Faintus Interruptus
by digby
I received more right wing links to the post below than any post I’ve ever done. I also got more right wing hate mail than ever before wherein I was called “sick,” “hateful” and “fat.”
Apparently we ruined their Ladies Swooning League funeral etiquette seminar. What a shame.
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The Lie Was Bad Enough. The Real Problems Are Far Worse.
by tristero
It is good news that George Deutsch, the illiterate, fanatical nitwit who became a public embarassment to NASA was caught lying on his resume and resigned. Lying on your resume truly is a tacky, unethical thing to do and thanks are due to Nick at scientificactivist for his efforts at exposing Deutsch’s low character to the world.
It is not the main issue, however:
Yesterday, Dr. Hansen said that the questions about Mr. Deutsch’s credentials were important, but were a distraction from the broader issue of political control of scientific information.
“He’s only a bit player,” Dr. Hansen said of Mr. Deutsch. ” The problem is much broader and much deeper and it goes across agencies. That’s what I’m really concerned about.”
“On climate, the public has been misinformed and not informed,” he said. “The foundation of a democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly informed public. That’s the big issue here.”
Indeed it is. And let’s be quite clear what that issue is. It’s not partisanship, although Bush has far exceeded any other president in politicizing science policy. It’s mis-informing and dis-informing the public that’s the problem. And the odious Deutsch is just an irritating mosquito. I’m glad he’s been swatted, but the scientific agencies are crawling with these pests, not only in pr but in positions that require serious decision making.
Let’s be clear about this. This is the kind of incompetent behavior that right wing ideologues, obsessed with ideology and appearance over reality, repeat again and again and again. And it has consequences.
Bush’s wholesale trashing of US science policy -climate change research is just one area- has the potential to lead to serious threats to our national security.
Note to Rightwingers: I suppose you noticed that the last two paragraphs were pretty partisan. But I am not to blame. It’s simply not my fault that the facts and their consequences favor reality over Bushism. That’s just the way it is, kids.
Reality-based science equals real national security. Bush’s faith-based science is an angel wing and a prayer. Your choice.
Stop Making Sense
by digby
That dessicated waste of space Kate O’Beirne is on Hardball right now screeching for the laudenenum because “liberals don’t know how to act at funerals!” Oh lawdy, lawdy, lawdy Miss Mellie, I do decleah these Democrats are so ungenteel! Why, they were talkin’ politics and singin’ and dancin’ and actin’ all Negro and everything!
I personally find it absolutely outrageous, OUTRAGEOUS! that Republicans are attacking Coretta Scott King and her family this way. Why, she is an American icon! How dare they! Do they really think that African Americans don’t know how to behave at a funeral for one of their own? How very white of them.
Kate O’Beirne isn’t fit to wipe Coretta Scott King’s shoes and criticizing her on the day of her memorial service is disgusting. What kind of unfeeling ghouls have Republicans become??
Update: Oh and I think they need to apologize to the Reverend Lowry. He is a man of the cloth and a friend of the deceased. Are they saying that leaders of the African American church are less worthy of respect than the white churches they are so proud of representing? It sure sounds like it. Republicans, it seems, only respect the church when its leaders “behave” the way they deem appropriate.
Update II: Matt Singer writes:
If you haven’t read about it elsewhere, President Bush apparently looked a bit sheepish at Coretta Scott King’s funeral service today. Why? Because two speakers had the gall to talk about the values the Kings stood for: fighting poverty, fighting racial division, standing up for working Americans.
Yes, it had to be unpleasant for poor little President Bubble Boy having to deal with something other than his hand-picked sycophants. He’s probably never even heard this stuff before.
Typically, his supporters’ knee jerk response is to rhetorically lynch African Americans.
Update III: Check out Americablog if you would like to know a little bit about the man who Kate O’Beirne and her fellow funeral etiquette harpies are taking to task for being inappropriate at King’s funeral.
For shame.
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Spooked
by digby
ReddHedd has the full deconstrution of John Dickerson’s juicy new memoir of his role in the Plame case today, so I will just give you the link to follow if you haven’t already been there. I just want to make a couple of observations.
Dickerson says that this push-back by administration officials was highly unusual:
What struck me was how hard both officials were working to knock down Wilson. Discrediting your opposition is a standard tactic in Washington, but the Bush team usually played the game differently. At that stage in the first term, Bush aides usually blew off their critics. Or, they continued to assert their set of facts in the hope of overcoming criticism by force of repetition.
[…]
At this point the information about Valerie Plame was not the radioactive material it is today. No one knew she might have been a protected agent—and for whatever reason, the possibility didn’t occur to us or anyone else at the time. But it was still newsworthy that the White House was using her to make its case. That Scooter Libby and Karl Rove mentioned Plame to Matt was an example of how they were attempting to undermine Wilson. They were trying to make his trip look like a special family side deal not officially sanctioned by the agency. No one at a high level in the government was worried enough about the veracity of the uranium claim to send a “real” special envoy. And no one at a high level ever saw Wilson’s report when he returned. Later we would learn that Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley had been warned by the CIA that the uranium claims were shaky and that Wilson’s wife was one of many people involved in the decision to send her husband.
I’ve always thought there was something quite unusual about the fact that they copped to the 16 words. This is a group that never admits to doing anything wrong ever. yet, they did it this time in an apparent effort to contain this story. According to Dickerson’s recital, they were close to panic.
What was it about Wilson that had them so spooked that they would break with their highly successful methods? It’s true that it was an escalating battle between the CIA and the White House over who was oging to get blamed for the WMD failure. Why didn’t they just blow off their critics, get Tenent to take the fall, repeat their mantra like robots and move on?
I suspect that it has to do with Niger forgeries, but that’s a guess. The IAEA had long before debunked them, but considering the infighting, Wilson’s connection to the CIA may have made them very nervous. (Still no word on that, hmmmm?)
And maybe it’s just the fact that there were no WMD. If I had hyped the danger as much as they did, I might have been spooked too. But they got over it. They quickly pulled themselves together and developed a better strategy. Just before the Special Prosecutor was appointed, the Financial Times reported:
“We let the earthmovers roll in over this one.”
Or so they thought.
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Trust Them
by digby
The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the administration’s unauthorized wiretapping.
Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.
“It’s hardball all the way,” a senior GOP congressional aide said.
The sources said the administration has been alarmed over the damage that could result from the Senate hearings, which began on Monday, Feb. 6. They said the defection of even a handful of Republican committee members could result in a determination that the president violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Such a determination could lead to impeachment proceedings.
Over the last few weeks, Mr. Rove has been calling in virtually every Republican on the Senate committee as well as the leadership in Congress. The sources said Mr. Rove’s message has been that a vote against Mr. Bush would destroy GOP prospects in congressional elections.
“He’s [Rove] lining them up one by one,” another congressional source said.
Mr. Rove is leading the White House campaign to help the GOP in November’s congressional elections. The sources said the White House has offered to help loyalists with money and free publicity, such as appearances and photo-ops with the president.
Those deemed disloyal to Mr. Rove would appear on his blacklist. The sources said dozens of GOP members in the House and Senate are on that list.
I guess we are supposed to believe that an administration that will strong-arm its own caucus on a fundamental constitutional question of the separation of powers would never spy on its political rivals.
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Cartoon Violence Bake Two
by tristero
A very interesting discussion about the previous post on the cartoon riots. Just a few quickies and then I hope the cartoon riots quickly become history for all of us.
Today, the Wall Street Journal has a very interesting article on the history of the protests. As one would expect, the story is far more complicated than the Wag the Camel scenario. In fact, the protests were encouraged first of all not by Saudis, but by secularists in Egypt who wished to shore up their pro-Islam cred as secularists have come under pressure from radical Islamists. These protests then got out of hand. One more example of how impossible it is to tame a maelstrom. And of not recognizing that you’re dealing with a maelstrom.
In comments, Michael said that I have no idea what art is for. That is absolutely true, and I’ve been thinking passionately about art, and studying it, for as long as I can remember. More to the point, however, is whether that is a question worth answering, except perhaps provisionally, through specific examples. I don’t think so.
Mona, and some others, were unequivocal in defense of the paper, in advocating that the West teach the Muslims a lesson about free speech, and in rejecting of any argument that rioters have a claim to the moral high ground. To say the least, I strongly disagree with most of this, I’m sure I’m not alone in my disagreement, and I see no reason to repeat the arguments I’ve already made. That said, Mona’s argument, combined with those who considered the cartoons “satire,” spurred an interesting angle I hadn’t considered before.
If I think of nasty satire, I think of Voltaire flaying Spinoza’s Leibniz’s optimism or of Philip Roth’s Tricky Dixon in “Our Gang.” But it’s striking: The objects of satire are often – always? – respected authority figures or ideas within the culture of the satirist. WITHIN the culture, not OUTSIDE the culture. Even in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop, the object of satire is not really the third world country to which Bill Boot has been booted by an editor who confused two Boots. It’s the British press’s hopeless, corrupt reporting from such countries. The satire was directed directly at institutions that were part and parcel of Waugh’s upper class British Twitworld.
In contrast, as I see it, Islam is not part of mainstream Danish culture. Mohammed has no genuine cultural authority the way, say, the royal family might. To call the cartoons satire, therefore, seems to me inaccurate. It’s simply ridicule, and ridicule of a figure from a culture that, from within Denmark – the satirizing culture – is Other. Danes are heeping scorn and humiliation on someone’s religion, someone who is not Us. Someone who doesn’t look like us, doesn’t act like us, doesn’t think like us, isn’t as rich as us. And just can’t be us.
Mona and those who believe the cartoons really are satirical probably don’t see it this way, I suspect. To them, it’s pretty simple: Muslims should act like everyone else and take their knocks like everyone else. If anyone’s excluding them, making them peculiar and Other, it is Muslims themselves, by acting like jerks and failing to understand the importance of free speech. No excuses: Muslims are just like everyone else and if they don’t behave decently, we need to be teach them some lessons.
My objection to this argument starts with the firm belief that there is a utopian, mistakenly optimistic premise behind this kind of argument of equality. The playing field for Muslims is not equal in Denmark. Even if they behaved exactly the same way as their non-Muslim neighbors, they’d still be judged non-Danish. Right now, Denmark, like other Scandinavian countries, is grappling with the rapidly changing nature of Danish identity. The children of Muslim immigrants are far from being thought equally “Danish” as the children of those who can trace their ancestry back to some 12th century ancestor. Muslims in Denmark, and in the Western world in general, are not often in positions of authority, the religion is not dominant in the West, nor are Muslim citizens in many positions of power. So, if satire is an assault on authority within the satirist’s culture, as I think it traditionally has been, there’s nothing [or little] for the Danish cartoonists to satirize in Islam and Muslims. But there are some – many – who will find much to scorn and ridicule in those who they think can never be part of Danish culture. And those folks will find much to hate in the Other. (You might object: What about Satanic Verses? What about it? Yes, it satirized Muslims and the Qu’ran, but Rushdie was raised Indian and Muslim. The satire was within his own cultural milieu.)
So let me revise an earlier sentence. As I see it, Islam is not part of mainstream Danish culture yet. It will be some day. given current trends. And when it is, the ethnocentrism, the racism, that is so egregious is these cartoons (and, yes, I’ve seen them) will be muted. That’s because Danish cartoons that will actually satirize Islam will be different in kind than these cartoons. They will make less use of ethnic stereotyping, for one thing. But right now, the paper that published the cartoons was up to a lot more than simply dispensing the indisputed (to the West) moral lesson that free speech is good. The paper was also teaching a lesson – “We” know better than the Muslims. AND the paper was holding up to ridicule not authority figures within its culture, but the beliefs and authorities of the most abject members of its culture.
It’s may be laudable to imagine a time when Islam can be treated satirically and with the full viciousness Tim Robbins lavished on the rightwing in “Bob Roberts”. But it’s a serious mistake to think now is the time.
Let me add some boilerplate caveats, which should be obvious, but apparently aren’t to some folks. I do not advocate banning any kind of speech and nothing above can be construed as doing so without twisting the obvious meaning of what I wrote. I deplore what the paper did, not the publishing per se, but the whole shebang. But they had the right to do it and I wouldn’t restrict them from doing so. Being friends with the editor, now that’s a different story.
Simply because the cartoons are blatantly offensive, and intended to be, in no way excuses the utterly insane reaction in which people have senselessly died. Those deaths lie at the feet of the cynical bastards within the Muslim communities that incited people to riot (and with some, not all, of the rioters), not the paper or the cartoonists.
While many details can and should change – yeah, the art argument was off topic in post 1 – I still think my first post on this crazy mess got it right. What’s behind the cartoon riots are very deep, very troubling notions that cause perfectly sensible people to think it is the West’s job to teach the non-West lessons in how to behave, or to think that when the West behaves like a first year medical intern with no social skills, the appropriate response is a bullet or a bomb. To get out of this insane murderous dance, the first tiny step must be to put away all those gut reactions and do some serious thinking about what is going on and why.
That is why we need a far freer press than we have, or Denmark has. We simply have to know what is going on. All of it, even the ugly bits. That is why before we can even begin to understand how sensibly to deal with the any of the disparate Muslim communities in the world, we sure as hell need to find out a lot more about them and stop pretending they are an equal part of the Western world or so repellent or backwards they need us to teach them how to behave.
That’s it. No more posts on these damn cartoons, I swear!
Process Talk
by digby
Via Armando over at Kos I see this statement from Tom Vilsack today:
Gov. Tom Vilsack said Monday that Democrats risk political backlash if they object to the Bush administration’s wiretapping but cannot show that Americans’ civil liberties are at risk.
The Democratic governor, who is weighing a 2008 presidential bid, said the party will suffer if it continues to be perceived as weaker than Republicans on national security.
. . . “If the president broke the law, that’s unacceptable. But I think it’s debateable whether he did,” Vilsack told Des Moines Register editors and reporters. “And I think Democrats are falling into a very, very large political trap,” he said. “Democrats are not going to win elections until they can reassure people they are going to keep them safe.”
There are many things about this statement that are bullshit. I don’t have to lay them all out for you. But I would like to expound on one aspect of this statement that drives me crazy: it’s a process answer.
A process answer is saying what “we should say” instead of just saying it. Nothing drives me more nuts than a politician who talks process instead of engaging voters directly. In this instance it’s a backstab equal to anything one of those run-at-the-mouth strategists says to the NY Times to boost his cool factor among the mediatarts. He’s positioning hemself as a “reasonable” centrist on national security, but he clearly has nothing to offer on the subject at hand so he just talks about what “we should be doing.”
A lot of politicians do this, in different ways. Even Howard Dean used to do it when he said “we should be appealing to those guys with the confederate flags on their pick ups — they don’t have health care either.” I wanted to shout “Great! Do it. What’s the pitch?” The pitch never came. That’s the rub with these process discussions. Just saying that we should do something or we need to do something is not the same as doing it. And it’s a big reason why people are confused about what we stand for.
If they think that we should be tougher on national security, they shouldn’t say “we can’t win elections until we reassure people that we can keep them safe.” They should say, “here’s how we’ll keep you safe…” If Vilsack really thinks that Democrats will lose if we don’t support unconstitutional domestic spying programs then he should just say, “I think the program is probably legal and I support it.” A winning message is a winning messsage, right? Why all the navel gazing?
I suspect that he knows most Democrats don’t support his stance. But then perhaps he ought to think about how to convince us that we are wrong on the substance of this argument instead of appealing to us on this issue of “winning.” Maybe we can be convinced. Or if he doesn’t actually believe that the program should be supported but thinks he has to go along with it or Democrats will lose, then he could try persuading Republicans that the program is wrong. Either way, he will have given a clear message instead of trying to signal some sort of defeatist “this is the only way we can win” argument to the base while sounding like a half baked philosopher to the opposition. It’s this meaningless “we must convince people” process mush that will ensure that nobody knows what in the hell he actually believes. And that’s the biggest problem most Democratic politicians face.
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It Could Be Anyone
by digby
Crooks and Liars has a clip from Glenn Greenwald’s appearance this morning on Washington Journal in which he mentions that many conservatives are concerned about this. He brought up super conservative Bruce Fein’s opinion that this could be an impeachable offense.
But he didn’t have time to mention a couple of things that I think are worth looking at in this vein. The first is this group that calls itself Patriots To Restore Checks and Balances who have formed an alliance with the following groups to protest the government’s increasing encroachment on Americans’ civil liberties:
Brad Jansen
Adjunct Scholar, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
American Civil Liberties Union
American Conservative Union
Americans for Tax Reform
American Policy Center
Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Free Congress Foundation
Libertarian Party
Gun Owners of America
Second Amendment Foundation
The press release I linked above says this:
“When the Patriot Act was passed shortly after 9-11, the federal government was granted expanded access to Americans’ private information,” said Barr. “However, federal law still clearly states that intelligence agents must have a court order to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans on these shores. Yet the federal government overstepped the protections of the Constitution and the plain language of FISA to eavesdrop on Americans’ private communication without any judicial checks and without proof that they are involved in terrorism.”
Where are these guys today? Shouldn’t they be called to testify before this committee and give their views? Are these “hard-core, doctrinaire” conservatives (as Greenwald elegantly calls them) just another branch of the Karl Rove Eunuch Society? I thought they always considered themselves to be something more than party hacks and second rate cronies but perhaps I was wrong.
Grover Norquist, as I have pointed out before, should be concerned about this for more than theoretical reasons. Perhaps he thinks he’s safe because he is the ultimate insider. But he should ask himself whether the fact that other insiders consider him a security threat might just put him in the crosshairs.
Grover Norquist has for some years now been promoting Islamist organizations, including even the Council on American-Islamic Relations; for example, he spoke at CAIR’s conference, “A Better America in a Better World” on October 5, 2004. Frank Gaffney has researched Norquist’s ties to Islamists in his exhaustive, careful, and convincing study, “Agent of Influence” and concludes that he is enabling “a political influence operation to advance the causes of radical Islamists, and targeted most particularly at the Bush Administration.”
But if Grover Norquist is indeed a convert to Islam, it could be that he is not just enabling the Islamist causes but is himself an Islamist. (April 14, 2005)
Grover looks like just the sort of guy they’d be likely to tap, don’t you think?
This really isn’t a partisan issue. Any American could fall under this illegal spying scheme and there is no oversight by anyone to determine whether it’s legal, necessary or useful to national security. It could be political enemies… and it could be political friends who some believe have suspicious ties to “the enemy.” You just don’t know. That’s the problem.
And knowing how these people operate — as Grover surely does, having been a part of the dirty tricks apparatus for more than 20 years — you can bet they are doing whatever they think is advantageous to their cause. I would think that keeping an eye on “unreliables” like Grover with his Muslim wife and libertarian leanings could be seen by the administration as important.
And as I noted in this earlier post, they don’t just spy on their enemies; they spy on their friends too. To make sure they don’t stray … if you know what I mean.
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Shorter Wiretaps
by tristero
I believe that the Judiciary Committee will find, if it is willing to persist, that within the large pointless program there exists a small, sharply focused program that delivers something the White House really wants.
How We Will Win The War On Terror
by digby
The oceans no longer protect us. The terrorists are coming over any minute to kill us all in our beds. They are a ruthless enemy who hide in caves until they suddenly decide to strike without mercy. But they have an achilles heel. They are all suffering from serious memory problems. Unless they see it in the paper they forget that we are tapping telephones. Then they slap themselves in the forehead and say “Oh no! I’ve been calling my friend Mohammed in LA planning that awesome terrorist attack and like, totally fergot that the infidels are listening in. Fuck. Man, Zawahiri is gonna to be so pissed.”
This is why it was so horrible that that the NY Times revealed the program. It jogged the terrorists’ memories and now they won’t use their phone and e-mail accounts anymore. Until they forget again, that is. So, shhhh. Loose lips sink ships.
So says Alberto Gonzales.
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