Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

The Shootings At Algiers Point

by dday

Allow me to break with all journalistic convention and mention Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans, which would be more than what was done during the entire Presidential election. One predictable outcome of that tragedy was the extent to which the conservative noise machine hyped incidents of looting and mayhem, broken down exclusively along racial lines, to “prove” that black people resort to animal instincts in a time of panic. It was not only completely offensive and wrong, but now an astonishing report by The Nation shows that in at least one case, the opposite was true – white vigilantes shot African-Americans in the aftermath of the storm.

The way Donnell Herrington tells it, there was no warning. One second he was trudging through the heat. The next he was lying prostrate on the pavement, his life spilling out of a hole in his throat, his body racked with pain, his vision blurred and distorted.

It was September 1, 2005, some three days after Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans, and somebody had just blasted Herrington, who is African-American, with a shotgun. “I just hit the ground. I didn’t even know what happened,” recalls Herrington, a burly 32-year-old with a soft drawl.

The sudden eruption of gunfire horrified Herrington’s companions–his cousin Marcel Alexander, then 17, and friend Chris Collins, then 18, who are also black. “I looked at Donnell and he had this big old hole in his neck,” Alexander recalls. “I tried to help him up, and they started shooting again.” Herrington says he was staggering to his feet when a second shotgun blast struck him from behind; the spray of lead pellets also caught Collins and Alexander. The buckshot peppered Alexander’s back, arm and buttocks […]

Herrington, Collins and Alexander’s experience fits into a broader pattern of violence in which, evidence indicates, at least eleven people were shot. In each case the targets were African-American men, while the shooters, it appears, were all white.

The new information should reframe our understanding of the catastrophe. Immediately after the storm, the media portrayed African-Americans as looters and thugs–Mayor Ray Nagin, for example, told Oprah Winfrey that “hundreds of gang members” were marauding through the Superdome. Now it’s clear that some of the most serious crimes committed during that time were the work of gun-toting white males.

So far, their crimes have gone unpunished. No one was ever arrested for shooting Herrington, Alexander and Collins–in fact, there was never an investigation. I found this story repeated over and over during my days in New Orleans. As a reporter who has spent more than a decade covering crime, I was startled to meet so many people with so much detailed information about potentially serious offenses, none of whom had ever been interviewed by police detectives.

The vigilantes came from Algiers Point, a white enclave in the middle of the city, where the residents stockpiled guns and ammunition after the storm, fearing that blacks would flock to their area, which was relatively unhurt by the storm. They assembled a small group of white males with instructions to shoot anything that moved. The hysteria created by the lurid details of chaos and gang activity led to paranoia and the “frontier justice” that ensued.

Three-plus years later, this is largely an untold story. As AC Thompson says in his story (which should be read in full), no investigation has ever been opened, nobody has been arrested or even interviewed about the multiple shootings and even deaths. If this sounds like something out of the 1950s to you, well I agree.

John Conyers has now responded to the report.

Responding to an investigation published in The Nation into vigilante violence after Hurricane Katrina, Rep. John Conyers Jr. issued a public statement Thursday, expressing concern. The investigation details how, after the storm struck, some white residents in the Algiers Point neighborhood of New Orleans repeatedly attacked African-American men.

In interviews, eyewitnesses–including some of the vigilantes themselves and two men who were blasted with a shotgun–describe a string of shootings in which at least eleven people were wounded or killed. A video accompanying the report features interviews with some of the vigilantes, including one who says, “It was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it.”

“I am deeply disturbed by the reported incidents in Algiers Point, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina,” said Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, and chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

Color of Change, who brought the traditional media around to covering the Jena 6 case after months of activism, is distributing a petition calling for a full investigation into the Algiers Point shootings. Because this was at least in part caused by the media failure of hyping the “black menace” that led to the vigilantism, it’s going to take even more pressure to get them involved. Please sign the petition.

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The Wingers

by digby

It seems like it comes sooner every year…

Nominate here for the 2008 Golden Winger Awards for Excellence in Wingnuttery:

Chickenhawk of the Year – bravest keyboarder

1. David Horowitz, “Every day is Islamofascism Awareness Week“
2. Modern Conservative, “You are Leonides!“
3. Tony Blankley, “We won!“
4. Orsen Scott Card, “Time for a new Civil War!“
5. Keith Arnold, “I am John Galt!“
6. American Neocon, “The Destruction of America“

The Fluffy – most disgusting, worshipful defense of powerful wingnut

1. Ace, “The media should ignore what Scott McClellan says about the President of the United States, and instead report what Alice Walker’s daughter says about her mom!“
2. Andrew Sullivan, “You never forget your true love“
3. Fred Hiatt, “The Intelligence Committee says whatever I says it says“
4. John J. Miller, “Jesse Helms was a civil rights hero“
5. Hugh Hewitt, “Dubya: Hero of Bipartisanship“
6. Buttrocket, “Dubya: Master of Public Speaking“

Purple Teardrop with Clutched Pearls Cluster – for enduring the cruelest butthurt

1. Jonah Goldberg, “The White Man is the Jew of Liberal Fascism“
2. Michelle Malkin, “John McCain won’t return my calls!“
3. Michael Gerson, “Al Franken used bad words!“
4. KJ Lopez, On Republican Political Correctness
5. Libertarian Republican, “The Day America Died“
6. Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, “The Treatment of Bush Has Been A Disgrace“
7. Graeme Bird, “Americans Embrace Irrationalism“
8. Nice Doggie, “Wake Up, White People!“
9. Vox Day, “Welcome to the USSA“

The Creamy Baileys – for science reporting

1. Chad Myers, “Global warming is a cover-up for ACID OCEANS!!”
2. Camille Paglia, “A new blog will bring scientific rigor to the global warming debate“
3. (Yes, that) Charlie Daniels, “Global warming is a yankee conspiracy!“
4. Gregg Easterbrook, “Global warming is a cover-up for KILLER ASTEROIDS!!!“
5. Gregg Easterbrook, “Global warming is a cover-up for GOVERNMENT-FUNDED HADRON DEATH ORGIES!!!“
6. Gregg Easterbrook, “Global warming is a cover-up for LIGHTSPEED ALIEN NUCLEAR ATTACKS!!!“

Soggy Biscuit – biggest group wank

1. The Jingosphere, “American troops are LYING about supply problems in Afghanistan!!“
2. The League of Pundits, “Barack Obama must denounce everything ever said by any black people, and whatever he says isn’t good enough“
3. The Washington Press Corps, 2008 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner
4. The Jingosphere, “Ayers ghost-wrote Obama’s book!“
5. The Jingosphere, “10-year-old Obama seduced child molesters!!“

Wank of the Year – biggest single act of wanking of 2008

1. Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism
2. Mike Huckabee, “America is Nazi Germany“
3. Lisa Schiffren, “Miscegenation is symptomatic of Communism“
4. Instapunk, “I am sick to death of black people“
5. Ann Althouse, “The pyjamas of the child in the campaign ad for Hillary Clinton called Barack Obama “ni**er”!“
6. Tony Zirkle, “The Great Jew Porn Dragon“
7. Fred Hiatt, “The Intelligence Committee says whatever I says it says“
8. Larry Johnson, The Unreleased Whitey Album
9. Sarah Palin, “Disagreeing with me is unconstitutional!“
10. Velociman, “Obama will get us drunk and interracially buttrape us“
11. Dennis Prager, “Equality is unAmerican“
12. Rush Limbaugh, “Obama is a huge racist!“
13. Matt Margolis, “Finding suburbia dull is racist!“
14. Right Wing News, “Obama is like Hitler times Jim Jones PLUS NUKES!!“

The Palme D’Haire – biggest wanker of 2008

1. Jonah Goldberg
2. Sarah Palin
3. John McCain
4. Joe Lieberman

Use the comments for new nominations, new categories, assorted suggestions, holiday recipes, and pictures of cats in Christmas oufits.

Please go over to The Poorman for links to the listed blog posts and vote for your favorites among them — or nominate some more of your own.

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Blogospherics

by digby

Haha:

This is James Bennet, editor of The Atlantic.

Most readers know that the views expressed on Jeffrey’s blog are his own and don’t always reflect the views of The Atlantic. Such is the case with regard to Jeffrey’s comments on the relative merits of hummus and baba ghanoush. Our institution has partnered with the makers of baba ganoush, as well as tabouleh and fattoush, on a number of projects, and we have a great deal of respect for their excellent work product, including the entire spectrum of Middle Eastern salads and paste-like foods, with the exception of halvah. We at The Atlantic do not take sides in the ongoing dispute between partisans of hummus and partisans of baba ghanoush. These food products are key leaders in the Middle East food products industry, and we look forward to eating them in the future.

*for those of you who don’t follow bloggy insider controversies, click the link inside the quote and you’ll see what this is all about.
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One Way Street

by digby

I saw something very interesting today on MSNBC. Barnicle, filling in for Matthews on Hardball, hosted Reverend Eugene Rivers, a well respected, uncontroversial African American preacher, and Mike Rogers, strident gay activist.

Loaded for bear, Rivers came out firing, very aggressively and derisively attacking the gay community for being intolerant and asserting that Warren is a thoroughly acceptable mainstream preacher. (“This is a pseudo-controversy that’s been fabricated by the anti-religious left. Fact: Rick Warren is not a divisive figure, there’s not one shred of empirical, statistical data to support this unfounded
claim.”) That’s obviously untrue, but that’s not what made me take note of the interview.

The problem was that Rogers took a very unusual tack and said that Rivers coming on the show to defend Warren shows how powerful the gay community is and that he was very happy to see Warren changing his web site just today (to hide his more outrageously homophobic content.) He characterized this as a big victory for gay rights. (“I compliment Rick Warren on seeing the error of his ways and changing his web site.”) Rivers was agitated by this and seemed to be frustrated that the dialog wasn’t taking the predicted path, rather sarcastically saying things like “well we’re all happy now, I guess.”

But the really interesting reaction came about when Rogers suggested that if Warren is to be seen as a man who builds bridges between the right and the left that he should quietly and without any kind of fanfare meet with leaders of the gay community and listen to their concerns. Rivers reacted very badly.

Rogers: What I would like to see, and I’d like to hear you agree with it, is that Rick Warren convenes and sits down, again, behind closed doors, not on the stage trotting everybody out, but sits down with the leadership of our community, the gay leadership, and says “I’d like to build a bridge.” Sit down with the Human Rights Campaign, sit down with National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Religious Roundtable, and show me that your speech is really about reaching out and that it’s really about uniting America. And if you can’t sit down and have those meetings with the community, then I think that shows what you’re really about.

Rivers:(upset) No, no, no. Mr Rogers, listen …

Rogers: sure

Rivers: It would be presumptuous of you to suggest that if Reverend Warren doesn’t sit down with your particular crew, that’s an act of bad faith. That’s a political trick…

Rogers: If Warren is a so-called leader in the evangelical movement who represents the evangelical movement on a national level, certainly it’s appropriate for him to sit down with the national leaders of the gay and lesbian movement…

Barnicle interrupted there to close the segment.

Rogers’ suggestion seemed eminently reasonable to me (and his tone was exceedingly measured) but Rivers went ballistic. Now, I would suspect that this is because he knows very well that Warren is unlikely to agree to such a thing, thereby proving that his thesis about Warren being the reasonable one is complete nonsense. But there’s no reason why Warren shouldn’t be asked to do such a thing. If President Obama is going to reach out to evangelicals in a spirit of cooperation and comity, shouldn’t America’s new Pastor be willing to do the same thing?

Earlier in the day on the channel, New York Magazine reporter John Heileman and some others were all snickering like grade school bullies knocking younger kids down on the playground over the fact that Barack Obama did himself immeasurable good by kicking liberals in the teeth. Perhaps Rivers heard that exchange and expected some more of that good fun and was disappointed. But one could also be forgiven for suspecting that he was also upset because Rogers failed to be the proper foil thus proving that the gay community is a bunch of intolerant freaks while he and Warren are the reasoned, middle of the road Real Americans. It certainly appeared that way.

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Moving The Goalposts

by digby

This was inevitable. Last week I noted that there was some thought among the Village media that if it turns out that Rahm didn’t run to the prosecutors with any suspicions that Blago wanted something in return for appointing (presumably) Valerie Jarrett, then he is guilty of a political crime if not a legal one. Not that it matters. Monica Crowley predicted on the McLaughlin Group this week-end that he’s toast:

“Regardless of whether or not Rahm Emmanuel is found guilty to have done anything on these tapes, Barack Obama needs a sacrificial lamb on this scandal. He will ask Emmanuel to step aside as chief of staff and be his point man in the Congress.”

Somerby tells us today that over the week-end the gasbags believe that because Obama said his staff didn’t have any inappropriate contact he opened himself up to charges of being evasive. (Seriously)

Today we hear from the Politico that if Obama doesn’t release the content of all the emails and phone calls, he will still be under suspicion. Apparently, there is some rule which says that transition documents are not subject to FOIA requests, something which good government groups find appalling and which the press is seizing on in advance as some sort of sign that the Obama team is stonewallikng — even before they issue their report. Typical stuff.

But this is really too much:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a leading advocate for government transparency, is considering legislation to retroactively apply the Presidential Records Act to the Obama transition team.

Leslie Phillips, a spokeswoman to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), who chairs the committee that oversees the Presidential Records Act, all but brushed off Cornyn’s idea.

“Sen. Lieberman has been pleased with the Obama transition team’s commitment to transparency and is hopeful the Obama administration will also maintain a high level of openness,” Phillips said.

But the aide familiar with Cornyn’s idea, who did not want to be identified talking about the Senator’s plans, said the need to regulate transition team records extends beyond the Blagojevich matter to policy plans and analyses done with the cooperation of federal agencies.

“To the extent that they are currently operating with public funds and with authority given to them by federal statute and courtesies given to them by federal agencies, they ought to be under the Presidential Records Act, if not the Freedom of Information Act,” said the aide.

Other than voluntary disclosure by Obama’s team, there aren’t a whole lot of ways that its Blagojevich-related records could come out.

The governor’s office might be compelled by Illinois’ public records law to release emails that may have passed between his aides and Obama’s, though the state has argued — unsuccessfully so far — that it shouldn’t have to release documents related to the U.S. attorney’s ongoing investigation.

Also, transition team correspondence related to both Blagojevich’s selection process and Obama’s internal review could become public as evidence in the case against Blagojevich, which is partly why some experts questioned the wisdom behind the Obama review.

May I be so bold as to predict that by the time this is all through that Joe Liberman will be convinced that Obama needs to release all transition records?

And is there any doubt that if Obama hadn’t conducted the review, he would have been accused of stonewalling?

The good news is that there is, so far, no sex involved, which means that certain members of the media are getting like, totally, boooored…

I miss the sex. The nation is engrossed in an orgy of scandal, a 24-hour cable news burlesque of greed, graft, cronyism and corruption, with appointed villains so lurid and over-the-top they could be characters in “Bleak House.” (Even their names, Madoff and Blagojevich, have a Dickensian ring, like Skimpole or Pardiggle.) The most salacious news stories pivot on money, not mistresses, prostitutes or toe taps in an airport men’s room. It’s the 10th anniversary of Monicagate and the impeachment of President Clinton, and even the Fox News Channel cannot summon the energy to dwell on Linda Tripp or the semen-stained dress. (At the moment, muckrakers are studying Clinton donors, not doxies.)

So, I guess there’s hope as long as nobody tried to tweet a page or diddle an intern.

Meanwhile, the pollsters are taking the public’s temperature. Here’s Ed Henry on CNN:

HENRY: That’s right. Two transition aides now say that we can expect that on Tuesday, tomorrow. We’ll finally get this internal investigation from the Obama team about their contacts with Rod Blagojevich, Illinois’s governor, his staff and everything, about the Senate seat, the controversy and all the allegations.

You see we have some new poll numbers out this hour from CNN, where we asked people what they think about the Obama team’s contacts. And basically, 12 percent say that they think there was something illegal here. Thirty-six percent say there was something unethical. Forty-three percent say nothing wrong. So you see, a clear majority in this CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll believe that the Obama team did nothing wrong, you know, that a large number of people believe that there was really nothing wrong.

Apparently, Henry doesn’t know what illegal and unethical mean because if those numbers ae correct, it means that 48% think something either illegal or unethical happened and only 43% think he did nothing wrong. Whatever. It has no real bearing on anything at the moment.

But the fact is that the drumbeat has undoubtedly led a lot of people to believe something unethical happened between the Obama team and Blagojevich. And there is no evidence of such a thing at all. Indeed, there is ample evidence of the opposite.

Even though he misreads the number, Henry goes on to say:

And that’s why it’s probably in the interests, politically, of the Obama team to get this out as soon as they can. They say they’ve been waiting because a prosecutor urged them not to jump out too quickly. But they’ve been facing some pressure to tell the whole story.

But we need to be clear, as well, that this is not going to be the final word on it. This is an [internal] investigation from the Obama team. So it should be no surprise that tomorrow, it’s very likely for this report to say, yes, there was some contact between the Obama and Blagojevich’s team but nothing illegal, nothing improper.

But we still have to see down the road what the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, says. That’s going to be more important than an [internal] investigation, Betty.

Oh my no, this won’t be finished once Obama does what they all said he had to do in order to finish it. Each revelation “raises more questions,” goalposts are moved, new angles explored. There’s never any resolution.

And more and more people begin to just “feel” that something untoward must have happened. After all, where there’s smoke there’s fire, right?

Update: Countyfair notes that the Wall Stret Journal spells it out explicitly. no matter what the report says, they aren’t going to let up:

…

the Journal, on behalf of the Beltway press corps, announces that it already has a back-up plan in order to hype the non-scandal [emphasis added]:

Regardless of how clean the Obama camp is, the release of the report isn’t likely to be clean. Thursday, former President Bill Clinton released a list of 205,000 donors — many of them foreign governments — to his foundation, which he had promised to do as a condition for his wife Sen. Hillary Clinton’s nomination as secretary of state. That set off a scramble to tie donors to policy predicaments facing the Obama administration.

See, similar to Isikoff, the Journal suggests Obama’s just like Clinton.

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Banking On Short-Term Memory

by dday

Paul Krugman appears to be in contact with the Obama transition team, which is very positive news. It may be why the recovery package is expanding in the face of more bad economic news:

Faced with worsening forecasts for the economy, President-elect Barack Obama is expanding his economic recovery plan and will seek to create or save 3 million jobs in the next two years, up from a goal of 2.5 million jobs set just last month, several advisers to Mr. Obama said Saturday.

Even Mr. Obama’s more ambitious goal would not fully offset as many as 4 million jobs that some economists are projecting might be lost in the coming year, according to the information he received from advisers in the past week. That job loss would be double the total this year and could push the nation’s unemployment rate past 9 percent if nothing is done.

The new job target was set after a meeting last Tuesday in which Christina D. Romer, who is Mr. Obama’s choice to lead his Council of Economic Advisers, presented information about previous recessions to establish that the current downturn was likely to be “more severe than anything we’ve experienced in the past half-century,” according to an Obama official familiar with the meeting. Officials said they were working on a plan big enough to stimulate the economy but not so big to provoke major opposition in Congress.

Mr. Obama’s advisers have projected that the multifaceted economic plan would cost $675 billion to $775 billion. It would be the largest stimulus package in memory and would most likely grow as it made its way through Congress, although Mr. Obama has secured Democratic leaders’ agreement to ban spending on pork-barrel projects.

We can’t afford to have a spending package less than this at this point. The economy has truly cratered nationwide, even in areas that didn’t experience a housing boom, as the slump ripples through the greater economy. They’re stopping jury trials because the states can’t afford them, for crying out loud (how exactly does that not violate due process?). This, by the way, is why direct aid for state and local governments is as crucial as these public works investments.

But what about the state of things AFTER two years of deficit spending? We will be facing a world much different from the one that fueled economic growth in the 1990s and the early part of this decade. The bubbles will have been stamped out and unlikely to resurface, at least for a while. Consumer spending as an engine covering 2/3 of economic growth, so that our collective future depends on whether or not kids like the newest Elmo doll, is unsustainable, and since wages are stagnant, unlikely to continue. What is going to take the place of these drivers of growth? Krugman looks at this today as well.

A few months ago a headline in the satirical newspaper The Onion, on point as always, offered one possible answer: “Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble to Invest In.” Something new could come along to fuel private demand, perhaps by generating a boom in business investment.

But this boom would have to be enormous, raising business investment to a historically unprecedented percentage of G.D.P., to fill the hole left by the consumer and housing pullback. While that could happen, it doesn’t seem like something to count on.

A more plausible route to sustained recovery would be a drastic reduction in the U.S. trade deficit, which soared at the same time the housing bubble was inflating. By selling more to other countries and spending more of our own income on U.S.-produced goods, we could get to full employment without a boom in either consumption or investment spending.

That is the answer, in my view – a reindustrialization of America. The hope is that the investments in areas like alternative energy will spur innovation and create new industries that America can export. But that’s not going to happen overnight. It’s going to take at least a decade to get manufacturing where it probably needs to be to bring the trade deficit back into balance. The other question, which Krugman addresses separately, is who gets stuck with decreasing trade surpluses in this zero-sum game. Clearly, if the exports are related to energy efficiency and aternative fuels, the answer is the Middle East. But if it relates to the source of most of our trade deficit, namely China, I don’t think they will allow it, and they’ve been buying up our debt for years and years to make sure they have at least a partial veto on the resurgence of American manufacturing.

Which means that restoring our economy will be a long, slow, drawn-out process, lasting not a year or two but much longer. And this entire time, Republican know-nothings will promote impatience and start blaming the solutions as the problem. You saw an early example of this when the right, aided by a compliant media, cherry-picked a large infrastructure request from US mayors, finding one or two pieces that are supposed to invalidate the entire idea of federal spending. There will be plenty more of that, solemn speeches on the floor of the Congress along the lines of John McCain’s “OMG $3 million for bear DNA!” nonsense. Plenty of hack groups like “Citizens Against Government Waste” will pop up with every spending request to call it wasteful, Republicans in the Oversight Committee of the House will demand hearings, the Pete Peterson Foundation will put out lamentation after lamentation about the soaring deficit, a newly energized set of conservative radio talkers will hammer these themes day after day, and conservative revisionist historians will influence media groupthink by questioning whether all this public works spending can even help the economy. By this time Republican candidates for national office will be getting lots of attention by slamming all the “pointless budget-busting porkbarrel spending” that is hurting the economy. And this will only get worse as the years go on:

But once the economy has perked up a bit, there will be a lot of pressure on the new administration to pull back, to throw away the economy’s crutches. And if the administration gives in to that pressure too soon, the result could be a repeat of the mistake F.D.R. made in 1937 — the year he slashed spending, raised taxes and helped plunge the United States into a serious recession.

The point is that it may take a lot longer than many people think before the U.S. economy is ready to live without bubbles. And until then, the economy is going to need a lot of government help.

This is not completely fated to happen, a technological breakthrough could spur new economic activity, and reducing wasteful health care or military spending would at least cool the deficit and make that money far more productive. But in general terms, failed conservative policies have put us into a ditch, and it’s going to take a long time to dig our way out. Human nature in general is not exactly oriented toward unlimited patience or long-term planning. Conservatives are practically counting on that.

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Coming Together

by digby

I have always been hard on Ann Coulter. (I think I once called her a gelatinous bag of offal.) But I realize that I probably owe her more respect than do simply because she provides a useful service by being a window into the conservative id.

Here’s a perfect example:

Sarah Palin wins HUMAN EVENTS’ prestigious “Conservative of the Year” Award for 2008 for her genius at annoying all the right people. The last woman to get liberals this hot under the collar would have been … let’s see now … oh, yeah: Me!

[…]

I assume Palin was chosen because McCain had heard that she was a real conservative and he had always wanted to meet one — no, actually because he needed a conservative on the ticket, but that he had no idea that picking her would send the left into a tailspin of wanton despair.

But if anyone on the McCain campaign chose Palin because she would drive liberals crazy, my hat is off to him!

[…]

It seemed like the media would introduce an all-new double standard each day throughout the two glorious months of Palin’s candidacy.

I don’t remember, for example, zealous inquiries into the supposedly peculiar religious practices of any candidates in past elections. No one in the press touched on Sen. Joe Lieberman’s religious beliefs when he was Kerry’s running mate [John Edwards is no doubt relieved about that — ed.] (Nor, while we’re on the subject, was the media particularly interested in the beliefs of the religion that inspired the 9/11 attacks on America.)

But the press snapped right back into their anti-religious hysteria for a candidate who was a Pentecostal! The same media that couldn’t be bothered to investigate Obama’s ties to former Weathermen or Syrian Nationalist Tony Rezko was soon hot on the trail of a rumor that Palin’s church had a speaker 30 years ago who spoke in tongues!

[…]

Liberals also suddenly decided that a woman with children could not handle the stress of higher office. Until Palin reared her beautiful head, this is precisely the sort of thinking liberals would have denounced as the Neanderthal, backwards, good old boy network attitude that had created a “glass ceiling.”

Let’s consider the facts: Palin’s oldest son was about to be under the tender care of Gen. David Petraeus after being shipped off to Iraq. Her next oldest child was about to be married and probably would prefer that her parents butt out. That left three children under the age of 15, which was almost the same as Obama had.

So Palin had one more child — and a lot more executive experience — than the guy at the top of the Democrats’ ticket. (I suspect what liberals were really mad about was that if Palin became Vice President, she probably would have hired a nanny who was a U.S. citizen.)

Having indignantly rejected experience as a presidential qualification in the case of Obama, liberals had to raise questions about Palin’s experience gingerly. But, in short order, they threw caution to the wind and began energetically criticizing Palin for her lack of experience. I call that two … two … two standards in one!

Like most Democrats, both Obama and Biden boasted of their humble beginnings, while having fully adopted the attitudes, pomposity and style of the elites.

Meanwhile, Palin is the sort of genuine American that brings out the worst, most egregious pomposity of liberals. For weeks, Carl Bernstein was showing up on TV to announce: “We still don’t have the date of first issuance of her passport.” Members of the establishment would be astonished to learn that more Americans have guns than passports.

Liberals were angry at Palin because they thought she should look and act like Kay Bailey Hutchinson: Upper crust, prissy and stiff.

Palin had a husband in the Steelworkers Union, a sister and brother-in-law who owned a gas station, and five attractive children — one headed for Iraq, one a Down’s syndrome baby and one the cutest little girl anyone had ever seen.

In a nutshell, Palin was everything Democrats are always pretending to be, but never are.

She didn’t have to conjure up implausible images of herself duck hunting as Hillary Clinton did. Nor was Palin the typical Democratic elected female official who went straight from college into politics, like Nita Lowey.

Despite their phony championing of “women’s issues” (i.e. abortion) there was not one Democrat woman who could win a head-to-head contest with Palin. Especially not if we got to see their faces. Democrats may have a fleet of women politicians, but they don’t have a deep bench of attractive ones. You don’t even think of most Democratic woman as women: Rosa Delauro, Nita Lowey, Patty Murray, Janet Napolitano — and the list goes on. Oh, sure, there are the odd female Democrat sex kittens — your Janet Renos, your Donna Shalalas — but they’re the exception to the rule.

[…]

In time, HUMAN EVENTS’ 2008 Conservative of the Year will be ready to be our President and someday can sweep into office and dismantle all the heinous government programs Obama and the Democrats are about to foist on the nation. Who knows? She might even be able to run as the candidate of “hope” and “change.”

The only thing Coulter really believes in all that is that Democratic women are hags and that the primary goal of conservatism is to piss off liberals. The rest of it is just puerile taunts and sarcastic bully blather. But that is the essence of Limbaugh conservatism and it is the foundation upon which their comeback will be built.

And it would be a mistake to underestimate the power of liberal hating as an organizing principle. The entire contemporary American political culture is based on it. Sadly for Coulter, that doesn’t necessarily translate into Republican success. After all, establishment Democrats are giving them quite a run for their money. And with our new directive to be tolerant of the bigots who despise us and everything we stand for, we’ll all soon be on exactly the same page and the country can come together in its mutual loathing for … us. It could work.

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Madoff-o-nomics

by dday

Paul Krugman had a piece last Friday on the Madoff economy where he asked the key question: “How different, really, is Mr. Madoff’s tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole?” The financial industry, after all, turned mortgages into mortgage-backed securities and sold them all over the world, based on the obviously false presumption that US mortgages would go up perpetually. They created exotic instruments and spread risk everywhere, covering their bets by over-leveraging and using the money to make side bets on the very securities they were parceling out. And while they were setting up the larger economy for a huge crash, they were drawing enormous salaries, taking fabulous trips and buying multiple homes. In fact, even NOW, after getting billions in taxpayer money in the bailout, they continue to fly corporate jets, evade their taxes and take billions in bonuses.

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Madoff eliminated the middle man, stealing from investors directly instead of tying them up in doomed securities while taking big profits. Whether they were con artists or honest businessmen gone wrong depends on whether you think they knew what they were doing was fated to fail. Either way, the result is essentially the same.

…and if you think you need to know where your taxpayer money is going once the banks get their hands on it, well, you don’t. Hope that clears things up.

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Bloggy Holiday Thank You

By digby

Thanks so much to all of you who have contributed to my little holiday fundraiser. This old country blogger is truly grateful for all the kind words and contributions. It means more than you know.

Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noel, Happy Hannukah, Merry Kwanza, Joyous Festivus and Cheery Winter Solstice celebration to one and all.

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The Revolt Of The Generals

by dday

Wes Clark thinks that Democrats and the military can get along. It’s a curious construction – the idea that the military has to be cajoled and persuaded into standard compliance with the chain of command and the plan fact of a Democrat at the top of it. Most of the op-ed talks about how Democrats have to understand the culture of the military better, although there’s a smaller bit about the reverse:

But the military will have to show some understanding as well. We don’t have a monopoly on knowing what the nation’s best interests are. National security now involves such spheres as law enforcement, the economy, the nation’s industrial and scientific base and even such matters as health care and civil liberties. The military is just one voice among many.

Nor are our military plans and proposals beyond questioning. There’s a lot of judgment involved in strategy and operations, and not a lot of certainty. The military is a cautious institution, and plans and options sometimes reflect just the opinion of the most senior person in the room. Even hard military “requirements” should stand up to public scrutiny. So when new members of Congress, Hill staffers and political appointees question tactics, techniques, troop levels and programs, we have to continue to treat these questions seriously and answer them with respect and diligence.

I wonder how Gen. Clark would react to this news. It really doesn’t sound to be like the military is treating a signature campaign promise of the incoming President-elect with respect or diligence.

U.S. military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops.

The scheme to engage in chicanery in labeling U.S. troops represents both open defiance of an agreement which the U.S. military has never accepted and a way of blocking President-elect Barack Obama’s proposed plan for withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office.

The New York Times picks this up by discussing the semantic games being played at the Pentagon to keep a substantial presence in Iraq.

Even though the agreement with the Iraqi government calls for all American combat troops to be out of the cities by the end of June, military planners are now quietly acknowledging that many will stay behind as renamed “trainers” and “advisers” in what are effectively combat roles. In other words, they will still be engaged in combat, just called something else.

“Trainers sometimes do get shot at, and they do sometimes have to shoot back,” said John A. Nagl, a retired lieutenant colonel who is one of the authors of the Army’s new counterinsurgency field manual […]

For his part, General Odierno made clear that the Iraqis still needed help — and that the United States would hardly disappear. “What I would say is, we’ll still maintain our very close partnership with the Iraqi security forces throughout Iraq, even after the summer,” he told reporters.

Military officials say they can accomplish that by “repurposing” whatever combat troops remain. Officially, a combat soldier is anyone trained in what are called combat-coded military occupation specialties — among them infantry, artillery and Special Forces — to engage the enemy. But combat troops can be given different missions. From the military’s point of view, a combat soldier is not so much what he is called but what he does.

You can argue that this is no different from what Obama promised during the campaign – he acknowledged that there would be residual forces after the removal of all combat troops within 16 months, and he did not commit to having all troops out by 2013. But that was before the SOFA signed by the President and the Iraqi government that set down a series of mandates, with troops out of major US cities by the summer, and completely gone by the end of 2011. While Obama has agreed with this in principle, either he or (I would argue) the military is jumping through hoops to try and technically keep to the agreement while in practice voiding it altogether. In fact, Gen. Odierno is adding responsibilities by replacing British troops in southern Iraq with US forces early next year.

Siun at FDL summarizes the state of things here.

So what’s the story? We know the Iraqis want us out – and they have just refused to approve any extension for troops from the UK and other countries. Any fair referendum in Iraq is most likely to do the same – and any extension of the occupation will draw intensified attacks from Iraqi nationalist forces. It’s not like Gates and crew won’t have a war to fight – in fact, the latest reports are that they are speeding up the deployment of US forces to Afghanistan. So why would US generals be so insistent on a longer occupation?

And more importantly, what is Obama going to do about it – and what are we going to do to make certain Obama knows we expect a full withdrawal – preferably starting yesterday.

I would add that these creative loopholes being applied to the SOFA just increases the anger at the US presence and the determination on the part of Iraqis to remove it. They have every reason not to believe that the US will live up to their obligations in the agreement, and at some point they will fight against it, whether at the ballot box if they get a chance to nullify the SOFA and expel US troops immediately, or more dangerously through the application of force and the resumption of hostilities.

I assume that the calculation on the part of the military is simply that they don’t want to be blamed for losing a war. There are issues of pride and honor at stake. If Obama rejects their planning and actually withdraws, they are well-positioned to blame him should things fall apart in Iraq. And by the way, things probably WILL fall apart – there isn’t much goodwill between the various parties, and while Maliki has been accumulating power, it was notable that his attempted purge of the Interior Ministry fell flat, with the Interior Minister freeing everyone captured and condemning his own government for the raid. And of course the shoe thrower has peeled back the discontent with the occupation from the surface. He is not in complete control, and since no effort has been made at political reconciliation, just for propping up a puppet and helping him become a strongman, there’s no way he will be in our absence.

That is not a compelling reason to stay. We have a signed agreement to leave in an orderly fashion, and failure to do so would be catastrophic for both the troops that are staying there in the face of betrayal, and for our image in dealing fairly with the Muslim world in a new Administration. If this is Obama directing this little two-step, then as Siun says, he needs to hear from us. If it’s the generals, then it’s the opening salvo in a predictable bit of brinksmanship, where the military tests the young leader to see how much they can bend him to their will. There are very large majorities who want us out of Iraq. Obama wouldn’t need to tap any political capital to keep his word. We’ll see if he’s as good as it.

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