Jonah Goldberg: Maybe Stupid, Definitely Dishonest
Jonah Goldberg comes in for some well-deserved dissing for his latest Los Angeles Times column, in which he twists a quote from an interview of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Emily Bazalon in this past Sunday’s New York Times, to accuse Ginsburg of favoring abortion to reduce births in populations considered “undesirable” (such as poor, black women).
The Torture Investigation Mystery Show
So there’s been a lot of speculation in blogtopia about Attorney General Eric Holder’s reportedly renewed intentions of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the authorization and use of torture in the previous administration. The speculation — which revolves around the question of who Holder intends to prosecute, more than whether he intends to prosecute — has been fueled by these three articles:
- Daniel Klaidman’s piece, published Saturday in Newsweek, which reported that AG Holder had returned to the possibility of prosecutions.
- Carrie Johnson’s Washington Post article titled “Probe of Alleged Torture Weighed,” published on Sunday, which speculated that any investigation would be limited to CIA interrogators who had gone beyond the “guidelines” prescribed by the Bush lawyers.
- Scott Horton’s “Torture Prosecution Turnaround?” published in The Daily Beast, also yesterday. which suggested that the scope of prosecutions, if they happened, would be wider.
I certainly agree with Tim, Glenn, and Spencer that if investigations and/or prosecutions are going to be limited to low-hanging fruit, it would be better not to do anything at all. But I don’t think it’s at all clear that’s what Holder has in mind.
Keep in mind, first, that — as Glenn himself pointed out – the predictions as to what Holder will do in both articles — Johnson’s and Horton’s — are being made by anonymous sources. I’m not going to take any claims seriously that come from sources without names or identities attached to them. It’s not even that I think these people are unreliable, whoever they are. I’m sure they are high-ranking officials who know Holder well. But no matter who they are, if they are anonymous, they might as well be no one, because there’s no accountability. No other journalist can call them up and confirm what they said. So they can say whatever they want, but it has no gravitas until they are identified.
And that leads me to the other reason I don’t take these claims about Holder’s intentions seriously: They’re not meant seriously. They’re meant to test the waters. Isn’t that what corporate journalism is about these days? Anonymous sources test-driving major decisions by calling reporters at major papers and sending out trial balloons?
It can actually be entertaining sometimes to see how reporters for top national papers parse the reasons for not naming the sources. There’s a whole structure and style to presenting sources anonymously. First, there is the obligatory first mention, “…according to three sources. …” This is usually included in the opening paragraph, but sometimes it’s the second or third. Then, several paragraphs further down in the article, you get the “reason” why these sources are not being identified. And I put “reason” in quotes because, obviously, there’s only one reason. But Carrie Johnson can’t very well tell us that her sources would only agree to speak to her on background “because they don’t want to be held responsible for the information they’re leaking.” So instead, she writes that the sources “spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing process.”
Thank you to Digby for inspiring the above rant by saying exactly what I had been thinking (in the first Update to her post about the Brain Trust at This Week With George Stephanopoulos).
Count the Strawmen
I count five, stated in various ways (listed under video).
1. The Democrats still want to blame the Bush administration for the economy.
2. The Democrats want to dismantle the CIA.
3. Nancy Pelosi is looking for political cover.
4. It’s not unusual for president and vice-president to be involved.
5. The CIA is in the secrecy business and Congress wants to know everything.
(And one dodge: “I don’t have enough information.”)
Via Think Progress.
The IG Warrantless Surveillance Report
Here is a roundup of commentary about the report (h/t Glenn), which came out on Friday.
The Voices in Marty Peretz’s Head
Pres. Obama has nominated Dr. Francis Collins, a geneticist who headed the Human Genome Project, to fill the top spot at the National Institutes of Health. Collins is certainly qualified for such a position, and the response to his nomination has generally been positive. However, Gardner Harris, who wrote the New York Times article about the nomination, makes one mention in a single paragraph that some discomfort was expressed about Dr. Collins’ overt religiosity (he wrote a book called The Language of God in which he argues that the human genetic code is evidence for the existence of God) — and that was enough to set off the “left-liberal anti-religion martyrology” alarm system in Marty Peretz’s head:
Marty “The Wedding Singer” Peretz writes:
“Christian Believers Would Be Excluded From Government If The Left Liberals Had Their Way”
If they weren’t believers, they wouldn’t be Christians. And if they weren’t liberals, they wouldn’t be on the left.
And how exactly did Barack Obama, who identifies himself as a Christian, become President without the the support of “The Left Liberals?” By the unanimous vote of The Right Conservatives?
But Marty’s headline isn’t the worst piece in his monument to crap. Neither Spinnin’ Marty nor the NYT article to which he links identifies a single Left Liberal who would exclude the subject of the post, Dr. Francis Collins, from government service because of his religious affiliation or beliefs. The article says that “some in the field [presumably, other geneticists]” express “unease” about Collins’ evangelism. It doesn’t say that those unnamed persons are Left Liberals (as opposed to Right-Wing Jews or Moderate Jehovah’s Witnesses or Apolitical Atheists or Mind-Your-Own-Damn-Business Canadians).
Peretz himself offers no evidence for his repetitive thesis. He just pulls it out of his rectal posterior ass.
On Palin, Noonan Is the Antidote to Douthat
Eyal Press, at The Nation:
I like Ross Douthat, as I’ve said here before, but earlier this week he wrote a justly panned column in which he claimed, absurdly, that Sarah Palin had been done in by media elites who “mocked and misrepresented” her because she didn’t graduate from Columbia or Harvard. Douthat’s editorial was infused with the very thing he was objecting to – classism, the condescending assumption that a woman without an Ivy League pedigree shouldn’t be criticized by uppity reporters for appearing utterly clueless about, say, foreign policy, the economy, the Supreme Court etc.
The best rejoinder to Douthat’s column has come from a fellow conservative, Peggy Noonan, who, in today’s Wall Street Journal, points out that the elites who supposedly revile Palin actually created her (see William Kristol), and that she failed because she couldn’t articulate her positions or convince anybody she was qualified to be on the national ticket of any party. Noonan also corrects the unexamined assumption at the core of Douthat’s column:
She is not working class, never was, and even she, avid claimer of advantage that she is, never claimed to be and just lets others say it. Her father was a teacher and school track coach, her mother the school secretary. They were middle-class figures of respect, stability and local status. I think intellectuals call her working-class because they see the makeup, the hair, the heels and the sleds and think they’re working class “tropes.” Because, you know, that’s what they teach in “Ways of the Working Class” at Yale and Dartmouth.
This paragraph made me laugh out loud:
In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn’t say what she read because she didn’t read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn’t thoughtful enough to know she wasn’t thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. “I’m not wired that way,” “I’m not a quitter,” “I’m standing up for our values.” I’m, I’m, I’m.
Although it’s true, she praised the same qualities in George W. Bush.
Plus, she’s way off-base on why the media is obsessed with Palin:
Saying Palin gets coverage because the political press hates the GOP is like saying Amy Winehouse gets coverage because the tabloids hate music, or the Gosselins get coverage because the entertainment press hates reality TV. There’s a much simpler explanation: The media covers train wrecks because people enjoy watching train wrecks. (See Jackson, Michael, later years of.)
Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Polls show that a lot of people (us smirky sophisticates) loathe Palin but can’t turn away when she’s in front of a camera — while a lot of other people (the folks in her base) deeply admire her. So, for the press, covering Palin is win-win. Everybody watches.
So true.
Obama Reverses Himself on Needle Exchange
AIDS activists are furious and showed it by taking over the Capitol rotunda this morning. John Aravosis has the background:
Obama Is Like Hitler, and U.S. Is Like Nazi Germany, Which Is Like Venezuela Under Chavez
That is the premise, apparently, of intellectual giant Jim DeMint’s new book, Saving Freedom:
Leon Panetta and GOP Leaders Owe Nancy Pelosi an Apology
CIA Director Leon Panetta told the House Intelligence Committee in late June that the CIA consistently misled, misinformed, and in at least one case, outright lied to Congress for eight years, beginning in 2001 and ending on the date of his testimony toward the end of last month:
Massachusetts Sues Feds on DOMA
Massachusetts has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, on the basis that it violates the rights of individual states to legislate on such private matters:
Massachusetts, the first state in the nation to legalize gay marriage, has become the first to challenge the constitutionality of a federal law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, saying Congress intruded into a matter that should be left to individual states.
“Our familes, our communities, and even our economy have seen the many important benefits that have come from recognizing equal marriage rights and, frankly, no downside,” Attorney General Martha Coakley said this afternoon at a news conference announcing the lawsuit. “However, we have also seen how many of our married residents and their families are being hurt by a discriminatory, unprecedented, and, we believe, unconstitutional law.”
The suit filed in US District Court in Boston claims that the Congress, in enacting the DOMA, “overstepped its authority, undermined states’ efforts to recognize marriages between same-sex couples, and codified an animus towards gay and lesbian people.”
[...]
The lawsuit argues that the DOMA, which was enacted in 1996, precludes same-sex spouses in Massachusetts from a wide range of protections, including federal income tax credits, employment and retirement benefits, health insurance coverage, and Social Security payments.The defendants named in the lawsuit include the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and the United States itself. Charles Miller, a US Justice Department spokesman, said, “We haven’t seen it. Once we are served with it, we’ll review it and make a determination as to how to respond.”
The lawsuit questions the constitutionality of Section 3 of the law, which defines the word “marriage” for the purpose of federal law as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” It does not challenge the constitutionality of Section 2, which provides that states are not required to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
The suit alleges that the law violates the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves to the states all powers except those granted to the federal government. It also alleges that the law violates Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which limits the power of Congress to attach conditions to the receipt of federal funds.
Another organization — Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) — is preparing its own legal challenge to DOMA, which, Bil Browning tells us, will allege that DOMA violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection.
Pam’s House Blend links to the pdf of the complaint, and plus has further information about the lawsuit, as well as a roundup of reaction from GLBT advocacy organizations (and from Barney Frank).
Oscar Arias to Mediate Talks Between Zelaya and Micheletti
Oscar Arias, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for helping to end years of war and political violence between the Central American nations, has agreed to facilitate a U.S.-backed effort to resolve the conflict between the ousted but democratically elected Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, and the interim government headed by Roberto Micheletti:
Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Tuesday accepted a U.S.-backed effort by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to mediate an end to the political crisis in Honduras and said talks with his rivals would begin on Thursday.
“Our first meeting is set for Thursday, in Costa Rica,” Zelaya, told Honduran radio from Washington.
In Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, who was appointed president by Honduran lawmakers after the June 28 coup, also said he would attend Thursday’s talks under Arias’ mediation.
Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize winner with experience in solving Central American conflicts, faces mediating between sharply opposed positions.
Zelaya said his reinstatement as president was nonnegotiable.
“What this is is not a negotiation, this is the planning of the exit of the coup leaders,” he said.
But Micheletti maintained his position that Zelaya could not return as president. “We’re not going to negotiate, we’re going to talk,” he said. “We’re going into these talks because we’re interested in having peace and tranquility in Honduras.”
Zelaya, whose ouster was sparked by his efforts to change presidential term limits and by his political shift to the left, spoke after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
She urged him to negotiate rather than try to force his way back into the country.
Here is an interesting article byMiami Herald reporter Frances Robles. Robles interviewed Honduras’s top military attorney about the events of June 28, and got some eye-popping admissions:
The military officers who rushed deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya out of the country Sunday committed a crime but will be exonerated for saving the country from mob violence, the army’s top lawyer said.
In an interview with The Miami Herald and El Salvador’s elfaro.net, army attorney Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza acknowledged that top military brass made the call to forcibly remove Zelaya — and they circumvented laws when they did it.
It was the first time any participant in Sunday’s overthrow admitted committing an offense and the first time a Honduran authority revealed who made the decision that has been denounced worldwide.
”We know there was a crime there,” said Inestroza, the top legal advisor for the Honduran armed forces. “In the moment that we took him out of the country, in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime. Because of the circumstances of the moment this crime occurred, there is going to be a justification and cause for acquittal that will protect us.”
Inestroza also told Robles that the military would not take orders from a leftist government. And, despite his own acknowledgment that the forcible removal of Zelaya from office was not lawful, Inestroza, amazingly, said, “… [I]t’s very difficult for someone who has dedicated his whole life to a country and an institution to see, from one day to another, a person who is not normal come and want to change the way of life in the country without following the steps the law indicates.”
House Votes Almost Unanimously to Honor Slave Labor
A House resolution to place a plaque in the House Vistors Center honoring the labor of slaves who helped build the U.S. Capitol passed with one No vote. Steve King, Republican from Iowa, voted against the resolution, because, um… well, I don’t really know. I mean, I’ve read his explanation, but it makes no sense to me:
King, a Republican from Kiron, says he voted “no” because the resolution was part of a deal that would get the words “In God We Trust” back in a picture that’s on display in the capitol visitors center.
“The architect of the capitol had gone in — or directed someone to go in — and photoshop and scrub the language, ‘In God We Trust’ that was clearly visible in the picture of the (house) speaker’s chair that’s shown in the capitol visitors center,” King says. “And in order to get them to agree to put the real language back in the picture so the picture was real, we had to agree to pass a resolution to put another monument up to slavery.”
King says slavery was “abhorrent,” but he is tired of those who are trying to erase the country’s Christian heritage, an accusation King lobs at the architect of the capitol.
“The architect of the capitol has been for years trying to eradicate any sign of faith or Christianity from the capitol itself and from the historical documents that flow from it,” King says. “…I’m out of patience with these kind of maneuverings.”
The resolution calling for a monument to honor the slaves who built the capitol passed the House on a 399 to one vote Tuesday night. King says he believes there are others who would have liked to join him in voting no, but didn’t want to take a stand.
“I think it’s simply many of them thought, ‘I don’t want to die on that hill,’” King says. “‘It’s not worth fighting over.’”
But King says he was willing to take the heat and draw a line.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with slavery to speak of,” King says. “It has to do with them trying to amend our history after the fact.”
Maybe someone else can figure out what that means. I can’t.
Don’t Tell Me, ‘Cause It Hurts
The Honduran Foreign Minister apologized for calling Barack Obama “a little black man who doesn’t know where Tegucigalpa is located.”
The foreign relations minister in Honduras’ interim government says he has sent a letter to Barack Obama apologizing for a racial comment he made about the U.S. president.
Enrique Ortez says the letter expresses “his most profound apologies” for “an unfortunate comment.”
In a TV interview, Ortez said Obama “is a little black man who doesn’t know where Tegucigalpa is located.”
Ortez says the remark made before he was named to the post was not meant to offend anyone.
Emphasis mine. I still think Rusty DePass’s response to the outrage that greeted his “joke” likening Michelle Obama to a gorilla leaves Ortez in the dust.
Who Sets the Parameters of the Debate?
Paul Krugman wants to know why some points of view on big issues are all over the place, while others are ignored:
One of the mysteries of the way issues are covered in much of the news media is how certain views get ruled “out of the mainstream” and just don’t get covered — even when many well-informed people hold those views.
The most notorious example was during the buildup to the Iraq war: skepticism about the case for war was treated as a fringe view, even though the evidence being presented by the hawks was flimsy on its face, and the ranks of the skeptics included a number of people with excellent national-security credentials.
But in a way, the implicit censorship on the stimulus debate is even stranger. During the initial discussion of the stimulus, the debate was framed almost entirely as a debate between Obama and those who said the stimulus was too big; the voices of those saying it was too small were largely frozen out. And they still are — if it weren’t for my position on the Times op-ed page, there would be hardly any major outlet for Keynesian concerns.
And here’s the thing: in this case, there isn’t any hidden evidence — you can’t argue that the CIA knows something the rest of us don’t. And the voices calling for stronger stimulus are, may I say, sorta kinda respectable — several Nobelists in the bunch, plus a large fraction of the prominent economists who predicted the housing crash before it happened.
But somehow, the pro-stimulus people are unpersons. Who makes these decisions?
I don’t know the answer, but I think it’s a good question.
Scary, Scary Glenn
At the end of his post about Barack Obama’s post-acquittal detention plan, Glenn Greenwald gives us an update on NPR’s policy of using various euphemisms for the word “torture” in its coverage of the previous administration’s detention and interrogation policies:
Finally, I was on an NPR station yesterday in Seattle to discuss NPR’s ban on the use of the word “torture” to describe Bush administration interrogation tactics. I originally understood that I would be on with NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard, but alas, it turns out that she agreed only to be on the show before me, so as not to engage or otherwise interact with me, so I was forced to listen to her for 15 minutes and wait until she hung up before being able to speak. The segment can be heard here, beginning at the 14:00 mark (though the quality of the recording is poor in places).
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