Category: Old Dish

Not a good week for Paul Krugman. He loses a huge chunk of his audience, his website no longer carries his most recent columns for free, and his occasional dishonesty as a journalist is attacked by the NYT’s own Public Editor. Gotta hurt. No amount of Bush-related unemployment or poverty could cheer him up. In the Geraldo-Stanley slug-fest, Geraldo scores a knock-out – and the umpire is the NYT’s! This really is a test of MSM versus blog accountability. Both Stanley and Krugman need to retract their untruths in their own words. Or someone needs to tell them to. It appears Gail Collins refuses to do her job, or cannot do it. So Sulzberger must surely step in and tell Krugman and Stanley that they must correct. It’s not that hard. We all screw up. I’ve run corrections when I’ve goofed, the most recent being here. But blog corrections are actually up-front on the blog itself, not minimized or buried in spinach, as Calame implies some significant NYT corrections are. Kudos to Calame for his balls; and to Keller for allowing him to expose even his own misjudgments. But this cannot be the end of this.

BEYOND PARODY I: I’m beginning to wonder whether the MSM writes up rallies by extremist anti-war groups from some kind of Politburo template devised by Michael Moore. What’s up with this:

Vast numbers of protesters from around the country poured onto the lawns behind the White House on Saturday to demonstrate their opposition to the war in Iraq … A sea of anti-administration signs and banners flashed back at a long succession of speakers blah blah blah

How many people were in DC? The reporter, Michael Janofsky, is, apparently, blind:

Organizers of the rally and march had a permit for 100,000 people, but the National Park Service no longer provides official estimates for large gatherings in Washington.

Memo to Janofsky: how many did you figure were there? I’ve seen no accounts that come even close to 100,000 and several that put the number at 2,000 or so. The NYT had two reporters there – Holli Chmela and Lakiesha Carr. Were they blind too? The piece was laughable, boilerplate propaganda, pure and simple.

BEYOND PARODY II: Still, this NYT piece brought a chuckle. Amtrak delays kept many of the throngs stuck in NYC:

A group of young women known as the radical cheerleaders, dressed in pleated short skirts, with pompoms made of plastic trash bags, shouted: “Let’s get on the right track. Get the troops out of Iraq.” Another chant went “Money for trains, not war.”

So now Iraq is responsible for delays in Amtrak?

In general, it’s a good idea for the administration not to expand existing entitlements for Katrina victims and to rely on once-only measures. In so far as they are doing that, good for them. Once you create an entitlement, it lives for ever. But this strikes me as bizarre:

Instead of offering $10,000 [rental housing] vouchers, FEMA is paying an average of $16,000 for each trailer in the new parks it is contemplating. Even many Republicans wonder why the government would want to build trailer parks when many evacuees are now living in communities with plenty of vacant, privately owned apartments.

We have a unique chance to fight poverty by dispersing some of New Orleans’ underclass across the country in places with empty rental markets. Instead, the Bush administration is creating trailer-ghettoes that cost more. Newt Gingrich is right to be livid. Isn’t this a no-brainer?

Picked up by Instapundit and the Corner as more evidence of wretched BBC anti-American bias, I read the piece assailed by Ann Althouse. It’s an opinion piece, not news reporting, so obviously a little more lee-way for bias should be allowed. And yes, there’s a bizarre assumption that there is no welfare net in America – or that we haven’t just expanded it to cover millions of wealthy seniors, or that welfare rolls haven’t been reduced by almost a half in a few years, and so on. Statements like this – “But the system’s fundamentals – no limit on how far you can fly and little limit on how low you can fall – remain as intact as they were in the San Francisco gold rush” – are so nutty and ill-informed that you have to wonder whether the guy knows anything about 20th century American history. But here are other sections of the piece, which do not seem to me to be anti-American bias:

Speeding along a relatively unscathed motorway between the wonderfully exotic-sounding towns of Pascagoula and Biloxi, I switched on the car radio and heard the tobacco-stained drawl of a southern politician comparing the destruction in his district to that of Hiroshima.
Tasteless I thought. A typical example of American inability to see that suffering in other nations at other times dwarfs anything the average American ever sees.
Then we arrived in Biloxi, Mississippi.
The real question is whether there is going to be a revolution
There are streets where nothing stands, corners where one house or one wall has survived. Everything around it is matchwood.
The destruction is awe inspiring. After 10 minutes in the town, the Hiroshima comparison seems less jarring.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that stand as an example of the BBC criticizing its own knee-jerk anti-Americanism? Glenn Reynolds echoes the judgment that this piece is “unbelievably smug.” Did he read it? Then there’s this:

Charity is part of the warp and weft of American life and it is telling that Hurricane Katrina has encouraged an outpouring of giving on a scale never seen before.
Americans are cross with the government and disappointed with the response from Washington, but they have not sat on their hands and waited for the government to sort itself out. Much the opposite.
Americans have given with unbridled enthusiasm and generosity.
Is that not something governments do? Americans do not think so and never will.
This is unquestionably a source of strength and spine in troubled times, but boy does it put a dampener on revolution.

Well, yes. But there’s a small matter of $200 billion in federal aid. And who on earth thinks ‘revolution’ is now some kind of necessary event in the most succesful, powerful and wealthiest country on the planet? This was a dumb and ill-informed piece. But if you’re going to pick on BBC bias, and there’s plenty of material, this seems pretty milque-toast to me. And it undermines legitimate criticism of the Beeb to single it out.

From the stage at the far left anti-war rally today in D.C.:

“[Name of Missing Person]… Please meet your Mom at the Socialist Liberation tent. I repeat: [Name of Missing Person] Please meet your Mom at the Socialist Liberation tent. Thank you.”

Monty Python meets Bush’s most effective, if unwitting, allies.

“Well, yes. As Americans, we should be ashamed that we’re systematically torturing our enemies (real and imagined).
Most of us are not, though, and I hope your starry-eyed optimism about the great people of this country will allow you to see the truth. It’s true, the media has done a crummy job of exposing our government’s approval of torture. And it’s true, the government itself has – as governments always do – done its best to hide the truth.
But let’s be honest about this, Andrew . . . There have been enough vivid reports, enough stomach-turning photos, that anybody who has the slightest amount of interest must know what’s been happening since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. And the fact is that if we really cared, we would have demanded, from our political and military leaders, some real accountability. We haven’t demanded anything because we do not, in the end, care about people from other countries, particularly if those people 1) don’t look like (most of) us, and 2) might wish us harm.
We like to think we’re special. We’re not. Which is why we need laws that are enforced, and responsible adults in positions of great power. At the moment, I’m afraid we have neither.”

For further evidence, check out the most trafficked sites of the conservative blogosphere, Instapundit, Powerline, National Review, Michelle Malkin, Little Green Footballs, Hugh Hewitt, and Red State. Yes, there’s other news. But the universal silence is telling, I think. Defending this adminsitration’s record on the treatment of detainees is simply impossible any more. So let’s forget the past, shall we? Can we have an agreement that the McCain-Graham proposed legislation to legally enshrine new detention policies that bar inhumane treatment should be passed as soon as possible?

Joe Gandelman is furnishing news to the blogosphere. But this surely is a story for which television is irreplaceable.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “You honor A.O. Scott for connecting Barbara Bush’s ill-conceived remarks of a few weeks ago with the similar benevolence of authority figures (such as our beloved Mr. Bumble) in Oliver Twist. Ordinarily, I’d be inclined to give you the benefit (er, Begala) of a doubt — I’m often at loggerheads with Mr. Scott’s reviews, after all — but in this case, having just finished rereading Oliver Twist, I must confess that a similar thought flashed through my mind on several occasions, particularly here:

The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered — the poor people liked it! It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all the year round; a brick-and-mortar elysium where it was all play and no work.

True, this…insight lead to “reform” (in the form of the New Poor Laws of 1834, if I’m not mistaken), but its perspective (if not its afflatus) seems eerily similar to that of many leading Republicans, such as Babs Bush and fat fleeser par excellence Tom Delay. If you’re going to give anyone a Begala award, better give it to Mr. Dickens himself.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “This president believes government should be limited not in size, Jon, but in effectiveness. In terms of effectiveness, this is the most limited administration we’ve ever had.” – Rob Corddry, the Daily Show, concisely summarizing Bush “conservatism”. And, no, we have never been spotted in the same room.

Just read the latest account of what has happened to some of the U.S. military under this administration. Be sure to compare it with the propaganda put out only yesterday by National Review on this very subject. I have been trying to raise the alarm about what has really been going on for a while. But the abuse and torture claims have been dismissed or ignored. But even the torture-denialists will be unable to ignore this new material. It beggars belief. That this could be America. That this president’s abandonment of the legal ban on inhumane treatment of military detainees has brought us to this:

The new allegations center around systematic abuse of Iraqi detainees by men of the 82nd Airborne at Camp Mercury, a forward operating base located near Fallujah, the scene of a major uprising against the U.S. occupation in April 2004, according to sources familiar with the report and accounts given by the Captain, who is in his mid-20s, to Senate staff. Much of the abuse allegedly occurred in 2003 and 2004, before and during the period the Army was conducting an internal investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, but prior to when the abuses at Abu Ghraib became public. Other alleged abuses described in the Human Rights report occurred at Camp Tiger, near Iraq’s border with Syria, and previously in Afghanistan. In addition, the report details what the Captain says was his unsuccessful effort over 17 months to get the attention of military superiors. Ultimately he approached the Republican senators.

The Human Rights Watch report-as well as accounts given to Senate staff-describe officers as aware of the abuse but routinely ignoring or covering it up, amid chronic confusion over U.S. military detention policies and whether or not the Geneva Convention applied. The Captain is quoted in the report describing how military intelligence personnel at Camp Mercury directed enlisted men to conduct daily beatings of prisoners prior to questioning; to subject detainees to strenuous forced exercises to the point of unconsciousness; and to expose them to extremes of heat and cold-all methods designed to produce greater cooperation with interrogators. Non-uniformed personnel-apparently working for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to the soldiers-also interrogated prisoners. The interrogators were out of view but not out of earshot of the soldiers, who overheard what they came to believe was abuse.

Specific instances of abuse described in the Human Rights Watch report include severe beatings, including one incident when a soldier allegedly broke a detainee’s leg with a metal bat. Others include prisoners being stacked in human pyramids (unlike the human pyramids at Abu Ghraib, the prisoners at Camp Mercury were clothed); soldiers administering blows to the face, chest and extremities of prisoners; and detainees having their faces and eyes exposed to burning chemicals, being forced into stress positions for long periods leading to unconsciousness and having their water and food withheld.

The full, harrowing report can be read here. This is not enemy propaganda. This is the testimony of decent American soldiers so appalled by what they were witnessing that they felt compelled, after being ignored by their superiors and the administration, to go directly to senators to get their complaints aired. Rumsfeld must resign. Now.

“THIS WAS THE NORM”: “I would be told, ‘These guys were IED [improvised explosive device] trigger men last week.’ So we would fuck them up. Fuck them up bad … At the same time we should be held to a higher standard. I know that now. It was wrong. There are a set of standards. But you gotta understand, this was the norm. Everyone would just sweep it under the rug.” – a decorated army captain in Iraq. Will people open their eyes now?

“LAURA INGRAHAM: If you need someone to be that military spokesperson over in Iraq, I’m happy to give up my microphone any time, Mr. Secretary. Any time you call I’ll be happy to jump over there.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: You’re terrific, Laura. Thanks so much.” – “journalist” Laura Ingraham, offering to be an official spokesperson for the Bush administration on Iraq. Why pay her, when she’ll do it for free over here?

A year ago, 27-year old quadriplegic, Jonathan Magbie, died in a D.C. jail for lack of a respirator. Why was he in jail? He smoked marijuana to alleviate his suffering. If D.C. residents (citizens is too elevated a word) had the democratic rights of, say, Basra, medical marijuana would be legal and the poor guy would never have been jailed. But jailing a quadriplegic in the first place? In a prison that didn’t have the respirator he needed? The man’s family is now suing the city. D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith E. Retchin, who sentenced Magbie, is an incompetent and a monster.

Just a quick but heart-felt thank you to the Washington Post Opinions Section for reaching out to the blogosphere this past week. Traffic surged and emails poured in. What a contrast with the bunker mentality at the NYT. For all of you who are new readers and enjoyed the site, now’s the time to bookmark it and come back often. Please do. Let the WaPo know you support their experiment – opinions@washingtonpost.com – and maybe suggest a few names for the next guest blogger.

TWO NEW BLOGS: Well worth a visit. The first is libertarian Cathy Young‘s, who’s invariably worth reading. The second is a blog dedicated to covering one the most despicable regimes in the planet – Burma’s. The truth is out there.