Since my hard drive won’t be ready by Monday, I’ll be using The Log’s office laptop. Took a couple of tries to work out the bugs, but I should be able to post from the visioning session and meeting Monday just fine.
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Archive for April, 2009
Boo for Obama, yay for the courts
April 30th, 2009, 9:26 am by fshermanObama on the state secrets privilege: “I actually think that the state secret doctrine should be modified. I think right now it’s overbroad. . . . [S]earching for ways to redact, to carve out certain cases, to see what can be done so that a judge in chambers can review information without it being in open court, you know, there should be some additional tools so that it’s not such a blunt instrument.”
Which is a good statement. But completely contradicts his administration’s efforts to shut down lawsuits over wireless eavesdropping by claiming the privilege means the cases can’t even be heard by the court (the traditional approach was that they could be heard, but some evidence could be redacted). As one blogger put it, it amounts to “The state secrets privilege is overbroad—I should know, I’ve used it so much.”
Happily the appeals court recently shot down the administration’s extreme version of the state secrets privilege. Showing once again why the balance of powers is a good thing.
Ron Hart again
April 30th, 2009, 8:22 am by fshermanTwo bits from Hart’s column this week: “It all started with his plan “to create or save 5 million jobs.” Never mind the false premise that government “saves” or “creates” jobs. Businesses do that, yet it is interesting to see the new crowd in D.C. run its PR operation without being questioned. Have you yet heard a reporter ask the president how he “saves” a job?”
Well, if the stimulus or other plans keep businesses from going under, I’d say that would count as “saving” a job.
Then: “Of course, Obama views anything that might lower a terrorist’s self-esteem, or language that might be deemed hurtful, as torture. Bush regarded having to read an intelligence briefing as torture.
Obama would consider it cruel to have an Al-Qaida leader with specific knowledge of the next attack hanged, drawn and quartered. Dick Cheney would just consider that Pilates with a CIA personal trainer.
Obama calls waterboarding torture. Cheney considers it a government-assisted game of Marco Polo. And it can even be environmentally friendly when done on recycled wood boards using reclaimed water.”
The point here (I’m not sure Hart has one) appears to be that silly, wimpy Obama’s view that torture is bad is just as ridiculous as Dick Cheney’s disregard for it. As if Hart is advocating some sensible middle ground where we torture but we aren’t mean about it.
But that middle ground doesn’t exist. Torture’s illegal, not to mention immoral (yes, it’s even immoral when used on seriously nasty people, as well as when it’s used on all the innocents we subjected to it); mocking Obama for saying we’re going to stop doing makes me think Hart’s the one who deserves to be mocked (of course last week he was making fun of people who adopt stray puppies …).
It’s amusing, in a black-humored way, that someone who claims to be a libertarian is so blithe about government going outside the law to torture people, which would be an abuse of government power by most people’s standards. Heck, it’s the kind of thing we used to blast the Communists for during the Cold War: Secret prisons, illegal imprisonment, torture of prisoners … Since Hart’s so up in arms about how “socialist” Obama is, surely he’d be jumping for joy that Obama is rejecting the Communist path.
But he isn’t. Go figure.
And then there’s the black people …
April 30th, 2009, 8:11 am by fshermanByron York in the Washington Examiner: “But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.”
I realize York’s point is that Obama is more popular among African Americans than among whites. But overall popularity is based on averaging out those responses; the fact that Obama is more popular with one group doesn’t invalidate that.
I think this is more fumble-footed writing than a suggestion the black vote doesn’t count in the same way, but still, I’ve never heard anyone suggest that Bush (or Clinton’s) popularity was being unfairly skewed because different groups liked them to a different extent.
[Update: The Washington Independent goes into this in more depth.]
So we’d be better off the dumb cows didn’t vote?
April 30th, 2009, 8:06 am by fshermanFrom libertarian Peter Thiel: “The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”
Well, America’s still a democracy, and we’re still capitalist (not pure unregulated capitalism, but certainly capitalist) so that’s pretty much nonsense.
But what’s really striking is that in Thiel’s eyes, women voters make it impossible to have optimism about politics (they and the welfare beneficiaries are presumably why he also says “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”). While he didn’t spell it out further, this sounds like a variant of an idea that’s been floating around for several years: Nanny State Government exists because women want someone to take care of them, so they vote for welfare programs, big government and against libertarians.
In the first place “A, then B,” does not mean “A causes B.” Saying that women got the vote, then government got big is like saying that after Nixon became president, the divorce rate skyrocketed (which it did). There’s no connection.
In the second place, since women began voting, we’ve had a government that’s actually become less intrusive and less nannyish. Jim Crow is dead. Laws against interracial marriage are dead. Government can no longer tell married couples not to use birth control. Homosexuality is no longer illegal and in some states gays can even marry.
Unlike Thiel, I don’t assume that’s the direct result of women voting. But I do think it means democracy and freedom can coexist.
Tom Friedman on why torture investigations are a bad idea
April 29th, 2009, 7:52 am by fsherman“Because justice taken to its logical end here would likely require bringing George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and other senior officials to trial, which would rip our country apart.”
OK, certainly it would generate a great deal of political sound and fury, smoke and mirrors, but “rip our country apart?” Because what, we love our kindly leaders so much that seeing them stand trial would break our widdle hearts? Particularly senior officials—is Friedman seriously suggesting that our nation will be riven in twain because Alberto Gonzales is in the dock?
Lord knows, we survived the Clinton impeachment hearings without the country falling into the abyss. Why is this different? Does Friedman think there are any circumstances under which important government officials should be tried for alleged crimes, or is this a blanket get-out-of-jail free card?
Newsweek editor John Meachan on torture prosecutions
April 28th, 2009, 11:28 am by fshermanMeacham in a recent column on how prosecuting administration officials would be a terrible, terrible mistake: “That is not to say presidents and vice presidents are always above the law; there could be instances in which such a prosecution is appropriate, but based on what we know, this is not such a case.”
As Glenn Greenwald says, the phrasing seems to imply that “above the law” is the normal state of things, that “there could be instances” where lawbreaking by the head of state should be punished, but certainly not in most cases.
Because, after all, torture isn’t a federal crime like sleeping with an intern, is it?
Another post by Greenwald details how the media repeatedly accepted CIA claims that prisoners were confessing after only a couple of minutes of waterboarding (as opposed to dozens or even hundreds of times, as we now know), so what was the fuss? Surely that’s worth it to save lives, right?
On John McCain’s bias
April 28th, 2009, 11:16 am by fshermanJohn McCain was tortured in Vietnam, therefore John McCain is not qualified to speak on torture.
That’s the opinion of radio talker Brian Kilmeade, according to this dialog with co-host John Napolitano:
KILMEADE: No, he’s not my guy. I like John McCain. I respect him. But there’s a lot of issues I don’t understand. Plus, he should not be allowed to talk on torture because he is clearly somebody who went through unspeakable pain and punishment –
NAPOLITANO: You mean, he shouldn’t be allowed to talk — he has an opinion like everybody else. He represents the state of Arizona.
KILMEADE: But he was tortured. He was tortured. And –
NAPOLITANO: Therefore, his views on torture are –
KILMEADE: — are skewed.
NAPOLITANO: — irrelevant because of what happened –
KILMEADE: — are skewed.
NAPOLITANO: — in ‘nam? I think his views are particularly telling because he’s been through this kind of thing.
KILMEADE: But what do you think he’s going to be — pro-torture –
NAPOLITANO: No.
KILMEADE: — after he’s been through it?
So knowing how horrible torture us disqualifies McCain from having an opinion on it. You heard it there first.
Killer in the Rain
April 28th, 2009, 11:06 am by fshermanRecently I noticed that I had a large omnibus of Raymond Chandler novels on my shelf that included three I hadn’t read. Rather than start in write away, I figured I’d work my way through Chandler’s entire body of hardboiled detective fiction (he’s one of the genre creators) starting with the short story collection Killer in the Rain.
The book reminded me of what I like about Chandler. His language is wonderful (”She was the kind of woman could make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window” and “He was about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel’s food cake” are two of my favorites) and writing before hardboiled fiction became a genre, his work feels much more real than later authors who followed in his wake.
However, reading the collection over a few days, I couldn’t help being annoyed by the repetitive tricks Chandler used over and over: In every story, for example, the PI (John Carmady or John Dalmas—Marlowe came later) gets knocked cold from behind; in a couple of stories, he got drugged unconscius as well. I don’t remember Chandler being that repetitious in novels of the same length as the collection.
I think I’ve mentioned in the past that I don’t reread more than one book by a given author a month, or their particular stylistic touches or plot twists start leaping out at me. Ruth Plumly Thompson’s Oz books (she was L. Frank Baum’s official replacement on the series) are pleasant if read one at a time (though not match for Baum’s), but when I reread them all in a few days for The Wizard of Oz Catalog, her fondness for having characters stumble across some random magical item they can use to save the day got very, very annoying.
Even Ramsey Campbell, perhaps my favorite horror writer, had that effect when I last read a story collection: The persistent hint-but-don’t-show presentation of th supernatural menace works very well in each individual story but felt tedious by the time I’d finished.The funny thing is, I know I didn’t use to have this problem. I’ve read lots of anthologies, and lots of single author anthologies and it’s only the past few years that I’ve been distracted this way. Is it that my writer’s eye is becoming more alert to technique? Or that my reader’s eye has built up lots of experience?
Either way, I think when I next read a collection I’ll try spreading it out over a couple of weeks and see if that keeps things fresh.
My apologies
April 27th, 2009, 5:19 pm by fshermanMy hard drive is dying, which is having the effect of corrupting my internet browsers (among other problems). Plans to set up a substitute laptop went kablooie so the end result is, no liveblog of tonight’s presentation of the city “customer satisfaction survey” to the council.
Hopefully I’ll be able to do better for the next council meeting on May 3.
