night

thread, open it is

Healthy

One of the things sitting in my massive mail pile was a lab report taken from a life insurance policy related health examination. I'm pretty sure I've so far managed to get through 33 years of life without ever having any kind of basic blood work. I've been a bit behind in checkups, but I have had them and they've always managed to not bother to check the levels of all of those exciting things, some of which I can identify and some of which I can't. I never pushed for it because of my rather annoying habit of fainting during the extraction process, but I was always a bit disappointed.

While never being much of a hypochondriac, I admit I was a bit worried about what might be found. But, judging from the little printout I have I'm fantastically healthy, at least as measured by the things they've measured and the "usual clinical range" they've conveniently provided.

88 LDL bitches!

Functioning Internets

Not having had a decent internet connection in a month, I'd forgotten what it's like when the connection is actually decent. Click a link! The page loads! Just like magic.

Still getting settled here, and I'm off to DC early tomorrow morning, but has it occurred to anyone else that John Tierney's continued obsession with his belief that women aren't competitive proof of nothing more than the fact that John Tierney hasn't been around women much...

Please New York Times, make your fee-for columnists an a la carte system...

Home for Real

Nothing like a having a month of mail to sift through...

...well, Felt confirmed as Deep Throat. Hard not to be disappointed it wasn't one of the more tantalizing possibilities (poppy, buchanan, etc...)

Evening Thread

Reload your whizzinators.

Okrent - Big Liar

Odd qualification for an ombudsman, really. Or public editor, or whatever the hell he was supposed to be doing between obsessively consuming organ meat and diddling around with baseball statistics and smearing private citizens by publishing, with name and hometown, their private emails.

Your liberal media...

The Smell of Freedom

Back in the country, assuming "JFK airport" qualifies.

Open thread.

Krugman breaks the chair, the table, the placemats, the silverware,

and the special Star Wars Collector plates (very valuable in Toledo!) over the head of Daniel Okrent.

As we thought, short, brutal, and one-sided. And, of course, very enjoyable.

I am Spartacus, I mean Atrios,

Okay, would you believe Deep Throat?

"I'm just glad there is one prominent progressive blog out there that is still a solo act."

Says the guest blogger.

The Daily Josh debuts.

First drugs, now "rendition"

From the NYT: C.I.A. Expanding Terror Battle Under Guise of Charter Flights. It's never good news when the CIA has it's own airline.

Early Morning Open Thread

Busy day for me, what with it being "take your frozen embryos to work day" and all. Fortunately, I've got a snow globe to keep 'em company.

Late Night

Or early morning, depending on your time zone. Travel day, so light posting from me...

Open Memorial Day Thread

REMEMBER

If you are able,
Save a place for them
Inside of you. And
save one backward glance
When you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say that you loved them,
Though you may not have always.

Take what they have left,
And what they have taught you
With their dying
And keep it your own.

And in a time
When men decide and feel safe
To call war insane,

Take one moment to embrace
Those gentle heroes
You left behind.

Written by Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, helicopter pilot;
1 January 1970, Dak To, Vietnam; KIA on March 24, 1970
---
Suggestion from fuming mucker.

Open thread

The other one is plenty long enough.

That Bitch

Since drudge is all excited, let's remind ourselves of the Quinn article he's referring to. It stands as probably the biggest self-indictment of the beltway kool kids ever written:

"This beautiful capital," President Clinton said in his first inaugural address, "is often a place of intrigue and calculation. Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way." With that, the new president sent a clear challenge to an already suspicious Washington Establishment.

And now, five years later, here was Clinton's trusted adviser Rahm Emanuel, finishing up a speech at a fund-raiser to fight spina bifida before a gathering that could only be described as Establishment Washington.

"There are a lot of people in America who look at what we do here in Washington with nothing but cynicism," said Emanuel. "Heck, there are a lot of people in Washington who look at us with nothing but cynicism." But, he went on, "there are good people here. Decent people on both sides of the political aisle and on both sides of the reporter's notebook."

Emanuel, unlike the president, had become part of the Washington Establishment. "This is one of those extraordinary moments," he said at the fund-raiser, "when we come together as a community here in Washington -- setting aside personal, political and professional differences."

Actually, it wasn't extraordinary. When Establishment Washingtonians of all persuasions gather to support their own, they are not unlike any other small community in the country.

On this evening, the roster included Cabinet members Madeleine Albright and Donna Shalala, Republicans Sen. John McCain and Rep. Bob Livingston, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, PBS's Jim Lehrer and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, all behaving like the pals that they are. On display was a side of Washington that most people in this country never see. For all their apparent public differences, the people in the room that night were coming together with genuine affection and emotion to support their friends -- the Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt and his wife, CNN's Judy Woodruff, whose son Jeffrey has spina bifida.

But this particular community happens to be in the nation's capital. And the people in it are the so-called Beltway Insiders -- the high-level members of Congress, policymakers, lawyers, military brass, diplomats and journalists who have a proprietary interest in Washington and identify with it.

They call the capital city their "town."

And their town has been turned upside down.



With some exceptions, the Washington Establishment is outraged by the president's behavior in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The polls show that a majority of Americans do not share that outrage. Around the nation, people are disgusted but want to move on; in Washington, despite Clinton's gains with the budget and the Mideast peace talks, people want some formal acknowledgment that the president's behavior has been unacceptable. They want this, they say, not just for the sake of the community, but for the sake of the country and the presidency as well.

In addition to the polls and surveys, this disconnect between the Washington Establishment and the rest of the country is evident on TV and radio talk shows and in interviews and conversations with more than 100 Washingtonians for this article. The din about the scandal has subsided in the news as politicians and journalists fan out across the country before tomorrow's elections. But in Washington, interest remains high. The reasons are varied, and they intertwine.



1. THIS IS THEIR HOME. This is where they spend their lives, raise their families, participate in community activities, take pride in their surroundings. They feel Washington has been brought into disrepute by the actions of the president.

"It's much more personal here," says pollster Geoff Garin. "This is an affront to their world. It affects the dignity of the place where they live and work. . . . Clinton's behavior is unacceptable. If they did this at the local Elks Club hall in some other community it would be a big cause for concern."

"He came in here and he trashed the place," says Washington Post columnist David Broder, "and it's not his place."

"This is a company town," says retired senator Howard Baker, once Ronald Reagan's chief of staff. "We're up close and personal. The White House is the center around which our city revolves."

Bill Galston, former deputy domestic policy adviser to Clinton and now a professor at the University of Maryland, says of the scandal that "most people in Washington believe that most people in Washington are honorable and are trying to do the right thing. The basic thought is that to concede that this is normal and that everybody does it is to undermine a lifetime commitment to honorable public service."

"Everybody doesn't do it," says Jerry Rafshoon, Jimmy Carter's former communications director. "The president himself has said it was wrong."

Pollster Garin, president of Peter Hart Research Associates, says that the disconnect is not unlike the difference between the way men and women view the scandal. Just as many men are angry that Clinton's actions inspire the reaction "All men are like that," Washingtonians can't abide it that the rest of the country might think everyone here cheats and lies and abuses his subordinates the way the president has.

"This is a community in all kinds of ways," says ABC correspondent Cokie Roberts, whose parents both served in Congress. She is concerned that people outside Washington have a distorted view of those who live here. "The notion that we are some rarefied beings who breathe toxic air is ridiculous. . . . When something happens everybody gathers around. . . . It's a community of good people involved in a worthwhile pursuit. We think being a worthwhile public servant or journalist matters."

"This is our town," says Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the first Democrat to forcefully condemn the president's behavior. "We spend our lives involved in talking about, dealing with, working in government. It has reminded everybody what matters to them. You are embarrassed about what Bill Clinton's behavior says about the White House, the presidency, the government in general."

And many are offended that the principles that brought them to Washington in the first place are now seen to be unfashionable or illegitimate.

Muffie Cabot, who as Muffie Brandon served as social secretary to President and Nancy Reagan, regards the scene with despair. "This is a demoralized little village," she says. "People have come from all over the country to serve a higher calling and look what happened. They're so disillusioned. The emperor has no clothes. Watergate was pretty scary, but it wasn't quite as sordid as this."

"People felt a reverent attitude toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," says Tish Baldrige, who once worked there as Jacqueline Kennedy's social secretary and has been a frequent visitor since. "Now it's gone, now it's sleaze and dirt. We all feel terribly let down. It's very emotional. We want there to be standards. We're used to standards. When you think back to other presidents, they all had a lot of class. That's nonexistent now. It's sad for people in the White House. . . . I've never seen such bad morale in my life. They're not proud of their chief."

NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell adds a touch of neighborly concern. "We all know people who have been terribly damaged personally by this," she says. "Young White House aides who have been saddled by legal bills, longtime Clinton friends. . . . There is a small-town quality to the grief that is being felt, an overwhelming sadness at the waste of the nation's time and attention, at the opportunities lost."

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss sees this scandal not only from a historical perspective but from a resident's. "There's never been a sex scandal affecting a president while in office," he says. "In a distilled way, the sense of centeredness, stability and order depends on who is in the White House and what's going on there. When everything is turned upside down it affects our psyche more than someone who might be farming in Wyoming."

Lloyd Cutler, former White House counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton and considered one of the few "wise men" left in Washington, gives yet another reason why people take the scandal more seriously here. "This is an excitement to us, a feeling of being in on it, and whichever part of the Washington milieu we come from, we want to play a part. That's why we're here."



2. THE LYING OFFENDS THEM. For both politicians and journalists, trust is the coin of the realm. Without trust, the system breaks down.

"We have our own set of village rules," says David Gergen, editor at large at U.S. News & World Report, who worked for both the Reagan and Clinton White House. "Sex did not violate those rules. The deep and searing violation took place when he not only lied to the country, but co-opted his friends and lied to them. That is one on which people choke.

"We all live together, we have a sense of community, there's a small-town quality here. We all understand we do certain things, we make certain compromises. But when you have gone over the line, you won't bring others into it. That is a cardinal rule of the village. You don't foul the nest."

"This is a contractual city," says Chris Matthews, who once was a top aide to the late Speaker of the House Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill. "There are no factories here. What we make are deals. It's a city based on bonds made and kept." The president, he went on, "has broken and shattered contracts publicly and shamefully. He violates the trust at the highest level of politics. Matthews, now a Washington columnist for the San Francisco Examiner and host of CNBC's "Hardball," also says, "There has to be a functional trust by reporters of the person they're covering. Clinton lies knowing that you know he's lying. It's brutal and it subjugates the person who's being lied to. I resent deeply being constantly lied to."

Republican Alan Simpson, a longtime Washington insider now teaching at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government in Boston, still identifies with his colleagues in this situation. "There is only one question here," says the former senator. "Did he raise his right hand and lie about it and then lie again? Lying under oath -- that to me is all there is. Did this man, whether he is head of the hardware store or the president or applying for a game and fishing license, raise his hand and say, 'This is the truth'?"

Certainly Clinton is not the first president to lie. But the scope and circumstances of his lying enrage Establishment Washington.

"His behavior," says Lieberman, "is so over the edge. What is troubling is the deceit, the failure to own up to it. Before this is over the truth must be told."

Retiring Rep. Paul McHale was the first Democrat to call for Clinton's resignation. "When the president spoke last January I believed him," says McHale, of Pennsylvania. "I didn't think he would have the audacity, the lack of integrity to mislead the American people . . . but then he pervasively lied under oath. He was blatantly, intentionally untruthful. I would not accept as president of the United States a man who has lied under oath."

Democrats find themselves in a dicey position regarding the president, and most declined to speak about the issue at all. McHale says of his friend and colleague House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, "Dick has party loyalties and personal convictions. His personal convictions are more critical [about Clinton] than he was able to state in public."

And the wife of a Democratic senator who declined to comment spoke on condition of anonymity. "We take the issue of perjury seriously here," she said. Her husband, she said, thinks the president "lacks character and commitment. He's very clear about it."

During the last year, the nation's journalistic community has suffered through a series of credibility crises: Mike Barnicle's and Patricia Smith's disgrace and departure from the Boston Globe, two CNN producers involved in the network's discredited sarin report, and compulsive fabricator Stephen Glass of the New Republic.

Washington's insider press corps has shown little pity for any of them. The feeling toward the president is similar.

"The judgment is harsher in Washington," says The Post's Broder. "We don't like being lied to."



3. ESTABLISHMENT WASHINGTON REVERES THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENCY. If Washington is a tribe, then the president is the tribal chief. He cannot be seen to dishonor the tribe.

Ken Duberstein was President Bush's chief of staff. "Every time I went into the Oval office I put on a coat and tie," he says. "Ronald Reagan put on a coat and tie, even on weekends. Reagan used to say this was not his office, it was the president's office, it was the people's office. He was only the temporary occupant."

For Roger Wilkins, history professor at George Mason University, "the White House is the holiest of America's secular shrines." Wilkins sees the president's conduct as "a betrayal of the ideals we have for the metaphysical office and the physical office" of the presidency. "For this man to say that his conduct of exploitation of this girl is private in a place we revere, a place we pay for, a place we own is not only absurd, it's condescending and insulting."

Former Democratic senator Sam Nunn, long a powerful player on the Washington scene, feels it is impossible to lead without trust. "People say that moral authority is not needed . . . but the trust factor is the single most important factor of leadership whether it be for a minister, a CEO, a senator or a president."

Democrats as well as Republicans are very angry at the president, says retiring Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, who emphasizes what he sees as a lack of respect for the office of president. "I'm angry at him," he says. "I'd like to kick his butt across the White House lawn."

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin knows something about the office and "the authority, the esteem, the respect in which the presidency is held. When you take the precious resource of a president's ability to mobilize people and employ that resource into a campaign of deception . . . when you lie to the country, you are using your authority to undermine the presidency."



4. THEY UNDERSTAND THE CONSEQUENCES. Even as the president wins budget victories and conducts Middle East diplomacy, insider Washington feels that the scandal will ultimately take its toll on programs and policies.

Presidential lawyer Bob Bennett told a revealing anecdote to an audience at the National Press Club recently. One day, he said, he had had four substantial conversations with the president about the Paula Jones case. At one point, he said, "I had to cut it short and the president said, 'Yeah, I've got to get back to Saddam Hussein.' And I said, 'My God, this is lunacy that I'm taking his time on this stuff.' "

This is only bound to get worse. In an atmosphere of impeachment hearings, says former Clinton senior adviser George Stephanopoulos, now an ABC commentator, "you can't create a debate about a lot of things, you can't put other issues before the country, you can't manage a crisis, you can't negotiate."

NBC's Mitchell, who is married to Fed Chairman Greenspan, agrees. "There's no way any president going through this process can be able to focus," she says, "whether on Kosovo or the economic crisis. It's just a tragedy for everyone."

"Americans will be hurt by his reckless behavior," says Rep. McHale. "We might have enacted into law a patients' health care rights bill, campaign finance reform, comprehensive tobacco legislation. The president was not engaged on these issues. You can't do Paula Jones, the lawyers, tobacco and Monica all at once. Compartmentalization is a nice idea but not a reality."

"It's a canard to say that this is a private matter," says Wall Street Journal columnist Al Hunt. "It's had a profound effect on governance."

Historian Stephen Ambrose, who wrote a biography of Richard Nixon, says that Nixon was totally distracted during the last months of the Watergate scandal. He estimates that Nixon spent 95 percent of his time on it. And he estimates that Clinton does the same, though he says that Clinton is "amazing at how he can go out in public and focus on what is at hand." But 95 percent of his time is still a good guess, he says, because "everything depends on it."

"Ambrose is right on both scores," says Howard Baker. "But the difference between Clinton and Nixon is that Nixon resigned because he couldn't stand it. Clinton is not cut from the same cloth. He can compartmentalize. I drive by the White House at night and think, 'What in the world are they doing right now? How do they function?' I would be destroyed."

For Baker, the most serious consequence of the scandal is "the diminished capability for the U.S. to lead by moral example . . . the impact on Kosovo and Iraq. I can just see Saddam Hussein licking his chops seeing that the U.S. is less willing to respond."

Washington insiders are particularly appalled by the president's recklessness, given the fact that he was already facing the Jones lawsuit. "What angers people here," says political writer Elizabeth Drew, is that "he was on notice. There are two different kinds of judgments -- one, how terrible and two, how stupid. Even if this doesn't warrant throwing him out of office, there are too many people who are bothered by it morally and there are others who want to take the opportunity to exploit his vulnerability. The result is an awful lot of wreckage and damage."

Robert Reich, who was Clinton's labor secretary in his first term, can't understand how Clinton could have taken such a risk. "In retrospect," he says, "the pattern becomes clear. It makes the recklessness less understandable. Given the danger this has posed to his presidency, you'd think he'd take extra precautions against this compulsion. It makes his apology less credible. If this is a pattern, why should anybody believe it will change?

"We have a seriously crippled president for the next two years," says Reich. "He'll have a few good moments, he'll go through the motions, there will be adoring crowds, he'll use his bully pulpit and maybe he will have something he can call a victory. But essentially it's over."

For reasons they cannot understand, Washington insiders come across to the public as judgmental puritans, shocked and horrified by the president's sexual misconduct. While most people have gossiped about the salacious details as the scandal unfolded, they say this was not what has outraged them. Of all those interviewed, not one mentioned sex or adultery as a matter of concern. "Sex," says Gergen, "is acceptable as long as it's discreet." As Wilkins puts it, with a chuckle, "God knows, most people in Washington have led robust sexual lives."

Similarly, independent counsel Ken Starr is not seen by many Washington insiders as an out-of-control prudish crusader. Starr is a Washington insider, too. He has lived and worked here for years. He had a reputation as a fair and honest judge. He has many friends in both parties. Their wives are friendly with one another and their children go to the same schools. He is seen as someone who is operating under a legal statute, with a mandate from the attorney general and a three-judge panel, although there are some lawyers here who have questioned some of Starr's most aggressive tactics.

Finally, as for Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp, they are seen as essentially irrelevant in terms of the issues of concern here.

Privately, many in Establishment Washington would like to see Bill Clinton resign and spare the country, the presidency and the city any more humiliation.

But if Clinton won't resign, what do they want instead?

Many say the impeachment inquiry should go forth in some fashion, if only to clarify and explain the offenses and to let the system work. The system is important here.

Yet a Senate vote to oust Clinton or some form of censure appears to make them nervous, mainly because they fear it would weaken the office.

"We don't want to hang him," says Gergen. "There's a sense that we all want to clear this up. And there's a maddening frustration that the political system doesn't have a set of penalties for this kind of activity."

"The founding fathers let us down," adds Beschloss.

"He shouldn't get by with it," says Baker. "The question is, what can the Senate do short of removal?"

Certainly the Washington insiders have their own interests at heart. Whenever a new president comes to town, he will be courted assiduously by those whose livelihoods depend on access to power. But over the years of the Clinton White House, that interest in being close to the administration has diminished, particularly after the Lewinsky story broke in January. Then, after Aug. 17, many people's self-interest was overtaken by their disgust and outrage.

Even those who have to deal with or publicly support the administration do so grudgingly. They say that regardless of whether his fortunes improve, Bill Clinton has essentially lost the Washington Establishment for good.

Former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos deplores the scandal's impact on the country's business. Rep. Dick Gephardt, top, is said to have held back in criticizing the president out of party loyalty, but retiring Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, above, shows no such compunction: "I'd like to kick his butt across the White House lawn," he says of Clinton. Below, former Republican senator Howard Baker: "The difference between Clinton and Nixon is that Nixon resigned because he couldn't stand" the investigation distractions.

Just in case you'd all forgotten. Did the kool kids ever object to Quinn's portrait of their world?

More Thread

enjoy

Saipan

I did not know that.

Travel Blogging

Not cut out to be a culture critic of any sort or a travel writer, but here are some brief recommendations based on my recent travels:

Barcelona, which I've spent substantial time in, is a great place both to go for a few weeks or more if one has the opportunity. Plenty of interesting touristy things to keep you busy, but it's also just a great place to just spend some time "hanging out." Good food and drink, lively atmosphere, and there's also a beach.

Seville is great. Go.

Granada is worth visiting, even though the hotel we stayed in had Fox News for our viewing pleasure. I thought Alhambra was somewhat overrated, but still worth visiting. The Albaicin neighborhood is great for exploring and re-exploring, but don't order the Tortilla Sacromonte until you find out what it is....

Cordoba the town isn't that exciting, but it's worth going to for the Mezquita which is one of the more fascinating things I've seen - massive mosque, originally begun in the 8th century, then continually expanded upon. In the 14th century a Christian cathedral was plunked in the middle of it, though aside from the altars around the edges the original mosque structure was left mostly intact.

Malaga is probably avoidable, unless one needs one more chance to eat fried fish. The new Picasso museum is worth seeing, though not worth an extra trip unless it's the kind of thing you are really into.

Howler

heh-indeedy

Gee, really? Do you think? Do you think “it's inappropriate for the public editor to attack the ethics of one of the paper's writers without providing any supporting evidence?” Krugman’s statement is true, but it’s much too limiting; surely it’s inappropriate for any writer to offer nasty condemnation of the kind Okrent penned without offering any examples or evidence. In fact, it’s the sort of thing a public editor should criticize, from any member of a newspaper’s staff. But Daniel Okrent is king of the pimps. So he typed his cheap shot. Then he ran.

But how big a fraud is the great Daniel Okrent? Try to believe what you see if you actually dare to click here; try to believe the pile of letters at the bottom of which Krugman’s letter appears. That’s right, rubes! Before the mighty New York Times let readers see what Krugman had written, they presented a fair-and-balanced set of twelve different letters, all of which praise Darling Okrent for the brilliant way he conducted his mission. The sheer stupidity of these writers is matched by the balls-out pandering of the paper itself. Stalin himself wouldn’t play it so bold. But this insulting pile of propaganda perfectly captures the essence of Okrent. And it tells you things about the people who run the Times—things we all need to understand.

...


Omigod! Entertainment for days! Anyone who has read both Krugman and Okrent will emit low, mordant chuckles—in advance—at the thought of that promised exchange. Okrent is going to debate Paul Krugman? Good God! From his hapless “liberal newspaper” column right to the end, Okrent repeatedly wrote like an idiot—like a man too lazy and too self-consumed to waste his time with the simplest research. Repeatedly, he performed like the man he seems to be—like a foppish clown prince of Manhattan society, the great inventor of rotisserie baseball. He repeated fever dreams from kooky-con swamps, failing to check them in any way. And then, in parting, he let the world know that Krugman has been gaming the evidence!

For ourselves, we whet our lips as we imagine Okrent offering “substantive assault” against Krugman. (Of course, Krugman, almost surely, does make mistakes. See below.) But let’s make sure we fully understand the nature of the Times’ presentation this Sunday. That pile of letters the paper heaped up is an open insult to its readers’ intelligence. Before they let you read Krugman’s reply, they made you wade through twelve(!) different letters telling you that Okrent’s a genius. And be sure you understand what that means—it means that the New York Times’ management hates Krugman, too. Krugman has dared to challenge power—power, to which these weaklings conform. Throughout history, millionaire quislings have always knuckled under to power. And they’ve always attacked others who don’t.

The last point is of course critical for understanding the real dynamic at play.


(...holy crap, Okrent really did invent rotisserie baseball. Thought it was a joke...)

Aggrieved

Too sad, but too true:

In exchange for our uniformed young people's willingness to offer the gift of their lives, civilian Americans owe them something important: It is our duty to ensure that they never are called to make that sacrifice unless it is truly necessary for the security of the country. In the case of Iraq, the American public has failed them; we did not prevent the Bush administration from spending their blood in an unnecessary war based on contrived concerns about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it happened because Americans, understandably, don't expect untruths from those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an excuse.

True, but it is also the destiny of we patriots, patriots of America the Ideal, as opposed to America the Ass-Kicker, to always be called unpatriotic when we oppose the unjustified use of power; and then be labeled the cause of defeat when we turn out to be correct.

Peace be with those who die in our name, and also to those who want them not to be sacrificed in vain.

Cheap

I've never spent too much time looking into the general issue of internet advertising cost/effectiveness/impact/etc... either in and of itself or relative to print and other forms of advertising. But, from what I gather a standard cost measure is CPM - cost per 1000 impressions.

A week of advertising on the liberal blog network can be had for $3700 right now. That buys you about 7 million page impressions at a cost of about 50 cents per thousand.

Pretty cheap by what I understand are the standards of these things...

Product Placement in Political Ads

Holy crap. This really brings us into new territory. Time for another conference on blogger ethics I think.

New Thread

For the early birds.

Where are all the male bloggers?

Yes, it's a sad thing, in a world populated by the likes of Alice Marshall, Julie Saltman, Barbara O'Brien, Anne Zook, Susie Madrak, MadKane, Jeralyn Merritt, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Jeanne D'Arc, Gail Davis, Elayne Riggs, Deborah White, Roxanne Cooper, Trish Wilson, Riverbend, and anyone else I forgot to mention (and of course Echidne and myself), the boys get lost in the shuffle.

Some might say this is only to be expected, given that girls show a better facility for language than boys do from the earliest days of schooling onward through adulthood.

Others might recall that old adage that girls mature earlier than boys - it has been suggested that half the male population is dead before they have reached the age at which they mature.

And then there's the old saying, "I'd rather be beautiful than smart, because men can see better than they can think."

Of course, I don't happen to subscribe to any of these theories, and I feel it's important to point out that there are good male bloggers who should be given some credit for their plucky attempts to compete with the big girls. Here are a few:

The Rude Pundit, who makes no attempt to hide his passion in response to the horrors of our warmongering police state. Willing to face up to the worst the world has to offer, one gets the feeling that this might be one of the few men who is not so over-sensitive that he must flee the room as soon as women start talking about serious things like menstruation.

The Poor Man, whose acute fashion sense led him to understand the ramificatons of the fact that Michael Moore is Fat.

Michael Bérubé, who really knows how to throw a catfight with David Horowitz.

Fred Clark, who sensitively examines the deep literary content of the Left Behind series for us.

Joe Vecchio, who's not afraid to expose his own worries about the modern, low-rent world we live in.

Gary Farber, who gets great links.

Dave Johnson, who is pretty smart for a boy.

Digby, who writes so good he has been mistaken for a girl.

Open Thread

Have fun.

Bush Doctrine

This has been bugging me for some time but I can't possibly be the only one who has noticed. Internet connection is too crappy to look into this deeply right now, but has anyone else noticed that our media allowed the "Bush Doctrine" to magically evolve from "pre-emptive war against anyone who might want to hurt us" to "spreading freedom and democracy throughout the world" without blinking?

NPR Tool

Jeff Dvorkin sure does come across as the tool that he is here:

The society of news ombudsmen has rejected an attempt by two ombudsmen from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to join their organization as full-fledged members, questioning their independence.


...

In April, Tomlinson took the unusual step of appointing two ombudsmen to monitor broadcasts on PBS and NPR, though NPR already had an ombudsman and PBS has been considering one. The New York Times reported earlier that Tomlinson told the president of NPR in February that he wanted one liberal ombudsmen and one conservative, a notion that injected ideology into what has traditionally been a one-person, apolitical job where credibility rests on the degree of perceived independence.

The corporation's board, which is dominated by Republicans appointed by President George W. Bush, appointed William Schulz, who has conservative leanings and was previously executive editor of Reader's Digest, and Ken Bode, a former reporter for NBC News and CNN. Bode's political orientation is less clear, but Media Matters for America, a liberal Web site (www.mediamatters.org), notes that he is an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative organization. He also teaches journalism at DePauw University in Indiana and was dean of the Medill School of Journalism from 1998 to 2002, at Northwestern University.

...

ONO's move could also heighten tensions between Tomlinson and NPR, because Jeffrey Dvorkin, the immediate past president of the ombudsman organization, is the ombudsman for NPR. Dvorkin had contacted Bode about the applications and met with him in Washington to discuss it and their attendance at the conference.

That meeting itself drew criticism from at least two other members of the ombudsmen organization, who saw Dvorkin's involvement as a conflict of interest. The corporation not only oversees financing for NPR, but the two corporation ombudsmen are in a position to review Dvorkin's work.

My war against the machines

Lambert at Corrente has a story about how Miami Dade is dumping the paperless machines. It says:

Miami-Dade County's elections chief has recommended ditching its ATM-style voting machines, just three years after buying them for $24.5 million to avoid a repeat of the hanging and dimpled chads from the 2000 election.

Elections supervisor Lester Sola said in a memo Friday that the county should switch to optical scanners that use paper ballots, based on declining voter confidence in the paperless touch-screen machines and quadrupled election day labor costs.

On the face of it, that sounds like a real victory - and, to some extent, it is, because at least there is a paper trial with the optical scanner system, if there is a recount.

And that's where the real problem lies, because a paper trail is meaningless if no one ever looks at it. The initial count of optical-scan ballots is done by machine, and if you fiddle the machine count - which you obviously can - so that no race is close enough to require a recount, no one will ever know. There is ample evidence that exactly this may have happened in 2004. Note that the graph I reproduced here shows that, while hand-counts produced discrepancies with exit poll results of well under a percentage point, optical scanners gave us around 5% - better than for other machine-dependent methods, but still not so good, and definitely enough to throw an election. Certainly it's all you need to cast a victory as being by a wide enough margin that no one asks for a recount.

See, if all those ballots from optical-scan machines were actually reviewed, we might find that there was no difference between the exit polls and the actual votes - that is, that the machines had been tweaked to give a false result.

But since no one ever demanded a hand-count of those ballots, it's unlikely that we'll ever know.

And that's why I'm unimpressed with mere "paper trails". Evidence is worthless if no one ever looks at it - and competently stealing an election just means making sure there is never a re-count. Functionally speaking, there is no difference between an election that can't be recounted and one that won't be recounted.

Which is why we need paper ballots that are publicly hand-counted on site, on the night. If we don't actually see the ballots being individually counted, we don't know that they have been counted properly.

The NYT Wingnut Boys' Latest Summaries

John Tierney:

The world is a safer place than it used to be which I'm proving by misusing statistics a lot while not stating the real reason for this increased safety: progressive and liberal ideas: access to education and economic opportunity, and human rights.

David Brooks:

There really is a class war (though Brooks doesn't believe in it)! But it's not between the moneyed classes and everybody else; it's between those latte-sipping liberals in their ivory towers and everybody else.

"Well, sure it's a war crime...but this is just rehashing old news"

So sayeth the lords of the American Media, but at least the Times cares:

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make “regime change” in Iraq legal.

Disconnect

E&P notes that the press doesn't seem to bother to explore just why 57% of the public feel that the war was not worth it.

It's simple. Bloviatings of the stalinist media wanting wingnutosphere aside, the press was always on the side of officialdom when it came to this war. Before the war even in the post-9/11 haze at best only slim majorities supported the war (it depended crucially on how the question was asked). Each statement from officialdom promising more turned corners and more lights at ends of tunnels, more painted schools, more electricity, fewer casualties has been trumpeted by the gang of 500 fatuous fuckwits. They've even had the nerve to pretend this war was about "promoting democracy" in a way which has shocked even me.

Of course there has been good and deservedly skeptical reporting from Iraq, but the real guardians of our discourse, the media filters and talking heads and columnists who determine what the official narrative of the Iraq war is have always been united in support, much as they were united against the Clinton administration during Monica Madness.


It's a crime they aided and abetted. It's no wonder they aren't particularly interested in exploring why, once again, they were on the wrong side of an important issue.

Luskin's Sock Puppet?

It sure will be fun to see how much Danny Boy Okrent's attempts to get Krugman are simply taken from Luskin.

Numerous bloggers and critics of the paper--including myself--can testify to what Donald Luskin called a "productive relationship" with Okrent, who seems genuinely interested in what we have to say.

Anyone else have "productive relationship" with Danny Boy?

Early Morning Thread

Enjoy while contemplating what fresh hell the Sunday bobbleheads will serve up.

Oh, this won't be pretty, but it sure will be fun to see

Krugman addresses Okrent:

He offered no examples of my "disturbing habit," and maybe I should stop there: surely it's inappropriate for the public editor to attack the ethics of one of the paper's writers without providing any supporting evidence. He responded to my request for examples with criticisms of specific columns. Those criticisms were simply wrong: in each of those columns I played entirely fair with my readers, using the standard data in the standard way.

That should be the end of the story.

But it won't be:

The writer is an Op-Ed columnist for The Times. He and Daniel Okrent will be addressing this matter further on the Public Editor's Web Journal (nytimes.com/byroncalame) early in the week.

Incoming special delivery Mr. Okrent, your ass.

Let's have a healthcare thread

Start at The Mahablog.

New Thread

Here he comes to save the day!

All hail bat-bat and the bug wonder.

So much death

We've got the insurgents right where we want them now.

The surge of violence that has swept Iraq since its first elected government took office nearly a month ago continued on Saturday, with at least 30 new deaths reported across the country, some in what appeared to be sectarian killings.

The latest attacks raised the total number of Iraqis killed this month to about 650, in addition to at least 63 American troops who have been killed, the highest American toll since January.

I only wish Rich Lowry was around to reassure us.

MTV v. Nine Inch Nails

The American Stranger says MTV sucks:

"We were set to perform 'The Hand That Feeds' with an unmolested, straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me," Nine Inch Nails' leader Trent Reznor said in a statement posted on the band's Web site. MTV said in a statement: "While we respect Nine Inch Nails' point of view, we were uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement. When we discussed our discomfort with the band, their choice was to unfortunately pull out of the Movie Awards."

Bloggity Blog Blog

Go away for a month and suddenly everyone's turning their blogs into mini empires.

Don't want to be left behind. So, next month Gil Gerard and Erin Grey will join the brain trust here.

Freedom on the march

One of the things that most infuriated me about the excuses for the invasion was that somehow getting rid of a secular ruler would improve the lot of women in Iraq - as if there were no distinction between Saddam and the Taliban. And as if the Bush administrated care about that, anyway. Echidne puts this thing in the rubbish where it belongs.

Forever 19

From Minnesota, but applies to the rest of the country, then and today.

The medals are still displayed below an Army photo of Roger Jr. on the wall of the family bungalow in Richfield. The photo is fading. The memories are not.

With young soldiers dying in another distant war today, the echoes of 1970 can seem as fresh and as painful as ever.

"I think people worry that Iraq will turn out the same as Vietnam," says Luella. "It seems such a waste. You can't print what I think about it."

*May require registration, but the Star-Trib has been as tough (i.e. rational) on the Bush Junta as any paper in the country, so it is worth it for more than just this article.

Strutting Phonies

Patrick writes:

At times it all seems like some sort of Bizarro World faith-versus-works argument. Liberals wind up being the ones pointing out, endlessly, that national security is provided by actual practices, not just by holding your face right. Meanwhile popinjays like Joe Biden desperately file their chins to razor-sharpness in the probably vain hope that the electorate, having sometimes demonstrated a preference for strutting phonies, will mistake them for one. And of course the fact remains, as the Poor Man never ceases to remind us: Michael Moore is fat.

One shouldn't underestimate the value of being a strutting phony, of a bit of macho swagger upping the Dem's ability to attract voters. But, one doesn't improve your party's chances by talking about how all those other non-strutting phonies are a bunch of wimps.

Go be tough guys Biden and Beinart (the latter, of course, could be very tough indeed by filling out an enlistment form). Fine by me. However, which serves our (assuming it's the same) cause more - talking about how Democrats are big wimps for being insufficiently enthusiastic about bombing whoever George Bush wants to bomb that day or pointing out that Iraq was a disaster and President "Bin Laden Was Determined to Strike memo not important" Bush was in fact asleep at the wheel on September 11 and hasn't bothered to wake up since?

Hitchens History

Max has some fun with Hitchens and some of his old pals.

The Report

What Went Wrong In Ohio:
The Conyers Report on the 2004 Presidential Election
Introduction by Gore Vidal
Edited by Anita Miller

This fascinating and disturbing book is the official record of testimony taken by the Democratic Members and Staff of the House Judiciary Committee, presided over by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the Ranking Member. Originally released in January, 2005 by the Committee and now available in print for the first time.

Amendment: Rep. Conyers' blog.

In re some of the discussion in the comments, I've written a number of posts on this topic, particularly just after the election, notably here and here and here. (You'll find other, shorter posts on the subject on the same archive page.) More recently, this post looks at the response to the Edison/Mitofsky evaluation.

Speaking Wingnut

Or is it fibbing? First there was Tom deLay. Then there was Larry diRita. And now all that's the matter with John Bolton is some "rough edges". Or so Condoleezza Rice says, in that speech which got interrupted by demonstrators.

Been to Liberal Oasis lately?

I was just over at LiberalOasis, where Bill Scher says the Dems need to filibuster Bolton, and then I read the post below it had one of those telescopic moments of wondering whether the cabal is fattening up their villain of the future, someone whose abuses they turned a blind eye to, made friends with, shook hands with, and then turned around and cried, "He massacred his own people!" They need wars more than they need friends....

Friday Cat Blogging

Well, I'll probably only have one chance to ever do this, so....


This kitty encourages Bill Frist to just try a dissection!

Picture courtesy of here.

And in other Hillary News...

On the topic of Avedon's last post, one item that could have harmed Hillary Clinton was the charge that her former finance director David Rosen had made false statements to the Federal Election Commission. Rosen had specifically denied that Clinton knew anything about the matter.

Today he was acquitted.

Now, what will Tom DeLay's staff say?

Hillary? Really?

USA Today reports: Poll majority say they'd be likely to vote for Clinton.

At 53%, which puts her well ahead of the Occupant.

For the first time, a majority of Americans say they are likely to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she runs for president in 2008, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday.

...

An overwhelming 80% of liberals were likely to support her, compared with 58% of moderates and 33% of conservatives.

Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog has a good analysis on this. Attaturk is not quite as positive but apparently can live with it. Oliver Willis says the right-wingers are already doing what you'd expect from them.

More Open Thread

The Abraham Lincoln Medallion, very valuable.

Open Thread

Word on the Street is that the market for souvenir novelty spoons is red hot!

Stupid Paul

Paul Krugman writes a very silly column in which he asserts that the Federal Reserve may be running out of bubbles to float the economy on. This is absurd! Greenspan's much smarter than that and he's got plans for bubbles in:

Hockey Cards
Beanie Babies
Collectible Plates
Original Star Wars Action Figures
Remington Steele Lunch Boxes
Original Who Shot J.R. T-Shirts
Happy Meal toys

My still in the box Millenium Falcon should be worth more than the entire real estate market in Manhattan within the week.

Flathead

For someone obsessed with the internet and the general interconnectedness of all things, it sure seems like Tom Friedman's hooked up to the rest of the world with a dixie cup and a length of twine.

Nice column if it had been written, oh, two years ago.

Fork Him

Millions of assets missing from Ohio coin fund. I'm shocked.

Now it's time to get on all the politicians who let this happen.

Click through this link and you can listen to Sam Seder call the Dept. of Workers' Compensation with some exciting investment opportunities...

Wanker of the Day

Wah Wah whining Tom DeLay.

So you don't have to....

NewsHounds watches Fox, and the hits just keep on comin'.

Open Thread

Enjoy.

Bolton

Vote delayed. Given the fact that the administration/state department isn't giving the Republican Committee Chair the information he requested, it's the only right thing to do.

Open Thread

Enjoy.

Almost There

Big Media Matt circles around the point:

Politics and policy aside, I think those of us who'd classify ourselves as being among the more "hawkish" brand of liberals have a media strategy problem. Roughly speaking, a lot of Democratic voters don't like us very much. What we need to do is convince more liberals that they should like us. That means spending more time trying to convince liberals of the merits of our views, and less time re-enforcing the impression that we're just opportunists searching for votes out there in some ill-defined center.

Well, look, the reason why a lot of left of center types don't like the "'hawkish' brand of liberals" begins, of course, with their support of the Iraq war. Nice move that turned out to be. Then, you know, that group tended to think monitoring liberals for insufficient enthusiasm for painted schools and turning-the-corner-lights-at-ends-of-tunnels was more important than pointing out the obvious clusterfuck that was unfolding in their pet war. Once regret set in and the election passed we were told that the real reason we lost the election was because Fat Michael Moore and the Move On crowd were insufficiently enthusiastic about blowing shit up generally and supporting more George Bush led wars, and these "softs" tainted the Dems so much so that they should be purged from the party.

I'm all for Dems being associated with being the tough guys because I do think pandering to the ill-defined center does actually win votes. I'm all for the Dems being perceived as serious about foreign policy. A little "those guys would really blow some shit up if need be!" attitude goes a long way. Whatever his other flaws as a candidate may have been, Howard Dean actually had that but he dared oppose them and their pet war. Peacenik!

As far as I can tell the liberal hawks have mostly offered a series of op-eds telling Dems to get serious about foreign policy and telling people who were against the Iraq war to get out of the party.

This shouldn't be too surprising - even more than domestic policy, it's rather difficult to have a coherent foreign policy when your party is out of power. But, it neither helps the country get a decent foreign policy nor does it win any votes to carp about how everyone else in your party is a big wimpy hippie peacenik loser all the time, while proudly proclaiming that you, unlike Move On and their ilk, understand that their are Serious Problems And Bad Men in the World that Serious Men With Big Chests Understand.

While many "liberal hawks" have in one way or another admitted that their support for the Iraq war was perhaps misguided, few if any have confronted the fact that the mess they helped make isn't just the mess in Iraq - it's the mess of the incoherence of Democratic foreign policy. The perfect chance to establish a "tough but different" foreign policy stance happened when CooCoo Bananas decided to manipulate the country and the gullible press into going to war. It would've been right on the merits and right on the politics to oppose that obviously bad idea.

So, liberal hawks, it's your mess - figure out how to clean it up...

The primary conceit of the "liberal hawks" has been and is that only they are "serious" about the security of the nation. Support for the Iraq war demonstrated that seriousness, no matter how misguided it was. The truth is concern for our national security was a very real reason to oppose the Iraq war, and the primary reason for lots of its opponents.

Opening

I suppose one could write a multiple paragraph version of this, but I think it's rather simple:

The Democrats have an opening which they can use as soon as they stop thinking that the people they need to please are named David Broder, Chris Matthews, Fred Hiatt, and Tim Russert.

Bragging Rights

What Josh Marshall says. Instead of hand-wringing about what they need to do the Democrats should be out there bragging about the fact they've stopped George Bush from trashing Social Security.

Loudly. Proudly. Daily.

Sounds Like a Job for Geraldo

This should be fun:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A judge on Thursday ordered a rare coin dealer under state and federal investigation to make a collection of state-owned coins immediately available to state auditors.

Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David Cain said auditors and fraud investigators should immediately view the coins, then have them available for handling and evaluation Thursday afternoon.

There is no truth to the rumor that the collection includes a limited edition 2002 thong autographed by one "Atrios" and valued at $800,000.

Action Alert

Do what John says if you can.

TRMPAC Trimmed

Judge says TRMPAC violated law:

State District Judge Joe Hart ruled Thursday that Texans for a Republican Majority violated state campaign law when it failed to disclose more than a half-million dollars in corporate contributions during the 2002 state legislative elections.

Hart, however, said the plaintiffs could only collect for damages in their campaigns. He awarded $196,660 to the five Democratic candidates who lost in 2002. Included in that total was an $87,332 award to former state Rep. Ann Kitchen of Austin.

...the AP puts it slightly differently:

An Austin judge ruled Thursday that the treasurer of a political committee formed by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay violated state election law.
State District Judge Joe Hart says Bill Ceverha broke the law by not reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and expendituresy

That means Ceverha -- as treasurer of the Texans for a Republican Majority PAC -- must pay just under 200-thousand dollars. The money would be divided among five losing Democratic candidates in 2002 legislative races. Those candidates brought the lawsuit against Ceverha.

The civil case is separate form a separate criminal investigation into 2002 election spending being conducted by a Travis County grand jury. DeLay has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

and jesselee from the DCCC sez:

Not a good sign for those criminal proceedings, however. Ceverha was the only defendant left in the civil suit because Ellis and Colyandro were under criminal investigation and removed from the defendant list. Ceverha was much, much less involved than either of them.

Tick tock, tick tock....

Strawberry Days

David Neiwert of Orcinus has a new book out.

Click the pretty cover to order it:





Remember, every time you order a copy, Michelle Maglalang cries!

I haven't read this yet, but his previous two books are "must reads" for all. Reward good bloggers and good authors by buying their books. If Maglalang can become a bestseller, helped out by massive free media promotion from the liberal media, by publishing fraudulent intellectually challenged defense of the indefensible, we should help one of our own sell a few copies of the truth.

Buy the book! Amazon has it ranked at #21,499 now, let's see how much it can climb...

Open Thread

Have fun.

People of Faith

My guess is that this is Spongedob Stickypants' kind of judge:

An Indianapolis father is appealing a Marion County judge's unusual order that prohibits him and his ex-wife from exposing their child to "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."

The parents practice Wicca, a contemporary pagan religion that emphasizes a balance in nature and reverence for the earth.

Cale J. Bradford, chief judge of the Marion Superior Court, kept the unusual provision in the couple's divorce decree last year over their fierce objections, court records show. The order does not define a mainstream religion.

...

"There is a discrepancy between Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones' lifestyle and the belief system adhered to by the parochial school. . . . Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones display little insight into the confusion these divergent belief systems will have upon (the boy) as he ages," the bureau said in its report.

In case this isn't 100% clear, this isn't a dispute between the former couple, this is a dispute between the divorced couple and the judge. The parochial school their kid attends is Catholic, and apparently he's the first non-Catholic ever to do such a thing.

"But it's on the March!"

Herbert:

People have been murdered, tortured, rendered to foreign countries to be tortured at a distance, sexually violated, imprisoned without trial or in some cases simply made to "disappear" in an all-American version of a practice previously associated with brutal Latin American dictatorships. All of this has been done, of course, in the name of freedom.

And if that does not make you angry, this will.

Rare Paper

Not just rare coin, but rare paper in the Ohio scandal. This should be the gift that keeps on giving.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, which gave $55.4 million to an Ohio coin dealer to invest, said it was surprised that an inventory of assets is turning up more than rare coins.

"We had not heard about being involved in any collectibles. Our expectation was that we have investments only in coins," spokesman Jeremy Jackson said.

Attorney William Wilkinson, who represents Maumee coin dealer Tom Noe, said coins were one aspect of the investment plan.

"The investments included non-coin collectibles, things like valuable letters and papers," Wilkinson said. "These are assets of the coin funds. There is an enormous inventory of non-coin collectibles."

E&P has more.

Open Thread

Enjoy.

What'd they expect?

Iraqi Christians Don't Want American Evangelicals.

Via LiberalOasis.

Wolcott

heh-indeedy.

purty-mouth Moran still hasn't, as far as I've heard, issued a response. So, email him again: Exactly which of his colleagues in the press have an anti-military bias? We're waiting...


terry.moran@abc.com

Blogger Ethics

Glad to see that titanium wall between editorial and advertising still exists.

I Wish I Could Say "Only on Fox"

But, at least, it's only on Fox that they don't even bother to pretend to pretend...

Little Ricky Hearts the New York Times

Not so long ago Little Ricky Santorum said the New York Times supported fascists, communists, Nazis, and Baathists. But I just got an email from him which starts out:

Dear ,


This past weekend the New York Times Sunday Magazine contained a long expose about me. Honestly, it was a privilege to be featured in such a prominent way, but it's more so to represent you and your family in the United States Senate..

Wingnuttia International

It's a bit creepy how much the political Right in Spain is increasingly adopting the tactics and rhetoric of our own right wing assholes.

An ad in today's El Pais newspaper:

Blowout government

At the newly merged Electrolite/Making Light from Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, there's a hot thread about the filibuster deal by Patrick in which Teresa leaves this comment:

Huh. I've suddenly realized that I know the form of this scam: it's a blowout.

Here's the deal: Your basic blowout starts when crooks take control of a legitimate business that has a good credit rating, most often by entering into an agreement to buy it from its original owners, and possibly making a token initial payment.

In the next phase, the crooks start placing large orders for easily liquidated merchandise with the business's regular suppliers, and also with new suppliers who think they've acquired a valuable new customer. And since the orders are coming from an established business with a good credit rating, the suppliers don't ask for payment up front.

Meanwhile, the goods are being resold as fast as they come in, often at a fraction of their value. It's hugely wasteful, but the crooks don't care. Essentially, they're selling off other people's stuff and keeping the money, so anything they make off the deal is pure profit for them.

The suppliers send in their bills in due course, and meet with delays in payment. That's not an uncommon thing; and in the meantime, nobody wants to lose a customer that's obviously doing so much business. It takes some time for suppliers to start balking, and more time for them to start aggressive collection procedures.

At that point the business's new owners vanish, and all the money vanishes with them. Since they've never actually paid the agreed-upon price for the business, it reverts to the original owners. Unfortunately, what they get back is a plundered company that's deeply in debt to its suppliers and has a wrecked credit rating.

(Er, I should have been more clear that the really fascinating thread you might want to read all of broadened to include a discussion of the entire picture of everything the Republicans are doing.)

Open Thread

Enjoy.

This Day in History and its Relevance to Today

I do this fairly regularly at Rising Hegemon, when I'm not emailing the Pope or Captioning Pictures (btw, feel free to visit the third of the captioning trio, the not adequately recognized Watertiger) but today is a notable anniversary.

Today is the 80th Anniversary of the indictment of John T. Scopes. Makes you wistful for the good old days when William Jennings Bryan at least had some progressivism about him doesn't it?

Morning Thread

Dispense Fresh-Squeezed Progressiveness.

Take Back America

I'll be at and participating in this conference in a minor capacity (along with other more important and interesting people), so join the fun if you're interested.

The Cultural Revolution

Just kill me. really.

Name Names

Terry Moran has accused his colleagues, some of whom have of course served in the military and some of whom have spent time getting their asses shot off covering war zones of having a "deep anti-military bias."

Email Terry and ask him just which of his colleages is afflicted with this particular bias. Sounds like something a reporter should let us know about:

terry.moran@abc.com

Broder Examines His Colon

The Dean goes in deep:

The Monday night agreement to avert a showdown vote over judicial filibusters not only spared the Senate from a potentially ruinous clash, but also certified John McCain as the real leader of that body.

In contrast to Majority Leader Bill Frist, who was unable to negotiate a compromise with Minority Leader Harry Reid or hold his Republicans in line to clear the way for all of President Bush's nominees to be confirmed, McCain looks like the man who achieved his objectives. If -- as many expect -- McCain and Frist find themselves rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, the gap in their performance will be remembered.

Um, no. No one gives a shit. While I certainly won't deny that the filibuster fight and the judges it's about are important, the people in this country don't give a shit and won't remember the fact the John "The Press Swoons at My Every Move" McCain was one of 14 senators who brokered a deal on this issue because most people in the country don't give a shit about this issue and more importantly most people in this country don't think bipartisanship and dealmaking for their own sakes are important.

It just isn't the case that there are two sides two every issue, there are courageous people who can forge a compromise if they want, and that compromise is intrinsically better than the original two positions. More importantly, it just isn't the case that the electorate is especially enamored with compromise.

McCain's popularity, largely a media creation thanks to friendly copy written by happy well-lubricated journalists during his primary run, had nothing to do with his being a "moderate" or a "compromiser." It had to do with the perception that he was "independent" and an "ass kicker." Independence has nothing to do with compromise or moderation, it's just about the myth that you're somehow your own man. The mushy middle in this country isn't about compromise or moderation, it's about a fear of being on the losing team. The mushy middle isn't looking for moderation, it's looking for a leader.

Open Thread

Propaganda

Arthur Silber,
Doing God's Work, And How Propaganda Becomes "Truth".

Treason Part Deux

Well, we can expect to be treated to another round of "acknowledging and honoring our fallen service men and women is just giving aid and comfort to the enemy."

Just in case Adam "Ad Nags" Nagourney is reading, it sadly was not the case in July of 2004 or since that there "has been some reduction in US casualties since the handover in Iraq." About 840 names were read over 2 broadcasts last year on Nightline (for Afghanistan and Iraq casualties). This year, it'll be over 900. So, Sinclair Broadcasting will have to fill a little extra time this year when they yank Nightline.

Um, No

If the Dem "compromisers" think their new mission in life is to hand Bush a Social Security victory then I don't think it's hyperbole to suggest that the national Democratic party will be pretty much signing its obituary for the next 20 years.


Well, maybe it'll be an opportunity. Perhaps it's time to start spending our time and money worrying about state and local governments.

So Much For the Deal

Frist tells Republican compromisers to fuck off.

Wanker of the Day

Falafel Bill.

Our Dear Scottie

E&P:

NEW YORK At a White House press briefing Monday, Press Secretary Scott McClellan, pressed by reporters and with Afghan President Karzai in disagreement, retreated on claims that Newsweek's retracted story on Koran abuse cost lives in Afghanistan.

He also claimed that he had never said it did, even though a check of transcripts disputes that. On May 16, for example, he said, "people have lost their lives." On May 17, he said, "People did lose their lives," and, "People lost their lives" due to the Newsweek report.

What Would Jesus Do?

The pastor of a small Baptist church has refused calls to take down a sign posted in front of his church reading "The Koran needs to be flushed," saying Tuesday he has nothing to apologize for.

"My creed is the Bible, which tells me I am supposed to stand up and defend my faith," said the Rev. Creighton Lovelace, pastor of the 55-member Danieltown Baptist Church in Forest City. "I don't hate Muslims, I just hate their false doctrines."

But the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington, D.C., called on Americans of all faiths to demand the message displayed outside the church be removed.

Stuffed

It merited hours of coverage when Sandy Berger fashioned a codpiece of old documents at the National Archives, yet the bloviators have been remarkably quiet about this:

A Pentagon analyst previously accused of leaking top-secret information to a pro-Israel group was charged Tuesday with illegally taking classified government documents out of the Washington area to his West Virginia residence.

Lawrence Anthony Franklin, 58, was not authorized to take such documents to his home in Kearneysville, according to the federal charge issued along with an arrest warrant by U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Johnston in Martinsburg.

The FBI found 83 classified documents in Franklin's home in the Eastern Panhandle town in June 2004, the documents said. Investigators say 38 of those documents were top secret and 37 others were classified as secret.

Tuesday's charge of unlawfully possessing classified federal defense documents focuses on six of the documents, which were written between October 2003 and June 2004. Four were CIA documents, including three about al-Qaida and one involving Osama bin Laden. Two of those documents were classified top secret, the rest as secret.

Wonder why that is?

Two's a Trend

I guess this means we can assume any publication carrying these ads has agreed to the policy:

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Days after financial services giant Morgan Stanley informed print publications that its ads must be automatically pulled from any edition containing "objectionable editorial coverage," global energy giant BP has adopted a similar press strategy.


According to a copy of a memo on the letterhead of BP's media-buying agency, WPP Group's MindShare, the global marketer has adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward negative editorial coverage. The memo cites a new BP policy document entitled "2005 BP Corporate-RFP" that demands that ad-accepting publications inform BP in advance of any news text or visuals they plan to publish that directly mention the company, a competitor or the oil-and-energy industry.

...


One former publisher and longtime magazine industry executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that “magazines are not in the financial position today to buck rules from advertisers” and predicted that such moves will continue.

...

Both broad and quite specific, the directives range from notifying the media agency prior to running any editorial that contains fuel, oil or energy news text or visuals to providing the agency the option to pull any advertising from the issue without penalty. If the ad cannot be pulled, then the agency “must receive notification immediately of the situation in order to alert BP and to manage the situation proactively,” the memo said. It also states that if MindShare is not notified of the mentions prior to the issue’s on-sale date, immediate advertising schedule suspension will “likely result.”

One executive familiar with the situation said that “this is not the first time the agency has done this on behalf of BP,” but seemed to suggest some aspects of it may be new.


Another magazine executive who had not heard about BP’s policy or of Morgan Stanley’s said his company has unwritten guidelines with advertisers from several industries, including auto, airlines and tobacco, to pull their ads if related negative stories are in the issue. These cases, the executive said, occur more with news magazines than lifestyle ones.

Who knew this was common? Maybe we should convene a panel on blogger ethics and put a stop to this stuff! Just the other day we were being lectured in the pages of the New York Times on that titanium wall which exists between the advertising and editorial departments in all those respectable publications:

Many bloggers make little effort to check their information, and think nothing of posting a personal attack without calling the target first - or calling the target at all. They rarely have procedures for running a correction. The wall between their editorial content and advertising is often nonexistent. (Wonkette, a witty and well-read Washington blog, posts a weekly shout-out inside its editorial text to its advertisers, including partisan ones like Democrats.org.) And bloggers rarely disclose whether they are receiving money from the people or causes they write about.

Perspective

Mark Kleiman:

If a state law called for shoving a red-hot poker up the defendant's rectum immediately after indictment, Thomas (George Bush's ideal Justice) would point out that the precedent of Richard II showed that such a practice was not "unusual," and that in any case it wasn't covered by the Eighth Amendment because it was pre-conviction and therefore not "punishment," which by definition comes after conviction and sentence. That's just the sort of guy he is.

(Via Suburban Guerrilla. And I wrote a bunch of stuff at The Sideshow about the filibuster deal but I don't want to talk about it anymore. Carry on amongst yourselves.)

Bobo's World

Los internets could be down in Spain, so let me pilfer the homesite for this.

George Bush's "Proclaimed" Home State ladies and gentlemen:

A North Texas school district is having four pages of its high school yearbook reprinted to correct a photo caption that identified a student as "Black Girl."

All white students are identified by name in the photograph of Waxahachie High School's chapter of the National Honor Society. The teen identified as "Black Girl" is the only black student in the photo.

It's either stupid bigotry, or the stupid unveiling of a local superhero.

And as pointed out in comments, as seen yesterday at First Draft.

butbutbut

Donald Rumsfeld said it was just one vase! And all the right wing bloggers kept telling me this was all a myth!

Evidence of how quickly and irretrievably a country can be stripped of its cultural heritage came with the Iraq war in 2003.

The latest figures, presented to the art crime conference yesterday by John Curtis of the British Museum, suggested that half of the 40 iconic items from the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad still had not been retrieved. And of at least 15,000 items looted from its storerooms, about 8,000 have yet to be traced.

About 4,000 of the objects taken from the museum had been recovered in Iraq. But illustrating the international demand for such antiquities, Dr Curtis said around 1,000 had been confiscated in the US, 500 pieces had been impounded in France, 250 in Switzerland and 200 or so in Jordan.

Stupid School

A parent reading from the bible is not (necessarily) proselytizing. There is a difference and the school should recognize it:

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania school district violated the free-speech rights of a parent who was prevented from reading the Bible to her son's kindergarten class, an attorney for the woman said on Monday.

The parent, Donna Busch, has filed a lawsuit against the Marple Newtown School District near Philadelphia, claiming her constitutional rights were breached when a school principal stopped her reading from the Bible in a class last October.

Busch, of Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, attended her son Wesley's class as part of "Me Week," which gave parents an opportunity to read aloud from their child's favorite book.

Busch planned to read Psalm No. 118 but was told by the principal the reading would violate the separation of church and state, according to the suit filed earlier this month.

Sure, this is bull as the bible is unlikely her "child's favorite book," but I'm pretty absolutist on this stuff and I don't think this crosses any constitutional line. It could, perhaps, if most of the parents in class banded together and decided to turn "Me Week" into "read from the Bible" week, but one parent reading from Psalm 118 really shouldn't raise any red flagss (though, admittedly, the choice of Psalm 118 does pretty much confirm that this parent was trying to cause a showdown).

Compromise

Well, all that excitement after I went to bed. But, my take is that it's value depends entirely on whether the group of compromising senators thinks it's more fun to kick George Bush and Bill Frist around every now and then than it is to walk around the senate halls with a "kick me" sign on their own backs.


(It's a mistake to call them all "moderates" - a willingness to act independently of the Bush administration and Fristy Frist, preserve the power of the Senate relative to the executive, and not behave in a corrupt mannerr to change senate rules has little to do with whether or not one has "moderate" political views. We don't live in David Broder's world, no matter how much he thinks we do.)

I think Feingold's response is correct in principle -- you really can't be serious about making deals with people who think that a threat to play Calvinball is a reasonable part of the dealmaking process. But, the real test is whether these senators are, in the back room, more serious than their public pronouncements to their rabies-infected base.

Late Night Thread

Evening Thread

So I've been doing my laundry, anything exciting happen?

I love a good scrap as much as the next person. Since I write under a pseudonym you know I'm being truthful. I know that quite a number of people here are upset with the compromise, but be advised that the tenor of the Busheviks is far more rabid (go figure).

From Kos we get a sampling:

I just left the GoP. I'm done with them. Cowards.

We've been snookered again. Picture Lucy whipping the football out from under Charlie Brown for about the millionth time.

What the HELL is this???????? We don't need a deal!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am furious. I will NOT SEND ANY MORE MONEY TO THE REPUBS. We didn't NEED a deal and we don't WANT a deal!!!

Not another frigging dime or a minute of my time, I stay home in 06' or vote libertarian. Unfreakin believable

If this is true it is truly an outrage. The only deal is the one the crats got. Everything they wanted. We got nothing. Only thing to do now is support a third party that can hopefully pick up 10-15% of the vote and use it as leverage to bargain.

And having commented on my favorite giggle line from the new Star Wars movie the other day, my favorite freeper reaction:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Senators said to reach filibuster deal

AP reports

These officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreement would clear the way for yes-or-no votes on some of Bush's nominees, but make no guarantee.

Under the agreement, Democrats would pledge not to filibuster any of Bush's future appeals court or Supreme Court nominees except in "extraordinary circumstances."

For their part, Republicans agreed not to support an attempt to strip Democrats of their right to block votes.

Under the agreement, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, nominated to a seat on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, would advance to a final confirmation vote.

I don't know about you, but I don't like it.

Update: C-SPAN streaming the Senate news conference.

Bruce

TalkLeft says DemBloggers got the video of Da Boss on CBS Sunday Morning.

The Formula of Freedom

The Medium Lobster has found it, probably under a slice of tasty pie.

Policies Have Consequences

Apparently Jonah Goldberg doesn't understand that less foodstamps = less food for some kids.

Wimmin

Roxanne says it's that time again, so just to balance things out, let's consult some women:

Suburban Guerrilla learns that Michael Moore was right again.

Echidne interprets a nincompoop.

At Pandagon, Amanda looks at some politics around psychiatry.

Feoreg on fruitcake watch for Yahweh's flying saucers.

Jeralyn says the Supremes agreed to hear only one case today - on parental notification.

Cat Fight!

IHeartDixiecrats vs. SpongeDobStickypants. Meow!

"James Dobson: Who does he think he is, questioning my conservative credentials?" Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said in an interview. Dobson, head of the conservative group Focus on the Family, criticized Lott for his efforts to forge a compromise in the fight over the judges. Lott is still angry. "Some of his language and conduct is quite un-Christian, and I don't appreciate it," the senator said.

Heh-Indeedy

Howler:

How big and brave is the mighty Okrent—this big, bold man who slithers away with so many loud complaints? The big, brave fellow had eighteen months to offer examples of Krugman’s misconduct, but even now, he offers none. Instead, he waits until his final column—then hits and runs with his unexplained slams. But at least he provides us a few mordant chuckles, in the manner of flyweights worldwide. In his very next item—undiscussed Topic 3—Okrent complains that three other writers have failed to let the great New York Times serve “as a guardian of civil discussion!” Was this an attempt at comic relief? Or is it the sign of a consummate flyweight—the sign of a man who waded far over his head when offered this unwise assignment?

Let’s make sure we understand the context of Okrent’s complaints. Without question, Krugman has been one of the Times’ most-discussed writers over the past several years. If Krugman has behaved in the manner described, it should have been discussed long ago. But throughout the course of human history, that just hasn’t been the way flyweights like Okrent conduct public hangings. The exercised ed had eighteen months to offer examples of Krugman’s misconduct. Instead, he waits until his final column, then provides exactly no examples of the crimes he lustily limns. To state the obvious, this the work of a small, petty thug—the kind of man Okrent often seemed to be as he typed his frequently worthless columns. But it’s also the mark of something else—it’s the mark of a pure intellectual flyweight, something else Okrent often seemed to be during his 18-month rule.

We criticized Okrent at several points in his reign, but we would have liked to let it all go as he departed his post at the Times. For us, his major problem seemed to be one of temperament. By the time he wrote just his fourth column, Okrent seemed more intent on knocking Times readers than on critiquing the paper itself; in this continuing impulse, he displayed a temperament that’s fine for most jobs but ill-suited for a public editor. But in Sunday’s closing (cheap) shot against Krugman, he showed himself again as a cheap, petty thug—and as a flyweight for the ages. How does America’s most important newspaper have such a flyweight in such a high post?...

Open Thread

Choose a Roman name!

Me Me Me

Why is it that when conservatives get caught up in the nastier features of homeland security they whine about themselves, or at best people like them who are of course innocent because they don't look or sound swarthy, rather considering the broader issues...

Whatever

Uh, Tacitus?

Whatever.

Interest Groups

This seems to be the hot topic in the liberal blogosphere but I can't really muster up strong feelings on the subject. But, I do think the power of single interest groups is overrated. If NARAL "drove" Langevin out of the RI race then that says more about Langevin than NARAL, I think. Yes, there are examples of single issue interest groups shooting their causes in the foot at times but to me NARAL's endorsement of Chafee (post-Langevin dropping out) is really an example of a good use of an opportunity to prove their necessary non-partisan bona fides in a way which won't have much of an impact on the election itself...

Real Estate, the CPI, and Inflation

One of the interesting things about the consumer price index is that while one of its component prices is rental prices and owner-equivalent rents, it actually excludes actual home prices. This isn't an unreasonable approach generally, though it's apparently leading to some perverse results. The increased demand for home ownership both for primary residence and for rental property investment purposes has suppressed rental prices while home prices (in many markets) have been skyrocketing. So, the housing portion of the CPI may perversely being held down by an overheated housing market.