JUSIPER
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Michael Dukakis
Ridicules Bill Weld's latest vanity project:
To his detractors, however, Mr. Weld is a dilettante, easily enraptured but quick to lose focus. Critics point to his aborted second term as the governor of Massachusetts. After winning re-election overwhelmingly in 1994, Mr. Weld left his post in 1997 to unsuccessfully pursue an ambassadorship to Mexico. Assessing Mr. Weld’s trajectory after 1994, The Boston Globe editorialized that he’d “slid downhill afterward, enjoying the bumps like a giddy child on a silver snow disk.”
Another Massachusetts governor—the Democrat who preceded Mr. Weld in office—seemed to share this view.
“He’s not serious, is he?” asked Michael Dukakis, addressing his successor’s Empire State ambitions. “I mean, he got so bored around here that he quit, wanted to go to Mexico. What’s he going to do in Albany, if Boston was so boring?”
8:24 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Fair and square
Terry Golway is right. Fernando Ferrer lost because he was a lousy, underfunded candidate, not because he was Puerto Rican.
8:14 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Hillary
Her mea culpa. Presumably this will be enough for the blue blogosphere that hated John Kerry (the most left wing nominee since Mondale) to endorse Hillary (the most right wing nominee since her Rickey Ray Rector-frying husband).
5:51 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Sad
Serious Western journalists take to Al Jazeera for lack of a heavyweight alternative:
Western viewers may be leery of the brand name, but some of the Western world’s most accomplished broadcast journalists see the new network as a last, great hope.
“What makes Al Jazeera International different, and therefore that much more appealing to us, is that if you’re interested in doing international news, there aren’t that many choices,” said Mr. Khan. “There’s the BBC and CNN. But for those of us who want to do international news on a day-to-day basis, there’s just not that much out there.”
Among those attracted to the promise of foreign bureaus and nearly limitless resources is Dave Marash, a former Nightline correspondent and onetime anchor of WCBS New York, who is negotiating a job in the Washington bureau, according to sources close to the journalist. David Frost, the veteran BBC journalist and the first to interview Richard Nixon after Watergate, signed on earlier this summer. Former Nightline anchor Ted Koppel had a meeting with a representative from Al Jazeera International in Washington this fall, according sources close to Mr. Koppel. But nothing came of it.
Mr. Marash couldn’t be reached for comment; Mr. Koppel declined an interview request through his assistant; and Mr. Frost didn’t return several calls.
Rebecca Lipkin, a former London-based Nightline producer, joined Al Jazeera International earlier this year as the executive producer for programming out of the London bureau. She jumped not out of any frustration with broadcast news, she said, but because of the opportunity to work for a network that will allow her to produce long pieces about parts of the world that the broadcast and cable news networks don’t cover well—or don’t cover at all.
“If you told somebody at one of the networks that you want to put 20 minutes on the air about Central Asia, they would say you’re crazy,” she said. “I think this network would say, ‘Well, let’s think about this.’”
But you won't be able to see the Arab Fox's serious product anytime soon:
But before Al Jazeera International can be a primary or secondary or tertiary news source for American viewers, it needs to get on American televisions. Mr. Parsons said that he’s had trouble finding distributors in the United States and Australia, and though the network isn’t dependent on commercial dollars, it’s been tough getting advertisers to sign on as well.
4:16 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Arnold's new chief of staff
She's a gay abortion rights supporter and a former executive director of the California Democratic Party.
Schwarzenegger is obviously not worried about primary challenges. And if he's right about that, this is very smart positioning for a general election campaign.
3:30 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Rove must be happy
Looks like John Roberts has no plans to overturn Roe v Wade any time soon.
Roe v. Wade and its fate never got mentioned. There was not the slightest hint of any agitation within the Court to narrow abortion rights, and certainly no sign that Roe itself was in jeopardy -- at least with this combination of Justices. Instead. the Court appeared to be dealing with the new cases as if abortion rights at this stage had become primarily a matter calling for technical legal precision.
The new Chief Justice, John G. Roberts, Jr., contributed to that impression in the case about parental notice laws for minors seeking an abortion. Rather than an across-the-board challenge to a New Hampshire parental notice law, Roberts suggested, perhaps a better approach would have been for doctors to bring a "more focused" challenge to the adequacy of emergency procedures available to teens who did not want to tell their parents. And, in the clinic blockade case, Roberts suggested that the Court should not reach out to decide questions not necessary to resolve that particular dispute.
3:13 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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The newscast we've been waiting for
The F-ing Media:
An energetic 65, Koppel can afford to spend his time skiing, hiking, sailing, or visiting his four children and three grandchildren—but he has no plans to fade to black. He and Bettag are kicking around ideas for shows for their new production group—likely a series of documentaries for HBO. Though the deal isn’t done (and may yet unravel, as Time Warner looks to limit costs in the wake of Carl Icahn’s shareholder upheaval), Koppel is hoping to launch with a critical look at . . . TV news. “This is something you can’t do at ABC,” says Bettag. “You’d be accused of fouling your own nest or criticizing your competitors. We have an opportunity in a new venue. TV never looks at itself hard. We want to answer such questions as, ‘Why is 24-hour cable news “blondes reporting on missing blondes”?’ ”
In an earlier interview, Koppel had told me, for maybe the tenth time, that he’s really, truly not upset to be leaving ABC. “I know it makes a better story for you,” he said. He dropped his voice to sound like an anchor delivering headlines: “A resentful, bitter Koppel, driven out.” Then he laughed and added, “It’s not the case. I’m not angry. I’m not bitter. I’d like to get on with the next period of my life.” Maybe. Or maybe not. He and Bettag have talked about calling their new show The F-ing Media.
2:22 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Scissors allowed back on the planes!
I suppose TSA deemed them less harmful than the liquor bottles at the duty free, which were, after all, never banned.
But this decision wasn't made because scissors don't present a risk to passengers:
Faced with a tighter budget and morale problems among its workforce, the TSA says its new policy changes are aimed at making the best use of limited resources. Homeland Security Department officials are increasingly concerned about airports' vulnerability to suicide bomb attacks. TSA officials now want airport screeners to spend more of their time looking for improvised explosive devices rather than sharp objects. [...]
However, many flight attendants do not believe sharp objects should be allowed on board. They argue that even though such items would not enable another Sept. 11, 2001-style hijacking, the items could be used as weapons against passengers or flight-crew members. "TSA needs to take a moment to reflect on why they were created in the first place -- after the world had seen how ordinary household items could create such devastation," said Corey Caldwell, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, which has more than 46,000 members. "When weapons are allowed back on board an aircraft, the pilots will be able to land the plane safety but the aisles will be running with blood."
Amen, flight attendants. Now about those duty frees...
1:17 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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"You GO GIRL"
Jane Hamsher's withering, viciously accurate takedown of Andrea Mitchell Greenspan. With a photo!
1:13 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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And you thought it couldn't happen
Through the miracle of modern technology, Paris and Nicole will appear to have reunited!
If their ratings are high enough, they may be chosen to co-anchor the CBS Evening News post- Bob Schieffer.
1:00 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The end of a hellish season
Hurricanes, incidentally, don't disappear just because CNN doesn't report on them:
Tropical Storm Delta slammed into Spain's Canary Islands last night at near hurricane strength, killing at least seven people. One man died when he was blown off the roof he was trying to repair, and six African illegal immigrants drowned after winds caused their boat to capsize while attempting to reach Gran Canaria Island. Twelve of the immigrants remained missing while 32 were rescued. Each year, thousands of migrants try to reach the Canary Islands from Africa and many die in the attempt, but usually not in a tropical storm!
Sustained winds of 71 mph gusting to 86 mph were recorded at Tenarife, and a wind gust of 94 mph was recorded at La Palma. The near hurricane force winds caused extensive damage to utility poles, roofs, and trees all across the islands, which are a popular tourist destination for Europeans. Power is still out to over 223,000 residents today, but is expected to be restored to a large majority by Wednesday. Delta weakened considerably after smashing through the Canary Islands, and came ashore in Morocco this morning with only 45 mph winds gusts and some isolated pockets of heavy rain. Delta's rains were expected to provide a boon to local farmers unaccustomed to heavy precipitation.
12:44 AM | Post or Read Comments (2)
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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
There are about 20 serious journalists left in the country
And Sydney Schanberg is right, we owe them a lot. But they are hardly representative of the media as a whole. And why do I get the feeling they receive a lot fewer of the "health benefits and pensions" Schanberg believes our democracy depends on than these guys?
10:19 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Magazine cover of the year
Terribly un-pc, via Firedoglake. Republicans who suddenly develop a conscience out of concern for their treasonous friends can look here.
2:10 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Sarah Carter
One savvy granddaughter. It looks like her father is definitely interested in that Nevada Senate seat. It's a longshot, but an anti-Republican tidal wave could put him over the top. And doesn't all of America want to make Jimmy Carter a proud(er) daddy?
2:01 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Canadian government falls
Here's hoping Stephen Harper implodes.
12:24 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Monday, November 28, 2005
McCain's chief of staff
Aims a bloody one at Grover Norquist:
Norquist then accused McCain and Senator Byron L. Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, of discrimination by targeting lobbyists who worked for Native American tribes. Abramoff and his partners collected $82 million in fees from Indian tribes and their casinos over four years.
''The implication is that it's money laundering to raise money from Native Americans, and spend it," Norquist said. [...]
An early favorite in the 2008 presidential race, McCain is in a delicate position with political conservatives, who have held a grudge against him since he ran in 2000 against George W. Bush.
While McCain has been trying to smooth ruffled feathers on the right, his investigation into the Abramoff scandal, which he has called ''a complex and tangled web . . . a story alarming in its depth and breadth of potential wrongdoing," reinforces the bad blood with Norquist and his political allies. Apparently, McCain could not care less.
When we asked the senator's staff for a comment on Norquist's fusillade against McCain, his chief of staff, Mark Salter, had a lot to say. ''In Norquist's world, the truth is for suckers. And it's as pointless to respond to him as it would be to respond to some street-corner schizophrenic," Salter responded.
''There is nothing remotely accurate about his recollection of the committee's dealings with him," he added. ''Nor, obviously, is his charge of discrimination credible, considering that it is made against someone who has a long and well-known record of respect for the tribes by someone who excuses ripping them off."
11:20 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Martin van Creveld
He is a professor military history at Hebew University and "the only non-American author on the U.S. Army's required reading list for officers. This is from his commentary in The Forward, again via Brad DeLong.
Whereas North Vietnam at least had a government with which it was possible to arrange a cease-fire, in Iraq the opponent consists of shadowy groups of terrorists with no central organization or command authority. And whereas in the early 1970s equipment was still relatively plentiful, today's armed forces are the products of a technology-driven revolution in military affairs. Whether that revolution has contributed to anything besides America's national debt is open to debate. What is beyond question, though, is that the new weapons are so few and so expensive that even the world's largest and richest power can afford only to field a relative handful of them.
Therefore, simply abandoning equipment or handing it over to the Iraqis, as was done in Vietnam, is simply not an option. And even if it were, the new Iraqi army is by all accounts much weaker, less skilled, less cohesive and less loyal to its government than even the South Vietnamese army was. For all intents and purposes, Washington might just as well hand over its weapons directly to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Clearly, then, the thing to do is to forget about face-saving and conduct a classic withdrawal. [...] A withdrawal probably will require several months and incur a sizable number of casualties. As the pullout proceeds, Iraq almost certainly will sink into an all-out civil war from which it will take the country a long time to emerge — if, indeed, it can do so at all. All this is inevitable and will take place whether George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice like it or not. [...]
First and foremost, such a presence will be needed to counter Iran, which for two decades now has seen the United States as "the Great Satan." Tehran is certain to emerge as the biggest winner from the war — a winner that in the not too distant future is likely to add nuclear warheads to the missiles it already has. In the past, Tehran has often threatened the Gulf States. Now that Iraq is gone, it is hard to see how anybody except the United States can keep the Gulf States, and their oil, out of the mullahs' clutches.
A continued American military presence will be needed also, because a divided, chaotic, government-less Iraq is very likely to become a hornets' nest. From it, a hundred mini-Zarqawis will spread all over the Middle East, conducting acts of sabotage and seeking to overthrow governments in Allah's name.
The Gulf States apart, the most vulnerable country is Jordan, as evidenced by the recent attacks in Amman. However, Turkey, Egypt and, to a lesser extent, Israel are also likely to feel the impact. Some of these countries, Jordan in particular, are going to require American assistance.
Maintaining an American security presence in the region, not to mention withdrawing forces from Iraq, will involve many complicated problems, military as well as political. Such an endeavor, one would hope, will be handled by a team different from — and more competent than — the one presently in charge of the White House and Pentagon.
For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.
10:54 PM | Post or Read Comments (3)
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More on Alito And CAP
In Obsidian Wings via Brad DeLong
CAP is generally described as 'a conservative group'. But this is as misleading as calling the John Birch Society a 'conservative group' would be. There are lots of conservatives who are thoughtful and intelligent, and who have real intellectual integrity. Conservatives like this did not tend to join CAP. CAP was dedicated to finding outrages that it took to be caused by the horrible fact that women and minorities were being admitted to Princeton. The need to find outrages generally came first; any encounter with facts came later. For this reason, CAP tended to attract not conservatives per se, but the sort of conservative who is forever getting deeply hysterical about some perceived threat to a supposed previous golden age, who sees such threats everywhere, and who is willing to completely distort the truth in order to feed his (and it generally was 'his') obsessions. [...]
CAP was not about opposing affirmative action. It supported quotas that favored white men. CAP was about opposing the presence of women and minorities at Princeton. Period. Moreover, its tactics were despicable. In retrospect, it was one of the first instances of what has now become a familiar pattern: an extremely well-funded organization dedicated to spreading lies about some opponent in an effort to force that opponent to change course through the sheer volume of vitriol and harassment that a lot of money can buy. Samuel Alito pointed with pride to his membership in CAP in 1985. What relevance this should have now is open to debate; I just wanted to clarify what exactly it was that he was proud to be a part of.
Lots of evidence in between. Take a look.
10:42 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Payback
Hee hee:
Empowered by victories in the special election fight, labor unions are also contemplating two measures inspired by events this year. One would raise California's $6.75-an-hour minimum wage, a change Schwarzenegger has twice vetoed.
The second initiative would be payback to the business community and the Republican Party, which supported this year's failed Proposition 75 to restrict public employee unions' political might. The new proposition that labor has threatened returns the favor: It would require corporations to get the approval of shareholders each year before spending company money on California political campaigns. Labor has yet to submit a draft to state officials, which is required before backers can begin collecting signatures.
10:36 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Nevada caucuses in January?
An explosive shift, if it happens. This would force Democratic contenders to contend with Hispanic voters and grapple with the party's emerging but promising Southwestern strategy.
But the real news is what it would mean to the GOP. It would be a boon to Tom Tancredo and an utter disaster for the party. Republicans will raise the immigration issue far more harshly than they would in New Hampshire and Iowa.
2004 was without question the GOP's high water mark among Hispanics. Bush took great pains not to make immigration an issue and to appear Hispanic-friendly. It was a brilliant political move, but one that was at odds with the beliefs of the party's rank and file.
The hate engendered by the 2008 primary will lower Hispanic support for Republicans from the top of the ticket on down, and in every state. But if the primary season begins with a Southwestern caucus state, expect the hate to be ratcheted up a notch. And for the consequences on the Hispanic vote to be devastating.
3:47 PM | Post or Read Comments (3)
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Pity the poor Iranians
When they elected the mayor of Tehran, they thought they were getting a religious, populist Rudy Giuliani. It turns out they got George W. Bush:
Critics say the 1980s-style radicalism of ultraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is hurting Iran at home and abroad - to the point that even his natural allies in parliament have rejected his three choices to run the all-important oil ministry.
The Islamic hardliner appears undeterred, but pragmatists in the ruling hierarchy are growing restless and looking for ways to contain him.
"Ahmadinejad's behaviour has annoyed many fellow conservatives. That he doesn't like to consult with anybody outside his small circle of old friends is a reality," said Ghodratollah Rahmani, a conservative writer.
"He doesn't consult even with knowledgeable people in his own camp."
Even extremists within the hardline camp want Ahmadinejad to be more responsive to their advice, experts say.
"If he doesn't want to hear no for a fourth time, he has to consult with people outside his circle of friends," said Mohammad Nabi Habibi, leader of the Islamic Coalition Society.
Since taking office in August, Ahmadinejad has jettisoned Iran's moderation in foreign policy and pursued a purge in the government, replacing pragmatic veterans with former military commanders and inexperienced religious hardliners. [...]
In the works, but still not made public, is a deeper shake-up of the establishment in which Ahmadinejad is replacing hundreds of governors and senior officials at various ministries with young, inexperienced Islamic hardliners who oppose good relations with the West. The changes include putting fundamentalists in key posts at security agencies.
Mahdi Kalhor, a senior adviser to the president, said Iranians and other countries have to accept that Ahmadinejad prefers to work in isolation.
"Yes, the president consults (only) his trusted friends," Kalhor said. "Ahmadinejad has a revolutionary management policy. He makes decisions within 24 hours that previous governments used to take within five years."
3:32 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Wall Street is not crazy about McCain
Let me rephrase that. Stephen Moore, of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board has his doubts. And guess why:
When I ask him about America's remarkable income mobility, he responds, "Yes, but I keep seeing the thousands of faces of those poor people who were left behind in New Orleans," as if this was a failure of capitalism, not a failure of government. And with this, he gobbles down the last bite of his unpretentious lunch--a hot dog and chips--shakes my hand warmly, and sprints off to his next appointment to clean up whatever the latest mess is in Washington.
I come away believing that if I'm ever in a knife fight or in a foxhole, there is no one I'd rather have next to me than John McCain. Whether he's someone who should be steering the rudders of the American economy is a different issue altogether.
2:29 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Republicans made Darwin doubt his Christianity
And who wouldn't sympathize with that feeling?
The British biologist Richard Dawkins, an outspoken defender of Darwin and a nonbeliever, famously wrote that evolution "made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Although Darwin struggled with questions of faith his whole life, he ultimately described himself as an "Agnostic." But he reached that conclusion through a different, although well-traveled, route. William Howarth, an environmental historian who teaches a course at Princeton called "Darwin in Our Time," dates Darwin's doubts about Christianity to his encounters with slave-owning Christians—some of them no doubt citing Scripture as justification—which deeply offended Darwin, an ardent abolitionist.
2:22 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Bad analogy
If the intended victim had been Chuck D., it might have been credible. But this is a lot closer to disclosing a plot to assassinate Michael Bolton.
It was Day 3 of the tabloid-friendly money-laundering case against hip-hop executives Irv (Gotti) Lorenzo and Christopher (Gotti) Lorenzo and their business, Murder Inc., now rechristened as just The Inc.
And the testimony from Mr. Ragin—a credit-card fraudster and pimp who is cooperating with the feds in their case—was the first A-bomb to drop, particularly notable during a trial that had until then only been enlivened by bumbling government witnesses testifying about shoe boxes stuffed with cash. Indeed, Mr. Lorenzo’s attorney, Gerald Shargel, groused to Judge Edward Korman that allowing evidence related to 50’s shooting would have a nuclear effect on the trial akin to revealing a “plot to assassinate Bob Dylan”—and, appropriately, Judge Korman ordered jurors out of the courtroom before the testimony was heard.
12:53 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The Woodward issue in a nutshell
From Chris Lehmann in this week's New York Observer:
Yet the surprise Woodward chapter in the Plame affair has less to do with the ethics of reporting than with the theology of access, a spiritual discipline in which Mr. Woodward is undeniably the high priest. His weirdly overlapping books on Bush-era warmaking come overstuffed with self-regarding quotes from all levels of White House officialdom, all the way up to the President himself. All of Mr. Woodward’s sources—on the record and off, and every shade in between—rush to avail themselves of Mr. Woodward’s sourcely solicitude, because they know that he will faithfully transcribe the details of their self-regard most precisely, each in their own grandiose chosen formulations.
This is the social compact on display in each entry of Mr. Woodward’s sprawling corpus of inside-Washington books, and it also explains the oddly inert quality that nearly all of them share. For all their topicality, Mr. Woodward’s chronicles of the major political events and players in our age never truly manage to get behind the scene, in the way most reporters understand that phrase. They are, rather, extended studies of mise-en-scène, with each source serving as his own director and the author hovering above events as producer and dealmaker, in a studied posture of noncommittal bemusement that he is pleased to consider both fair and balanced.
The public hears much about its own stake in this social compact, which has to do with getting the governing class to confess sinful doings it’s otherwise disinclined to talk about. Yet when one considers the biggest investigative stories of our age, they are anything but prodigious feats of access from on high. The Iran-contra scandal was famously broken by the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa, the S&L enormity by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Abu Ghraib came to light not from the higher reaches of officialdom where Mr. Woodward makes himself at home, but rather courtesy of an anguished soldier-witness.
For all the talk of Mr. Woodward’s ultra-hot status as the “preeminent investigative reporter of his generation” (an oft-used phrase), he has actually joined a much older lineage of aristocratic D.C. journalist, the obliging plier of access for access’ sake. [...]
[W]hen Arthur Ochs (Punch) Sulzberger telephoned his mother Iphigene to report breathlessly that he had just lunched with President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State George Shultz, she waggishly replied, “What did they want?”
Iphigene was by all accounts a most appealing woman, far less dreary and self-important than the male successors to the Times publishing ermine. And in her reply to Punch, she was clearly joking. Yet as Mr. Woodward’s recent antics remind us, when establishment papers engage in these kind of self-enamored intimacies with sources and institutions they are charged to regard with principled skepticism—and, more than occasionally, outright suspicion—the joke is most certainly on us.
12:49 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Sunday, November 27, 2005
Republicans, be very, very scared
Because under President Hillary Clinton, the government is going to know everything about you: your guns, tranny porn, blog, and even the CCC and Minutemen meetings in your megachurch.
11:43 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Where is the love
Even GOP senators from blue states are more loyal to George W. Bush than Moqtada al-Sadr. And Bush did a lot less for them.
11:32 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Musical moment of the week
Chrissie Hynde singing "Waterloo Sunset" to induct Ray Davies into the UK Music Hall of Fame.
10:58 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Hersh on Blitzer
Today:
BLITZER: But this has become, your suggesting, a religious thing for him?
HERSH: Some people think it is. Other people think he's absolutely committed, as I say, to the idea of democracy. He's been sold on this notion.
He's a utopian, you could say, in a world where maybe he doesn't have all the facts and all the information he needs and isn't able to change.
I'll tell you, the people that talk to me now are essentially frightened because they're not sure how you get to this guy.
We have generals that do not like -- anymore -- they're worried about speaking truth to power. You know that. I mean that's -- Murtha in fact, John Murtha, the congressman from Pennsylvania, which most people don't know, has tremendous contacts with the senior generals of the armies. He's a ranking old war horse in Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The generals know him and like him. His message to the White House was much more worrisome than maybe to the average person in the public. They know that generals are privately telling him things that they're not saying to them.
And if you're a general and you have a disagreement with this war, you cannot get that message into the White House. And that gets people unnerved.
BLITZER: Here's what you write. You write, "Current and former military and intelligence officials have told me that the president remains convinced that it is his personal mission to bring democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious to political pressure, even from fellow Republicans. They also say that he disparages any information that conflicts with his view of how the war is proceeding."
Those are incredibly strong words, that the president basically doesn't want to hear alternative analysis of what is going on.
HERSH: You know, Wolf, there is people I've been talking to -- I've been a critic of the war very early in the New Yorker, and there were people talking to me in the last few months that have talked to me for four years that are suddenly saying something much more alarming.
They're beginning to talk about some of the things the president said to him about his feelings about manifest destiny, about a higher calling that he was talking about three, four years ago.
I don't want to sound like I'm off the wall here. But the issue is, is this president going to be capable of responding to reality? Is he going to be able -- is he going to be capable if he going to get a bad assessment, is he going to accept it as a bad assessment or is he simply going to see it as something else that is just a little bit in the way as he marches on in his crusade that may not be judged for 10 or 20 years.
He talks about being judged in 20 years to his friends. And so it's a little alarming because that means that my and my colleagues in the press corps, we can't get to him maybe with our views. You and you can't get to him maybe with your interviews.
How do you get to a guy to convince him that perhaps he's not going the right way?
Jack Murtha certainly didn't do it. As I wrote, they were enraged at Murtha in the White House.
And so we have an election coming up -- Yes. I've had people talk to me about maybe Congress is going to have to cut off the budget for this war if it gets to that point. I don't think they're ready to do it now.
But I'm talking about sort of a crisis of management. That you have a management that's seen by some of the people closely involved as not being able to function in terms of getting information it doesn't want to receive.
10:43 PM | Post or Read Comments (2)
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It takes nothing away from Dave Chappelle
To suggest that Dave Itzikoff's review was likely better than the show. OK, maybe it does.
3:35 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The poster child
The New York Times covers Alito's membership in Concerned Alumni:
The group had been founded in 1972, the year that Judge Alito graduated, by alumni upset that Princeton had recently begun admitting women. It published a magazine, Prospect, which persistently accused the administration of taking a permissive approach to student life, of promoting birth control and paying for abortions, and of diluting the explicitly Christian character of the school.
As Princeton admitted a growing number of minority students, Concerned Alumni charged repeatedly that the administration was lowering admission standards, undermining the university's distinctive traditions and admitting too few children of alumni. "Currently alumni children comprise 14 percent of each entering class, compared with an 11 percent quota for blacks and Hispanics," the group wrote in a 1985 fund-raising letter sent to all Princeton graduates.
By the mid-1980's, however, Princeton students and recent alumni were increasingly finding such statements anachronistic or worse.
"Is the issue the percentage of alumni children admitted or the percentage of minorities?" Jonathan Morgan, a conservative undergraduate working with the group, asked its board members that fall in an internal memorandum. "I don't see the relevance in comparing the two, except in a racist context (i.e. why do we let in so many minorities and not alumni children?)," he continued. [...]
But in an application for a promotion in the Reagan administration in the fall of 1985, Judge Alito was asked to provide information about his "philosophical commitment" to administration policies and listed his membership in Concerned Alumni. [...]
By 1985 Concerned Alumni had become well known in conservative circles. Financed in part by Shelby Cullom Davis, a member of the 1930 class and the ambassador to Switzerland in the Nixon administration, the group announced in an early fund-raising pamphlet that its goals included a less-liberal faculty and "a more traditional undergraduate population."
A pamphlet for parents suggested that "racial tensions" and loose oversight of campus social life were contributing to a spike in campus crime. A brochure for Princeton alumni warned, "The unannounced goal of the administration, now achieved, of a student population of approximately 40 percent women and minorities will largely vitiate the alumni body of the future."
By the 1980's, however, Concerned Alumni had added a new cause: the defense of the exclusive "eating clubs," where many upper class Princeton students took their meals, and especially the three all-male clubs. All now admit women.
Does this prove Alito was racist and sexist? No. But it does suggest that he thought, and correctly, that the perception that he was a racist and sexist could only improve his career prospects during a GOP administration.
You could hardly expect less from a well-educated, religious Republican up and comer.
3:20 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Just when you thought the West was losing its technological edge
Comes the greatest scientific breakthrough of all time:
For the first time ever in the U.S., VH1 will broadcast "The Second Annual UK Music Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony" with an exclusive extended version of the two-hour ceremony airing on VH1 Classic right after the premiere on VH1. Artists who have been publicly announced to date are: Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Eurythmics, Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, The Who, The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, Joy Division/New Order and the late, great legendary DJ and producer John Peel.
2:44 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Saturday, November 26, 2005
Sunday Novak a day early
And it's a good one :
There is no doubt Rep. John Boehner of Ohio is quietly enlisting support from fellow House Republicans to elect him as majority leader in January. The question is whether Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York is campaigning to be majority whip.
Reports of a Boehner-Reynolds ticket have circulated in Washington, but Reynolds vigorously denies it. If he does run for whip, Reynolds would be accused of cutting and running from his duties as House Republican campaign chairman because of the difficult 2006 mid-term election ahead.
A special election in January would mean House Republicans have given up on Tom DeLay getting rid of his criminal indictment in Texas in time to resume the majority leader's chair in this session of Congress. Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri has been acting leader.
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He's not just against abortion
He was, it appears, against coeducation too. The best part, is that he's posting about it on his own blog!
2:38 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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GOP senators' latest enemy: Bruce Springsteen
They seemed to like him fine back when Ronald Reagan took his name in vain.
An effort by New Jersey's two Democratic senators to honor the veteran rocker was shot down Friday by Republicans who are apparently still miffed a year after the Boss lent his voice to the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
The chamber's GOP leaders refused to bring up for consideration a resolution, introduced by Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine, that honored Springsteen's long career and the 1975 release of his iconic album, "Born to Run."
No reason was given, said Lautenberg spokesman Alex Formuzis. "Resolutions like this pass all the time in the U.S. Senate, usually by unanimous consent," he said.
Telephone calls to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office seeking comment were not immediately returned.
Lautenberg said he couldn't understand why anyone would object to the resolution.
"Even if the Republicans don't like (Springsteen's) tunes, I would hope they appreciated his contributions to American culture," Lautenberg said.
Corzine said he, Lautenberg and other Americans appreciated Springsteen's contributions to American culture.
"We'll never surrender looking for ways to honor our local hero who made it big in this land of hopes and dreams," Corzine said.
1:22 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Friday, November 25, 2005
Don Imus
Speaking to Andrea Mitchell Greenspan after her latest "misreporting":
Imus: Why did you say that Andrea?
Mitchell: I messed up...(later)
Imus: Russert was a little short with me---almost like he was trying to hide something....
Imus laughing: I realized-well this is an unfair thing to say, I was gonna say- all you folks in Washington are all in bed with one another, but that would be an awful thing to say....
7:31 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Little Guantánamo found?
Le Monde reports that it is in a U.S. base in Kosovo.
2:11 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Calling Tipper Gore, calling Tipper Gore
Teenage murderer David Ludwig was a fan of Christian rock.
On the night of Oct. 6, David Ludwig, 18, and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Kara Beth Borden, went to church. There was no sermon, though -- at least not a traditional one. David and Kara were at the Lancaster Bible Church in Manheim, Penn., for a Christian rock concert. As the punishingly loud guitars of Audio Adrenaline and Pillar strained the limits of the church sound system, the kids screamed and pumped their fists and banged their heads. "Pillar and Audio A rock my face off!" David wrote on his blog the next day. Kara spent almost all the money in her pocket on a Pillar sweatshirt. She was wearing it the morning of Nov. 13 when, police say, David shot and killed her parents and fled with her at his side. [...]
The CCM industry is already painfully aware that its fans are often no more virtuous than any other teenagers. A 2004 survey by the Barna Group found that "teen buyers of Christian music were just as likely as other teens to engage in music piracy." Nearly 80 percent of young people who purchase Christian music also download it illegally. Christian music is not just for goody-goodies anymore. [...]
Pillar ended its Oct. 6 set with a song called "Fireproof." It must have struck a chord in David. He posted the lyrics on his blog:
I know where I stand and what'll happen if you try it
I am FIREPROOF
I know my heart and I just can't deny it
I am FIREPROOF
I tried to tell you but you wouldn't be quiet
I am FIREPROOF
I'll never bow down and you won't buy it
I am FIREPROOF
Like many edgier evangelical bands, Pillar specializes in battle anthems, composed on the premise that Christians are under constant spiritual attack.[...]
It is still possible to find fundamentalist Christians who hold that all rock 'n' roll is the devil's music, and that CCM is only a more deceptive variety. The mainstream Christian culture industry, however, is too sophisticated and too profitable to turn its back on any form of musical expression. But with the proliferation of Christian music -- and books, movies, stand-up comedy, and pro wrestling -- the line between faith and sin has become blurred, and pop proselytizers will have to ask themselves if they are really changing hearts or just winning fans. Evangelicals justify their embrace of 21st century pop culture forms by saying that the Bible calls them to be "in the world, but not of it." This week, sadly, they are both.
1:46 PM | Post or Read Comments (2)
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From Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation
I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.
2:18 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Thursday, November 24, 2005
The art of teaching
With a quote:
It is an essential of good teaching to like the pupils. If you do not actually like boys and girls, or young men and young women, give up teaching. It is easy to like the young because they are young. They have no faults, except the very ones which they are asking you to eradicate: ignorance, shallowness, and inexperience. The really hateful faults are those which we grown men and women have. Some of these grow on us like diseases, others we build up and cherish as though they were virtues. Ingrained conceit, calculated cruelty, deep-rooted cowardice, slobbering greed, vulgar self-satisfaction, puffy laziness of mind and body--these and other real sins result from years, decades of careful cultivation. They show on our faces, they ring harsh or hollow in our voices, they have become bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. The young do not sin in those ways. Heaven knows they are infuriatingly lazy and unbelievably stupid and sometimes detestably cruel -- but not for long, not all at once, and not (like grownups) as a matter of habit or policy.
8:59 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Things to be very thankful for
Bedazzled, which is almost like discovering the Internet all over again. Don Cornelius. And the magnificent Al Green.
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Thanksgiving
Republican history:
While none of these Thanksgiving celebrations was an official national pronouncement (no nation existed at the time), they do support the claim that the celebrations were religious and specifically Christian in their origin and purpose. “Thanksgiving began as a holy day, created by a community of God-fearing Puritans sincere in their desire to set aside one day each year especially to thank the Lord for His many blessings. The day they chose, coming after the harvest at a time of year when farm work was light, fit the natural rhythm of rural life.”
On October 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln declared that the last Thursday of November 1863 would be set aside as a nationwide celebration of thanksgiving:
We have been the recipients of the choisest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. o human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. . . . I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday in November next as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent father who dwelleth in heaven.
History:
So, what truth ought to be taught? In 1637, the official Thanksgiving holiday we know today came into existence. (Some people argue it formally came into existence during the Civil War, in 1863, when President Lincoln proclaimed it, which also was the same year he had 38 Sioux hung on Christmas Eve.) William Newell, a Penobscot Indian and former chair of the anthropology department of the University of Connecticut, claims that the first Thanksgiving was not "a festive gathering of Indians and Pilgrims, but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children." In 1637, the Pequot tribe of Connecticut gathered for the annual Green Corn Dance ceremony. Mercenaries of the English and Dutch attacked and surrounded the village; burning down everything and shooting whomever try to escape. The next day, Newell notes, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: "A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children." It was signed into law that, "This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots." Most Americans believe Thanksgiving was this wonderful dinner and harvest celebration. The truth is the "Thanksgiving dinner" was invented both to instill a false pride in Americans and to cover up the massacre. [...]
William Bradford, in his famous History of the Plymouth Plantation, celebrated the Pequot massacre:
"Those that scraped the fire were slaine with the sword; some hewed to peeces, others rune throw with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatchte, and very few escapted. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fyer, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stincke and sente there of, but the victory seemed a sweete sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to inclose their enemise in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enimie."
The Pequot massacre came after the colonists, angry at the murder of an English trader suspected by the Pequots of kidnapping children, sought revenge. rather than fighting the dangerous Pequot warriors, John Mason and John Underhill led a group of colonists and Native allies to the Indian fort in Mystic, and killed the old men, women, and children who were there. Those who escaped were later hunted down. The Pequot tribe numbered 8,000 when the Pilgrims arrived, but disease had brought their numbers down to 1,500 by 1637. The Pequot "War" killed all but a handful of remaining members of the tribe.
Proud of their accomplishments, Underhill wrote a book [that] depicted the burning of the village, and even made an illustration showing how they surrounded the village to kill all within it.
Adds Julia White::
An army of over 200 settlers was formed, joined by over 1,000 Narragansett warriors. Because of the lack of fighting experience, and the vast numbers of the fierce Pequot warriors, Commander John Mason elected not to stage an open battle. Instead, the Pequot were attacked, one village at a time, in the hours before dawn. Each village was set on fire with its sleeping Natives burned alive. Women and children over 14 were captured to be sold as slaves; other survivors were massacred. The Natives were sold into slavery in The West Indies, the Azures, Spain, Algiers and England; everywhere the Puritan merchants traded. The slave trade was so lucrative that boatloads of 500 at a time left the harbors of New England.
In 1641, the Dutch governor of Manhattan offered the first scalp bounty; a common practice in many European countries. This was broadened by the Puritans to include a bounty for Natives fit to be sold for slavery. The Dutch and Puritans joined forces to exterminate all Natives from New England, and village after village fell. Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stanford, Connecticut, the churches of Manhattan announced a day of "thanksgiving" to celebrate victory over the savages. This was the 2nd Thanksgiving. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets of Manhattan like soccer balls.
The killing took on a frenzy, with days of thanksgiving being held after each successful massacre. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape. Their chief was beheaded, and his head placed on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where it remained for 24 years. Each town held thanksgiving days to celebrate their own victories over the Natives until it became clear that there needed to be an order to these special occasions. It was George Washington who finally brought a system and a schedule to thanksgiving when he declared one day to be celebrated across the nation as Thanksgiving Day.
It was Abraham Lincoln who decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a legal national holiday during the Civil War, on the same day and at the same time he was ordering troops to march against the Sioux in Minnesota.
In your Thanksgivings to come, I would ask that you offer a silent prayer for the spirits of those who were sacrificed so long ago. You and I did not commit these atrocities, and we are certainly not responsible for the behavior of our ancestors be they red, white, black or yellow.
A lot of Republican Christians could join them. But they have forgotten God.
1:24 PM | Post or Read Comments (3)
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Codey "not interested" in Senate
But more likely, Corzine wasn't interested in appointing him. The governor-elect better have a good appointment up his sleeve. His victory will have been worth less than nothing if Democrats lose his Senate seat.
1:05 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Tough on crime
What 40 years of conservative Supreme Court justices and "law and order" governors have done to criminal justice.
12:54 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Coeliacs: Lepers of the Church
The latest shocker:
"An honest reading of the document shows that the Vatican is simply banning gays," said Jesuit Fr. James Martin [an associate editor of America]. "The ‘application' of the document, even the portion of the document that says that rectors are ultimately responsible for their men, will be meaningless: No emotionally mature gay applicant these days will want to enter."
In terms of how absolute the effect of the instruction will be, some canon lawyers point to the similar case offered by recent Vatican rulings on the ordination of men who are coeliacs, meaning wheat-intolerant, or alcoholics.
On August 22, 1994, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a seemingly absolute ban on such candidates, stating, "Given the centrality of the celebration of the Eucharist in the life of the priest, candidates for the priesthood who are affected by celiac disease or suffer from alcoholism or similar conditions may not be admitted to holy orders."
After much reaction and debate, however, the congregation issued a new document on July 24, 2003, which softened the ruling: "Given the centrality of the celebration of the Eucharist in the life of a priest, one must proceed with great caution before admitting to Holy Orders those candidates unable to ingest gluten or alcohol without serious harm," it stated.