Month: August 2009

It is in many ways the weirdest shard of reporting from those years, and its testimony is from no less than the former president of France:

Is this true? I haven't seen it denied and it's barely been reported stateside. And did Bush actually believe that talking like an end-times evangelical was a good way to persuade the president of France? Agog.

Matthew Cooper blogs a political eulogy:

There's something comic and familiar, of course, about a Louisiana politician going to jail. We've come to expect colorful rogues in jumpsuit orange. There's something more tragic to the fall of William Jefferson. Maybe because he was the state's first African American congressman since Reconstruction or maybe it's because he's a Harvard-trained lawyer. […] Jefferson's arrival in Congress in 1991 was another sign of the rise of biracial politics in the South even if the district had been made still blacker to all but ensure the election of an African American.

The hopeful sign here is the 2nd district itself. Surprising almost everyone, the longtime Democratic district elected a Republican, Joseph Cao, who is of Vietnamese origin. He's the first native of Vietnam to serve in Congress, a sign that just as corruption remains endemic in American politics so does fluidity and surprise.

"In an effort to honor the life and service of Strom Thurmond, Senator Lott made some comments that he probably wishes he had phrased differently. I do not believe Senator Lott meant to be malicious or racist with the comments he made. I believe he was merely honoring a great American on his 100th birthday […] I do not believe he harbors racist sentiments in his heart," – Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), December 13, 2002.

"There is no other way you can interpret [Sotomayor's "wise Latina" speech]. She thinks that a woman with her experience can make a better conclusion than a white male – and to me, I consider that racist," – Inhofe, August 4, 2009.

(Hat tip: Ian Millhiser)

NIAC explains:

Also there is this poster, which describes a “new Nokia product, produced with the cooperation of the Islamic Republic of Iran” that is “capable of identifying, torturing and killing Iranian youth.” These images show Iranian anger against the wireless company after it was revealed to have provided the Iranian government with sensitive surveillance technology that aided in the post-election crackdown.

Obama was there in 2008; and yesterday in 2009. Worth watching both. One word about Matt Welch's gripe against my support for the cash-for-clunkers program. He accuses me first of being an "ideological shape-shifter." But my own understanding of conservatism properly understood is that it is un-ideological, and actually anti-ideological. It has a predisposition to favor individual liberty and limited government and prudent foreign policy, but it is capable of adjusting pragmatically to new times and new problems. Unlike libertarians, conservatives – even those of us on the libertarian edge of conservatism – do believe government has a role beyond minimal protection. I believe in environmental protection, for example, and have done my entire life. I believe in free secondary education and government supported higher education.

I've changed on a few issues; while I remain opposed to Roe, I've shifted toward accepting abortions in the first trimester; I've also shifted against my once unchastened belief in the utility of American military power to advance democracy (I was, however, against intervention in Somalia and Rwanda); and I've begun to worry that the last few decades have opened up too big an inequality gap in America for political stability in the long run.

These are shifts, yes. But they are good faith attempts to learn from mistakes and history and adjust to new circumstances.

Now to Matt's subject at hand: cash for clunkers. It has flaws. But my support for it rested on the one issue Matt doesn't mention: short-term stimulus. I can see a role for government in a steep and spiraling depression to spend money to prevent the thing getting worse. And the more immediate and targeted the program the better. The C4C program has indeed provided a boost to the auto industry, and has led to modest gains in fuel efficiency. These things do benefit everyone. Not much; but a little. And when government does something right, in an atypical circumstance, I see no ideological or visceral reason to oppose it.

An email from a reader who is opposed to the status quo in American healthcare:

A couple years ago I was lying in bed trying to sleep off a fever. I woke up to the phone, and let it go to the answering machine because I wasn’t getting up for anything at that moment. It was my fiancee and while I couldn’t make out any words from the other room, I could recognize from the tone that she needed something. Annoyed, I finally got out of bed and replayed the message and was simply horrified.

She had been in a car accident. She said she needed me to pick her up take her to the hospital. She was too afraid to take the ambulance that was already there. She was terrified that it would bankrupt her.

This might sound crazy to some people, but this was not an unreasonable expectation on her part. It would would not be the first time in her life that a car accident would do this to her. It’s hard to express the shock that went with hearing this. Here was a woman who in her first car accident had broken her back, yet what was nearly bringing her to tears this time was the fear that she would once again be losing years to fighting for her financial life. She wasn’t even 30 years old then. The rest of the story is me picking her up from the street corner, taking her to the hospital, spending the hours with her in the waiting room. She ended up having some minor burns (from the airbag) and bruising and needing a leg brace for a couple weeks, but things were manageable this time for the most part, including the bills. But the point remains, and there's no denying it; If people in this country can actually be afraid of emergency services, there is something very wrong in our system.

The Dish is eager to post emails detailing the flaws in the current system from your own experiences. Please put the word "sickbed" in the title.

Under the headline "Clinton Calls For Accountability in Kenya," the NYT's reports

Kenya’s judicial system […] is often accused of perpetuating the nation’s culture of impunity. […] Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court at the Hague have vowed to get involved if the Kenyan government fails to prosecute the top suspects [of last year's post-election war crimes], possibly including government ministers. On Wednesday, the Kenyan foreign minister said that this was still an option. But Mrs. Clinton said Kenya should handle the process itself. It is “far preferable that prosecutors, judges and law enforcement officials step up to their responsibility,” she said.

Well, well. Take it away, Glenn Greenwald:

We need to teach those Kenyans that if they don't prosecute their criminals in high office, then they'll perpetuate their "culture of impunity," and that would be awful.  Those Kenyans apparently fail to understand that if you immunize high political officials when they commit crimes, that creates a "culture of impunity" – I love that phrase — which ensures future rampant criminality in the political class.  How can those Kenyans not realize this?

Clinton's sentiments echoed what Obama told Africans when he spoke in Ghana last month, when he demanded that they apply "the rule of law, which ensures the equal administration of justice" and vowed that "we will stand behind efforts to hold war criminals accountable" — meaning African war criminals.  As we send murderous, crusading civilian [Blackwater] units around the world to accompany our invading armies  — while ushering a regime of torture wherever we go — and then announcing we will only Look to the Future, Not the Past, when their crimes are exposed (despite our best efforts to keep them concealed), do we actually expect anyone to take these sermons seriously?

A PSA from Brazil. Like I needed the tip:

(Hat tip: Lou Gold.)

A reader writes:

As a proud former Burqueño I have to tell you that the caption on the post titled "329" is simply wrong. The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta has mass ascensions of balloons numbering in the upper hundreds every year, and was as large as 1,000 before organizers limited the number of balloons a few years ago.

Sky News, among other sources, reported the French launch as a world record. But unless there is some nuanced criteria involved, those reports are wrong. According to a NYT article from 2007:

The festival also includes fireworks, concerts, a wine festival and a classic car show, but the launchings of over 700 balloons from a 78-acre grass field at Balloon Fiesta Park is the unquestioned highlight.

Another reader sends a photo gallery from Albuquerque last year:

"What is it about Afghanistan, possessing next to nothing that the United States requires, that justifies such lavish attention? In Washington, this question goes not only unanswered but unasked. Among Democrats and Republicans alike, with few exceptions, Afghanistan’s importance is simply assumed—much the way fifty years ago otherwise intelligent people simply assumed that the United States had a vital interest in ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. As then, so today, the assumption does not stand up to even casual scrutiny," – Andy Bacevich, Commonweal.