Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Assuming The Worst

by digby

Howard Kurtz isn’t satisfied quite yet with Jill Carroll’s explanations as to why she didn’t get herself beheaded for George W. Bush. Apparently, until he can “see into her soul” he can’t judge whether she was truly not being a terrorist collaborator even though she said her statement was coerced. Here’s Kurtz:

Jill Carroll is now back in Boston. (Here’s the Christian Science Monitor piece on her return.) Since I was among a number of journalists expressing puzzlement about her videotaped interview in an Islamic party office in Baghdad after her release, I was glad to see the statement she released over the weekend. I just wish it had been in front of a camera, since it’s hard for a written statement to catch up with a piece of video that’s been endlessly replayed.

Yes, because the media failed to provide proper context for her statements, she now needs to submit herself for inspection on television so that people can properly evaluate her veracity. Excellent journalism, once again. Professionals like Kurtz, being naive little tots who couldn’t possibly have used some discretion and refrained from airing their “puzzlement” at her “behavior” until they had the facts, just don’t know what to think.

Here’s what Kurtz said on Friday:

I must say, though, that I found her first interview yesterday rather odd. Carroll seemed bent on giving her captors a positive review, going on about how well they treated her, how they gave her food and let her go to the bathroom. And they never threatened to hit her. Of course, as we all saw in those chilling videos, they did threaten to kill her. And they shot her Iraqi translator to death.

Why make a terrorist group who put her family and friends through a terrible three-month ordeal sound like they were running a low-budget motel chain?

What a good question. Why indeed?

But, perhaps I’m being unfair, right? Maybe Kurtz didn’t know that she made the tape before she was safely out of the hands of her captors. Nope — from the same column:

Now perhaps this is unfair, for there is much we do not know. We don’t know why Carroll was kidnapped and why she was abruptly released. She says she doesn’t either, but surely she must have gotten some clues about her abductors’ outlook and tactics during her 82-day captivity. Maybe she was just shell-shocked right after being let go. Maybe she won’t feel comfortable speaking out until she’s back on American soil.

As my colleagues in Baghdad point out, when that interview was taped, Carroll was still in the custody of a Sunni political party with ties to the insurgency. It may have just made sense for her to be especially cautious.

Yah think?

But it would have been wrong for the media critic of the Washington Post to sit tight and wait to get the fact before speculating that she is a terrorist sympathizer. He was just awfully “puzzled” by the sight of a kidnap victim giving a propaganda statement.

And they tell me that Carroll did cry — off camera — when the subject of her murdered translator came up.

Thank god for that. Of course, you would have thought that the tape of her almost hysterical from a couple of months ago would have been a clue that she wasn’t a willing participant, but whatever. Unless she cries when howie and his pals think she should cry, she’s suspect. Lucky for her, someone was there to vouch for the fact that she behaved appropriately.

Still, people are buzzing because her taped remarks have been played over and over again on television. I hope she’ll be able to share a fuller account of her ordeal soon.

The main people who were “buzzing” were despicable asses in the right blogosphere and rightwing talk radio who are going to hell for what they said. And I would suggest that Howie is going right along with them; his column on Friday was unconscionable. The only decent assumption under the circumstances was that she had been coerced. That’s certainly what I thought when I saw the tape. It was always theoretically possible that she could have suffered from Stockholm Syndrome or had “gone over to the enemy” but to assume that based upon a tape that was produced by anyone other than a reputable news agency is either a sign of second rate journalism or an obvious political agenda. With Kurtz’s history it appears to be both.

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Interspecies Marriage

by digby

Far be it for me to cast aspersions on anyone’s choice of spouse. I’m a romantic. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds, admit impediments” and all that other crap.

But I think this illustrates some of what is going on with our political media — and why those of us who are left of center find the cries of “liberal media” increasingly absurd.

The political media and political establishment are intertwined — indeed, they are intermarried:

Campbell Brown, left, co-anchor of NBC News’ ‘Weekend Today’ and primary correspondent for ‘NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams’ and the weekday ‘Today’ and her new husband, Dan Senor, former Bush foreign policy advisor and current Republican strategist and Fox News Analyst, smile after their wedding ceremony at The Beaver Creek Chapel in Beaver Creek, Colorado, Sunday, April 2, 2006.

There is nothing new about this. I’m sure that journalists have been intermarrying with the people they cover for decades (haven’t they?) Certainly it’s pretty common today. People need to keep this in mind when they evaluate the mainstream media. It’s part of the mix. The Washington establishment works together, plays together — and sleeps together. They are part of the same organism. And that’s why it’s valuable to have an alternative media outside the beltway to offer different perspectives on politics and current events. We don’t have to face people we cover over cocktail weenies in the evening or over the pillow in the morning.

Congratulations Dan ‘n Campbell. May your marriage be as happy as the union of common interests between the GOP and the corporate media.

hat tip to Jane Hamsher.

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Two Great Darwin Books

by tristero

Scientist, Interrupted reviews Niles Eldredge’s Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life so I don’t have to. Basically, I agree, there was a sense of it being rushed but it’s still very, very good. What wasn’t mentioned in the review was that while Eldredge uses the opportunity to push his and Gould’s “punctuated equilibrium” theory at various times, he doesn’t mention recent criticism of the idea. As I understand it, the strong case for punctuated equilibrium – that all or nearly all evolution occurs more rapidly than Darwin imagined and it seems to group around, among other things, evironmental disuptions – is still controversial. However, the weaker case – that instances of evolution proceed at different rates, some of them quite fast in geological terms – has been pretty much accepted. (Knowledgeable scientists: please correct the above if there are any misconceptions and I’ll change it.)

However, what makes the book remarkable is the description of Darwin’s notebooks which are so fascinating that I went and bought the scholarly transcription of them. For containing a great discussion of the Darwin notebooks, and for the beautiful layout of the book, I would reccommend it. (And the exhibit at the Natural History Museum is a joy and a wonder, complete with live iquana and tortoises.)

Another book, one which I can’t rave enough about is Jay Hosler’s Sandwalk Adventures which you can get a taste of by clicking the above link. It’s a graphic novel – not a comic book – about Darwin’s discussions about evolution with “a follicle mite named Mara livining in his left eyebrow.” But that grossly misrepresents the book. First and foremost, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable work of fiction, not explicitly in the Lewis Carroll mode, but certainly with an Alice-like whimsy. This means it’s a book for grownups that kids will thoroughly adore. The ending I found quite touching.

But then the book is also an example of how true historical events and ideas are transformed into myth and epic. This is all done in such a humorous and convincing fashion that you are often hardly aware of it.

There’s also a terrific introduction to Darwin’s theories and reasoning – it has to be introductory, because, after all, Darwin is trying to persuade a mite, which doesn’t have the intelligence of a fly. Simple it is, but as far as I can tell – Hosler’s an experimental biologist – it’s accurate.

Finally, Hosler manages to debunk the standard “intelligent design” creationism nonsense, refuting their arguments in a cartoon panel or two – yep, that’s about all it takes.

I just love this book. No matter how old you are, please get a copy and read it. I think I first heard of it on Pharyngula but I haven’t been able to find any reference to it there when I looked recently so whomever first told me about Sandwalk Adventures, thanks!

Iraq: Terrorism Insurance Is Not The Only Growth Industry

Memo to Howard Kaloogian: Why bother wasting everyone’s time trying to pretend an Istanbul ‘burb is Baghdad? Here’s proof positive that business is fine in the Iraqi capital. If you’re selling AK-47’s that is.

And only an ignorant, defeatist liberal scoundrel would leap to the conclusion that all those guns are being used to slaughter other Iraqis. We know better. They are being fired off during spontaneous street celebrations of their country’s freedom from tyranny. Freedom!

Go ahead. Prove all those weapons are being used in some mythical civil war. You can’t.

Stop It

by digby

So Sorry. I didn’t mean to go dark this week-end — technical problems.

First I’d like to call out a big fuck you to all the bloggers and wingut radio blowhards who assumed that since Jill Carroll isn’t a screeching, GOP operative harpy like Laura Ingraham that she is sympathetic to terrorists. She had the guts to get out there and try to report from the belly of the beast and got kidnapped and terrorized while doing it. And these pathetic little chickenhawks had the unmitigated gall to attack her — apparently because she managed to survive and because she was a journalist for the Christian Science Monitor. I knew they hated Christian peace activists and enjoy it when they get beheaded, but I hadn’t realized that they wished that on journalists too.

You can’t win for losing with these people. Ingraham attacks the press for failing to get out there and report the “real” story, but when one does, and gets abducted because it’s so dangerous, she’s a terrorist sympathizer.

Might I make a little tiny suggestion to the kewl kidz of the DC press corps? Maybe you shouldn’t be quite so eager to appear on that fetid thug Don Imus’ show from now on. You have already shown that you don’t care about his hilarious sexist, racist commentary. But maybe you can be roused to just a tiny bit of personal integrity by this stomach churning attack on your fellow journalist:

IMUS: We’re back here on the “Imus in the Morning” program on the radio all over the country and on MSNBC. Well, the official position, of course, of the program, is thank god correspondent Jill Carroll from the Christian Science Monitor has been released.

MCCORD: You bet, since now maybe now she can resume her work for the Iraqi people for whom she has, you know — this has been a person who strived for their, represented their plight for a long, long time.

IMUS: Well, good for her.

MCGUIRK: She strikes me as the kind of woman who would wear one of those suicide vests. You know, walk into the, try and sneak into the Green Zone.

IMUS: Oh, no. No, no, no, no.

MCCORD: Just because she always appears in traditional Arab garb and wearing a burka.

MCGUIRK: Yeah, what’s with the head gear? Take it off. Let’s see.

IMUS: No, no. This is not –

MCCORD: That’s why the Arab world called for her to be released, because, you know, she defended Iraqis. She was against the war in Iraq and, I wouldn’t be surprised if

IMUS: Well, so are we. So am I!

MCCORD: Exactly. She cooked with them, lived with them.

IMUS: This is not helping.

MCGUIRK: She may be carrying Habib’s baby at this point.

[laughter]

IMUS: Shut up! I’m begging you to shut up. Both of you. I’m going to murder both of you.

MCCORD: Just because she slept with them doesn’t mean she slept in the manner he’s talking about.

MCGUIRK: Something stinks.

IMUS: You are an SOB Steve McCord. Stop it! I am begging you both. Stop it! Stop it now! Stop it! This is outrageous.

MCCORD: The fact is that she can do what she wants to do. Representing the Iraqi people, the Baghdad people. Sure.

IMUS: She could. It’s not like she was representing the insurgents or the terrorists or those people.

MCCORD: Well, there’s no evidence directly of that –

IMUS: Oh, gosh, you better shut up! Oh, my gosh, I’m going to hurt you! I will hurt you! I don’t know when that will be exactly. But I’m going to.

MCCORD: We’re glad she was not harmed. And that she was –

IMUS: Yes. Ok. Let’s move along here now.

MCGUIRK: She’s like the Taliban Johnny or something.

IMUS: Ah, you son of a bitches. I’m begging you bastards. Thank you. Please, now, welcome to the Imus in the Morning program, from the great state of Arizona Congressman Hayworth.

HAYWORTH: Now, just a disclaimer, now, the previous opinions stated by Chuckles and Bernie, doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinions of the congressman from the Fifth District of Arizona.

How funny can you get? Imus said “the official” position is that they are glad she was releasedand Hayworth says the commentary doesn’t “necessarily” reflect his views so nobody can accuse them of being insensitive. Besides, that little good cop bad cop routine is hilarious. Think of the material they could have produced if she’d been beheaded. Comedy gold!

Firedoglake has a contest going to catalog the racist commentary in the rightwing blogosphere, so that when lying sacks of GOP talking points like Hugh Hewitt go on national television and claim that talk radio is “responsible” while the “fever swamp” of the left blogosphere is way out of control, Wolf Blitzer can do something other than suck his thumb and nod off, failing to note the eliminationist spew that characterizes most of the right blogosphere. I don’t know if it’s that he doesn’t know, doesn’t care or is afraid of that he-man Hugh Hewitt, but I think it’s important that he at least be armed with a rebuttal. If he allows these charges to go unchallenged after that, then there will have to be some action taken. This has gone on long enough.

The mainstream media is so entrenched in the Republican establishment that they have actually come to believe that Rush Limbaugh saying frequently that Democrats have no souls and should be deported is reasonable discourse. It’s long past time that we set the record straight. Apparently these beltway bubble boys and girls are going to have to be schooled that the right is not engaging in “reasonable discourse” when they accuse journalists of being cowards and terrorist sympathizers and being “the kind of woman who would wear one of those suicide vests.” I know that’s hard to believe, but apparently that’s what we have to do.

Which kewl kid is going yuck it up with the I-man next, do you suppose?

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Down The Hatch

by digby

In the Feingold hearings today, Orrin Hatch said that censure is unconstitutional. Like all the rest of the hypocritical weasels of the Eunuch Caucus, he has a very short memory:

Republicans believe their aggressive pursuit of impeachment is not only required by the Constitution but also satisfies their more conservative political base.

The growing debate about punishment for Clinton short of removal from office stems from a hard political count. Hatch said proponents of ousting the president will almost certainly be short of the required two-thirds vote in the Senate.

“It may be that if more hasn’t come out or if people do not feel we can get 67 votes, it may be that that is the time when something else can be resolved,” Hatch said.

Even though censure is not mentioned in the Constitution, Hatch said he believes it is within Congress’ right.

“But it would have to be done very carefully” to avoid transgressing the Constitution’s prohibition on “bills of attainder,” or a legislatively enacted punishment, he said.

“This is a lot more difficult than people today realize,” Hatch said.

Of course this impressive legal thinker is also the guy who says this:

“It would be unconstitutional for the Congress to say, ‘You have to go through the FISA court.’ We could pass a law that says, ‘We want you to go through the FISA court,’ and I think the president would probably try to live with that. The problem is, you cannot do what they’ve been doing to protect us through the current FISA statute.”

Interesting new theory. The congress passes laws the country must abide by. Except for the president. For him laws are just polite requests.

God Save The King.

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Out of The Mouths Of Babes

by digby

Jim Angle, covering for Hume, just interviewed three wounded veterans who he probed for “good news” about Iraq that made their sacrifice worthwhile. One of them was a public affairs specialist who dutifully delivered the GOP boilerplate about schools and soccer games. But one of the guys, a very young kid grievously wounded, didn’t know the script. He said:

Angle: You’ve seen some of the media coverage since you got back. Does it accurately reflect what you saw when you were there?

Cpl Diaz: Well, in my case I was out west in the Anbar province and the media kind of, kind of goes for major things that happen in Bagdad or Falluja during voting times and the media doesn’t cover that IED’s go off every day, numerous times.

I don’t think that’s exactly what Angle was looking for.

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Bubble Boy

by digby

One of the most curious things I’ve seen recently is George Bush’s favorite Democrat going a little bit kooky for no apparent reason. What the hell is up with Joementum? Why so emotional and weird about this?

I have to think that he’s suffering from the same bubble boy disease as his best buddy. In the beltway, Joe Lieberman is the most popular Democrat in town. The political establishment is totally dominated by Republicans and Republicans positively love him. As far as he can tell, he’s the most popular guy in town.

Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to realize until now, even after his experience in the 2004 primaries, that outside the beltway he has been the poster boy for GOP appeasement going all the way back to the impeachment. His acceptance on the ticket in 2000 was out of respect for Al Gore — the grassroots could barely stand the sight of him.

His voting record is beside the point. Through his rhetoric he’s given tremendous solace to the Republicans over and over again at the most critical times. He’s advanced their most pernicious ideas, not through votes, but by continuously validating their premises. He’s not the only member of the party to have done this, but he’s the one who has gone the farthest to normalize the cheap, phony moralism the GOP sells as “character.”

He just doesn’t seem to understand the nature of the current political environment, probably because he is ensconced in the bosom of the establishment, sharing cocktail weenies with the cognoscenti and believing his own hype. The terrain looks far different from where the rest of us sit. “His way” looks a lot like treachery.

I did not think it was possible for him to lose the primary. But damn if it doesn’t look like it is. Lamont is an impressive candidate, attractive and well-spoken. His run is not joke and it appears that Lieberman is actually worried. Joementum seems to leave the door open to running as an independent if that happened, a la his nemesis Lowell Weicker. I don’t know why he wouldn’t just make the leap and join the GOP. That’s what his new idol, the very moral Frank Sinatra, did. Why play games?

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Iraq: More Deaths. Sistani Ignores Letter From Bush.

by tristero

In Baghdad, Three women were killed by a mortar and six handcuffed bodies were found. The article goes on:

Tensions arose over complaints of U.S. interference in Iraqi political affairs.

A letter from President Bush to Iraq’s supreme Shiite spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was hand-delivered earlier this week but sits unread and untranslated in his office, according to a key al-Sistani aide.

The aide who has never allowed use of his name in news reports, citing al-Sistani’s refusal to make any public statements himself told The Associated Press Tuesday that the ayatollah laid the letter aside because of increasing “unhappiness” over what senior Shiite leaders see as American meddling in Iraqi attempts to form their first, permanent post-invasion government.

hat tip to Juan Cole who also links to a report of 8 workers shot dead at an oil refinery.

Funny how underplayed the reports of these 17 deaths have been in, say, the New York Times. One would almost get the impression – false – that there was a lull in the carnage.

By the way, it’s not news that no one in Iraq bothers to listen to anything Bush says anymore. I think it was Steve Coll, or maybe Sy Hersh, who reported that in the New Yorker a while back.

Oh Brother Where Art Thou

by digby

I have been joking for years that the Republicans would eventually try to bring back chain gangs to do the work of illegal immigrants. That way, they could appease their law and order, racist and corporate constituency all at once. (If they could add forced conversions to Christianity to it, it would be perfect.)

I should have realized the nothing is beyond the pale for the modern GOP:

Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, dismissed arguments made by President Bush and business leaders who say the United States needs a pool of foreign workers. He said businesses should be more creative in their efforts to find help and suggested that employers turn to the prison population to fill jobs in agriculture and elsewhere.

“Let the prisoners pick the fruits,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. “We can do it without bringing in millions of foreigners.”

This is actually no joke. There is a lot of prison labor being used in the private sector these days. It’s not even controversial, despite the fact that while the prison is paid minimum wage, the workers are paid sometimes less than a dollar an hour. (Room and board, you see.)

Considering the racial make-up of our prisoner population, we could see a day in the not too distant future in which the fields of the United states are picked by African Americans with guns trained on them. Interesting picture, isn’t it?

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