Woke up this morning and had 3750 messages in my inbox, of which 3650 are return errors. Seems like somone chose to use my email address to send out spam messages.
Bastards.
Archives for 2006
Open Thread
Apparently we need one.
Restraint
Murray Waas explains to Josh Marshall why Republicans go out of their way to work the refs:
[P]eople should note that if the Times is particularly restrained in its coverage of this story, it’s not for ideological reasons but that against their will, they have become part of the story instead of just covering the story, since the president has ordered an investigation of them and the House of Representatives has denounced the paper. I don’t think it’s bias; it’s the editor of the Times wanting to go forward with restraint.”
The crux of this story has legs – after granting security clearances for investigators to look into who leaked classified eavesdropping-related info to the New York Times the president personally intervened to deny the same clearance to DOJ investigators planning to look into the eavesdropping itself. In other words oversight for thee, but not for me. The WaPo obviously recognized that this unprecedented move has a real news angle, so why did the NY Times sit this one out?
Waas plausibly explains that the Times has already faced a world of shit over its previous reporting (also known as diong its job) so the editors decided to take a pass. Maybe give the hornets a chance to settle down. Now ask yourself why in the world Republicans would want to beat themselves into a hysterical froth over journalists doing their jobs when the only thing they get out of it is…the journalists walk on eggshells the next time the news might make Republicans look bad. Maybe kill a story or two rather than invite another round of abuse.
Let’s set aside the principled nonsense and call behavior like this for what it is: a cynical tactic that works like a charm. There’s your answer, Glenn, when you wonder why folks like Howie Kurtz obsess over potty-mouthed liberals and ignore the daily drumbeat of death talk and violent rhetoric on the right. Vulgarity may damage the delicate media sensibilities but in the end it just isn’t much of a threat.
Mission: Implausible
After the 2004 election victory Ken Mehlman made a very prominent play for the black vote. Sensing that the sell would call for more substance than than just a smooth sales pitch, Mehlman delivered a really smooth sales pitch. Policy-wise the GOP followed up with…privatizing Social Security! And not much else.
On the eve of the president’s first appearance before the NAACP the NYT reports that the GOP has reaped the rewards of its meager investment. Two paragraphs pretty much tell the whole story:
That perception of Republicans as insensitive to racial issues was fed again by the opposition mounted by some House conservatives to an extension of the Voting Rights Act. The House approved the extension last week.
[…] In an interview, Mr. Mehlman played down the effect of the delay in approving the extension to the Voting Rights Act. He noted that the party had black candidates running in statewide races in four states this fall, and that he always viewed the effort as a long and steady climb.
Regardless of whether qua Kayne West George Bush cares about black people, black people care about getting to the polls in Georgia. Nothing has an impact like holding up the landmark Voting Rights Act, brainiacs, to remind the black community that efforts to disenfranchise American minorities have actually picked up steam since the infamous 2000 Florida purges (for example).
Moving along, George Bush finally gave his first talk before the NAACP (note to NAACP – stop meeting in the summer). The mind practically boggles at all of the things that the president could talk about. Has somebody told the president that one in four black Americans live under the poverty line? Now would be a fine time to resurrect that abortive New Orleans pledge to take on poverty in America (remember that? It made great TV). It wouldn’t hurt to bring up the mounting challenges that low-income parents face in providing healthcare for their kids. Heck, nothing says culture of life like an initiative to slash America’s humiliating infant mortality rate.
To be fair the president gave lip service to the glaring education gap, but that’s as fair as I plan to be. NCLB remains a remarkably stupid way to solve our education deficits and I expect that the audience knows it. The rest just comes across as weird. Presumably the NAACP understands that ‘ownership society’ is GOP code for ‘you’re on your own.’ The policy initiatives that have come from this misleading term include SS privatization, which would expose Americans’ retirement accounts to the the mercurial caprices of the stock market, Medicare part D chaos and the successful initiative to make bankruptcy even more punitive. As a whole this ‘ownership society’ thing sounds like a great deal for anyone who has a fat monetary buffer to absorb unexpected downturns in employment, health, insurance and random acts of nature, but very bad news for everybody else. Naturally the president who views the former as his base thinks the idea is great. Finally, whoever suggested bringing up the Estate Tax should punch himself.
Something tells me that the GOP needs more than high-level lip service if it wants to make inroads into America’s black community. Maybe next year.
***Update***
More On Stem Cells
It appears White House Science Advisor Karl Rove may have been a little fast and loose with the facts regarding stem cell research:
When White House political adviser Karl Rove signaled last week that President Bush planned to veto the stem cell bill being considered by the Senate, the reasons he gave went beyond the president’s moral qualms with research on human embryos.
In fact, Rove waded into deeply contentious scientific territory, telling the Denver Post’s editorial board that researchers have found “far more promise from adult stem cells than from embryonic stem cells.”
The administration’s assessment of stem cell science has extra meaning in the wake of the Senate’s 63-37 vote Tuesday to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. The measure, which passed the House last year, will now head to Bush, who has vowed to veto it.
But Rove’s negative appraisal of embryonic stem cell research–echoed by many opponents of funding for such research–is inaccurate, according to most stem cell research scientists, including a dozen contacted for this story.
The field of stem cell medicine is too young and unproven to make such judgments, experts say. Many of those researchers either specialize in adult stem cells or share Bush’s moral reservations about embryonic stem cells.
“[Rove’s] statement is just not true,” said Dr. Michael Clarke, associate director of the stem cell institute at Stanford University, who in 2003 published the first study showing how adult stem cells replenish themselves.
If opponents of embryonic stem cell research object on moral grounds, “I’m willing to live with that,” Clarke said, though he disagrees. But, he said, “I’m not willing to live with statements that are misleading.”
In other words- more of the same from Rove and the parrots. It doesn’t matter if what you say is true- it matters how plausible it sounds and whether or not you can get people to repeat it enough until people think it is true. Some might call that ‘truthiness.’
So, the next time you hear someone parroting the Rove rhetoric, let’s look at some more of this administration’s greatest truthiness hits:
“Saddam Hussein has WMD stockpiles.”
“Bush is a uniter, not a divider.”
“There is no scientific consensus of global warming.”
“Brownie- you are doing a heckuvva job.”
“There are no patterns of abuse- it is just a few bad apples.”
Truthiness- it may get your way politically, but don’t confuse it with the truth. To borrow a phrase, “it tastes great, but is less filling.”
Open Thread
If you enjoy pointing your mouse at things and killing them, this might be the coolest demo video that I have ever seen (click on “Portal trailer 1”). Hours and hours of physics fun.
Eh, what else? I dunno. Chat about stuff.
The Latest From Israel
Putting recent events in the frame that I described below:
* Kevin Drum notes that Israel may not want to destroy Hezbollah but merely degrade it. This agrees with my understanding of the situation – the political pressure within Israel does not mandate that Olmert make Hezbollah go away entirely, merely that they stop firing rockets into Israel. Hezbollah’s newer Iran and Syria-made rockets require a relatively sophisticated infrastructure to fire which means that Israel has a decent chance of making most (but obviously not all) of them inoperable before the UN is able to impose a truce. Kevin’s correspondent also notes that Hezbollah has built itself an infrastructure that upgrades them from a pure guerilla force to something approaching a regular army, which paradoxically makes them much more fightable with conventional forces. The more that you have built up, the more that your enemy can knock down.
* Israel has already begun invading Lebanon. Either the domestic political pressure became unbearable, the risk of an external peace deal became too immediate or Israel has decided that Hezbollah can no longer resist effectively. Suing for peace now sounds appealing except for two factors: Hezbollah will not stop fighting voluntarily, and I cannot stress enough how damaging it would be for Olmert if Israel were forced to withdraw while rockets kept raining from Lebanon.
* In case anybody was still unsure, Israel has declared that it has no interest in fighting Syria and Iran. Any widening of this conflict would inflict tremendous Israeli casualties for negligible benefit and would distract, at least in the short term, from the goal of ending the Hezbollah rocket fire. Michael Savage can go cry in his Cabernet Franc.
* Also via Kevin Drum, a scoop from Garance Franke-Ruta that could prove politically damaging (to say the least) if any Americans are hurt in this escalating conflict:
Individuals within the State Department, I am told, have been reluctant to create an impression that the Israeli assault on Lebanon is as bad as it is or that civilian U.S. citizens are being threatened by U.S. ally Israel. If a conflict this severe had broken out in, say, Indonesia, the American embassy would have been shut down the next day and its personnel and families rapidly brought to safety….The diplomatic message sent by shutting down the U.S. embassy in the face of Israeli bombing would have contradicted the U.S. government message of support for the Israeli mission against Hezbollah terrorists.
* I had an illuminating conversation last night about how exactly the factions can deal with this in the mid/long term. It seems to me that Israel needs another occupation like it needs a hole in the head, which leaves basically one option. If Israel demotes Hezbollah from quasi-army back to ragtag guerilla outfit and participates aggressively in the rebuilding of Lebanon and particularly a central Lebanese army, the chances are very good that Lebanon will exert its prerogatives and clamp down on the Hezbollah troublemakers by itself. For one thing the simplest definition of a government may be whoever owns the monopoly on force, and no functioning government can long tolerate an independent entity using force within its borders. Worse for Hezbollah is their sponsor (Syria) who grows increasingly unpopular among the Lebanese. In my view Israel can help guarantee the security of its own government by contributing generously to that of Lebanon.
As always, post your updates in the comments.
***Update***
* To add, of course Israel must take more care to avoid civilian casualties. Apartments and gas stations can be rebuilt, but you cannot reassemble children.
Twelve-year-old Nour lay heavily bandaged and fighting for her life in a hospital in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre. She is one of many children killed and injured in Israeli air strikes on this Mediterranean port in past days.
More ambulances streamed into the hospital and doctors hurried to treat the victims of the latest bombing. Whatever the Israelis’ intended target, the bomb fell on a small water canal next to the Qasmia refugee camp, home to about 500 Palestinians. Its victims were 11 children taking an afternoon swim in the canal.
People who support Israel should make an extra effort to demand that she avoid handing these PR gifts to her Hezbollah enemy. And yes, Hezbollah’s indiscriminate rocket barrages are no better.