Outside the Beltway

Tag: Charles Johnson

  • Washington State Supreme Court Declares Death Penalty Unconstitutional

    Washington State Supreme Court Declares Death Penalty Unconstitutional

    The Washington State Supreme Cout ruled late last week that the death penalty is unconstitutional, the latest in a string of legal and other developments that have led to a marked decline in executions across the country:

    The Washington state Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down the death penalty there as unconstitutional and “racially biased,” a ruling that makes it the latest in a string of states to abandon capital punishment in recent years.

    Washington state had already halted any executions under a moratorium put in place by Gov. Jay Inslee (D) in 2014, so the order issued Thursday will not stop already planned executions. But the court’s order, which declares that death sentences in the state should be converted to life in prison, is a sweeping rejection of capital punishment at a time when it is being used less nationwide and as states are struggling to obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections.

    In their opinion, the justices focused on what they said was the unequal use of the death penalty, describing it as a punishment meted out haphazardly depending on little more than geography or timing.

    “The death penalty is invalid because it is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner,” the justices wrote. “While this particular case provides an opportunity to specifically address racial disproportionality, the underlying issues that underpin our holding are rooted in the arbitrary manner in which the death penalty is generally administered.”

    Chief Justice Mary E. Fairhurst wrote the opinion and four justices concurred, one in the result only. Four other justices signed a concurrence saying they agreed with “the majority’s conclusions and its holding invalidating the death penalty” but adding other state constitutional factors they said “compel this result.”

    The arguments outlined in Washington have echoes of what Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer has said in questioning whether the death penalty itself is constitutional. In a 2015 dissent joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Breyer called the death penalty’s use “capricious, random, indeed, arbitrary” and said for those sentenced to death, it was “the equivalent of being struck by lightning.” Breyer echoed that point in 2016 when discussing California’s use of the death penalty, saying it similarly was unreliable, arbitrary and plagued by delays.

    (,..)

    Washington has already been among the states not moving forward with executions under the moratorium Inslee announced in 2014. Oregon also has a moratorium on the death penalty, which Gov. Kate Brown (D) decided to keep in place when she took office.

    “Today’s decision by the state Supreme Court thankfully ends the death penalty in Washington,” Inslee said in a statement after the order Thursday. “The court makes it perfectly clear that capital punishment in our state has been imposed in an ‘arbitrary and racially biased manner,’ is ‘unequally applied’ and serves no criminal justice goal. This is a hugely important moment in our pursuit for equal and fair application of justice.”

    More from Buzzfeed legal reporter Chris Geidner:

    Washington state’s death penalty is unconstitutional, the state’s supreme court ruled unanimously on Thursday, with justices citing concerns about racial bias and the arbitrary imposition of the penalty.

    “The death penalty, as administered in our state, fails to serve any legitimate penological goal,” Washington Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst wrote. As such, she continued, it violated the state’s constitution.

    The eight inmates on death row in the state currently will have their sentences converted to life imprisonment, the court ruled.

    In addressing the arguments advanced by Allen Eugene Gregory — sentenced to death for a 1996 rape, robbery, and murder of a woman in her home — the court looked at the expert report commissioned by Gregory looking at “the effect of race and county on the imposition of the death penalty.”

    Considering the report and other evidence, Fairhurst concluded, “[W]e are confident that the association between race and the death penalty is not attributed to random chance.” Among the other evidence cited by Fairhurst was the state’s “case law and history of racial discrimination,” including cases in which prosecutors made racist statements and took “inflammatory, racially charged” actions in court.

    Although Fairhurst’s opinion was treated as the main opinion for the case, a majority of the nine-justice court did not sign on to all of the reasons she gave for reaching the decision in the case. One of the four justices to join Fairhurst’s decision, Justice Steven Gonzalez, noted that he concurred “in result only.”

    A second opinion, by Associate Chief Justice Charles Johnson, was joined by the three remaining justices. In it, he wrote, “While I generally concur with the majority’s conclusions and its holding invalidating the death penalty, additional state constitutional principles compel this result.” Johnson wrote that the report’s conclusions about racial bias “raise significant concerns” — but he went on to say that “other additional constitutional factors have become more apparent, supporting the conclusion that the death penalty, as administered, is unconstitutional.”

    Specifically, Johnson later wrote, “Based on a current review of the administration and processing of capital cases in this state, what is proved is obvious. A death sentence has become more randomly and arbitrarily sought and imposed, and fraught with uncertainty and unreliability, and it fails state constitutional examination.”

    As a preliminary matter, it’s worth noting that the Court did not rule that capital punishment was invalid under all possible circumstances, that question apparently wasn’t before the Justices and in any case would be a harder case to make given the fact that, like the Federal Constitution, the Washington State Constitution contains provisions regarding not depriving people of “life” without due process of law. This implies that, under the proper circumstance and under a different law, capital punishment could be Constitutional. Given the scope of the Court’s ruling, though, it would be difficult to make such a case. Instead of a broad ruling like that, the Court held that the death penalty as it has been historically applied under existing law is unconstitutional because it is too easily infected by issues such as racial bias, economic bias in that Defendants who cannot afford to hire top attorneys and high-priced experts are at a disadvantage, and that the punishment is applied in what amounts to an arbitrary and capricious manner. All of this means, the Court held, that the use of capital punishment violates several provisions of the state’s Constitution.

    The fact that the ruling is based on the state Constitution rather than the Federal Constitution is important because it essentially means that the state is precluded from appealing the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court. As a general rule, the Supreme Court has declined to review rulings from the state courts that are based on state law, especially when those rulings come from the Supreme Court of the state in question. Generally speaking, this is based on principles of judicial deference and the idea that a state’s Supreme Court is a better judge of the interpretation of state laws than the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. could be. As a general rule, the only time the Supreme Court will accept jurisdiction in any case like this is if there is a credible Federal issue that would overrule the state Constitutional issues. Since that doesn’t appear to be the case here, it’s probable that the Washington Attorney General won’t even bother to seek review from the Justices in Washington, D.C.

    As far as Washington State is concerned, this ruling will only have a limited impact. As noted above, the state has been operating under a death penalty moratorium for several years now and there has been movement in the state legislature to formally repeal the law authorizing capital punishment that is likely to get impetus from the ruling that has been issued by the State Supreme Court. For the prisoners like Gregory and the others on Washington’s death row, the result of the ruling is that their sentences are all commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole, which is certainly preferable to a punishment that amounts to state-sanctioned murder and which, as many studies have shown, is not being applied fairly or justly in a manner that even approaches trying to comply with the requirements of the law.

    This ruling is the latest development in a public and legal war against capital punishment that has gathered steam in recent years. As a general rule, executions have become far less common in recent years due either to legislative action, legal action, or difficulty obtaining the drugs used in lethal injections, which has become the most common form of execution of late even though some states still authorize older methods such as the electric chair and even firing squads. In 2013, for example, Maryland abolished capital punishment and the state’s Governor at the time commuted the sentences of the men still on death row at the time to life in prison. The year before Maryland’s action, Connecticut’s legislature also repealed the death penalty but left it open as a potential sentence committed prior to the repeal of the law. In 2016, though, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional and repealed capital punishment as an option in any case. In that same year, the Delaware Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional under the State Constitution. In one setback for the anti-capital punishment movement, Nebraska’s legislature repealed the death penalty in 2015 only to see voters reinstate it via referendum in 2016. Since then, the state has carried out one execution. Finally, polling has shown a turn in public opinion on the issue, with a majority of Americans saying they preferred life without parole to the death penalty.

    For those of us opposed to capital punishment, this is obviously a positive development. Slowly but surely the nation is turning against a form of punishment that is both barbaric in and of itself and quite simply incapable of being applied in a manner that complies with due process and equal protection under the law. There’s also no evidence that the existence of the death penalty has ever served as a deterrent to crime, or that it has done anything to lower the crime rate. For those cases where execution might be appropriate, the alternative of life in prison without parole is right thing because it is more just and because, in the event of a wrongful conviction, which is far too common to trust to a system that kills people in the name of retribution.

    Here’s the opinion:

    Washington v. Gregory by on Scribd

  • Mississippi’s GOP Senate Soap Opera Just Keeps Getting Stranger

    Mississippi’s GOP Senate Soap Opera Just Keeps Getting Stranger

    Thad Cochran Chris McDaniel

    The race for the Republican nomination for Senate in Mississippi has been over for some six weeks now, but that doesn’t mean that the utter strangeness that has surrounded the story ever since we learned in May that a blogger who supported Chris McDaniel, along with three Tea Party supporters, had been arrested for sneaking into the nursing home where Thad Cochran’s wife is being treated and taking pictures of her. It was just Monday, for example, that McDaniel filed his incredibly weak challenge to the results of the June 24th runoff election and then, late yesterday, the whole story took another bizarre turn when a man who had previously stated that the Cochran campaign had used him to give money to African-American voters said that he had been paid to lie about this by the McDaniel campaign:

    The endlessly complicated aftermath of Mississippi’s Republican Senate primary added a new layer of complexity late Tuesday, with reports that the man who had accused the campaign of Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) of buying votes is now accusing a spokesman for Chris McDaniel, Cochran’s opponent, of paying him to lie about the whole thing.

    Last month, Stevie Fielder told conservative blogger Charles Johnson in a recorded interview — for which he was paid — that he had been given cash to buy votes for Cochran in the runoff election. In short order, Fielder recanted that claim, which was frankly not really plausible based on the evidence at hand.

    The attorney general for the state of Mississippi, Jim Hood (D), confirmed to the Jackson Clarion Ledger last week that he was investigating the source of the money that Fielder received for his interview. (Both Johnson and Fielder have admitted the payment.) “[Fielder] admitted he got paid $2,000 to lie,” Hood told the paper. “We hadn’t seen the source of the funds yet. I don’t know if that blogger had it.”

    It now appears that Fielder has implicated Noel Fritsch, McDaniel’s campaign spokesman. Hood aide Jan Schaefer confirmed to the paper that Fielder told investigators that Fritsch was the source of the money. Fritsch released a statement in response to the report, stating that “Charles Johnson paid for the texts & emails Cochran/Wicker staffer Saleem Baird sent that prove Cochran bought Democrat votes.” Responding to a question from the Post, Fritsch indicated that he had not been contacted by the attorney general’s office, and added that he “wonder(s) whether Attorney General Hood will subpoena the email record and text messages the Cochran campaign’s Saleem Baird sent to Rev. Fielder about buying votes.”

    Fielder, of course, has already changed his story on his involvement in the affair at least once. It seems clear that he knew who Fritsch was, though. In the original interview with Johnson, audio of which is available at YouTube, it appears that Fritsch is mentioned in passing (though his name is mispronounced) at about the 16:15 mark. Fielder and Johnson are discussing Baird, the Cochran staffer that Fielder accused of paying him money; the interviewer is likely a past collaborator of Johnson’s named Joel Gilbert, according to the Clarion-Ledger.

    The McDaniel campaign is denying Fielder’s allegations and Johnson is saying that he was the one who paid Fielder for a story that has been widely discredited. Additionally, it’s worth noting that Fielder himself may not be the most reliable source of information on the planet. According to previous reports, he has previously been involved in cases involving fraud against homeowners in his construction business. Nonetheless, it does appear that he was aware of who Fritsch was at the time he initially talked to Johnson. Whether that means that the McDaniel campaign was involved in all of this or not is an entirely different story, but given the way this story has unfolded it is most assuredly something that will come out at some point.

    In other news, one of the three Tea Party supporters who was arrested in connection with the Cochran nursing home story has plead guilty and will be cooperating with prosecutors against the remaining defendants:

    John Mary of Hattiesburg on Wednesday pleaded guilty to conspiracy to photograph U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran’s bedridden wife in a nursing home, and is cooperating with authorities.

    Mary faced five years in prison and a fine up to $5,000. But District Attorney Michael Guest agreed to a plea deal of five years probation, non-adjudicated, which means the charge would be wiped from Mary’s record provided he meets the terms of his probation.

    Guest said Mary has agreed to cooperate with the prosecution of the other defendants in the case, and “We believe his cooperation will be crucial to the prosecution and will strengthen our case.”

    Mary’s attorney, Doug Lee, said his client pleaded guilty to a felony conspiracy charge. The conspiracy was “to post a message online to harm someone.”

    Mary was accused of conspiring with aspiring political blogger Clayton Kelly of Pearl, Laurel P.E. teacher and soccer coach Richard Sager and attorney and state tea party leader Mark Mayfield. Kelly allegedly went into Rose Cochran’s nursing home room in Madison on Easter Sunday and photographed her, using the image for a political hit-piece video on Thad Cochran.

    The case made national news amid the bitter Republican primary battle between Cochran and tea party challenger Chris McDaniel. McDaniel denied any involvement of his campaign in the photographing or video.

    The four were arrested in May. Mayfield, a McDaniel supporter and campaign volunteer whose late mother had been in the same Alzheimer’s unit with Rose Cochran, committed suicide at his Ridgeland home on June 27.

    Mayfield’s family has said his “life crashed” after being accused and they are considering a lawsuit against the city of Madison, its police department or “anyone responsible.”

    Lee said Mary admits to having conversations with Mayfield, Sager and Kelly relating to taking a photo of Rose Cochran and how to do it.

    “He cooperated with police from the very moment they contacted him, and he will continue to cooperate with them until the end of this entire matter,” Lee said. “He was adamant that he wanted to take responsibility for his part in all of this, and he very thoroughly regrets any pain he has caused the Cochran family.”

    (…)

    Attorneys for the defendants have said that while taking the photographs was ill-advised and distasteful, it doesn’t violate any felony laws on the books. They claim the charges are politically motivated and overkill for what should have been at most a misdemeanor case. Authorities disagree. Guest has said he plans to present the case to a grand jury.

    Kelly’s attorney Kevin Camp on Wednesday questioned why he was not notified about Mary’s plea. He also said Wednesday was the first he had heard about Mary’s “new charge” of conspiring to the crime of “posting of messages through electronic media for purpose of causing injury to any person.”

    Kelly was initially charged with felony exploitation of a vulnerable adult, a charge usually reserved for those who steal from, sexually abuse or neglect an elderly person. Later, the defendants were charged with conspiracy under the state’s video voyeurism law.

    The one unanswered question about the nursing home break-in case has been what role, if any, the McDaniel campaign or anyone affiliated with it may have played in the matter, and what they knew about the events prior to the time that they had been made public. The initial comments from the campaign in the wake of Clayton Kelly’s arrest were, to say the very least, confusing and seemed to leave open the possibility that the campaign was at the very least aware of who was behind the video of Mrs. Cochran and how it was obtained long before the police had made an arrest or announced publicly that Kelly was connected to the break-in and the video. Given his relationship with McDaniel, Mary’s cooperation could provide an answer to that question.

    In any case, though, it’s fairly apparent that this story is far from over, even if the results of the runoff itself are exceedingly clear to everyone except Chris McDaniel and his supporters.

  • Where Have the Thoughtful Conservatives Gone?

    Where Have the Thoughtful Conservatives Gone?

    In my absence Friday, an interesting sidebar discussion took place in the comment thread to my post “The Christian Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name” about the evolving tone of the comments section here at OTB as well as my own positions over the years.

    Longtime commenter Boyd, who’s been with us since probably the earliest days of the blog, notes that my “shift to less conservative positions” and other factors have driven off most of the conservative commenters from “back in the day” and that this has created a vicious cycle in which “very often, the valid, incisive non-liberal point is just ignored, so the conservatives often don’t get engaged in any actual discussion of the matter at hand.” MattB and Stormy Dragon, in particular, rebut the second part of that.

    In terms of the evolution of the commentariat, it’s clearly the case that most of the better contributors are to the left of me. There are a handful of very thoughtful conservative voices left–and I count Boyd among them–but they do seem fewer in number than was once the case. Then again, I’ve noted the same trend in the blogosphere as a whole. Several right-of-center bloggers that were daily reads once upon a time now just make me shake my head. For that matter, the same thing has happened with conservative politicians.

    There are three, not mutually exclusive, explanations for this. First, as I’ve argued elsewhere, we’ve simply changed the definition of conservative at a rapid clip. Second, conservatives are putting emphasis on parts of their agenda that were once peripheral. Third, I’ve become less conservative even by the terms of the debate operational in 2003.

    In the grand scheme of things, my views are pretty much what they were when I launched the site a little over nine years ago. I was, after all, already approaching middle age, had been rabidly interested in politics for a quarter of a century, had a PhD in political science, and spent several years teaching the subject by that point; I was not exactly a tabula rasa. But in 2003, we pretty much divided up sides on the blogs based on where you stood on the Iraq War. Even guys like Charles Johnson, who was and remains very liberal on the social issues, was on Our Team. So, for that matter, were John Cole, Andrew Sullivan, and others. There was almost no heresy that could get one ousted from good standing so long as one supported a vigorous military posture against America’s enemies.

    From literally the first days of the blog, I was castigating the likes of Ann Coulter, pushing back against the notion that those who opposed a war that I supported were therefore unpatriotic, took a libertarianish posture on the social issues, and was openly hostile to organized religion. I could certainly have written ”The Christian Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name” back then although, having just left the Deep South after having spent much of my teenage and adult life there, it would have been somewhat less snarky and more temperate towards the heartfelt beliefs of the sort of people in whose company I used to spend a lot more time.

    On the other hand, my views on some social issues have changed. Most notably, my view of homosexuality in general and gay marriage in particular have surely evolved leftward. My 2003 views on gays were moderate for a 37-year-old Southern conservative but I still considered the “gay lifestyle” bizarre, was skeptical of gays serving openly in the military, and thought society had every right to deny its blessing to marriages it found perverse. Having spent most of my life in a culture where homosexuality was reviled, my only exposure to the phenomenon were the weirdos on TV wearing leather chaps that showed off their bare asses at gay pride rallies and various repressed weirdos who didn’t mind being flamboyant in a culture that despised them. Living in a much more gay-friendly metropolitan era, I simply know more “normal” gay people who are different from other “normal” people I know only in their private sexual conduct.

    Additionally, as Steven Taylor and I have both written, our views have evolved in fairly similar ways over the years mostly through the act of blogging. We’re a pretty good controlled experiment, albeit one with some serious methodological flaws. But we started with very similar viewpoints and information consumption habits when we started teaching together at Troy way back in 1998. He remained there when I moved up here in 2002 and we started blogs within a few days of one another in early 2003. So, while my geographic relocation is no doubt one influence, the blogs would seem to be the common factor.

    The nature of blogging, at least in the way that we do it, is that one’s arguments, analyses, and worldview are constantly being challenged. Most obviously, commenters and other bloggers take our statements to task and we’re forced to defend them. Less obviously, simply finding interesting materials to blog about requires an inordinate amount of reading–mostly of people who don’t have identical views to your own because, unless one is simply curating content, there’s not much fodder in “What he said.”

    I’ve written tens of thousands of posts over the years, several thousand of them substantive analyses of public policy issues. Being intellectually honest–a career  liability in the punditry business, frankly, but an occupational hazard of the scholar–simply requires changing one’s views over time when presented with compelling evidence and argument.

    Aside from some modest drift on social issues, I’m less economically libertarian than I was nine years ago. It’s not so much that I trust Big Government solutions than I once did but that I ‘m less confident in the Invisible Hand and the power of individual self-determination.

    While I still strongly oppose central economic planning, even at the benign level of Industrial Policy, I no longer think that the free market always yields winners based on the wisdom of the crowds.  More crucially from a public policy standpoint, while I still think a person’s earnings rightly belong to him and not the society as a whole–and thus I find the notion of a top marginal rate of 70 percent, as it was when Ronald Reagan took office, or 90 percent, as it was for much of the postwar period, confiscatory and wrong–I don’t view low taxes as a secular religion. The Laffer Curve curves, after all, and we actually do need to raise money to pay for the government programs that we agree upon.

    In addition to the changes in the conservative movement and in my own philosophy, another phenomenon is taking place–a change in emphasis in Republican politics. Going back to the earliest days of my political memory, which began roughly with the Iran Hostage Crisis and the 1980 presidential election, the GOP has spent a lot of time talking about the social issues on the campaign trail. Notably, though, they didn’t make them a governing priority, aside from tertiary things like denying public funding for abortion services and the like.  While Ronald Reagan talked a good game on the values issues, his governing emphasis was on defeating the Soviets by building up our military. As recently as the last Republican presidency, that of George W. Bush, the practical governing emphasis was on the War on Terrorism and its offshoots in Afghanistan and Iraq. While I came to oppose the execution and even the strategy of both efforts, I nonetheless bought the underlying premise that defeating those forces hostile to American security was vital.

    While I think Mitt Romney will pivot this campaign back to more familiar ground, the internecine Republican debate that’s been ongoing since the election of Barack Obama has been on what strike me as fringe issues. While I reject the argument that it’s mostly about race–there were plenty of nutty conspiracy theories about Bill Clinton, too–the debate has been almost completely unhinged from reality. Ridiculous numbers of Republicans believe ridiculous things about the president. ObamaCare, which is at its heart  corporate welfare for the health insurance industry, is widely decried as “socialist” and all manner of irrational invective has been hurled at the Heritage Foundation-devised individual mandate. And the combination of religious zealot Rick Santorum’s emergence as the Last Not-Romney Standing and the takeover of some state legislatures by people a lot like him has us debating such nonsense as to whether birth control pills are moral and whether it would be a good idea to force women to get vaginal ultrasounds as a precondition for obtaining legal surgery.

    What’s happened along the way, unfortunately, as that those of us who call out these actions as outlandish and unhelpful to the conservative and/or Republican cause are dismissed as heretics. A handful have gone full John Cole and become bitterly anti-Republican. Most, though, are simply dismissed as RINOs and squishy moderates who don’t believe in anything and don’t feel like they have a place in the dialog.

    This is reinforced by a phenomenon that I’ve written a lot about over the years, of American politics taking on a team sports mentality where all that matters is the color of the jersey. If Barack Obama is in favor of something, Republicans must therefore denounce it. If Barack Obama does something that we all support–say, giving a Go order to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden–we are expected to find some way to minimize or criticize it.

    This mentality has been present in the blogosphere for a number of years now but seems to have taken hold even among the political grown-ups. Even the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body is acting along these lines, with Republican leaders not even bothering to pretend that they’re interested in advancing conservative goals by forcing the president to give more than he gets. No, the chief goal is to ensure Obama doesn’t get re-elected and an 80 percent win on the issue is considered instead a 100 percent loss.

    It’s a maddening environment in which to try to have an intelligent conversation.

  • Obama Wants to Give America Back to Indians!

    Obama Wants to Give America Back to Indians!

    Those of you over a certain age may remember the 1980s sitcom “Family Ties” and its lovable protagonist Alex P. Keaton, played by Michael J. Fox.  There was an exchange in which another character was decrying America’s poor treatment of the Indians and Keaton retorted something to the effect, “So, do you want to give it back?”

    Well, apparently President Obama does!    Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association reports:

    President Obama likes the “U.N. Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” He says it can “help reaffirm the principles that should guide our future.”

    The State Department added helpfully that although the declaration is not legally binding, it “carries considerable moral and political force and complements the president’s ongoing efforts to address historical inequities faced by indigenous communities in the United States.”

    This declaration – which carries”considerable moral and political force,” don’t forget – contains this little gem of a paragraph, in Article 26:

    “Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired,” and nations “shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources.”

    In other words, President Obama wants to give the entire land mass of the United States of America back to the Indians. He wants Indian tribes to be our new overlords.

    That stupid son of a bitch!  Has he not considered the consequences?

    Wonkette’s Jack Stuff and LGF’s Charles Johnson belittle Fischer’s concern for America’s future but offer little reassurance that our Kenyan born secret Muslim president isn’t going to trade the country away for $24 worth of beads and trinkets.

    I’m left, therefore, to the mercy of Google.

    The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adoted by the General Assembly more than three years ago, says what Fischer says it does.  And it says all manner of other things that, while consistent with our current moral principles, would be absurd if applied retroactively.   Fortunately, after all the affirmations, recognitions, proclamations, and  acknowledgements, followed by 45 Articles that say very nice things, we come to the final article.  It negates all the others:

    Article 46

    1. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, people, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act contrary to the Charter of the United Nations or construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States.

    2. In the exercise of the rights enunciated in the present Declaration, human rights and fundamental freedoms of all shall be respected. The exercise of the rights set forth in this Declaration shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law and in accordance with international human rights obligations. Any such limitations shall be non-discriminatory and strictly necessary solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and for meeting the just and most compelling requirements of a democratic society.

    3. The provisions set forth in this Declaration shall be interpreted in accordance with the principles of justice, democracy, respect for human rights, equality, non-discrimination, good governance and good faith.

    Emphases mine. Recall that the United Nations is a body chartered under the principle of state sovereignty.  The people who passed this Declaration are representatives of its 192 member states.  Rather clearly, then, the Declaration was not intended to give non-state actors — indigenous groups living inside state borders — power over states.  Thus far, 143 countries have voted in favor.

    Another clue in this regard is that the Declaration was issued by the UN General Assembly.   It’s quite literally nothing more than a debating society.  Each of the 192 states has equal voting power and the right to bring up matters.  But anything passed by the assembly is nothing more than a recommendation.  Indeed, that’s what the State Department announcement [PDF here] meant when it stated “The United States supports the Declaration which–while not legally binding or a statement of current international law–has both moral and political force [emphasis mine].”

    Nonetheless, concerns over the ambiguity of the language is what caused the Bush Administration to withhold its approval.   Ditto, initially, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand — other notable countries with similar concerns.   All of them have since signed.  ABC reports,

    The US about-face came after officials determined that the language would, in fact, not conflict with US law and the complex relationship between national, state and tribal governments. Officials said they waited until a formal comment period for soliciting tribal input had expired before making the move to support the declaration.

    “We think it is an important and meaningful change in US position,” said State Department spokesman PJ Crowley. “Of course, as with any international declaration we have certain reservations which we will voice reflecting our own domestic and constitutional interest. The president thinks it’s the right thing to do… Even though it is legally non-binding we think it carries considerable moral and political force.”

    So, what’s the point?

    Well, it’s an affirmation of existing American and international principle.  While states have sovereignty, there’s been a growing consensus in recent decades that aboriginal groups–such as our 565 federally recognized Indian tribes,  Native Hawaiians, and Aleuts–should be given a wide berth in preserving their native customs, language, legal systems and so forth. Indeed, it’s established in the United States Constitution that the tribes have a high degree of sovereignty on internal matters.  (That’s why, for example, Indians can establish casinos on tribal lands contrary to the law of the states in which they happen to reside.)

    So, is this just empty political symbolism?   Pretty much.  What matters is what concrete policy steps we’re going to take.  And President Obama announced some of those at the time he said we’d sign this Declaration.

    Our strategy begins with the number one concern for all Americans right now — and that’s improving the economy and creating jobs.  We’ve heard time and again from tribal leaders that one of the keys to unlocking economic growth on reservations is investments in roads and high-speed rail and high-speed Internet and the infrastructure that will better connect your communities to the broader economy.  That’s essential for drawing capital and creating jobs on tribal lands.  So to help spur the economy, we’ve boosted investment in roads throughout the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Reservation Road Program, and we’ve offered new loans to reach reservations with broadband.

    And as part of our plan to revive the economy, we’ve also put billions of dollars into pressing needs like renovating schools.  We’re devoting resources to job training — especially for young people in Indian Country who too often have felt like they don’t have a chance to succeed.  And we’re working with you to increase the size of tribal homelands in order to help you develop your economies.

    I also want to note that I support legislation to make clear — in the wake of a recent Supreme Court decision — that the Secretary of Interior can take land into trust for all federally recognized tribes.  (Applause.)  That’s something that I discussed yesterday with tribal leaders.

    We’re also breaking down bureaucratic barriers that have prevented tribal nations from developing clean energy like wind and solar power.  It’s essential not just to your prosperity, but to the prosperity of our whole country.  And I’ve proposed increasing lending to tribal businesses by supporting community financial institutions so they can finance more loans.  It is essential in order to help businesses expand and hire in areas where it can be hard to find credit.

    Another important part of our strategy is health care.  We know that Native Americans die of illnesses like diabetes, pneumonia, flu — even tuberculosis — at far higher rates than the rest of the population.  Make no mistake:  These disparities represent an ongoing tragedy.  They’re cutting lives short, causing untold pain and hardship for Native American families.  And closing these gaps is not just a question of policy, it’s a question of our values — it’s a test of who we are as a nation.

    There’s quite a bit more in the speech.  But this is pretty benign stuff:  We’re going to help the tribes improve their infrastructure, schools, and health care.

    Giving the land that we stole from them fair and square back?  Not so much.

  • Gateway Blogs vs. Destination Blogs

    Gateway Blogs vs. Destination Blogs

    In an ongoing dispute with LGF’s Charles Johnson, Ace coins a distinction: gateway blogs and destination blogs

    A lame hat-tip at the end of a post covers one’s ass, I suppose, in terms of attribution, but it fails to do what a proper link is supposed to do: Throw some traffic.

    Some blogs are deliberately “gateway blogs,” throwing out traffic wide and far in general furtherance of good-guy blogger boosterism. [Glenn Reynolds’ InstaPundit] is deliberately, and most famously, this kind of blog.

    Instapundit looks for excuses to link blogs — not media stories, though he links them too of course; but his primary goal is to call attention to other blogs and “share the wealth.” He has a very good reputation along these lines; the only problem with an Instapundit link is that it doesn’t throw as much traffic as you’d think it would, but that’s largely because he’s linking so many blogs during the day that you’re just getting a small slice of his readers.

    Crucially, if a blog mentions, say, a Reuters story, Instapundit tends to link the blog which tipped him, rather than the Reuters story itself; anyone interested in that story, then, has to at least go through the blog to get to the story. They’ll end up at Reuters, but they go through the tipping blog first.

    On the other hand, some blogs are very jealous and ungenerous about throwing links and traffic to “competitors.” Some blogs fancy themselves not “gateway blogs” but “destination blogs,” and attempt to set themselves up as the only blog you need to read.

    Not a portal, then, but a terminus.

    Amusingly, I got the story via Glenn Reynolds.  Who in turn linked Donald Douglas‘ American Power — for simply quoting Ace — who in turn linked Ace.

    Conceptually, the “Gateway” vs. “Destination” distinction isn’t much different from the “Linkers” vs. “Thinkers” typology going around back in 2003-2004.  From context, though,  I gather that it’s intended as more of a value judgment, with one being a team player and the other selfish.  Which strikes me as largely unfair.

    There’s no doubt that Glenn Reynolds is both a Linker and a Gateway blogger.  While he does plenty of long form writing elsewhere, InstaPundit is the quintessential web log:   a journal of interesting things he’s encountered online with little or no commentary.  Because he was an early mover and is incredibly good at it, he’s far and away the most important gateway/link blog out there, at least in the political space.

    But OTB, for example, is primarily a Thinker blog.  That is, our signature posts are analytical or persuasive essays, usually jumping off from ideas or stories seen elsewhere.   So, naturally, we write for the purpose of getting people to read what we have written and to come back often to see what else we have to say and only incidentally to throw traffic to other blogs.   (We do have occasional InstaPundit-style posts intended to throw traffic.  These days, they’re in the “Quick Takes” section.)

    In terms of “hat tips,” I use them as they were traditionally intended:  To acknowledge that someone pointed me to a story.   If I’m commenting on, say, some story in the Washington Post or New York Times that I happened to see mentioned somewhere, it would be odd to lead with a link to that person/site.    If, on the other hand, I’m commenting on some idea put forward on some other blog, I’ll link and reference them very early.

    It’s true, though, that one’s choice of linking convention matters in terms of traffic.   Had I written this post as “Via Glenn Reynolds and Donald Douglas I see that Ace has coined . . . ,” more traffic would go to Glenn and Douglas and less to Ace.   But the reader is less interested in where I got the link than about the idea under consideration.   And Ace probably “deserves” the traffic for coming up with the idea more than, say, Donald does for being the place where Glenn first noticed Ace’s idea.   And Glenn, well, he doesn’t need the traffic.

  • State Controlled Media

    State Controlled Media

    Obama Media Control CartoonYesterday, Teresa Kopec noted the strange convergence of the Left and Right over the healthcare debate, quipping “2009: Little Green Footballs goes left & Jane Hamsher goes right. Who’d a thunk it?”

    She was referring to erswhile warhawk blogger Charles Johnson’s public break with the Right and progressive movie-maker and the FireDogLake firebrand’s going on the warpath against what she terms “LieberCare,” proudly making common cause with conservatives who oppose the plan for entirely different reasons.

    Indeed, Hamsher sees much in common with the Tea Party protesters and her own compatriots.   Maybe she’s right.

    See, for example, Brian Maloney‘s post railing against “state-controlled media,” in which he argues that MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program is being secretly controlled by the White House.  His source?  Ultra-left radio host Ed Schultz.

    During his syndicated radio show Friday, libtalker and MSNBC host Ed Schultz relayed to listeners how he observed ‘Morning Joe’ Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski take feedback directly from the White House during their program last week.

    Schultz appeared on Thursday’s Morning Joe and directly challenged Obama’s David Axelrod on the current version of the health care bill under consideration in Congress.

    […]

    And here’s what Ed told radio listeners the next day about the visit:

    SCHULTZ (08:12): So Mika starts looking at her Blackberry and so does Scarborough and obviously the White House is texting them or emailing them or whatever and they didn’t like the show. Because Arianna had been on there, I’m on there, Howard Dean had been on there and they wanted some balance.

    Now think about that – here’s the White House getting in contact with ‘Morning Joe’ because they’re afraid there’s too many lefties on the air! Now if that’s not sensitivity at its highest level, I don’t know what is! I told ya a few days ago they had rabbit ears! They don’t like anything that’s being said right now, they’re getting beat up!

    […]

    Is it really possible that the White House has a direct line to MSNBC’s hosts, communicating with them during their live broadcasts? Now THAT’S state control!

    And do MSNBC staffers actually carry out the administration’s commands? In this case, they certainly made room on short notice for a lengthy segment featuring Axelrod, there to rebut comments made by Howard Dean and other recent guests.

    Now, imagine if Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, or another non-“progressive” host had been caught taking orders from Bush during the program. When would we ever hear the end of that?

    Now, first of all, all we know if that Schultz claims he saw the hosts looking down at their BlackBerries during the show.  He doesn’t claim to have seen the messages or that the hosts said they had a question from the White House.  It’s pure wild ass speculation on Schultz’ part.

    But let’s take a leap of faith and presume that MSNBC’s show hosts do in fact get emails from the White House trying to spin them.  Is that really that shocking?  The White House has a rather sophisticated communications shop, after all.   If the hosts are checking their emails while guests are on the air — which strikes me as a rather bizarre thing to do — then it stands to reason that they get whatever emails are sent during the show, including those from the White House.

    How, exactly, does that translate into state control?

    It’s the political equivalent of working the refs.  Watch any NFL game and you’ll see players and coaches pleading with the officials to throw a flag or reverse a call.  And every so often, the ref will change his mind after hearing the argument! Does that mean the refs are under the coaches’ control?    Of course not.

    And, one presumes, Limbaugh, Hannity, and Levin did indeed get messages from the Bush administration and other Republican operatives during their broadcasts.   Hell, Limbaugh has admitted to “carrying the water” of the party, putting a spin on things contrary to his own beliefs in order to help Republicans win. (See “The Waterboys,” “Talk Radio, Partisanship and Hackery,” and “More on Carrying Water” for more.) He was getting his talking points from somewhere.

    Does anyone really think Joe Scarborough, a former Republican Congressman from Florida who many presume has future political ambitions, is a stooge for a Democratic administration?  It just doesn’t make any sense.

    Cartoon: Beeler

  • Comparative Fringes

    Comparative Fringes

    Steve Benen is a bit disappointed that I didn’t “follow [Charles] Johnson’s lead and reject what’s become of the contemporary political right” in my post responding to his departure.  In particular, he thinks I’m too easy on the conservative fringe groups and understate their hold on the movement.

    barackhusseinobama I continue to think this is a mistaken approach to the ideological landscape. It plays into the conventional wisdom — “both sides” have their share of nutjobs — but it doesn’t account for the qualitative differences or the reach/influence of both contingents.

    It’s easy, I suppose, to just assume that the left has some nutjobs, and the right has some nutjobs, but that all of this is unrelated to political mainstream of both major political parties. Wacky liberals said ridiculous things under Bush; wacky conservatives are saying ridiculous things now. Move along; nothing to see here.

    But this surface-level look is, at best, incomplete. Code Pink and Truthers don’t have, and never have had, any meaningful role in progressive politics or the Democratic Party. Love these groups or hate them, we’re talking about a fairly small group, with limited-to-non-existent influence. Indeed, Democratic Party leaders and officials take pains to keep the groups at arm’s length. It’s not as if leading Dem candidates, seeking high-profile offices, go out of their way to seek Cindy Sheehan’s endorsement.

    On the other hand, leading Republicans at every level can’t do enough to express their support for the Tea Party crowd, and love nothing more than talking to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. We have GOP members of Congress, even some of the party’s leadership, endorsing all manner of unhinged nonsense, ranging from Birther questions to state nullification.

    I’ve been pretty vocal over the years about the excesses in the Right blogosphere, conservative talk radio and punditry (in particular Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, and Glenn Beck), and the rise of the populists like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee.  And I’ve expressed my displeasure with the Religious Right from the earliest days of the blog (and, indeed, well before to a more limited audience). Even in this morning’s post, I concede some of Johnson’s points have merit.

    Still, Steve’s comparisons are apples to oranges.

    The “Tea Party crowd” has some cranks in it, to be sure, but it’s a pretty mainstream movement in goals, tactics, and membership.  I’ve criticized them for shouting down Members of Congress and others in town hall meetings.  But they’re not of a piece with Code Pink and their odious tactics.  So, of course respectable Democratic leaders aren’t going to publicly associate themselves with the organization.  (Sixteen of them reportedly got VIP tickets from their Congressmen to disrupt Bush’s second inaugural, but it’s not clear if they simply went through channels or there was active collusion.)

    The Truthers are indeed something of a fringe, although there have been a handful of prominent Democrats giving voice to that nonsense.  Much more mainstream were the Democrats who think Diebold stole the 2004 election.

    There’s not really a Democratic equivalent of Rush Limbaugh, who’s sui generis.  Keith Olbermann is perhaps the closest analogue in style and Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart in popularity and influence.   In all cases, though, politicians will naturally go out of their way to flatter popular media hosts who will give them free air time and exposure.

    It’s true that there are a handful of Republican congressmen who are embarrassing.  The Democrats no longer have Cynthia McKinney and Jim Traficant in their ranks and Maxine Waters has been off my radar screen for a while.   But there are 535 people in the House and Senate combined; there are bound to be some yahoos.  I just don’t see them as serious contenders for the leadership of the party, whether as prospective presidential nominees or House or Senate leaders.

    Are the inmates running the asylum in the Republican Party?   I don’t think we’re there yet, although there are days when I have my doubts.  But right now I’m willing to chalk it up to a combination of a political climate that’s been hyper-polarized for years, making the out party seem insane.  (Recall Jane’s Law: “The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane.”)  Add to that dire economic times and a 24/7/365 Twitter environment where crazy thoughts can get amplified and seem more prevalent than they are, and you have a recipe for this sort of thing.

    My sense is that things will swing back in the other direction fairly soon because that’s what has always happened in the past.  But, while I don’t think it’ll happen, it’s not entirely inconceivable that Sarah Palin will be the 2012 Republican nominee.  In which case, I’ll look for other options.  Until then, the only thing I can do is point out the crazies and argue for a saner path.

    Photo: BoingBoing

  • Charles Johnson ‘Breaks’ From the Right

    Charles Johnson ‘Breaks’ From the Right

    Little Green Footballs logoIn a move that has been coming for nearly two years, Charles Johnson has issued a manifesto explaining “Why I Parted Ways With The Right.”  For those who don’t know, Johnson is the founder and principal author of Little Green Footballs, one of the oldest and most popular blogs.  He was an elder statesman in the game when I started OTB in January 2003, known as one of the Four Horsemen of the Ablogalypse (along, as I recall, with Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds, Andrew Sullivan, and the long since semi-retired Steven Den Beste).  (We had a lot of silly names for things back in those nascent days.)

    Here’s his list, in its entirely, interspersed with my commentary.

    1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

    Without the backstory, I’m not sure what he means by “facsists” — a terribly overused word — in these cases.  While I have plenty of disagreements with Buchanan and McCain, I see them mostly as radical populists; they’re certainly not supporters of Fascism.  Regardless, however, Buchanan has been with us since the Nixon administration.   And, at the risk of being unkind to my fellow Jax State alumnus, Stacy McCain isn’t exactly a major player in American politics.

    And, seriously, the BNP? A British fringe party which “received 0.7% of the popular vote but had no candidates elected to Parliament” in the most recent elections?

    2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

    Again, this criticism is wildly overblown.  There have  been elements of bigotry and white supremacy in our society since the beginning, with ebbs and flows depending on the economy and other events.  For the most part, they’ve been trending starkly downward in recent decades.

    Two exceptions come to mind in the current period:  Frustration over illegal immigration, which is sometimes coupled with a fear that unassimilated Hispanics will radically change our culture, and fear of home-grown Islamist radicals.   Neither of these is completely irrational nor of the same piece with, say, anti-black racism.  But they can manifest themselves in ugly ways.

    3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

    This is just silly.  Because our major religions were founded centuries ago, their doctrines, when taken literally, aim at preserving centuries-old social mores. But women are equals in our society in ways that would have seemed fantastical even thirty years ago.   We have women on the Supreme Court, women secretaries of state, women governors, women fighter pilots, and so forth.   Many of these women are Republicans.

    We’ve had Republican presidents most of my lifetime and they’ve not only allowed these changes to happen but participated in them.  Ronald Reagan broke the gender barrier on the Supreme Court and had Jeanne Kirkpatrick as his UN rep.  George W. Bush had Condi Rice — a black woman! — as his National Security Advisor and then as Secretary of State.  John McCain had Sarah Palin as his running mate.

    Yes, opposition to abortion is a litmus test for securing the Republican presidential nomination.  It has been so for as long as I can remember, however, so that seems like an odd rationale for a middle aged man to break with the right.

    4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

    I’ll give him this one.  This isn’t exactly new but this wing of the Republican Party has grown in size and influence over the years.

    5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

    Support for gay rights — a fringe view as recently as the 1970s — has become normalized in recent years.  Most Republicans, including most Republican leaders, are well beyond where, say, Mike Dukakis or Walter Mondale or Jimmy Carter were on the issue.

    There is, of course, a mobilization against gay marriage — a concept that would have seemed absurd to even the most liberal Democrats fifteen years ago.   But that’s hardly solely a position of the right.  See Barack Obama.  Or any black church.

    6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

    See Code Pink, 9/11 Truthers, etc.

    7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)

    See Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, 9/11 Truthers, etc.

    8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

    Oh, c’mon.  First, Hot Air is pretty tame.   Ace is mostly schtick.  Free Republic isn’t a blog.  And most people would have put LGF into this category two years ago.

    9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)

    I don’t read Geller or Spencer very much these days — a good tip for those who find a particular blog annoying! — and thought they were somewhat radical (Geller moreso than Spencer) when I did.  I don’t recall either of them being advocates of fascism (unless one uses the word stupidly), much less genocide.  If they’ve crossed that Rubicon, however, so what?  What mainstream Republican leader supports nuking Mecca or some of the crazier ideas?  Certainly, George W. Bush didn’t, as evidenced by the fact that he controlled our nukes for eight years and Mecca is still there.  John McCain?  Sarah Palin?

    Ironically, I would have put Johnson himself into this category several years ago.   Despite LGF’s prominence, I gave up on it pretty quickly because I found it a cesspool.  In fairness, that was more related to the discussion forum than Johnson’s own writings.   But LGF’s editorial stance toward political Islam, the War on Terror, and related issues was decidedly more radical than my own and, indeed, sufficiently outside the mainstream of our policy discourse that I felt safe in ignoring it.

    10. Hatred for President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies, into racism, hate speech, and bizarre conspiracy theories (see: witch doctor pictures, tea parties, Birthers, Michelle Malkin, Fox News, World Net Daily, Newsmax, and every other right wing source)

    Pretty much the same could have been said of George W. Bush.  He was despised and vilified and only partly because of policy.  The chief difference is that he’s white and Obama’s part black, so images of the two as monkeys have different social connotations.

    Is there genuine anti-Obama racism?  Sure.  It exists, both here and overseas, on both the right and the left.  And the Internet gives the fringes a platform that magnifies their numbers.  But so what?

    Ultimately, Liza Sabater gets it right.  She notes that Johnson was “part tongue-in-cheek pundit, part awesomely generous code jock” in the early days of LGF.

    Charles Johnson Charlie BrownThen the attacks of September 11 happened.

    Back in 2002, Anil Dash best describes my feelings about what happened to Charles Johnson: Since the attacks, Charles, at least in the context of his weblog, lost his shit.

    For us old-school bloggers, political activism came out of our very personal values and had nothing to do with political parties. It explains why Charles Johnson is still reticent about calling LGF a blog just about politics. It also explains why Six Apart‘s Chief Evangelist, got into one of the first very public political altercations in the blogosphere during his Quixotic quest to understand the islamophobia heaped by barrels from Little Green Footballs.

    Little Green Footballs went to such a deep end that even a white (albeit nuanced) supremacist Norwegian like the anonymous blogger Fjordman (a darling of the extreme-right blogosphere), had called out Charles Johnson and his blog as examples of Islamophobia and racism in the blogosphere. It also earned the blog it’s own “watch blog” (LGF Watch) and even the scorn of Zionist and anti-Jihadist activists.”

    […]

    His blog has been a very personal journey. It wasn’t meant to be a business plan. It wasn’t meant to be his product. Little Green Footballs is Charles Johnson.The blog has changed because he has changed and that’s an amazing thing to own up to: That you weren’t the “complete” person people thought you’d be. That the space in which you post a bit of your soul is not just a product or a brand. It is you.

    Sabater welcomes Johnson back to the left, which is where he naturally fit on the spectrum before 9/11.   He was radicalized by those events, having his worldview shattered, and went to the other extreme on national security issues.    Because American politics — and especially the American blogosphere — divided into Left and Right almost solely on the War on Terror and the Iraq War, Johnson embraced and was embraced by the Right.   But he’s a social liberal at the end of the day and the American Right — and especially the Republican Party — is dominated by religious conservatives.

    Like Johnson, I’m not religious and, like Johnson, I am not a fan of several swaths of the American Right or the general direction the Republican Party is headed.   Unlike Johnson, there are enough other issues where I find common cause with the GOP and am irreconcilable with the platform of the Democratic Party.

    Another supporter on the Left, Pam Spaulding, observes that “the Goldwater conservatives and moderates have been put six feet under by the theocrats and know-nothings. I don’t know how you can wrest the GOP back from the crazies.”    While that overstates things a mite, she’s got a point.  I’m essentially a Goldwater conservative myself and there aren’t too many of us.  Or, at least, we’re not the organizing kind in the way that the tea partiers and religious right are.

    But it wasn’t all that long ago that people were writing off the Democrats as being out of touch and too liberal to ever win back the White House. A couple of lost elections tends to bring sanity sooner or later.

    And, indeed, as Joe Gandelman points out,

    Both parties are now showing signs of impending splits, although time will tell how serious and politically consequential each of these splits are. Each party’s base (left in the Democrats; right in the Republicans) consider the word “moderate” a dirty word.

    Some in the base of each party want to purge their party of some who they feel aren’t “real” Democrats/Republicans. Some Democrats want to push the party left…some Republicans want to push their party further right.

    We live in polarizing times, I’m afraid.   We’ve been through far worse — a literal civil war, for example, seems unthinkable — and likely will again.  Things swing back.  They always do.

    UPDATE:   Erstwhile Pajamas Media partner Dennis the Peasant offers an uncharitable alternate reason for Johnson’s “break.”

    Jules Crittenden offers a useful roundup of other reactions, including this from Ann Althouse:  “Personally, I don’t need to go through the exercise of figuring out what happened to Johnson. I’ve avoided him all these years because he seemed too extreme and hateful. Now, he’s fired up about other people being extreme and hateful? And he’s fired up in a way that seems extreme and hateful?”

  • Iraq War Casualty Predictions

    Iraq War Casualty Predictions

    Tim Lambert linked some prewar Iraq War casualty predictions collected by John Hawkins in early 2003:

    If we go into Iraq, how many casualties do you expect to see (on the side of the US and our allies)

    John Hawkins: “Probably 300 or less”
    Charles Johnson:“Very few”
    Henry Hanks: “Less than 200”
    Laurence Simon: “A Few hundred”
    Rachael Lucas: “Less than three thousand”
    Scott Ott: “Dozens”
    Glenn Reynolds: “Fewer than 100”
    Tim Blair: “Below 50”
    Ken Layne: “a few hundred”
    Steven Den Beste: “50-150”

    Fester and Hilzoy have passed these on as well.  Good fun is had by all.

    Having begun blogging only at the end of January 2003, I wasn’t surveyed.  I did, however, predict on February 24 that “victory in Iraq will be swift and relatively bloodless.”  I don’t recall whether I actually blogged my casualty predictions but my internal working estimate was the same as Hawkins’ – 300 or fewer American troops killed.  I figured, basically, that it would be “Desert Storm times two.”

    We’re now at something like 4326 American troops dead.

    Then again, I wasn’t counting on a multi-year occupation during which we fought against multiple insurgent groups while trying to democratize Iraq.  I presumed, as did Don Rumsfeld and others, that we would topple Saddam Hussein’s government, install an interim government, and elect a permanent government within some short period.

    That’s the war I supported and still wish that’s what we’d done.

    ________________________________________

    Digressions:

    1. The more interesting finding in Hawkins’ poll is this:

    Will a human baby be cloned in 2003?

    Yes: John Hawkins, Charles Johnson, Henry Hanks, Laurence Simon, Rachael Lucas, Scott Ott
    No: Glenn Reynolds, Tim Blair, Ken Layne
    N/A: Steven Den Beste

    So far as I’m aware, none was cloned in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, or the first half of 2009.  It’s remarkable how excited people were at this prospect.

    2.  OTB was a decidedly different blog in the early days.  Few of my posts in February 2003, my first real month of blogging, were as long as the Digressions section of this post.

  • Military Recruiting Shootings

    Military Recruiting Shootings

    One soldier was killed and another seriously injured in a shooting at an Army-Navy Recruiting Center in west Little Rock, Arkansas.  Thankfully, the second’s injuries are not considered life-threatening.  Contrary to earlier reports, both victims were “just out of basic training,” participating in the “Hometown Recruiting Assistance” program, and not Army Recruiters.  An arrest has been made but no names are released.  An “assault rifle” of some sort was reportedly used in the shootings.

    Thus far, blogospheric commentary seems to be relegated to the right.  Not surprisingly, comparisons are being drawn to the murder of abortionist George Tiller despite the fact that “Police are trying to determine a motive” and the police spokesman “did not know whether the recruiting office was specifically targeted or was randomly chosen.”

    Michelle Malkin ruefully quips, “I wonder if the Justice Department will send marshals to beef up protection at recruiting centers — especially given the past targeting of military centers on campuses and elsewhere across the country.”  She rounds up some of her own reports from over the years to demonstrate that violence aimed at military recruiters happens with some frequency, even if it gets less attention than abortion clinic violence.

    Charles Johnson wisely refrains from speculation, merely passing on a noteworthy story.  Similarly, Ed Morrissey cautions, “This could have any of several different motives: political, personal, insanity.  I’d caution against reading too much into it until we hear more from the police.  We’ll be keeping an eye on it.”

    AJ Strata wonders, “Is this country ready to finally deal with the fringe nut cases in the fevered swamps on the left and right?”

    Rob Port observes,

    Now, not to use this tragedy for politics or anything, but we could jump to the conclusion that this man was motivated by a hatred for the military (or something along those lines) and then blame groups like Code Pink and Media Matters and MoveOn.org for fanning anti-military, anti-Iraq war passions for years.  We could, much as the left has with people like Bill O’Reilly in the George Tiller murder claim that those groups have blood on their hands.

    But we won’t.  Because that’s stupid.  This murder, whatever the motivation (it’s not clear at this point), was committed by a murderous thug who acted of his own volition.  Not because he was compelled to by liberal dissent.

    Until we know whether the shooter was some yahoo with a beef against military recruiters, a garden variety lunatic, or part of some organized conspiracy, it’s not much worth speculating on the politics.  But Strata and Port are right:  There are fringe elements out there on various points of the political spectrum and some handful of them are willing to kill.

    Most murders, though, are apolitical. They’re human tragedies with horrific consequences for friends and loved ones with little public policy meaning.  Sadly, that doesn’t stop people from trying to make political hay out of them.

    I fully expect, by the way, some commenters on the left to start exploiting this case to argue for a strengthened assault rifle ban in 5, 4, 3 . . .

    Photo:  KATV7

  • Pots Call Kettles REALLY, REALLY Black

    Pots Call Kettles REALLY, REALLY Black

    Bruce Bawer, author of While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within and Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom, has joined forces with Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson, in excoriating some moderately prominent conservative bloggers as “a bunch of kooks” for their embrace of unsavory elements in the European anti-jihadist community.

    You know, when you start to get attacked by the extremists for being too damned extreme, you probably need to tone it down a mite.

    UPDATE: This has been brewing for awhile but most readers are probably not familiar with the background.  See Dave Weigel’s Washington Independent writeup, “Civil War Raging in Right-Wing Blogosphere; Terrorism-Watching Conservative Blogs Split Over Accusations of Bigotry and Treason” for a detailed account.   Bawer’s lengthy piece, linked above, skips the blogospheric story, concentrating on the Euro angle.

  • Obama, The Jewish Lobby, and the Perils of Web 2.0

    Obama, The Jewish Lobby, and the Perils of Web 2.0

    One of Barack Obama’s key advantages in building grassroots support, especially among young people usually not apt to vote, has been his innovative use of the latest Web techniques, including the integration of social networking technologies. Not only did he lap the field in getting “friends” on Facebook and MySpace but he actually hired the guy who invented Facebook to work for him. This translated into a viral campaign and certainly boosted a staggering fundraising haul. Obama may have, as Micah Sifry suggests, built something that will sustain itself even after the campaign is over.

    The down side of this, as anyone who has run a blog with open comments knows, any yahoo can put whatever they want on the site and some will naturally blame the site host for those comments. Charles Johnson knows that better than perhaps anyone, as one of the fabled Four Horsemen of the Ablogalypse and the owner of perhaps the most controversial comments section of the Right Blogosphere.

    Obama How Jewish Lobby Works Screencap Johnson has joined John Hinderacker, Pam Gellar, seeDubya (at Michelle Malkin), Carl in Jerusalem, Stacy McCain, Doug Ross and many, many others in decrying an anti-Semitic screed on “How the Jewish Lobby Works” that appeared on the site for several hours until a blogstorm erupted and the site moderators took that down and apparently started a major effort to scrub the site for other potentially embarrassing content. Which, naturally, spawned charges of a cover-up.

    Marc Danziger, Patrick Frey, Sean Hackbarth, Patrick Ruffini and others have very calm, rational takes on this that I hope will spread as the facts come out.

    Danziger also has several good suggestions for Team Obama and any other institutional site which allows diaries and comments. Striking a balance between an energetic, open discussion and protecting the brand is difficult. MyObama has leaned too far towards the former and is apparently now correcting course. They’ve certainly got the resources to do that and they would have been foolish not to at this stage. And, it would seem, the McCain campaign needs to follow suit. The fact of the matter is that most people have no clue how these sites work and it’s far too easy to demagogue these incidents to take the risk of an absolute free-for-all under your logo if you’re running for high office.

    UPDATE: Cernig and mattbastard suspect foul play involving Ron Paul, cutting-and-pasting, and some amorous rodents. No, seriously.

    Yet another reason to monitor what’s being posted on one’s site.

  • Obama Che Guevara Flag ‘Scandal’

    Obama Che Guevara Flag ‘Scandal’

    The blogosphere is roiled up over the flag issue again. No, not that flag. This one:

    Obama Office Che Guevara Flag

    That’s the Cuban flag with the image of Ernesto Che Guevara superimposed on it. It’s tacked onto the wall of an office in Barack Obama’s Houston campaign headquarters. An office belonging, apparently, to a low level staffer who’s in charge of setting up the office.

    I’m immediately reminded of a line from Charlie Daniels’ breakout hit, Uneasy Rider: “I betchya he’s even got a commie flag tacked up on the wall inside of his garage.” The classic response: “I ain’t even got a garage, you can call home and ask my wife!”

    But I digress.

    Here are the headlines of some select reactions to the Obama flag flap:

    • Matt Bramanti: “Obama office adores psychotic Marxist thug”
    • Ed Driscoll: “Sixties Radical Chic, Frozen In Amber”

    Morrissey is simultaneously fair and not:

    Does Obama know his Houston supporters honor a terrorist in his campaign office? I’m sure he doesn’t. However, it would behoove him to ensure that the flag gets taken down and that he renounces any affinity for Che and the Fidel Castro regime.

    He’s right that Che is a terrorist who shouldn’t be honored by decent people. Che worship (or, alternatively, the wearing of Che t-shirts as a statement without the slightest clue of who he was) seems to be a phase that certain left-leaning activists go through in their youth; it generally passes. Driscoll’s characterization of it as “juvenilia” is spot on.

    But, surely, Obama doesn’t need to publicly weigh in on the decorating choices of every low level staffer? Let alone “renounce” affinities which he’s never shown?

    Johnson’s insinuation is simply beyond the pale: “Barack Obama won’t wear an American flag on his lapel, but on the wall of his Houston campaign office: a Cuban flag with a picture of Communist mass murderer Che Guevara.” As I noted when the ridiculous flap over Obama’s calling flag pins “a substitute for true patriotism” emerged,

    I don’t mind people wearing pins or putting stickers on their cars as a show of support for their country or their cause. I am, however, irritated by the notion that so doing makes them somehow superior to those who don’t.

    The suggestion that Americans need to start swearing loyalty oaths, though, is light years beyond irritating.

    CORRECTION: The original contained the sentence “John Cole‘s suggestion that the flag is merely a statement on our Cuba policy strikes me as giving credit where it decidedly isn’t due.” Cole responds in the comments below that the discussion of Cuba policy was merely an aside rather than an attempt to analyze the motivations of the office worker. My apologies for the inference.

    UPDATE: Johnson responds here arguing that I’m attributing something to him that he doesn’t believe. It seems to me, though, that the implication of juxtaposing Obama’s refusal to wear an American flag pin with supporters displaying a Che flag is plain enough.

    The “loyalty oath” goes to the whole notion — implied by Johnson and others quoted above — that Obama is under some obligation to declare that he’s anti-Communist and pro-American. Neither of those should be in doubt.

    As to my “rushing to do damage control for Barack Obama,” regular readers can decide for themselves on that one. New readers can feel free to check through my Barack Obama archives.

    UPDATE: Ace disagrees with me but has a reasonable take. I’m sympathetic to the “Lie down with dogs and you get fleas” sentiment. But the nature of Big Tent politics is that both sides are going to attract some yahoos. Ronald Reagan was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, after all. I don’t think it serves anyone’s interest to play the “whose crazies are crazier” game. Ultimately, it’s just guilt by association.

    Yes, I’m “interested in rejecting what seems to be easy pandering and hackery.” But not simply out of high-mindedness, drug induced or otherwise. Frankly, there are plenty of good reasons for conservatives to oppose electing Obama president. Making mountains of aspiring molehills weakens our case rather than strengthening it.

  • Politicians Lying is Free Speech

    Politicians Lying is Free Speech

    The Supreme Court of the state of Washington has ruled that lying politicians are protected by the 1st Amendment.

    A sharply divided state Supreme Court has ruled that a law that bars political candidates from deliberately making false statements about their opponents violates the First Amendment right of free speech. In a 5-4 ruling, the high court affirmed a state Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the law. The measure was enacted by the Legislature in 1999, a year after a similar ban on false statements involving initiatives and other ballot measures was thrown out by the state Supreme Court.

    State Sen. Tim Sheldon, D-Potlatch, invoked the law in 2002 after his Green Party challenger, Marilou Rickert, distributed a flier that asserted Sheldon voted to shut down a state institution in his district. In fact, he voted against a budget that included closure of the Mission Creek youth camp, although critics said he didn’t do enough to support the facility. He filed a complaint with the state Public Disclosure Commission, which investigated and imposed the maximum fine, $1,000. By then, Sheldon had easily won re-election. The commission action was upheld in Superior Court, but overturned by the appeals bench.

    The Supreme Court majority said the new law “like its predecessor, is unconstitutional on its face.” “The notion that the government, rather than the people, may be the final arbiter of truth in political debate is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment,” Justice James Johnson wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Charles Johnson, Richard Sanders and Susan Owens.

    Quite right. While the headlines are amusing, the case in controversy makes clear how ridiculous trying to enforce this law is. Was Sheldon’s opponent making a false statement or merely making a different factual interpretation? Surely, that’s a matter best left up to the voters rather than the legal system.

    via Purple Avenger

  • Kos Diarist Has Little Crush on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

    Kos Diarist Has Little Crush on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

    Kos Diarist Has Little Crush on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Screencap Photo Daily Kos diarist Sally Kohn has come under some understandable fire for her confession of having “a little crush on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

    I know I’m a Jewish lesbian and he’d probably have me killed. But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon…

    She thinks he’s “cuddly” and compares him favorably with Kermit the Frog.

    Charles Johnson attributes these views to “new mainstream voice of the Democratic Party,” since they’re at Daily Kos. AllahPundit joins in, calling it “communique from the new center of the Democratic Party.” Not to be outdone, Gateway Pundit proclaims, “The leading democratic blog has a crush on Ahmadinejad! Maybe it’s his Holocaust denying?… Or, maybe it’s just that he wants Israel wiped off the map?”

    In fairness, even Kohn acknowledges that Ahmadinejad is a bad guy:

    I want to be very clear. There are certainly many things about Ahmadinejad that I abhor — locking up dissidents, executing of gay folks, denying the fact of the Holocaust, potentially adding another dangerous nuclear power to the world and, in general, stifling democracy. Even still, I can’t help but be turned on by his frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policy preceding.

    Kohn’s willingness to overlook a man’s evil because he Speaks Truth to Power is silly, bizarre, wacky, and all manner of other adjectives, clean and otherwise, that come to mind. I’m not sure, though, that it means much other than that Kohn is a rather immature thinker. Is this, as Don Surber suggests, an example of Bush Derangement Syndrome at its finest? Or, as Bruce McQuain argues, moral equivalence at its worst? No doubt.

    Representative of the views of Markos Moulitsas, much less the Democratic Party? Uh . . . no. Does anyone really think this is what people like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or even Teddy Kennedy and Dennis Kucinich really believe?

    Now, DiscerningTexan makes a fair point, which recalls the old adage, You lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas:

    You will recall of course that all the Democrat candidates paraded like pilgrims to Mecca to the Kos Convention in Chicago earlier this year; and you are aware that the Kossaks are on the front lines of Democrat Party activism and fund raising.

    So, especially you centrists out there: the next time you are in the polling place, keep in mind that the Democrats on your ballots–the same ones trying to portray themselves as “moderates” or “centrists”–have been taking huge sums from these nutcases (not to mention criminal “bundlers” like Norman Hsu and other sources eminating from Communist China…). And even nutjobs do not part with their money for nothing; they expect a little ROI. And men like George Soros have been pouring millions into organizations like MoveOn.

    There’s a lot of this sort of nonsense at Kos, Democratic Underground, and other essentially unmoderated netroots forums. Then again, there’s quite a bit at places like Free Republic and elsewhere on the right. Red State is more careful about this sort of thing than Kos, but I’m sure one could find some objectionable nonsense there without too awfully much trouble.

    Regardless, DT goes too far when he argues:

    It is a fact that today’s Democrat Party has become almost exclusively beholden to people who use smear tactics to slime outstanding Americans like Petraeus, and who openly display their affection for mass murderers who have been openly killing US soldiers, executing political dissidents, and mutilating, oppressing, and even killing their own wives and daughters. During the Vietnam War, it was only fringe radicals like Jane Fonda, the Black Panthers, and the Weathermen who used this kind of rhetoric. Today that exception has become the rule for Democrats. No wonder their rhetoric in the last several years has been so full of hate and venom, and so short on ideas that capture the imagination of the voting public.

    I agree that the level of discourse has sunk in recent years, as the language and means of expression have gotten more course. Arguably, owing to demographic and cultural issues, there’s more of that on the Left than the Right. Still, the GOP is beholden to its more radical elements, too. Those are the people most likely to be engaged early in the process, to volunteer their time, and to give money.

    Kohn’s way of thinking (and much of the reaction to it) represents the real danger of the permanent campaign mode in which American politics has seemingly been mired the last decade or so. We spend far too much time in Us vs. Them mode, emphasizing our not unimportant differences and too little recalling our much more important and numerous commonalities. No mainstream figure in American politics is comparable to Ahmadinejad and it’s not only asinine but destructive to believe otherwise.

    Thankfully, as Ed Morrissey notes, those who do constitute “a minute percentage.” But a far larger percentage are but a couple steps away in their thinking, constantly throwing around words like “treason” and “betrayal” when discussing perfectly legitimate actors in our political system that happen to strongly hold different views about what’s best for the country.

    UPDATE: An Andrew Sullivan e-mailer sees no end in sight of this polarized atmosphere:

    There seems to be an assumption that politicians are divided, but Americans wish to be more united. The problem is: we are the divisions. There is no “us” (citizens) and “them” (national politicians). The pols reflect our divisions.

    Sadly, that’s probably right.

  • Yasir Arafat’s Nobel Peace Prize Stolen

    Yasir Arafat’s Nobel Peace Prize Stolen

    Rioters around the Palestinian territory have looted and ransacked the homes of several Fatah leaders, living or otherwise. Most notably, the late Yasir Arafat’s home was stripped clean, including his Nobel Peace Prize.

    Hamas Loots Yasir Arafat Home, Steals Nobel Peace Prize PhotoEnraged Fatah leaders on Saturday accused Hamas militiamen of looting the home of former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat in Gaza City. “They stole almost everything inside the house, including Arafat’s Nobel Peace Prize medal,” said Ramallah-based Fatah spokesman Ahmed Abdel Rahman. “Hamas militiamen and gangsters blew up the main entrance to the house before storming it. They stole many of Arafat’s documents and files, gifts he had received from world leaders and even his military outfits.” Abdel Rahman said the attackers also raided the second floor of the house and stole the personal belongings of his widow, Suha, and daughter, Zahwa. “They stole all the widow’s clothes and shoes,” he added. “They also took Arafat’s pictures with his daughter.”

    Eyewitnesses told The Jerusalem Post that dozens of Palestinians participated in the raid, which took place late Friday. “Most of the looters were just ordinary citizens,” they said. “They stole almost everything, including furniture, tiles, water pipes, closets and beds.”

    According to the Fatah spokesman, the raid on Arafat’s house, which has been empty since 2001, occurred despite promises from Syria-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to prevent such an attack. “The Palestinian people will never forgive the Hamas gangs for looting the home of the Palestinian people’s great leader, Yasser Arafat,” Abdel Rahman said. “This crime will remain a stain of disgrace on the forehead of Hamas and its despicable gangs.”

    Given the contempt with which most of us view Arafat and his dubious prize, it’s not surprising that people are having great fun with this story.

    Yasir Arafat Nobel Prize Photo
    • Maynard @ Tammy Bruce: “This violent criminal act is completely pointless. If Hamas had been willing to wait just a few months, the Nobel committee would have awarded them their own peace prize.”
    • Charles Johnson had a similar thought: “That will save the Nobel Committee the trouble of awarding Hamas the prize; they already have one!”
    • TigerHawk: “I think this is hilarious . . . the funniest thing Hamas has ever done.”
    • Carl in Jerusalem wonders, “How much would you pay for a Nobel Peace Prize on E-Bay?”
    • Don Surber goes him one better: “Here is hoping they sell it on e-Bay to Castro.”
    • Noel Sheppard warns, “this is guaranteed to evoke uncontrollable fits of laughter.”
    • Roger L. Simon dubs it “a joke on a joke” and “poetic justice.”
    • Michael P.F. van der Galiën agrees: “finally, at long last – justice is done.”

    Glenn Reynolds is right: “This is what Arafat — and the Oslo Accords — wrought.” As Robert Spencer puts it, “Hamas is the natural outcome of his life’s work, and thus the most fitting inheritor of this great commendation of that work.”

    The romanticization of Arafat and his ilk is sickening. That Arafat’s memory is being dishonored this way does not trouble me. Nor does his widow’s losing some of the loot he stole from an impoverished people. Still, the fact that the Palestinians are now being governed by terrorists who make Arafat look worthy of the Nobel prize by comparison is not something to celebrate. Richard Fernandez observes,

    This was foreshadowed by the looting of the multi-million dollar greenhouses bequeathed to the Palestinian people. It continued with the bombing of the Internet cafes, the attacks on hospitals, the burning of music stores. It goes on every time delighted gunmen fire their automatic rifles in the air and are surprised to find the bullets eventually come down and kill somebody. Every time a “militant” blows up a bridge, or a power pylon, an oil pipeline or a beautiful seaside resort, it is not a glorious event. That’s just the fantasy of an over-wrought journalist. Plainly speaking, it’s just another bullet in the foot.

    Quite right. And, to the extent there was ever any near-term prospect for a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian question, this sequence of events has killed it. That, of course, is what Hamas wants. It shouldn’t be something the rest of us cheer, however. It presages much more misery ahead.

  • Nancy Pelosi’s Syria Head Scarf Controversy

    Nancy Pelosi’s Syria Head Scarf Controversy

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Syria has sparked controversy, not just because it is in defiance of White House foreign policy but because of her decision to wear a head scarf and abaya while visiting a mosque.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi mingled with Syrians in a market and made the sign of the cross at a Christian tomb Tuesday during a visit to pursue dialogue with the country’s leader. President Bush denounced the trip, saying it sends mixed signals to Syria’s government.

    Nancy Pelosi Wearing Head Scarf in Syria Mosque Visit Pelosi’s visit to Syria was the latest challenge to the White House by congressional Democrats, who are taking a more assertive role in influencing policy in the Middle East and the Iraq war. The Bush administration, which accuses President Bashar Assad’s government of supporting terrorism, has resisted calls for direct talks to help ease the crisis in Iraq and make progress in the Israel-Palestinian peace process.

    Soon after Pelosi’s arrival in Damascus, Bush criticized her visit. “A lot of people have gone to see President Assad … and yet we haven’t seen action. He hasn’t responded,” he told reporters at a Rose Garden news conference. “Sending delegations doesn’t work. It’s simply been counterproductive.”

    Wearing a flowered head scarf and a black abaya robe, Pelosi visited the 8th-century Omayyad Mosque, shaking hands with Syrian women inside and watching men in a religion class sitting cross-legged on the floor.

    Glenn Reynolds, AllahPundit, Charles Johnson, and a host of others are in varying stages of outrage over the wear of the hajib. Steve Benen is right, though, that the wear of the head scarf as a deference to the host’s culture is a proper sign of respect for a guest, noting that Laura Bush, Condi Rice, and others have made the same gesture.

    Much more problematic, however, is the Speaker of the House contravening American foreign policy by legitimating a hostile government. While the president does not have plenary power over foreign affairs, he both constitutionally and traditionally sets the agenda.

    Congress’ role is one of oversight–setting budget parameters, holding executive officials accountable, considering treaties, and the like–not competition. Mark Kleiman rightly notes that, with the majority, that power is substantial.

    Greg Djerejian may well be right that the Bush policy of not holding talks with the Assad regime amounts to “bungling amateurism and fake machismo.” At very least, my instincts are that one always talks with other countries, especially hostile ones; after all, we hold negotiations with our enemies during war. Still, that’s not Pelosi’s call to make. If she wants to direct American foreign policy, let her run for president.

    UPDATE: Commenter Jeff B and others note a recent trip to Syria by Republican Members and wonder why that’s different.

    My views are much closer to John Burgess‘ than Dave Schuler‘s as to the legitimacy and desirability of Members going overseas per se. I have no problem with Nancy Pelosi or other Members taking junkets to inform their legislation, although I do share Schuler’s sense that they are usually taken for less noble purposes.

    My specific qualm here is with Pelosi meeting with a foreign head of government despite the request of the nation’s Chief Diplomat not to do so. The United States withdrew its ambassador two years ago to protest the Assad government’s role in murdering former Lebanese Prime Rafik al-Hariri. Meeting with Assad under these circumstances, without the blessing of the president, weakens our negotiating stance and sends the message that the United States government does not speak with a single voice in foreign affairs. That is a dangerous signal.

    UPDATE 2: Steven Taylor is similarly unconcerned about Pelosi’s sporting the hijab, has “never been a big fan of members of the legislative branch making big state visits outside of cooperation with the executive branch,” but concedes “members of Congress have every right to make such visits should they choose to.” That’s about right.

  • Mob Rule at Digg

    Mob Rule at Digg

    Charles Johnson provides a case study in the “digital Maoism” at Digg, where gangs of likeminded lefties pounce on any post from his site and ban it from the front page even when it gets hundreds of “diggs.” Indeed, the post pointing out the problem has nearly 600 diggs at the moment but has been effectively kept off the front page.

  • Amanda Marcotte Resigns from Edwards Campaign

    Amanda Marcotte has resigned as John Edwards’ blogger, on the basis that she was creating a distraction for the campaign. Rather than stop there, though, she plays the victim.

    Unfortunately, Bill Donohue and his calvacade of right wing shills don’t respect that a mere woman like me could be hired for my skills…

    What in the world does gender have to do with it? Women have been in key positions on presidential campaigns for years now. Susan Estrich ran Michael Dukakis’ 1988 campaign and Donna Brazile did the same for Al Gore in 2000. Not to put too fine a point on it but campaign blogger is several steps down the ladder.

    In fact, he’s made no bones about the fact that his intent is to “silence” me, as if he—a perfect stranger—should have a right to curtail my freedom of speech.

    I’m not a Bill Donohue fan. (I’m not too keen on Phil Donohue, either, for that matter.) Still, he was making no attempt to “silence” Amanda Marcotte, of whom, like the rest of us out here, 99.99% of the country had never heard. It seems that I read somewhere, though, that freedom of speech includes the right to criticize the opinions and language expressed by others.

    Why? Because I’m a woman? Because I’m pro-choice? Because I’m not religious?

    No, Yes, and Yes. Again, your femaleness has nothing to do with it. It’s because you were working for a man who aspired to be president of the United States and you expressed political views that Donohue disagrees with strongly in a manner that even your candidate found “personally offensive.” If George W. Bush had hired Jeff Goldstein or Charles Johnson in a similar position, I suspect you might have expressed an opinion.

    It’s come to my attention that Donohue’s attempts to separate the Edwards campaign from their employees that were chosen for our skills and talents may in fact be in violation of the tax laws.

    I would love to see the tax-exempt status stripped from a whole lot of groups who engage in political activity. It’s rather ironic, though, to post that sentence immediately after pointing with pride to a letter to the New York Times from Frances Kissling, the president of Catholics for a Free Choice. After all, Kissling is doing precisely what you found so offensive coming from Donohue: Engaging in political speech on one ideological interpretation of Catholic teaching. (A distinctly minority one, in her case, I might add.)

    The blogosphere, obsessed as we are with all things blogosphere, is all over this.

    • Patrick Frey is “genuinely, sincerely saddened.”
    • AllahPundit has video of Marcotte’s appearance on O’Reilly.
    • Dale Franks thinks “maybe people don’t dislike her because she is a woman; maybe people dislike her because she is a jerk.”
    • Ace: “She’s pretty sure that William Donahue went after her so hard because she has a vagina.”
    • Greg Tinti: “Your heart goes out to poor, poor Amanda, doesn’t it? No, mine neither.”
    • Joe Gandelman: “Anyone who works for a campaign could be subject to intense scrutiny if they work in an outreach or public relations-type position.”
    • Chris Bowers: “People are also expected to never say anything that anyone would ever find offensive.”
    • Bride of Acheron: “I imagine Donohue and company ain’t seen nothing yet, on the profane denunciation of their pious theocracy.”
    • Heraclitus has an interesting discussion about the difference tolerance and respect.
    • Lorie Byrd: “Blah, blah, blah…it was all the rightwing godbags’ fault, blah, blah, blah. No way could it be because of her inability to control her filthy hate-spewing mouth.”
    • Andrew Olmsted: “By entering the blogosphere, we choose to put our opinions in print where anyone can see what we have to say. In so doing, most of us look forward to drawing some attention to our ideas. We cannot then turn around and expect to have those ideas overlooked when they become inconvenient.”
    • Taylor Marsh: “she remained true to herself throughout. It’s Edwards who was clueless about whom he’d hired.” [Forgetting, of course, that non-apology apology about how her true self was just a satire. -ed.]
    • Ron Chusid didn’t read Pandagon before this but will now.
    • Commissar: “Notice the frequent insistence that ‘Religious bigots like Donohue don’t speak for all Catholics.’ Well, tell ya what, I am an atheist, and spigot-bigots like you don’t speak for me.”
    • Kathryn Jean Lopez: “Marcotte meanwhile appears to be taking a cue from Nancy Pelosi and playing the gender card, among other silly victimization routes.”
    • Don Surber: “[W]hen you sign her on because of her fame as a blogger, you get what she was blogging about.”
    • Andrew Sullivan: “To be honest, I find the whole idea of bloggers as an integral part of political campaigns a little creepy. When I started blogging, many saw it primarily as a way to challenge those in power – whether in the media or politics or the church or wherever. It was a way to expand the individual’s ability to speak and be heard, as a means to deepen scrutiny of the powerful.”
    • Good Lt.: “By harassment, she merely meant being quoted accurately for the world outside of Pandagon readers to behold.”
    • Jeff Goldstein: “Instead, she continues to see conspiracies rather than geniune outrage—and in so doing, she continues to lean on the crutch of her collective rather than taking a good hard look at her method of discourse.” [Dude… -ed.]
    • Ed Morrissey has the best headline: “Marcotte Quits, Sun To Rise In East In The Morning”
    • Mark Coffey: “Yes, if there is one thing missing from our public discourse, it’s more people willing to describe the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit in a highly sexualized, wholly inappropriate manner…”
    • Michelle Malkin has an extensive roundup. She observes, “So much for that sincere apology. Good news for the nutroots: She’s free, free again to yell ‘Jeebus’ all she wants!”

    It should be noted that Melissa McEwan has not resigned. That should further emphasize that, although they were lumped together in the press, their writing was actually quite different. Aside from being too-clever-by-half in the use of words like “Christofascist,” nobody has ever pointed to anything McEwan has written that approaches Marcotte’s vitriol.

    As an aside, I find it terribly amusing that the top post at Pandagon as I compose this highlights the fact that there are entire categories on the blog for “Censure the F—er” and “A–holes.” Somehow, I don’t think Jesse Taylor or Ezra Klein created those.

  • Reuters Recalls Fake Beirut Photo After Exposed by Blogs

    Reuters Recalls Fake Beirut Photo After Exposed by Blogs

    Reuters has recalled an “altered” photograph hours after coming under assault from the blogosphere.

    A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.

    The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors.

    Reuters Recalls Fake Beirut Photo After Exposed by Blogs

    In the message, Reuters said that “photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvience.”

    Reuters Recalls Fake Beirut Photo After Exposed by Blogs Announcment

    Earlier, Charles Johnson, of the Little Green Footballs blog , which has exposed a previous attempt at fraud by a major American news corporation, wrote : “This Reuters photograph shows blatant evidence of manipulation. Notice the repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly caused by using the Photoshop “clone” tool to add more smoke to the image.”

    Take one night off from blogging to fight a cold and all hell breaks loose. . . .

    Charles Johnson, Rob @ Left and Right, Michelle Malkin, Ace, and AllahPundit are among those who got on this one early and all provide excellent roundups of the photos, evidence, and blog coverage. Johnson, Rob, and Allah, especially, dug up most of the evidence.

    Updated to include the image of the “picture kill” memo itself.

    UPDATE: Rusty Shackleford and Jeff Harrell have excellent rundowns of photographer Adnan Hajj’s rather checkered history.

    UPDATE: Rusty catches Hajj in yet another photoshopping.

    Reuters has announced that it will not use any more of Hajj’s photos. (Contrary to some reports, he hasn’t been “fired.” Stringers can’t be fired, since they’re not employed.)

    Ed Driscoll has a retrospective on how Reuters changed from the world’s most respected wire service to its present unreliable state.

  • The Daily Kos and Israel

    The Daily Kos and Israel

    Dean Barnett argues that the diaries and comments on the current conflict in the Middle East at The Daily Kos foreshadow a major problem for the Democratic party:

    The Conflagration in Lebanon has provided an example of the people-powered movement’s potential to be a liability for the politicians who have tried to curry favor with it.

    Perhaps sensing that this issue could highlight just how far removed the Kos community is from the American mainstream, Moulitsas and his other front-page bloggers have opted to ignore Israel’s war. Combined, the half dozen front-pagers have written exactly one post on the subject. And that post, authored by Moulitsas, simply declared that he wouldn’t write anything further on the subject. So while the most important story of the year develops, the nation’s leading progressive blog has chosen to focus on the Indiana second district House race between Chris Chocola and Joe Donnelly. Nothing wrong with that; it’s their prerogative to blog about whatever they like.

    But inside the Kos diaries, it’s been a different story. The conversation in the diaries has been overwhelmingly anti-Israel–and potentially disastrous for the Democratic party.

    One diarist labeled Israel “a destabilizing force in the region” and saw “no difference between Iran’s support of Hezbollah and Hamas in the form of finances and even arms and The United States’ financial support of Israel.” Before modifying this diary into a more moderate form, the author opened his essay with the declaration, “Israel is showing the entire world why the Iranian President was absolutely right to suggest that Israel cease being a sovereign state as is.”

    Read the full piece.

    I would add that it’s not just at The Daily Kos either. There’s a distinct strain of rabid anti-Israel sentiment that is often found in the comments of major blogs in liberal blogosphere. I hesitate to label all of it as anti-Semitic, however, I have certainly documented examples that can not be labeled any other way.

    And looking at the big picture, Ann Althouse thinks this is indicative of a broader problem for Kos: “The readership is gained with sharp opinions. It wants to transform that readership into political power. But the style and extremity of opinion doesn’t suit the people who need to be won over.”

    UPDATE (James Joyner): I must say, there’s plenty of nutty things written out in the blogosphere (Left and Right) without looking at the comments sections. Certainly, as Anderson notes in the comments below, there are plenty of rantings and ravings in the comments on popular sites out there, including very civil ones, including OTB’s. I’m not sure that’s an indication of much of anything other than that there are plenty of morons who enjoy having a forum in which to spout off.

    The second paragraph of Barnett’s piece, though, alludes to an interesting dichotomy:

    On the one hand, one of the most solid blocks of support for the Democratic party is America’s Jewish community. Not only do America’s Jews tend to vote for Democrats, they tend to actively campaign and raise funds for politicians on the left. But for many American Jews, even the most liberal, Israel’s welfare is a going concern. Politicians who enter the Democratic party (and for that matter the Republican party) usually make a conspicuous show of the fact that they are “right on Israel.”

    For a variety of reasons, most of the most loyal supporters of Israel in American politics are on the Right and/or members of the Republic Party. Yet, most American Jews, for a variety of reasons, support the Democrats. Presumably, this means that, despite the ravings of Pat Buchanan, most American Jews are driven by issues other than Israel.

    UPDATE (James Joyner): Judith Weiss observes that “What’s funny about the Daily Kos diaries is that these guys constantly castigate Charles Johnson for LGF comments, saying he is responsible for them and should be policing his threads, even if he didn’t write them. . . . Now the shoe is on the other foot.” She closes with a question: “So can we agree that if your blog gets hundred of comments a day, you can’t be held responsible for all of them?” Yes, I think we can.

    UPDATE: Although I disagree with his reasoning on why Kos refuses to blog about the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, reader Cernig makes an excellent point about Kos’s refusal in general:

    Kos says he won’t because he grew up in a war zone and knows that “when two sides are dead set on killing each other, very little can get in the way” – and bloviating pundits aren’t one of those things. He says that he has “no desire to get sucked into that no-win situation”.

    Its funny, because he has no problem b[l]ogging about Iraq, or Afghanistan – but those topics are reasonably unproblematic for the Militant Left.

  • Is Google Purging Conservative News Sites?

    Is Google Purging Conservative News Sites?

    Noel Sheppard has a long piece at NewsBusters under the header, “Is Google Purging Conservative News Sites?” As one might expect, he answers in the affirmative.

    Something frighteningly ominous has been happening on the Internet lately: Google, without any prior explanation or notice, has been terminating its News relationship with conservative e-zines and web journals.

    He gives three examples: New Media Journal, Rusty Shackleford’s Jawa Report, and Jim Sesi’s MichNews, all longtime GoogleNews contributors who were recently removed from the index for “hate speech.” Furthermore, he notes that such popular blogs as Michelle Malkin‘s eponymous site and Charles Johnson’s Little Green Footballs have been unable to get picked up by the service.

    The common thread is not so much conservative politics, per se, but a particular viewpoint toward Islamic radicalism. All of these sites either focus on or frequently comment in a negative manner about the connection between Islam and terrorism. Sheppard points out that arguably more radical sites that take the opposite position are indexed.

    Google’s choice of news sites for scanning is inscrutable and frustrating. OTB was among them for months, often getting onto the front page and getting substantial referral traffic. Later, the metric changed and blogs were ranked lower on the results. Still, as OTB was often one of very few indexed sites covering a particular topic, the referrals were still significant. Then, suddenly, on January 7, OTB stopped being indexed. Unlike the above authors, I never received notification that my site was being removed, let alone an explanation. Indeed, several polite email inquiries went unanswered.

    Several other blogs were purged at the same time although, oddly, not all of them. Wizbang and Moderate Voice, for example, are still indexed. The inclusion/exclusion criteria are not apparent. Political ideology does not seem to be decisive, as Wizbang is a relatively conservative blog.

    One can reasonably argue that blogs, especially those which offer mostly opinion, shouldn’t be included in a news search engine. Indeed, I was dubious myself and actually somewhat sheepish about getting page one treatment right along with the New York Times and Washington Post given that OTB seldom has original reporting. Still, I would argue that the good blogs provide more utility that all but the best newspapers. Certainly, we add more than the hundreds of sources that merely provide AP wire stories.

    Sheppard hits on an issue, though, that should concern all of us: The power of gigantic companies like Google over information. Because Google alone accounts for half of all searches, they are the key onramp to the Information Superhighway.

    This penetration has given the company unprecedented influence on society. Appearing on the first page of any word search result list all but assures higher hit rates, which equates to higher revenues for e-tailers as well as brick and mortar retailers using the web to drive traffic, and more reads for news and opinion providers.

    In fact, Google ranking can actually be a determining factor in the success and, perhaps, very viability of online business ventures, especially to companies with limited or no domain name recognition. This reality has given rise to a cottage industry that offers enterprises measures to improve their standings. These Search Engine Optimization companies make use of approved and, sometimes, dubious techniques to coerce better page rankings and, thereby, superior public exposure.

    Sheppard notes that Google’s senior executives and employees as a whole are overwhelmingly Democrat-leaning, with 98% of their political contributions during the last campaign going to one party. The combination of incredible power and that degree of bias can be deadly.

    With that in mind, how much power does a company that disseminates almost half of the country’s word search results command over the opinions of our growing population, and what protections exist against abuses of such overreaching power?

    How does such a company put itself in the position of grand arbiter over what is and what is not “hate speech,” or content otherwise objectionable?

    And, doesn’t this obvious gray area give such a company the unilateral ability to squelch opinions it doesn’t agree with just by applying such a vague moniker to what might be an infinitesimally small percentage of an e-zine or web journal’s content?

    As comforting as the mission statement of unbiased reporting driven by algorithm rather than opinion may sound on paper, the truth is that, with all “approved” news sources contained in a single table, team Google retains complete editorial authority over the parents of the information they give birth to.

    One touch of a key, and, poof: To the Google World, that news site no longer exists! Regrettably, neither do the facts and opinions contained therein.

    Of course, as Fox News Channel has demonstrated, dominance is not permanent. If it becomes widely perceived that Google, rather than being an unbiased technological means for accessing information, actually has an agenda, searchers will go elsewhere. In the short term, though, Google will have substantial latitude in driving eyeballs to Web sites whose content meets the company’s approval.

    Update: Dan Riehl’s Rhiel World View has been totally removed from Google. They won’t tell him why.

  • Lord of the Blogs

    Lord of the Blogs

    Kathleen Parker thinks the world is going to Hell in a handbasket because of “bloggies” who are “the less visible, insidious enemies of decency, humanity and civility – the angry offspring of narcissism’s quickie marriage to instant gratification.”

    There’s something frankly creepy about the explosion we now call the Blogosphere—the big-bang “electroniverse” where recently wired squatters set up new camps each day. As I write, the number of “blogs” (Web logs) and “bloggers” (those who blog) is estimated in the tens of millions worldwide. Although I’ve been a blog fan since the beginning, and have written favorably about the value added to journalism and public knowledge thanks to the new “citizen journalist,” I’m also wary of power untempered by restraint and accountability.

    Creepy?

    Say what you will about the so-called mainstream media, but no industry agonizes more about how to improve its product, police its own members and better serve its communities. Newspapers are filled with carpal-tunneled wretches, overworked and underpaid, who suffer near-pathological allegiance to getting it right.

    Yet, strangely, they succeed so infrequently. I have literally never attended an event or seen it live on television and then seen it accurately reported.

    That a Jayson Blair of The New York Times or a Jack Kelley of USA Today surfaces now and then as a plagiarist or a fabricator ultimately is testament to the high standards tens of thousands of others strive to uphold each day without recognition. Blair and Kelley are infamous, but they’re also gone.

    Bloggers persist no matter their contributions or quality, though most would have little to occupy their time were the mainstream media to disappear tomorrow. Some bloggers do their own reporting, but most rely on mainstream reporters to do the heavy lifting. Some bloggers also offer superb commentary, but most babble, buzz and blurt like caffeinated adolescents competing for the Ritalin generation’s inevitable senior superlative: Most Obsessive-Compulsive.

    The juxtaposition of these arguments in such a small space is bizarre. There are, by Parker’s claim, “tens of millions” of bloggers out there. Who are the bloggers of a stature comparable to Blair or Kelley who have been found out to be fabricators?

    Sure, bloggers “persist” regardless of quality. Since all one needs to do to earn the title “blogger” is start a site, that’s not surprising. But her concern is, presumably, power, especially “power untempered by restraint and accountability.” Lousy bloggers are, with few exceptions, consigned to a readership in the dozens.

    Yes, most bloggers are commentators, not reporters. We don’t pretend otherwise. Reporters, after all, are paid to report. Most bloggers have day jobs. What has that to do with the lack of constraint on powerful bloggers? Further, most reporters seem to aspire to become opinion writers and television talking heads.

    I also agree that most bloggers aren’t very good. Again, though, most bloggers are unread–including some very talented ones who either don’t post with sufficient frequency or focus on a niche of such a narrow appeal as to be unable to build an audience. But that’s true of mainstream reporters and pundits as well. Bloggers are, in essence, freelance writers. While there may be tens of millions of us, only a few hundred are “selling” pieces on a regular basis.

    Anyone who has read a small local paper or watched small market local television or listened to almost any local radio station can attest that most reporters are less than stellar. As with the mainstream press, bloggers with talent tend to rise to greater prominence. In the case of the former, that means getting hired by a major metropolitan or national publication such as the NYT or WaPo, getting a national syndication deal, or getting picked up by one of the networks.

    Even so, they hold the same megaphone as the adults and enjoy perceived credibility owing to membership in the larger world of blog grown-ups. These effete and often clever baby “bloggies” are rich in time and toys, but bereft of adult supervision. Spoiled and undisciplined, they have grabbed the mike and seized the stage, a privilege granted not by years in the trenches, but by virtue of a three-pronged plug and the miracle of WiFi.

    This string of ad hominem invective apparently made it past the adult supervisors. Again, though, it’s wrongheaded. Bloggers don’t “hold the same megaphone” as prominent journalists. Even the most successful bloggers (what a “bloggie” is, I haven’t a clue) such as Glenn Reynolds and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga still have a fraction of the power of the major papers or broadcast networks. Even the most famous case of blogger power, the RatherGate scandal, only happened after the mainstream press focused their attention on the pick and shovel work done by bloggers.

    And why the name-calling? That doesn’t go along with the idea that “professionals,” unlike the great unwashed “bloggies,” are civilized.

    Effete? In comparison with professional journalists?

    Rich in time and toys? Most of us have full-time jobs and do our writing on the side.

    Grabbed the mike and seized the stage? A privilege granted not by years in the trenches? Such envy is quite odd coming from someone who has had the stage of a nationally syndicated column since her early 30s.

    Furthermore, most bloggers who have any influence at all have achieved some degree of success outside the field of persuasive writing before joining the blogosphere. Virtually everyone at the top rungs of the Ecosystem has a law degree (Reynolds, all three Power Liners, Moulitsas, most Volokhers, Hugh Hewitt), a Ph.D. (Josh Marshall, Duncan “Atrios” Black, Andrew Sullivan, the rest of the Volokhers), success in the business/tech world (Charles Johnson, Ed Morrissey, Kevin Aylward), military experience (Moulitsas again, Greyhawk), or is an established journalist (Michelle Malkin, Marshall again, Sullivan again).

    Indeed, it is the ability to bring genuine expertise from the “real world” that has made many of these people successful in the blogosphere. They add insight and information that even the best journalists can’t be expected to have, simply by virtue of having chosen a different profession.

    They play tag team with hyperlinks (“I’ll say you’re important if you’ll say I’m important) and shriek “Gotcha!” when they catch some weary wage earner in a mistake or oversight. Plenty smart but lacking in wisdom, they possess the power of a forum, but neither the maturity nor humility that years of experience impose.

    There’s no doubt that this is true of a lot of bloggers. It’s true, too, of a lot of reporters. After all, young reporters are immature, too. Many old ones lack humility. But in blogging and reporting, the best tend to rise to the top.

    Each time I wander into blogdom, I’m reminded of the savage children stranded on an island in William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies.” Without adult supervision, they organize themselves into rival tribes, learn to hunt and kill, and eventually become murderous barbarians in the absence of a civilizing structure.

    What Golding demonstrated – and what we’re witnessing as the Blogosphere’s offspring multiply – is that people tend to abuse power when it is unearned and will bring down others to enhance themselves. Likewise, many bloggers seek the destruction of others for their own self-aggrandizement. When a mainstream journalist stumbles, they pile on like so many savages, hoisting his or her head on a bloody stick as Golding’s children did the fly-covered head of a butchered sow.

    Again, someone with much more power than all but the best bloggers—and Parker is not among the most powerful syndicated columnists—casts wide aspersions on “tens of millions” of people based on a handful of (unspecified) incidents.

    Schadenfreude—pleasure in others’ misfortunes—has become the new barbarity on an island called Blog. When someone trips, whether Dan Rather or Eason Jordan or Judith Miller, bloggers are the bloodthirsty masses slavering for a public flogging. Incivility is their weapon and humanity their victim.

    Trips?! Dan Rather tried to influence a presidential election with a completely fabricated story that he spent months on. It took bloggers a few hours to uncover the truth. Rather had far more power than all the bloggers put together. And certainly less “humility.” Even after his lies were revealed, he was still allowed to keep his anchor chair for months and retire at his own leisure. And he still has a high-paying job with the network as a “professional journalist.”

    Judith Miller is a criminal who is getting rich from her misdeeds. It took bloggers much less time to come around to the conclusion that she was an embarrassment to the journalistic profession than it took her adult supervisors.

    Eason Jordan had zero judgment, repeatedly made slanderous charges without evidence, and yet rose to become the adult supervisor of the flagship network in cable news. I’m not sure he’s someone one should bring up when defending the virtues of the mainstream press vice the blogosphere.

    I mean no disrespect to the many brilliant people out there – professors, lawyers, doctors, philosophers, scientists and other journalists who also happen to blog. Again, they know who they are. But we should beware and resist the rest of the ego-gratifying rabble who contribute only snark, sass and destruction.

    We can’t silence them, but for civilization’s sake – and the integrity of information by which we all live or die – we can and should ignore them.

    And “we” do. By any measure, the most influential bloggers are precisely the former. With the exception of humor blogs like Scrappleface and IMAO, the only widely read and cited “snark, sass, and destruction” site that I can think of is Wonkette. That, ironically, is a site written by a career journalist, financed by a media empire, and incessantly cited by mainstream journos as the archetypical blog.

    Update: Steven Taylor offers more commentary on the Parker piece, including this point:

    Are there annoying, vicious bloggers? Oh, yes. Of course, in some cases, the venom is in the eye of the partisan. Of course, there are some pretty obnoxious TV pundit and talk radio hosts. Kos says some pretty mean, obnoxious things about his partisan foes, but then again, so do folks like Al Franken and Rush Limbaugh. What’s the difference, aside from the medium in which the the statement are being made?

    The same is true of Ann Coulter, Ted Rall, and others who have made careers in the print world, too.

    Update (12/29): Welcome Eschaton readers!

    Update (12/31): LaShawn Barber got an email from Kathleen Parker after her own post on the matter. She says, in part,

    Hey, I’m the one who’s been complaining about media bias the past 20 years—mostly alone, I might add. It’s a wonder I’ve survived in my own industry. I figured as often as I have praised blogs and eaten my own, I had earned the right to point out flaws in the blogosphere.

    Is she kidding? Alone in complaining about media bias? It’s a virtual national pastime.

    And one doesn’t have to earn a right to point out flaws in the blogosphere. It’s one’s birthright as an American. To be taken seriously, however, requires making substantive points rather than broad brush ad hominem rants.

    Correction: The original referred to Kos’ Markos Moulitsas Zuniga repeatedly as “Zuniga” rather than “Moulitsas.”

  • Open Source (Pajamas) Media: An Early Assessment

    The thing bloggers most like to blog about is blogging itself, especially the hypothesis that blogging will one day transform the global media–if it already hasn’t. Thus, it’s not surprising that yesterday’s launch of Open Source (nee’ Pajamas) Media is among the hottest topics in the blogosphere. Of course, if you just like to read blogs, it may be the most boring topic in the blogosphere.

    Below is a lengthy collection of responses to a survey I sent out yesterday to several prominent bloggers associated with OSM/PJM supplemented with other blogger commentary on the subject.
    (more…)

  • Bush: Islamic Militants of Trying to Intimidate World

    Bush: Islamic Militants of Trying to Intimidate World

    President Bush has made the stunning announcement that Islamic extremists are big rotten meanies.

    Bush Accuses Islamic Militants of Trying to Intimidate World (AP)

    President Bush accused Islamic militants on Thursday of seeking to “enslave whole nations and intimidate the world” and charged they have made Iraq their main front. “The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia,” Bush said. The president has been stepping up his defense of his Iraq policy in the face of declining public support for the war and a crucial test in Iraq with the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum.

    In a speech before the National Endowment for Democracy, Bush likened the ideology of Islamic militants to communism. And he said they are being “aided by elements of the Arab news media that incites hatred and anti-semitism.” “Against such an enemy, there’s only one effective response: We never back down, never give in and never accept anything less than complete victory,” Bush declared.

    […]

    “We are facing a radical ideology with inmeasurable objectives to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world,” Bush said.

    Well, no #$%@. This is a “major speech”?!

    Update (1119): As more reporting becomes available, it appears that my reaction to the initial AP report was hasty. From the extended remarks:

    Bush said the terrorists are aided by corrupt charities that direct money to terrorist activities and nations, such as Syria and Iran, calling them “allies of convenience” that back terrorists.

    Countering claims that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is fueling radicalism, Bush noted that American troops were not there on Sept. 11, 2001. He said Russia did not support the military action in Iraq, yet a terrorist attack in Beslan, Russia, left more than 300 schoolchildren dead in 2004. “The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in the war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror,” he said.

    “Our commitment is clear — we will not relent until the organized international terror networks are exposed and broken and their leaders held to account for their acts of murder,” Bush said. The president said that no one should estimate the difficulties ahead, nor should anyone be pessimistic about U.S. efforts to battle terrorism.

    “With every random bombing. And with every funeral of a child, it becomes more clear that the extremists are not patriots, or resistance fighters,” Bush said. “They are murderers at war with the Iraqi people themselves.”

    Bush also took on war critics in the United States. “There’s always a temptation in the middle of a long struggle to seek the quiet life, to escape the duties and problems of the world and to hope the enemy grows weary of fanaticism and tired of murder,” he said. But Bush vowed to not to retreat from Iraq or from the broader war on terrorism. “We will keep our nerve and we will win that victory,” he said.

    I’m still not sure this constitutes a “major speech” but these are at least substantive points to make.

    Update: The White House has the full text of the speech online: President Discusses War on Terror at National Endowment for Democracy.

    Walid Phares finds the speech historic for a simple reason:

    Finally, four years after the bloodiest Jihadi attack on the Western Hemisphere, and perhaps worldwide, the President of the United States named the enemy: He used the “ISM” word. It was lastly uttered..

    In his speech this morning Text, President Bush said: “Some call this (ideology) evil Islamic radicalism, others, militant Jihadism, still others, Islamo-facism. Whatever it’s called, this ideology (…) serves a vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire.” Then he goes on to describe its strategies, the US counter plans and the rationale of American moves around the world to fight the War on Terror. While I’ll post later a global analysis of the speech, looking at the advances and the misses, one significant step has been made: Ladies and Gentlemen: we have the names of the enemy…

    Indeed, it can be called Islamic radicalism, militant Jihadism, or Islamo-facism. Now we have an “ISM.” Better we have three of them!

    A good point. Since most of us have been using those words for years, it didn’t strike me as unusual. Phares is right, though: The president has scrupulously avoided naming the enemy as other than a tactic (terrorism) rather than an ideology.

    Charles Johnson agrees, noting, “There was still quite a bit of political eggshell-walking, but this marks the first time that Bush has identified and described the real goals of radical Islam—to re-establish the mythical caliphate and the global dominance of Islam.”

    Donald Sensing was also impressed, saying Bush’s speech “was one of the best on the subject he has ever made. He said what needed to be said and took more time than he has usually used when speaking about the war.”

    Glenn Reynolds heard it on the radio and deemed it “a really first-rate speech”

    Bill Quick, meanwhile, shares my initial reaction:

    Man, this doesn’t even sound like decent bullhooey, let alone that it makes no sense. Determined to deny WMD to outlaw regimes? You mean like Syria and Iran? And, of course, Saudi Arabia isn’t an outlaw regime at all, never mind that it supplies ninety percent of the financing to Islamist terrorism everywhere in the world.

    Of course, it’s likely academic since almost no one actually heard the speech. This means Steven Taylor’s rule of speeches comes into effect: All that really matters is the sound bytes. We’ll see which ones the press glom onto.

    That is, unless one follows Dan Spencer‘s advice:

    Reading summaries, excerpts and critiques lets others do the thinking for you. Snippets can’t help you grasp the import, which you should have especially if you want to disagree in a knowledgeable manner. This speech deserves to be read in its entirety. Please invest the 30 minutes required to read, listen or watch the whole thing.

    But, since we know most people won’t do that, the sound bytes will prevail.

  • Newsweek: Koran Toilet Story Wrong

    Newsweek: Koran Toilet Story Wrong

    Newsweek now confesses that its report that American soldiers in Guantanimo had flushed a Koran down a toilet as a means of gaining information from hostages–blamed by many for inciting violence that has killed at least nine people–was erroneous.

    Mark Whitaker, The Editor’s Desk

    Last Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told us that a review of the probe cited in our story showed that it was never meant to look into charges of Qur’an desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them “not credible.” Our original source later said he couldn’t be certain about reading of the alleged Qur’an incident in the report we cited, and said it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts. Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we. But we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.

    How a Fire Broke Out

    NEWSWEEK was not the first to report allegations of desecrating the Qur’an. As early as last spring and summer, similar reports from released detainees started surfacing in British and Russian news reports, and in the Arab news agency Al-Jazeera; claims by other released detainees have been covered in other media since then. But the NEWSWEEK report arrived at a particularly delicate moment in Afghan politics. Opponents of the Karzai government, including remnants of the deposed Taliban regime, have been looking for ways to exploit public discontent. The Afghan economy is weak, and the government (pressed by the United States) has alienated farmers by trying to eradicate their poppy crops, used to make heroin in the global drug trade. Afghan men are sometimes rounded up during ongoing U.S. military operations, and innocents can sit in jail for months. When they are released, many complain of abuse. President Karzai is still largely respected, but many Afghans regard him as too dependent on and too obsequious to the United States. With Karzai scheduled to come to Washington next week, this is a good time for his enemies to make trouble.

    That does not quite explain, however, why the protest and rioting over Qur’an desecration spread throughout the Islamic region. After so many gruesome reports of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, the vehemence of feeling around this case came as something of a surprise. Extremist agitators are at least partly to blame, but obviously the reports of Qur’anic desecration touch a particular nerve in the Islamic world. U.S. officials, including President George W. Bush, are uneasily watching, and last week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pointedly remarked that any desecration of the Qur’an would not be “tolerated” by the United States. (As a legal matter, U.S. citizens are free to deface the Qur’an as an exercise of free speech, just as they are free to burn the American flag or tear up a Bible; but government employees can be punished for violating government rules.)

    […]

    On Friday night, Pentagon spokesman DiRita called NEWSWEEK to complain about the original PERISCOPE item. He said, “We pursue all credible allegations” of prisoner abuse, but insisted that the investigators had found none involving Qur’an desecration. DiRita sent NEWSWEEK a copy of rules issued to the guards (after the incidents mentioned by General Myers) to guarantee respect for Islamic worship. On Saturday, Isikoff spoke to his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Qur’an, including a toilet incident. But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report. Told of what the NEWSWEEK source said, DiRita exploded, “People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?”

    […]

    A U.S. military spokesman, Army Col. Brad Blackner, dismissed the claims as unbelievable. “If you read the Al Qaeda training manual, they are trained to make allegations against the infidels,” he said.

    Quite right. One would think that incredulity would be the first instinct of any decent newsman upon hearing such tales. While it’s certainly true that there have been incidents at Guantanimo and Abu Ghraib that would make this type of thing seem perfectly plausible, the truth of the matter is that sensitivity on religious matters has been the norm in our handling of prisoners from the outset. Indeed, part of what made the Abu Ghraib scandal so aggregious was that it undermined our efforts to build trust within the Islamic world.

    I understand, too, the pressures journalists are under to get to press as quickly as possible. That’s true even in the blogosphere. But given the high profile Newsweek has and the incredible sensitivity of the allegations at hand, they had a duty to be damned sure they had it right before running with the story. Their haste and willingness to believe the worst about America’s military helped get a lot of people killed.

    Michelle Malkin, Charles Johnson, Ed Morrissey, Roger Simon, Matt at Blackfive, and others are on this one as well.

    Update (1833): Ian Schwartz has video.

    Update (5-16, 0851): Greyhawk and Michelle Malkin have some thoughts as to who the leaker might be.

    Meanwhile, Dean Esmay believes this incident proves that Newsweek‘s editors are “enemy propagandists” and LaShawn Barber concurs, noting this week’s anti-George Washington cover story as further evidence of their “anti-American bias.” While I wouldn’t go that far, it’s hard to argue that Newsweek and many other mainstream press outlets are less than eager to report news that puts the American war effort in a bad light. The difference is morally substantial. Sadly, it’s effectively no difference at all.

    Belmont Club’s Wretchard and others argue that Newsweek should be held liable for the deaths incited by their shoddy story. Jay Tea argues, correctly in my view, that this is nonsense. The proper sanction against Newsweek is increased public skepticism of stories with a “Newsweek” byline, which CBS News and the NYT also suffered recently. Credibility is the chief currency of the press. Newsweek is much poorer than it was last week.

  • Letter to al-Zarqawi Cites Low Morale

    Letter to al-Zarqawi Cites Low Morale

    Possible letter to al-Zarqawi cites low morale (CNN)

    The U.S. military said Tuesday it has seized a letter from Iraqi insurgents believed to be intended for Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi complaining about low morale among followers and weakening support for the insurgency. The authenticity of the letter — which the military said American troops found Thursday in a raid in Baghdad — could not be independently verified.

    The letter — which never refers to al-Zarqawi by name — is written to Sheik Abu Ahmad, a name not known to be used by the militant leader or his followers. But supporters often call al-Zarqawi the Sheik or Sheik Abu Musab in letters and on Web sites. “What has happened to myself and my brothers is an unforgivable crime, but God will punish the oppressor,” the letter reads. “I swear by God that you will be asked about what happened to us because you have not asked about the situation of the migrants. Morale is down and there is fatigue among mujahedeen ranks. “There is discrimination by some of the brethren emirs. God would not accept such actions, and a simple mistake delays victory, so what about big mistakes and gross guilts? Many underestimate them and are lenient toward them.”

    So we have a letter whose authenticity can not be verified from an individual we do not know written to someone called “Sheik” that indicates at least one person is dissatisfied with said Sheik? Color me unimpressed.

    Charles Johnson and Jonah Goldberg are slightly more excited.

  • Media Matters Dings Drudge for AP Error

    Media Matters Dings Drudge for AP Error

    Media Matters for America attempts to smear Matt Drudge by doing exactly what they accuse Drudge of doing, only worse:

    Drudge tried to smear Kerry with false AP charge that he outed CIA operative

    Conservative Internet gossip Matt Drudge attempted to smear Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) by linking to an Associated Press report that falsely suggested that Kerry and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) “may have blown” the cover of CIA officer Fulton Armstrong.

    Drudge went further than the AP in implicating Kerry. Omitting Lugar’s name, he titled the link simply “Kerry Blows CIA Agent Cover?…” The AP article, written by AP diplomatic writer Anne Gearan, reported that Kerry and Lugar both mentioned Armstrong by name during the April 11 Senate confirmation hearings of John Bolton, President Bush’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and falsely suggested that they “may have blown his cover” by doing so.

    The blogosphere was all over this yesterday morning, with Michelle Malkin and others debunking the story while the Washington Post and others were falling for it. Charles Johnson and several other conservative sites also elided Lugar’s participation in this, for which I dinged them yesterday. But, as Kevin Aylward notes, “[Lugar’s] name hardly captures reader interest the way a former candidate for President does.”

    Frankly, Matt Drudge does something several times of week worthy of scorn. But linking to an AP story and pulling out the juicest “fact” from it is not among them.

  • Did Lugar and Kerry Name CIA Operative?

    Did Lugar and Kerry Name CIA Operative?

    The AP reports that Senator Richard Lugar and John Kerry may have outed a covert CIA operative in yesterday’s hearings on John Bolton’s nomination to the U.N.

    Senators May Have Named CIA Operative (AP – SFGate, WaPo A10)

    Mr. Smith came to Washington again Monday, as an alias for a Central Intelligence Agency officer who works covertly. Senators, however, may have blown his cover. During questioning on John R. Bolton’s nomination to be President Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bolton and members of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee referred to “Mr. Smith” as one official among several who were involved in a dispute over what Democrats asserted was Bolton’s inappropriate treatment of an intelligence analyst who disagreed with him.

    “We referred to this other analyst at the CIA, whom I’ll try and call Mr. Smith here, I hope I can keep that straight,” Bolton said at one point.

    Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., both mentioned a name, Fulton Armstrong, that had not previously come up in public accounts of the intelligence flap. It is not clear whether Armstrong is the undercover officer, but an exchange between Kerry and Bolton suggests that he may be. In questioning Bolton, Kerry read from a transcript of closed-door interviews that committee staffers conducted with State Department officials prior to Monday’s hearing. “Did Otto Reich share his belief that Fulton Armstrong should be removed from his position? The answer is yes,” Kerry said, characterizing one interview. “Did John Bolton share that view?” Kerry said, and then said the answer again was yes. “As I said, I had lost confidence in Mr. Smith, and I conveyed that,” Bolton replied evenly. “I thought that was the honest thing to do.”

    It should be noted that the WaPo version of the story used “[the person in question]” rather than “Fulton Armstrong.”

    Michelle Malkin does some digging and finds that Armstrong’s name is hardly a state secret:

    Arms Control Wonk , the blog of Research Fellow Jeffrey Lewis at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, provides four previous media citations of the agent’s name–all which make public reference to the agent, Fulton Armstrong, and the specific intelligence controversy at issue–dating back to September 2002.

    Charles Johnson ignores the fact that Republican committee chair Lugar is mentioned in the story and notes only that, “John F. Kerry may have blown the cover of a CIA agent.” The excerpt Johnson provides is identical to mine. In an update to the post, though, he notes that a Google search reveals numerous mentions of Armstrong.

    World O’ Crap notes that one can even find Armstrong’s bio online.

    Fulton T. Armstrong was appointed National Intelligence Officer for Latin America on 1 June 2000. Previously Mr. Armstrong served as Chief of Staff of the DCI Crime and Narcotics Center (CNC). Prior to that, he served two terms as a Director for Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council (1995- 97 and 1998-99) and as Deputy NIO for Latin America (1997-98).

    Mr. Armstrong began his government career in 1980 as Legislative Assistant and Press Secretary to US Representative Jim Leach. In 1984-95, he served as analyst, political-economic officer, and manager specializing in Latin America in the both the intelligence and policy communities.

    Prior to joining government, Mr. Armstrong worked four years as a reporter, editor, and translator in Taiwan. He earned his B.S. in Linguistics and Spanish at Georgetown University in 1976. He is fluent in Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.

    Athena, in Cori Dauber’s comments, notes that Armstrong is an analyst, not an agent, which means he’s by definition not a covert operative.

    Not much of a story here, it seems.

  • Former Marine Says Saddam Capture Staged

    Former Marine Says Saddam Capture Staged

    Ex-Marine Says Public Version of Saddam Capture Fiction (WHAM13 Rochester – UPI)

    A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated. Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army.

    “I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced,” Abou Rabeh said. “We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed,” he said. He said Saddam himself fired at them with a gun from the window of a room on the second floor. Then they shouted at him in Arabic: “You have to surrender. … There is no point in resisting.”

    “Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam’s capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well,” Abou Rabeh said.

    Abou Rabeh was interviewed in Lebanon.

    Given Rabeh’s Arab descent, the fact that he’s apparently now living in Lebanon, and that the interview was with a Saudi paper, I’m naturally skeptical of his motivations. Further, I’m always dubious of the ability of large organizations to keep this type of thing secret for any length of time–more so in cases like this, where large sums of money are to be made.

    Still, we can’t discount this entirely. The U.S. military has fed propaganda to the press or allowed helpful-but-wrong reports to go unchallenged numerous times in the past. The Jessica Lynch story is but the most obvious example from this war. There was certainly a propaganda advantage to having the Iraqi people believe Saddam was a coward, hiding in a spider hole and then refusing to fight.

    Hat tip: What Really Happened

    Update (2019): Michelle Malkin agrees, observing, “I’d like to hear from other soldiers in the unit.” She also points to Charles Johnson, who gives the story no credence and reminds us of a July LGF account of another soldier of Arab descent who was part of the capture party, corroborating the official story. Even better, ETJ of The Neoconservative provides links saying no Marines took part in the mission!

  • Palestinian Anger?

    Palestinian Anger?

    Charles Johnson notices a certain lack of enthusiasm for the Tel Aviv bombing;

    Palestinians expressed anger Saturday at an overnight suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed four Israelis and threatened a fragile truce, a departure from former times when they welcomed attacks on their Israeli foes.

    […]

    In contrast to the dozens of previous suicide bombings, no celebrations were held in the West Bank on Saturday and militant groups didn’t hang the customary posters of congratulations at the bomber’s home.

  • The New Four Horsemen of the Ablogalypse?

    The New Four Horsemen of the Ablogalypse?

    Almost two years ago, Max Sawicky dubbed Glenn Reynolds, Andrew Sullivan, Charles Johnson, & Steven den Beste the Four Horsemen of the Ablogalypse.

    Dan Riehl thinks it’s time for a change. I must admit, the new set is much scarier.

  • Handicapped Child Said Used in Iraq Suicide Attack

    Handicapped Child Said Used in Iraq Suicide Attack

    Child Said Used in Iraq Suicide Attack (AP – WaPo)

    Iraq’s interior minister said Monday that insurgents used a handicapped child as one of the suicide bombers who launched attacks on election day. Falah al-Naqib told reporters in Baghdad that 38 attacks were carried out on polling stations in Iraq on Sunday and that one of the suicide bombings was carried out by a disabled child. “A handicapped child was used to carry out a suicide attack on a polling site,” al-Naqib said. “This is an indication of what horrific actions they are carrying out.” He gave no other details about the attack, but police at the scene of one the Baghdad blasts said the bomber appeared to have Down’s Syndrome.

    As Charles Johnson notes,”it strongly suggests that the mujahideen are running out of willing suicide killers.” Of course, it might just be that they are equal opportunity employers. . . .

  • Blog Traffic from Mainstream Media

    John Hawkins notes a curious phenomenon that I’ve noticed myself: mentions of a blog in a major newspaper or opinion column almost invariably send far less traffic to a blog than a mention in even a semi-prominent blog. This past February, I was featured prominently in a story in the Washington Post. I noticed no significant spike in traffic. Ditto appearances on national radio shows or articles published at Tech Central Station. A mention from, say, Dean Esmay or Bill at INDC Journal, though, will send hundreds of visitors my way.

    John hypothesizes that this has to do with the level of engagement of readers:

    Could it be possible that more people actually read Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit each day than read Howard Kurtz? Does Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs actually have more people laying eyeballs on what he writes each day than say any one column at MSNBC?

    While this is indeed possible, my guess is it has to do with the nature of the readers rather than the number. People reading blogs expect there to be links to back up assertions and the culture of the blogosphere demands that we link to our sources, including other blogs. Many blogs are mainly links with a couple of snappy comments. Blog readers, therefore, are accustomed to following links. By contrast, most mentions of a website in the online version of a newspaper story don’t even contain a link to the site in question. Newspaper readers are accustomed to taking the reporters’ word for it and to a self-contained experience.

    I’m sure Howard Kurtz–and certainly, Tom Friedman–have more readers than I do. Ego-wise, there’s not much question that being mentioned by Friedman or Kurtz would be more gratifying. From a sheer traffic standpoint, though, you’d rather have a link from OTB than a mention from one of them.

  • President Bush Rescues Secret Service Agent

    President Bush Rescues Secret Service Agent

    Bush aids Secret Service agent (CNN)

    It was a rare moment of role reversal — U.S. President George W. Bush coming to the aid of a man paid to protect him. Upon arriving for an official dinner with world leaders gathered for the annual APEC summit on Saturday night, the president stopped after hearing commotion at the door of the Estacion Mapocho Cultural Center. According to a videotape of the incident, Bush turned around and saw that one of his Secret Service agents was being forcefully restrained from entering by Chilean Chilean security guards. The president dove into the crowd, where people were arguing and pushing one another, and pulled the agent through the door of center. After the successful rescue, Bush turned around, cocked his head proudly at his maneuver and began to greet his hosts.

    The White House is downplaying the incident as an unfortunate misunderstanding with Chilean security services. “There was some confusion over whether the president’s Secret Service agent could accompany him to the dinner, but the issue was resolved,” White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan told CNN.

    The president is in the Chilean capital for the weekend Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, making his first international trip since winning a second term on November 2.

    Bush Pulls Top Security Agent From Fracas (AP)

    President Bush stepped into the middle of a confrontation and pulled his lead Secret Service agent away from Chilean security officials who barred his bodyguards from entering an elegant dinner for 21 world leaders Saturday night.

    Several Chilean and American agents got into a pushing and shoving match outside the cultural center where the dinner was held. The incident happened after Bush and his wife, Laura, had just posed for pictures on a red carpet with the host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and his wife, Luisa Duran.

    As Bush stepped inside, Chilean agents closed ranks at the door, blocking the president’s agents from following. Stopping for more pictures, Bush noticed the fracas and turned back. He reached through the dispute and pulled his agent from the scrum and into the building. The president, looking irritated, straightened his shirt cuffs as he went into the dinner. The incident was shown on APEC television. “Chilean security tried to stop the president’s Secret Service from accompanying him,” said White House deputy press secretary Claire Buchan. “He told them they were with him and the issue was resolved.”

    Two rather different takes on the same incident. Pretty amusing either way.

    Daily Recycler has the video.

    Jeff Goldstein, John Hinderacker, Charles Johnson, Betsy Newmark, and the Corner’s KJL all think Bush is a badass.

  • Report: CIA Agent Beheaded on Video

    Report: CIA Agent Beheaded on Video

    Reuters – Video Purportedly Shows Killing of Iraq ‘CIA Agent’

    A Web site used by Islamic militants carried a video on Wednesday purporting to show militants beheading a “CIA agent” in Iraq. The four-minute long footage showed a Western-looking man sitting on a chair surrounded by armed masked men. One of the men struck the captive’s neck repeatedly with a sword, severing his head amid shouts of “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest). A militant later held up the severed head for the camera. An Arabic sign placed around the man’s neck identified him as a “CIA agent.” The video, which could not be immediately authenticated, showed what seemed to be the captive’s picture identification card with the caption “visitor.”

    The Web site did not say which group issued the video, nor did the masked men identify themselves or make any political statements as previous kidnappers in Iraq had. The men could be heard speaking in the background but the audio quality was too poor to understand. The tired-looking captive was wearing a plain shirt and trousers.

    Militants in Iraq have waged a campaign of kidnapping aimed at driving out individuals, companies and troops supporting U.S. forces and the new Iraqi interim administration.
    Scores of hostages have been kidnapped by armed groups. Some have been freed but at least nine have been killed — including an American, a South Korean and a Bulgarian.

    Even Drudge, from whence the link came, is downplaying this one–with the big font treatment going to an offshore hurricane. That, combined with the fact that there was no pre-beheading video publicizing the hostage and demanding ransom, no orange jumpsuit, and so forth, should cause skepticism.

    Others blogging:

    UPDATE: Alleged CIA Agent Beheaded (August 25)

  • Allawi Shooting Insurgents?

    Allawi Shooting Insurgents?

    Via e-mail I find that Eschaton has found several reports in Australian sources that interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi personally shot some accused insurgents.

    Sydney Morning Herald – Allawi shot prisoners in cold blood: witnesses

    Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings. They say the prisoners – handcuffed and blindfolded – were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city’s south-western suburbs. They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they “deserved worse than death”.

    The Prime Minister’s office has denied the entirety of the witness accounts in a written statement to the Herald, saying Dr Allawi had never visited the centre and he did not carry a gun. But the informants told the Herald that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister’s personal security team watched in stunned silence.

    A similar report:

    Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) – Iraqi PM shot inmates, says witnesses

    Two unnamed people, who are alleged to have witnessed the shootings, told Australian journalist Paul McGeough that Iyad Allawi allegedly shot the insurgents in a courtyard adjacent to a maximum security cell in Baghdad. Dr Allawi’s office has denied the claims. A written statement to Mr McGeough says that Dr Allawi has not visited the prison and does not carry a gun. But Mr McGeough stands by his claims.

    While I disagree with the characterization at Eschaton and Rooftop Report that this incident–if actually true– makes Allawi tantamount to “another Saddam,” it’s certainly disturbing. Saddam tortured and killed innocent people; these people are mass murderers who are causing misery for average Iraqis. I have no problem with the execution of the insurgents; goodness knows they deserve it. But it’s customary to hold trials first once they’re in custody.

    So far, this appears to be one reporter’s version of events based on alleged eyewitness accounts. Allawi, who hasn’t been shy about going after the insurgents and even imposing a form of martial law, denies the account. Certainly, in Arab culture, shooting mass murderers wouldn’t exactly hurt his standing.

    McGeough offers some background assessment of Allawi in a separate piece, which has a rather sneering, op-ed tone. I don’t know anything about the man’s credentials as a journalist but I’m a bit suspicious of his motivations.

    Update:

    ABC Lateline – Iraqi PM executed six insurgents: witnesses

    MAXINE McKEW: Paul McGeough, thanks for joining us. Paul, as you’ve also made clear in your article, Prime Minister Allawi has flatly denied this story. Why then is the Herald so confident about publishing it?

    PAUL McGEOUGH, ‘SYDNEY MORNING HERALD’ AND ‘AGE’ FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Well it’s a very contentious issue. What you have is two very solid eyewitness accounts of what happened at a police security complex in a south-west Baghdad suburb. They are very detailed. They were done separately.
    Each witness is not aware that the other spoke. They were contacted through personal channels rather than through the many political, religious or military organisations working in Baghdad that might be trying to spin a tale.

    The American press, sort of, has caught on to the story: UPI/Washington Times – Report: Allawi shot Iraqi suspects

    Other bloggers covering this:

    Takes vary, with most wanting to wait and see. Not surprisingly, those who support the war are more skeptical of the report than those who oppose it.

    Update: As of 5:00 Eastern, the story hasn’t made GoogleNews or the front of the NYT or WaPo websites. They have updated with the Martha Stewart sentencing and the latest Tour de France news, however.

    Update: Joe Katzman agrees that having people think he personally shoots insurgents is not necessarily a bad thing for Iraqi domestic consumption. It would obviously be much more problematic externally.

  • Marine’s Kin Defends Son to Fellow Arabs

    Marine’s Kin Defends Son to Fellow Arabs

    Well, just when you thought this one couldn’t get any stranger:

    AP –Marine’s Kin Defends Son to Fellow Arabs

    Relatives of a U.S. Marine who surfaced in Beirut nearly three weeks after an apparent kidnapping in Iraq appealed for understanding from fellow Arabs on Saturday, saying the Lebanese-born man emigrated and joined the Marines for financial reasons. . . . In Hassoun’s native city of Tripoli, his family issued a statement saying he was forced to go to the United States and join the Marines because of the deteriorating economic situation caused by Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.

    The statement appeared aimed at countering criticism by some fundamentalist Sunni Muslims in Tripoli who accused Hassoun’s family of being “American agents and collaborators.” It stressed the family’s Arab and Islamic ties, and its loyalty to Lebanon. “We are a family of Lebanese Arab Muslims. We are not seeking to defend ourselves,” the Hassoun family’s statement said. “But we would like to thank the Lebanese for sympathizing with one of their sons (Hassoun) who was pushed by the difficult living conditions in their home country to emigrate and forced to work in a position that they may not like.” The statement said Hassoun, 24, was “driven by the lure of a good life to emigrate, (but he) might have made a mistake by choosing to sign a four-year contract with the U.S. Navy, which expires by the end of 2005.”

    ***

    On Thursday, two people were killed and three others wounded in a Tripoli gunbattle between members of the Hassoun clan and business rivals who taunted them as being American collaborators. The Hassoun clan, estimated at about 4,000 people, lives mostly in Tripoli and Dinniyah, northern areas where anti-American fundamentalist Sunni Muslim groups are dominant.


    Baldilocks     has some comments on this development that I can’t read because blogrolling.com won’t load and thus neither will her post, entitled “Loyal to Whom.” Charles Johnson finds it “utterly contemptible;” his commenters feel somewhat more strongly.

    The loyalty question is indeed a fair one when we have non-citizens in our armed forces, especially when we send them to assignments where there is an obvious conflict. We had an incident earlier in the war where a Muslim soldier murdered several of his comrades with a grenade and, certainly, Hassoun’s fidelity is in question here.

    Questions of divided loyalty has always been a fact of life for American soldiers. Certainly, there were Tory spies in the colonial army during the War for Independence; after all, it was the Patriots who were committing an act of treason against the Crown. Certainly, there were Southerners who fought for the Union and northerners who faught for the Confederacy during the Civil War. American soldiers of German, Italian, and Japanese descent who fought in WWII and those of Russian and East European extraction who served during the Cold War.

    One would think that Muslim soldiers, especially those who were born in the Middle East, would be subject to more strenous security checks than their native-born counterparts. (Hell, I get a more thorough going-over because my mother was born in Germany.) Still, there are undeniably risks involved. Those risks, however, would seem to be greatly outweighed by the linguistic skills and cultural understanding that these troops bring to the table. Operations in Haiti and Somalia during the 1990s simply couldn’t have been undertaken without the help of recent immigrants serving in our armed forces who brought language skills that were otherwise virtually absent. Likewise, we’re in desperate need for Arab linguists. The more native speakers we can recruit–properly screened, to be sure–the fewer we have to train.

  • Gore Unglued 2: Bush Lied

    Gore Unglued 2: Bush Lied

    Al Gore’s at it again, although this time with less frothing at the mouth.

    Reuters — Gore: Bush Lied About al-Qaida, Iraq Link

    Al Gore on Thursday accused President Bush of lying about a link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein and said the president refuses to back down from that position to avoid political fallout.

    “They dare not admit the truth lest they look like complete fools for launching our country into a reckless, discretionary war against a nation that posed no immediate threat to us whatsoever,” Gore, the former vice president who lost the presidency to Bush in 2000, said during a speech at Georgetown University Law Center.

    Republicans responded that the Democrat’s assertions were false and out of touch.

    Ken Mehlman, Bush’s re-election campaign chairman, admonished Gore for delivering “another gravely false attack” and the Republican National Committee contended he was out of touch.

    “Al Gore’s history of denial of the threat of terrorism is no less dangerous today in his role as John Kerry’s surrogate than it was in the 1990s in his role as vice president, a time when Osama bin Laden was declaring war on the United States five different times,” RNC spokesman Jim Dyke said in a statement.

    Mostly sidelined from the presidential race, Gore emerges every few months with another stinging review of the Bush administration. The former vice president, who has grown irate and bellowed in previous appearances, took a more tempered but highly sarcastic tone on Thursday.

    Drudge has a transcript of Gore’s remarks. A key excerpt:

    A little over a year ago, when we launched the war against this second country, Iraq, President Bush repeatedly gave our people the clear impression that Iraq was an ally and partner to the terrorist group that attacked us, al Qaeda, and not only provided a geographic base for them but was also close to providing them weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear bombs. But now the extensive independent investigation by the bipartisan commission formed to study the 9/11 attacks has just reported that there was no meaningful relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda of any kind. And, of course, over the course of this past year we had previously found out that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So now, the President and the Vice President are arguing with this commission, and they are insisting that the commission is wrong and they are right, and that there actually was a working co-operation between Iraq and al Qaeda.

    The problem for the President is that he doesn’t have any credible evidence to support his claim, and yet, in spite of that, he persists in making that claim vigorously. So I would like to pause for a moment to address the curious question of why President Bush continues to make this claim that most people know is wrong. And I think it’s particularly important because it is closely connected to the questions of constitutional power with which I began this speech, and will profoundly affect how that power is distributed among our three branches of government.

    The problem, of course, is that Gore himself was saying much the same thing when he was vice president and, indeed, at least as far back as his first run for president in 1992.

    The New American Century website details The Clinton Administration’s Public Case Against Saddam Hussein.

    Even the World Socialist Website notes that Gore strongly backed going to war with Iraq over two years ago, on 12 February 2002

    Gore declared, “I also support the president’s stated goals in the next phases of the war against terrorism as he laid them out in the State of the Union.†The 2000 Democratic presidential candidate thus backed the worldwide campaign of military force, covert provocations and diplomatic bullying that is being waged in the name of the “war on terrorism.†He endorsed Bush’s shift in the focus of this campaign from terrorist groups to governments allegedly engaged in the development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

    Gore said, “There is a clear case that one of these governments in particular represents a virulent threat in a class by itself: Iraq. As far as I am concerned, a final reckoning with that government should be on the table. To my way of thinking, the real question is not the principle of the thing, but of making sure that this time we will finish the matter on our terms.â€

    The former vice president recalled that he was among a small group of Democratic senators who backed the first President Bush in his decision to dispatch a huge army to the Middle East and go to war against Iraq over Kuwait. His only criticism of the Persian Gulf War was that it did not go far enough and was ended with Saddam Hussein still in power.

    ***

    He concluded: “When all is said and done, I hope that when the people of our country next return the White House for a time to the Democratic Party, our leadership then will be big enough to salute the present administration for what it will have done that is wise and good. And to build upon it forthrightly.â€

    In all fairness to Gore, he did advocate a more cautious approach to the war in a separate speech later in the month. Still later that month, the RNC website compiled a rather devastating list of Gore “flip-flops” on Iraq.

    The truly bizarre thing is that, when one goes back and looks at Gore’s speeches on Iraq during the buildup to war, much of what he said was vindicated. There are legitimate policy criticisms that one can make about the way the war and, especially, the aftermath have been managed. There are some legitimate nits to pick with the way the case for war was made. That the administration “lied” about Saddam’s weapons programs or his links to terrorism is not only demonstrably false but much weaker than those other arguments.

    UPDATE: Reactions around the blogosphere:

    • Jeff Goldstein: “Al Gore is still not president. Thank the f#@^ing lord.”
    • Oliver Willis: “Gore Exposes More Bush Lies.”
    • Ed Driscoll: “[D]oesn’t [sound] like the actions of a party that’s trying to recapture America’s goodwill, does it?”
    • McQ wonders why Democrats like Nazi references so much.
    • Big Trunk: “At the least, someone really needs to ask if the Clinton team continues to stand with their Secretary of Defense in justifying the al-Shifa strike.”
    • Joe Gandleman assesses Gore from a ventriloquist’s vantagepoint.
    • Charles Johnson has an amusing PhotoShop of the event.
  • ISRAEL TARGETS HAMAS LEADER

    ISRAEL TARGETS HAMAS LEADER

    Yahoo! News reports a detour on the roadmap to peace:

    Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a car carrying a senior Hamas leader Tuesday, wounding him, killing two others and jeopardizing the U.S.-backed road map to Mideast peace. President Bush criticized Israel, saying he was “deeply troubled” by the strike.

    Hamas vowed revenge and threatened to kill Israeli political leaders in reprisal for the attack on Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the most high-profile leader of the Islamic militant group to be targeted by Israel in 32 months of fighting.

    While I’m often critical of the Sharon regime, which I consider to be rather barbaric by the standards of Western democracies, I’m hard pressed to be critical of their going after terrorists this way. Hamas is responsible for untold deaths of Israeli civilians and is desperately seeking to undermine the current peace process. Arafat won’t control them and Abu Mazen has given little indication that he can do the job; maybe a little assist from Sharon will be helpful.

    Update (1407): Not surprisingly, Meryl agrees with me on this, although more vehemenly:

    So, what’s happened since the road map was implemented? Well, let’s see.

    Israel started evacuating illegal settlements in the West Bank. Israel freed Palestinian prisoners, including a man who murdered 13 Israelis in the 1970s. Two Israeli citizens were murdered in Jerusalem. Five Israeli soldiers were killed. Many attempted suicide bombings were prevented. Oh, and Rantisis said this just a few days ago:

    Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader, said the attack was intended to send a message to the Palestinian leadership that Palestinians will continue to fight Israel and will not “surrender to the pressure exerted by Israel and the United States of America,” said.

    “We are unified in the trenches of resistance,” he said.

    The President should be deeply troubled that this bastard is still alive, not that Israel tried to kill him.

    And once again, the double standard for Israel rears its head. She must stand still and take whatever the Arabs dish out. It isn’t terrorism if the end result is dead Jews, apparently, and not even dead American Jews. Shame on the President, and shame on all who hold this double standard. Terrorism is terrorism.

    She also quotes Charles Johnson as calling Rantisi “The Pediatrician of Death.” Why is it that all these terrorist scumbags get such cool nicknames?

  • FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE ABLOGOLYPSE

    FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE ABLOGOLYPSE: Several sites (including Inoperable Terran and Daily Pundit)are buzzing over this coinage, by someone called MaxSpeak, to describe the villainy of Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit), Charles Johnson (little green footballs), and Steven Den Beste. Sullivan and Reynolds are charter members of my blogroll and LGF has recently been added. I’ve only read a bit of Johnson and den Beste, although I suspect I’ll be reading more now.