the 2002 Congressional elections largely on the assumption that they will be able to neutralize an interest group largely hostile to them - voters. Redistricting from the 2000 census has been carefully done to protect incumbents. Very few seats are now competitive, and the GOP money machine guarantees enormous funds will be available for their candidates in those few races. Republicans say they have seen no evidence of that to date. Still, in expressing confidence that they would hold the House, party leaders pointed not to the national mood, but rather to political, fund raising and demographic forces that have created a political fire wall for Republicans.
"I've seen grim off-years and we're a 1,000 miles from that," Mr. McInturff said. "Thank goodness for the Republicans that there are far fewer competitive seats than there normally are in a reapportionment year, and that they are well-funded."
The broad picture looks very favorable for Democrats. The 2001 elections, which were generally described as a draw, were actually a sweeping victory for the Democrats. Every change that has occurred since - the decline in Bush's popularity, the continuing weakness of the economy and a likely double-dip recession, the business bankruptcies and scandals, the return of perpetual budget deficits - works mostly in our favor.
Republicans now seem to have conceded the Senate, and only the small number of seats available protects them in the House. This study finds only 19 competitive seats available; most analyses put the number around 40, still only 9% of the total.
Republicans couldn't and didn't pull this off alone. Democrats have been just as eager to gerrymander to protect their own. Here in California, with a Democratic Governor and and solid majorities in both houses of the legislature, it is expected that every incumbent in both parties, other than Condit, is likely to be re-elected without a serious challenge. Condit's seat is described as competitive, but will almost certainly stay Democratic.
So we now have the standard of performance required in the gerrymandered incumbent-protection system. For a Congressman to keep his seat, he must avoid being caught having an adulterous affair with a woman he may possibly have murdered to shut her up.
Since both parties are joined in what amounts to a conspiracy to undermine democracy, the only alternative is to take the process out of their hands and let non-partisan boards draw district lines, which is done in most other democracies.
Saturday, August 10, 2002
Sleaze Swapping A bipartisan group of I was unable to find any further information than the linked article tonight. The article does contain a partial list of signers; a full list of culprits will be posted when it becomes available.
House Senate Atrios, quoting Jason Vest of TAP, made a silly statement about the incomplete Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr: According to multiple national security sources, plans for a "preemptive" strike against Iran's nearly completed nuclear reactor at Bushehr have already been developed. According to one source familiar with the plan, the logic behind it calls for debate, too. "The hawks believe that because the Iranians have given Hizbollah small arms, they're going to give them radioactive waste to make dirty bombs. I'm sorry, but state sponsors of terrorism are very reluctant to give up control of that stuff to surrogates," he says.
The plans to prevent the reactor from coming on line have very little to do with the possibility that radioactive materials from the plant might be given to Hizbollah. That is not so unlikely given that Hizbollah is now not merely a surrogate but also seems to be essential to the government's domestic security, but even that isn't the main issue. The more serious problem is that senior Iranian officials have publicly said that Islamic nations should develop nuclear weapons for use against Israel, on the grounds that Israel is small enough to be destroyed by a few bombs and the Islamic world is large enough to survive any retaliatory striike. Friday, August 09, 2002
Open to All Viewpoints Except Disagreement All you need to know about the Bush Economic Forum is in the Post story, but buried in the very last graf: A media guide says the participants on the eight panels will have "diverse points of view," but the White House official acknowledged that there are limits. "I don't think there's any point in picking someone who has the opposite point of view," the official said.
Thanks to Maru.
Maybe a Cold Shower? I hope the reader who came here from the search string "to get rid of excessive sex thought" went away satisfied. Or unsatisfied, if that is his/her preference. In spite of being Google's #3 site for this well-known problem, the Nuisance is fresh out of original solutions. If watching Anna Nicole Smith on E! doesn't cure you, perhaps you should seek guidance from Professor T. W. Shannon. Blogger David Yaseen notes that the US is intervening for Exxon in a suit filed by Indonesian villagers who claim that "Exxon Mobil, which operates a natural gas field in the province, paid and directed Indonesian security forces that carried out murder, torture and rape in the course of protecting the company's operations in the 1990s." The government is concerned that Exxon losing the suit could make other companies reluctant to invest in Indonesia. I can certainly understand that. How can anybody be expected to turn a profit in a business environment where they aren't even allowed to kill people? Really, this excessive regulation is just ruining the economy. Some may say it's incompetence, but for me the major theme of the Bush administration has been arrogance. A new article (via Tapped) shows how the White House has been refusing to cooperate with Congress, ignoring Republicans as much as Democrats. A few days ago, there was the decision to simply ignore a court order to turn over documents regarding detainee Yaser Hamdi. Not long before that was the threat to arrest anybody who dared attempt the lese majeste of serving a lawsuit on Cheney. When Congress wanted to investigate the FBI's decisions before 9/11, the FBI decided to investigate Congress and ask members to take polygraph exams. And while Bush denies that he has made a final decision on war with Iraq, he clearly feels that it's his decision and the Congress has no say at all in determining whether the country goes to war.
The general attitude is that the executive branch is tasked with running the country, and the legislative and judicial branches seemingly tasked mainly with staying out of its way. The most extreme and disturbing position has been the continuing attempt to block any judicial review of detention of enemy combatants. The Bush position is that the government can simply pick up any person without restriction and hold them indefinitely on the assertion that they are enemy combatants. Pro-Bush libertarians in the Blogosphere have at least had the sense to oppose this position, but it remains to be seen whether they will also have the sense to stop supporting a man whose actions show a consistent disdain for freedom.
The position that the President makes unilateral decisions on war and peace at least has respectability in being the position of most recent presidents. For a genuine strict constructionist, that would hardly outweigh the obvious contradiction with the text of the Constitution, but I have seen no evidence that for Bush strict construction means anything other than 'precedents don`t count unless I want them to'.
Calling a Spade an Implement The Times takes note of today's atrocity in a story from Reuters: Three Pakistani nurses were killed on Friday when militants lobbed two grenades at a crowd of women leaving a missionary hospital chapel, the second assault on a Christian target in Pakistan in less than a week.
Doctors said 23 people, mostly female nurses, were injured and two were in serious condition.
Three men had been waiting by the hospital gates for the daily morning service to end before they struck at 7.45 a.m., according to police at the scene in Taxila, some 12 miles west of the capital Islamabad.
One attacker died, but it was unclear whether he was shot by accomplices or died from a shrapnel wound. A hand grenade was found on him.
Meanwhile MSNBC reported a few days ago:
Suspected Islamic militants lobbed a grenade and opened fire Tuesday on Hindu pilgrims in Kashmir, killing nine of them and wounding 27 others, police said. In other parts of the disputed region, five suspected militants and three soldiers were killed, a news report said....
Police suspect Islamic militants were behind the pre-dawn ambush. A half-dozen militants sneaked into the pilgrimage transit camp in Nunwan, about 55 miles southeast of Srinagar, the summer capital of India’s northern Jammu-Kashmir state, said Nirmal Raj, commander of the Central Reserve Police guarding the camp.
If just a few 'militants' can cause all that destruction, we can only be thankful there were no terrorists there. Then things might have gotten really ugly.
Tuesday, August 06, 2002
Glenn Frazier reports that police in Iran used heavy violence last night to break up demonstrations marking the anniversary of the Constitutional Revolution in 1906. How severe the violence was is hard to say - no major news service seems to be reporting anything at all, but phone service to and from Iran was interrupted, a strong sign that something did happen. Rantburg links to a number of stories giving some details. It should be noted that these stories come from the website of SMCCDI, an Iranian anti-government student group, so I feel some hesitancy fully accepting them with no confirming source. There are some interesting Iran stories on the web today. You can read here how the mullahs are trying to use anti-American nationalism to prop up their sagging popularity. It's sagged so badly that, as this blog has already discussed, the government now has to import Arab thugs, due to a lack of Iranians willing to do their dirty work.
Several opposition newspapers have recently been closed - but they've re-organized on the web. News is still circulating, and the popularity of Internet cafes in Iran seems to be booming. Unfortunately, the article gives no URLs, probably because the sites involved are in Farsi.
One reason for the rising opposition movement is the failing economy. Prostitution is spreading, due to a lack of other economic opportunities for young women. There is discussion of using the traditional Shia practice of temporary marriage to substitute for prostitution. Since these 'marriages' would last for a few hours and involve money changing hands, the distinction between this and prostitution is a rather subtle one. The proposal to label these legalized bordellos as 'Chastitiy Houses' has a nice Orwellian ring.
Monday, August 05, 2002
Grasping at Stems Bill Simon announced a particularly audacious attempt recently to salvage his failing gubernatorial campaign. "I am sure now that Davis' people are busily making new ads, and I hope they do," Simon said. "Because if they want to attack me now for a bad verdict and take the side of a convicted drug trafficker ... then Davis is welcome to choose that side."
Let's look at the sequence of events here:
I guess if patriotism isn't available as your last refuge, you can always give the War on Some Drugs a try. Findlaw has published a strong article essentially arguing that since judicial nominations are based on political criteria, there is no reason the Senate should be shy of using similar criteria in confirmations. The specific case focussed on is Priscilla Owens, Bush's nominee for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In making the nomination, Bush chose between two women on the Texas Supreme Court, Owens and Deborah Hankinson. (Presumably, although the article didn't discuss this, the fact that the candidates considered were both women was another political decision.) Hankinson was later told directly that she had been eliminated due to her relatively moderate views on abortion, although according to the article "[it] is no secret around the Texas courthouse, Hankinson enjoys a substantially better reputation as a jurist than does Owen".
Owen is said to have a reputation for being slow to write decisions, and the case cited on the subject is astonishing. In Miles v Ford, plaintiffs were the parents of a teenage boy who had been made quadriplegic in an auto accident, and were alleging that defects in the Ranger he was riding in contributed to his injury. A lower court had awarded $40 M in actual and punitive damages. In responding to Ford's appeal, the Mileses requested an early adjudication because they were receiving no money while the case was under appeal and the medical fees they were paying for their son's care were causing them serious hardship, Ford joined in the request for the case to be disposed of promptly.
Owens wrote the majority opinion in a 5 - 4 ruling that overturned the original verdict on the grounds that the suit had been filed in the wrong court, forcing the Mileses to start over from the beginning after already spending many years in litigation. The decision was handed down 17 months after arguments in the case had been heard. The court also formally denied the request for expedited action with the statement, "The request is overruled, not because it should not have been granted, but because, in fact, it was not granted."
Owens supporters now argue that the Senate has been improperly slow in granting her a hearing. Maybe Leahy should just respond, "A prompt hearing on the Owens nomination was denied, not because it should not have been granted, but because, in fact, it was not granted." I'm sure Owens would understand. Gimme Shelter If born-again antisleaze crusader George Bush is determined to go after companies that use dubious off-shore subsidiaries to evade taxes, he doesn't have to look very far to find targets. Halliburton, which Cheney ran before becoming vice president, was even more aggressive in its use of offshore tax havens, according to an analysis of company filings with the Securities and Exchange Committee by Citizen Works, a nonpartisan group founded by consumer advocate Ralph Nader.
The number of Halliburton subsidiaries incorporated in offshore tax havens rose from 9 to 44 while Cheney served as chief executive between 1995 and 2000, the group said.
The analysis was distributed by congressional Democrats, who hoped to use it to their political advantage in the November elections. Democrats have seized on the Harken transactions and Cheney's tenure at Halliburton to paint the Bush administration and its Republican allies in Congress as compromised by insider deals and close business connections.
Cheney's spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise, had no comment on Halliburton's offshore subsidiaries and other business practices. The SEC is currently investigating how Halliburton accounted for cost overruns on construction jobs. Millerwise said the SEC has not contacted Cheney as part of that inquiry.
Saturday, August 03, 2002
Whistle Stop Several bloggers have already noted that Bush issued rulings to undermine the whistle-blower protection in the recent corporate crime bill the same day it was signed. The protection is now to be afforded only to whistle-blowers who assist an ongoing investigation, but denied to those who report misconduct not currently known to regulators or under investigation. Aside from being dubious policy, legal blogger Sam Heldman shows that the Bush rules are a blatant misreading of the actual text of the law. (Link from Hauser Report.) Friday, August 02, 2002
It Depends on what the Meaning of Resign Is Avedon Carol notes the 'resignation' of Katherine Harris as Florida Secretary of State. Harris's resignation, submitted in August, is effective July 15, becasue she was legally required to resign then. However, she has been appointed acting Secretary of State by Jeb Bush, so she continues to hold the office and presumably receive the pay even though she resigned yesterday and her resignation 'took effect' a few weeks ago. Hey, why bother actually being honest when you can do whatever you like and then define honest as whatever you did? Thursday, August 01, 2002
Just Wait for the Video Robert Musil has dubbed your humble Nuisance along with some other bloggers and commenters of the southpaw persuasion as "Atriettes". This proves that he is obviously just a shill for our record company, which will soon be releasing 'Vast Left Wing Conspiracy', the hot new CD from Atrios and the Atriettes. In order to prove myself worthy of joining the band, I have written the lyrics to our upcoming single, which is sung to the tune of "I Wanna be Sedated". Now, "I Wanna be Sedated" doesn't have much of a tune and isn't, in the strictest sense of the word, really sung. But given the amount of musical talent in this particular band, which industry insiders have already dubbed "Un Sync", that can only be an advantage.
So many many many left tales to shill So many many many left tales to shill So many many many left tales to shill Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba Robert George has no fewer than three posts up at NRO Corner on the subpoena Rubin issue. What's striking about it is that he takes for granted, and certainly feels unconstrained to apologize for, that the point of subpoenaing Rubin is political, not investigatory. He thinks, and he's probably right, that there's no real political profit to be gained, and he also notes that putting Rubin in a very public forum would lead to contrasts not likely to be favorable with the far less capable current Treas Sec. Wednesday, July 31, 2002
I was wondering what to say about this item. But the best is probably not to say anything. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Halliburton Co. has been awarded a $9.7 million contract to build an additional 204-cell detention camp at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to hold additional suspected al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners, the Pentagon said on Friday.
The move will expand the high-security prison on the base, where hundreds of such "detainees" from Afghanistan are already being held in 612 small cells....
Brown and Root Services, an engineering division of Halliburton, will build the additional 6-by-8-foot cells on the windward side of the remote U.S. base at the southeastern tip of Cuba, the Pentagon said.
The work is expected to be completed by October. But the Pentagon suggested on Friday that the facility could grow even more and that the contract could eventually total as much as $300 million if additional options were exercised over the next four years.
Tuesday, July 30, 2002
Here Comes the Sunni Sunni Muslim Muslimpundit celebrated his return to blogging with a long article disputing the claim that Muslims view jihad as a struggle for self-improvement. Shia blogger Aziz Poonawalla posted a counter argument asserting that Adil's post was overly centered on the Sunni tradition, disregarding the very distinct Shia school. Adil's argument, however, was in response to authors who spoke of Islam as a general movement. Here are again the key portions of the quotes he was criticizing:
In Western thought, heavily influenced by the medieval Christian Crusaders – with their own ideas about “holy war” – jihad has always been portrayed as an Islamic war against believers. Westerners point to the conquest of Spain in the eighth century by the Moors and the vast Ottoman Empire of the thirteenth through twentieth centuries, and focus on the bloodshed...Militancy is not the essence of jihad...The greater jihad as explained by The Prophet Muhammad is first inward-seeking: it involves the effort of each Muslim to become a better human being, to struggle to improve him- or herself. In doing so the follower of jihad can also benefit his or her community. So Muslims were not inspired by a passionate religious zeal to impose their faith at sword point. Nor was “jihad” a pillar of their religion. The word “jihad” does not even primarily mean “holy war,” as Westerners tend to define it. It means “struggle, effort.” ...There is a very important and much quoted maxim attributed to Muhammad, which has him say to his companions while returning home after a battle, “We are returning from the lesser Jihad [the battle] to the greater Jihad,” the far more significant, crucial, and demanding struggle to reform one’s own society and to extirpate evil, greed, and malice from one’s own heart. Almost any argument that tries to speak for Muslims this broadly will be doubtful. Other than belief in the unity of God and reverence for Mohammed, it would be hard to find much on which all Muslims agree. But to the degree that statements like this can be addressed at all, they should be addressed by looking at the beliefs of the majority of Muslims. And with all due respect to the Shia, the majority of Muslims are Sunni who use al Bukhari, Muslim, and the other major Sunni hadith collections, and very rarely accept hadith not found in them. For instance, see this page, obviously created by a Sunni, which mentions and rejects the very hadith Armstrong cites.
I don't think Adil ever meant to, or does, deny that there are Muslims who have this understanding of jihad, particularly among the Shia and Sufi. He was asserting that the idea isn't widely accepted among majority Sunni Muslims, nor can it be asserted with any reliablility to have originated from Mohammed. Writers who dismiss the association of violence with jihad as a Western fantasy are ignoring a great deal of reality. I mught also note that Armstrong's definition isn't incompatible with a violently militant understanding of Islam. Here is one theologian, whose name you may recognize, who clearly does believe in the greater jihad.
Maybe There's Something in the Water I don't know what it is about Florida. They just seem to do strange things over there. Like any good lefty blogger, I enjoy running fact checks on Instaman when he goes in for his Democrat bashing. But what am I supposed to do when he's completely right? Sunday, July 28, 2002
The Poor Man has taken me off his blogroll, but he stays on mine. I just can't remove a guy who writes like this: And before goth sucked … no, wait – goth always sucked. Actually, goth may have sucked the hardest in the eighties, the time when musicians decided that, in order to annoy parents in a new way, they wouldn’t play music really loud, or really fast, and they wouldn’t have lyrics about sex and drugs – they’d play it really boring, and sing about bats and Bela Legosi. It didn’t work. But it set the stage for pop goth, and industrial goth, and techno goth, and gothcore, so that we now have more words for shitty music than the Eskimos do for snow. Capitol Shill Noted Democratic National Committee shill Atrios says that Howard Kurtz is an RNC shill. Robert Musil assumes without argument, always a good way to make a case for 'liberal bias', that this is absurd. What are the actual facts, as reflected in Kurtz's show? I looked at the transcripts from June 1 through July 27, to look at the pattern of what guests are invited and how they are treated.
06/01 - Conservative Laura Ingraham and mostly liberal Frank Rich, along with Paul Farhi (Washington Post). Discussion focussed on Brian Williams as potential replacement for Tom Brokaw. A real snorefest topic, but legit enough for a media commentary show. Fairly balanced discussion of such riveting subjects as Williams's wardrobe. On the plus side, Ingraham did manage to discuss Williams's ties without working in a reference to Al Gore and earth tones. How this happened is unknown, but she probably got a severe reprimand from Wingnut Central.
06/08 - Rich Lowry, Bill Press, Mike Isikoff. Balanced if you make the rather generous assumption that Isikoff is a neutral reporter. Throughout the transcript, Press is being ignored and has to interrupt Lowry to make his points. Kurtz addresses only two questions to Press and seven to Lowry, such as, "Didn't you expect the bleeding liberal media -- bleeding heart liberal media to be more loudly exercised about what some might call an erosion of civil liberties?", along with many to Isikoff.
06/15-Guests David Frost (on Watergate anniversary), Ed Kosner (N Y Daily News), Salt Lake local correspondent.
06/22-Republican strategist Mike Murphy with Vanity Fair writer Jim Wolcott, discussing George Stephanopoulos. A conservative balanced with a mainstream reporter, and again the majority of questions (seven to two) went to Murphy.
06/29-Two business reporters, Allan Chernoff (CNN) and David Faber (CNBC) discussing Wall Street scandals.
07/06-Interview with John McCain, followed by discussion with reporters Dana Milbank and Martha Brant.
07/13-Laura Ingraham faced off with an actual, honest-to-God liberal, Molly Ivins. Ivins did get her share of questions, but the questions were hostile. The tone was set by the first question to each speaker. <07/20>Three guests, none with obvious political agendas, discussing business scandals: Michael Wolff ("New York" Magazine); Andy Serwer (Fortune Magazine); and Gerri Willis, (SmartMoney).
<07/27>Rich Lowry, Mark Whitaker (Newsweek), Karen Tumulty (Time). The first question asked to each largely assumes that Bush is the victim of media bias. Total obviously conservative or Republican guests: 6. Total liberal guests: 3. Total Democratic guests: 0. And that's when you count as neutral Isikoff, best known as Ken Starr's favorite media outlet, and famed Bush sycophant Dana Milbank. A consistent pattern that the conservatives were asked more, or more favorable, questions than the liberals, if any.
This, of course, was all on the so-called "Clinton News Network". If it had been Fox or the other cable networks, it wouldn't have been so heavily tilted to the liberal side.
Update: Upon further review, the characterization of Dana Milbank as a 'famed Bush sycophant' seems unfair and is withdrawn.
A Fun New Blog Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, bit I've got a hunch that Maru Soze isn't a huge fan of Our Beloved Leader. Now the Nuisance isn't really famous for its adoration of 43, but over here he still rates as 'Bush' or sometimes even 'Mr Bush'.
On Maru's blog, he is variously Emperor Snippy, Squinty McSquirtpants, Laura's Little Liar, Chimpy the Pinhead, and Daddy's Widdle Doofus. And those are some of the nicer ones. If you want to see the actual mean ones, you'll have to check it out yourself.
Maru's snarky politics are mixed with gardening, cats, and British archeology. British archeology? Hey, the Internet wouldn't be half as much fun if it were predictable.
Saturday, July 27, 2002
Ted Barlow notes that blogger Diane E has mysterious powers. Which is trouble for me, since she recently criticized this blog. Gotta go now. Someone's kicking in the door. Murphy's Law in Action It seems I was unfair to blogger 'Eric Blair' when I dissed him for referring to "Hanlon's Razor". Elton Beard informs me that this term in common use, and a quick search show he's right. The sites listed above fail to mention the derivation, which comes from a line in my personal favorite Heinlein short story, 'Logic of Empire':
"You have fallen into the commonest fallacy of all in dealing with social and economic subjects - the 'Devil Theory'."
"Huh?"
"You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity."
How Heinlein became Hanlon is a mystery, but Mr Blair is innocent.
An official Public Nuisance Apology is hereby issued - the first one I have ever needed to make.
We've already heard a great deal about the pre 9/11 failures of the FBI and the CIA. Now it's the NSA's turn. Scientists recently discovered a new species of centipede in New York City. The idea of a new species being discovered in the middle of Central Park is amusing, but doesn't top the story - so cool I have to suspect it's apocryphal - that the great entomologist Edward O Wilson once discovered a new species of ants in the offices of the World Wildlife Fund. Link from Charles Murtaugh. Friday, July 26, 2002
Following a link from Altercation, I checked out a new blog called Slacktivist. The 'Eric Blair' who writes it seems to be a different person from the 'Eric Blair' who runs Warbloggerwatch. It did seem promising - the blog is written from a relatively unusual perspective (Baptist liberal), had some good posts, and even earned extra credit for being a Buffy fan. But just when I was starting to feel well-disposed, I saw this:
The New Republic looks at Insidergate from the perspective of Hanlon’s Razor, which states: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
Hanlon's Razor? Hanlon??!!
I'd tell Mr Blair to hang his head in shame, but that really isn't an adequate penance.
Dhimmi 'Tude Nick Denton's suggestion that Muslims in the West be regarded as 'dhimmis', the legal status granted to non-Muslim minorities in the East, has been commented on by Instaman, along with various other bloggers. Let's turn the system around. In the West, it is the Muslims who are the dhimmis, the tolerated minority; they should be free to practice, so long as their Islam is a diluted Episcopalian version, expressed in a sabbath on Fridays, holidays at unusual times of the year, traditional names for children, and an annual parade through Brooklyn.
In other words, Western governments should make clear that the toleration of Muslim minorities is conditional. The West is a package deal: the prosperity that has attracted Muslim immigrants is a function of the Western tradition. Fundamentalist Islam is not, as the morally ambivalent would have it, as valid as any other system. Here's the Western dhimma: accept the supremacy of Western humanist values -- equal rights for women and sexual minorities, freedom of speech, and family law -- or leave.
This is wrong for some obvious reasons, like presumably putting the INS in charge of determining what is 'proper' vs 'excessive' Muslim observance. But the more subtle reason is that the concept of dhimmis is in many ways exactly what the most radical Islamists are demanding, and exactly what we need to avoid.
Dhimmis in Islamic tradition were communities who had agreed to live under Muslim rule, paid extra taxes, and received a certain degree of communal self-government in return. Under the Ottoman Empire which controlled most of the Middle East for several centuries, there were three millets, or recognized dhimmi communities: the Orthodox under the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Jews, and the Armenians under the Gregorian Patriarch. Gypsies, Monophysite Christians, Assyrians, and various other miscellaneous groups were crammed into the Armenian millet. (The claim which is seen from time to time that the Islamic world under this system was an early home for religious tolerance is largely a myth.)
A similar status is implied by some demands of the radical Islamists, as shown in this heavily blogged essay by Bawer:
In 1999 I moved from Amsterdam to Oslo. I soon found that in Oslo, as in Amsterdam, the cultural gap between natives and the Muslim immigrant minority (which, in Norway, consists largely of Pakistanis) was miles wide. Here, too, the native-born children of immigrants were called "second-generation immigrants," not Norwegians. (Indeed, in Norway these days the words "immigrant" and "Muslim" are effectively synonyms.) Here, too, the authorities, presumably fearing accusations of insensitivity or cultural imperialism, tended to avoid addressing undemocratic practices within immigrant communities.
Forced marriage is one of these practices. Among Muslims in Europe, it’s quite common for young people to be compelled by their parents to accept spouses they don’t want. Some women manage to escape these situations and seek protection in women’s shelters. In 1999 the Guardian published an article by Faisal Bodi, a British Muslim who complained about these shelters, which in Great Britain are called "women’s refuges." Charged Bodi, "Refuges tear apart our families. Once a girl has walked in through their door, they do their best to stop her ever returning home. That is at odds with the Islamic impulse to maintain the integrity of the family." (Bodi made certain to note–as if it definitively established the loathsome character of women’s shelters–"the preponderance of homosexuality among members and staff.") Citing universal Muslim belief in "the shariah, the body of laws defining our faith"–which he described, a bit unsettlingly, as "a sharp sword capable of cutting through the generational and cultural divide"–Bodi argued that British authorities must recognize the Muslim community "as an organic whole" and thus accord it a larger role in resolving conflicts over forced marriage. Bodi’s plaint was phrased with extreme delicacy, but the point was clear: when Muslim girls or women flee the tyranny of father or husband, the government should essentially hand them over to a group of Muslim men. In short, British law should effectively be subordinate to Muslim law. Group identity trumps individual rights.
In other words, they want to be a self-governing community, ignoring Western laws and imposing their own traditions on anybody who steps out of line. A millet, minus the numerous humiliations which were, and often still are, imposed on such communities in Muslim nations. They seek to be granted community rights rather than, in fact in direct opposition to, personal rights. The priority of individual rights over community rights is perhaps the most basic distinction between Western and Islamic culture, and until Western Muslims accept it, they will never become a full part of our society.
For the US, there is no need to import strange new ideas to deal with our Islamic minority. These immigrants, like the rest of us, can practice the religion they prefer in the manner they choose. They are under no obligation, any more than other Americans, to endorse or approve of our laws. They are under obligation to obey them, and forced marriages, female genital mutilation, incitement to violence, physical assaults on those who 'dishonor' families, etc, should be thoroughly punished under existing laws. For those who find that intolerable, then Denton's suggestion applies: they can move to countries whose laws are more to their liking.
For Europeans, the situation is a little more difficult, because they lack American experience in assimilating immigrants into their way of life. Americans understand the exceptional character of our political institutions, but relatively few recognize the same about our idea of citizenship, the belief that anyone can come here and be a full American simply by accepting our values. In Athens, the original home of democracy, citizenship was gained only by descent. Families could, and did, live in the city, pay its taxes, even fight in its wars for centuries without becoming citizens. Some of this exclusiveness remains in most of Europe and will have to change for these countries to successfully assimilate non-European populations. But such change obviously doesn't include the insane suggestion by one Norwegian professor quoted by Bawer that women should 'adapt themselves' to the tendencies of some men from Islamic societies to rape or attack women they consider improperly dressed.
Robert Musil has responded to my earlier post on the Rubin/Enron controversy. In his response, Mr Musil points to an earlier post critical of Rubin which comes with a formidable reading assignment. The Nuisance hasn't entirely completed the reading, but in what I have seen, there is nothing that really breaks new ground. There is discussion of the questionable Citigroup/Enron transactions, but I saw no new evidence tying them to Robert Rubin. There is nothing that seems to dispute the point that these transactions were legal, although whether they should have been is another matter. There is discussion, much of it from Mr Musil's past blogging, of the already known phone call in which Mr Rubin tried to intervene with the Treasury Department to forestall the credit downgrade that played a crucial role in triggering Enron's bankruptcy.
There isn't actually a huge gap between myself and Mr Musil; at least not on this matter. The Man Without Qualities does agree with my main point that there are no specific known statements at this time to investigate with regards to the False Statements Act. As I stated before, I agree with him that there are sufficient grounds for Mr Rubin to be questioned by the investigators looking into Enron, although I personally would be surprised to see the Republicans get any real political joy, much less an indictment, out of the exercise. My original post was somewhat harsher with Instapundit than with the MWQ, precisely because Instapundit implied in his choice of words that specific statements were in question, an implication the MWQ avoided.
I do think, however, that the following excerpt from Mr Musil's post is somewhat slippery:
There is no indication in the media that Mr. Rubin mentioned any of Citigroup's questionable involvement with Enron when he requested Mr. Fisher's aid in pressuring the rating agencies. If Mr. Rubin knew about Citigroup's involvement at the time he called Mr. Fisher, Mr. Rubin may have misled Mr. Fisher in violation of the False Statement Act. Mr. Rubin is also reported to have spoken to various federal officials since making that call. But there are no reports that Mr. Rubin detailed Citigroup's deeper involvement, or any of the troubling deals that have recently surfaced.
Mr Musil has slid over the very substantial difference between not being fully forthcoming and actual lying.
Courts have already ruled that in sworn testimony no statement, however deceptive or misleading, can be considered perjury unless there is actual falsehood. The same rule would have to apply to the FSA - to do otherwise would have the absurd result of placing a higher standard on an informal conversation than on testimony given under oath. Mr Rubin was not under any obligation to detail Enron's dealings with Citigroup in his conversation with Mr Fisher - particularly as Mr Fisher doesn't seem to have asked about them, according to his own and Rubin's descriptions of the discussion.
Thursday, July 25, 2002
Obviously, those who doubt that George Bush is a truly compassionate conservative haven't heard about this. (Link via Cursor.) Wednesday, July 24, 2002
Neuro-Linguistic Politics I don't buy into all of NLP, but their presuppositions seem to me to make sense. This one seems to be not only sound, but to say a good deal about the last two Presidents.
Bill Clinton used to drive many people, especially those of us who supported him, nearly frantic with his lack of fixed political ideology. But that very lack was part of his ability to drop policies which were no longer productive, and come up with new policies to fit the changed circumstances. It probably played a large role in making him the most successful President for decades.
Bush has shown some of that ability in foreign policy, where he has been relatively successful. His strongest specific complaint against Clinton during the campaign was that Clinton was sacrificing the national interest with excessive 'nation building'. Before 9/11, when the Intifada heated up, Bush was more conspicuously uninvolved during a Mid-East crisis than any President in memory.
Today Bush has an entirely new foreign policy. He is running an ambitious nation building exercise in Afghanistan, probably soon to be dwarfed by a far larger exercise in Iraq after Hussein is removed. We are involved again in trying to do something with the Palestine mess and may soon be helping to clean up the mess in Iran. (This refers to possible aid after the current government is removed, which I continue to see as very probable notwithstanding Diane's objections. I don't mean to imply that I'm suggesting an Iraq-style military intervention in Iran.)
After campaigning against it, Bush may soon find he is carrying out the most ambitious US efforts at nation building since the Marshall Plan.
By contrast, Bush's domestic policies are pretty much tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation. That's what he did as Governor, what he talked about during the campaign, and what he's sought as President. He doesn't seem able to bring himself to push for anything else.
Deregulation has been dropped in the current political climate, but Bush hasn't been able to seize the initiative with calls for new regulatory responses to the business scandals. He just isn't comfortable calling for new regulations, not to mention that he would often be calling for outlawing or increasing penalties for activities that he or Cheney have engaged in. Bush will likely sign whatever comes out of Congress on business reforms, because a veto would be too politically expensive, but he is substantially on the sidelines as far as the content of the bills.
Otherwise, Bush is still pushing to make his tax cuts permanent, citing a need to stimulate the economy. Don't ask how a cut in taxes 10 years away will stimulate the economy today; there is no answer.
How to stop the drop in stock prices? Bush's economic advisers came up with a plan which was wisely killed by the political advisers and justly mocked by Josh Marshall: cut capital gains taxes.
Krugman's latest column ends with a criticism of Bush that is fairly harsh even for Krugman, but not IMHO unjustified. Look at it this way: The Bush administration's economic plans have not changed significantly since the fall of 1999, when they were introduced as a way to ward off a challenge from Steve Forbes. Back when the tax cut that eventually became law was announced, "Dow 36,000" was climbing the best-seller lists. The economic environment has changed completely; the administration's plans haven't changed a bit.
Our economic problems are real, but by no means catastrophic. What scares me is the utter inflexibility of the people who should be solving those problems.
The Clinton team was willing to go with increased regulation or market solutions, fiscal or monetarist intervention, an iron fist or a velvet glove, depending on the circumstances. The Bush team seems unable to make those adjustments.
Tuesday, July 23, 2002
More Rightist Spin Instapundit is getting ready to slap the cuffs on Robert Rubin: ROBERT MUSIL says that Robert Rubin faces serious risk under the False Statements Act for statements he made denying or obfuscating his involvement with certain Enron-related events.
And in fact Musil does discuss Rubin's liabilities under the FSA:
The False Statements Act applies to every matter within the jurisdiction of every executive, legislative and judicial agency of the U.S. government.
So the False Statements Act probably applied to Robert Rubin's bizarre and notorious telephone call to Peter Fisher, in which Mr. Rubin reportedly asked Mr. Fisher to pressure the bond rating agencies to delay the then-expected downgrade of Enron debt. It applies to any statements Mr. Rubin has made regarding his knowledge of Enron to federal bank regulators or to the Securities and Exchange Commission or to Congress
Mr. Rubin should be carefully investigated for violation of the False Statements Act.
There is one trivial detail that's been omitted from this discussion of Mr Rubin's crimes: neither Musil nor Glenn provides a single example of a statement Rubin made that they believe to have been false. I understand that in some circles it's considered a sign of moral weakness to get picky about these matters when going after anybody associated with Bill Clinton, but a law professor ought to at least be aware of this point. Glenn's post strongly implies that specific false statements are under discussion: what are those statements?
It is completely proper to require Rubin to testify under oath concerning the notorious phone call in which Rubin tried to persuade a Treasury Undersecretary to prevent downgrading of Enron's credit rating. It is appropriate to ask how much he knew about the other Enron/Citigroup dealings revealed today. There's no reason so far to believe he had significant knowledge - it's already clear he wasn't at Citigroup when the deals were made, and Citigroup is a huge company with a lot of irons in a lot of fires. I haven't seen any evidence that Rubin had managerial responsibility, even after the fact, over the division that made the Enron trades.
These are legitimate questions to ask, but the eagerness to go after Rubin looks more like politics than like getting to the bottom of Enron. As if to emphasize the point, Sully now wants to pin not only Enron but the entire stock slump on Rubin. Psi Powers Spreading The Nuisance isn't the only blogger with the powers to foresee future posts of Andrew Sullivan. Hesiod over at Counterspin Central, a welcome addition to the blogosphere's vast left-wing conspiracy, predicted this morning that Republican spinners would try to blame the questionable Chase/Enron dealings, which took place before Robert Rubin went to Chase, on Rubin. He even mentioned Sullivan. Andy was prompt to put out a post that stuck right to Hesiod's script. And of course he made up some key facts to support his weak case, which Hesiod promptly nailed him on. Monday, July 22, 2002
The Real Fifth Column Sure, we've got Kaus and Coulter to warn us of the danger from violent leftists. And the Nation is keeping an eye on violent right wing nuts.
But thank God we have Ted Barlow to warn America of the real threats: crazed gymnastics fans and Will and Grace jihadniks. Dawn Olsen's recent foray into online education so impressed Instapundit that he's given her a new name. The Sound of One Commissioner Voting Ernst & Young, one of the Big Somebody at the SEC, doubtless an anti-market fanatic, thought there might be some possible conflict there and started an investigation. But the investigation was recently ruled illegal, because only one SEC commissioner voted in favor of it. Two spots on the Commission are currently vacant, and two Commissioners recused themselves due to business ties with Ernst & Young, leaving only Commissioner Isaac Hunt. Hunt voted for the inquiry, but a court ruled that it was invalid without the votes of at least two members. I Must Be Psychic The Nuisance has been proven correct in its uncanny ability to predict what Andrew Sullivan will write about before he even posts. Randy Andy's abstention from frantic attacks on the New York Times lasted for exactly 36 hours, 26 minutes, and 14 seconds - and for exactly 0 full length posts, as I predicted. At 2:00 am today, Andrew's first full length post since his pledge to abstain from swingin' at the Raines was released to an eager world, containing 6 items: 3 attacks on the Times, 2 criticisms of conservative critics of homosexuality, and a quick mention of Osama Bin Laden.
Personally, I blame Andrew's early relapse on Bill Clinton. Ever since he lied about that blow job, the helpless Beltway media has been unable to refrain from lies, half-truths, and generally asinine conduct. Granted, this started 20-odd years ago before most of them had ever heard of Bill Clinton, but he may very well have been getting blow jobs back then too, so it's still his fault.
Sunday, July 21, 2002
Proving that great minds blog alike, the Kolkata Libertarian made a prediction of the emergence of what he calls the I3 (Israel, Iran, India) axis, essentially the prediction made here the same day, but without Turkey. Aziz Poonawalla observes that part of what unites the I3 nations is that each is a genuine nation, carrying forward a long cultural tradition. This is untrue of many other states in the region (Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Pakistan), whose borders are often arbitrary lines drawn by the British Empire. Pakistan, for instance, was just those portions of the old British Raj that had a mainly Muslim population at the time of independence, but it had and still has little ethnic, linguistic, cultural, or even religious unity. Until it lost Bangla Desh in 1971, it lacked even geographic unity. Jordan was created as Trans-Jordan by Winston Churchill during the British Mandate, mostly as a reward to the Hashemite dynasty which had supported England and Lawrence of Arabia during WWI, but had lost much of its traditional territory to Ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia.
By contrast, the I3 states all carry forward distinct and ancient national identities. Turkey is in this category as well; although not as ancient as the others, it does have an authentic distinct cultural identity dating back many centuries.
Jim Henley is less optimistic about this or any other alliance with Turkey, which he fears will lead us into conflict with the Kurds. This is a possible outcome, but by no means necessary or even probable.
An independent Kurdistan would be potentially destabilizing all through the region. Iran, which has its own Kurdish region, would be deeply opposed. India, with all manner of potential breakaway minorities, wouldn't like the idea any more. Pakistan and Afghanistan could both face problems with Pashtun nationalists who dream of uniting the Pashtun regions of those countries. Russia and China both have restless ethnic provinces and would be vigorously opposed. And so on, all through the region. So there are many good reasons unconnected with Turkey why the US opposes Kurdish independence and is unlikely to change.
What we can and should do is support the rights of the Kurdish minorities in Iraq and elsewhere. If the US is successful in installing a decent government in Iraq after Saddam is gone, this would actually be better for the Kurds than full independence, because the Kurds, as Iraqis, would be able to share in the wealth that is generated by Iraq's abundant oil, relatively little of it on Kurdish land.
If the Kurds are respected in their right to their own culture and traditions, and given a role in the government of Iraq along with a share in the nation's wealth, I suspect nationalism would be a far less powerful rallying cry. The current de facto autonomy in northern Iraq has been largely enforced by US power, and we have made clear from the beginning that it isn't considered a step towards independence. In spite of that, there have been almost no attacks from the Kurds on US or UN personnel.
I think the US will play an important role, along with Turkey, as the I3 axis emerges. We already have close relationships with Israel and Turkey, and close historic ties to Iran which should resume when the current unpleasantness ends.
As for US-Indian relations, they have fluctuated many times, mostly due to India's Pakistan issues. At present, the US feels a need to support a rather shaky government in Pakistan that helped us (with problems Pakistan played a large role in creating) in Afghanistan and seems to be making some attempt to deal with its domestic extremists. This has led to many Indians feeling abandoned by us. But India and the USA are the largest democracies in the world, each almost unimaginably diverse in ethnic and religious variety. These similarities run deeper than ephemeral political disputes. Bilateral trade is also growing quite rapidly, and so is the size and visibility of the Indian minority in the US. For all these reasons, I'm quite optimistic about US-Indian ties in the long run. Safest Prediction I'll Ever Make This is a promise that isn't going to be kept: "I'm gonna lay off the Times for a while. "
Sullivan has cleverly made this possible by using the ambiguous term, a while. So far, it's been 23 hours, which could be construed as a while, and he hasn't broken it yet. But in those 23 hours he's only posted two sentences.
I confidently predict Sullivan's 'while' won't last out a full week. Frankly, I'd be a bit surprised if it lasts out a full post, but I have to concede Sullivan might possibly be able to control himself for that long. |
