Blog Over

Pat Robertson says God told him it would be Bush in a landslide. Oh well, that's it for me then.

Christ Converts to Islam

Just piss everyone off.

Fun with Code

Josh Marshall is teasing us with some not-so-subtle code. Just think about it for a bit... Took me 6 seconds.

Mark Kleiman also has some comments. He's a bit too sympathetic to the Sgt. Schultz defense.

Kerry Konfusion

Kos has the latest NH tracking numbers and some information the latest ad he's running there. It's pretty unbelievable really, after his little speech the other day chastizing Dean for being against the war that Kerry was either for or against depending on which day it is. If the ad is as they describe it's pretty incredible. I tried tracking down an ad transcript but haven't yet managed.


...found the ad. It really is pretty sleazy. "No child growing up in America today should ever have to go to war for oil." What the hell does that mean?

Media Narcissism Watch

Tim Noah wants nominations for his new media narcissism watch.

Got an example of media narcissism? E-mail it, under the subject heading "Narcissism," to chatterbox@slate.com. Whenever possible, please provide a link to the source.

My friend Maia of Failure is Impossible suggests that we email Tim and nominate his wife, Marjorie Williams, for her recent column in the Post.

Kinsley

Link:

It is no solution to say, as some do, that it is a journalist's job to protect the identity of his or her sources and it is the government's job to expose them. This isn't a game. There is no invisible hand to guarantee that the struggle of competing forces will achieve the correct balance. Journalists ought to be concerned about national security, and government officials ought to be concerned about the First Amendment. When these interests conflict, those involved have an obligation to strike the balance for themselves.

The purpose of protecting the identity of leakers is to encourage future leaks. Leaks to journalists, and fear of leaks, can be an important restraint on misbehavior by powerful institutions and people. This serves the public interest. But there is no public interest in leaks that harm national security, or leaks that violate the law, or leaks intended to harm blameless individuals. There is no reason to want more of these kinds of leaks. So there is no reason to protect the identity of such bad-faith leakers.

From a distance, it smells as if the national-security hoop-de-do about the Valerie Plame leak is exaggerated. On the other hand, the personal malevolence and Borgia-like scheming behind the leak is impressive. I am not sure where I would come out on protecting the source of this leak. But it doesn't matter where I would come out because I don't know who the leakers were. Novak and others do know. They should either tell us who or tell us why not.

I don't agree with all of this but at least Kinsley is willing to break from the "protect your sources at all costs for any reason no matter what they tell you or try to tell you" nonsense. Kinsley doesn't know, and neither do I, what the national security impacts of Plame's outing are. Aside from any direct effects - destroying her career, endangering (or perhaps ending) the lives of her contacts, the destruction of existing intelligence operations/networks - there are also of course the indirect effects, not least of which is the chilling effect on anyone working as or willing to work with CIA operatives.

Leaks that violate the law aren't necessarily not in the public interest. A government which stamps classified on absolutely everything can effectively limit any access to information. So, not all classified leaks are created equal and leaks about a secret and rogue government would most definitely be in the public interest.

But, the basic point that Kinsley is making - that the government and the press are doing this silly dance based on false premises is correct. The only reason that the journalists involved aren't talking is because they're protecting their careers. Novak himself previously revealed the identity of the source when it became clear that the source had been involved with damaging national security.

There's a simple way out - one of the cold-called journalists can be an anonymous source to some other journalist. Every one in Washington "knows" who the culprits are (including, I would imagine, Michael Kinsley of Washington State) - they're just protecting the rest of us. It's bullshit.

Tort Reform Nonsense

Dwight Meredith has a bit of fun telling us about some actual facts.

1st Class Bull

Different screening lines for 1st class and coach passengers are just wrong. A 1st class ticket - paid to the airline - should not grant you better treatment by the airport.

Pittsburgh

NPR had a report about Pittsburgh's finances this morning. Short version - they're f'ed. One can't lay the blame on any particular thing - but one can lay it on two general things - a bunch of borrowing combined with a gradual erosion of the tax base. For years Pittsburgh has been basically exempting any big bizness that shows up from paying any taxes. Combined with the fact that the only commuter tax is only a flat $10, and a huge number of nonprofits don't pay any property taxes, what are they left with? City resident income taxes, residential property taxes, and... onerous small business taxes. So, big bizness is subsidized at the expense of small business. Suburban dwellers, who really do (Even more than many cities) use Pittsburgh city services, are subsidized at the expense of local residents.

Nothing short of a complete tax overhaul will save them.

Plame Update

Josh Marshall takes care of the latest spin and gives a well-deserved smack to the Post's Mike Allen who, for the record, is frequently pretty good.

Allen seems like a pretty good journalist to me, he just seems to me to be someone who can't quite get over the fact that he's surrounded by all these "stars" - and therefore tends to fall for their charms a bit too often.

Market Forces

Sisyphus Shrugged catches the Washington Post editorial board, in the advanced stages of CJD dementia, having a very odd view of "market forces."

not worthy of being fishwrap.

History Lesson

David Neiwert reminds us of the sad corrupt history of Joe Digenova, another proponent of the idiot defense. And, Liberal Oasis reminds us what the Grey Lady was saying about a certain independent prosecutor when he was first appointed.

Krugman

Link:

Mr. Dean's character will also come under attack. But this, too, will happen to any Democrat. If we've learned anything in this past decade, it's that the right-wing scandal machine will find a way to smear anyone, and that a lot of the media will play along. A year ago, when John Kerry was the presumptive front-runner, he came under assault — I am not making this up — over the supposed price of his haircuts. Sure enough, a CNN host solemnly declared him in "denial mode."

That's not to say that a candidate's qualifications don't matter: it would be nice if Mr. Dean were a decorated war hero. But there's nothing in the polling data suggesting that Mr. Dean is less electable than his Democratic rivals, with the possible exception of General Clark. Mr. Dean's rivals may well believe that he will lose the election if he is nominated. But it's inexcusable when they try to turn that belief into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let me suggest a couple of ground rules. First, while it's O.K. for a candidate to say he's more electable than his rival, someone who really cares about ousting Mr. Bush shouldn't pre-emptively surrender the cause by claiming that his rival has no chance. Yet Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Kerry have done just that. To be fair, Mr. Dean's warning that his ardent supporters might not vote for a "conventional Washington politician" was a bit close to the line, but it appeared to be a careless rather than a vindictive remark.

More important, a Democrat shouldn't say anything that could be construed as a statement that Mr. Bush is preferable to his rival. Yet after Mr. Dean declared that Saddam's capture hadn't made us safer — a statement that seems more justified with each passing day — Mr. Lieberman and, to a lesser extent, Mr. Kerry launched attacks that could, and quite possibly will, be used verbatim in Bush campaign ads. (Mr. Lieberman's remark about Mr. Dean's "spider hole" was completely beyond the pale.)

The irony is that by seeking to undermine the election prospects of a man who may well be their party's nominee, Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Kerry have reminded us of why their once-promising campaigns imploded. Most Democrats feel, with justification, that we're facing a national crisis — that the right, ruthlessly exploiting 9/11, is making a grab for total political dominance. The party's rank and file want a candidate who is running, as the Dean slogan puts it, to take our country back. This is no time for a candidate who is running just because he thinks he deserves to be president.

Lost in the Mail

Tristero gets to go to all the cool parties. Guess my invitation was lost in the mail yet again.

Toensing to the Rescue!

Ah, the idiot defense:

CRAWFORD, Tex., Jan.1 -- The Justice Department investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's identity could conclude that administration officials disclosed the woman's name and occupation to the media but still committed no crime because they did not know she was an undercover operative, a legal expert said this week.

"It could be embarrassing but not illegal," said Victoria Toensing, who was chief counsel of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when Congress passed the law protecting the identities of undercover agents.

Of course, George W. Bush doesn't seem to agree:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 — President Bush said on Monday that the unauthorized disclosure of an undercover C.I.A. officer's identity was a "very serious matter" and "a criminal action" as the White House announced that at least 500 of its 2,000 employees had responded to a Justice Department demand for documents as part of an investigation into the source of the leak.

The announcement — and Mr. Bush's adamant words — reflected a tougher public approach by the White House to the leak, which has been attributed to senior administration officials. Democrats have criticized the administration for not treating the disclosure of the classified information more forcefully.

Media Quote of the Year, 2003

Name the author and who s/he's referring to.

Fat fucking slags.

Outsider

One of the strangest lines of attack against Dean has been to go criticize him for daring to run as an outsider. Suddenly, the Democratic leadership which I and everyone else I know have been criticizing for the past couple of years for their rather ineffectual response to the Bush juggernaut have become sensitive sacred cows. Everyone's all a-twitter because Dean dares to criticize "Washington Democrats!" He gets chastised by our media for daring to criticize Bill Clinton (which he didn't really do anyway)! What a bizarro world we've entered.

Look, governors and other local politicians who first enter the national scene always run as "outsiders." They always rail against "Washington politicians." It is true that one difference is that Dean is aiming his attacks more specifically at his own party than at "politicians-in-general."

In any case, I think Blumenthal has a pretty good article in the Guardian explaining what Dean is doing. As he writes:

Since 1968, when Eugene McCarthy shocked President Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, the establishment candidate has been vulnerable to an insurgent. The case for strategic voting has without exception never worked. In 1992, Bill Clinton, under attack for evading the draft during the Vietnam war, was excoriated by his rival, Senator Bob Kerrey: "I'm not questioning (Clinton's) patriotism, but I guarantee Bush will in November," Kerrey warned. "The Republicans will exploit every weakness" and Clinton "will get opened like a soft peanut."

By calling attention to Dean's boldness (or rashness) without any effectual action of their own, Dean's rivals are underscoring his fusion of acceptable political credentials as the only governor in the race who is also the insurgent. They appeal to a mythical establishment to stop him, setting themselves up as the establishment. But the unions are split, with some of the most powerful backing Dean; African Americans have no obvious candidate, with many leaders backing Dean; elected officials are widely diffused, with many behind Dean; Al Gore has endorsed Dean; Jimmy Carter is quietly helpful; and the Democratic national committee is peripheral.

Yet Dean's opponents continue to promote him as the anti-establishment candidate, an image fitting Democratic voters' notion of the primaries: a referendum on their view of political reality. Why trust Bush and the Republicans, the conservative establishment ruling a one-party state?

The intensity among Democrats may appear to result from the debate over Iraq, but its roots go back to impeachment and Florida. Then, after 9/11, Bush betrayed the bipartisan consensus that had supported the Afghanistan war by smearing the congressional Democrats as unpatriotic. With that, in the 2002 midterm elections, he took back the Senate, rendering them impotent. The Democrats' illusion of good faith had disarmed them. They had behaved as though they were dealing with the elder Bush. Iraq, even for most rank and file Democrats who favoured the war to depose Saddam, is understood as an extension of the anti-constitutional strategy of the Republicans' ruthless exercise of power.

The sin of the "Washington Democrats" in the eyes of Democrats isn't simply their fecklessness; it's that they have appeared as appeasers. Whether Dean or another Democrat can win the war is another war. But the first requirement for becoming the wartime leader is to understand that there is a war.

Lieberman has declared that Dean is not in the mould of Clinton in 1992, as though attempting to repeat the past makes a New Democrat born again. But Dean's pragmatic strategy may be another version of that which Clinton adopted after he suffered the loss of the Democratic Congress in 1994. By defining his position apart from the rightwing Republicans and the "Washington Democrats", as he calls them, Dean has reinvented triangulation.

on a semi-related note, Buzzflash provides us with this blast from the '92 past.

The War on Tourism

I've heard many many stories, directly and second-hand, about Americans who are shocked, no SHOCKED, that there are ever any impediments to international travel. How dare they be required to obtain a Visa?!?!

Brazil is responding tit-for-tat to our requirement that their citizens get fingerprinted. This wouldn't be such a big deal, except for the fact that Brazil is a rather large country and one must travel to the US Embassy to get fingerprinted - in advance.

Commies

Comrade Max talks about communism.

Happy New Year All

Chat away.

Sadly, the winning powerball ticket sold in Pennsylvania was not, actually, sold to me.