Month: March 2010

Friedersdorf notes how the distinction between a terror suspect and a terrorist does not seem to have occurred to the pro-torture right:

In his latest posts at The Corner, Andrew McCarthy continues to write as though every detainee ever held at Guantanamo Bay is a member of al Qaeda. Nowhere does he acknowledge that some people designated as enemy combatants by the Bush Administration were actually innocent, or that some of the lawyers he is maligning deserve credit for helping to free innocent men.

Had Mr. McCarthy’s preferred policies remained in effect, these innocent men would still be rotting in a Gitmo prison cell today. In that way, he transgresses against the core American principle that all men are endowed by their creator with an inalienable right to liberty. Mr. McCarthy’s writing on detainee issues would be far more intellectually honest if he acknowledged rather than elided the existence of these innocent people.

Instead he is escalating his attacks on lawyers who represent detainees both innocent and guilty, going so far to write at The Corner that “Islam and the Left are not perfectly aligned, but they are substantially aligned, much more so than most people realize… the issue isn’t so much whether, in a vacuum, Leftist lawyers are pro-al Qaeda or pro-Islamist. It is where their sympathies lie as between two opponents: the United States as it is and Islamism.”

Bob Barker at his creepiest:

Even Powerline's Mirengoff, a "great favorite" of Andy McCarthy, argues that his attacks on DOJ lawyers are worse than the Communist witch hunts:

Many of the wrongly accused leftists [in the 1950s] thought very badly of the U.S. Some I knew and have read about were appalled by racial segregation, deeply offended by the way income was distributed, and unhappy with important aspects of our foreign and national security policy including aspects of our policy towards the Soviet Union. But they didn't desire the expansion of Soviet power and they didn't favor the imposition of a communist system in the U.S. In my opinion, these individuals have much more in common with communists and the professed values of Soviet Communism than today's leftist lawyers have in common with al Qaeda and the Islamists. Yet, it was wrong to accuse them of being communists, pro-communist, communist sympathizers, Soviet agents, etc.

Could the tide be turning?

The Texas Freedom Network live-blogged the Texas Board of Education meeting to revise its social studies curriculum:

9:30 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar wants to change a standard having students study the impact of Enlightenment ideas on political revolutions from 1750 to the present. She wants to drop the reference to Enlightenment ideas (replacing with “the writings of”) and to Thomas Jefferson. She adds Thomas Aquinas and others. Jefferson’s ideas, she argues, were based on other political philosophers listed in the standards. We don’t buy her argument at all. Board member Bob Craig of Lubbock points out that the curriculum writers clearly wanted to students to study Enlightenment ideas and Jefferson. Could Dunbar’s problem be that Jefferson was a Deist? The board approves the amendment, taking Thomas Jefferson OUT of the world history standards.

(Hat tip: DJ Carella. Illustration via Buzzfeed)

Reviving a centuries' old debate, Ryan Sager wonders if the pain of paying taxes keeps them lower. Further thoughts at this blog:

[T]he complexity of a state’s tax structure is related to its having higher taxes. We know that a locality having a lot of renters leads to pressure for bigger government, because renters aren’t as aware of how tax costs get passed on to them as homeowners are. We know that when the government funds its spending with public debt the taxpayers are shielded from feeling the full cost of government, and thus they let it grow. All of these things, though, could be mere correlation, not causation — though, the trends are suggestive. The EZ-Pass study I write about in the piece, however, gets us a little closer to proving the causation: Easier to pay tolls equals higher tolls; and the toll increases are suddenly less responsive to the election calendar.

Larison reacts to Ross's op-ed with, well, a classic blog-post:

Perhaps one reason there is not much interest in exploring the tragic side of our politics is that Nemesis is ever-elusive. The ambition and pride of political leaders may lead to disaster, but the men whose ambition and pride fueled the calamity escape relatively unscathed. We have an abundance of hubris in our politics, and there are more than enough sins that invite punishment, but unlike the famous

figures of tragedy our leaders never answer for what they have done.

It is always “History” that is supposed to judge them. In the meantime, they walk away, and often enough they head off to a comfortable retirement. They remain unaccountable and surrounded by a small army of revisionists just waiting to rehabilitate their reputations in a few years’ time.

When that changes, perhaps we will have more complicated storytelling that does not simply vilify the people responsible for a great crime. However, since there will apparently be no accountability for our leaders in the real world, we may have to settle for the inadequate stories we have now.

Guess who:

[W]hat if we don't build in an exception for the so-called "liberal no's" — that is, simply take every vote at face value? It turns out, then, that [Artur Davis of AL-7] is no longer the least valuable Democrat. Instead, it is Dennis Kucinich, who voted against health care, the hate crimes bill, the budget, the cap-and-trade bill, and financial regulation — all ostensibly from the left — in spite of coming from from the strongly Democratic Ohio 10th district near Cleveland.

Mountain View, California, 9 am

Jonathan Bernstein pulls out the binoculars:

The big thing to look for is whether they keep to the timetable or not.  If Pelosi says something is going to happen on Tuesday and then comes back and says it won't happen until Thursday, they may be having problems.

The biggest positive sign that might be visible from the outside, apart from keeping the timetable, is commitments to vote yes.  I wouldn't pay much attention to commitments to vote no; that's essentially the default bargaining position.  But anyone who is in the swing position (wants the bill to pass, wants to vote no) who commits to a yes is almost certainly going to be a yes.

In a blogger confab today, Pelosi sounds bullish.