A Level Gaze

A Level Gaze

"What effect must it have on a nation if it learns no foreign languages? Probably much the same as that which a total withdrawal from society has upon an individual."
--G.C. Lichtenberg

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Statistics Illustrated

Lindsay's got a great post up in which she lists some of the more prominent and ridiculous objections to the Johns Hopkins University-Lancet study that estimates that somewhere in the neighborhood of 655,000 Iraqis have died as the result of the American invasion.

I suspect some, maybe most, of the bloggers she enumerates know better, and are just trying to muddy the water to dilute the gut-wrenching horror they believe they helped precipitate. Many Americans, sadly, don't have much of a grasp of statistics, and, not wanting to believe their government has the blood of 655,000 men, women, and children on its hands, will fall for the argument that it's impossible to conclude such a thing from a mere 547 known deaths.

So, in the spirit of public service, here is an illustration I think will help:

Imagine that you are in charge of Best Buy's main warehouse. You're gearing up for the holiday season, and are receiving huge quantities of gadgets and gizmos. You have just received a million units of a hot new laptop that management thinks is going to be a huge seller this year. To keep expensive customer service and repairs to a minimum, you need to make sure the laptops aren't duds. This is especially important in the case of a new product with no track record.

You have 10,000 pallets of 100 laptops each. You instruct your crew to pick out 50 units, each from a different pallet, plug them in and boot them up. The guys extract the laptops, take them over to the testing area and get to work.

About 20 minutes later, one of the crew runs over to you, and says that smoke started coming out of one of the machines and that the guy who was working on it got a nasty shock. You think for a minute and ask him if the rest of the machines are running. "Yeah," he says, "the one that died was one of the first 10 we booted. It had been running about 15 minutes."

It could have been a fluke, right? Dud units are a fact of life in the electronics business. Besides, this is a lot of expensive inventory, and there would be no way to get more in time for the big rush. "Get everyone to a safe distance," you tell him, "and let's see what happens." Over the next half hour, three more laptops go up in smoke.

Well, you think, only 4 units died. Profit on these things is $200 each--$200,000,000 to the company's bottom line. Not to mention the hassle of shipping these things back to Taiwan and the fight to get reimbursed for the machines and for lost profits. Could take years. A headache like that could cost you your job.

On the other hand, though, if more than a small number of customers have these things die on them, it's going to be a customer service nightmare. That smoke has got to be toxic, and then there's the shocking. Both of those could expose the company to serious lawsuits. More than a few of those, and the hit to Best Buy's reputation would cost a lot more than $200 million.

So, how big a problem are you looking at?

You know that 4 out of 50 laptops were smokers. That's 8%. Out of a million, that's 80,000. If that many found their way into people's homes, Best Buy would go out of business. Hell, management would probably blame you. It's possible you could be charged with criminal negligence.

You're in charge. What do you do? Even if you don't know anything about statistics, it's obvious that the one thing you don't do is ship the laptops to the stores. And you know this from only four defective units.

The real number of smokers could be 80,000; it could be 140,000 or 3,000. It's even (extremely) remotely possible that it's only four. The more units you test, the closer you will get to knowing for sure. But, even from that first 50, there's enough to go on for you to singlehandedly put a huge dent in Best Buy's bottom line.

The moral here is that a lot can be inferred about populations from relatively small samples. The math that determines how reliably these samples predict larger populations is solid and has been exhaustively tested. It's still possible that something in the design of the survey caused the projection to be significantly off, but it isn't the math.

posted by David at 10/12/2006 09:43:00 PM ::

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Why Foleygate Won't Blow Over
(alt. Why The Press Corps Cares)

The children involved are rich. The predation didn't take place in Darfur, or at some trailer park off of I-59. The money crowd is just distraught that such a thing could happen to children. Possibly even their children.

Things like Abu Ghraib, they can blow over. This? Not so much.

posted by David at 10/05/2006 10:38:00 PM ::

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Disgusted

So they're really going to do it. Our 'elected' officials have agreed among themselves to revoke the Constitution.

If you doubt me, don't kid yourself: every constitutional protection can now be nullified with the application of a single magic word: terrorism. Since they don't have to actually provide evidence, the rules of evidence don't apply. Freedom of speech? Doesn't matter. Right to privacy? Doesn't apply. Right to an attorney? Does it matter? Bearing arms? It's obvious you were just going to use them for terror.

I can't believe the Democrats agreed not to filibuster in return for having their watery Habeas amendment considered. With a mere three days before the end of term that, with elections coming up, had no possibility of being extended, the Republicans would have had to let the bill drop. They had the power to derail the whole goddamn thing, and they completely pussed out.

Every time I think about the fact that the United States of America will soon be legally allowed to indefinitely imprison people without evidence, and with no recourse for the accused, I taste bile.

All of a sudden, idle talk about people leaving the country because of what the Republican leadership is doing has a real edge to it.

Update: the goddamn thing passed 65-34. I weep for my country.

Update 2: Avedon Carol has an illustration of the detainee bill's effects.

posted by David at 9/28/2006 08:53:00 PM ::

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Why McCain Won't Back Down

Updated - please see below

Last Sunday, Digby made a prediction about the three Republican senators standing in the way of Bush's drive to legalize torture:

My prediction: McCain, Graham and Warner sputter a little bit and then do the big el- foldo. The institutionalization of the American police state will proceed apace until Republicans are removed from power --- and probably beyond. This is the kind of genie that fights going back in the bottle every step of the way.

Now, I don't know whether Graham and Warner have the cojones to stand up to a White House in full roar with a crucial election coming up. In their case, Digby's probably right; they'd be happy with having seeded the notion that they're not Bush's puppets. At the end of the day they could say they had to fall into line for the good of the party. Maybe they even think they're doing their bit to show the public that all Republicans aren't gleeful sadists.

But there are two things that make me think McCain isn't going to budge (much). First, this guy has actually, himself, been tortured. Second, he's the Republican presidential front-runner for 2008, running on a long-cultivated image of integrity.

To a great extent, he owes his political career to his military background, especially the heroic suffering he endured in the course of serving his country. He has said many times that poor treatment of our captives could cause our soldiers to receive poor treatment in turn.

For the first time in five years, he has taken a public stand against the administration on a big issue, and I'll bet he put a lot of thought into doing so. Standing up against torture fits exactly into his political narrative, and is getting huge press. My guess is that McCain means to frame torture as a symbol of everything the administration has done wrong (and Congress signed off on) in the GWOT, and repudiate it all at one go.

If McCain were to cave at this point, any Democratic opponent would beat him senseless with his own spinelessness. By his own logic, he would be at best indifferent to torture of American servicemen in the future. Worst of all, he would be abandoning his most deeply held principle in favor of an evil he has looked in the eye and in the service of crass, political ass-covering. There's no way he would willingly go into 2008 with that kind of albatross around his neck.

Basically, it boils down to this: if he has any integrity, he won't knuckle under. If he is a rank opportunist, he can't knuckle under.

Update:

Of course Digby was right. Actually, it's worse than that--McCain didn't just fold, he helped push this thing through.

I waited to admit how utterly wrong I was in the vain hope that McCain would do something, anything, to make this better. When he voted against the Specter-Leahy amendment today, his capitulation was complete.

Words cannot convey the contempt I have for John McCain. He knew better, and he voted to destroy the country anyway. I wish I believed in hell.

posted by David at 9/16/2006 12:32:00 PM ::

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Continuum of Barbarity

Staying with Booman for a moment, I'd like to respond in very simple terms to Alan Dershowitz' argument that:

There is a vast difference — both moral and legal — between a 2-year-old who is killed by an enemy rocket and a 30-year-old civilian who has allowed his house to be used to store Katyusha rockets. Both are technically civilians, but the former is far more innocent than the latter. There is also a difference between a civilian who merely favors or even votes for a terrorist group and one who provides financial or other material support for terrorism.

As far as I remember, every Israeli citizen is obliged to give at least two years of service to the Israeli army. Where does that put them and their families on the "continuum of civilianity?" Does the esteemed Harvard Law professsor think that makes them fair(er) game? I doubt it.

posted by David at 7/25/2006 12:27:00 AM ::

Monday, July 24, 2006

Assholes

From Gideon Levy in Ha'aretz (don't click just yet):

Collective punishment is illegitimate and it does not have a smidgeon of intelligence. Where will the inhabitants...run? With typical hardheartedness the military reporters say they were not "expelled" but that it was "recommended" they leave, for the benefit, of course, of those running for their lives. And what will this inhumane step lead to? Support for the Israeli government? Their enlistment as informants and collaborators for the Shin Bet? Can the miserable farmers...do anything about the Qassam rocket-launching cells?

...

Will the blackout...bring down the...government or cause the population to rally around it? And even if the...government falls...what will happen on the day after? These are questions for which nobody has any real answers. As usual here: Quiet, we're shooting. But this time we are not only shooting. We are bombing and shelling, darkening and destroying, imposing a siege...like the worst of terrorists and nobody breaks the silence to ask, what the hell for, and according to what right?

Levy was not talking about Lebanon. This piece appeared on July 3, nine days before the Hezbollah raid in which three Israeli soldiers were killed and two kidnapped, and which formed the pretext for the current Israeli action against Lebanon.

He was talking about Israeli actions against the residents of Gaza, which, coincidentally, have also been attributed to a kidnapping, that of Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants on June 25. The response to the kidnapping included forcing 20,000 people from their homes, cutting off the electricity to another 750,000, taking a quarter of the Palestinian parliament into custody, and Israeli fighters buzzing the Syrian (!?) presidential palace.

Although heavy-handed, at least there was some kind of rationale behind these actions: for no reason, one of their own had been taken from them, and they were going to do whatever it took to get him back. Fair enough, no?

No:

The legitimate basis for the IDF's operation was stripped away the moment it began. It's no accident that nobody mentions the day before the attack on the Kerem Shalom fort, when the IDF kidnapped two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from their home in Gaza. The difference between us and them? We kidnapped civilians and they captured a soldier, we are a state and they are a terror organization. How ridiculously pathetic Amos Gilad sounds when he says that the capture of Shalit was "illegitimate and illegal," unlike when the IDF grabs civilians from their homes. How can a senior official in the defense ministry claim that "the head of the snake" is in Damascus, when the IDF uses the exact same methods?

Shalit's freedom could have been secured by the tried and true expedient of a prisoner exchange. The Gazans would not have had to be made to suffer (more), Hezbollah would not have been given the pretext to go on their kidnapping raid, and Lebanon would not now lay in ruins, 500,000 of her citizens refugees.

Israel does what Israel wants. But this time it should be known its pathetic fig leaf of a justification isn't worth the shit remaining in Ariel Sharon's decaying, war criminal bowels.

Left-wing blogger, signing off.

posted by David at 7/24/2006 10:53:00 PM ::

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

In Defense of Silence

Josh Marshall linked tonight to a post by ennis at Sepia Mutiny that wondered why American bloggers had had so little to say about the terrorist bombings in Mumbai.

ennis wrote:

While trying to deal with the tragedy in Mumbai, I have been wondering what the coverage of the story tells us about ourselves.

I was not surprised by MSM coverage in America: poor in local papers, better in papers with a large desi population or those with an international audience. I was pleased to hear that CNN and CNBC had decent cable news coverage, perhaps because they’re well established in India.

What has baffled me, however, is the relative silence from the world of blogs. The blogosphere is supposed to be the cutting edge, far more advanced than the MSM, yet they’re spending less time on the story.

He goes on to detail what he believes to be the paucity of coverage the story has received in the larger blogs, and relates an email exchange he had with two of them:
I emailed the following question to three significant political bloggers:

No opinion on the Mumbai bombings?

I’m surprised. Many more have died than did in London a year ago, and the death toll is currently just a little under the death toll from Madrid. Yet the blogosphere is largely quiet. Why?

Here are the two responses I received:

The blogosphere tends to be relatively quiet on straight news like this, since it doesn’t provide much of a vehicle for opinion mongering. And in this case, it appears (so far) to be related to India-Pakistan tensions, rather than the broader Islamist movement. I suspect most Americans, at any rate, find that sort of uninteresting. [Kevin Drum]

I can’t speak for anyone else. But in my case often something of great consequence or human tragedy happens, but it’s not really clear that I have anything to add. Sometimes that gets read as lack of interest or concern. But it’s not. [Anonymous political blogger]

Although I hadn't been asked, I decided to give the answer a shot myself in comments:

I think the answer to your question is that American bloggers just don't know enough about the situation in India/Pakistan to have an informed opinion. Take, for example, "The Pakistani government supports Muslim separatists in Kashmir". I see statements to this effect scattered through the news coverage I read, but I don't have any way of verifying it. I don't know the reliability of the sources, the evidence upon which such a pronouncement is made, or enough about the history of the relationship to form any kind of solid idea of what is truly meant. It may be the case that Musharraf is arming, training, advising, and inciting the militants, but I have no real knowledge about it. I don't know how popular the separatists' cause and actions are in Pakistan. I don't know to what degree Musharraf's political support depends on his backing them. All I know is that the tensions between India and Pakistan have of late revolved largely around Kashmir. And, for all I know, it could be serving as a proxy for resentments dating back to 1947, the Raj, or before.

So, beyond "That's terrible", what am I to say about the Mumbai bomings? [sic]

I recently made an attempt to up my knowledge of affairs in South Asia by reading local, English-language newspapers and websites. For my trouble, I was thoroughly barraged with a plethora of people and acronyms of which I could make very little sense, that came from publications whose leanings I didn't know and from journalists whose reputations were a blank to me. I kept it up for a few weeks before giving up, no better informed than when I started.

Even with regard to Iraq, about which I've read literally thousands of stories from all manner of sources, there is very little I can say with any confidence, and almost all of that relates directly to US involvement there. I know we blew the hell out of Fallujia, that there are rival claims to Kirkuk, and that Sadr is the son of an eminent Shi'a imam. Oh, and that we had no business invading the country.

If you look at what is written in the American blogosphere about Iraq, you'll find that nearly all of it pertains to our having invaded, and the geopolitical implications that could arise therefrom. I daresay most of the latter is ill-founded (excepting, of course what Juan Cole has to say).

The upshot, from a long-lapsed blogger: Please don't construe the fact we haven't written much about the Mumbai bombings as disregard or disrespect. We just don't have anything intelligent to say about the subject, other than to repeat what we've read, heard, and seen from mainstream news outlets.

posted by David at 7/12/2006 10:03:00 PM ::

Monday, March 13, 2006

Molly's Manifesto

I agree with all of this 100%:

Mah fellow progressives, now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party. I don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I will not be supporting Senator Clinton because: a) she has no clear stand on the war and b) Terri Schiavo and flag-burning are not issues where you reach out to the other side and try to split the difference. You want to talk about lowering abortion rates through cooperation on sex education and contraception, fine, but don’t jack with stuff that is pure rightwing firewater.

I can’t see a damn soul in D.C. except Russ Feingold who is even worth considering for President. The rest of them seem to me so poisonously in hock to this system of legalized bribery they can’t even see straight.

***

Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, “unpatriotic” by a bunch of rightwingers.

Take “unpatriotic” and shove it. How dare they do this to our country? “Unpatriotic”? These people have ruined the American military! Not to mention the economy, the middle class, and our reputation in the world. Everything they touch turns to dirt, including Medicare prescription drugs and hurricane relief.

This is not a time for a candidate who will offend no one; it is time for a candidate who takes clear stands and kicks ass.

(Like Paul Hackett, maybe? But I digress.)

Please go and read the whole thing. It is everything the Democrats should be doing, condensed to 199 proof. Then please send the link to your friends, post it on your blogs, and do whatever it takes to get her ideas wider circulation.

posted by David at 3/13/2006 01:41:00 PM ::

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

They Honestly Don't Care About Security

This morning, I heard a report on NPR (audio only) that made me think I might have been unfair to the Bush Administration in last night's post on foreign control of port security. The upshot of the report: the port managers are just "luggage handlers"; the Coast Guard and US Customs Service take care of all security. So, what would be the difference if a foreign company did the heavy lifting instead of an American one?

Fortunately Julia was around to set me straight:

Just to top off the sundae with a great big cherry, amongst the ports that Dubai would be taking over operations in are multiple C-TPAT ports. C-TPAT is an innovative program developed by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11 to allow various companies involved in shipping, including port managers, to certify their own safety and avoid a good deal of even the current low percentage of materials shipped currently searched by Customs agents.

In her earlier post on the subject, Julia shows what her research on the subject turned up. Strangely, the Customs and Border Patrol C-TPAT fact sheet she linked to seems to have disappeared. The good news is that she was able to grab some of the highlights before it did:

* C-TPAT is a joint government-business initiative to build cooperative relationships that strengthen overall supply chain and border security.

* C-TPAT recognizes that Customs can provide the highest level of security only through close cooperation with the ultimate owners of the supply chain, importers, carriers, brokers, warehouse operators and manufacturers.

* Through this initiative, Customs is asking businesses to ensure the integrity of their security practices and communicate their security guidelines to their business partners within the supply chain.

And what are the benefits of the C-TPAT program?

* A reduced number of inspections (reduced border times)

* An assigned account manager (if one is not already assigned)

* Access to the C-TPAT membership list

* Eligibility for account-based processes (bimonthly/monthly payments, e. g.)

* An emphasis on self-policing, not Customs verifications

(emphasis added)

In short: the Bush Administration made an effort to shift more responsibility for port security to the private companies that manage ports and away from the Customs Service. If the administration had its way, the government of Dubai (along with those of China and Denmark) would have a great deal of responsibility for the security of these ports. At a time when we should be tightening security, our president is telling private port management companies that they should police themselves.

I feel compelled to offer my apologies to Brad DeLong for failing to remember his immortal axiom:

The Bush administration is not only worse than you imagine even after taking account of the fact that it is worse than you imagine, it is worse than you can conceivably imagine[.]

posted by David at 2/22/2006 11:44:00 AM ::

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

If You Want a Job Done Right, Do It Yourself

I've listened enough to people saying that the UAE deal for the ports is bad because it involves Arabs. Please stop, it's not a good argument. There are Arabs with whom we have problems, but blanket statements like this are crap, even if 90% of the American public agrees with you. Farming out our port security would be a bad idea if we were hiring an army of Unitarian Terminator clones from Prince Edward Island. Security must come from the government. Failure to recognize this is what's wrong with this plan, and that's all that's wrong with it.

The port issue has nothing to do with the UAE. It has nothing to do with their being Arabs. It has nothing to do with their alleged ties to terrorists or terrorism. It has to do with the fact that They Are Not Us. I would feel the same way if we were entrusting the security of our ports to the English or the Japanese or the French, or any private American company, for that matter.

Why? Because the safety of our country is just not as important to any of them as it is (or should be) to the United States Government.

I don't care what Cheney and Rumsfeld tell you, security is the government's job, period. It's why governments exist in the first place. No nation that depended on mercenaries for protection has ever survived for long, and with good reason. However well the hired guns are paid, eventually they will decide to take over themselves, melt away from a threat they would rather not face, or just take the money and do a half-assed job. They simply cannot care enough. When it's the government's job, it's either protect the nation or be obliterated. That's the kind of motivation you want in your protectors, and nothing less is acceptable.

After the 9/11 attacks, the government hired and trained airport security personnel for exactly this reason. Private companies were simply not reliable enough.

I'm aware that the security of the ports in question is currently in the hands of a British company, and I'm not ok with that either. This might be the one place where I could see myself on the same page as the Bush Administration: we're in a post-9/11 world, in which our security, especially at the points at which we make the most contact with the rest of the world, has become deadly serious. The time for handing off our responsibilities to a company with the words "Steam Navigation" in its name has long since passed.

Entrusting the safety of our ports to a foreign entity might, I repeat, might, be acceptable if we were manifestly incapable of doing the job ourselves. But for a country that never tires of styling itself as the world's lone superpower, the very idea is a sick joke.

The fact that George W. Bush, after being president for over five years, is threatening to use his first veto on this issue is just icing on the cake. Everything he has touched has been a disaster. If he's stamping his feet and screeching about it, you know it's got to be a doozy.

posted by David at 2/21/2006 10:54:00 PM ::

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Dammit, Hackett!

(updated)

Get back in the race, you wuss!

You were going to take on the Republican and media establishments, and you cave to the craven, corporate-money Democratic leadership? What were they going to do, whine you to death?

After all that tough talk, you're going to go out complaining?

We need someone tough, and I'm afraid you're it. I thought you were about dragging politics out of the back rooms and putting real democracy front and center. You know, representing the people?

I believed in you, man. The nation needs you. You were willing to put your life on the line for your country. You can handle a Senate race.

p.s. Memo to Democratic Party leadership:

Dear Sirs;

Fuck You.

Sincerely,
David

UPDATE:

It seems the Law of Conservation of One Single, Solitary, Lonely Democrat Who Will Stand Up and Speak Truth and Sound Like He or She Means It has been invoked:

In what could be one of the most interesting campaigns for the U.S. House in 2006, The BRAD BLOG can now reveal that computer programmer turned electronic vote-rigging software whistleblower Clint Curtis is officially planning a run for the U.S. Congressional seat in Florida's 24th District.

The 24th Congressional District seat is currently occupied by Rep. Tom Feeney, the very man who Curtis has alleged once asked him to create a vote-rigging software prototype program back when both men worked for the software firm Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) in Oviedo, Florida.

***

Curtis, formerly a "life-long Republican," became a self-described "Conservative Democrat" after his various disturbing dealings with Feeney and friends. He will be making his first public announcement about his intentions to form an exploratory campaign at a local Democratic party gathering at the Cocoa Civic Center in Brevard County this Wednesday evening.

***

Curtis who, unlike both Michaud and Feeney, has never participated in a political campaign before, will have his work cut out for him. But he's faced more daunting -- and terrifying -- fights in the past. His tireless years-long effort to hold accountable those who he sees as having committed wrong-doing against this country has not come at a small cost. But that struggle may serve him well in his "good vs. evil battle."

Curtis explains that he feels he has little choice at this point but to enter the battle, and in discussing it, he expresses a sentiment heard all too rarely from Democrats these days: "I am now convinced that fearing a loss is not a valid reason for never entering the fight."

Turkee can be sent here.

posted by David at 2/14/2006 08:27:00 AM ::

Monday, February 13, 2006

A Leaderless Cult?

(updated, please see below)

As you already know, this post by Glenn Greenwald is a must-read, a powerful, by-the-numbers proof of what many of us have suspected for a long time: there is nothing more to Bush Republicans/conservatives than politics.

Glenn makes his point in a very clever and insightful way, through examples of how conservatives identify their enemies. Conservatives are slippery, nearly impossible to pin down and define. By turns they can be compassionate and torturers, government-drowners and pork-barrelers. Glenn's approach hits them where they haven't yet thought to camouflage themselves, and succeeds brilliantly.

I want to leave the personal issues to the side and examine a few of the substantive issues raised (unintentionally) by Alexandra’s post. It used to be the case that in order to be considered a "liberal" or someone "of the Left," one had to actually ascribe to liberal views on the important policy issues of the day – social spending, abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action, immigration, "judicial activism," hate speech laws, gay rights, utopian foreign policies, etc. etc. These days, to be a "liberal," such views are no longer necessary.

Now, in order to be considered a "liberal," only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. The minute one criticizes him is the minute that one becomes a "liberal," regardless of the ground on which the criticism is based. And the more one criticizes him, by definition, the more "liberal" one is. Whether one is a "liberal" -- or, for that matter, a "conservative" -- is now no longer a function of one’s actual political views, but is a function purely of one’s personal loyalty to George Bush.

I mean to take nothing away from the brilliance of this post, but I think one point could use a bit of clarification. It's not about George W. Bush. I mean, it is now--he's the flag they rally 'round today--but it wasn't always thus. The same movement was in evidence 13 years ago, and it was aimed at Bill Clinton. There was no single charismatic leader at the center of the movement then, and I don't believe there is one now.

Or, if there is, it isn't George W. Bush.

I know that's not the point Glenn was trying to make, and, in what I hope is fairness to him, I don't think he intended to address it. I just want to help to propagate the idea that it is not Bush we're against, but the movement of which he's currently the figurehead.

UPDATE:

Of course, Glenn already knew this:

I don't believe that one instance of independent thought in five years proves or disproves much of anything. The fact that people cling tenaciously to [conservative opposition to the Miers nomination] as proof that there are residual flickers of independent thought left among Bush followers says alot in itself. I think and have argued that Bush followers are excessively loyal to their leader, not that they've been lobotomized into mind-controlled zombies of the type one sees in a science-fiction film.

But I will say this: one will see criticism of Bush when he doesn't defend the movement with sufficient vigor or extremity. If they perceive that the White House isn't attacking liberals with sufficient fervor, or that they're backing down and compromising too readily, they will urge a more resolute posture on behalf of themovement. That's all Harriet Miers was. They were unconvinced that she would be as reliably loyal as Bush thought she would be, and they wanted someone more reliable and dependable to the cause.

(linked from a quote of his own comment on a previous post)

It's pretty clear that Bush is the very antithesis of a movement leader: as soon as he deviates from the line taken by other people, he loses his legitimacy. He cannot think for himself, or take any substantive initiative. The movement leads him.

It should also be noted that apostasies committed against core conservative principles don't seem to faze the movement's constituents. Bush has increased the size of the Federal government, increased the defecit, reduced the autonomy of the states, taken measures to limit personal privacy, and even caused income taxes to rise by failing to reform the AMT. The chairman of the RNC is widely alleged to be a gay man, and the Vice President's daughter is a lesbian. About the only conservative taboos he hasn't broken pertain to gun control and abortion, neither of which he has been willing to be caught denouncing on the record.

These are the principles that animate voters, the hallowed "base" toward which all of Bush's actions are supposedly directed. If in practice he actually does little to advance their interests, we must conclude that said interests have nothing to do with the movement. The movement works for its own ends, and the base is seen as a bunch of useful idiots whose votes can be bought with empty, intolerant rhetoric and junior membership cards.

posted by David at 2/13/2006 01:41:00 PM ::

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Be Still, My Heart

Via Atrios, comes this reminder that true red-blooded Americans still exist:

It’s August 2, Election Day, and the lanky, blond, 43-year-old Marine has taken up position outside the polling place in Loveland, a burg on the outskirts of Cincinnati, flashing his toothy smile for the early risers. Hackett is dressed smartly in a blue shirt and striped pastel tie. His khaki pants hang loosely from his wiry, 180-pound frame.

“That’s low politics, punk!” a heavy-set man sneers as he marches toward the poll.
Hackett wheels around. “Pardon me?”
“You know, that radio ad that says, ‘You don’t know Schmidt.’” He’s talking about one of Hackett’s attack ads against Republican Jean Schmidt. The man spews a stream of epithets, and Hackett lets out a crybaby whimper: “Waaaaaaa!”
“What’s that, punk?” the big man growls.

A TV crew is setting up nearby, but Hackett doesn’t seem to care. “What’s your fuckin’ problem?” the candidate snaps. “You got something to say to me? Bring it on!” Hackett, all 6 feet 2 inches of him, is nose to nose with the heckler. “Problem?” he taunts. The man turns around and storms away.

“These guys in the Republican Party adopted this tough-guy language,” Hackett tells me, still steamed, an hour later. “They’re bullies. They’re offended when somebody takes a swing back at them.”

Wow, a Democrat who 1) believes something, 2) stands up for it, and 3) doesn't take any crap. This guy makes Dean look like Lieberman.

“I said it, I meant it, I stand by it,” he said when I asked if he regretted any of his comments. “Bush is a chicken hawk, okay? Tough shit.” As for the SOB barb, Bush “talks the tough talk. He should appreciate that.”

Every time I hear him say something like this, forceful and with conviction, I send him another $20. I hope 2006 is an expensive year. You too can help show America that being a Democrat doesn't mean you don't stand for anything.

posted by David at 2/09/2006 01:13:00 PM ::

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Can't we just let bygones be bygones?

Update: transcript now available, some additional material.

Toward the beginning of the SOTU, when Bush discussed the war, he obliquely referenced his critics, then dismissed them as useless. To paraphrase: "We've got a war to win. How on earth can you waste our precious time and energy talking about how we got here? Support the troops!"

Here's the bit that rattled my cage:

In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice. Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure.

(APPLAUSE)

Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.

A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would abandon our Iraqi allies to death and prison, would put men like bin Laden and Zarqawi in charge of a strategic country and show that a pledge from America means little.

(APPLAUSE)

With so much in the balance, those of us in public office have a duty to speak with candor.

Members of Congress, however we feel about the decisions and debates of the past, our nation has only one option: We must keep our word, defeat our enemies and stand behind the American military in its vital mission.

First of all, note the rhetorical sleight-of-sledgehammer: any criticism = call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq. No, no, no. Not true. Stop saying that. Some people are actually capable of believing both that the administration should be held accountable for its actions and that we need to work out the best possible plan for our involvement in Iraq, all while maintaining the utmost reverence for the men and women who daily risk our lives on our behalf.

Bush has a lot to answer for. A majority of Americans "believe [Bush's] administration deliberately misled the public about Iraq's purported weapons program before the U.S. invasion in 2003" according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released last week. The stark, willful illegality of the NSA wiretaps grows more obvious by the day. We are holding prisoners with neither due process nor the protections of prisoner of war status. We torture many of them, and cause many others to be tortured. We've bombed and shot an untold number of civilians. We don't have proper equipment for our troops, many of whom are in harm's way long beyond the term of service to which they agreed. I could go on.

The assertion that even so much as a Congressional investigation into whether we were misled into war would meaningfully detract from our efforts in Iraq is absurd. It is more absurd coming from the head of an administration that insists that our armed forces and intelligence services are more than equal to the challenge in Iraq. It is still more absurd coming from the head of an administration that insists that the war does not meaningfully impair our ability to respond to serious security threats elsewhere in the world. It is especially absurd coming from a man who promised to bring accountability back to the executive branch on the back of the movement that impeached his predecessor over a blowjob.

I've got news for the administration: If we frog-marched the lot of you out of office and into Leavenworth for life, we'd still be able to finish the job in Iraq. Hell, we'd probably do a better job without you.

Imagine if the man who caused a huge toxic chemical spill through arrogant negligence said something like, "Look, we can go round and round about why this happened, but the fact is, we've got a lot of bodies to bury, and a lot of repairs to make. Don't you understand how serious this is?"

That's about as dumbfounded as I feel right now.

posted by David at 1/31/2006 10:31:00 PM ::

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Deserving of Wider Recognition

Left Coast Breakdown is a terrific blog. Go and read and laugh and snark and gnash.

posted by David at 1/17/2006 09:45:00 PM ::

Monday, January 16, 2006

Why Feinstein Caved

Athenae is pissed. Senator Diane Feinstein, arguably one of the biggest liberals in national politics, seems to have dropped any meaningful opposition to Judge Samuel Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court.

I do not see a likelihood of a filibuster," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. "This might be a man I disagree with, but it doesn't mean he shouldn't be on the court.

Athenae writes:

ACTUALLY THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT IT MEANS, YOU USELESS PLASTIC HOOD ORNAMENT. You're a member of Congress. You're confirming him. If you disagree with the way he'd do his job, that's ground for denying it to him. Will somebody please get this woman a copy of that musty old document that begins "We the people ..." I think the salient points have slipped her mind.

Jesus tits. Is there anybody out there who can even IMAGINE a Republican saying this? Who can even imagine Republicans having to hunt around for REASON not to confirm a Democratic nominee? Who can even imagine President Kerry's nominee getting this far with a Republican Congress? They beat 'er bloody and leave her behind the Capitol dumpster, that's what they'd do to a Kerry nominee. Yet here we sit, saying we need a really good reason to oppose Alito.

Given the Democrats' spinelessness on the big issues of late, it is actually not all that surprising to hear them express such mushy, directionless acquiescence to the will of the right wing. In Feinstein's case, however, it marks a sea change. Last Monday, she was interviewed on Fox News:

HUME: Right, but would you consider someone who thought that Roe v. Wade was improperly decided by the court? Does that place that person outside the mainstream, in your view?

FEINSTEIN: Well, it depends. In my view, it does, and I'll tell you why. And that is because Roe could have been overturned 38 times. Precedent has been established. Women all over America have come to depend on it. An overwhelming majority of people support it.

Therefore, because of the lapse of time, more than 30 years, because of the precedential values attached to it, I think it would be for many of us a very difficult thing to see somebody who you knew was going to overthrow Roe at this point in time. And I'm old enough to know what it was like back when abortion was illegal. I know what it's like to see young women commit suicide. I know what it's like to see them go to Tijuana. And I don't want to go back to those days.

So this is a very powerful question for me. And I represent those women out there. And this is a huge, huge population, and I...

HUME: So is that filibuster material for you?

FEINSTEIN: If I believed he was going to go in there and overthrow Roe, the question is most likely yes.

Feinstein clearly knows what the stakes are. I think she also knows that rank-and-file Democrats would form a solid wall behind anyone who would take dramatic, decisive action to protect women's right to abortion. I think she might even be aware that a fight specifically over this issue could be hugely beneficial to the Democrats, by galvanizing the base and splitting moderate Republicans from the right wing.

So what happened? On one hand, I don't believe the Republican leadership has any real intention of actually overturning Roe v. Wade, the issue that provides them with an army of fanatical footsoldiers, year in and year out. Perhaps someone has made the rounds and communicated this to the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, something along the lines of "Alito can't be seen as soft on Roe, or he'll get the Miers treatment. But he doesn't want to overturn it any more than you do." Having removed the big, electrifying issue from the equation, perhaps Feinstein didn't think the other issues were worth going to the wall over.

On the other hand, none of that should matter. What matters is what is happening where democracy takes place, in the public arena. Alito has said precisely nothing about any of the big issues. Even if every Democrat knows for a fact that Roe is in no jeopardy whatsoever, his refusal to meaningfully address the issue constitutes a political gimme, which everyone, left and right, expected them to exploit.

Don't our elected representatives have even one principle left? If not, don't they at least want to win?

posted by David at 1/16/2006 12:23:00 PM ::

Friday, January 13, 2006

Food For Thought

This imagined conversation between George W. Bush and William Kristol over at Gotham Image takes on Bush from an interesting and unexpected angle, and carries it off beautifully. It's on the long side, but definitely worth a read.

posted by David at 1/13/2006 10:49:00 AM ::

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Closet Bigot

A heads-up to Lindsay Graham. If you're a closet bigot, the idea is that nobody knows you're a bigot. You hide the fact that you're a bigot. People who know you are unaware of the fact. When you are asked if you're a bigot, you deny it. If you were a member of a bigoted organization, you don't advertise the fact. Asking the question of an actual closeted bigot will get you a "no" by definition.

Just trying to help out.

posted by David at 1/11/2006 11:23:00 PM ::

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