Friday, May 21, 2004
Dysfunction
It's a point which has frequently been made by many commentators, but it's worth restating for about the millionth time. Back when Bush was running for president, the media lickspittles assured us that it didn't really matter that Bush may not, actually, be competent enough to do the job because he would surround himself by a gaggle of "grownups" who would, you know, actually run the government. And, that would be fine and dandy because the country really just wants a president they can imagine having a beer with.
Some of us pointed out that the problem with this little idea is that if ever those responsible grownup underlings started to disagree with each other, someone would have to actually have a wee bit of sense and an ability to resolve the conflicts and make decisions.
The press has been talking about the war between the Pentagon, CIA, and State as if it were a tennis tournament. But, look, it's a bit more important than that. The fact that our entire government is apparently paralyzed with infighting is the kind of thing which should be treated with concern. After 9/11 the media promised us they were going to get all serious for a change. Well, the screwed that one up pretty badly but maybe it isn't too late. As Big Media Matt says:
But, obviously it's more than just the communications operation, even if that's about all BushRove really cares about.
Some of us pointed out that the problem with this little idea is that if ever those responsible grownup underlings started to disagree with each other, someone would have to actually have a wee bit of sense and an ability to resolve the conflicts and make decisions.
The press has been talking about the war between the Pentagon, CIA, and State as if it were a tennis tournament. But, look, it's a bit more important than that. The fact that our entire government is apparently paralyzed with infighting is the kind of thing which should be treated with concern. After 9/11 the media promised us they were going to get all serious for a change. Well, the screwed that one up pretty badly but maybe it isn't too late. As Big Media Matt says:
-
Should be an interesting investigation -- if elements of the U.S. government are busy preparing to arrest one another, that would go a long way toward explaining the seeming confusion regarding what to say about this in the White House communications operation.
But, obviously it's more than just the communications operation, even if that's about all BushRove really cares about.
Alterman
Nation Column:
-
And how pathetic is it that the only cable network really grappling with the media's failure is Comedy Central? Let's give the last word to the Daily Show's incomparable Stephen Colbert: "The journalists I know love America, but now all anybody wants to talk about is the bad journalists--the journalists that hurt America.... Who didn't uncover the flaws in our prewar intelligence? Who gave a free pass on the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection? Who dropped Afghanistan from the headlines at the first whiff of this Iraqi snipe hunt? The United States press corps, that's who."
Pierce
At Altercation:
-
In the course of working on the John Kerry profile for Esquire, I spent a lot of time wading through the various tributaries of the Iran-Contra era. The more I read, the more I realized what a pivotal moment-- and missed opportunity -- that was for anyone who believes in accountable democratic government, which some of you geezers in the audience may recall as having once been an important thing. It's not just that so many of that period's Undead walk again among us, instead of being in pre-release programs at Leavenworth where they belong. It's that Iran-Contra serves now as the template for Getting Away With Stuff that the Avignon Presidency has used ever since Uncle Nino picked the locks to the executive mansion.
Do it in secret. Avoid accountability, all accountability. Leave it to low level incompetents to make the blunders and commit the crimes. Depend always on crooked locals --Manuchar Ghorbanifar, shake hands with Ahmad Chalabi (Count your fingers afterwards, though.)-- to sell you a bag of magic beans. (Given what we now know, I'm shocked that Oliver North isn't walking around D.C. wearing a barrel.) Then, when the con breaks down, you can plead being a rube as a defense against being called a crook. Rely on a compliant press, and on the efforts of Blue-Ribbon Important People to keep the investigations from running out of control. And, most of all, make sure you sell very hard the story that the whole mess is just...too...complex for ordinary folks to understand.
Oh, and just for the purposes of set decoration, make sure Colin Powell is standing nearby, probably with pigeons landing on his head.
The greatest price we paid for not throwing the lot of them into the federal sneezer (and in not running a bill of particulars against Uncle Ronnie, for that matter) is that we publicly consented to -- and thereby empowered -- unaccountable secret government, which is pretty bad on its best days, but unfathomably worse when it's run by a collection of manifest incompetents. Plus ca change, plus ca bagmen, I guess.
Tort Reform
Yeah, this is a good step:
I hope it passes so we can file 50 million lawsuits against Ken Starr.
-
Republican Californian Congressman Duncan Hunter has introduced a bill titled the "Parents' Empowerment Act," which would allow the parent or guardian of a minor to sue (in federal court) anyone who knowingly disseminates any media which contains "material that is harmful to minors." If it passes, this bill would affect the entire supply chain, from publisher/manufacturer, to distributor, to retailer.
The bill goes on to specify that it will only apply if the material is distributed in a way that "a reasonable person can expect a substantial number of minors to be exposed to the material, is likely to suffer personal or emotional injury or injury to mental or moral welfare."
Compensatory damages under the bill would start at no less than $10,000 for any instance a minor is exposed to harmful entertainment products. The bill also provides a separate definition of obscenity specifically for children.
CBLDF Director Charles Brownstein said, "It appears to allow for civil actions against any, or every, member of the dissemination food chain, from the retailer to the distributor to the publisher, or work that an individual parent may object to. So any citizen, using their own sense of what is obscene or harmful to minors, can bring suit."
I hope it passes so we can file 50 million lawsuits against Ken Starr.
Monkey Mail
Sometimes I get so fed up with how goddamn stupid some people are. In a recent post comparing Georgia's taxes to Massachusetts, I clearly pointed out that according to the rather not left wing Tax Foundation, Georgia's overall state and local tax burden, as a percentage of income, was substantially higher than that of "Taxachusetts." In addition, the again not left Tax Foundation says that Mass. had a much more favorable climate for business.
Today I get this email:
In our lovely federal system, individual state and local governments have great flexibility with respect to how they choose to raise revenue, both in the particular tax instruments they use and in the relative share raised by state versus local municipalities. Some states rely more heavily on some instruments than others, and the degree to which local governments are responsible for raising their own revenue is also going to have an impact on which taxes tend to be higher or lower.
But, here's the deal, oh future Nobel prize winner -- only in the fevered groping dreams of a wingnut could this bit of correspondence be thought to "refute" in any way what I wrote.
Today I get this email:
-
Atrios is a statistical cherry picker.
>From the Tax Foundation
Corporate Income Taxes Georgia 10th lowest - Mass 6th highest. (not all
states levy corporate income taxes)
Gasoline Taxes - Georgia lowest in nation - 50th, Mass 21st
Property Taxes (per capita) - Georgia 29th - Mass 7th
Sales Taxes - Georgia 30th -- Mass 29th
Cigarette Taxes - Georgia 44th -- Mass 1st
In our lovely federal system, individual state and local governments have great flexibility with respect to how they choose to raise revenue, both in the particular tax instruments they use and in the relative share raised by state versus local municipalities. Some states rely more heavily on some instruments than others, and the degree to which local governments are responsible for raising their own revenue is also going to have an impact on which taxes tend to be higher or lower.
But, here's the deal, oh future Nobel prize winner -- only in the fevered groping dreams of a wingnut could this bit of correspondence be thought to "refute" in any way what I wrote.
Liars
I'm not one who jumps on every military-operation-gone bad. But, what I can't stand is when they just get up there and lie about it. On the local news radio station yesterday I heard that the US had denied that any bodies of children were found at the site of the wedding party that was bombed -- this was after video footage had been released showing just that. And they're still denying it.
Post-9/11 Insanity
Digby reminds us just how nuts everyone went after 9/11 - sadly too many never got their marbles back. Here's a wee Jonathan Alter flashback:
Digby provides the punchline:
-
In this autumn of anger, even a liberal can find his thoughts turning to ... torture. OK, not cattle prods or rubber hoses, at least not here in the United States, but something to jump-start the stalled investigation of the greatest crime in American history. Right now, four key hijacking suspects aren’t talking at all.
COULDN’T WE AT LEAST subject them to psychological torture, like tapes of dying rabbits or high-decibel rap? (The military has done that in Panama and elsewhere.) How about truth serum, administered with a mandatory IV? Or deportation to Saudi Arabia, land of beheadings? (As the frustrated FBI has been threatening.) Some people still argue that we needn’t rethink any of our old assumptions about law enforcement, but they’re hopelessly “Sept. 10”—living in a country that no longer exists.
[...]
Actually, the world hasn’t changed as much as we have. The Israelis have been wrestling for years with the morality of torture. Until 1999 an interrogation technique called “shaking” was legal. It entailed holding a smelly bag over a suspect’s head in a dark room, then applying scary psychological torment. (To avoid lessening the potential impact on terrorists, I won’t specify exactly what kind.) Even now, Israeli law leaves a little room for “moderate physical pressure” in what are called “ticking time bomb” cases, where extracting information is essential to saving hundreds of lives. The decision of when to apply it is left in the hands of law-enforcement officials.
[...]
Short of physical torture, there’s always sodium pentothal (“truth serum”). The FBI is eager to try it, and deserves the chance. Unfortunately, truth serum, first used on spies in World War II, makes suspects gabby but not necessarily truthful. The same goes for even the harshest torture. When the subject breaks, he often lies. Prisoners “have only one objective—to end the pain,” says retired Col. Kenneth Allard, who was trained in interrogation. “It’s a huge limitation.”
Some torture clearly works. Jordan broke the most notorious terrorist of the 1980s, Abu Nidal, by threatening his family. Philippine police reportedly helped crack the 1993 World Trade Center bombings (plus a plot to crash 11 U.S. airliners and kill the pope) by convincing a suspect that they were about to turn him over to the Israelis. Then there’s painful Islamic justice, which has the added benefit of greater acceptance among Muslims.
We can’t legalize physical torture; it’s contrary to American values. But even as we continue to speak out against human-rights abuses around the world, we need to keep an open mind about certain measures to fight terrorism, like court-sanctioned psychological interrogation. And we’ll have to think about transferring some suspects to our less squeamish allies, even if that’s hypocritical. Nobody said this was going to be pretty.
Digby provides the punchline:
-
The four men who Alter contemplated sending to "the land of beheadings," by the way, were all innocent.
Alter Responds
Jonathan Alter responds to recent criticism.
I like Alter, but Brad DeLong has it right -- people are afraid of being called "shrill." Strangely, only people expressing criticism of this administration are afraid of that.
I understand very well the notion that you can never talk outside the current frame, you can only try to expand its borders. But, frankly, I think these are shrill times.
I like Alter, but Brad DeLong has it right -- people are afraid of being called "shrill." Strangely, only people expressing criticism of this administration are afraid of that.
I understand very well the notion that you can never talk outside the current frame, you can only try to expand its borders. But, frankly, I think these are shrill times.
Rummy Rum Tum Tum
NBC:
-
BAGHDAD - With attention focused on the seven soldiers charged with abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. military and intelligence officials familiar with the situation tell NBC News the Army’s elite Delta Force is now the subject of a Pentagon inspector general investigation into abuse against detainees.
The target is a top-secret site near Baghdad’s airport. The battlefield interrogation facility known as the “BIF” is pictured in satellite photos.
According to two top U.S. government sources, it is the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq’s prisons. A place where the normal rules of interrogation don’t apply, Delta Force’s BIF only holds Iraqi insurgents and suspected terrorists — but not the most wanted among Saddam’s lieutenants pictured on the deck of cards.
...
“Iraq's a nation. The United States is a nation. The Geneva Conventions applied. They have applied every single day from the outset,” Rumsfeld has said.
Several top U.S. military and intelligence sources say yes, and that he, through other top Pentagon officials, directed the U.S. head of intelligence in Iraq, Gen. Barbara Fast, and others to bring some of the methods used at the BIF to prisons like Abu Ghraib, in hopes of getting better intelligence from Iraqi detainees.
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Dances With Enemies
From CBS:
-
Senior U.S. officials told 60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl that they have evidence Chalabi has been passing highly-classified U.S. intelligence to Iran.
The evidence shows that Chalabi personally gave Iranian intelligence officers information so sensitive that if revealed it could, quote, "get Americans killed." The evidence is said to be "rock solid."
Sources have told Stahl a high-level investigation is underway into who in the U.S. government gave Chalabi such sensitive information in the first place.
In addition, sources told Stahl that one of Chalabi's closest confidantes — a senior member of his organization, the Iraqi national congress — is believed to have been recruited by Iran's intelligence agency, the Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS) — and is on their payroll.
Strange But True
G.A. Cerny lets us know that as a young assistant D.A., Arlen Specter obtained the services of a holocaust denier as an expert witness in an effort to ban Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer.
Strange world.
Strange world.
Falling Behind
Damn, it looks like the Cornerites are pulling ahead in the fundraising race.
Quoth the Jonah:
Uh, whatever.
But, joking aside, thanks so much for all who have contributed so far! I promise no more annoying begging after Sunday. I'm not sure I have an exact number, but it looks like I'm about 25 away from 1000 donations! I really appreciate your generosity.
Quoth the Jonah:
- With a fraction of a fraction of what our competition in the elite media has to spend, National Review Online has become the Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu waza Banga of the worldwide web. But it ain't cheap or easy ... "
Uh, whatever.
But, joking aside, thanks so much for all who have contributed so far! I promise no more annoying begging after Sunday. I'm not sure I have an exact number, but it looks like I'm about 25 away from 1000 donations! I really appreciate your generosity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)