Month: October 2009

Missing The Big Story I

Andrew Cohen switches on the red siren:

You wouldn’t know it from Wednesday morning’s media coverage, but the Senate’s passage Tuesday evening of a measure to allow Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainees into the United States for trial marks a watershed in the history of terror law since September 11, 2001. It is one of the most productive developments in the sorry history of the prisoners since then-President George W. Bush authorized military commissions in November, 2001. […] It is no coincidence that Congress acted Tuesday just hours after the Supreme Court announced it would hear yet another case involving the detainees—this time one challenging the government’s ability to preclude the release of ethnic Chinese prisoners.

Daphne Eviatar was all over the story. She notes, among many things, that there is still a fight over those specifically involved in 9/11:

The administration has promised to make its final decision on where to try the 9/11 suspects by Nov. 16. Fearing that the administration is inching toward bringing them to New York City or the Washington, D.C., area, opponents of trying high-level terrorists in U.S. federal courts are stepping up their efforts to keep the five men out of the United States for any purpose. On Oct. 9, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he’d attached an amendment to an appropriations bill that would prohibit the Obama administration from spending money on prosecuting and trying these five alleged terrorists in U.S. civilian federal courts. […] The bill, H.R.2847, is pending in the Senate as an amendment to an appropriations bill.

The Bribe Fails

Good for the Republicans and those Democrats who balked at an unfunded $247 billion bribe to doctors to keep taking Medicare patients. The key word here is unfunded. It’s fiscally, well, Bush-like, to add this to the debt without offering any way to pay for it. Yes, the GOP is principle-free: their fiscal conservatism only applies when the Democrats are in charge. But it’s nonetheless the right thing to do.

An NPR-Limbaugh Smackdown?

A reader writes:

You should check out NPR's report on Morning Edition this morning about Limbaugh's call for Andrew Revkin to kill himself. I found it very interesting, because it did not take the typical form for this sort of story. In the past I think the mainstream media has let itself be baited by Fox/Limbaugh/etc. wherein the Becks and Limbaughs manufacture a controversy out of thin air, and then the mainstream media report on the "controversy" and lend it legitimacy. Today's report was different. It was almost entirely a fawning profile of Revkin (and his blog), with Limbaugh's comments basically just the news hook. There was a bit of a defense of his comments at the end of the report, but it felt to me like almost an afterthought.

I found it interesting, because it may signal a new tactic in the media wars.

It was as if NPR decided that, instead of giving Limbaugh more attention, they would give the attention largely to his innocent victim. It seems sort of jujitsu–turn Limbaugh's energy against him by promoting exactly what he attacks. Rush and Morning Edition are the number one and two highest-rated radio shows, so a more active battle between those two would be fascinating, and could be a sign that the mainstream (left-leaning) press has finally realized that they should stop being so cowed by these absurd characters on the right. I have to think that NPR would have the upper hand in this battle. I doubt any of Rush's listeners were reading Revkin prior to his attack, but this NPR-listener is going to check out his blog. Well done Rush: You just gave Revkin a few thousand more readers.

Whose Country? Ctd

A reader writes:

My husband and I adopted an African-American infant 7 years ago. It has been a revelation. But the moment, and I can pinpoint it to the day, I internalized that our nation is black as much as anything else, was the

day I went to a family reunion.

My maternal ancestors are the descendants of the owners of the Middleton Plantation in South Carolina. Several years ago they had a reunion of all the Middleton descendants, combined with a reunion of all the descendants of the slaves of the Middleton planation. At first we were going to take our daughter, but the dissonance of the descendent of the slave owners taking his descendent-of-slaves daughter to that reunion was too much. I went alone with my mother.

I met and became friends with a distant cousin, descendant of slaves and a slave owner, and I learned a lot about the history and genealogy of the slaves and a more nuanced history of my own ancestry. I had moments of deep reflection, pain and confusion. That reunion has set me on a journey that has made it quite clear to me that we (and I) are black, and white, native and much more. We are not half, we are all of each.

Today, on our wall, is our family map. On it are arrows, originating in Western African, Eastern North America, Central America, Northern Europe, Southern Europe and several other places, with way points along their trajectories of Massachusetts, Virginia, Mexico, Utah, Arkansas, South Carolina and several others, all ending at our house in San Francisco.

Because, like America, that is what our family is.

British Politics Goes Viral

Political reform, that is:

From OpenUpNow.org:

It’s a space for every Briton who cares about our country’s future. It’s the sum total of everyone who signs this petition. Open Up’s goal is to promote real, positive and long-term changes to the way our country is run; to increase transparency, fairness and accountability in elections and government; and to challenge the culture of patronage that defines our political system today.

For those new to the parliamentary system, Britain does not directly nominate its candidates (although the Tories have now started open primaries among pre-selected candidates and Labour’s Miliband supports the idea). The duck reference?

A five foot tall floating duck house claimed from the public purse by Tory grandee Sir Peter Viggers has become one of the most bizarre items so far uncovered in the MPs’ expenses investigation.

Further explanation of open primaries here. Sign the petition here.

Any Smear Will Do, Ctd

McArdle counters Drezner:

Believe me, people were obsessed with the dollar during the Bush era, too.  Obsession with the value of the currency seems to be baked into the DNA of the right for some reason.  If it's not the sliding dollar, it's gold buggery or petrodollars. 

A large segment of the right ascribes almost magical properties to fixed currency, like the ability to keep the government from borrowing too much money.  This is belied by the long history of government's on commodity or currency pegs borrowing a great deal of money, and then defaulting and/or revaluing.  It is also belied by the fact that the government cannot actually borrow a ton of money in the expectation of inflating away the debt, because neither the bondholders nor the Fed are particularly likely to go along.  But for a lot of the right, still, what is good for the US dollar is what is good for America–and what is good for the US dollar is simply being worth as much as possible relative to other currencies.

Is it possible to be a conservative any more without being this crude?

Quote For The Day

"If I were putting money on the future of gay marriage, I would bet on it. The secular arguments against gay marriage, when they aren't just based on bigotry or custom, tend to be abstract in ways that don't find purchase in American political discourse. I say, ‘Institutional support for reproduction,' you say, ‘I love my boyfriend and I want to marry him.' Who wins that debate? You win that debate." – Ross Douthat.

Whose Country? Ctd

The emails keep pouring in. A reader writes:

Consider how long one of America’s chief exports has been its culture. Now think about what form that culture takes: Music, art, consumer goods, movies, all have huge “black” influence. If we were simply following the Western European lead, do you think that people would line up to hear/taste/see that? I think not. They want our stuff because it isn’t bland, because homogeneity is boring.

Another adds:

To the "southern white man" who wrote in today: I felt the same way when I visited southern Africa a few years ago and was wondering whether my hunch about the cultural similarities was right. I'm originally from Mississippi, and there's a warmth in Africa that feels very much like the American South.