Tragically Trapped

Andrew Sullivan, with whom I disagree more often than not on a multiplicity of issues, has posted perhaps the most eloquent "eulogy" for Senator Larry Craig (R) of Idaho I've seen yet.

Sullivan is himself gay, and a conservative, so it's interesting to see how he pities the lot Craig finds himself in, while not condoning his actions or forgiving his hypocrisy.

BUT...BUT...BUT

David Brooks and Roger Cohen have recently published Op-Eds in the New York Times that typify the diaspora from the right.

Neither of these guys has any idea what they'retalking about.

The first (Brooks) wants to redefine conservatism and disown the collapse of its failed idiology. the plain truth is that regardless how Brooks wants to define it, conservatism -"creedal" or "dispositional" stands on the belief that government needs to be restrained. When that restraint then leads to failures like Katrina, the decline in healthcare and education, and policy blunders committed by factions within that weakened government, conservatives then turn on a dime and say "see, look at these problems government has wrought."

If you reduce government to "the size where it could be drowned in the bathtub" as Grover Norquist is so fond of saying, you can't then be surprised when it cannot handle any crisis (deluge) larger than a bathtub.

The second guy (Cohen) wants to claim that the term "neocon" has become a generic insult for anything "the left" (whatever that means) doesn't like. A sort of "Auslander" for liberals. This of course is horseshit.

"Neocon" refers specifically to the group decended from the teachings of Leo Strauss, the University of Chicago professor who believed that the"liberal" cultural economic and political ideals of the west (particularly the USA) that had risen in the first half of the 20th century had resulted in its decline in the latter half. He thought that the only counter to that collapse was to create cultural myths that (though made up entirely) would scare the dumb public into acting properly. The public of course was too stupid to be able to think for itself.

The most elemental of those myths was that there were Really Bad Guys out there who were organizing to attack us, and that we needed to defeat them by any means necessary.

Strauss' disciples included Wolfowitz, Perle, the Kristols (Irving and later Bill) the Pipes (Richard and then Daniel) Cheney, Rumsfeld, and all of their successive proteges. The irony is that, somewhere along the line the disciples actually started to believe the myths they'd created, and like religious fanatics, followed their beliefs right off the cliff despite any evidence to the contrary.

Neocon then is not simply a generic slur, but refers to all who advance a certain set of principles:

1. Liberalism leads to collapse of social order
2. Therefore society needs to be "scared-straight"
3. Evil Ones want to defeat us
4. They must be prevented by any and all means including offensive wars ("offensive" meaning opposed to defensive rather than offending) .
5. American hegemony.

Others might add unquestioning support for Israel, though I don't think this is required because I don't think that all neocons place Israel's interests as equal to ours (kinda defeats the hegemony idea). Many conservatives have become neocons since 2000 (Giuliani) , others have supported the neocon agenda though they have not themselves been historically neoconservative (McCain, Hatch, Specter, Graham), and even some liberals have become neoconservatives (Lieberman. Zell Miller, the Brookings institute douche-bags O'Hanlon and Pollock.)

Both of these columns show how many on the right are desperately trying to diffuse the damage they've wrought on this country. They can't ignore it or spin it away any more so they try to explain it, and their explanations are pathetic.

ENOUGH ALREADY

I've about had enough about this "MoveOn NYT ad" thing.

Aren't there a couple of more important things the senate should be concerned with? And honestly, the dem feeding frenzy is ridiculous -does it really matter if a few Democratic senators voted "yes" on a non-binding "sense of the Senate" resolution that means absolutely nothing? Seems to me it's a even sum game:

• If they vote "no" they get hammered by the noisy right-wing money/press machine.
• If they vote "yes" they get to hold it over the heads of the republicans when the elections roll-around and the GOP start bashing the democratic candidates.
• Also they can say "Ok, whatever, you actually want to vote on this? Great. Let's pass it and then can we please debate something serious?"

The only way they lose is if the democratic voters take the bait and start condemning them for it -i.e. start eating their own, rather than just ignoring a meaningless resolution.

The only reason this is any controversy at all is that some smart-ass over at the MoveOn marketing department thought it would be catchy to print the phrase "General Betray-us".

It's not. It's juvenile sounding and invokes the language of schoolyard bullies. It also allows people to say that MoveOn is calling a decorated soldier a traitor. I know, I know "But OP -that's what THEY do all the time!" But the add would have been just as powerful (if not moreso) without that phrase. The addition of that phrase only weakens the ad because it makes fun of his name and not his actions/writings/credibility.

Kudos to MoveOn for getting the message out that Petraeus was a lackey, but next time get a proof reader or a marketing rep or whatever who understands the difference between name-calling and clever catch phrases that Move your message On.

PETRAEUS IS IRRELEVANT

The Petraeus Crocker coming out party is quaint but entirely irrelevant. What difference does it make what they tell Congress? The Democratic majority is either too powerless or too scared to do anything about it. Nothing will change and we'll keep losing lives and pouring money into the quagmire until at the earliest 2009. And yes, when we leave things will completely meltdown over there.

The time to prevent the meltdown was pre-invasion. And no, not because the war was "wrong" or "based on lies" (though it was), but because the idiots in charge -Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Feith, Cheney, et al. actually were stupid enough to believe that things would magically fall into place if they could just knock off Saddam. This was despite and in the face of fervent and informed dissent from everyone across the spectrum from academics to military strategists.

The key to this whole operation was maintaining order and security AFTER Saddam was gone. That would have required at least half a million troops (not simply "the army you have" as Dumbsfeld arrogantly put it) and hundreds of billions of dollars.

That's why none of the cheerleaders can ever define what "victory" or "success" in Iraq means, because if they do then the next thing they have to admit that it's at the best too costly and at the worst impossible.

There was no way the Congress or the American people would have gone along with it had they been told the truth. It would have been laughable. The only way they would have gone along with such a scheme was if the threat was imminent, so the WMD lunacy was created and coupled with assurances (despite all evidence and history to the contrary) that we could do it on the cheap.

Now we're stuck because even if we were to go ahead and put half a million troops there and spend half a trillion, things have spun so far out of control that it will take decades to repair, and we can't stay there and still function as a country here -already things are starting to crumble, infrastructure, disaster preparedness, etc. In ten years at this pace we'll look like the USSR of the 1980's.

So we're forced with three shitty choices: 1) leave now and let things blow up, 2) leave when the Democratic President takes over in 2009 and let things blow up (and guess who'll take the blame) or 3) stay the course until we blow up.I know what the cheerleaders want and I know what the Bush administration wants. I choose option one, but who knows -maybe Petraeus is right and the pony is just around the corner!

HOLY HORSES**T BUCK-MAN

Fresh from reminiscinces about the NYC aristocracy and wincings about the porcelain activities of closeted Republic party senators, comes this charming book review from William F.Buckley.


Either the old man has finally suffered a stroke, or his column has been once again "jacked" by neocon thugs. I've had my suspicions in the past, and this is another piece of evidence in the chain linking to the idea that he's cacked and yet his column, like Tupac's albums, survives.

To work then:

"I am informed that French pacifists, ensconced in the French Academy in 1939
and determined to understate Nazi military exercises (even those being done as
close by as Czechoslovakia), refused to acknowledge such a creature as a
"bombardier."

Ding! Ding! Ding! Godwin's Law Alert! Can't start a fearmongering Islamophobic rant without first invoking the spirit of the Nazi's. WFB even takes the extra step of equating any dissenters from the crusade as namby-pamby Frenchies.

"Norman Podhoretz, a gifted writer and analyst,"

Also:

• one of the original signatories of the Project for the New American Century
• the author of the recent piece in the WSJ "the case for bombing Iran"
• was mentored by neocon cappo di tutti cappi Irving Kristol.

Kind of taints the "analyst" part a tad.

But wait - now the real fearmongering horses**t starts:

"The Islamists have:

"-- A potential access to weapons of mass destruction that could devastate Western life.

"Potential" access? Who doesn't have potential access? Here's an analogy: I hate all Raiders fans and I have potential access to a gun. I mean -all I have to do is go to a gun shop and buy one, right? You gonna lock me up?

Notice the subtle whitewashing here too: He's implying Iran, and thereby labeling the entire nation of Iran "Islamist" .

"-- A religious appeal that provides deeper resonance and greater staying power than the artificial ideologies of fascism or communism.

That's like saying all Irish Catholics might join the IRA.

"-- An impressively conceptualized, funded and organized institutional machinery that successfully builds credibility, goodwill and electoral success.

This is pure horses**t. There is no evidence of this. None. At all. There are Islamic terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, but there has been no credible evidence that they are linked in any other way than their dislike for the actions of the US. Some hate the "liberal" freedoms of the west, some have "beefs" with particular actions the US has taken (e.g. Bin Laden's outrage at US bases on Saudi land which was his own professed reason for 9/11), some hate our blind support of Israel, but any assertion that they are linked in any other way than cheerleading each other's "successes" (much less "institutionally") has been easily debunked.

Remember however that this sentiment is brought to you by the same people who previously tried to argue that the USSR was the power-seat of the very same type of "terror network" and that every terrorist organization and "communist" government from the IRA and PLO to Cuba and China were all part of an elaborate plot to dominate and enslave the west. It's paranoid fantasy on steroids.

"-- An ideology capable of appealing to Muslims of every size and shape, from Lumpenproletariat to privileged, from illiterates to Ph.D.s, from the well-adjusted to psychopaths, from Yemenis to Canadians."

Again "capable of appealing" ? WTF does that mean? OK let's use another analogy - can we then say that Christian fundies like the Branch Davidians followed an idiology "capable of appealing" to Christians of all stripes? What makes an idiology capable of anything? It's nonsense.

Now to the "math" portion:

"If Islamists constitute 10 percent to 15 percent of the Muslim population
worldwide, they number some 125 million to 200 million persons, or a far greater total than all the fascists and communists, combined, who ever lived."

Let's put that sh*te out of its misery:

"If"?

Who has said that "Islamists" are 10 to 15 percent of ALL muslims? This is known as recycling guesswork. The neocons have completely fabricated this number.

Quite frankly, how could you possibly ever determine the number of "islamists"? The definition itself is constantly shifting and open to personal interpretation. You can inflate or decrease the numbers to suit your agenda. E.g. sometimes Iran is included and sometimes it's not depending on who's arguing and what they're trying to "prove".

All of the typical elements
are here:

• Create a strawman
• attack critics ad hominem
• create/inflate statistics to support the strawman.
• warn of the dire consequences of not supporting the strawman 100%
  

Finally, to address the dopes who will inevitably name call:

This is not to say terrorism is not an important concern. In fact today a story has once again shown that John Kerry was right: the most effective solution is vigilent intelligence gathering and well trained law enforcement.


As I said yesterday, what we are witnessing here are the initial stages of the fall-rollout of the campaign against Iran.

Apparently Buckley is on board -though he can't seem to muster his own arguments so he's parroting Podhoretz'.

Shameful and sad.

DICK'S NEW BROOM

So now it becomes clear.

Cheney has been cleaning house of all of the folks who had a direct line to W's ear. Rove, Gonzo, Snow (although that might actually be the cancer) to clear a path for his Iran ambitions.

Look for Condi to resign before the year's up -to spend more time with her husband , family, conscience.

ABU-GONZALEZ RESIGNS

Damn -I'd hoped the #$%^ *&^ might actually stick around long enough to be impeached. Nope, he's gone. It looks like Dick's cleaning house of all of W's BFF's to prevent having to spend some time in jail after he leaves. First Rove now Gonzo. The plot thickens.

Of Course that's just my OPinion

-OP

DEMOCRATIC VS. REPUBLIC

The GOP have once again resurrected the annoying habit of referring to the "democrat party". Is it because they can't bear to refer to their betters as "democratic"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(phrase)

Seriously, Joe McCarthy made this popular (though he didn't invent the epithet) so should it surprise anyone?

Oddly enough there is a "Democrat Party" -in Thailand. Their opposition is called the "Thais Love Thais" Party

I therefore nominate "TLT" as the proper rejoinder to anyone from the GOP who uses the slur -let them figure it out.

I'M BAAAAACK

And I'm better than ever baby!

"Where, Oh where have you been OP?!?!?" You ask.

Suffice it to say that "life" got in the way. Job. Kids. You know.

Anyhoo -hope I'll have more time to do some more 'a that there postin' now.

Cheers,

OP.

THE LITMUS TEST

Well Harriet Miers did the right thing and saved the country from watching as the Senate Judiciary Committee tore into her imcompetence for the job. Now we have Samuel Alito ("Scalito") to contend with. Like John Roberts his competence seems a given, however unlike Roberts his track record is both more apparent and not as pleasing. The most questionable ruling comes as a dissent from an opinion that found that a strip-search of a ten year old girl and her mother when they were not named in a warrant but happened to be present when it was administered to a man reputed to be a drug dealer. Screws my previously stated test -because it does the opposite of expanding the individual liberties in the Bill of Rights. The fourth Amendment clearly protects people's persons from unreasonable searches and meandates that warrants must have probable cause-but how can a warrant grant probable cause to search someone who is not named (i.e. the target)in it? There was no exigency involved as the girl and her mother were detained by the officers at the scene -so how else can PC attach? Scary. And this is the guy put forth to replace O'Conner's swing vote? Yikes.

The hearings will likely center aroud questions pertaining to writings where Alito claimed to be proud to have a part in helping to weaken Roe v. Wade. There are the usual complaints from the right about the "litmus test"-abortion. I think there are a few ostensibly legit reasons why it has become a litmus test.

First is that it raises a civil rights issue for women (albeit not squarely): at what point does she lose control over the clump of cells/ organism/fetus/child that resides in her body? It would seem that the opponents of abortion are claiming that from the moment the sperm meets egg those cells are no longer her own but deserving of intervention/protection from literal outsiders. This means that women somehow have less liberty than men, in that there are some restrictions placed on women (when they attain a certain status) that men will never endure. Granted, the unique nature of the physiological gender differences creates this disparity -but that does not erase that it IS a disparity.

Second is that one's position on Roe v. Wade in particular is somewhat indicative of one's position of the central government vs. federalism issue. The problem is that if you think abortion is a constitutional issue (and w/r you think there is a constitutional right or not is irrelevent to w/r it is a constitutional ISSUE), putting the issue to the states is elevating them above the constitution as to certain constitutional rights. Understand -this trancends the side of the fence one finds oneself on re abortion: E.g. if you believe the core issue is the unborn child's right to life, life is a constitutional decision. If conversely you believe that the issue is the woman's right to control what is done to her body, that falls squarely within the 4th amendment's guarantee of a right to privacy (and let's drop the bullsh*t catch-phrase rhetoric -anyone who can read the text of the 4th amendment and come to the conclusion that it does not prevent against government interference of one's privacy is beyond reason. It's all there: "PERSONS, houses, papers and effects") so that in either case, allowing the states to individually decide demotes the constitution from paramount law to being subservient to the states re certain fundamental rights.

Finally, one's position on the abortion issue can function as a strong indicator of one's position regarding the separation of church and state. The issue of whether a life begins at conception is fundamentally a religious issue -the science is incomplete and the secular philosophy doesn't concurr with that view. (How many people who believe life begins at conception believe so out of a completely secular/scientific basis?) Therefore, if one believes that a life has begun at conception and that that life deserves the same constitutional protection as all life at later and post gestational stages, it necessarily follows that (s)he believes that in the U.S. religion can, and should, be used to mandate public policy via the statutory scheme for ALL - whether they share the religious beliefs or not.

We spend entirely too much time in this country on the abortion issue itself given its scope. However the issues it in turn raises are larger than that specific scope and that is why it has become a "litmus test". Perhaps if we stopped trying to argue those issues by cloaking them in the abortion debate and spent more time arguing about them directly we could come closer to settling them, but I'm not holding my breath.

A SONNET FOR HARRIET

OK so boredom and yesterday's post have inspired me to write a sonnet about l'affaire Miers:

John Roberts is a brilliant legal mind;
Although his politics don't fit my mold,
I wouldn't be surprised someday to find
He'd not done slavishly as he was told.
But Harriet Miers is another story
A crony from the inner circle formed
And who, despite Bush promises of glory
Has failed to leave the wingnut coldness warmed.
"Bush broke his promise!" they proclaim, betrayed,
"To nominate another Clarence T!"
"He told us we'd be rid of Roe v. Wade,
but with this woman where's our guarantee?"
She calls Bush the most brilliant man she's met!!!
A sentiment my marrow can't forget!!!

HARRIET WHO?

So Bush has put forth Harriet Meiers as his nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Conner on the SCOTUS. The consensus seems to be from both the left and the right that she's possibly the most "stealth" nominee anyone could have imagined, because she has no
"paper-trail", and that her resume hardly qualifies her for the position (her most formidable positions having been her election to head of the Texas State Bar and her time as head of the Texas Lottery.

I have one question:

Is she one of the top 9 legal minds in the country?

Ok that's unfair -I'll rephrase:

Is she one of the top 100?

Top 500?

If not, why are we even talking about her?

This is as I've said a LIFETIME POSITION on the most important court in the land and arguably the most important court in the world. What's she going to bring to it? Anyone? Anyone?

This is after all the woman who claimed that George W. Bush is the most brilliant man she's ever met. That alone should...oh let's be polite and just say "raise a few eyebrows".

My advice: ALL the senators on the Judiciary Committee should reject her, and tell Bush to stop kidding around and send them a serious nominee.

SAME AS IT EVER WAS

From GWB's speech today:

There's always a temptation, in the middle of a long struggle, to seek the quiet life, to escape the duties and problems of the world, and to hope the enemy grows weary of fanaticism and tired of murder.

Perhaps that's why he's had more vacation than any other president in our nation's history?

Ineffective leadership has produced this desire for centuries:

Henry VI part III Act II Scene V

K. Henry:

Here on this molehill will I sit me down. 15
To whom God will, there be the victory!
For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,
Have chid me from the battle; swearing both
They prosper best of all when I am thence.
Would I were dead! if God's good will were so; 20
For what is in this world but grief and woe?
O God! methinks it were a happy life,
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, 25
Thereby to see the minutes how they run,
How many make the hour full complete;
How many hours bring about the day;
How many days will finish up the year;
How many years a mortal man may live. 30
When this is known, then to divide the times:
So many hours must I tend my flock;
So many hours must I take my rest;
So many hours must I contemplate;
So many hours must I sport myself; 35
So many days my ewes have been with young;
So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean:
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
Pass'd over to the end they were created, 40
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy 45
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
O, yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle.
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, 50
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
Is far beyond a prince's delicates,
His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
His body couched in a curious bed,
When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him

THE END OF THE "BUSH ERA"? YEAH, SO?

E.J. Dionne writes in the WaPo:

The Bush Era is over. The sooner politicians in both parties realize that, the better for them -- and the country.

Recent months, and especially the past two weeks, have brought home to a steadily growing majority of Americans the truth that President Bush's government doesn't work. His policies are failing, his approach to leadership is detached and self-indulgent, his way of politics has produced a divided, angry and dysfunctional public square. We dare not go on like this.

True but irrelevant. The first mistake Dionne makes is in nomenclature: "The Bush Era" is technically correct but wrong in that the forces behind Bush have been at it for decades before his "presidency". The Neocons have been traced as far back as the 1960's with roots even in the Teddy Roosevelt era.

Their principal belief system advocates American hegemony as a way of enabling the business interests in which they're invested. While Bush is inextricably tied into many of those interests he is no more in control of the agenda than headlights control a car. Dionne even touches on this while not recognizing it when he points out the "boutique idea cooked up in conservative think tanks and Wall Street imaginations".

Dionne is right in pointing out that "Those who call for yet more tax cuts risk sounding like robots droning automated talking points programmed inside them long ago." but that's the point -the talking points were programmed inside them long ago, and that "risk" is ignored by all but the political mouthpieces of the agenda, and they only appear to care as a means of staying elected. The agenda itself is larger than any one of its components. In a way that's the "genius" of it, it's literally like a cancer -killing off several cells won't stop its progress. All of the rhetoric of the "true believers" in the social issues is just smoke and mirrors to cover the sociopathic business agenda and keep the money flowing. Perhaps that's the ultimate irony -that while they yack about "Christian" idiology they ignore one of its premier tenets: "[one] cannot serve both God and [money]". (Matthew 6:24)

Joe Conason has written a book that he's currently on the chat circuit about called "The Raw Deal" (which I haven't read and am relying on his comments on the radio) which details the plot to destroy Social Security, where he says that just because they've lost this round doesn't mean that they won't bring it up again. Quite the contrary -the fact that they control 2 (soon to be 3) branches of government continues to rally them to their cause, and it is a mistake to assume as Dionne does that the war is won on the result of a few battles.

Agreed, the people are beginning to see the utter selfishness of the neocon agenda as the aftermath of Katrina unfolds, and I hope that this is the beginning of their rejection of it wholesale -but even if that is the case the end of the "Bush Era" will only drive it underground. It will never be completely anihilated, but it could be tamed and marginalized if the "real" Republicans were to force it out of their party and into a party of its own. That's their fight though, and like the friends/family of addicts (and I think the GOP are addicted to the Neocon fundraising apparatus) the only thing we can do is encourage their forsaking it, be there when they bottom-out, and support their recovery.

(yikes, too many similes metaphors and analogies for one piece, but whatever!)

CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE

So Michael Brown has resigned his position as head of FEMA amid allegations that he'd padded his resume and was in fact wildly unqualified for any such position.

Enough? Face it folks -FEMA mismanagement cost lives here, plain and simple.

Ask yourself this: If you bought poor quality, inferior brakes and had them installed them in your car -knowing full well that they were poor quality inferior brakes- and then your car killed someone because the brakes failed and it couldn't stop -could you be prosecuted for negligent homicide?

How about this: if you put a loaded pistol in the hands of a 3-year-old and she then fired it, accidentally killing someone -could you be prosecuted for negligent homicide?

Bush appointed Michael Brown head of FEMA -the government body in charge of managing national emergencies- knowing full well that he was not qualified,and based solely on cronyism, and Brown took the position knowing the same, and his mismanagement resulted in deaths in the aftermath of Katrina.

Think they'll be prosecuted? Nope: IOKIYAR.

BUSH POLL NUMBERS AT NEW LOW

45% approval rating -lowest ever for the chimp.

This poll also shows just how fed up those on my side are becoming with the fraidy-crats. (BTW -that phrase is mine and anyone who steals it w/o credit is a punk-ass!)

Also shows how conflicted people are about when and how to withdraw from Iraq. Question: one interviewee said something along the lines of "don't tell them when just do it within 6 mo to a year." WTF?? WHat's the difference between leaving the country in chaos in 6 mo. or in 12?

Finally this poll is yet more fuel for the argument that people never wake up until they're kicked in the wallet. Gas prices are credited fpr the downturn. Think that's why Bush unveiled the latest reason we went to Iraq?

"On the second day of a two-day trip to California, Bush also raised the protection of Iraq's vast oil reserves as a reason for American troops to continue fighting in Iraq.

A former oilman, Bush had avoided linking the war to Iraq's oilfields. But with gas prices soaring, he raised the specter of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida forces in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi taking over Iraq and its oil reserves.

'If Zarqawi and bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks," Bush said. "They'd seize oil fields to fund their ambitions. They could recruit more terrorists by claiming a historic victory over the United States and our coalition."

Oh. Gee, it's a good thing it hasn't become a training ground for future terrorist attacks yet...

Guess we're "staying the course". Shouldn't we at least chart one first?

ANY TAKERS?

Former Senator Gary Hart had this to say today in the WaPo.

Great piece. That'd do the trick (the part about apologizing and meeting the parents etc). problem is that (as Hart should know by now having been targeted by the same people himself) anyone Dem or Rep who comes even close to doing that is opening themselves up to being "Smear-boated" or worse. If they're so brazen they'll do it to a grieving mother who's lost her son in a war, who wont they do it to, and what'll they do to a politician?

We do indeed need a Joseph N. Welch "Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last?" moment. But for that to happen somebody with some power in the Democratic party needs to come to the realization that his/her own personal fortune is not worth the damage being done by the other side's duplicity. The only person who could take the actions that Hart suggests is one who has decided that they don't care what they lose. Unfortunately, no one has yet shown any willingness to make that level of sacrifice or take that level of risk.

MORE RE MILLER AND COOPER

Here is an exerpt from Judge Tatel's opinion (from Editor and Publisher) which more clearly fleshes-out what I was trying to express in my earlier post :

One last point. In concluding that no privilege applies in this case, I have assigned no importance to the fact that neither Cooper nor Miller, perhaps recognizing the irresponsible (and quite possibly illegal) nature of the leaks at issue, revealed Plame’s employment, though Cooper wrote about it after Novak’s column appeared. Contrary to the reporters’ view, this apparent self-restraint spares Miller and Cooper no obligation to testify. Narrowly drawn limitations on the public’s right to evidence, testimonial privileges apply “only where necessary to achieve [their] purpose,” Fisher v. United States, 425 U.S. 391, 403 (1976), and in this case the privilege’s purpose is to promote dissemination of useful information. It thus makes no difference how these reporters responded to the information they received, any more than it matters whether an attorney drops a client who seeks criminal advice (communication subject to the crime-fraud exception) or a psychotherapist seeks to dissuade homicidal plans revealed during counseling (information Jaffee suggested would not be privileged, see 518 U.S. at 18 n.19). In all such cases, because the communication is unworthy of protection, recipients’ reactions are irrelevant to whether their testimony may be compelled in an investigation of the source.


Indeed, Cooper’s own Time.com article illustrates this point. True, his story revealed a suspicious confluence of leaks, contributing to the outcry that led to this investigation. Yet the article had that effect precisely because the leaked information -- Plame’s covert status -- lacked significant news value. In essence, seeking protection for sources whose nefariousness he himself exposed, Cooper asks us to protect criminal leaks so that he can write about the crime. The greater public interest lies in preventing the leak to begin with. Had Cooper based his report on leaks about the leaks -- say, from a whistleblower who revealed the plot against Wilson -- the situation would be different. Because in that case the source would not have revealed the name of a covert agent, but instead revealed the fact that others had done so, the balance of news value and harm would shift in favor of protecting the whistleblower. Yet it appears Cooper relied on the Plame leaks themselves, drawing the inference of sinister motive on his own. Accordingly, his story itself makes the case for punishing the leakers. While requiring Cooper to testify may discourage future leaks, discouraging leaks of this kind is precisely what the public interest requires.

(emphasis and links mine)

ROVE-ING REFLECTIONS

Been thinking about this whole Rove-leak-gate thing.

This is it folks -this is the whole ball of wax. This one slip up by the "turd blossom" symbolizes the entire Bush Administration MO for everything from election 2000 to this: It's the Vince Lombardi theory of American Government: "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."

They don't care about anything but "winning" at all costs and give no regard to anything that might arise from their actions .

Look at the 2000 election. They only cared about winning. Forget that a presidential election should be decided by popular vote -let the SCOTUS decide the election . Forget that people would be disenfranchised -stop the recount. Forget that the party had traditionally embraced state's rights -it's a federal court issue. Who cares how it devides the country?

Look at the Tax cuts -they only cared about the political points they'd gain by giving three tax cuts in three years, and paid no attention to anything else, particularly the fact that we were in a war and (at the time) were headed for another one. Who cares how it screws the economy?

Take the war in Iraq -all they cared about was going to war in Iraq i.e. getting troops over there and deposing the Hussein regime. "Mission Accomplished", right? No planning for the aftermath, no thought given to what to do afterward. Who cares how you get there -just get there. Doesn't matter if you make up a reason -just have one.

NO TEARS FOR JUDY

I'm getting a little tired of all the whining from both the left-leaning and right-leaning press about the fate of poor poor Judith Miller.

Save your tears folks, she's deserving of no special treatment for her crime simply because of her job description.

And save your slippery slope arguments for more deserving cases -this one has a clear distinction that will keep it from being used broadly to destroy journalistic privilege:

This is not a case where the journalist was protecting the identity of someone who was revealing wrongdoing, but one where the journalist was protecting the identity of someone perpetrating it.

Change the crime and it makes more sense: it's the difference between for example, a journalist's protecting the identity of someone who'd witnessed a murder vs. her protecting the identity of the murderer.

Criminals, govermental or otherwise, should not be allowed to hide their crimes behind the shield of journalistic privilege. A free press should not mean free to abet crimes by concealing them from justice.

BTW the SCOTUS agrees with me 6-3 (or, rather, I agree with them), as does this guy

Aren't you getting tired of the lengths to which the press will go to protect their cushy jobs?