Stuff The P-G's Ruth Ann Dailey Left Out

In a recent column, the P-G's Ruth Ann Dailey gets some stuff right (let's be honest) and yet leaves some very important stuff out.

Enough stuff that you have to think she knows she's only telling you a partial story (let's hope that's the case).

Let's start with what she gets (mostly) right.  It's about a wife and mother who changed her mind:

“One of my good friends said, ‘I’m really uncomfortable letting my children play with your children because of your decision not to vaccinate,’ ” Ms. Elliott recalled while toddlers tumbled around her.

What changed her mind was her little girl’s bout last year with whooping cough, which a vaccine might have prevented.

“I let my pride keep me from vaccinating my children,” she confessed.

She said these words slowly and simply, sitting in a cozy living room of jam-packed bookshelves, piano, wicker and rose-printed chintz.

It used to be that failure to get one’s children all the recommended vaccines was mostly connected to poverty and lack of access to regular health care. These days, the parents skipping vaccines are more likely to be well-educated, plugged into social networks and alternative medicines.

Pop quiz: when Dailey describes these parents as "well-educated, plugged into social networks and alternative medicines" what sort of person flashes in your head?  Better yet, what sort of person do you think Dailey thinks she was describing?

Whereas I do not doubt a significant portion of the so called "anti-vaxx" crowd being college-educated, facebook-friendly, new-agey types, I am also not surprised that a faith-defender like Dailey would omit the religious exemption from compulsory school-age vaccination.

That's right.  If you have a sincere religious objection to vaccinating your child, you ignore all the science regarding their safety, and in doing so possibly be part of a serious public health issue.  Yay, religious freedom!

Did you know that there's an exemption in Pennsylvania?  Take a look:

Children need not be immunized if the parent, guardian or emancipated child objects in writing to the immunization on religious grounds or on the basis of a strong moral or ethical conviction similar to a religious belief.

It would have been nice to have seen that rather small point injected into an otherwise OK portion of Dailey's column.  I don't mean to be a prick about it, needling Ruth Ann Daily like this, so let's plunge on.

This is really about, once again, John McCain and his defense of Henry Kissinger.  Dailey wrote:

After more than a minute of their chanting “Arrest Henry Kissinger for war crimes” as initially bemused onlookers grew visibly irritated, the U.S. Capitol Police arrived to intervene.

This is nearly incorrect - but we should expect more (at least "close to correct") from such an established columnist as Ruth Ann Dailey.  As we know from this blog post, the protest was barely longer (by a second or two) than a minute and there was no need for the Capitol Police to arrive as they were already there (the proof of the policing is in video).

But her real sin occurs in these paragraphs:

I respect my pacifist friends. I think they are wrong, yet principled, their stance unrealistic in this dangerous world. They tend to a quiet opposition.

But if you’re going to loudly denounce those who (usually reluctantly) accept the merits of war, then at least be intellectually consistent.

If war is wrong, then engaging in it through any means is a “crime,” whether it’s Kissinger’s realpolitik, the nation-building of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, or the puzzling disarray of the Obama administration (which Mr. Kissinger is now advising).

Why target only the man whose era was haunted by the slaughter of totalitarian regimes and the long “socialist republic” nightmare? Hmmm.

Perhaps they're haunted by the slaughter instigated by the man they were protesting.

For Dailey to belittle his actions by hiding them under one word ("realpolitik") and then equating that word with whatever she means by Clinton's "nation-building" is simply astonishing.  We can, perhaps, equate Kissinger's 180,000 dead Timorese with Dubya's 100,000+ dead Iraqis in terms of war crimes, but I don't think that's where Dailey was headed.

Let's look a little deeper into Kissinger's slaughter "realpolitik" in East Timor  From Hitchens:

Kissinger, who does not find room to mention East Timor even in the index of his three-volume memoir, has more than once stated that the invasion came to him as a surprise, and that he barely knew of the existence of the Timorese question. He was obviously lying. But the breathtaking extent of his mendacity has only just become fully apparent, with the declassification of a secret State Department telegram. The document, which has been made public by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, contains a verbatim record of the conversation among Suharto, Ford and Kissinger. "We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action," Suharto opened bluntly. "We will understand and will not press you on the issue," Ford responded. "We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have." Kissinger was even more emphatic, but had an awareness of the possible "spin" problems back home. "It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly," he instructed the despot. "We would be able to influence the reaction if whatever happens, happens after we return.... If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the President returns home." Micromanaging things for Suharto, he added: "The President will be back on Monday at 2 pm Jakarta time. We understand your problem and the need to move quickly but I am only saying that it would be better if it were done after we returned." As ever, deniability supersedes accountability.

There came then the awkward question of weaponry. Indonesia's armed forces, which had never yet lost a battle against civilians, were equipped with US-supplied matériel. But the Foreign Assistance Act forbade the use of such armaments except in self-defense. "It depends on how we construe it; whether it is in self-defense or is a foreign operation," Kissinger mused. (At a later meeting back at the State Department on December 18, the minutes of which have also been declassified, he was blunt about knowingly violating the statute. For a transcript of the minutes, see Mark Hertsgaard, "The Secret Life of Henry Kissinger," October 29, 1990.)

You can read the Ford-Kissinger-Suharto conversation here and you can read Hertsgaard's piece here.

Back to Hitchens:

Adam Malik, Indonesia's foreign minister at the time, later conceded in public that between 50,000 and 80,000 Timorese civilians were killed in the first eighteen months of the occupation. These civilians were killed with American weapons, which Kissinger contrived to supply over Congressional protests, and their murders were covered up by American diplomacy, and the rapid rate of their murder was something that had been urged in so many words by an American Secretary of State.

That's what Ruth Ann Dailey hides with her simple use of the term "realpolitik."

Or is that precisely what "realpolitik" means?  At a time when totalitarian regimes were slaughtering thousands, it's OK to allow our allies to slaughter thousands in response?  Then lie about it to the American people and to Congress?

And for the person who did all that to be defended by that same Congress a few decades later when some citizens decide to exercise their First Amendment rights to protest his presence?

Is that what realpolitik means, Ruth Ann?

Ruth Ann Gets Atheism Wrong (No Surprise)

In her non-defense defense of the "In God We Trust" legislation, P-G Columnist Ruth Ann Dailey pushes a tired old myth about atheism:

All humans are created equal, but not all ideas are. Ideas have consequences, and the consequences of secular atheism are appalling. As the 20th century demonstrated, societies based on a vaguer, God-free foundation of “human rights” tend to have slaughtered hundreds of millions of those humans.

Yes, that's right. It was Atheism that drove Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot to slaughter all those people.  A God-free foundation of "human rights" is the culprit.

Simply absurd.  Here's Sam Harris on exactly why that's absurd:

People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

And Dailey stumbled upon a thread of this idea when she wrote:

A friend’s son suggested a brilliant synthesis: If we want “In God We Trust” on the courthouse wall, we should just tape a quarter up and call it done. (Yep, it’s right there next to George Washington’s ponytail — and in the last verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” too.)

Well, it's not exactly the same motto in the last verse of The Star Spangled Banner.  The "motto" referenced there is, "In God is our trust."  Incidentally, it's the second half of a rhymed couplet.  The first half?  It's this:

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

So when "our cause is just" and with God on our side, we must conquer.

See the trouble now?  Look around.

Ruth Ann Dailey On DOMA

Ruth Ann Dailey's wrote her own dissent of US v Windsor a few days ago in the Post-Gazette.

I gotta say that I've met Ruth Ann a few times (we shared the table on "Night Talk: Get To The Point" a few months ago) and she's a very nice person.  She's not stupid or hateful at all - and as a person I'd like to say that I like her very much.

But she's completely wrong about her dissent in the P-G where she seems to be saying that it's just so darned unfair to "religious traditionalists" for the big bad guv'ment to treat everyone fairly.  But don't take my word on it.  Here's what she says:

The only matter settled by the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions on gay marriage last week is that our nation faces many more years of litigation and legislation. And that was already a certainty before the decision was handed down.

Had the court established a sweeping constitutional right to same-sex marriage -- a decree that, like Roe v. Wade, would have overturned the varying laws of many states -- the political climate ahead would be far more bitter and divided.

For those of us still hoping for a win-win, this bit of judicial restraint constitutes some good news.

The bad news is that while the majority decisions were restrained, their rhetoric was not. The prevailing justices' lack of historical knowledge and philosophical depth underscores the significant drawback to our society's health in appointing to the bench mere specialists in the law. These are very smart people with alarmingly narrow vision.

And in their narrow vision, they have set the stage for a new persecuted minority: religious traditionalists.

See?  By making things more fair, The Supremes are persecuting the faithful - well some faithful, as Dailey dutifully points out that:

...several Christian denominations recognize same-sex relationships and ordain openly gay clergy.

But let's get back to her rhetorical rumba.  A line or two after the intro above, she gets a simple fact embarrassingly wrong.  Here's what she wrote:

Justice Anthony Kennedy's language in the decision overturning part of the Defense of Marriage Act is, as others have already pointed out, contemptuous of tradition and those who value it. Being able to see into other people's hearts and minds, he asserts that DOMA was motivated by a "bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group."

Note that the paragraph is about Justice Kennedy's language in which he asserts something about the motivations (the "bare...desire to harm") of Congress - something she's sarcastically implying he has no reason or evidence to hold true.  It's almost as if she can see into Justice Kennedy's heart and mind and that she can simply "know" that he's making it up.

Too bad the facts get in the way of that.

Let's go and see how Justice Kennedy actually used that phrase.  He uses it twice in the Windsor decision and each time (though one summarizes the other) he's quoting a previous Supreme Court decision from 1973.  His first usage:

By seeking to injure the very class New York seeks to protect, DOMA violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government. The Constitution's guarantee of equality "must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot" justify disparate treatment of that group. Department of Agriculture v. Moreno...[Italics in Original]

The fact that he was quoting from a 4 decade old decision is lost on her - what she's quoting from Kennedy was not actually his language, his assertion, is it?  He was using it to make a larger point.  A writer usually as careful as Ruth Ann Dailey should not be making such a simple mistake.  But lets get back to the larger point Kennedy was making.  Here's the passage he quotes from in the Moreno decision:

For if the constitutional conception of "equal protection of the laws" means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest.

But of course, the question remains, does DOMA reach that standard?  Dailey's asserting that Kennedy just made it up by imposing some sort of vague imagery into the hearts and minds of Congress.  However when you look at what he actually wrote, you can see that Kennedy actually does make the case (something else lost on Dailey):

In determining whether a law is motived by an improper animus or purpose, "[d]iscriminations of an unusual character'" especially require careful consideration. DOMA cannot survive under these principles. The responsibility of the States for the regulation of domestic relations is an important indicator of the substantial societal impact the State's classifications have in the daily lives and customs of its people. DOMA's unusual deviation from the usual tradition of recognizing and accepting state definitions of marriage here operates to deprive same-sex couples of the benefits and responsibilities that come with the federal recognition of their marriages. This is strong evidence of a law having the purpose and effect of disapproval of that class. The avowed purpose and practical effect of the law here in question are to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the States.

It's all there, Ruth Ann.  Your sarcasm is misplaced.  You either knew it was there or you didn't.  If you knew, then you were omitting it from your column dishonestly OR if you didn't then you didn't do your homework well enough.

Which one is it?

In effect, Kennedy's saying that some states recognized that same-sex couples had the same rights as heterosexual couples but that under DOMA, the former were denied Federal rights because of who they were - if equal protection under the laws means anything it means that no law so singling out a group or class of people for harm can survive constitutional scrutiny.

But to Ruth Ann Dailey, the religious traditionalists should be free to be unfair, to treat some of their fellow citizens unequally, as second class citizens.  But then she writes this:

Quite a few of us who identify as heterosexual, Evangelical and traditionalist nonetheless wish to extend to our fellow citizens all the relationship rights we enjoy in our straight marriages. We simply wish to do so in a way that preserves our constitutional right to disagree about the theology of marriage without being persecuted by the state.

Huh?  But if same sex couples were extended all the same rights then there would not be a need for any of this would there?  And doesn't the First Amendment already protect the constitutional right to disagree on theology?  What's not protected is acting on such a disagreement so as to deny another citizen his or her basic constitutional rights.

Equal protection under the law - it's only fair.  If religion gets in the way it's the religion that's wrong not the law.

THE IRS SCANDAL!!

Hey, remember when the P-G's Jack Kelly wrote this?

Who in Washington ordered special scrutiny of Tea Party groups, pro-Life groups, pro-Israel groups and donors to Freedom Watch, an organization which supported the Iraq troop surge?

Lois Lerner, director of the Exempt Organizations Division in Washington, was placed on administrative leave (with full pay) after she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination rather than answer questions from the House Oversight Committee. But it's doubtful the buck stops with her. [Emphases added.]

Or this?

The Internal Revenue Service demanded of some conservative groups (but not liberal groups) applying for tax-exempt status the names and addresses of their members and donors, and their contacts with journalists and legislators.

"Please detail the content of the members of your organizations' prayers," the IRS asked a pro-life group in Iowa.

Tax collectors have no right to demand such information from Americans. We must find out who is responsible for targeting critics of the Obama administration, and hold them accountable.[Emphases added.]

And how about our friends on Scaife's braintrust? Remember when they wrote this?

This is government thuggery at among its worst — siccing the tax man on those with political views opposite of those in charge of the executive branch and in the middle of a presidential election year. [Emphasis added.]

Or this?

Not only did the Internal Revenue Service target conservative groups for harassing and illegal scrutiny of their tax-exempt status, it appears to have lied about how far up the food chain knowledge of this thuggish practice went. [Emphasis added.]

And when Ruth Ann Dailey wrote this?

The cacophony has grown louder and wilder in recent days due to a quick succession of executive branch debacles: the cynical cover-up of the Benghazi assault; the IRS oppression of conservative and independent nonprofits...[Emphasis added.]

Or this?

The bolder and more troubling intrusion is the Internal Revenue Service's clearly ideological targeting of conservative and libertarian groups. Bureaucrats grilled nonprofit applicants on matters of conscience up to and including the specific content and wording of their prayers. [Emphasis added.]

Remember all this?  It was only in the last coupla months.

Now take a look at this from the New York Times:

The instructions that Internal Revenue Service officials used to look for applicants seeking tax-exempt status with “Tea Party” and “Patriots” in their titles also included groups whose names included the words “Progressive” and “Occupy,” according to I.R.S. documents released Monday.

The documents appeared to back up contentions by I.R.S. officials and some Democrats that the agency did not intend to single out conservative groups for special scrutiny. Instead, the documents say, officials were trying to use “key word” shortcuts to find overtly political organizations — both liberal and conservative — that were after tax favors by saying they were social welfare organizations.

The Times has an example:

“Common thread is the word ‘progressive,’ ” a lookout list instructs. “Activities appear to lean toward a new political party. Activities are partisan and appear as anti-Republican.”

Now that it looks like Obama Administration (or at least the IRS) was not (repeat: NOT) targeting conservative groups with their offensive and intrusive inquiries - they were targeting groups across the political spectrum - will we see a clarification from Jack Kelly?  The Braintrust?  Ruth Ann Dailey?

And what would these clarifications look like?  And how long will it take?

There are reputations at stake here.

Fact-Checking Ruth Ann...And Her Tweets

In what I suppose is supposed to be a humorous satire on our twitter-infested political conversation, my friend and P-G columnist Ruth Ann Dailey makes a few, shall we say, mistakes of a factual nature.

Take a look:

The Benghazi story broke out of its Fox News ghetto last week as mainstream media biggies decided, months after it was fairly obvious, that the Obama administration had lied -- lied! -- about the tragic event.

Newly released emails show that White House and State Department officials extensively edited the "talking points" (TPs) provided to Congress and to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, insisting on removing from the CIA's original memo any reference to al-Qaida, its affiliates and previous attacks on "foreign interests" in Benghazi. Apparently, renewed terrorist attacks might not have gone over very well during the presidential campaign.

But, as Tommy Vietor, a former National Security Council spokesman, tweeted Friday: "The #Benghazi TPs were written at request of the House intel committee Rs so they could go on TV. Cong forced admin to do them now attack."

You follow? "By requesting information on the murders of four Americans, Republicans ("Rs") forced us to invent things to cover our political backsides! Then these snakes object to our lies!"

Let's start at Ruth Ann's first paragraph.  In this column, as you can see, she's talking about those talking points and how the White House "lied" with them.

But we can look back as far as late November, 2012 to see that this is simply untrue:

CBS News has learned that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) cut specific references to "al Qaeda" and "terrorism" from the unclassified talking points given to Ambassador Susan Rice on the Benghazi consulate attack - with the agreement of the CIA and FBI. The White House or State Department did not make those changes. [Emphasis added.]

There has been considerable discussion about who made the changes to the talking points that Rice stuck to in her television appearances on Sept. 16 (video), five days after the attack that killed American Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, and three other U.S. nationals.

Republicans have accused her of making misleading statements by referring to the assault as a "spontaneous" demonstration by extremists. Some have suggested she used the terminology she did for political reasons.

And about those changes - specifically about the removal of any reference to any specific terror organizations - we can turn to the reporting of a few days earlier:

David H. Petreus, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told lawmakers on Friday that classified intelligence reports revealed that the deadly assault on the American diplomatic mission in Libya was a terrorist attack, but that the administration refrained from saying it suspected that the perpetrators of the attack were Al Qaeda affiliates and sympathizers to avoid tipping off the groups.

Mr. Petraeus, who resigned last week after admitting to an extramarital affair, said the names of groups suspected in the attack — including Al Qaeda’s franchise in North Africa and a local Libyan group, Ansar al-Shariah — were removed from the public explanation of the attack immediately after the assault to avoiding alerting the militants that American intelligence and law enforcement agencies were tracking them, lawmakers said.

A few paragraphs later:

The talking points initially drafted by the C.I.A. attributed the attack to fighters with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the organization’s North Africa franchise, and Ansar al-Shariah, a Libyan group, some of whose members have Al Qaeda ties.

Mr. Petraeus and other top C.I.A. officials signed off on the draft and then circulated it to other intelligence agencies, as well as the State Department and National Security Council.

At some point in the process — Mr. Petraeus told lawmakers he was not sure where — objections were raised to naming the groups, and the less specific word “extremists” was substituted.

But why?

Some intelligence analysts worried, for instance, that identifying the groups could reveal that American spy services were eavesdropping on the militants — a fact most insurgents are already aware of. Justice Department lawyers expressed concern about jeopardizing the F.B.I.’s criminal inquiry in the attacks. Other officials voiced concern that making the names public, at least right away, would create a circular reporting loop and hamper efforts to trail the militants.

Again this is all from last November.  So Ruth Ann, tell me again about the lies?

Especially in light of this 2008 report from CNN:

President Bush and his top aides publicly made 935 false statements about the security risk posed by Iraq in the two years following September 11, 2001, according to a study released Tuesday by two nonprofit journalism groups.

"In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003," reads an overview of the examination, conducted by the Center for Public Integrity and its affiliated group, the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

According to the study, Bush and seven top officials -- including Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice -- made 935 false statements about Iraq during those two years.

For instance, the Center for Public Integrity wrote:

In his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, President Bush said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

But as early as March 2002, there was uncertainty within the intelligence community regarding the sale of uranium to Iraq. That month, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research published an intelligence assessment titled, "Niger: Sale of Uranium to Iraq Is Unlikely." In July 2002, the Energy Department concluded that there was "no information indicating that any of the uranium shipments arrived in Iraq" and suggested that the "amount of uranium specified far exceeds what Iraq would need even for a robust nuclear weapons program." In August 2002, the Central Intelligence Agency made no mention of the Iraq-Niger connection in a paper on Iraq's WMD capabilities.

Just two weeks before the president's speech, an analyst with the Bureau of Intelligence and Research had sent an e-mail to several other analysts describing why he believed "the uranium purchase agreement probably is a hoax." And in 2006 the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded: "Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake' from Africa. Postwar findings support the assessment in the NIE of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) that claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are 'highly dubious.'"

I include this lie because back then, Ruth Ann wrote about how in "political theatre" "the truth rarely matters." Specifically about the unveiling of Valerie Plame:

It didn't matter that her husband Joe Wilson's investigation and subsequent New York Times editorial had actually bolstered the claim of British and Italian intelligence that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium in Niger.

But we already know that that claim was "highly dubious" and that Joe Wilson's investigation did not "bolster" that claim anyway:

In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90's. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible.

The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq -- and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.

I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.

You were saying, Ruth Ann?

Announcement

WEATHER PERMITTING
I've been invited to be on "NightTalk: Get to the Point" tonight on PCNC.

Chris Potter will be hosting and I'll be on a panel with Ruth Ann Dailey of the P-G and Ulish Carter of The New Pittsburgh Courier.

Again, weather permitting.

Now I gotta go study.

Ruth Ann Dailey On "Facts" and Facts

In today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, columnist Ruth Ann Dailey writes:

The Obama administration and its media partisans now navigating the "Fast and Furious" drama and looking ahead to the far more scandalous matter of classified intelligence leaks should remember this name: Valerie Plame.

And then a few paragraphs later:

The truth is in the details, but in political theater the truth rarely matters.

Which is followed by some examples, including this one:

It didn't matter that her husband Joe Wilson's investigation and subsequent New York Times editorial had actually bolstered the claim of British and Italian intelligence that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium in Niger.

Which is why, of course, that Joe Wilson wrote in the New York Times:

In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90's. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible.

The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq -- and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.

I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place. [emphasis added.]

So how does that bolster the (incorrect, as it turns out) claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger?  Dailey never explains, she just assumes that you, her loyal reading public, will assume that her incorrect claim is actually correct and, y'know, factual.

Then there's this:

It didn't matter that the source for Robert Novak's column identifying Ms. Plame as a CIA employee was the State Department's Richard Armitage, not vice presidential aide Scooter Libby.

You'd think that Libby was charged with leaking Ms Plame's identity and that the conveniently avoided "facts" showed otherwise.  That's certainly what Dailey is implying.

Except Libby wasn't charged with leaking Plame's identity.  He was charged with Obstruction of Justice, Perjury and Making False Statements.

For Ruth Ann Dailey to get some easily researched facts wrong in a column about how facts are ignored by the partisan media is both sadly humorous and completely unforgivable.

Perhaps Jack Kelly's fact checker is doing double duty as Ruth Ann Dailey's fact checker.

Ruth Ann Stumbles, I Think

Today, Ruth Ann Dailey references one of my favorite philosphers:

Even Bertrand Russell -- an early exemplar of "antagonistic atheism" -- acknowledged in "A History of Western Philosophy" that the Enlightenment was essentially the culmination of Martin Luther's schism with the Roman Catholic Church -- the Reformation.

The column, titled:

America a Christian nation? Think again

Takes a very fair and practical look at the idea that America is a "Christian Nation."

Her answer, by the way, is "Yes and no."  I'd agree with her answer but not with how she forms the question.

But let's look at the stumble.

Why Arguments By Analogy Are Tricky

In her column today, P-G columnist Ruth Ann Dailey argues by analogy - badly.

She's talking again about contraception and religious liberty.  And in the process sets up a strawman argument.

Let's take a look.  She sets up the strawman.  First the frame:

Let's say you're a pacifist, and you belong to a pacifist religious organization. Maybe it's the Mennonite Central Committee, the Jewish Peace Fellowship, Pax Christi or any of numerous Quaker groups.

And then the conflict:

Let's say your organization needs a new staffer and you hire me because I'm a perfect fit for the job and an all-around wonderful human being.

Imagine that at some point during my tenure with your organization, a right-wing president and Congress so advance the cause of a citizen militia, as it existed in the Founders' day, that a law is passed mandating employers to provide employees with free guns if the employees wish to have them.

And I do!

Unbeknownst to you, I feel strongly about the Second Amendment. I believe it's necessary to my personal safety and well-being to bear arms, but the weapons and ammunition I need to exercise this right can get quite expensive. It would be very helpful to my budget to get them for free.

There's two references in there of employees getting the weapons for free.  She keeps going:

There is much public controversy over this new legislation, of course, and you, my pacifist employer, are among its most outspoken opponents.

"I have the right to own a weapon," I remind you, "and it's so fundamental a right that it should be part of the terms of my employment."

"But a central tenet of our organization is that using weapons is wrong," you say. "Buying you a weapon violates our doctrine and therefore our constitutional right to the free exercise of religion."

"But I have a constitutional right to bear arms."

"Yes, you do, but we should have no obligation to buy them for you."

There it is again. The employer buying birth control for the employee - not that the insurance company has to cover contraception in its health benefits.

Guns are property.  Health care isn't.  Her analogy fails right there.

Besides that, Dailey's argument falls flat because she's assuming that her strawman pacifist organization can deny such coverage.

But if it's the law, it can't.  Religious conscience is no get out of jail free card.  Who says?

Antonin Scalia and the US Supreme Court:

We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs [494 U.S. 872, 879] excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate.

And:

We first had occasion to assert that principle in Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879), where we rejected the claim that criminal laws against polygamy could not be constitutionally applied to those whose religion commanded the practice. "Laws," we said, "are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. . . . Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself." Id., at 166-167.

Subsequent decisions have consistently held that the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a "valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes)."

Better luck next time, Ruth Ann.

Fact-Checking Ruth Ann Dailey

The P-G's Ruth Ann Dailey has a column out today about Rush Limbaugh, Sandra Fluke and birth control.  It has the expected right wing nonsense and some unexpected Limbaugh bashing.  But for the fact fetishists, we have to begin with this passage.   She asserts that :

In an age of one-minute network news stories and cable television's distortion-as-debate, the nuance of shared principle but different practice would be lost, and all the big, bad Puritans and Inquisition throwbacks would be melded into one scary, woman-hating monster.

As Mr. Limbaugh himself had pointed out, that's exactly what the White House wanted. It can't defend its economic record -- the recession and jobless numbers now belong solely to Mr. Obama -- so it needed to shift the campaign focus to social values.

Take a look at the unfacts slipped in, ever so gently, into that second paragraph.  She's trying to get you to think that all that bad news (recession, high unemployment) is the fault of the current administration.  We'll take them one at a time to see how she's misleading you, her loyal reading public.

Ruth Ann's Prayer

Let me start off by saying that I like Ruth Ann Dailey. She's a very nice person, very smart, good writer and when she writes about music she's almost always gets it right.

But when she writes about graduation prayers, as she did this week, she gets it wrong. She shaded her arguments just enough them to qualify as a "straw man" argument.

Here's what she did. Her opening paragraphs:

Here's how the annual American fight over public school prayer played out this year:

In late May an agnostic family in a suburb of San Antonio, Texas, sued to remove the invocation and benediction from Medina Valley High School's graduation ceremony. Their lawsuit, filed with the help of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, claimed the prayers would force their son to participate in religious activities.

Last Tuesday, a U.S. District Court judge ruled in their favor, saying that formal prayers would make it seem that the school was "sponsoring a religion."

On Wednesday the state attorney general asked a federal appeals court to overturn the decision.

On Thursday the school's valedictorian filed a lawsuit, with the help of the pro-faith and limited-government Liberty Institute, to reinstate and lead the ceremonial prayers.

On Friday the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stepped in and reversed the lower court's ban on prayer.

Ooo. She was sooo close! But the lower court did not issue a "ban on prayer." And the higher court did not "reverse" it, either.

Here's the lower court's ruling. The issue here is not prayer but official prayer. The ruling took out the words "Benediction" and "Invocation" from the program. It also instructed the students chosen to give what would have been them to be "statements of their own beliefs" rather than instructing those assembled in prayer.

That agnostic family was challenging the idea that they'd be told to pray at that graduation. The students giving speeches were free (as they always are) "to state their own personal beliefs" during the ceremony. They could give the sign of the cross, for example. Or kneel to Mecca, if they wished.

They just couldn't tell the crowd to pray.

And the upper court's ruling didn't reverse the lower court as much as dissolve its temporary restraining order and and preliminary injunction remand it to district court for further proceedings.

The upper court noted that "Benediction" and "Invocation" were removed from the program.

Now compare that to the prayer that takes up the rest of her column. She introduces it with:

Since the issue is likely to flare up again next year and to feature immaturity all the way around, here's an all-purpose speech for the prayer-minded class leader. It can be easily adapted to suit whatever the last court ruling might be.

And ends it with:

Despite the acrimonious lawsuit that preceded today's event, if I were allowed to offer a prayer, I would echo Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address -- 'With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds ...'

"Or we could stop wounding one another and just grow up. That would be my prayer today, if I were allowed to pray.

But the students in Medina Texas were allowed to pray.

They just shouldn't be allowed to force anyone else to pray.

And that's where Ruth Ann gets it wrong.

Sorry Ruth Ann, But You're Wrong. Again.

From Ruth Ann Dailey's column this week:

It's been perfectly clear for about three years now that questions about Mr. Obama's nationality have no traction. Whether he is a native-born American or has a valid birth certificate or (most recently, thanks to Mr. Trump) was born at a particular hospital -- reasonable people have long since felt the matter settled.

The only ones being hurt by the regular roiling of these waters are those who oppose Mr. Obama on a higher plane -- namely, the majority of Republicans and independents who do not dwell on the lunatic fringe.

While it's true that reasonable people have long felt the matter settled, what about, you know, Republicans?

In a recent poll by Public Policy Polling of 416 Republican primary voters in Iowa, when asked "Do you think Barack Obama was born in the United States?" 48% said no. 26% were unsure. That's 74% who have not settled the matter, Ruth Ann.

But maybe that's just one state. What does it look like nationwide?

In another recent poll by PPP, 400 Republican primary voters were asked, "Do you think Barack Obama was born in the United States? 51% said no and 21% were not sure. That's 72% who haven't settled the matter either, Ruth Ann.

Maybe it's the Polling company. So let's look around a little.

Last August in a CNN/Opinion Research poll, when asked, "Do you think Barack Obama was definitely born in the United States, probably born in the United States, probably born in another country, or definitely born in another country? 44% of the Republicans got it wrong. 27% said he was "probably born in another country" while 14% said he was "definitely born in another country" and 3% had no opinion.

That's 44% of polled Republicans who haven't settled the matter, Ruth Ann. Or at least they hadn't settled it in August of 2010.

Does this mean that Ruth Ann Dailey thinks that nearly half of the GOP isn't reasonable?

UPDATE - Straightened out the grammar of that last sentence.

Ruth Ann Dailey Spins - Badly

In an attempt to find some sort of right-left equivalence regarding the tone of our current political climate, the P-G's Ruth Ann Dailey proves, yet again, that while she certainly knows how to write, her ability see to the truth from the fog of her politics is always in question.

Her opening:

Given their scurrilous, insupportable yet sustained accusations against Sarah Palin, tea party activists and other non-Democrats after the Arizona mass shooting, it would seem that Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, Clarence Dupnik and other left-wingers have created a "climate of hate" and are thus responsible for Eric Fuller's violent threats and arrest on Saturday.

She then points out:

After all, within hours of the Jan. 8 shooting, Messrs. Krugman, Olbermann and Dupnik et al. had publicly pinned the mass murders on the right wing, the tea party and conservative media figures. And throughout the week, despite growing evidence to the contrary, these irresponsible provocateurs and their supporters refused to retract their slander.

So when Mr. Fuller, a member of their ideological throng, threatened one of those supposed culprits with death, it was cause and effect, right?

Let's take a look at what Krugman, Olbermann and Dupnik had to say. From Krugman's "Climate of Hate" column:

It’s true that the shooter in Arizona appears to have been mentally troubled. But that doesn’t mean that his act can or should be treated as an isolated event, having nothing to do with the national climate.

And then he illustrates something Dailey probably wants us to miss:

It’s important to be clear here about the nature of our sickness. It’s not a general lack of “civility,” the favorite term of pundits who want to wish away fundamental policy disagreements. Politeness may be a virtue, but there’s a big difference between bad manners and calls, explicit or implicit, for violence; insults aren’t the same as incitement.

And then:

Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.

No equivalence. But perhaps that's part of Dailey's issue - that the left is hypocritically accusing the right of violent political rhetoric. And that's the root of the left's immorality here.

But then there's Olbermann's comment, where he ends the piece with this:

Violence, or the threat of violence, has no place in our Democracy, and I apologize for and repudiate any act or any thing in my past that may have even inadvertently encouraged violence. Because for whatever else each of us may be, we all are Americans.

Something Dailey left out.

To be true, Olbermann does point out some of the violence/threats of violence coming from the right. For example:

If Sharron Angle, who spoke of "Second Amendment solutions," does not repudiate that remark and urge her supporters to think anew of the terrible reality of what her words implied, she must be repudiated by her supporters in Nevada.

If the Tea Party leaders who took out of context a Jefferson quote about blood and tyranny and the tree of liberty do not understand - do not understand tonight, now what that really means, and these leaders do not tell their followers to abhor violence and all threat of violence, then those Tea Party leaders must be repudiated by the Republican Party.

Or the Tigris and Euphrates of the Fox "News" political rhetoric:

If Glenn Beck, who obsesses nearly as strangely as Mr. Loughner did about gold and debt and who wistfully joked about killing Michael Moore, and Bill O'Reilly, who blithely repeated "Tiller the Killer" until the phrase was burned into the minds of his viewers, do not begin their next broadcasts with solemn apologies for ever turning to the death-fantasies and the dreams of bloodlust, for ever having provided just the oxygen to those deep in madness to whom violence is an acceptable solution, then those commentators and the others must be repudiated by their viewers, and by all politicians, and by sponsors, and by the networks that employ them.

As far as I know, none of those things have happened yet.

The violent rhetoric is there - by far more so on the right. This is the politics of "if ballots don't work, bullets will." And it's a tea party thing. Something else Dailey doesn't want you to think.

Anyway, the big point that she missed, is that Fuller (the nexus of this column) was only threatening violence. He didn't pick up a Glock with 30 bullets in it and spray a tea party crowd with death. It was a threat - a stupid threat, to be sure, but a serious threat nonetheless.

And he was arrested for it.

Will we see an arrest for the next tea partier that gushes on about the tree of liberty being sprinkled with the blood if tyrants?

Ruth Ann, Read Carefully

Take a look at today's column from P-G columnist Ruth Ann Dailey. The title of the column gives hint to what's inside:

Bad apples vs. good eggs: the power of one

The column posits an eternal struggle between the few bad apples, "the one person who..." and the greater community ("the good eggs") that has to fix the damage that bad apple caused.

She starts with an anecdote about jury duty and how the day was upended "all because one idiot phoned in a false threat."

Here's the core of her piece - it follows immediately:

It only takes one. One person, one moment, one stupid decision. It only takes one to mess things up for dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of other people.

She reiterates the point later on:

A relative handful of no-goodniks regularly screw up life for everyone else, and an unwritten law of the universe seems to be that the efforts of many are required to counteract each lone destructive act.

NOW look at her examples of "one person" whose actions messed things up for lots others:

We are near the end of a decade shattered by the violence that can be wrought, in modern times, by just one man willing to blow himself up for a cause.

One man - a suicide bomber. Obviously bad. She says a paragraph or so down the page:

We were there [in jury duty] because, in each criminal case, one person was charged with hurting another, acting in violation of laws written to protect all of us.

Another singular person - an accused criminal. Society has to correct itself for the misbehavior of that one person violating the rest of us.

Ruth Ann talks to a woman while waiting for jury duty:

But where she lives, decades of successful revitalization are beginning to crumble under the onslaught of drunken revelers.

Thousands live in her community and many thousands more pass through every day, bringing the benefits of commerce. But listening to a street brawl each weekend or stepping out the front door into someone's vomit once a month has longtime residents beginning to flee to quieter corners of the city.

The point is clear. There's that one person (or small group of people) who screws things up for the rest of us and then there's us.

So what should we make of this paragraph dropped in the middle of the compositional fabric of her column?

We were summoned to serve just six days after a historical election, a midcourse correction for an administration swept into power because of the charismatic promise of one man.

Guess Who? It's Obama!

Ruth Ann places The President of The United States among the lone terrorists, lone criminals, the lone vomiters on innocent people's doorsteps, to show how such no-goodniks need to be corrected by "We the people."

She even brings another president in to make her point:

Just as George Washington refused to be made king, our founders were wary enough of human inclinations that they designed a system of government to check the power of any individual.

Washington probably wouldn't look too fondly on Washington, D.C.'s unvetted czars. He and his peers probably would've been pretty skeptical that any one person could stop the rise of the oceans or cause the planet to heal, either, but here's a notion they'd endorse: We are the ones we've been waiting for. We the people.

And you thought the column was about jury duty and the value of civic involvement when it in fact it's all about how bad Obama is. And how good "we" were to stop him.

Subtle, Ruth Ann. Very subtle.

UPDATE: I forgot to link to Dailey's column. It's been corrected.

Aw, Ruth Ann! You're Better Than This! I know You Are!

In today's column, one that's critical of NPR's firing of Juan Williams, P-G columnist Ruth Ann Dailey writes:

And perhaps Mr. Williams' true sin was that he voiced his opinion on Fox News. After all -- as conservative shows and websites have recounted with relish -- NPR reporter Nina Totenberg regularly goes far beyond subtle cultural bias, praising left-wing politicians and policies and sharing opinions about the very Supreme Court cases she covers. She even opined once that, if there is "retributive justice," Sen. Jesse Helms or one of his grandchildren "will get AIDS from a transfusion."

Ruth Ann is hoping that you won't check her work and that you'll just assume that Totenberg said what Ruth Ann says she said.

On it's face, it looks bad for Nina. What sort of person would even allow AIDS level suffering on another human being? And anyway when did this happen?

Let's go to the video:


And now we're getting somewhere. It was July of 1995. In trashing Totenberg for her, at the very least, inartful words, does Ruth Ann or anyone even wonder why they were talking about Jesse Helms like that in early July of 1995?

Perhaps it was this article in the New York Times.

Senator Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican who has vigorously fought homosexual rights, wants to reduce the amount of Federal money spent on AIDS sufferers, because, he says, it is their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct" that is responsible for their disease.

Moreover, he argues, AIDS is only the ninth-leading cause of death in America but accounts for more Federal financing than diseases that kill more people (an assertion not supported by Public Health Service figures).

"We've got to have some common sense, " Mr. Helms maintained in an interview, "about a disease transmitted by people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts."

The Congress was looking to reauthorize the Ryan White Care Act of 1990 and the gay-hating Helms was getting in the way:

Despite broad bipartisan support for the measure in both houses of Congress, it appears stalled. In the Senate, the bill has cleared the committee level but has yet to reach the floor. This is in large measure due to Senator Helms, given the latitude any single member of the Senate has to tie up proceedings.

Now look again at what he said. He was looking to reduce federal funding because AIDS sufferers are suffering because it is their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct". Meaning anal-sex, of course.

Nevermind that Ryan White contracted the disease through tainted blood products.

According to the HRSA, the act:

The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program is the largest Federal program focused exclusively on HIV/AIDS care. The program is for individuals living with HIV/AIDS who have no health insurance (public or private), have insufficient health care coverage, or lack financial resources to get the care they need for their HIV disease. As such, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program fills gaps in care not covered by other funding sources.

That's what Senator Helms was holding up in July of 1995. AIDS sufferers who couldn't afford health care would have some options they might not otherwise have. Jesse Helms wanted some of them to suffer because he was disgusted by anal sex. Had he succeeded, Ruth Ann, how much more human suffering would there have been directly attributed to his disgust?

It's not something I would've said, but perhaps that's why Nina Totenberg said that "if there's retributive justice he'll get AIDS through a transfusion." Helms' own hatred would have furthered human suffering.

Jesse Helms was a mean bastard.

This is NOT An Anti-Ruth Ann Blogpost

I found Ruth Ann Daily's column today in the Post-Gazette to be most informative.

Unfortunately, since it's still more or less impossible to embed a youtube video in newsprint (though I am sure someone at CMU is working on it - RIGHT?) and all the lovely and talented Ruth Ann could do is link to the video, I feel that it's my duty as a friend of all things Post-Gazettey to pick up the slack, set my nose to the grind stone, and post the video here:

And here's the second song:

And then Dave Carroll's statement:

From the accent, I guess he's canadjian.

And then here's his website.

Good job, Ruth Ann. Kudos for this one.

Fact-Checking Ruth Ann Dailey

A quick Fact-Check (as I am running late this morning) on Ruth Ann Dailey's column today. She writes:

The best way to do so is to keep the focus strictly on the issues. Exit polling released just before New Year's Day and easily overlooked in the left's post-election euphoria showed that despite voters' support for Mr. Obama, they feared the possible results of Democratic Party hegemony.

Target Point Consulting's in-depth poll of 1,000 voters sought to determine why they voted the way they did. As reported by the Wall Street Journal's Political Diary, there was plenty of bad news for Republicans: Voters faulted them for the bad economy, the prolonged war in Iraq, a too-strident position on immigration, and bailouts for big corporations.

Asked what they "liked least about the Democrats," the most common responses volunteered by poll respondents were "taxes going up," "big government," "liberal," "raise spending" and even "socialism."

And who is this "Target Point Consulting?

Glad you asked. From "Clients" page at their website, we can see this graphic:

Any guess who pays for Target Consulting's consulting? That is to say, any guess who Target Point Consulting consults for?

Don't you think Ruth Ann should have at least mentioned this? It's a Republican Consulting firm.

If there's any doubt as to which side of the fence Target Point Consulting sits, there's this from the Washington Post of 2004:

In a $2.2 billion election, two relatively small expenditures by Bush and his allies stand out for their impact: the $546,000 ad buy by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the Bush campaign's $3.25 million contract with the firm TargetPoint Consulting. The first portrayed Kerry in unrelentingly negative terms, permanently damaging him, while the second produced dramatic innovations in direct mail and voter technology, enabling Bush to identify and target potential voters with pinpoint precision.

There's more (much more) to write about her column, but I am running late and just don't have the time.

So you think Pittsburgh blogs are disappearing...

The City Paper's Chris Potter surveys the carnage in the Pittsburgh print media and notes that female columnists in particular are becoming an endangered species.

Read it here.
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MSM

Which Came First?

In the December 5th edition of the Wall Street Journal Peggy Noonan opined that 'At Least Bush Kept Us Safe' after 9/11.

Yesterday, we learned that the Bush Administration had put out a two-page talking points memo to "Cabinet members and other high-ranking officials" that "offers a guide for discussing Bush's eight-year tenure during their public speeches" which contains a primary (false) point that Bush '"kept the American people safe" after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks...'

Did Noonan get the memo, or did her column help dictate it, or is this really all the Right has left?

Speaking of Right and Left

Chris Potter, editor of the Pittsburgh City Paper, slices and dices Ruth Ann Dailey's plea for something called "nonpartisan news" in the comments section of this Pittsburgh Comet post.
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One Issue, Two Views

By an odd coincidence, two of my favorite (and I mean that) columnists wrote on the same issue today; Bob Herbert at the New York Times and Ruth Ann Dailey at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The issue? Race in Presidential politics.

To Dailey, it's the Democrats who are playing the "race card" (or as she calls it here the "racist card") on the Republicans. Her point is that since there has been nothing racial coming from the Republicans, any complaint or warning about it is itself racist. Her words:

But Sen. John McCain, his allies and the Republican Party as a whole -- despite its disarray and beleaguered mood -- have acted in unity thus far in refusing to utter the words that the Democrats keep trying to shove into their mouths.

So what's going on here? Something pretty despicable, actually. By constantly (and hopefully) claiming the Republicans will play "the race card," the Democrats are playing "the racist card."

It's absolutely necessary to distinguish between the two in this election cycle -- thanks entirely, up until now, to Democratic leaders' regular, and so-far false, accusations. Their strategy is essentially a prolonged smear tactic, propagating the Democrats' historically silly claim to be the party of racial equality.

That's right - notice the qualifiers. The Democrat's "historically" silly claim to be the party of racial equality. As if the Republican party, with Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond is, of course, the REAL party of racial equality.

She has some history to back up her story. She starts with Warren G. Harding.

Both parties have plenty to be ashamed of in their racial histories, though you wouldn't know it from the popular narrative. Democratic operatives were the first to "play the race card," spreading (possibly true) rumors back in 1920 that Republican candidate Warren G. Harding had black ancestors. He won anyway.

Though I'd think that the charge that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his slaves was an earlier (by more than a hundred years) use of the "race card" but perhaps I am misunderstanding the metaphor.

And I'm not sure bringing up Harding was wise in the first place. Given the corruption of the current administration why remind readers of another Republican administration mired in scandal? Teapot Dome anyone?

She calls on "the general consensus" that McCain is an honorable man who doesn't need to play the "race card." I'd disagree on the honorable part. We've already seen that he's willing to lie about his POW status to pander to Pittsburgh voters. Joe Klein disagrees on the "honorable" part, too:

A few months ago, I wrote that John McCain was an honorable man and he would run an honorable campaign. I was wrong.

So the "general consensus" can't be all that general when a mainstreamer like Joe Klein says he was wrong about John McCain.

Then there's Bob Herbert. First calling the Britney/Hilton ad "slimy" and then unloading on those who refuse to see what's right in front of them:

Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.

Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us — the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.

They even hit on the "presidents on the dollar bills" remark. Here's Dailey:

When Mr. McCain's campaign accused his opponent of injecting racism into the contest with his "presidents on the dollar bills" remark, Mr. Obama at first scoffed at the suggestion.

But by Friday, chief strategist David Axelrod said his boss was in fact guilty as charged, acknowledging on "Good Morning America" that Mr. Obama's dollar-bill remark referred in part to his race. At a Saturday news conference in Florida, the candidate said the same thing himself, repeating the defense offered by Mr. Axelrod: the remark's main point was that "I don't come out of central casting when it comes to presidential races." Oddly, he told reporters, "None of you thought I was making a racially incendiary remark, or playing the race card." (The Associated Press did not report how the press corps responded to his assumption of their collective absolution.)

And now Herbert:

So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he’s not some kind of unpatriotic ogre.

Mr. Obama told them: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”

The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received.
But John McCain didn’t appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn’t stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign’s operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign — playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck.

Hmmm. I'll let Herbert sum things up:

Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades.

He’s obviously more than willing to continue that nauseating tradition.

I just don't see how Ruth Ann Dailey has much of an argument against that.