Whoa:
[George Soros] said that he has no moral responsibility for the consequences of his financial actions. He is a self-admitted atheist, he was a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust.
Sort-of explanation here. A possible further explanation is that Tony Blankley writes for the Washington Times, owned by the Rev. Moon, who believes that the separation of Church and State is against God, who has stated that "the Jews killed Jesus", and who believes that the Holocaust was how the Jewish people paid that debt. Not so mysterious, in context.
[John Gorenfeld, who knows from Rev. Moon, has put together a handy chart comparing Soros and Moon.]
The Columbia Journalism Review has a debate between Michael Getler, the ombudsman at The Washington Post, and Leonard Doyle, the foreign editor at The Independent, over who has better journalism, Brits or Americans. Defying all expectations, the British guy thinks that British journalism is the best, while the American thinks that American journos rule, baby. I suppose I'll have to break the tie, so here it goes - you both suck. Advantage: blogosphere!
I think that Getler gets the better of Doyle, partly because he's right, and partly because Doyler largely eschews making arguments in favor of being a supercilious fool. (I have a theory that every British journo is just Christopher Hitchens rotated around an eigenaxis. Discuss.) Getler gets the better of Doyle in the theoretical argument, that is - it is not exactly American journalism's finest hour, nor has it been that hour for a few years now, and I don't get much of a sense that Getler really quite appreciates this, or what needs to be done about it.
The NY Times' original mea culpa for it's pre-war coverage was pretty lame, as was noted by many. (Excellent background article in the NY Review of Books.) "Public Editor" Daniel Okrent's version, on the other hand, is extremely good, and, as Billmon points out, the response of The Editors (no relation) may have been a pre-emption of Okrent's much more direct response. Unfortunately, it's not clear that Okrent is much more than a glorified customer service rep, so I don't know that the fact that he gets it makes much difference at all.
I think Okrent nails it pretty well here:
The Times' flawed journalism continued in the weeks after the war began, when writers might have broken free from the cloaked government sources who had insinuated themselves and their agendas into the prewar coverage. I use "journalism" rather than "reporting" because reporters do not put stories into the newspaper. Editors make assignments, accept articles for publication, pass them through various editing hands, place them on a schedule, determine where they will appear. Editors are also obliged to assign follow-up pieces when the facts remain mired in partisan quicksand.
The Times got rolled pretty badly by the war hawks, and - as the NY Books article explains - they were hardly alone. A lot of attention has been paid to the egregious Judith Miller (she's still at it!), and she should clearly be fired, and she can take Safire and Brooks with her. Judith Miller's not really the problem, though - and, contrary to Digby, this isn't a case of "as if it was some vague and ephemeral "somebody" who committed the act and then going on as if nothing happened" - the problem is the editors who let her get away with it. She's a problem, and there are probably other individuals who fell down on the job (accidentally or on purpose), but there are going to be individual problems, like Jason Blair, and there's no way to guard against this completely. What happened at the Times (and what is not being addressed by anyone in a position to fix it) is a systemic problem, and it's not going to get fixed in a day.
Back to the British/American model: whatever the pros and cons may be, Americans need to get used to the British model, because it's already been here for a long time, and it's going to stay. It's mostly on the right, and it mostly lies about what it is - the various Murdoch and Moonie outlets, with their "Fair and Balanced" and "liberal media bias" and all that. There's also the massive (and influential) talk radio industry, which is completely controlled by the right, and the right-wing think tank/lobbying nexus, and its various outlets, and so on. The left wing equivalent is less developed at this point, but it is growing rapidly, and hopefully will serve as a counterweight to the right wing.
(There's a sense in which this entire British/American dichotomy is total crap, because the source from which most people in Britain get their news, the BBC, reminds me a lot more of the NY Times philosophy than it does The Independent, let alone The Mirror or The Sun. It reminds me a lot more of the NY Times than almost any American TV news, too, which is where most Americans get their information. It works OK for the quality print media, though.)
Let's try to tie this together: there's a sense in which the Times' problems are the result of the more explicitly ideological journalistic model (identified with British print media) leaking into the supposedly unbiased (American) model. Miller was working, essentially, as a neocon operative, pushing their agenda under the guise of non-partisan journalism. It's a classic trait of the new partisan media, to operate under a guise of non-partisanship, and what better cover than the Times itself? I suspect that it was ever thus, but never was it thus so much.
But, again, Miller's not the problem, she's a problem. The systemic problem is that the editors appear to be afraid of going too aggressively against the right-wing agenda, for fear of becoming a target of right-wing pressure groups. The right has been very good at "working the refs", as Digby puts it, and convincing the media that impartiality means making no judgments, or, if you must express a strongly-held opinion, make sure it's about something trivial, like someone's wardrobe. It's a result of the "well, everyone's biased, really" argument used by FOX and friends, where there are always two sides to each story, and, even if one side is obviously pure baloney, it's partisan to point that out. But the fact is that, while ambiguity is a fact, it is also a fact that our brains have evolved over however many hundreds of millions of years largely in order to make distinctions between things, and we've gotten really, really good at doing it. Sure, it's true that everyone has some biases (none greater that national biases), and you can't really completely eliminate them, but those who try can get a hell of a lot closer to this ideal than those that pretend it's an all-or-nothing proposition.
I think the Times' main problem now, and for the future, will be learning how to maintain, as well as possible, this attitude of objectivity in a media environment that is getting both a lot more complex and a lot more partisan (think the internet, in both cases). Having a left-wing media/lobbying effort to counterbalance the pressure from the right is a step in the right direction. It's also likely that the partisan left media will continue to do real journalism, in addition to simple opinionating, as they already do in both Britain and America, as will (presumably, at some point) the right. I don't think that giving the left and the right equal time, and having them duke it out, Crossfire-style, is really a substitute for having an institution, like the Times, assuming an impartial, critical, attitude. A judge between the two lawyers.
The Times is in a unique position to assume this role, but someone else could do it, or maybe no one will. What is required is that the Times, or whomever, must fulfill it's obligation to The Truth, as well as convince the public that it has done so. Both parts are equally important. It's impossible to know what is going on to fix the systemic problems behind the scenes, if anything, which The (NYT) Editors don't feel like airing in public. It's also impossible to know if these mea culpas are pure PR, apologies designed to appeases critics instead of sincere acknowledgements of what has gone wrong, and signals that corrections will be made. At some point, if the Times wants to retain its position and not become just another newspaper, it needs to bring perception and reality together. It - and the media generally - has not done so yet.
Giblets is outraged that George Tenet is gone:
What this country needs is steady leadership in times of change. Not intelligent leadership, not correct leadership, but steady leadership. Steadiness. Resolve. The resolve to keep doing what you are already doing, even if it is hopelessly boneheaded and wrong. In the face of such resolve, the terrorists will be cowed, fleeing into their terrorist hidey-holes, terrified by the tenacity of an opponent so fiercely determined to keep losing to them in the exact same way.But if we fire incompetant officials, we are not using steady leadership. We are attempting to "correct" our leadership. We are not staying the course. We are suggesting that there is some better course. Well Giblets for one is quite happy with this course! He knows it quite well and if it happens to veer into that ravine, he will be the first to inform you that his course is getting us to the bottom of the ravine swifter and surer than any other course out there! What's your problem? Are you a ravine-hater? Are you objectively anti-ravine?
As an aside: one of the benefits of the George Bush presidency is that I've finally learned to spell the word "incompetent". Awesome.
John Dean thinks it's a very big deal:
This action by Bush is a rather stunning and extraordinary development. The President of the United States is potentially hiring a private criminal defense lawyer. Unsurprisingly, the White House is doing all it can to bury the story, providing precious little detail or context for the President's action. ...If Bush is called before the grand jury, it is likely because Fitzgerald believes that he knows much more about this leak than he has stated publicly.
Perhaps Bush may have knowledge not only of the leaker, but also of efforts to make this issue go away - if indeed there have been any. It is remarkably easy to obstruct justice, and this matter has been under various phases of an investigation by the Justice Department since it was referred by the CIA last summer. ...
Readers may wonder, why is Bush going to an outside counsel, when numerous government attorneys are available to him - for instance, in the White House Counsel's Office?
The answer is that the President has likely been told it would be risky to talk to his White House lawyers, particularly if he knows more than he claims publicly.
Ironically, it was the fair-haired Republican stalwart Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr who decimated the attorney-client privilege for government lawyers and their clients - which, to paraphrase the authority Wigmore, applies when legal advice of any kind is sought by a client from a professional legal adviser, where the advice is sought in confidence. ...
I spoke with an experienced former federal prosecutor who works in Washington, specializing in white collar criminal defense (but who does not know Sharp). That attorney told me that he is baffled by Bush's move - unless Bush has knowledge of the leak. "It would not seem that the President needs to consult personal counsel, thereby preserving the attorney-client privilege, if he has no knowledge about the leak," he told me.
So, good chance of obstruction. Nothing ruled out. And you've got to think there's something to it, if Bush is willing to endure the bad press this would obviously cause. It's serious.
The Editors want everyone to know that, despite what you may have heard, we care about our readers very, very much, and we would never want anything bad to happen to you. You are just like precious angels to us, who we hold so dearly and truly in our hearts. Just like motherfucking angels.
Howdy pardner. If you're here by accident, hang on to your aura. If you're here by design, pull a chair to the fire, have a hot bancha (and a stogie if you're an afficionado) and enjoy this Kamikaze Cowboy's ride across the Cyber-plain of Truth.For a man such as myself who cooks his rice on a wood stove (Hallelujah fellow brother's of the grain), launching a website brings a new meaning to the word "paradox". But that's where all truth lies buried, according to George Bernard Shaw, in paradox. So maybe this actor/writer/director (more of that anon) philosopher and wit might just be onto something . . .
Dirk Benedict, KamikazeCowboy.com
I keep hearing that George Tenet told Bush that the case for Iraq having tons of WMD was "a slam dunk", because it's in Woodward's book. Woodward writes the book as the omniscient narrator, without naming any sources. This is his choice, and if that's how he wants to write, and if he's upfront about that, it's an acceptable (though in some ways flawed) way to write non-fiction. Been done before. But that doesn't mean he's really omniscient, you understand. Someone told him this story, and everyone has an angle.
So, we don't know that George Tenet told George Bush that the case was a "slam dunk". It may well be true, but it is not a "fact", it is an "unsourced allegation". We know that someone told Woodward that Tenet said that. Tenet himself has refused to confirm (or deny) this story. He's been good about falling on his sword for Bush while he worked for him (as was Richard Clarke). Let's see how he answers that question now, without any professional obligations.
A purge? An evacuation? A walk-out? It's getting crazy at the CIA:
A second top CIA official plans to announce his resignation, one day after the agency's director George Tenet said he would step down next month, a US official said Thursday.Deputy director for operations James Pavitt, who was in charge of the Central Intelligence Agency's human spies, has decided to retire, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
On the one hand, Pavitt was apparently one of many counter-terrorism people not happy with the Administration's counter-terror policies before 9/11 ...
According to a report by the Sept. 11 commission's staff, James Pavitt, the CIA's deputy director for operations, recalled giving a briefing to Bush, Cheney and Rice shortly before they took office in which he said that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden ``was one of the gravest threats to the country.''
... and after (NewsMax, but based on the NY Times):
James L. Pavitt, the CIA's deputy director for operations, said at the end of April that he still needed 30 to 35 percent more people, including officers based overseas and in the U.S. – as well as supervisors and support workers, according to a report in the NY Times.With surprising candor for a seasoned spy, Pavitt, who has spent more than 30 years at the CIA, wrote in testimony to the 9/11 Commission, “We cover a terrorist target around this globe using a cadre of case officers that is smaller than the number of FBI officers who work in New York City alone.”
On the other, there's the upcoming 9/11 Commission report, which will not be kind to the CIA:
The upcoming 9/11 commission report is almost certain to hit the CIA, among others, for its failures prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. That's on top of recent controversies concerning various intelligence leaks, and the mistaken US predictions about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction.
And then there's the Plame case, with all its secrets. Plame (when she worked there) would have been under both Tenet and Pavitt, and it's clear that the CIA was not happy about her exposure. But then why resign without saying anything? Strange. Is it all really "personal reasons"?
[Many links from this thread at Democratic Underground.]
I don't get this:
What is it about Morrissey that attracts Latinos? It may be that it echoes the music of Mexico, the ranchera. His trembling falsetto brings to mind the rich, sad voice of Pedro Infante, while his effeminate stage presence makes him a U.K. version of Juan Gabriel. As in ranchera, Morrissey’s lyrics rely on ambiguity, powerful imagery and metaphors. Thematically, the idealization of a simpler life and a rejection of all things bourgeois come from a populist impulse common to ranchera.The most striking similarity, though, is Morrissey’s signature beckoning and embrace of the uncertainty of life and love, something that at first glance might seem the opposite of macho Mexican music. But check it out: for all the machismo and virulent existentialism that Mexican music espouses, there is another side—a morbid fascination with getting your heart and dreams broken by others, usually in death. In fact, Morrissey’s most famous confession of unrequited love, "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out," ("And if a double-decker bus/Crashes into us/To die by your side/Would be a heavenly way to die") emulates almost sentiment for sentiment Cuco Sanchez’s torch song "Cama de Piedra" ("The day that they kill me/May it be with five bullets/And be close to you").
This came up when The Claw and I were driving down to the OC, and "There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out" came on. (Yes, I own a couple of Smiths albums. I reserve the right to make fun of Morrissey.) She said that she had had it stuck in her head all day - but she meant the Spanish version by Mikel Erentxun. Didn't even know it was a cover.
[UPDATE: And I certainly don't get this. Good heavens.]
Mark Kleiman points out that, recent expressions of unity to the contrary, the Democratic party is still as divided as it was 3 months ago.
Also, Mark offers that Ahmed Chalabi has not yet been arrested because he hasn't broken any laws. While this may be so, it doesn't really explain why we haven't arrested him. Although this may:
One Bush administration official said that in addition to harboring suspicions that Chalabi had been leaking sensitive U.S. information to Iran both before and after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, some U.S. officials also believe that Chalabi had collected and maintained files of potentially damaging information on U.S. officials with whom he had or was going to interact for the purpose of influencing them. Some officials said that when Iraqi authorities raided Chalabi’s offices, one of the things American officials hoped they would look for was Chalabi’s cache of information he had gathered on Americans.
You probably haven't heard about this yet, but it turns out that CIA Director George Tenet resigned today for "personal reasons". Okey-doke.
I really have no particular insight into why this happened, or why it happened now. It does seem to me that the neocons just lost their best friend in the CIA. Take this, and go wherever your fancy leads you.
Slacktivist looks at what Bush is telling his base when the rest of us aren't listening.
The culture needs to be changed.
Thanks, dad.
Has a distributor.
Is going to make an absurd, unbelievable amount of money. Will probably make more money than "The Passion". Will probably do a brisk business internationally.
The trailer is here.
It will probably suck a little bit, possibly more. "Roger and Me" was good; his assorted TV series were generally the best thing on; "The Big One" was scattershot, but OK; "Bowling For Columbine" is on cable constantly, and every time I find something new and crappy about it. Farenheit can suck pretty hard, and I'm still going to see it, and probably still enjoy it. Buckets of cash, baby. I shoulda gone into the movies.
I don't know how much to credit this story, but here it is:
Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq.Their damning testimony has prompted Bush to contact an outside lawyer for legal advice because evidence increasingly points to his involvement in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak.
The move suggests the president anticipates being questioned by prosecutors. Sources say grand jury witnesses have implicated the President and his top advisor, Karl Rove. ...
Sources within the investigation say evidence points to Rove approving release of the leak. They add that their investigation suggests the President knew about Rove's actions but took no action to stop release of Plame's name.
Accessory, if true. Jail time, perhaps?
[UPDATE: Some have suggested that it would be irresponsible to treat the unsourced allegations of "Capital Hill Blue", some website no one's ever heard of, as even a semi-reliable source of information. Is it irresponsible to post something so inflamatory, based on such flimsy evidence? It would be irresponsible not to.
(The Editors would like to thank Peggy Noonan for her invaluable assistance with this update).]
Tim Noah thinks that John Kerry's new slogan sucks, and so does the bitter Stalinist poem it comes from. Everything's Ruined thinks that Tim Noah sucks, and the slogan's great. Cobb thinks the slogan's good, but John Kerry can't pull off Langston Hughes. James Presley thinks the poem is brutal, real, and yet fundamentally hopeful, and that John Kerry is about 7 years old, because it's 1963.
Me? I think the slogan's fine, particularly when 4 years ago looks a whole lot better than today. And, reading the poem, I think that "let's go back to being better than we were" isn't a bad subtext, either. I still think that my suggestion - "My Name Is Prince (And I Am Funky)" - would be better, but it would require that Kerry change his name to "Prince". And, also, that he become funky. Perhaps a bit ambitious.
Begin the frogmarch:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush has sought a lawyer to represent him in the criminal probe into who was responsible for a leak that was seen as retaliation against a critic of the Iraq war, CBS Evening News reported on Wednesday. "President Bush has sought legal representation in the grand jury investigation into who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media last year," the network said.Plame is the wife of Joe Wilson, a former ambassador who was asked by the CIA to travel to Niger in February 2002 to check reports that Iraq had tried to buy enriched uranium from the African country.
Wilson dismissed the reports as unfounded, but Bush nevertheless included a reference to the supposed deal in his State of the Union speech in 2003, citing it as one of the reasons to invade Iraq.
The CIA later acknowledged that the uranium reports were based on forged documents and the White House said they should not have been mentioned in the State of the Union speech.
A newspaper columnist disclosed Plame's identity in July last year and Wilson accused the Bush administration of having leaked the information to pay him back for having publicly taken issue with the president's uranium claim.
CBS quoted the White House as confirming that Bush had been in discussions with Washington attorney Jim Sharp and would retain him if necessary.
It is illegal under U.S. law to disclose the name of a covert agent who has served outside the country in the previous five years.
Obstruction of justice. He knew. You know, even with all the crap that these idiots have done, there's still something especially galling about the Plame leak. It's some magic combination of arrogance, pettiness, and contempt for the lives and work of people who protect us that just sums it all up for me. Bastards.
Fortunately for us, it appears that Iranian intelligence is not possessed of super-human devious cleverness:
Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi leader and former ally of the Bush administration, disclosed to an Iranian official that the United States had broken the secret communications code of Iran's intelligence service, betraying one of Washington's most valuable sources of information about Iran, according to United States intelligence officials. ...American officials said that about six weeks ago, Mr. Chalabi told the Baghdad station chief of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security that the United States was reading the communications traffic of the Iranian spy service, one of the most sophisticated in the Middle East.
According to American officials, the Iranian official in Baghdad, possibly not believing Mr. Chalabi's account, sent a cable to Tehran detailing his conversation with Mr. Chalabi, using the broken code. That encrypted cable, intercepted and read by the United States, tipped off American officials to the fact that Mr. Chalabi had betrayed the code-breaking operation, the American officials said.
If you think they've broken your secret code, do you:
A. Change the code you use for top secret communications, just in case.
B. Begin sending lots of fake messages using the suspect code, to see if you can get them to give themselves away.
C. Immediately send a message in the suspect code announcing that the code may have been broken, and which secret double agent told you this.
Stupidity got us into this mess, and, God willing, stupidity will save us.
Unless, of course, this is just what the Iranians want us to think ...
Oliver Willis has an interesting observation:
The right has tried its damndest to make Howard Dean and Al Gore seem "crazy" when they're just telling the truth, but neither one of them is speaking to invisible men. ...He's either "crazy" or just making stuff up.
Much like the "deserter or AWOL" controversy, it presents almost limitless possibility for study and learned discussion. Is he just crazy? Is he just lying? Or is it some combination of lying and craziness? And, if so, in what proportions? Can we decern patterns that will let us know when he is lying, and when he is just crazy? I would like to see this issue debated in public fora, for the next 6 months at least.
[Timothy Noah suggests brain damage caused by asphyxiation with a pretzel. But might it also be consistant with drug and alcohol abuse? If so, which drugs, and when? Clearly, this is going to be a very long and involved debate.]
In Newsweek, "A Return To Sanity, Finally":
In his prime-time speech last week, George W. Bush HIT all his familiar themes—we must show resolve, stay the course, finish the job, etc. But this masks a very different reality. Over the past three weeks the Bush administration has reversed itself on virtually every major aspect of its Iraq policy. Thank goodness. These shifts might be too late to have a major effect, but they will certainly help. The administration has finally begun to adhere to Rule No. 1 when you're in a hole: stop digging. But it needs to go further and move decisively in a new direction.Consider the magnitude of recent policy reversals:
The administration had stubbornly insisted that no more troops were needed in Iraq. But today, there are 20,000 additional soldiers in the country. From the start it refused to give the U.N. any political role in Iraq. Now the U.N. is an indispensable partner, both in the June 30 transition and in preparing for elections. Radical "de-Baathification," the pet project of the Pentagon and Ahmad Chalabi, has been overturned. The Army that was disbanded is being slowly re-created. Heavy-handed military tactics have given way to a more careful political-military strategy in Fallujah, Karbala and Najaf that emphasizes a role for local leaders. Imagine what Iraq might have looked like if these policies had been put in place 14 months ago.
I suspect it would probably still be a mess, but not such a big one. But the weird thing is that the Administration has done just about everything wrong that it is possible to do wrong, generally while ignoring all the experts screaming "no, do it the right way!", and yet things could, conceivably, be a lot worse. It makes you wonder if this this whole "turning Iraq into a lovely democracy" pipe dream might have actually worked, were we not ruled by a bunch of pig ignorant, lying, irresponsible wingnut clowns.
I find that I have to qualify a lot of things these days with the phrase "were we not ruled by a bunch of dishonest, pig ignorant, irresponsible wingnut clowns."
If there was ever any doubt that this weblog was the matrix of all political thought, let it be dispelled now. First, Josh Marshall steals our observation about candidate image metrics on the Bush and Kerry websites. Now, Charles Pierce totally rips off our bit about John Kerry looking like a anthromorphic tree in Esquire:
He's always looked a bit like an Ent, one of Tolkien's long-jawed, slow-talking tree creatures.
The fact that we stole that joke from Todd K is not the issue here. What is at issue is that, without my keen eye and gift for trenchant political commentary, no one else would have anything good to say. Either that, or we have the same Iranian intelligence handler feeding us this stuff.
I received the following email today:
Dear The Editors,We very much enjoy the series of posts you call "Dem Panic Watch". These posts give us comfort, which has been in short supply since Andrew Sullivan wrote that scathing piece about us in the Times of London.
Thanks,
America's Enemies
P.S.: Also, aid.
Stuff like this really belongs in the comments, not email.
