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BERJAYA BERJAYA

Mon, Oct 23, 2006

Obama-rama

First, a reminder:

I wax all pessimistic here and here. Now, on to the Man of the Hour.

OK, so today he looks likes he's running. Where do we stand?

Kazin hearts Obama. Mikey likes him. He really likes him. I've not read the book yet, but I concur. The man is definitely for real in a way few politicians are, in private as well as public.

Meanwhile, I'm having a little trouble understanding the argument in this Anna Quindlen column in support of Hillary. She writes of liberals: "Instead they compare them with the ideal, the perfect candidate, the standard-bearer without flaw." Well, all right, name some names. I mean, it was true of Nader supporters, but to which liberals do you refer today? Um, I thought so.

Wait, it gets worse, far worse. "The chatter about presidential possibilities for superstar newbie Barack Obama offers liberals a classic opportunity: this time around they could argue the black man versus the white woman and then watch, wounded, as another white guy takes all." So Obama shouldn't run against a woman because he's black? Or liberals shouldn't support him because he's black? Or liberals shouldn't support him because he showed the correct judgment and political bravery on the war and she didn't, and still won't admit to having made a mistake?

And why is supporting the popular Obama a "Pyrrhic victory" while supporting the polarizing (through no fault of her own) Hillary a smart move? And what the hell does Ralph Nader have to do with picking your favorite Democratic candidate and supporting him or her? What the hell kind of loopy logic is that?

Finally, she concludes: "And the Democratic Party has to decide only that it wants to get behind its front runner, to win and therefore actually get things done instead of having the satisfaction of whining 'we told you so' all the way to oblivion."

Oh, I see: cancel the primaries. We have a "front runner" and she's Anna's fave ...

Really, Ms. Quindlen, we like you, you know that. We even wrote a gushy profile of you once, we'll admit. But we are kind of embarrassed for you here and wonder why your friends and/or editors did not save your from publishing this nutty, Noonanesque column. With friends like this, Hillary really doesn't need ... well, you know the rest.

Oh, and I see Maureen is worried that Obama's ascension means politics is becoming dependent on celebrity, here ($). Next thing you know, she'll complain about too many sultry-looking redheads on the Times op-ed page.

Also, I don't think Bob Herbert could be more wrong when he writes, here ($): "With a few more years in the Senate, possibly with a powerful committee chairmanship if the Democrats take control, he could build a formidable record and develop the kind of toughness and savvy that are essential in the ugly and brutal combat of a presidential campaign. You mean like John Kerry? Nope, a Senate record in the hands of the Republicans is all they need to prove you are a "flip-flopper," no matter what you've done. The stars are aligned for Obama now. In the distant future, anything could happen. He could be hit by a truck. He could find out he's really Jewish. Maybe his inexperience is a net negative, maybe it's a plus. I say let the voters decide, not the pundits.

On the other hand, I wonder if all this liberal angst about Obama is actually going to help him. ... Mickey's probably penning his love letter right now.

Looks like The New Republic has fired Spencer Ackerman, here, though perhaps that is oversimplifying a complex situation. I've never met Ackerman, but I've learned a lot from his reporting. The long articles he did with John Judis were, together with those of Walter Pincus of the Post and the Knight Ridder Washington bureau, the most perspicacious to be found anywhere in the U.S. media -- and this was at a time when the likes of his former colleagues there, Andrew Sullivan and others, were still calling people traitors for reporting on the truth. Marty Peretz, whose second marriage and consequent purchase of The New Republic is the worst thing to happen to American liberalism since -- well, I almost said the Russian Revolution, but I'll go with the Vietnam War, has destroyed an awful lot of what was valuable in TNR, including, apparently its finances, which is why he is only roughly a quarter owner. It's a shame that he seems also to be destroying its primary selling point -- its ideological diversity and willingness to deviate from his hard neocon line when solid reporting justifies it. Ackerman will eventually be OK; he's a smart and talented reporter. But will Peretz's TNR? How many more Iraqi invasions can it survive?

Sigh, looks like we're in for yet another week of Mark Halperin using the resources of ABC News to enrich himself personally with endless self-flackery for his co-authored book. Please don't take it out on any other Halperins you may know and love ...

Anybody know who deserves credit for this?

New Element on Periodic Table

A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the densest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Bushcronium." Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311. These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. The symbol for Bushcronium is "W". Bushcronium's mass actually increases over time, as morons randomly interact with various elements in the atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons in a Bushcronium molecule, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Bushcronium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass". When catalyzed with money, Bushcronium activates Foxnewsium, an element that radiates orders of magnitude more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many morons.

Alter-reviews: Concerts by Paul Simon and Rosanne Cash.

I saw two shows this weekend. Saturday night was Paul Simon at Radio City, which is a little bit too big for Paul Simon, but still, Paul Simon is always pretty great. There was a young woman dancing in front of my seat for the first part of the concert, which was mostly annoying but also kinda fun, and then during that Clifton Chenier song from Graceland, she appeared on stage and was dancing next to Paul. It was kind of magical -- the way I imagine Ellington at Newport in 1956, though she wasn't blond. Paul enjoyed it too, but unfortunately, the security guards let her stay for a few minutes and then kicked her out of the concert. Her dumbass boyfriend kept his phone on and held it up for the entire rest of the show -- perhaps he was literally phoning it in. Anyway, people at rock concerts are just about the rudest people I ever encounter, except people at baseball games, which is further fuel, I suppose, for my already deeply developed elitist inclinations.

What about the show? Well, Simon always pays attention to putting together a crack band of studio musicians who both integrate and shine individually. And his songs lend themselves to musical re-interpretation. Since they're mostly great songs, and extremely eclectic, it's a mostly great show, musically anyway. (A national treasure of sorts, Paul is not much in the hall-filling charisma department.) Kelefa Sanneh was there too. He found that:

Saturday's concert showed why it isn't. Mr. Simon's obsession with rhythm is related to his obsession with language. By packing his verses full of words, he emphasizes the complicated rhythms of spoken English. He needs a rhythm section that can keep up with his mouth.

You could hear this clearly during a sparse and propulsive version of the title track from "Graceland." One stanza begins:

There is a girl in New York City who calls herself the human trampoline

And sometimes when I'm falling, flying or tumbling in turmoil I say, "Oh, so this is what she means."

That's a mouthful. But if you add a nimble bass line, Mr. Simon sounds less like a chatterbox and more like a great percussionist.

And:

Mr. Simon found ways to bring out the tricky rhythms in older songs, too. When it came time for "Bridge Over Troubled Water," he rephrased the lyrics so that the words emerged in multi-syllable clumps. "Mrs. Robinson" received a raucous rockabilly makeover. And he ended the concert with a sprightly, bluegrass-inflected version of "The Boxer," featuring his opening act, the Dobro player Jerry Douglas.

And if you haven't heard "Father and Daughter" and you're the father of a daughter, you really should.

As fun as he was, if I were only allowed out of the house once this weekend -- or if Carlos had doubled three runs instead of looking at that last strike and I could have watched the best team in the National League play in the series instead of the Cards -- I would have had to pick the show by our girl Rosanne at Carnegie Hall's basement Zankel Hall on Friday night. The woman's voice grows more luminous with every show I see, and her stage personality is really who she is, which is dangerous for her, but helps you to appreciate the seriousness of the musical project and its moments of occasional transcendence; and the small, intimate, acoustically wonderful Zankel is the perfect place to appreciate such moments. Anyway, lucky us, Rosanne ran into Elvis Costello at the cheese counter at Balducci's. (Don't you wish you lived here? Meryl Streep sat in front of me at Heartbreak House last week, too.) She invited him to come to the show and the two of them did a raucous "Big River" and Elvis's song about a lonely woman at a dance, whose name I can't remember. Jon Leventhal did that tasteful guitar god thing, and really, what more can anyone ask from life?

Well, maybe a few more songs, but still, go see the girl if you can.

One thing that deserves mention: Rosanne's top ticket prices were $48. Paul Simon's were three times that.

Correspondence Corner:

Name: Brian Geving
Hometown: Minneapolis, MN

In response to John in L.A. ...

Senator McCain was asked this specific question by a member of the audience. You can find the transcript of the entire interview here. Here's the question and his response:

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator McCain, you've always been a very vocal critic of torture. So why did you sign the Military Commissions Act -- or vote for the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which many people say increases the president's power to detain and torture suspected terrorists.

McCAIN: Thank you. We had quite a period of strong, spirited discussion with the administration about that. We passed, as you know, some months ago a thing called the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibits any cruel, inhumane treatment, and in this legislation we made it very clear that that still pertained. I won't go through all the details of it, but it does not allow torture, and it will not allow torture.

And at the same time, I think you do understand that there are some people who are very, very bad people, and I think that to continue a program for some of them, without torture, is something that we can't deprive the president of the United States of. But I think we struck the right balance, and I can assure you I would never agree to anything that I believe could allow torture. I promise you that.

There was another question about the president's use of signing statements, which McCain said he was very upset about, acknowledging that the president chooses to ignore laws like the Detainee Treatment Act. Incredibly, McCain still seems to believe that the president will choose to follow that law even though his signing statement makes it clear that he doesn't intend to.

What world does this guy live in??

Name: Thomas Heiden
Hometown: Stratford, CT

Eric,

Just when I thought no omission of the MSM could surprise me...

I invite your readers to Senator Levin's website and to his report upon his return from Iraq (trip dates 10/1-10/3/06 - during which he actually went to al-Anbar).

I quote, "Our Marine leadership in al Anbar advises that 30 percent of all contracts, including U.S. Government let contracts paid for with U.S. taxpayer dollars, goes to al Qaeda."

Surely that's a "course" worth "staying." Bin Laden has more than once mentioned how valuable Bush is to Al Qaeda, I just didn't understand it went this far.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to cover this -- it still hasn't made note of "cut & run" Frist saying the Taliban cannot be defeated militarily and should be brought into the Afghan government.

Name: Larry Howe
Hometown: Oak Park, IL

Eric --

Steve from Philadelphia notes that Ackerman and Gitlin's liberal manifesto doesn't strike him as all that liberal because, "Hell, I would sign it and I'm a conservative." This reveals his assumption that as a conservative he would be predisposed to reject anything labelled "liberal." But what Steve has discovered leads to several clarifying conclusions:

1. Steve's not as conservative as he thinks he is.

2. Liberalism is not the demonic ideology that many who claim to be conservative think it is.

3. Real liberals and real conservatives are not that different after all (isn't that a refreshing thought after we've been repeatedly told how alienated we are from each other). Eric has pointed to studies that show Americans widely favor policy positions that are typically liberal even though they have come to associate the word "liberal" with the opposite of what they believe.

4. So all that carping about the dangers of liberals is not really a conservative position, which means (and Steve's a step ahead of me on this one) that Conservative is a label that has been hijacked by people with no fundamental adherence to conservatism just a desire to grab as much power by vilifying the opposition.

Ergo, it's high time that conservatives recognize that they've been betrayed; of course, even those of us who worked against the election of the president and those in Congress who have enabled him have been betrayed as well. Predicting assaults on the Constitution like the Military Commissions Act doesn't mean that any of us are better off. Being able to say "I told you so" does not bring redemption. It does give us some authority to say the following:

Because they were wrong about so much of what they promised, we should be further wary of other things they tell us; and conversely, those who were right about what the administration and the Republican congress were up to deserve our attention and serious consideration.

But instead of thinking about this as an us vs. them problem, which is how we got in this mess in the first place (thank you, Ronald Reagan, for cleverly deriding liberalism as the "L" word), let's move beyond Steve's discovery that the liberal manifesto is a consensus American philosophy and focus on the differences in means. For example, the president, et al, have derided facts and analysis as the wrong way to approach problem solving. When the Johns Hopkins study reported that more than 600,000 excess deaths have resulted from the Iraq war, the president rejected it without looking at the study, without knowing anything about its methodology, and even said that the methodology has been discredited when in fact the methodology is widely found to be valid and reliable. For the president, the findings don't fit his preconceived idea, so he rejects them. This is more akin to the a priori thinking of the Dark Ages than to the reasoning of the Enlightenment. Similarly, the president is now claiming that the rise of violence in Iraq is an attempt to sway the midterm elections. Not only is there no factual or analytical basis for this assertion, when one looks back at October 2004, an election that could have more directly changed the US policy in Iraq, violence was considerably lower than in November after Bush had won, and it spiked again in January 2005, no doubt because Iraqis were celebrating Bush's second inaugural. I recall a point in the Kerry campaign when the candidate quipped that just because President Bush says something doesn't make it right. He sold that one far too short. Given what we know now, if President Bush says something, it's probably not based on anything except his desire for it to be so.

Because America deserves better, I urge Steve and other clear-thinking conservatives to sign the Liberal Manifesto. I did, and it felt great, though admittedly I'm not a conservative.

Name: Ed Nakawatase
Hometown: Philadelphia, PA

While I neither share your esteem for Paul Berman nor your disdain for Alexander Cockburn, I'm a big fan of your column in The Nation. Thanks for your response to Berman's review of Myra McPherson's biography of I.F. Stone. I thought it fair to Stone, McPherson, and, alas, to Berman.

Since I disagree fundamentally with you and Berman (and most of the writers of American Prospect) about the Cold War, I don't agree with your assessment of Stone's embrace of the pro-Communist left. Within the US context, Stone believed in the Popular Front. As indicated in the pieces of his anthologized in The Truman Era he was openly critical of the Communists (as in their role in the Henry Wallace campaign) but, unlike many liberals and social democrats, Stone, by my sights, sought to deal with their political ideas and behavior not acquiesce in efforts to criminalize them. That subsequent process did much to marginalize the US left (and while I will give due credit to the crimes and stupidity of the US Communist Party for that state of affairs) the anti-Communist left did more than its share in the self-evisceration of the US left.

But I digress. I appreciate the clarity and the honesty of your views even as I disagree with them.

2:08pm EST | Permalink | BERJAYA

Email Eric Alterman

The opinions voiced in these columns are those of the individual authors and do not represent the views of Media Matters for America or any other organization or institution with which any author may be affiliated.

Fri, Oct 20, 2006

Sadly, Slacker Friday

Winning back Congress: It's a lot harder than it looks, continued, here.

Atrios reminds us: Want to do something positive which doesn't even require you to get up off your ass? Join MoveOn's Call for Change program.

Speaking of which, Chris Bowers notes that unopposed House Democrats are sitting on $26,288,418, here, and suggests a plan.'

If you catch the Moyers program on Net Neutrality and the Frontline program on the first year of the Iraqi occupation, you'll see that Kenneth Tomlinson has so far failed in his efforts to destroy the value of PBS. Check them out if you can. (I do think these Iraqi geniuses should be tried, though that would have to take place in an alternative universe...)

Here's the speech on corporate social responsibility and newspapers given last weekend by Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. You'll be amazed.

OK, I am late to this, but let's all take a moment and go here now. Then go here. Then go here. And while we're doing all this clicking, let's take another stopover here.

And now, for the latest on that extreme anti-abortion proposal in South Dakota, the one that would outlaw the procedure except for cases where the mother's life (not her health, just her life) is in danger: A new advertisement in favor of the law features a group of physicians who are pro-life. They have a right to speak their minds, sure, but do they have a right to pass off their ideological and religious values as hard science? Over at The New Republic, Jonathan Cohn says no, here.

Just this on last night: Oh, the painful irony. We got Beltran because of how amazingly clutch he was when playing in the post-season against the Cardinals, right? Still, what a season, huh? And what a thrilling catch by Endy, and how inspiring was it that both Maine and Perez came through the way they did when it mattered most. ... Anyway, thanks again to Steve and Rob for allowing me to attend the only two home victories against the Cards.

Remember when you thought I was kidding, or perhaps crazy? The Bobcat Goldthwait-dog blowjob movie is here. See it if you can.

From the Benton Foundation:

FCC GETS FLURRY OF MEDIA OWNERSHIP STUDIES [SOURCE: Broadcasting & Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]

The Media & Democracy Coalition announced Thursday a study of 36 media markets in 12 US states showing that all were concentrated and that virtually all the smaller markets were highly concentrated according to viewership numbers. As the Federal Communications Commission considers allowing cross-ownership of newspapers and TV stations in the same markets, the study shows that the 50% viewer share of dominant market players in L.A. could escalate to 80%, which would be "disastrous for democracy." When asked whether the Internet should be factored into the concentration equation, Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America argued that it is not a primary source of local news, and that the local ownership rules are about a diversity of local sources of news and information. Cooper said that maybe someday the Internet will be such an alternative, but that for now it is a good source of national and international news, but it doesn't help you figure out who to vote for for city council. And even its local component is often a trip to the Web site of the local TV station and newspaper. On top of this study, Cooper announced he will also file a study on the economics of consolidation and on allowing more multiple station ownership in markets.

IRAQ PROPAGANDA PROGRAM LEGAL: PENTAGON REPORT [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Kristin Roberts]

The U.S. military acted legally when it hired a contractor to pay Iraqi news organizations to run pro-American stories, the Pentagon's inspector general has found. An unclassified summary of results of the inspector general's probe, released on Thursday, said: "We concluded that the Multi-National Force-Iraq and Multi-National Corps-Iraq complied with applicable laws and regulations in their use of a contractor to conduct Psychological Operations and their use of newspapers as a way to disseminate information." Stories were planted with the help of Washington-based Lincoln group. The inspector general, the Pentagon's internal watchdog agency, reviewed three Lincoln Group contracts. In one of those cases, it found that a military contracting office did not maintain enough documentation to verify expenditures under the program. Because of that, the inspector could not determine if the contract was awarded properly or if payments made were appropriate, the summary results stated. "This Department of Defense report shows that the Pentagon cannot account for millions paid to the Lincoln Group for their propaganda program and that basic contracting rules were not followed," said U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) who sought the inspector general's review. "Broader policy questions remain about whether the administration's manipulation of the news in Iraq contradicts our goal of a free and independent press there," Sen Kennedy said.

(Special "Après Moi, Le Deluge" item:)

NBC SAYS VIEWERS WON'T NOTICE CUTS IN NEWS STAFF [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jacques Steinberg]

NBC executives predicted that budget cuts announced yesterday across the breadth of its newsgathering operation would barely ripple with viewers, though their effect off camera is expected to be substantial. Virtually every corner of the news division will be affected in some way, including the "Today" show and "NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams"; the cable channel MSNBC; the news desks of the 10 NBC-owned stations, which include WTVJ in Miami and WNBC in New York; and its Spanish-language network, Telemundo. As an example of how the company's strategy might change, Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, compared how it would have typically approached a school shooting, as opposed to how it might in the near future. In the past, "Nightly News," "Today" and "Dateline," all programs on NBC, might have sent individual correspondents and camera crews to the scene, along with representatives of MSNBC, MSNBC.com, NBC News Channel (which provides wire-service-style video feeds to affiliates) and several NBC stations themselves. "I'm not saying that now every story will get just one person who is going to meet the needs of every entity," said Capus. "That's not the point. But maybe, instead of 30 people, we can send 25. I believe we can do that, and viewers will have no idea that behind the scenes, those are the conversations going on." To accommodate the consolidation of its newsgathering, Capus said he was planning to build a central newsroom on the third and fourth floors of the network's headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan. Currently, its news operations are scattered throughout that building, as well as in two New Jersey suburbs. Bill Kovach, the chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, a membership organization seeking to ensure a place for high-quality journalism in the Internet age, said that announcements like NBC's yesterday portend "a disturbing trend, one that anyone who worries about democratic society has to be concerned about. If a major news organization like NBC is going to reduce the number, and it sounds like a significant number, of the people who go out and gather information to go into the daily stream of news, it's going to thin our knowledge of the world somewhat."

Slacker Friday:

Name: Stupid
Hometown: Chicago

Hey Eric, it's Stupid to have strange bedfellows. It seems every day we're told our foreign policy is stymied by China. Want to save Darfur? China has oil interests there and won't let us. Want to sanction Iran? China (and Russia) won't let us. North Korea? China is the only one with any influence. It didn't have to be this way. Remember how George Bush I, only two years after Tiananmen Square, granted China temporary MFN status? How in 1996 President Clinton and Congress made MFN status permanent? Interestingly, the small opposition came from mostly from Congress' far left (Paul Wellstone) and far right (Jesse Helms), with the odd centrist voting his/her conscience (Robert Byrd, Jim Jeffords). Just think if today we had a multi-billion dollar carrot to hold out to China *every year.* They might be a bit more cooperative. Nobody was making such strategic arguments back then, but it's another example of how humanitarian foreign policy usually is the most effective foreign policy in the long run. It should also be noted that the anti-China-MFN coalition resembles the anti-Iraq War voices circa 2002.

Other strange bedfellows: evangelical church members and yours truly. We were all election judges in Milwaukee in 2004 -- six of them for the GOP, one of me for the Dems. And we got along great -- I helped keep their voter counts when they went on bathroom breaks, they gave me cookies, we chatted during uneventful stretches. It was when the -- party -- people came that all Hell broke loose (no pun intended): voter challenges, harassing election officials, etc. My point? In a blue state the GOP out-volunteered the Dems by 600%. Even if their support is down by half, they still have the numbers. If you really want to see the Dubya administration investigated during the next two years, volunteer!

Name: Rich Gallagher
Hometown: Fishkill, NY

Dear Eric,

To follow up on the discussion of national polling vs. local polling, there are some amazing new numbers coming out of New York, courtesy of Majority Watch.

Majority Watch has been polling in six districts in upstate New York, all six of which are seats that are currently held by Republicans. One is an open seat, currently held by a Republican who is retiring. The remaining five districts have Republican incumbents running for re-election.

Here's what the polls are showing:

19th District -- John Hall (D) 49%, Sue Kelly (R) 40%

20th District -- Kirsten Gillibrand (D) 54%, John Sweeney (R) 41% (it was reported yesterday that Sweeney never disclosed that he went on a 2001 junket to Saipan with Tony Rudy, an associate of Jack Abramoff)

24th District -- Michael Arcuri (D) 52%, Raymond Meier (R) 43%

25th District -- Dan Maffei (D) 51%, James Walsh (R) 43%

26th District -- Jack Davis (D) 56%, Tom Reynolds (R) 39%

29th District -- Eric Massa (D) 52%, Randy Kuhl (R) 40%

In addition, Peter King (R-District 3) has only a two-point lead over his challenger, Dave Mejias.

The implications are staggering. Everyone knew that Reynolds was in trouble, but the others are big news. If these numbers hold up, Democrats stand to pick up as many as six House seats in New York State alone.

Name: John
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Dr. A, not sure if you saw that John McCain was on Hardball on Wednesday (I missed the first half). Anyways, I was just wondering if anyone had the guts to ask Mr. McCain the following:

Mr. McCain, in U.S. News & World Report, you described the day Hanoi Hilton guards beat you "from pillar to post, kicking and laughing and scratching. After a few hours of that, ropes were put on me and I sat that night bound with ropes."

"For the next four days, I was beaten every two to three hours by different guards . . . Finally, I reached the lowest point of my 5 1/2 years in North Vietnam. I was at the point of suicide, because I saw that I was reaching the end of my rope."

Given this terrible experience you endured, how can you with a clear conscience, endorse the Millitary Commissions Act, which under the right interpretation, would not condemn such treatment or even define it as "torture" per se??

Name: Larry Howe
Hometown: Oak Park, IL

Eric --

Wm. Weissbeck of Schererville, IN, is correct in his partial answer to my post about some Illinois Democratic candidates avoiding party affiliation. But at the state level, the bigger scandal magnet is the Republican Party, with the former governor recently convicted of corruption as poster child. Despite suspicions about both parties' state organizations, though, Tammy Duckworth was recruited by Rahm Emanuel, as were most if not all of the 20 or so Iraq vets now running as Democrats. She ran and won the Democratic primary, so why all the stealth now? I'm also disappointed in her rhetoric because given the profile of Iraq in this election, having an Iraq vet run as a Democrat is good for the party. The benefit is mutual. And she could surely use the party's help because she's now virtually out of money at the most crucial stage of the campaign. In light of her reluctance to wear the mantle, I'm not sure if party funding will be forthcoming, especially if there are other races that might be better served. To be sure, Duckworth is seeking Hyde's open seat, so it's been a Republican district for a long time. But with the growing embarrassment of Denny Hastert nearby, is such a thing as a safe Republican district in Northern Illinois? After all, Obama ran for an open seat left by Peter Fitzgerald, who was abandoned by the Republican Party because he was not in lock step with them. And in 2004, Melissa Bean defeated Phil Crane, a multi-term Republican congressman, and that was before the Republican juggernaut ran aground. Running as a Democrat has an upside, especially in the current climate.

Name: Steve
Hometown: Philadelphia, PA

What's so liberal about that petition? Hell, I would sign it and I'm a conservative. The only nit I could pick with it was the use of the word "illegitimate" regarding our reliance on military action. Believe me, I was trying. If anybody acquiesced to Bush it was the conservatives. I don't mean the radical "whackos" (Isn't radical conservative a non-sequitur?). I mean the people who think that the government should stay out of the bedroom, spend the same it taxes, stuff like that. You know, old school. That petition is as poor an excuse for liberalism as whatever the heck the President's agenda is today passes for conservatism. By the way, it is right to be unfailingly polite. You may notice that I always say "President", not just "Bush" or W or 43 or idiot, or anything like that which may apply. It's good discipline, and the people you want to call whacko or nitwit or any number of silly names don't see that they can get to you. A couple of weeks ago the cops chased a drug dealer into my office. (It was awesome! I'm on the phone with a customer and I held the phone up so she could listen in.) Anyway, one of the officers calls the kid (about 15 years old) "Asshole." Two of the other officers corrected her on the spot. I asked later why. One told me that even though they all know this kid is an A-hole, it was bad discipline. If you don't keep your mind on your job at all times, you're more likely to make a mistake. Also, the suspect may not give a crap about the distinction, but the bystanders will see that the officers are trying to conduct themselves in a professional manner. Not only will they have more respect for the police, they will be more likely to help out, even if it's only pointing which way the guy went. So as far as I am concerned, being polite to the people you want to call whatever it is you may want to call them makes a good impression on the readers. Especially a guy like me who thinks that you at times tiptoe on the verge of making inadequate or mistaken arguments, as opposed to my saying that you are an idiot. If I keep it cool and respectful, you might read my objection. If I get Ann Coulter on your ass (sorry for the image), my complaint won't even get close to your screen.

Name: Scott Schiefelbein
Hometown: Portland, Oregon

With all due respect to your devotion to the New York Mets and the achievements of Mr. Maine, he's got a long way to go before he topples Joe Montana from the "Greatest Athlete Named After a State" pedestal. (But what a performance!)

And, while I'm sure you meant "state" in the "one-of-fifty-U.S.-states" sense, as a Tar Heel I have to remind you that since nations are often referred to as "states," Michael Jordan should top the "broad-definition-of-state" list.

Eric replies: Somebody didn't click on the link, apparently ...

2:10pm EST | Permalink | BERJAYA

Email Eric Alterman

The opinions voiced in these columns are those of the individual authors and do not represent the views of Media Matters for America or any other organization or institution with which any author may be affiliated.

Thu, Oct 19, 2006

Pre-election potpourri

I've got a new "Think Again" column here, called "Portraying an Electoral Victory."

A liberal manifesto: Well done, Bruce and Todd. I would have liked to quibble with a little of the language -- as well as its Judt-centrism -- but overall, it is beautifully stated and badly needed, why is why I was happy to sign it. You can too. Here's how it begins:

We Answer to the Name of Liberals

As right-wing politicians and pundits call us stooges for Osama bin Laden, Tony Judt charges, in a widely discussed and heatedly debated essay in the London Review of Books, that American liberals -- without distinction -- have "acquiesced in President Bush's catastrophic foreign policy." Both claims are nonsense on stilts.

Clearly this is a moment for liberals to define ourselves. The important truth is that most liberals, including the undersigned, have stayed our course throughout these grim five years. We have consistently and publicly repudiated the ruinous policies of the Bush administration, and our diagnosis, alas, has been vindicated by events. The Bush debacle is a direct consequence of its repudiation of liberal principles. And if the country is to recover, we should begin by restating these principles.

---

We have all opposed the Iraq war as illegal, unwise, and destructive of America's moral standing. This war fueled, and continues to fuel, jihadis whose commitment to horrific, unjustifiable violence was amply demonstrated by the September 11 attacks as well as the massacres in Spain, Indonesia, Tunisia, Great Britain, and elsewhere. Rather than making us safer, the Iraq war has endangered the common security of Americans and our allies.

We believe that the state of Israel has the fundamental right to exist, free of military assault, within secure borders close to those of 1967, and that the U.S. government has a special responsibility toward achieving a lasting Middle East peace. But the Bush administration has defaulted. It has failed to pursue a steady and constructive course. It has discouraged the prospects for an honorable Israeli-Palestinian settlement. It has encouraged Israel's disproportionate attacks in Lebanon after the Hezbollah incursions, resulting in vast destruction of civilian life and property.

Make no mistake: We believe that the use of force can, at times, be justified. We supported the use of American force, together with our allies, in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. But war must remain a last resort. The Bush administration's emphatic reliance on military intervention is illegitimate and counterproductive. It creates unnecessary enemies, degrades the national defense, distracts from actual dangers, and ignores the imperative necessity of building an international order that peacefully addresses the aspirations of rising powers in Asia and Latin America.

The misapplication of military power also imperils American freedom at home. The president claims authority, as commander in chief, to throw American citizens into military prison for years on end without any hearing, civil or military, that would allow them to confront the charges against them. He claims the power to wiretap Americans' conversations without warrants, in direct violation of congressional commands. These usurpations presage what are likely to be even more drastic measures if another attack takes place on American soil.

At the same time, the president is unconstitutionally seizing power on other fronts. He seeks to liberate himself from the rule of law by issuing hundreds of "signing statements" asserting, with unprecedented sweep and aggressiveness, his right to ignore congressional control. Such contempt for the people's representatives verges on monarchical pretension.

You can add your name here, at the bottom.

"Studio 60 Was Better When It First Came Out," here. (Thanks, Petey.)

Actually, did you notice that both SNL shows used the same tired gag about the performer who is "still miked" in the same week? Shouldn't that be someone's job, or has NBC already fired that guy too? ($)

And hello, NBC News: National polls don't matter worth a damn. It's as if you were purposely misleading people. Why do I have to keep explaining this?

Speaking of misleading: Back when Ken Silverstein was still learning his trade from his mentor and role model, Alexander Cockburn, he wrote an incompetent hit job on yours truly for the Village Voice that contained not a single named quote, if my memory serves. Now he's done a less sloppy, but perhaps more foolish hit job on Barack Obama for Harper's (which is not online). Still, I guess that's an undeniable improvement. In rewriting much of what David Sirota argued -- also wrongheadedly, in my opinion -- in The Nation months ago, Silverstein comes up with the idea that Obama may be considered for um, vice president. That's right, vice president, not president, which as every sentient, politically aware individual knows, is the decision that lays before Barack right now. I don't know what the worst humiliation that can befall any journalist is, but I would guess that being made to look like a chump by both Joe Klein and David Brooks ($) in the same week ranks pretty high. Nice to see you again, bub. And Brooks's column is quite good, by the way; a sad reminder of what he could be if Bill Kristol ever lost his email address.

All hail John Maine, the greatest athlete named after a state ...

Log-rolling -- to put it awfully politely -- in our time:

Mark Halperin on Jake Weisberg: "Weisberg, a writer's writer and proud member of the Conde Nast family, paints Obama a bit more poet than pol in this must-read look at the Democratic superstar." Here.

Jake Weisberg on Mark Halperin (via Mark Halperin): "Jacob Weisberg says The Way to Win is 'a new book that anyone seriously interested in the mechanics of contemporary politics ought to read.' " Here.

Speaking of The Note: One of the many, many things that drives me crazy about it is the respectful tone it takes toward right-wing crazies like Novakula, Peggy-the Magic Dolphin Lady, the self-described "Wild Men" of the WSJ, and most particularly the "We lose $50 million of Rupert's money a year" nutty New York Posties while ignoring the fine political analysis that can be found in places like TAP, The Nation, Salon, Talking Points Memo, etc. all this contributes to the further degradation of the public discourse in which The Note is a -- perhaps the -- key player. Anyway, one of the smart boys' faves is the Post's Andrea Peyser. So look, Madonna adopted an African child with the full cooperation of her only living parent, her father, rescuing him from a life of poverty and degradation in an extremely poor orphanage. She donated $3 million to the orphanage and will spend another million on a documentary publicizing the orphan's plight. Maybe there were better options, maybe not. I don't know, and don't particularly care. I'm just (momentarily) pleased that some really poor people are seeing some of Madonna's extra money. If you do care, there's a story here.

Now, look at the quality of the analysis presented by The Note's fave, Peyser, here:

Madonna, the sluttish, egomaniacal mother-of-the-century has topped even her most revolting self. She plans to remove a baby from the loving arms of his dirt-poor father, in one of the most desperate nations on earth. Madonna has traveled far beyond her bra-baring, intercourse-simulating, public girl-kissing, Jesus-emulating loser antics to grab attention -- and flesh. The one-named wonder, who already has given birth to two children by two different daddies, one of whom she would not deign to marry, has her heart set on raping Malawi. ... Madonna should nail herself on her crucifix -- for real, this time. ... Stop this monster!

That's the woman whose views on Hillary Clinton we're supposed to take seriously.

Speaking of monsters: You know, the problem isn't just the extremism, incompetence, sexual exploitation, and dishonesty. It's also a simple failure to even try to do their job. See below:

Examining reports of the House Government Reform Committee, the journalist Susan Milligan found just 37 hearings described as "oversight" in 2003-4, during the 108th Congress, down from 135 in 1993-94, during the last Congress dominated by Democrats. The House Energy and Commerce Committee produced 117 pages of activity reports on oversight during the 1993-94 cycle, compared with 24 pages during 2003-4. In the mid-1990s, the Republican Congress took 140 hours of testimony on whether President Clinton had used his Christmas mailing list to find potential campaign donors; in 2004-5, House Republicans took 12 hours of testimony on Abu Ghraib.

When committees do hold hearings, they tend to focus on routine budget review. Charles Stevenson, a longtime Senate staffer, has noted that "the Senate Armed Services Committee held no hearings specifically on operations in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, and only nine on Iraq [excluding the prisoner-abuse matter] in that two year period -- less than 10 percent of its total hearings. The House Armed Services Committee held only one hearing on Afghanistan in 2003 and 18 on Iraq during 2003-2004 -- less than 14 percent of its total number of hearings. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee spent 19 percent of its time on those two countries." Such hearings, moreover, suffer from "stovepiping" -- the practice of looking only at matters and people within one's narrow jurisdiction -- which prevents Congress from taking a comprehensive view of certain policies. Only one Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing involved a senior military officer, and only two saw witnesses from the Department of Defense.

That's from "When Congress Checks Out" by Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2006, which I don't think is online yet, but which provides a nice lede to ...

The Altercation Book Club:

Heist: Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, His Republican Allies, and the Buying of Washington by Peter Stone (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

The Rules of the Game

In the midst of the long running Washington influence peddling scandal, both before and after his plea bargain in early 2006, convicted superlobbyist Jack Abramoff made some stabs at presenting his side of the story, giving interviews to The New York Times Magazine, Time, and Vanity Fair. One of Abramoff 's recurring themes was that he was being pilloried for activities that are commonplace in the lobbying world. "I can't imagine there's anything I did that other lobbyists didn't do and aren't doing today," Abramoff told Time. In a similar vein, Abramoff complained to Vanity Fair that he really worked much like others on K Street, only better. "Most Washington lobbyists are lazy, people of limits, people who move glacially slow," Abramoff said.

Of course, this is heavily spun stuff, as Abramoff's own plea deal -- in which he admitted conspiring to bribe public officials, defrauding four casino rich Indian tribes and others of $25 million and evading $1.7 million in taxes -- makes abundantly clear. The lobbyist and his cohorts on Capitol Hill and on K Street subverted norms, ethics, and the law. Clearly, Abramoff's kickback schemes, bribes to high-level congressional aides, fraudulent use of nonprofits, and other actions were beyond the pale of the lobbying profession at large. The transgressions that Abramoff and his former lobbying associates -- Michael Scanlon and Tony Rudy, two ex-aides to onetime House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Tex., and Neil Volz, a former chief of staff to Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio -- have pled guilty to are expected to keep investigators and prosecutors busy through much of 2006 and perhaps into 2007 as they attempt to ferret out how far the corruption went.

Just last month there was more evidence of how far Abramoff's corruption schemes went. In his own plea deal with Justice Department, Ney admitted that he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in favors from Abramoff -- including a golf junket to Scotland, free meals at the lobbyist's Signatures restaurant, tickets to sporting events and more -- in exchange for promises to help some of Abramoff's Indian casino and other clients. Before the influence-peddling probe winds up, it's likely to snare several other GOP lobbyists and public office holders -- and perhaps even a few and current and ex-members such as Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., and DeLay who remain under scrutiny.

"Abramoff wasn't just pushing the envelope," quipped Larry Noble, a former counsel at the Federal Election Commission who later ran the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, a nonpartisan group tracking the influence of money in politics. "He was shredding the envelope."

Nonetheless, there's another way to interpret Abramoff's remarks that reveals some interesting broader truths, not only about the lobbyist's rise and fall but also about the way that Washington works -- specifically, how the connections between lobbyists, money, and politicians have tightened considerably over the last decade. "Lobbyists are afraid if they don't give, congressmen won't talk to them much," former representative William Frenzel, a Republican from Minnesota who is now with the Brookings Institution, told me. "I think Congress has been merciless in their fund-raising. I think it's a form of extortion. Congress treats the lobbyists as though they're sheep to be fleeced."

Frenzel wasn't talking about the K Street Project directly, though his remarks seem apropos in regard to that operation. The K Street Project owed much to Abramoff, whose extraordinary fund-raising for DeLay and his pet projects, as well as numerous conservative causes, long made him a role model and hero for many conservatives. As Abramoff's old political ally Grover Norquist, the head of the powerful Americans for Tax Reform, once told National Journal, "What the Republicans need is 50 Jack Abramoffs. Then this becomes a different town." What Norquist and others appreciated so much about Abramoff was that he provided a complete financial concierge service for his Capitol Hill allies and right-wing redoubts. Abramoff persuaded his Indian casino clients, his clients in the sweatshop ridden Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, and others to part with millions and millions of dollars-in campaign cash, junkets, meals, skyboxes, and more -- to ingratiate themselves with the GOP and conservative power brokers such as Norquist and former Christian coalition leader turned consultant Ralph Reed, another old Abramoff friend whose Atlanta based consulting firm raked in close to $6 million from the lobbyist's casino clients.

The zeitgeist that Abramoff reflected so well was promulgated by DeLay and the K Street Project. When the GOP captured Congress in 1994 and in the years directly after, the word went out from DeLay and Norquist that if you wanted access on Capitol Hill and if you wanted to have influence with these and other leaders, you'd better hire Republicans. "We're just following the old adage of punish your enemies and reward your friends," DeLay famously said in the mid 1990's.

The GOP effort to establish its own pay-to-play rules and its own spoils system was an updated, more aggressive, and more far-reaching version of what Democrats had developed when they controlled the House. Trade groups all over Washington felt pressure from the DeLay and Norquist machines to hire more Republicans and did so overwhelmingly. An official of the Republican National Committee in 2003 was cited in The Washington Post observing that all but three of some three dozen top slots at leading business trade groups had been recently filled by Republicans. But sometimes DeLay's heavy-handed tactics provoked ethics storms on the Hill. In late 1998, for instance, DeLay attacked the Electronic Industries Association for having had the temerity to hire former representative Dave McCurdy, an Oklahoma Democrat, rather than a GOP candidate. In response, the House Ethics Committee issued a private letter rebuking the Texan for going too far.

But the reprimand didn't do much to slow down DeLay's hard-driving, push-the-envelope style of remaking K Street, a style that not incidentally benefited Abramoff. On their highly publicized trip to the Marianas over New Year's in 1998 when DeLay famously and publicly called Abramoff "one of my closest and dearest friends."

Several of the lobbying tools -- including junkets, free meals, and subsidized sporting events -- that Abramoff took to extremes are institutionalized in Washington and are now integral to the ties that bind K Street with Capitol Hill. It's become standard operating procedure in the lobbying world to wine and dine members and staffers away from Washington and to lavishly entertain decision makers on Capitol Hill and at political conventions. Lobbyists also have emerged in recent years as chief fund-raisers for many campaigns and leadership PACs.

"I think the underlying cause of all these problems is the amount of money that has to be raised and how it is raised," former senator Warren Rudman, a Republican from New Hampshire, told me in a telephone interview. "By necessity it means going to people who need access, who want to be heard, and who want to influence policy."

Ironically, even as DeLay was stepping down permanently from House leadership early in 2006, the two leading candidates to succeed him were Roy Blunt of Missouri, his top deputy, and John Boehner of Ohio, a longtime rival, both of whom boasted their own sizable networks of Washington lobbyists and fund-raisers. Consider Blunt's leadership PAC, Rely on Your Beliefs, which long employed Jim Ellis, who was indicted in Texas along with DeLay on money laundering and conspiracy charges and used to run DeLay's ARMPAC too.

For his part, Boehner hosted weekly meetings with top Washington business lobbyists and conservatives for a few years right after the GOP won control of Congress in 1994. Boehner, who like DeLay boasted very strong ties to the tobacco lobby in Washington, once earned notoriety by handing out checks from the industry on the House floor.

Ultimately, in the struggle to succeed DeLay in early 2006, Boehner won out largely because the ties between Blunt's world and DeLay's seemed more obvious. But Boehner, who briefly talked tough about lobbying reforms in early 2006, soon backed away from almost all stringent measures to reform the pay-to-play system, as did many of his colleagues in the House. One perk that Boehner was particularly concerned to preserve was the ability of members to take privately funded junkets, not unlike the kind that Abramoff was so good at organizing. According to an independent survey done by the Campaign for a Cleaner Congress, Boehner had taken 180 trips since 1999 outside his district -- including quite a few to such golfing destinations as St. Andrews in Scotland and Pebble Beach in California -- ranking him among the ten most prolific travelers in the House.

Boehner's views about the importance of preserving private travel ultimately prevailed. At the start of 2006, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert publicly proclaimed that he favored putting "an end" to private travel because of abuses. But the very weak lobbying reform bill that passed the House -- but never was enacted -- included a much-watered-down provision that only suspended such trips and only until June 15, 2006, a token gesture at best.

Ironically, just as they were caving on the idea of banning private travel, studies showed such trips proliferating. PoliticalMoneyLine in early 2005 revealed that some 600 members of Congress since the year 2000 have gone on 5,410 trips that were privately funded at a cost of $16 million.

Likewise, Abramoff 's prowess at raising big bucks for DeLay's political operations and ARMPAC was part of a broader trend on K Street. According to the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington watchdog group, the number of lobbyists who served as treasurers for members' reelection committees or leadership PACs soared from fifteen in 1998 to seventy-one in the 2004 election cycles.

Similarly, the relationships between lobbyists and members have become tighter through the use of earmarks, another tool that Abramoff liked to employ. One of Abramoff's fortes was prodding members of Congress to insert appropriations earmarks into bills quietly, at the last minute and with little scrutiny. A prime example of this was a $3 million school grant that Sen. Conrad Burns R-Mont. helped Abramoff's client, the Saginaw Chippewas of Michigan obtain.

During the lobbying reform debates in early 2006, John McCain and other members pointed out how earmarks had proliferated. Overall, according to the Congressional Research Service, earmarks mushroomed from about four thousand a year in the mid-1990s to more than fifteen thousand in 2005. Earmarks, as McCain put it, have "bred lobbyists, which has bred corruption."

The poster boy for the corrupting potential of earmarks was former representative Randall "Duke" Cunningham of California, who in late 2005 pleaded guilty to accepting some $2.4 million in bribes from defense and other government contractors. In exchange for these extravagant bribes -- which included cash, antiques, and yachts -- Cunningham helped steer hundreds of millions in defense contracts and other federal business to three defense and technology firms, including MZM Inc. In March of 2006, Cunningham was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison.

Abramoff and Cunningham are "indicative of a broken system that people have taken advantage of," McCain told me. The Senator stressed too that the "Campaign contributions coming very close to the time that earmarks are inserted in bills may not meet the technical definition of bribery, but it's the moral equivalent."

Republicans, to be sure, weren't the only abusers of the earmark process. The Wall Street Journal has reported that federal investigators in April 2006 were probing the financial dealings of Rep. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the House Ethics Committee who also served on the Appropriations Committee. In the latter post, Mollohan reportedly steered some $250 million in earmarked appropriations to five nonprofit groups in his district, one of which was run by a former top aide in his office. Mollohan denied doing anything improper, but soon stepped down from his ethics committee post.

Still, some moderate GOP members saw scant prospects for far-reaching lobbying reform anytime soon, with Republicans in control. "For whatever reason, the GOP Congress that got elected in 1994 is not the same Republican Congress of today," Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, told me in early 2006 after the Abramoff plea deal. "We're not a reform-minded Congress. This is a Congress that belittles reforms, that thinks the public doesn't care. We're more like the Democrats of 1994 . . . I think we set out to change Washington, but Washington has changed us."

For more, go here.

Correspondence Corner:

Name: Richard Gallagher
Hometown: Fishkill, NY

Dear Eric,

This seems to have slipped under everyone's radar, but it's being reported that a verdict and sentencing in the Saddam Hussein trial will be announced on Nov. 5, two days before the mid-term elections. Coincidence?

Edward Furey's comments on gerrymandering are well-taken, at least in part. In some sections of the country population shifts are happening so quickly that Elbridge Gerry himself couldn't keep up with them.

I live in Dutchess County, N.Y., which has been safely Republican for years. Board of Elections statistics show that Republicans had a registration edge of 8,000 voters three years ago. Today that edge has shrunk to 5,500 voters, mostly because New York City residents who want to live in the suburbs have to move here to find relatively affordable housing. Consequently, the Republican representative Sue Kelly, who easily won re-election two years ago, is in the fight of her life with John Hall. I don't know if Hall will win, but he's certainly giving Kelly a scare.

Name: Charles Perez
Hometown: Marion, NY

Who should we trust on the number of Iraqis killed thus far in the Central Front of the Neverending War on Terror? If the public would just think about it (how many times I've said that over the past 6 years!), there would be no doubt.

MIT brought us pin-point lunar landings, LED lasers and advanced computing languages among thousands of other things all based on the latest in physics and mathematics. We can thank Johns Hopkins for numerous life-saving or enhancing advances and an almost uncountable number of epedemiological studies.

With what can we credit BushCo. and supporters - who disparage either the numbers or the methodology of the study? Lies about going to war, no plan for after the war, failed international policy all over the world (Darfur, Korea, Afghanistan...) and oh yeah, and a growing body count in Iraq.

But this disgrace is met with the same bored yawn and blank looks as the rape of our Constitution by the Military Commissions Act.

Name: John
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Dr A., I'm not one to media-bash or blame the ills of society on journalists and newscasters, but the more I read of your research on the various issues of the day, I'm beginning to agree that the Media is failing the public horribly. This Johns Hopkins Iraq Mortality study is yet another prime example. Why is it that journalists allow politicians to throw out statements that are complete bull-shit, instead of challenging their truth? Usually, I read up a good amount on whatever the issue, to try and get as many perspectives as possible (your site is a great help!) but I was extra busy this week so I came away with only the MSM-fed notion that the Hopkins study claimed huge losses (roughly 600,000), and that the methodology of the study is questionable. Granted, I fully expected that response from Republicans so I didn't give it much weight, but the media did. In fact it gave the GOP talking point, equal weight to that of the study and would obviously cause a huge number of people to be, how do we say ... misinformed. And this wasn't Fox News but MSNBC and even NPR. I'm all for explaining/exploring every side of an issue, but this trend is deeply disturbing to anyone who values truth. Next thing we'll be told that there is a significant "debate" about global warming and evolution in the scientific community, and Iraq had WMD. Ugh...

Keep up the fine work. Habeas corpus, we hardly knew ye.

Name: Pete
Hometown: Evergreen, CO

Eric,

In reference to Dale's letter, here in Colorado, on the local NBC affiliate 9News they do dissect political ads. Here is a link to the website. The reporter tries to be objective and is most times. Both sides have their ads disected.

Name: Marilyn King Reece
Hometown: Rainsville, Alabama

Thanks for the Moyers/Fogdall quote about the immeasurable significance of the Internet. Let's remember the senator who shepherded the legislation that opened it up, correctly imagining all the Information Superhighway could do to promote the general welfare. Let's also remember how that fact was buried under ridicule when we had the chance to elect him president.

WLM? (And thanks again, Ralph.)

Name: Michael Rapoport
Hometown:

Eric:

Not a bad choice at all. I have a 1993 Corolla with 90,000+ miles on it, and while I haven't always been thrilled with it, the damn thing has just lasted and lasted. Every time I think "well, let me just get one more year out of it," it keeps running well enough to get me to put off buying a new car yet again.

Name: Janice Halperin
Hometown: New York City

Mr. Alterman,

Mark Halperin is a very nice boy. Please leave him alone.

Eric replies: You know, I tried, I really did. But every time I think I'm out, he pulls me back in. That David Halperin, however -- now, there's a young man in whom all Halperins the world over may justly take pride ...

1:47pm EST | Permalink | BERJAYA

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