Month: November 2009

Ezra Klein interviews Greg Koger, the author of an upcoming book on the filibuster. Koger:

The benefit to the majority can be that public attention focuses. They know the bill is there and they know the Republicans are blocking it. That becomes the basis for news coverage. When will the bill be done? What's going on today? In that sense, you can win. The point is not that you exhaust the Republicans, but that you embarrass them. X number of people died today. I hope that whatever you had to say was more important.

Today on the Dish we aired reaction from Ambinder and Marcy Wheeler over news that KSM and others will stand trial in a civilian court near Ground Zero. Andrew reacted to word that Obama will tackle the deficit head-on next year. He also responded to Dreher's questioning of him remaining a Catholic and laid into Hannity's corruption of conservatism.

In advance of the Oprah interview airing on Monday, we discovered that Palin will go after McCain staffers, her book has little accuracy, it also has no index, and that she is "too dumb" for Althouse.

Most of all, we learned that Palin wanted to sue the Dish.

— C.B.

A reader writes:

I really have to chime in on this topic. I spent the better part of last year deployed to Afghanistan, where I was stationed at Bagram. Part of my job, actually the most important part, was to coordinate the transfer of my unit's fallen back home. This was something that I never, ever looked forward to, but it was a duty I took very seriously. Part of this duty was a departure ceremony as our fallen left Afghanistan for Dover. I don't think you can ever realize how powerful these ceremonies are until you've taken part in one.

At Bagram, all personnel not performing an essential task would line up on the main drive through Bagram. As the open backed HUMMV carrying the flagged draped transfer case slowly proceeded from the mortuary down the main drive to the airfield, everyone would come to attention and render a salute. There would be thousands of people, soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, lined up as for this. The fallen hero would be taken on to the tarmac and driven to an empty C-17 that had its ramp lowered, waiting to receive the transfer case. An honor guard and a cordon, as well as hundreds of servicemen and women, would be silently standing at attention as an honor guard carried the remains to the center of the aircraft. Whenever possible I would arrange for the honor guard and cordon to come from the fallen's team or platoon. Always, always, always, they wanted to be the ones to perform this service.

The last fallen hero ramp ceremony I put together still stings in my memory.

Ramadan had just ended, it was the first few weeks of autumn. A few kilometers from our base one of our police mentoring teams (PMT) was almost attacked by a vehicle bourne improvised explosive device (VBIED). I say almost as the attack was thwarted by one of our HUMMV drivers who took evasive action. Unfortunately, this resulted in the rollover of the HUMMV which caused the death of the driver. I was at the mortuary when the MEDEVAC helicopter brought this young man's broken body in to be prepared for the journey home.

The rest of his team were brought to Bagram as well. They were very adamant that they be the ones to escort the fallen brother to the C17. Although dirty and disheveled from their encounter, I agreed as I am certain their brother would have had it no other way. To a man, they wanted me to know one essential fact about him: he was Muslim. They insisted that he be sent home with a Muslim cleric presiding. We had one at Bagram, a major who was an Islamic chaplain – in fact I had dinner with this man just a few nights prior. We were able to grant the PMT's request.

I do not have the words to adequately describe the emotion in the night air on the tarmac. Under a crescent moon the fallen hero was carried onto the C17 by his team brothers, followed by the honor guard, the Commanding General and Command Sergeant Major of the 101st Airborne, and of course the Muslim chaplain.

(Photo: U.S. Army soldiers stand together as salute during the playing of taps at the memorial service that U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attended for the thirteen victims of the shooting rampage allegedly by U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan on November 10, 2009 in Fort Hood, Texas. Hasan, an army psychiatrist, is accused of killed 13 people and wounded 30 in a shooting at the military base on November 5, 2009. By Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

I've heard it before from a source very close to her – a source who also told me that Palin was obsessed with this blog for much of the campaign. But today a Wall Street Journal reporter also came across that story, asked me for comment and is publishing it tomorrow. Apparently, the idea was quashed because it was thought a libel suit wouldn't work (duh) and it would only give me and the Dish more publicity (double duh). Much better to ignore me completely, and to smear me as a loon, and get Palin lapdog Howie Kurtz to do your dirty work, as the campaign wisely did.

But two thoughts: has she ever heard of discovery?

Since the only point of my asking factually verifiable questions about her deeply strange accounts of her fifth pregnancy was to get at the truth of the matter and resolve it for good and all, a libel suit would only have enabled me to really answer the salient questions – questions the McCain itself never asked her and were too mortified to look into after it was too late. 

Secondly, it's obvious such a libel suit would have failed. It is not libel to ask a politician to verify a public claim relevant to her campaign that seems weird on inspection, especially when the verification would have been easy. But to Palin, such questions were outrageous!

Palin believes that asking questions of a public figure that she doesn't like is a form of lese-majeste, or insufficient deference. Now imagine what that kind of paranoid attitude would mean if she had ever parachuted into the Oval Office thanks to a temper-tantrum by John McCain.

DiA finds that drug reformers are in good spirits:

What's changed. There have been a few movements at the federal level, such as the administration's decision not to target federal dispensaries. As the drug-policy reformers generally get less attention or even lip service than the other groups mentioned above, they may be happier with smaller gains. There have also been several victories in the states, and there is a growing belief here that, because of congressional and presidential shirking of the issue, any national reform will be driven by momentum from the states.

Some of the advocates here seem to find that a bit chicken. Aaron Houston, the director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project, said that he's been trying to convince congresspeople (even among the Republicans and the Blue Dogs) that if they just come out in favour of reform they will tap a great silent source of votes: "You've got a large nexus between people who love their guns and people who love their pot! It really is a sleeper issue." That might be a slightly ambitious sell. But it is not surprising that the reformers are feeling more optimistic.

Here's a strange comment by Winfrey in the tiny clip we've been offered of the looming book interview. It was referring to the Katie Couric interview:

"You talk about it in the book so I assume everything in there is fair game."

One wonders: did Winfrey agree in advance that the only valid questions were about the contents of the book? Is Palin once again setting parameters for interviewers, and what they can and cannot ask? Are we going to endure that farce all over again?

The sealing of Palin off from substantive, real questions is a real issue. Now she's a celebrity and not even posing as a politician, it's less outrageous than the MSM's cowardice and weakness in the campaign. But she has not ruled out a political office in future and she sure is a political figure. We learn again that the media in this country are not actually interested in truth; they are interested in ratings and entertainment. 

Larison battles with Ambers over the meaning of the adjective:

[T]here is something that makes Romney less trustworthy than most, and this is the earnestness with which he embraces his new positions, as if he thinks he has outsmarted his audience and made us forget that he believed the opposite just five seconds before. Romney is probably the only politician who could make me have respect for Rudy Giuliani by comparison. Giuliani at least believes what he believes and isn’t interested in changing that for a few votes.

Modeled Behavior doesn't understand why we don't just sign longer leases:

I suspect that people want the collateral value of the home. That is, they want a large piece of property that they can readily borrow against. When people say owning a home provides security, what they really mean is “the ability to take out a second mortgage when things get rough” provides security…I am not sure what the implication for this are but it seems to me that it represents some type of dysfunction in financial markets or human discounting. Why is it better to accumulate a security through home equity rather than savings?