Nitpicker

Bachmann suddenly hates using kids as political props

2011-12-07T16:54:00.005-07:00

Michele Bachmann says, "I just think it’s reprehensible when someone uses a little child to advance a political agenda."

Um...

I guess she means a liberal political agenda. Or maybe she didn't notice all those children waving signs they most likely didn't understand at Tea Parties.

It would also be a little bit easier to take her complaint (with which I actually agree) a bit more seriously if it weren't for the fact she brings up her 5 kids and 23 foster kids every five minutes.

Romney thinks Americans are lazy

2011-11-22T19:34:00.003-07:00

This video clearly meets the "Romney Standard."

More here.

Obama owes Barnum an apology

2011-09-09T03:45:00.003-07:00

If you were having a discussion with someone and mentioned that you hated racists, only to have a person respond incongruously and vehemently that you shouldn't have called him a racist, wouldn't you suspect that person protests too much? That he actually does have racist views and realizes it? By that same logic, I think Michelle Bachmann realizes she's a clown.

Pontius Perry

2011-09-08T17:57:00.001-07:00

Go read Tom Junod.

Media bias: the proof

2011-09-07T06:45:00.000-07:00

Remember when Terry Moran was "admitting" that "anti-military bias" was a problem in the media?

There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong.

Well, it seems now there's some proof of bias in military coverage, but it works the other way. Matthew Schofield was a Kansas City Star reporter in Iraq in 2006 and covered a possible war crime in Iraq in which it was alleged that "US forces had handcuffed and then "executed" 10 people in the home of Faiz Harrat Al-Majma'ee" then "called in an airstrike that destroyed the house" to cover up evidence. The release of a formerly secret document by Wikileaks suggests that the UN investigator believed these charges which the Pentagon dismissed. Schofield spoke to Salon's Justin Elliott about his coverage of the event and it is, to my mind, shocking to see how much bias colored his views

What did we learn from the cable just released by WikiLeaks?

One, it shows different sources of information than what I was dealing with. It shows that officialdom was concerned about this. They were not admitting they were concerned when we were on the story back then. They gave much more credence to the story than they had suggested to the press at the time. Behind the scenes, there was a great deal of concern over what exactly had happened there.

The cable outlines pretty much exactly what the worst-case scenario was when we were reporting on it. I didn't really pursue the worst-case scenario because I didn't believe it was possible. We looked into it and we reported on the allegations at the time, but we were always looking for other explanations, for other ways this could have happened. This cable seems focused on that worst-case scenario, which I found fascinating.

So, get this:

Ten people--including "five children under the age of five, the youngest being five months old"--were killed.
Schofield's stringer on the ground told him he was being given wrong information by the DoD, to which military spokespeople eventually admitted.
The American-trained Iraqi police who investigated the incident said the killings were "execution-style killings."
US military investigators who dismissed the charges spent less than an hour on the ground.

Despite all that, Schofield admits he "didn't really pursue the worst-case scenario because I didn't believe it was possible."

Tell me again the one about the biased reporter...

Rights are not based on merit

2011-09-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

Today, Jay Nordlinger, in his NRO blog Impromptus (a low-rent Page 6 for people who still believe in voodoo economics), made the following statement:

In the summer of 2001, a minor miracle occurred: Harvard named a president who respected the U.S. military. He was Lawrence Summers. He has an article in the current New Republic, recalling how it was.

“While university presidents are routinely called upon to be on hand to cheer athletic triumphs and to lend their presence to student cultural performances, no Harvard president spoke at an ROTC commissioning ceremony from 1969 until 2002.”

And I had forgotten — or never knew — this repulsive fact: “Harvard refused to permit undergraduates doing their ROTC training at MIT to note their service in the Harvard yearbook.”

You have to wonder whether these SOBs really deserved the protection of the U.S. military.

Apparently that was dashed off a bit more impromptu than most of his posts, since many of his readers wrote to point out that was a bit much. Nordlinger ~~apologized~~ implied they were acting like children ("Come on. Look both ways before you cross the street, too. And don’t swim on a full stomach.") and defended his post:

In defense of my venom and hyperbole: I said “deserved” — “really deserved the protection of the U.S. military.” Often, it’s right to extend protection to people who don’t necessarily deserve it.

Is any of this important? Is a tossed-off comment by a silly conservative writer worth mentioning and highlighting? After all, there's nothing new about "patriotic" right-wingers hating on their fellow Americans when those Americans act in ways "conservatives" don't like — Nordlinger himself once wrote this "is, in many ways, a sick country" because a supposed "friend" of his said she hated Sarah Palin. Her vitriol toward Palin, you see, was somehow inexplicable despite Palin's role as the McCain campaign's attack dog. His argument that some Americans shouldn't get the protection of the military because of their views that the ROTC leads to militarism is, on the other hand, defensible "venom and hyperbole." (He goes on in his own defense, though, and actually makes it all worse, showing that he both doesn't understand the term "Nuclear Free Zone" and that he really does think it would be "kind of cool" if some Americans received less protection than others*.)

So, why bother even mentioning this? Because I think it gets to a root problem in the current "conservative" zeitgeist, a belief that government exists to serve and defend the "deserving."

Rather than believing that all people deserve a government that treats them fairly and equally, "conservatives" today believe citizens must earn basic rights by thinking, living and just generally being the way they want. This is becoming more and more obvious. If you decide you don't want the military at your private university**, you don't deserve military protection. If you use government programs Republicans don't believe in, then you don't deserve to vote (someone should tell the Tea Partiers). If you're not a citizen, you don't deserve to be protected from crime. If you're not a member of the preferred religion then you don't deserve First Amendment protections (because Saudi Arabia should be our role model or something).

According to modern right wingers, people have to earn the right to, well, rights. Deciding someone is "deserving," however, is inherently subjective, so people on the right have decided to make it simple. Think the "wrong" thing, act in a way that conservatives don't like or just be the wrong kind of person and you can kiss those rights goodbye. Government, they seem to believe, is just a way to reward the deserving and we all know who that is, don't we?

Don't worry, though. Nordlinger's just being hyperbolic right? After all, he says it's "often...right to extend protection to people who don’t necessarily deserve it." Often, but not, you know, always.

* Nordlinger writes, "I remember back in the Reagan ’80s, when little places like my Ann Arbor, Mich., were declaring themselves 'nuclear-free zones.' I used to think, 'Yeah, but the American nuclear deterrent protects you regardless.' I also thought, 'Wouldn’t it be kind of cool if places like Ann Arbor could actually exempt themselves? If there could be precise holes in the nuclear umbrella? Maybe Dr. Teller could set his mind to it?'" In other words, Nordlinger, who grew up in Ann Arbor, thinks it would be kind of cool if future Nordlingers were deprived of military protection because their local government disagrees with militarism. Complicated, this democracy stuff. He's also written that he has "been teased or damned all my life for my pro-American views..." While I'm tempted to call bullshit on this — I doubt very much Nordlinger was "teased" for "pro-American views" unless he went to school dressed like Uncle Sam to drive the point home — it does make some sense that a lot of this might be driven by his inner, stunted, weeping adolescent Nordlinger, crying out, "Oh yeah, just wait till we really don't protect you from the Russkies! That'll teach you to pick on me!"

** I disagree with this policy because, in my experience in the military, ROTC officers not only seemed to be the better officers, but ROTC training seemed to have the opposite effect its critics suppose. Rather than militarizing universities, it actually seems liberalize the officer corps. Think about it: Do you think it's better for more officers to come from strict, insulated academy programs or mightn't it be better for America's officers to come from diverse universities from across the country?

McCardle v. McCardle

2011-06-05T09:34:00.003-07:00

May 15, 2011:

VELSHI: Megan, I think Matt wants to see somebody from Goldman arrested or charged with something. What do you think has to happen?

Because clearly whether or not you think Goldman broke any laws, any of us who followed this got the impression that they were perhaps not dealing in the best interests of some of their clients.

MCARDLE: I think they probably aren't, just like most vendors aren't always -- look to their own interests before the interests of their clients.

But here's the thing. I think there is a real desire to have a sense of closure on this, a desire to track down a villain, figure out who did this to us.

And I think that really underweight the power of human stupidity and poor system design. It can produce terrible results even without anyone doing --

October 22, 2009:

Restricting bonuses only at the companies in which we now have a gigantic stake is emotionally satisfying, but bankers aren't just talking their book when they complain that talent is getting poached from bonus-limited firms. I know it's fashionable to believe that traders are all a bunch of lucky, arrogant idiots, but there is some skill involved, and firms that lose their top people will probably underperform.

In other words, the banksters are too stupid to be held accountable for their actions, but two years ago were too smart to not get paid huge, taxpayer-backed bonuses.

I've been seriously, earnestly trying to back out of caring about politics so much (the lack of posts to this blog should prove that) but, good God! How does Megan McCardle get paid a dime for her B.S., partisan tap-dancing?

Megyn Kelly argues with Megyn Kelly

2010-12-29T15:58:00.002-07:00

Today:

Plenty of conservatives are pretty upset over a campaign by the Society of Professional Journalists to convince reporters to stop using the terms "illegal aliens" and "illegal immigrants" in favor of "undocumented immigrant." But none are as livid as perpetually outraged Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who on Wednesday afternoon asked if journalists were going to start calling rapists "non-consensual sex partners" next.

Kelly also expressed frustration over the politically correct language dominating American culture.

"You know, we did a segment earlier in the year on how little people find the term midget offensive, and so you can't say that anymore," Kelly lamented. "There's so many words that are suddenly becoming hurtful, and part of the group thinks it's hurtful, and the other group doesn't, and you're left as a journalist saying, I don't know what to do."

But back in May, Kelly was so mad she nearly soiled her skirt when she heard Barack Obama may have casually used the term "teabagger."

Law Enforcement and Privilege

2010-11-10T09:35:00.004-07:00

Jim here.

Avram Grumer, over at the NielsenHayden's blog Making Light, opens a short (but powerful) post with:

"[T]he past few days have drawn a very clear diagram of in modern American law-enforcement privilege pyramid."

Read it and weep.

Best,
Jim

NPR spreads a falsehood

2010-11-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Jim Here:

On Sunday's "On The Media", NPR's Brooke Gladstone interviewed Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics. Dubner recounts a story from the book:

[Levitt] began to notice a pattern, which was that there were quite a few instances in which the two same candidates ran against each other repeatedly.

And what Levitt found was that if you looked at the Congressional races where the same two candidates ran each other repeatedly, well, the appeal of the candidate presumably didn't change a whole lot – you'd have to control for incumbency and things like that – but what often did change was the amount of money that was spent.

And what that allowed him to do was to try to isolate the causal effect of the money itself. How important is it to spend a lot more money? And the result was ... you can double the amount you spend and raise your share of the vote by about one percent.

Similarly, if you’re winning an election and you cut your spending in half, you'll lose only about one percent of the vote.

So, the original study showed that the amount of money spent in a second (or subsequent) match-up between two candidates did not substantially change the outcome from that which occurred in the first election. In other words, campaign spending has limited effectiveness in rematches between two candidates. The study says nothing about the role of campaign spending in the original matchup -- it can't, for those are the baseline used to measure the effect of spending on the rematches.

This result seems plausible -- there exists what we know as "brand loyalty", and, having once selected one candidate from a pair, it is reasonable to expect voters to have some brand loyalty that keeps them voting for the same person election after election given the same match up. So, to the degree the composition of the voting public is static, we would expect campaign spending to have limited ability to sway voters from the choices they had already made between two candidates.

However, in the first election between the pair, a significant number of voters will not have made up their minds, and thus be more open to influence from many sources--including campaign ads. So, there is reason to believe that campaign spending can be important in the initial campaign between a particular pair of candidates (e.g.: Angle v. Reid; McMahon v. Blumenthal; O'Donnell v. Coons, etc.), and Levitt's study, of course, says nothing on the matter.

And so, Dubner sliped one past Ms Gladstone when he then turned around and made the far broader -- and unjustified -- claim that: [I]f you look over the long stretch, you just don't find a causal relationship between spending and electoral outcome. Dubner knows nothing of the sort. Most elections are not rematches, and Levitt's study gives no insight into the role of campaign spending on initial matches.

Am I asking too much to expect the reporters to catch such errors? Your thoughts are appreciated!

Best,

Jim Bales

New (right wing) rule: YCOMTUAD

2010-07-18T11:33:00.002-07:00

Do you remember when the right believed (wrongly) that arguing against the airing of a "docudrama" featuring admittedly invented scenes was "trampl(ing) the First Amendment"?

Now they're peeing their pants about a film featuring similar "smears" against Margaret Thatcher.

I probably won't see Meryl Streep's Margaret Thatcher "biopic" myself, but it would be nice if those on the right could be a tiny bit consistent about the need for truth in film. I guess the rule is you can only make things up about Democrats.

Started a new job

2010-07-18T10:48:00.000-07:00

So please excuse the lack of posts.

I disagree with Carl Nyberg

2010-07-15T06:36:00.001-07:00

I’ve said it many times: There’s no reason to doubt that Mark Kirk performed his duties admirably as Naval Reserve officer. However, he didn’t choose to simply highlight his service as an officer during his political campaigns. He chose to lie again and again about his service, including lies about those lies and lies about how his service gave him access to special knowledge that proved Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Those lies can't take away the honors and medals Kirk has earned, but neither can anything in his service record change the fact that Mark Kirk lied many, many times about that service and continues to obfuscate about it to this day.

In my opinion, he did great things for the Navy, but then he took that record of achievement and pissed on it.

I smell Caldecott...

2010-07-13T20:44:00.002-07:00

Perhaps they'll call this book, The Little Governor Who Couldn't (Complete Her First Term as Governor).

Reading assignment

2010-07-12T23:39:00.002-07:00

I won't even excerpt this long, fascinating Joe Hagan piece on John McCain from New York. Go read it.

Just because

2010-07-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

Kirk still shucking and jiving about reg violations

2010-07-12T22:00:00.003-07:00

A couple people have written me about how weird Mark Kirk is now being in regard to his military record. From now on, he says, he won't release any more of his record nor will he even really talk about his service and the fitness reports he's already released.

I'm not surprised. Kirk has studiously avoided admitting he violated regulations against politicking on active duty, instead choosing to admit only that he was counseled for those violations. It's like admitting you were arrested for a crime while not admitting to the crime itself.

As I've said before, if Kirk would release his Annual Retirement Points Record, it would prove that he violated regulations, so he's chosen to just pretend he's answered everyone's questions and refuse to release more documents. Odd that he would make that decision just as I pointed out to people--including Chicago-based reporters--that he's holding back a document which could set the record straight.

It's a weasel move.

The Navy's core values are honor, courage and commitment. It's sad to see a Naval officer who seems to only understand commitment and, even then, it seems he's only committed to his own political advancement.

Republicans admit the deficit doesn't matter

2010-07-12T10:46:00.004-07:00

Dear unemployed Americans,

While 55,000 of you a day are losing your unemployment benefits because the GOP says they don't want to increase the deficit, those same GOPers are fighting to keep the Bush tax cuts for the rich in place arguing that deficits don't matter when it comes to the rich.

You're being screwed by Republicans on behalf of the rich, who were the "undisputed winners" of Bush's tax cuts. Check out the chart above to see just how much Republicans who are pushing to extend those cuts really care about the deficit.

And as you sit there, wondering how you're going to make it without your unemployment payments--which were probably a fraction of what you were making at your old job, but helped--remember this: The Bush tax cuts were supposed to create jobs.

How's that working out for you, America?

Just because

2010-07-11T23:09:00.001-07:00

Love this:

You felt the coming wave,
told me we'd all be brave,
you said you wouldn't flinch.

But in the years that passed
since I saw you last,
you haven't moved an inch.

Freedom's just another word for flapping in the political breeze like a shred of plastic bag on barbed wire fence

2010-07-11T23:07:00.007-07:00

Bill Kristol, who argued for endless spending on military programs, whose magazine championed "big government conservatism" and considers himself a "card-carrying member" of the right's neoconservative wing--which, according to its founder (Kristol's dad) believes the "the growth of the state in the past century...(is) natural, indeed inevitable"--now writes that spending and the growth of the government has led to a "genuine crisis" for the country.

You can't argue with the guy. It's like punching water.

If not for his father's influence, Bill Kristol would be the fourth best car salesman at an ailing lot in southern Virginia, hanging on to his job by kissing the owner's ass every time it got within ten feet of him. He's a hack who, time and time again has proven himself a hypocrite with no respect for the truth.

Why anyone takes this guy seriously is beyond me.

I may send a donation myself

2010-07-11T22:24:00.003-07:00

Yay! Sarah Palin's PAC is doing well!

A new financial report filed Sunday evening showed Sarah Palin’s political action committee has taken its fundraising to a higher level – and suggests that she has begun building a more sophisticated political operation in place of a bare-bones organization powered mostly by her rock star status and scrappy on-line presence.

[snip]

In short, for the first time since the 2008 campaign when she was the vice-presidential running mate to GOP presidential candidate John McCain, Palin is supported by a political operation befitting someone considering a presidential run.

I couldn't be happier.

Right wing blogger thinks you're stupid

2010-07-11T13:31:00.006-07:00

Prof. William A. Jacobson tries to pretty up the extreme anti-abortion views of Nevada Senate candidate and Tea Partier Sharron Angle.

On mulitple [sic] occasions, Angle has stated her personal belief that abortion is not justified because life starts at conception. Since Angle's view is that innocent life should not be taken, the circumstances of the conception make no difference. As a result, Angle's personal belief is that she would counsel even rape victims who become pregnant to consider carrying the child to term.

Angle's personal belief is shared by tens of millions of Americans, and is the position of Catholic Church among others.

Predictably, Harry Reid's supporters have tried to spin Angle alternatively as pro-rape or as someone who wants to force her view on rape victims.

First, no one is saying that Angle is "pro-rape," but Angle herself has clearly argued that abortion should not be legal under any circumstances. If she wins the Nevada Senate seat and works to try to create legislation which puts those beliefs into practice, that clearly equates to forcing her view on rape victims.

Jacobson suggests Angle has only delineated her "personal" views about abortion and that those views wouldn't necessarily translate to legislative intentions. But here's what Angle says about abortion on her own website.

Protection of Life

Sharron Angle believes all human life is precious, regardless of location, age, infirmity, or degree of dependence.

Sharron has been endorsed by Phyllis Schlafly, Life and Liberty PAC, and Concerned Women for America.

So are we meant to believe that Angle thinks she can "protect" "human life" by merely believing abortion is wrong? That seems unlikely, since she touts the support of Life and Liberty PAC, an anti-abortion which calls itself one of the "many organizations working for the day when no abortions are ever performed again in America" and was founded by a former Alan Keyes chief of staff Mary Lewis, who felt other pro-life groups weren't aggressive enough. And whom does the Life and Liberty PAC say it supports?

The right to life from conception to natural death is the foundation of all other rights, and Life & Liberty PAC works to support only candidates who are unequivocally committed in word and deed to the protection of all innocent life.

But support is one thing. Here are the words that came out of Sharron Angle's own mouth:

Manders: I, too, am pro life but I'm also pro choice, do you understand what I mean when I say that.

Angle: I'm pro responsible choice. There is choice to abstain choice to do contraception. There are all kind of good choices.

Manders: Is there any reason at all for an abortion?

Angle: Not in my book.

Manders: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something -

Angle: You know, I'm a Christian and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things. (Audio)

That's very simple language to follow. Angle is stating that she does not support a woman's "choice" to have an abortion and that there is no reason for an abortion even in the case of rape or incest.

It is one thing for right wing pundits to admit they've been dealt a wild card by the Club For Growth nutters who supported Angle's win and her views are turning off even some traditionally Republican voters. After all, poll after poll shows that less than 20 percent of voters share Angle's belief that Abortion should be illegal in all cases. It's entirely another matter for a law professor to treat his readers as if they can't understand simple speech and pretend Sharron Angle doesn't believe she should force rape victims to carry pregnancies to term.

Krauthammer still doesn't get the Google

2010-07-11T02:25:00.004-07:00

Charles Krauthammer continues to write things that are simply not based on fact.

Notice, too, how Obama habitually refers to Cabinet members and other high government officials as "my" -- "my secretary of homeland security," "my national security team," "my ambassador." The more normal -- and respectful -- usage is to say "the," as in "the secretary of state." These are, after all, public officials sworn to serve the nation and the Constitution -- not just the man who appointed them.

It's a stylistic detail, but quite revealing of Obama's exalted view of himself.

Ummm...

Q: Mr. President, today you met with your Secretary of State. Do you want him to stick around to lead your efforts to revive the Middle East peace talks?

THE PRESIDENT: I'm proud of my Secretary of State, he's done a heck of a good job.

-George W. Bush, Nov. 10, 2004

And...

At every turn, Don has always been a wise and strong and steady influence. I thank him for taking this assignment. I'm proud to call him my secretary of commerce. I'm honored to call him my friend...

Along with my secretary of energy, Spence Abraham, Don will help me in pursuing a strategy of increased domestic production and energy independence.

-George W. Bush, Feb. 5, 2001

And...

And...

And...

My heart weeps

2010-07-08T22:12:00.003-07:00

New York Times breaking some real who-gives-a-shit news today: A spoiled 24-year-old turns down a $40,000 job during the worst financial crisis since the Depression, claims he has "flexibility" because he has no debt, lets his parents pay his rent.

Politifact backs up Nitpicker

2010-07-08T21:25:00.003-07:00

If you've been reading my numerous posts about Mark Kirk, you know that I've done everything I could to carefully back up my claims about his falsehoods, so this affirmation from Politifact is unnecessary, but welcome.

There are secrets and then there are secrets

2010-07-06T11:02:00.003-07:00

I'm glad this dumb kid got caught and arrested. People in positions of trust simply can't take it upon themselves to release classified information.

On the other hand, the classification system in the United States is broken. Information which would give enemies an upper hand should be kept private, but some of the things Manning released--an Army document calling Wikileaks a security threat, for example--seem to have been classified solely for the purpose of saving the Army embarrassment. The video he released could be seen the same way (though I disagree with the editorial comments Wikileaks embedded before releasing it). After all, the Pentagon has released numerous videos of air-to-ground combat, so they can't argue such video should be classified because it gives away tactics or aircraft armament. It's likely they have kept this secret--and keep many other such videos secret--solely to keep the US from looking bad, which I believe is an inappropriate use of classification in a democracy.

The classification system needs to be reviewed.

What the...?

2010-07-02T10:31:00.002-07:00

Does Michael Steele ever think before he speaks?

I have a feeling Republicans may have a new chairman soon.

Update: It begins.

Right wingers confuse assessment with bias

2010-07-01T01:00:00.003-07:00

So conservatives have a bug up their asses about the video below, in which reporters are caught on a hot mic bashing Sarah Palin's speech at California State University Stanislaus. You should watch it.

If you don't have time, there's a transcript of the reporters' remarks here, but here's a taste of what they said.

What’s your problem?

Oh my god I feel like I just stepped off of a roller coaster! Go round and round and up and down and shit flying out of everywhere and standing. Remember when you had to write a report as a college student and you just tried to jam in as many quotes as possible? You know, from as many random things you could get, you know, that’s what I got.

I got she didn’t ever finish a statement.

Right.

(?)

Did she make a statement? Cause I didn’t catch that either.

[snip] Now I know the dumbness doesn't come from just soundbites.

Right wing blogs decided this simply proved what they'd been saying all along. Sister Toldjah:

...people STILL wonder why conservatives are so distrustful of the mainstream media?

Hot Air:

If these were opinion journalists, these comments would be no problem. If they’re news reporters expected to render an objective, fact-based report on the event, I’d say that they have a bright future at MSNBC.

But far above the clucking of most of the righties was this comment by Jay Nordlinger.

This afternoon, I wrote a long, rather huffy post on liberal media bias. It was prompted by 1) those reporters who were caught on tape trashing Sarah Palin, and 2) the David Weigel affair. I have deep-sixed the post, however — spiked it. I can huff about media bias again, as I have in the past. (And I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll — not budge the house an inch.)

Let me instead say this: I think many of my conservative colleagues are far too gingerly when it comes to liberal media bias. Far too timid, delicate, and forgiving. For a long time, complaining about media bias has been seen as uncouth. It’s something we all need to learn to live with, like death, taxes, and mosquitoes. Don’t be uncool by bitching about it, man.

Um...What. The. Fuck? First of all, right wingers have been bitching about the media non-stop since at least the late 60s and a considerable number of them make their livings off of that single complaint, so Nordlinger's suggestion that conservatives are holding back is, well, stupid.

Second, contra Nordlinger and the gang in his Liberal Media Mystery Machine, nothing these reporters said suggested they hold biases against conservatives. Not a single one of them bashes Republicans or conservatives, they simply complain they've got their work cut out for them in trying to condense Palin's scattered and pointless speech into news reports. That's not bias. That's just dealing with the facts.

Honestly, one has to wonder if Nordlinger and the others even listened to Palin's speech before suggesting these reporters' complaints were based on political leanings instead of the daunting task that lay ahead of them. Here, for example, is a short excerpt.

If this cultural relativism is confined merely to just a few individuals, the exceptions to the norm, well that’s one thing but we have seen before what happens when whole sections of society fall into that trap. Take note of this, uh, consider that would the brutality of communism have lasted as long as it did if there hadn’t been a large group of people here in the west who were willing to essentially accommodate it for fear of daring to even condemn it. For a long time, folks, it was kinda consider, considered sophisticated to take a position somewhere between freedom and communism.

And it took a supposedly unsophisticated graduate from lowly Eureka College to bring Communism to its knees. And he did it by simply calling an evil empire what it was, evil. There’s an important lesson here for us today. A free republic can only survive if its citizens are willing and able to defend it ideologically and to stand up for its founding principles.

And there’s an old conservative joke it, it says that an elite liberal is someone who is so broad minded that they can’t even take their own side in an argument. I think that could apply to some of the college professors I’ve met and so, uh. But you know. But that’s really no joke when we have seen, hmm, even recently, American diplomats apologizing to a communist dictatorship because of one of our sister states here in the good ol’ United States of America, Arizona just trying to enforce an American federal law? To apologize for that? Or, if we get an administration, if we get an administration that unilaterally tries to end a war on terror, not by winning it but by instead no longer referring it, to it, as a war on terror as if the evil terrorists will stop attacking us once we proclaim that we just won’t call it terrorists or terrorism anymore.

That should give you a good idea of what Sarah Palin's speech was: a pastiche of right wing shibboleths, faux populism and poorly delivered "jokes" baked in a hmmm-and-goodness-gracious crust. And, by word count, that's just over 15 percent of Palin's speech, so those poor damn reporters had much, much more of that rambling crap to wade through.

In complaining about the job they had to do, these reporters seem to me to be assessing the speech, not exhibiting political bias. Of course, the Nordlingers of the right have spent their entire professional lives lowering the bar of "liberal media bias."

One wonders, in fact, just how low it is.

Does Jay Nordlinger think David Frum, George Will, Peggy Noonan, Ross Douthat and David Brooks exhibit biases against conservatism because they have each pointed out at one time or another that Palin either seemed unprepared as a national politician or had given a terrible speech? Well, we know exactly how Nordlinger feels about at least one of those people, because he recently defended David Frum from right wing writers who do believe disagreement is equivalent to apostasy, writing that Frum is an "MVP of American conservatism" despite Sarah Palin's place as "one of his primary targets."

In other words, much more consistent criticism against Palin than these reporters jabs doesn't seem to equate to bias in Nordlinger's eyes.

You have to also wonder what Nordlinger thought about the reactions of Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman to President Obama's speech on the oil spill in the gulf. Look at the "highlights" below as culled by one of Nordlinger's conservative fellow travelers:

Olbermann: "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days."

Matthews compared Obama to Carter.

Olbermann: "Nothing specific at all was said."

Matthews: "No direction."

Howard Fineman: "He wasn't specific enough."

Olbermann: "I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all. It's startling."

Howard Fineman: Obama should be acting like a "commander-in-chief."

Matthews: Ludicrous that he keeps saying [Secretary of Energy] Chu has a Nobel prize. "I'll barf if he does it one more time."

Matthews: "A lot of meritocracy, a lot of blue ribbon talk."

Matthews: "I don't sense executive command."

If Nordlinger believes he can label those reporters who bashed Palin's speech liberals simply because they listened to it and were dismayed, then does he believe Olbermann has proven his conservatism with these comments?

The truth is, I don't have the slightest clue about these reporters' political motivations, but neither does Nordlinger. He doesn't even know who they are. He hasn't combed through reports of the speech to actually find evidence of bias in the way the speech was presented to the public. All he knows is that some people didn't like something one of his heroes said and, to him, that makes them biased.

Basing one's beliefs on a pre-conceived view of a profession instead of the evidence at hand? That's not just foolish. It's bias.

Just because

2010-06-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

Remember this...

2010-06-30T15:37:00.001-07:00

...the next time you hear Tea Partiers say they want "their" country back.

Update I hadn't realized, by the way, conservatives like Coburn considered the end of the Carter administration a high point of freedom in America. I guess everything went quickly downhill then, though.

ThinkProgress has more, including feminism expert Kathryn Jean Lopez saying she'd be "happy" if there were no women in the Senate.

Kirk still won't admit full truth

2010-06-30T13:56:00.003-07:00

And his apology may be too little, too late.

I spoke to a Chicago-based reporter who was at Kirk's press conference yesterday and was told that while Kirk admitted to being counseled for conducting "partisan political activities" while on active duty, he refused to admit that the counseling was justified and that he had actually violated regulations. He's trying to admit to the punishment without admitting to the crime, so I still want to see his Annual Retirement Point Record, which I have requested from the Navy.

If he won't admit the truth, I'll get the Navy to show me the truth.

By the way, here's part of what Kirk said yesterday.

I think the scrutiny is absolutely appropriate. Many people, I should say, in the Navy, many sailors have made mistakes and I am one of them. But we live up to duty, honor, country, which means that if you make a mistake, own it, fix it, apologize, make sure it doesn't happen again.

Here's what I said he should have been saying since I first reported about the Pentagon's complaints.

You know what? I screwed up and talked to reporters when I shouldn't have and I tweeted on active duty and I got my knuckles rapped over it by the same guys who love my work as an intel officer. I was wrong and, hell, I'm proud to be a part of an organization that takes even small errors like this seriously. A dedication to a code is one of the things that drew me to the Navy.

Perhaps I should charge a consulting fee.

Unfortunately for Kirk, he's been lying so long he's become a joke.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Thoughtful reporting about the Mideast

2010-06-30T06:51:00.005-07:00

If, like me, you've been looking for a thoughtful, even-handed take on what happened aboard the Mavi Marmara, you should read this article.

Just because

2010-06-29T18:25:00.000-07:00

Kirk admits he lied about Nitpicker story

2010-06-29T15:27:00.006-07:00

On June 9th, I reported that a memo from a Department of Defense Under Secretary included a claim that Congressman and Naval Reservist Mark Kirk had conducted "partisan political activities during his last two tours of active duty..."

Kirk's campaign, instead of being honest, went after me, saying that releasing the memo was a "baseless political ploy by partisans," accusing me of being a "political operative" and suggesting collusion between Nitpicker and democrats in his opponent's campaign (and/or the Obama administration). He also claimed the memo was "off the mark."

Unfortunately for Kirk, the Pentagon backed up the DoD memo, saying he had been counseled for violating this regulation.

Later, Kirk tried to pretend that a commenter to a news story--a man with whom Kirk had apparently served--had "set the record straight," suggesting that he'd never violated regulations. I pointed out there was a very simple way for Kirk to truly set the record straight. He could release his Annual Retirement Point Record, which would show when he was on duty. I even wrote that the most damning thing about the whole incident wasn't the violations themselves, but the fact that Kirk was obviously lying. Not misremembering. Not being careless. Not getting confused. In this case, if he had been so chastised, he was lying.

Today he admitted he lied.

Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk has acknowledged twice being scolded by the Pentagon for improperly mingling politics with his military duties.

It's something his campaign had flatly denied just two weeks ago.

As I have written before, I work for no campaign or party. I just hate military fakers, as they use what is good about service in a disgusting way. Kirk served honorably, but, as a politician, he sold that honor for votes. If Illinois voters choose, they can overlook Kirk’s numerous lies, hold their noses and vote for the man, but they should at least have the courage to admit you don’t care he’s a man who has lied many, many times about his service for political gain.

There’s simply no disputing that fact.

Update: The longer AP story is up now.

After a month of eluding questions and relying on written statements by his campaign, Kirk offered the mea culpa at his first news conference since reports surfaced about his false claims, including a prestigious military award that he didn't win.

"I have made mistakes concerning certain aspects of my accomplishments and experience and I apologize for those mistakes and I pledge to correct those errors," Kirk, a five-term congressman from Chicago's northern suburbs, told supporters and reporters. "I am not perfect and was careless. I will do better and I will make sure that this never happens again."

As Kirk apologized, however, he also acknowledged something his campaign had flatly denied just two weeks ago — that he was twice scolded by the Pentagon for improperly mingling politics with his military duties.

Read the whole thing.

Goldberg should shut up

2010-06-29T14:50:00.009-07:00

In the run-up to the Iraq war, Jeffrey Goldberg seemed to swallow everything he was fed by Donald Rumsfeld, Doug Feith and other pro-war folks to push for the war. In the wake of the Dave Weigel kerfuffle, Goldberg went all bitchy, which caused others to remember just how full of shit Goldberg was, is and, probably, will continue to be.

So he's gone into defensive mode, inviting Eli Lake to guest-blog and back him up about his reporting on Iraq, despite the fact he's been proven wrong about WMDs and connections between Iraq and al Qaeda. What's can Lake bring to the fight? The idea, in Goldberg's words, that "Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda once had a potentially meaningful relationship."

Potentially meaningful relationship? A wishy-washy phrase like that is all but an admission that Goldberg knows he's wrong. It's like the crap used to defend Bush's SOTU yellowcake claim. It's saying, there may have, maybe, kinda been a way that what I said might not have been bullshit, so -poof- I'm not a complete tool.

Goldberg has invited Glenn Greenwald to travel with him to Iraqi Kurdistan to talk to people there about opposing the Iraq War. Fair enough. I think Goldberg should travel to Walter Reed and the orphanages of Baghdad and explain to the soldiers and children how Saddam's "potentially meaningful relationship" was worth lives and limbs, friends and parents.

Update: Greenwald responds to Goldberg's invitation.

Update: In rereading Goldberg's old pieces, I found in this one the "tell" of the Iraq War bullshitter:

In a series of meetings in the summer and fall of 1995, Charles Duelfer, the deputy executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission, or UNSCOM—the now defunct arms-inspection team—met in Baghdad with Iraqi government delegations. The subject was the status of Iraq’s nonconventional-weapons programs, and Duelfer, an American diplomat on loan to the United Nations, was close to a breakthrough.

In early August, Saddam’s son-in-law Hussein Kamel had defected to Jordan, and had then spoken publicly about Iraq’s offensive biological, chemical, and nuclear capabilities. (Kamel later returned to Iraq and was killed almost immediately, on his father-in-law’s orders.) The regime’s credibility was badly damaged by Kamel’s revelations, and during these meetings the Iraqi representatives decided to tell Duelfer and his team more than they had ever revealed before.

Here, Goldberg, as had many pro-Iraq War bullshitters before him, suggests that Hussein Kamal (as the name is spelled in the UN report) was telling UNSCOM inspectors about the "status of Iraq’s nonconventional-weapons programs." But, as I've said again and again, Kamal said that Iraq had discontinued its "biological, chemical, missile, nuclear" weapons programs around 1992. If Kamal was worth believing about the creation of weapons, he should have been believable when discussing their destruction. Those, like Goldberg, who used Kamal's testimony about weapons programs without mentioning his disclosure that those programs were ended clearly intended to mislead people in an attempt to push for war in Iraq. There's simply no other way to see it.

Funny

2010-06-29T14:30:00.000-07:00

During the hearings today:

n preparing to discuss the failed Times Square and Christmas Day bombing attempts, Graham asked Kagan about her opinion on Christmas — and what she was doing on Christmas. As a chorus of laughter died down, Kagan gave a wry reply.

“You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant,” she said, prompting more laughter.

“That’s what Hanukkah and Christmas is all about,” Graham replied.

Which reminded me of this.

Good for Kos

2010-06-29T11:08:00.003-07:00

Kos has released a report on the polling done on his behalf by Research 2000 and the researchers' conclusion suggests a problem.

We do not know exactly how the weekly R2K results were created, but we are confident they could not accurately describe random polls.

I have to say, this kind of dedication to getting things right, being transparent and re-evaluating one's claims is one of the things I'd love to see more of on the right. For example, Republicans love to tout the findings of Rasmussen, which seem always to lean to the right. If they were interested in the truth, they could go to Pollster.com, filter out Rasmussen findings, and see that, looking at an aggregate of polls with Rasmussen gone, Americans' views tend to lean more in the Democrats favor.

As Nate Silver has said, this doesn't necessarily mean that Rasmussen is biased, it could just be wrong, based on its internal filtering. He does go on to say, however:

If you're running a news organization and you tend to cite Rasmussen's polls disproportionately, it probably means that you are biased -- it does not necessarily mean that Rasmussen is biased.

So look inward, conservatives. Do you have biases based on political beliefs (which are understandable) or do you have beliefs about the world based on willful blindness?

Kos has shown himself willing to consider that he may be wrong. Can you?

As Russell King wrote, come back to us, GOP.

Update: Actually, I should give credit to those on the right who have begun to look at themselves and their own party in a new light and seek to bring our political discourse back to a place where we may not agree on solutions, but may at least be able to argue about our problems honestly. Charles Johnson made a major move in this direction in November of last year and Rick Moran wrote today that he wants to scream STOP THE MADNESS! because of

the usual nonsense from many conservatives about how Obama is deliberately trying to “destroy” the country, or is a Marxist, or wants to be a dictator, or is favoring Muslims in the Middle East because he actually is one, or is plotting to cancel the elections in November, or wasn’t born here/not a naturalized citizen/Hawaiian official says he was born in Kenya/yadayadayadayada…

God is love (whether you want it or not)

2010-06-29T10:26:00.003-07:00

Shorter Sharron Angle:

God schedules rapes.

Mark Kirk comes out of hiding

2010-06-29T10:08:00.006-07:00

He claims he was "careless" and wasn't thinking when he made what ABC Chicago reporter calls "misstatements" about his military career.

Look, a slip off the tongue is one thing, but ten "misstatements" about your military career you've repeated again and again make you a liar. As Jacksonville Journal-Courier columnist, Prof. Steve Hochstadt, writes:

Mark Kirk is a liar. Kirk is running for the Illinois Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. Over his political career, Kirk has used deliberate lies about his past to promote himself as a better person. Although he has been a congressman for five terms, his lying only recently attracted attention.

[...]

Kirk lied to his Congressional colleagues, to his staff and to Illinois voters. He lied on TV, on the Internet and on paper. Kirk’s lies about his past have been compounded by his lies about these lies. He claimed that his campaign biography was “not precise.” He said a staffer wrote the false letter to Illinois voters. He has brushed off his years of lying as tricks of memory.

These reporters need to quit pretending Kirk just slipped up. They also need to ask him the right questions.

Better journalists, please!

Update: When is a press conference not a press conference? When you invite your supporters to heckle the media.

Kirk packed the press conference with a “Hallelujah chorus’’ of 100 supporters who heckled reporters and shouted “move on” when reporters pressed Kirk about his numerous mistakes on his military record. One supporter even harassed a Bloomberg news reporter after the conference.

For a ~~Desert Storm veteran~~ ~~Iraqi Freedom veteran~~ ~~combat veteran~~ self-proclaimed tough guy, it sure is wimpy of him to drag out a posse to take on the press.

Update: Politico points out that Illinois Republicans say Kirk micro-manages his campaigns. Wonder why they didn't tell us that when he was blaming his falsehoods on staff errors?

Update: More here.

Just because

2010-06-28T16:39:00.000-07:00

Rick Santorum cluelessly returns to the public eye

2010-06-28T09:45:00.003-07:00

Isn't it weird to hear a man whose parents were sending him checks to help pay the bills well into his late 40s (while he was making more than three times the median U.S. income) accuse someone else of being "detached from the American experience"? Hell, despite unabashedly mooching from his parents while making what most people consider damn good money, he actually wrote in a book that, "In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might confess that both of them really don't need to..."

If that's not detached from the American experience I don't know what is.

This is disappointing

2010-06-27T22:30:00.006-07:00

As I wrote about Lara Logan a few years ago:

I worked with Lara Logan personally in Afghanistan and, to a person, every military member she came into contact with said the stories she aired about her time with them were dead-on honest... Logan was nearly killed running the Afghanistan/Pakistan border with SpecOps types. Logan is the real deal.

But, in this video, Logan really lets me down. She argues there must have been ground rules laid down in Michael Hasting's dealings with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, because, well, she just knows there must have been. While I never worked in role of military "publicist" (as Duncan Boothby seems to have styled himself) I have worked with a lot of reporters working on military stories and the only ground rules I've ever seen set were based on security concerns--don't discuss base layout, rules of engagement, etc.

Further in the interview there's this little exchange.

KURTZ: When you're out with the troops and you're living together, sleeping together, is there an unspoken agreement--

LOGAN: Absolutely.

KURTZ: that you're not going to embarrass them--

LOGAN: Yes.

KURTZ: by reporting insults and banter?

LOGAN: Yes.

KURTZ: Tell me about that.

LOGAN: Yes. Absolutely. There is an element of trust.

Sorry, but this wasn't a couple of grunts bitching in a chow hall, this was the general leading the fight in Afghanistan--and his staff--insulting the civilian leadership of the nation. That's unacceptable and, no matter what story Hastings intended to capture while hanging with the staff, ignoring those comments would have been tantamount to committing a lie by omission.

Logan goes on to say, "To be fair to the military, if they believe a piece is balanced, they will invite you back." She's not actually being fair to the military with this statement, because military public affairs guys (like I used to be) can't pick and choose which reporters to deal with based on which ones they feel are fair and which they feel are unfair. In fact, the military's goal of media facilitation even accepts that incorrect stories will be published. Army Field Manual 46-1 (pdf):

Commanders at every level should be interested in what is being said about their efforts. Those at the tactical level will often learn from the reporters integrated with their units or from news summaries several days old. They don’t have to like or agree with what is being reported, but they do have to understand what is being reported. The public obtains its information about the operation from the news media, and those reports help to shape public perceptions and opinion about the command’s effectiveness. With an effective media facilitation program, the command is aware of differences between what it knows to be true and what the news media are reporting.

Also, she's suggesting that Hastings is being "unfair" by reporting the words of McChrystal and his staff. I don't see it.

As much as I've respected Logan's reporting over the years, it seems to me she's actually reinforcing Michael Hasting's argument that another reporter wouldn't have reported McChrystal's words out of fear of losing access. If anything, she's making an excellent argument for sending fewer military beat reporters to combat zones.

Update: More here, from Michael Calderone.

In addition to anonymous officials making allegations against Hastings, criticism has come from another reporter who’s spent considerable time on the front lines: CBS chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan. Logan, yesterday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” suggested—based on her assumptions, not with any actual evidence—that Hastings must have acted unethically in publishing some caustic quotes from McChrystal and his aides aimed at the civilian leadership, including President Obama.

“It's hard to know—Michael Hastings, if you believe him, says that there were no ground rules laid out,” Logan said. "And, I mean, that just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me, because if you look at the people around General McChrystal, if you look at his history, he was the Joint Special Operations commander. He has a history of not interacting with the media at all. “ (The Economist reported otherwise on Friday, noting that McChrystal regularly spoke to the press and did so with notable candor).

Read the whole thing.

Update: Logan gets Taibbi'd.

...when I read this diatribe from Logan, I felt like I'd known Hastings my whole life. Because brother, I have been there, when some would-be "reputable" journalist who's just been severely ass-whipped by a relative no-name freelancer on an enormous story fights back by going on television and, without any evidence at all, accusing the guy who beat him of cheating. That's happened to me so often, I've come to expect it. If there's a lower form of life on the planet earth than a "reputable" journalist protecting his territory, I haven't seen it.

Update: Glenn Greenwald gets ticked.

Logan sounds like the most devoted member of McChrystal's P.R. staff or even his family: so furious is she that Hastings would publish an article that reflected negatively on this Fine, Great Man (whom she supposedly covers) -- so devoted is she to the interests of this military official -- that, at one point, she drops the neutral journalist mask and shows her Bill Kristol face, and actually spat: "Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has."

Is it just me, or does that line remind anyone else of Heinlein's Starship Troopers take on civilians as people with their shirttails out and nothing on their minds?

Just because

2010-06-26T00:18:00.000-07:00

Colonel revives Nazi myth to bash Rolling Stone reporter

2010-06-25T18:34:00.015-07:00

I can't believe Ken Allard, a retired colonel, wrote this, as one of the lessons the "professional military should take away from President Obama's relief of Gen. Stanley McChrystal":

4. Never, ever trust the press. If you think I’m kidding, just enter the words “Dolchstoss” into your browser and see what comes up. Call it a myth, but betrayal-by-media has a long and checkered history going back at least to the post-World War I German army.

If you don't know what the Dolchstoss Myth was, here's a concise rundown from Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914-1918: The List Regiment, by John F. Williams.

The November 1918 spectacle of returning divisions of comparatively well turned out German troops, marching proudly through the towns and villages of the Reich, was an illusory one. It provided, however, admirable fodder for the Dolchstoss myth. It was easy to believe this was no defeated army, rather an army betrayed, whereby the German soldier had been forced--with victory in sight to lay down his arms, not because of enemy superiority, but through an act of treachery by political traitors on the home front. This was nonsense. Although it was far from obvious in the comportment of the returning troops, the sorely tried, demoralized, outnumbered, ill-fed and materially inferior army could not have survived into 1919 without being overrun, and with that opening the way for an Allied invasion of the Reich itself. Knowing this, the all-powerful military duumvirate of Hindenburg and Ludendorff had demanded the Kaiser seek an armistice; a fact left unreported by the media of the day.

On every count the Dolchstoss was a myth. Yet a convenient and comforting myth will always win out, in the short term, over an unpalatable truth. Although the Dolchstoss was regarded by liberal-democratic elements within Germany as a dangerous lie, there were more than enough festering support for the idea as a historical fact that it became a causal factor, 14 years after the Armistice, in the ascent to power of Adolf Hitler. It was still pressed into service, as a revanche-driven motivational device for German soldiers in 1939, by which time it was no longer necessary to utilize the idea as a means of achieving the political changes that would make Germany great again. Hitler and his National Socialists had seen to these, suppressing Germany's fragile democracy and bringing in its train measures repressing or even eliminating Jews, Socialists, Marxists and others deemed to be undesirable or opponents of the Hitlerian new order. Nevertheless, with revenge for the betrayal of 1918 still treated as an article of faith, the Dolchstoss had an important role to play. (Emphasis mine.)

The fact that Colonel Ken Allard (ret.)--who taught Information Warfare at the National Defense University and should, therefore, know the meaning of propaganda--doesn't understand the Dolchstoss was a myth is bad. That he tries to revive, to modernize and, backhandedly, to smear Michael Hastings with the myth is insane.

Austrian right-wing caricature of a Jew stabbing the German Army in the back with a dagger. The capitulation was blamed upon the unpatriotic populace, the Socialists, Bolsheviks, the Weimar Republic, and especially the Jews. (1919) Found at Wikipedia.

P.S. As Scott Horton and Kevin Baker have pointed out, the right has been working on this revival for a few years.

P.P.S. A nitpick: The Orwell quote he uses is also false.

Quote of the Day

2010-06-25T17:33:00.004-07:00

Dan Gainor of the conservative Media Research Center:

(Dave Weigel) looked at the conservative movement as if he was visiting a zoo. We’re more than that.

You heard it here, folks: The conservative movement is not just a zoo.

Weak

2010-06-25T15:35:00.005-07:00

Unnamed sources in the Pentagon are going after Rolling Stone.

...the command has concluded from its own review of events that McChrystal was betrayed when the journalist quoted banter among the general and his staff, much of which they thought was off the record. They contend that the magazine inaccurately depicted the attribution ground rules for the interviews.

"Many of the sessions were off-the-record and intended to give [reporter Michael Hastings] a sense" of how McChrystal's team operated, according to a senior military official. The command's own review of events, the official said, gleaned "no evidence to suggest" that any of the "salacious political quotes" in the article were made during a series of on-the-record and background interviews Hastings conducted with McChrystal and others.

The official, one of many subject to a Pentagon advisory not to discuss the situation without authorization, spoke on condition of anonymity. He said he was motivated by what he described as untrue claims made by Rolling Stone.

Two others with direct knowledge of the command's dealings with Hastings offered similar accounts.

This is bullshit. Journalism is not a game of Red Light/Green Light. There doesn't have to be "evidence" that the comments were made on the record because it doesn't work that way. If someone requests something to be off the record and the reporter uses it, that's a violation, but the subject doesn't have to say something's on the record for it to be used. I would say that goes double for embedded journalists.

I would also point out to the "officials" in the Pentagon that Army policy on this issue is explicit. As the Army Public Affairs Handbook puts it (pdf link):

Before beginning the interview, collect your thoughts, remind yourself of the ground rules, and remember there is no such thing as “off the record.” (Bold in the original.)

The handbook also has a message for the staffers who couldn't keep their mouths in check.

Set the ground rules with the reporter. Tell him you can talk about what your unit does, and its mission, minus details that compromise OPSEC. Remind him not to ask you to speculate about the future or answer questions outside your area of responsibility. (Stay in your lane).

And, I would add, Don't speak for the general.

The Pentagon "officials" are also complaining the Rolling Stone fact-checker didn't ask about the most damning quotes in Hastings' article. Guess what? Hastings has said he was openly using a recorder for most of the conversations, so why would a fact-checker have to check on statements which were recorded?

As Hastings said after the fact, no one has come forth to defend McChrystal's statements. For someone in the Pentagon to decide to go after Hastings with this weakass crap is ridiculous.

P.S. Byron York v. Michael Hastings.

Just because

2010-06-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

Ur Doin It Wrong

2010-06-24T20:20:00.005-07:00

Meg Whitman says that physically assaulting an employee is just "one of things [sic] that happens in business." I didn't know that. I would like to give Ms. Whitman a little advice, though: Next time go with the Belgian Takedown. That way the employee won't know who assaulted her and it won't cost your shareholders a quarter of a million in lawyers' fees and settlement money.

Also, try not to buy other companies for a billion more than they're worth. Just sayin'.

Question

2010-06-24T10:04:00.004-07:00

So, if this guy hadn't accepted a million dollars from the federal government, would he be able to afford to put up a billboard calling people who take money from the federal government "parasites"?

I know your anger, I know your dreams...

2010-06-24T08:44:00.004-07:00

Well, I think Obama made a genius move yesterday by canning McChrystal and assigning Petraeus to lead the Afghan fight.

It also seems I was dead on when I said it seemed McChrystal had allowed a cult of personality to spring up around him.

Beginning in the early afternoon, a cadre of military and civilian soldiers loyal to Gen. Stanley McChrystal began to spread rumors throughout the capital city: that ground commanders in Afghanistan were threatening to resign ... that the CIA's chief of station in Kabul had stepped down ... that the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), William McRaven, was irate and wanted to step down ... that commanders of the "special mission units" like McRaven's former subordinates at DevGru (SEAL Team Six) would refuse taskings from the National Command Authority ... that buried secrets were about to be exposed, like who actually leaked the McChrystal Afghanistan review to Bob Woodward.

While it's clear these were just rumors--Ambinder points out the CIA chief of station hasn't changed--if any of the Blue Falcon McChrystal aides who thought it would be fun to show their asses to a Rolling Stone reporter were involved in actively spreading this gossip, they should be sent immediately to the tiniest, dustiest FOBs to take charge of crap burning. Yes, McChrystal seems to have created a command climate in which senior officers thought badmouthing the chain of command to reporters was a good idea, but those officers aren't puppets. They chose to open their mouths and assisted in the downfall of their hero.

McChrystal admitted his actions had "compromised the mission" in Afghanistan. Any officer who doesn't understand that isn't acceptable and thinks the answer is to further compromise the mission doesn't deserve to where the uniform. As Obama said yesterday, "The war is bigger than any one man or woman."

One nitpick with Ambinder's article: What the hell is a civilian soldier? There are soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines over there. There are also civilians and contractors, many of whom are former service members. Civilian soldiers, however, don't exist. The phrase is an oxymoron.

Update: John Cole is pissed, too.

People that willingly talk like this need to be exposed, rooted out, publicly humiliated, stripped of their ranks and their pensions, and a message needs to be sent. The military is supposed to be a weapon used when diplomatic policies fail, not a political wing of the national security state.

Good for the AP

2010-06-24T07:20:00.004-07:00

The AP's Christopher Wills writes up a horse race article that has one of the best rundowns of Mark Kirk's falsehoods I've seen in the traditional media.

A letter from his office said he served in the first Gulf War when he didn't. He has also referred to serving in the invasion of Iraq, although his duties kept him stateside. He said his Reserve work sometimes includes running the Pentagon war room, even though he oversees only the intelligence operations.

Although he had clearly described coming under fire while flying missions over Kosovo and Iraq, Kirk began to hedge and say the he couldn't be sure his plane was targeted by the anti-aircraft fire. And he didn't mention that he rode along on only a handful of flights — perhaps just three.

Kirk's campaign also denied he had ever improperly mingled political activity with his military duties, only to have the Pentagon confirm that he had done exactly that on two occasions.

The New York Times also found that Kirk taught middle school in England but only for one school year. And his stint at a nursery school apparently was as an aide, not a full-fledged teacher.

It's incomplete, but at least it shows someone in the traditional media is paying close enough attention he can write a clear, concise and accurate summary of Kirk's BS. NPR finally caught up to the story, but provides a less complete inventory of Kirk's lies.

Now Kirk's evading the press, hoping weeks of silence will undo years of self-aggrandizement. No matter when he comes out of hiding, I'll be here to remind the press he's still got questions to answer about his military service.

Happiness

2010-06-23T23:19:00.007-07:00

This guy's right. This is the best video of reaction to Landon Donovan's goal. Look how sad everyone as the video begins...

How weird to think I was cheering with Nebraska fans. #K-StateRules

The National Review bears false witness against itself*

2010-06-23T20:23:00.009-07:00

During the 2004 presidential campaign, MoveOn.org ran a web contest inviting amateurs to create anti-George W. Bush ads. Of the many they received, two compared Bush to Hitler. The ads weren't produced by Move On and, as soon as they were pointed out, they were removed from the web site. To this day, however, conservatives continue to claim Move On compared Bush to Hitler.

To be honest, there were numerous lefties at anti-war rallies who compared Bush to Hitler. On the other hand, there were probably as many people dressed as psychedelic Uncle Sams wearing signs warning about Mayan eschatological prophecies as there were Bush=Hitler protesters, so I never took those people too seriously. It's the same reason I haven't made a big deal about all the Obama=Hitler folks at Tea Party rallies.

But, when Thomas Sowell writes an article in The National Review which compares Obama's deal with BP to set up an escrow account to Hitler's use of the Reichstag fire to suspend civil liberties, well, that's a whole different kettle of fish. And when a Republican congressman quotes that essay with admiration on the floor of the House, we're in full on crazy territory.

Remember what the writers of The National Review said about comparisons of Bush and Hitler? I do, and, if you don't, I've provided an incomplete list of their statements below. Once you've read those statements, drop a line to Review editor Rich Lowry (lowry@nationalreview.com) and ask him how he can justify Sowell's continued affiliation with the magazine after such an article. Because it's simple: Either the National Review writers were completely full of shit (which is possible) or Lowry will kick Sowell to the curb immediately.

And now a walk down Memory Lane:

Rich Lowry:

...the whole thing seemed, as far as I could tell, to be motivated by an incoherent and sputtering animus toward Bush.

Jonah Goldberg:

...in polite and supposedly sophisticated circles in America today it is acceptable to say George Bush is akin to a Nazi and that America is becoming Nazi-like. Indeed, in certain corners of the globe to disagree with this assertion is the more outlandish position than to agree with it.

[...]

I don't say this because I feel a passionate need to defend George Bush. I would make the exact same points if Al Gore were president. I would make the exact same points if anybody running for the Democratic nomination were president. This has nothing to do with partisanship. It has to do with the fact that such comparisons are slanderous to the United States and historical truth and amount to Holocaust denial. When you say that anything George Bush has done is akin to what Hitler did, you make the Holocaust into nothing more than an example of partisan excess.

Of course, the real irony here is that Goldberg wrote a book calling liberals fascists, complete with a cover illustration of a smiley face with a Hitler mustache. In other words, it's wrong to compare Bush to Hitler, but in Goldberg's mind, it's perfectly fine to say that people who support helmet laws are "informed by" "classical fascism." Nazism and liberalism, he said, are "related, they're in the same family, they share a lot of genetic traits, but they're not the same thing."

Also, the Tea Partiers have used Goldberg's own book as a sort of nutjob Rosetta Stone, believing they've deciphered the liberal plan. Despite his earlier statement, Goldberg has not stood up and made "the exact same points" against Nazi comparisons now that Obama is president.

Victor Davis Hanson:

So what gives with this crazy popular analogy—one that on a typical Internet Google search of “Bush” + “Hitler” yields about 1,350,000 matches?

One explanation is simply the ignorance of the icons of our popular culture.

[...]

The flood of the Hitler similes is also a sign of the extremism of the times. If there was an era when the extreme Right was more likely to slander a liberal as a communist than a leftist was to smear a conservative as a fascist, those days are long past. True, Bill Clinton brought the deductive haters out of the woodwork, but for all their cruel caricature, few compared him to a mass-murdering Mao or Stalin for his embrace of tax hikes and more government. “Slick Willie” was not quite “Adolf Hitler” or “Joseph Stalin.”

But something has gone terribly wrong with a mainstream Left that tolerates a climate where the next logical slur easily devolves into Hitlerian invective.

I just Googled "Obama" + "Hitler" and got 15,900,000 hits. Yes, it's a stupid and meaningless measurement, but it's the one V.D. used above. By his standard, that means rightwingers are 11.8 times as ignorant and extreme as lefties.

Daniel J. Flynn:

Rosenberg was hardly a lone nut in comparing George Bush to Hitler or by conjuring up visions of an administration welcoming the 9/11 attacks.

[...]

A truthful look at this weekend's protest confirms that the demonstrators should frighten people — even other opponents of a war in Iraq — here in America.

Byron York:

A staple of Bush-hating is the portrayal of the president as a Nazi. That has, of course, been a prominent part of other attacks against other presidents, but today it seems to be deployed with particular aggressiveness against Bush. There are thousands of references, across the vastness of the Internet, linking Bush to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.

Deroy Murdock:

Few things divide more quickly than invoking the Nazis. Yet the Left repeatedly detonated this rhetorical A-bomb.

Stanley Kurtz:

Pervasive liberal vitriol against the president has convinced some Bush supporters that they are in danger. Anti-Bush signs and graffiti seem to be at least as common as pro-Kerry signs. The slogans range from "Bushit," to "Bush is a Stupid A** Moron," to bumper stickers that substitute Bush/Hitler or Bush/Satan for Bush/Cheney.

Bill Bennett:

portrayals of Bush as Adolf Hitler — as we saw and heard in the "human-rights" protests — betray an ignorance of liberty, an ignorance of right and wrong, an ignorance of commonsense.

Update: Radley Balko catches Sowell arguing with himself.

*The hypocrite's crime is that he bears false witness against himself. What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. -Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, 1963

On fourth thought...

2010-06-23T10:57:00.004-07:00

Joe Barton is a wonder.

First he apologized to BP. Then he apologized for his apology. Then he pimped a story from the American Spectator which said he was right. Now he's taken that link down.

Update: I guess when 65% of your constituents think you did the wrong thing, it might not be worth it to try to argue you were right. (h/t Think Progress)

Gone (or not)

2010-06-22T14:02:00.005-07:00

Joe Klein tells Newsweek McChrystal has resigned.

Update: Joe Klein clarifies. McChrystal hasn't officially resigned, but has "offered to resign."

P.S. In response to an emailed question, the reason I decided he had to go was simple. I think someone leading the fight in Afghanistan who badmouths the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and the Special Representative to Afghanistan in print doesn't have the judgment necessary to do work that requires political deftness.

Also, I personally felt the article's description of McChrystal's team (which could be misleading) suggested a poor command climate. Everybody in the military bitches about the higher-ups, but, if McChrystal's team really "pride themselves on...disdain for authority," then he's created one unprofessional little personality cult there.

Agreed

2010-06-22T11:42:00.001-07:00

Mark Kirk antagonizer Andy Martin is not worth listening to.

Mark Kirk's worst lies

2010-06-22T10:02:00.002-07:00

Apparently, Kirk used his position as an intel officer to claim secret knowledge of WMDs in Iraq, saying in a debate:

You don't support the war because you don't have the security to know about the photographs of the Weapons of Mass Destruction that I know about.

There were more such lies, including the "Hussein Kamal" falsehood, which, as I've argued, is proof positive the Bushies and their allies were willing to lie us into war.

A quick reminder. Kirk said:

On December 7 of last year, he told the U.N. that he owned 30,000 chemical weapons, but he forgot where he put them. We have not even found the chemical weapons that Saddam admitted to the U.N. he made. There are over 500 WMD sites in Iraq, and we have inspected less than half of them.

Remember Dr. Hussein Kamel? The U.N. inspected Iraq for 4 years between 1991 and 1995 and found no nuclear program. Dr. Kamel then told us that 40,000 Iraqis worked on nuclear weapons, but our intelligence missed it all.

Hussein Kamal's testimony to the UN was used multiple times by advocates of going to war with Iraq. Clearly, they had read it in order to reference so frequently. Yet, time and time again, those who argued for war refused to acknowledge that, if they felt Kamal was trustworthy when he spoke about the nature of Saddam's weapons projects, they should have taken his word that those projects had been shut down and the weapons destroyed.

This isn't one of those areas where Kirk can simply claim all intel agencies thought Saddam had weapons. Kirk is saying he saw evidence of those WMDs with his own eyes, due to his top secret clearance. This couldn't possibly be true because we know now there was no evidence to see. To point to Kamal's testimony as evidence of WMDs is proof positive of a willingness to lie by omission in order to start a war.

Kirk has told lie after lie about his own military service and I find that repugnant. This, however, is much worse.

Hell no, he shouldn't go! (Yet.)

2010-06-22T07:55:00.005-07:00

Update: Now that the article's online and I've had the chance to read it, I'm forced to agree with Oliver. McChrystal needs to go and he needs to take his staff with him.

I have to say, I think Oliver is jumping the gun by calling for Gen. Stanley McChrystal to be fired. As Talking Points Memo's Justin Elliott points out, most of the negative comments about the Obama administration don't come from McChrystal, but from aides who are not named.

McChrystal does seem to have poked Biden on the record, but A) if anyone can understand putting one's foot in one's mouth, it should be Joe Biden; and B) his comment about Biden--"Who's that?"--doesn't seem to rise to the level of "contempt" and could just as easily be seen as a self-effacing reference to his earlier clash with Biden.

(On the other hand, one of the general's aides does say "Biden? Did you say: Bite Me?" which could be easily considered an Article 88 violation, which is when "(a)ny commissioned officer...uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President" or other, specific officials.)

As a former military public affairs guy, though, the worst part of the article is that McChrystal's aides piss on civilian leadership while talking about McChrystal's feelings. The "Boss" thinks this or the "Boss" felt that. That's some major Blue Falcon bullshit right there and those aides should be embarrassed. You don't speak for the general, dammit. I don't know whether the aides weren't reminded by public affairs staff that they're supposed to speak only for themselves when expressing opinions or, hanging out with a reporter for a "cool" publication, they forgot the guy was a journalist and were trying to one-up each other with edgy comments, but if McChrystal goes down, it will be because of his staffer's big mouths.

On the other hand, if the full article seems to show this is the command climate McChrystal has created and supports--one in which soldiers forget they serve at the pleasure of civilian leadership and feel comfortable in deriding that leadership in the press--then, yeah, he's gotta go. I just don't think the stories about the story have yet provided enough evidence to make that call.

Update: Grumpy, Droopy and Huckleberry say they're cool with McChrystal being fired.

Still waiting

2010-06-21T20:42:00.002-07:00

A week ago, I pointed out that, if Mark Kirk wanted to prove he wasn't lying about conducting partisan political activities while on active duty, he could simply release his Annual Retirement Point Record. His office won't return my calls or emails.

Are there any journalists out there who can get Kirk to say whether or not he will release this document?

Must-see

2010-06-21T20:25:00.002-07:00

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know I changed the tag line above about a month ago, but, until that change, the tag line had read:

"You know, this war is so fucking illegal." - Pat Tillman

Tillman has always been one of those larger than life characters and, the more I've learned about him since his death, the more I wish I would have met him.

The Pat Tillman story is a story that highlights the best characteristics of the American soldier, the confusion of war and the dangers of politicizing the military.
So it goes without saying I'm looking forward to this movie.

In defense of Mark Kirk

2010-06-21T12:54:00.003-07:00

It's no secret I'm no fan of Mark Kirk, but even he deserves journalists who can get their facts straight. In a scathing column about how Kirk fled from reporters after a Metropolitan Planning Council luncheon, Chicago business blogger Greg Hinz wrote:

Mr. Kirk, of course, has been under increasing scrutiny for falsely suggesting that he was named the naval intelligence officer of the year, commanded the Pentagon's war room, came under fire while deployed abroad, and declaring he learned about the impact of guns while teaching at a British prep school for a year and at an Upstate New York nursery school.

In addition, a Pentagon official has said Mr. Kirk improperly engaged in political activities -- media interviews and Tweets -- while deployed overseas.

That's incorrect. Pentagon officials did say Kirk violated restrictions against politicking while on active duty, but those activities took place in the U.S.--while on training in preparation for his two-week stint in Afghanistan and while on duty in the Pentagon.

I have been very careful in my claims about Kirk's actions. I find it disappointing that I don't see the same care in the "professional" media.

Get Free Government Money Now!

2010-06-21T10:07:00.004-07:00

Let Arizona anti-government-spending candidate J.D. Hayworth show you how!

Is it just me or does J.D. Hayworth look like a Spitting Image parody of himself?

Update: Hayworth's defense against claims the group he's shilling for is a scam? Hey, I was just selling out, so how was I supposed to know the organization to which I was lending my name, credibility and reputation got an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau? Google?

Let's get Tony Hayward to a shelter

2010-06-21T00:13:00.002-07:00

Shorter Reihan Salam:

Obama getting BP to set aside money for the victims of its massive fuck-up is just like a guy beating his wife.

Open letter to Bon Appétit magazine

2010-06-20T22:12:00.004-07:00

Look, I don't mind that your new blogger has named his blog "The Nitpicker," but did y'all really think that name through? When I started using the name in 2002, I knew the literal sense of the term--picking the eggs of lice out of hair--was, well, gross.

But you know what? Politics can be gross. I saw the name working in my favor two ways: Yes, it does alert people that I may, at times, be overly critical of small transgressions, but I saw it also as a way of suggesting I would be trying to correct small errors before they grew any bigger. In other words, I wanted to clean the "bugs" from the political system.

To use the name for a food blog though? As someone who's done a small bit of branding work (and a subscriber), that strikes me as an extremely bad choice. The last thing two things I ever want to connect in my head are delicious food and the act of picking out tiny, nearly invisible parasite eggs.

Wrong answer

2010-06-20T13:17:00.013-07:00

Former Marine and FrumForum writer John Guardiano doesn't know what he's talking about.

...a blogger by the name of Terry Welch has been raking Kirk over the coals because, Welch alleges, Kirk apparently wrote political tweets and gave political campaign interviews to the media while on active duty. And this, Welch lectures, violates Department of Defense prohibitions against partisan political activity by U.S. military personnel on active duty.

Welch is wrong, and for several reasons

Actually, it was not I who alleged Kirk violated regulations. It was Deputy Secretary of Defense (Plans) who said he did, writing that he must submit a document in writing before he would be approved for duty in Afghanistan, because of "concerns arising from his partisan political activities during his last two tours of active duty." When I contacted the DoD, they confirmed Kirk violated regulations. With the Pentagon's verification, it makes no sense for Guardiano to argue I'm "wrong."

Guardiano, however, seems to have no grasp of the facts. Let's look at the list of reasons he says I'm wrong.

* First, Kirk is a reservist who absolutely is entitled to a civilian life separate and distinct from the military.

Yes, but once he's on active duty orders, be they AT, ADT, ADSW or deployment orders, he falls under UCMJ regulations like any other active duty service member.

* Second, even if Kirk were not a reservist, he nonetheless is entitled to off-duty time during which he is free to engage the public dialogue, either as a civic-minded citizen or candidate for political office.

Um...no. Active duty military members are absolutely forbidden for running for public office. They are allowed to give their political opinions, but there is a list of forbidden activities, including any work relating to partisan political campaigns.

* Third, Kirk’s political tweets and political interviews were conducted during off-duty hours.

Actually, the tweets were conducted while on duty in the Pentagon. One actually began, "On duty @ the Pentagon's National Military Command Center." As for the interviews, Kirk still couldn't take part in those interviews involving Blagojevich, because he was on orders and they were comments involving himself and another politician.

* Four, Pentagon bureaucrats to the contrary notwithstanding, Department of Defense directives and regulations do not trump the Constitution of the United States, which protects free speech.

This is absurdly obtuse. There are a number of limits on service members' free speech, including Article 88, which outlaws "contemptuous" speech against the president. More than 115 prosecutions for this article have occurred in our nation's history (pdf link), including at least two such prosecutions under the Bush administration. ~~Heck, service members lose their Fifth Amendment right to self-incrimination completely, so why would you think it impossible for the military to limit the First Amendment right?~~ [I was incorrect. Article 31 of the UCMJ allows for rights against self-incrimination. Thank you, Steve, for pointing that out.]

As attorney Dean Falvey has written, "The military is perhaps not the best career choice for someone bent on the vigorous exercise of civil liberties."

* Five, we should encourage military personnel to speak out on great and pressing public-policy issues because this will enrich the public dialogue. Indeed, more free speech is better for all of us and our country.

Politicizing the military is, I believe we all should be able to agree, a bad idea. It led to the fall of democracy in Rome and countless military coups, which rarely lead to freer societies.

* Six, as a practical matter, given the ubiquity of new social media networking tools and 21st communication technologies, conflicts over free speech within the military are bound to become more commonplace.

The fact that more people are likely to find themselves in conflict with the regulation does not negate the regulation. Yes, it does raise issues about the need for proper education of military members, but as Falvey reminds in the article linked above, drill sergeants are known for reminding young recruits that they're in the military to "defend democracy--not to practice it."

Guardiano is welcome to argue the regulation is wrong and should be changed, but that's distinct from the argument he's making, which is that Kirk didn't violate the regulations at all. It should be added, though, that not even Kirk has argued he should be allowed to conduct partisan activities while in uniform..

As I have said before, however, the biggest issue here is not Kirk's violations, but the fact that, as minor as they were, Kirk felt compelled to lie about them. According to the Pentagon, Kirk was counseled about the infractions, meaning he knew they existed, yet he claimed they never happened. Because of this easily verifiable falsehood, it lends more credence to the idea that Kirk's other nine lies about his military service. The fact that only 10 percent of Illinoisans believe Mark Kirk has told the truth about his military experiences does not bode well for a man who claims to be running on themes of "Experience, Integrity, and Reform."

Most military folks understand that they live by a different set of rules. As a former Marine, Guardiano should know better.

Update: Guardiano has asked for some time to formulate an answer to the uniformly negative response of the commenters to his post. He seems to be preparing for a defense of the First Amendment in military settings. I agree that service members should have the right to speak on issues of public import, but I would point out that Kirk isn't accused of speaking his private mind while on duty (which would be allowed). Kirk’s accused of acting as a partisan politician while in uniform, which is forbidden. Those interviews weren’t “man-on-the-street” interviews in which reporters just pulled aside a service member and asked for a veteran’s personal opinion on Rod Blagojevich. Those reporters called a politician by the name of Mark Kirk, who should have said, “I’m on active duty right now, but I’ll get back to you in a couple of weeks.” It’s not a stretch to extend Guardiano's argument only a bit further to defend Kirk giving a political speech from Afghanistan while on duty.

So, can the DoD limit free speech? Guardiano already admits that it can, but argues in comments that...well, there's not much of an argument made, actually. Unfortunately for Guardiano, there are numerous Supreme Court cases on this topic, including Parker v. Levy. In that case an Army physician said publicly he didn’t “see why any colored soldier would go to Viet Nam: they should refuse to go to Viet Nam and if sent should refuse to fight because they are discriminated against and denied their freedom in the United States.” He also called Special Forces soldiers “liars and thieves,” “killers of peasants,” and “murderers of women and children.” He was charged with conduct unbecoming an officer and challenged his conviction on a First Amendment basis.

William Rehnquist wrote in the opinion of the Court:

“While the members of the military are not excluded from the protection granted by the First Amendment, the different character of the military community and of the military mission requires a different application of those protections. The fundamental necessity for obedience, and the consequent necessity for imposition of discipline, may render permissible within the military that which would be constitutionally impermissible outside it.”

Also, in Chappell v. Wallace Chief Justice Burger wrote:

The need for special regulations in relation to military discipline, and the consequent need and justification for a special and exclusive system of military justice, is too obvious to require extensive discussion; no military organization can function without strict discipline and regulation that would be unacceptable in a civilian setting...In the civilian life of a democracy, many command few; in the military, however, this is reversed, for military necessity makes demands on its personnel "without counterpart in civilian life."...centuries of experience have developed a hierarchical structure of discipline and obedience to command, unique in its application to the military establishment and wholly different from civilian patterns.

Update: Ellen of the Tenth's Carl Nyberg reminds us that the service of Mark Kirk (and other Reservist politicians) is inherently unconstitutional.

This post has been edited, as I initially misspelled Mr. Guardiano's name.

Such a weird thing to lie about

2010-06-18T13:13:00.001-07:00

Mark Kirk was a preschool teacher in the same way he was a combat vet. That is to say: not.

The pot calling the pot the pot

2010-06-18T01:50:00.005-07:00

Never in the history of America has a public figure been less self-aware than Glenn Beck. The man actually said this when speaking about one of the characters in his book.*

My point is that there is a great danger in the way facts can be spun or strung together to give credibility to what is otherwise a wild-eyes conspiracy theory. It is our responsibility to look at everything with a skeptical eye, and also to be aware that many will try to twist reality to serve their own agenda or reinforce their worldview.

Um...

* As Noah Kristula-Green points out at FrumForum, Beck's ghostwriter couldn't actually bring himself to make the conspiracy theorist a bad guy. Instead the character gives speeches to Tea Party groups who, sadly, think he's making good points. I'm starting to think that ghostwriter is a subversive super genius.

I don't think that word means what you think it means...

2010-06-17T14:39:00.005-07:00

Mark Kirk has released a new fundraising letter (below). Something stood out to me.

Our campaign's theme is "Experience, Integrity, and Reform and those aren't just words, those are the hallmarks of my life...

My integrity has been earned one decision at a time, striving to do the right thing, and standing up to corruption every time it rears its ugly head.

It seems to me it takes a lot of cojones to claim that integrity is one of the "hallmarks" of your life when you've been busted for lying about your military career at least ten times. If you're counting that's one lie for every person in a hundred who believes Kirk actually has integrity. Public Policy Polling:

Do you think Mark Kirk has been truthful about his military record?

Yes 10%
No 45%
Unsure 45%

Kirk Letter

Ouch

2010-06-17T09:40:00.002-07:00

Rich Miller at The Capitol Fax Blog:

Mark Kirk is an accomplished, decorated Naval veteran who blew that reputation out of the water with unfathomable exaggerations about his military record. He’s an intellectual graduate of the London School of Economics who lied about his experience with liberal nursery school students carrying guns.

These accusations against Mark Kirk are no longer about mere “embellishments” or “exaggerations.” This campaign is now about whether anything he says is true, and why.

Apparently, everyone' out to get Mark Kirk. If it's not the Iraqi Air Defense, it's toddler thugs.

They call me MISTER KIRK!

2010-06-16T17:53:00.002-07:00

I'm still mostly concerned about his military career (and that story's not done yet), but Ye Gods! is there nothing Mark Kirk hasn't lied about?

Tea Partiers v. Thomas Jefferson

2010-06-16T09:10:00.014-07:00

Yesterday I bemoaned the fact that Tea Partiers are so ignorant of the history they use to justify their threats of rebellion that to begin explaining it to them seems nearly pointless. After all, where would one start?

Well, how about here? Greg Sargent:

Here's another one that could be tough for Sharron Angle to explain away: In an interview in January, Angle appeared to float the possibility of armed insurrection if "this Congress keeps going the way it is."

I'm not kidding. In an interview she gave to a right-wing talk show host, Angle approvingly quoted Thomas Jefferson saying it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years -- and said that if Congress keeps it up, people may find themselves resorting to "Second Amendment remedies."

Sharron Angle is right. Jefferson wrote, in a famous letter to William Stephens Smith, "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion."

Let's begin by highlighting the word such. Jefferson is referring to Shays' Rebellion and is writing that America should have rebellions just like it. So, is the "rebellion" suggested by people like Sharron Angle, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Steve King and many, many Tea Partiers such a rebellion? Would Jefferson have supported it?

I think he would.

Let me explain: While Tea Partiers (and others who want to stir up trouble) appear to consider Jefferson's letter holy writ, they only seem to know two sentences of it, the one I quoted earlier and Jefferson's claim that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants." Were they to read the whole letter, however, they would find Jefferson describing a rebellion much like the one they suggest and would not be happy with the comparison.

The point of the section of the letter so often quoted is that the Europeans had been suggesting America was falling into anarchy, based on their understanding of Shay's Rebellion. Jefferson asks, "Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts?" The rebellion had mostly consisted of acts of government interference on the part of aggrieved veterans and, once actual shots were fired, four of Shays' compatriots were dead and, shocked by the fact they had been fired upon by those they expected to join their fight, Shay's militia fled. It seems likely that an abrupt end would come to any Tea Party led rebellion as well. A poll conducted in April found that only four percent of Americans have attended a rally or donated to the Tea Party, but they believe their values reflect the values of most Americans (pdf link). In other words, like Shay's militia, if the Tea Partiers were to take up arms they would likely find themselves lacking the support they believe to be waiting in the wings to commit treason. The conflict would end quickly and decisively, just as Jefferson seemed to like it.

Jefferson would also recognize the Tea Partiers by their beliefs. Returning to the letter, Jefferson says Shay's followers weren't bad people, they just didn't know what they were talking about.

They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independent 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure.

Read that very carefully. Jefferson is saying:

The Shaysites weren't bad people, they were "ignorant."
It is better for these people to rise up now and then than for them to just stay quiet and ignorant, because that leads to the end of liberty.
Resistance keeps rulers alert, but the answer to rebellions such as these is to teach the ignorant and "pacify" those who would not learn. That he goes on to say the loss of a few lives is no large matter suggests he doesn't mean the rebellious should be pacified by being given what they want.

Do we recognize the Tea Partiers' motives in the Shaysite's? Well, 64 percent of them believe that Obama has increased taxes (pdf link) when he has actually cut taxes for 98.6 percent of working households. That certainly sounds like a group of people who need to be "set...right as to facts."

Jefferson even would have recognized the way our media and representatives have blown the Tea Party out of proportion, writing to Smith that the Philadelphia Convention "has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts..."

The single most important thing to point out about Jefferson's letter, however, is that, despite its being used as a call to arms by admittedly angry Tea Party activists and other anti-government types, Jefferson wrote the letter with his tongue firmly in his cheek. He ends the letter by saying he really didn't have many facts to share, so he got a bit jokey.

The want of facts worth communicating to you has occasioned me to give a little loose to dissertation. We must be contented to amuse, when we cannot inform.

Get that? He's saying simply that he's being snarky.

And the Tea Partiers took that silliness and made of it a battle cry.

Of course, it should be noted that Jefferson's willingness to make a joke of Shay's Rebellion might have hinged upon the fact he was writing from Paris, where he was serving as ambassador. Here at home, a retired general named George Washington found it much less amusing, writing that, if the rebels had a point their demands should be met, but, if they didn't, it was time to decisively end their uprising.

If they have real grievances, redress them if possible; or acknowledge the justice of them, and your inability to do it in the present moment. If they have not, employ the force of government against them at once. If this is inadequate, all will be convinced, that the superstructure is bad, or wants support. To be more exposed in the eyes of the world, and more contemptible than we already are, is hardly possible. To delay one or the other of these, is to exasperate on the one hand, or to give confidence on the other, and will add to their numbers; for, like snow-balls, such bodies increase by every movement, unless there is something in the way to obstruct and crumble them before the weight is too great and irresistible.

These are my sentiments. Precedents are dangerous things. Let the reins of government then be braced and held with a steady hand, and every violation of the constitution be reprehended. If defective, let it be amended, but not suffered to be trampled upon whilst it has an existence.

As a result of Shay's Rebellion, Washington argued vehemently for a stronger federal government, finding allies in the likes of James Madison, who wrote that "liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty, as well as by the abuses of power...and that the former rather than the latter is apparently most to be apprehended by the United States." In other words, the Tea Partiers arguing against a strong federal government have their ideological forebears to thank for it, at least in part.

It remains to be seen whether the Tea Party will ever actually embrace the violence its members repeatedly espouse. We will also have to wait to see what effect its existence will have on the future of our nation. However, as the movement appears to already be losing steam, it seems the history of the Tea Party itself will, like that of the Shaysites, be one of a short-lived movement that was ignorant and bombastic, but ultimately impotent.

Jefferson would have loved it.

Get me 100 cc of WTF, STAT!

2010-06-15T22:28:00.009-07:00

I know it must be hard to come up with ways to defend the oil industry and oppose the drilling moratorium, but what the hell is Rep Joe Barton (R-TX) talking about?

Assume that this oil rig that's had the accident were a patient. You pick the patient up and take him in the emergency room. The emergency room doctor comes in and looks at the chart. You ever been in here before? Never been in here before. Your vital signs are pretty good? Vital signs look pretty good. What's the problem? Well, we've got some bleeding and we can't stop it. What's the prognosis? Well, we just kill the patient. That doesn't happen!

Um, Joe, the "oil rig that's had the accident"...um...I don't know how to tell you this, but that patient was D.O.A., big guy.

Now, if by "the patient" you mean the oil industry, well, I found the patient's medical record and, um, it seems he may have been hiding some pre-existing conditions from you.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Noted without comment:

Barton, former chairman of the House energy committee and now the panel's senior Republican, has collected more than $1.4 million since 1989, the oldest data available. That includes $27,350 from BP, making him the third-biggest recipient of BP money in the House.

It's about time

2010-06-15T21:36:00.004-07:00

As someone who grew up singing "Four Green Fields," "Johnson's Motor Car" and "The Minstrel Boy" around Grandpa Welch's kitchen table at the holidays, this strikes me as an amazing and honest admission by the English government, even if it's quite belated.

The Bloody Sunday killings were unjustified and unjustifiable, the Prime Minster has said.

Fourteen others were wounded, one later died. The Saville Report is heavily critical of the Army and found that soldiers fired the first shot.

Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "deeply sorry".

He said that the findings of the Saville Report were "shocking".

A huge cheer erupted in Guildhall Square in Derry as Mr Cameron delivered the findings which unequivocally blamed the Army for one of the most controversial days in Northern Ireland's history.

I'm not sure it should have taken 12 years and £195 million to figure this out, though. My uncle Kenny told me it was a massacre when I was 10.

h/t Lawyers, Guns, and Money (who don't deserve it because they use a goddamn Oxford Comma in the title of their blog)

How Mark Kirk can can prove he's not lying

2010-06-15T18:31:00.004-07:00

Today, in a post that went horribly awry with updates, I pointed out that MaddowBlog caught Mark Kirk in a yet another lie. A commenter who said he served with Mark Kirk wrote that:

Much has been made of Commander (CDR) Mark Kirk military service in the last couple of weeks. The latest alleges the Rep. Kirk campaigned while serving in Afghanistan, an allegation that I can say categorically is untrue during his time in Afghanistan between December 15, 2008 and January 2, 2009.

Kirk responded that the commenter was "setting the record straight."

However, it appears that the dates in question were not the time when Kirk was accused of conducting "partisan political activities." Apparently, the time in question was just prior to Kirk's depoloyment, while he was in pre-deployment training status. Kirk claims this was "reserve duty," while the DoD says something different.

Either way, Kirk knows full well that the time the commenter writes about is not the time in question. In other words, it's yet another form of lie from Kirk, who's pretending the question has been answered in his favor.

But, as to the original question, do we have to simply put up with a he said/she said argument in which Kirk claims he wasn't on active duty and the DoD says he was? No. You see, Adam Weinstein had it right when he wrote that many Americans have no understanding of the inner workings of the military. They don't know the processes or the steps military members have to go through in order to serve, and, most importantly, they don't know the forms that document those processes and steps.

Unfortunately for Mark Kirk, I do.

So, if Mark Kirk wants to prove he didn't conduct those interviews while on active duty, there's a simple step he can take. Kirk must release his Annual Retirement Point Record (ARPR).

You may have heard that, as a Congressman, Kirk cannot perform his reserve duties for pay, but instead performs them for "retirement points." The ARPR (or the Retirement Point History Statement on the Army side) is a document that tracks those points down to the single day and it is one of those things Reservists pore over like Bible scholars at the Lost Sea Scrolls. That's because, at the end of a career, the numbers on the document get pushed through an algorithm and out comes the amount of monthly retirement pay the Reservist will receive. There's a handy calculator here, in fact, where Reservists can figure their retirement payments.*

The ARPR doesn't just show points, though, it shows very specific dates when different types of duty began and ended. Kirk's would show exactly when he began active duty and when it ended. It would either put to rest some** of the concerns about his "partisan political activities" or confirm them.

And here's the best part. It's super easy for Kirk to do this. If he wants to prove he didn't violate regs in December 2008, he can simply log onto his electronic record right now and, within minutes, create an ARPR.

Kirk has taken advantage of the fact that most Americans don't get the way the Navy works, which is why he released a few of his fitreps from 10 years ago. They're simply red herrings. So I put it to Kirk. He can clear some of this up by releasing his ARPR. It's as simple as that.

I do want to add that, in the end, what has made this portion of the Kirk story so stupid is that the infractions themselves were so small. Yes, they were violations and, frankly, I have to take the DoD's side in believing they did occur, but it's simply shocking to me that Kirk lied about them. As a PR guy--no. As a military public affairs guy, I would have suggested he say this:

You know what? I screwed up and talked to reporters when I shouldn't have and I tweeted on active duty and I got my knuckles rapped over it by the same guys who love my work as an intel officer. I was wrong and, hell, I'm proud to be a part of an organization that takes even small errors like this seriously. A dedication to a code is one of the things that drew me to the Navy.

Instead Kirk, who has told so many lies about his service, chose to tell one more, sending out a statement that said he "never violated Defense Department policies." As I said in comments elsewhere, it seems that lying has become Mark Kirk's default setting for speaking about his military career. Now he's been caught in an obvious one about something easily provable, which lends credence to my claims the rest of his "misremembered" past was also made up of lies.

So put your cards on the table, Commander Kirk. Release your ARPR.

* For example, my document shows I had 3038 points toward retirement when I got out (I intended to get back in and actually retire, but that's a different story). Assuming those points, my last rank, 20 years of service and a 2010 retirement, I'd make about $1500 a month starting in 2031.

** I say "some" because this still seems to violate considering the letter was released while Kirk was on active duty. Nor would it clear up the issue of his tweets.

Why Mark Kirk matters

2010-06-15T15:30:00.004-07:00

Adam Weinstein gets it.

It's disturbingly easy to misrepresent your military service in workaday America. In a culture that's disposed to think of all veterans as heroes (on the right) or victims (on the left), few civilians have the inclination or the intestinal fortitude to scrutinize someone else's service record and assent to judge another's honor or Americanness. As a consequence, few among us know what a long-form DD-214 is, much less how to read one. (It's a service member's discharge form, which shows the type of discharge, their rank, awards earned, and the like.)

That said, veterans themselves have a high sensitivity to, and low threshold for, military fakers. Which makes it difficult for Americans in the public sphere—politicians, say—to misrepresent their service.

Mark Kirk is learning that now.

[snip]

You don't have to agree with the military's policies, nor do you have to celebrate every GI Joe or Jane as a hero, to believe that they're owed some explanation from a politician who seeks to profit by his own service.

Yes. (Although I take exception to the "lefties think military folks are victims" claim.)

Tea Partiers v. George Washington

2010-06-15T14:44:00.004-07:00

Like their self-styled leader, Glenn Beck, Tea Partiers seem to lack the most basic understanding of the history they claim underpins their movement. Doug Kendall:

(Alabama congressional candidate Rick) Barber's ad invokes patriots such as George Washington apparently to support a proposition that Washington would surely have found abhorrent: that citizens should engage in armed rebellion in response to government actions sanctioned by our Constitution. In fact, we know precisely how President Washington would have responded if the armed rebellion suggested by Barber materialized: he would have crushed it. We know this because just such a rebellion - the Whiskey Rebellion - happened during Washington's presidency.

Read the whole thing.

There are a million little historical errors like this in Tea Party rhetoric. So many, in fact, it seems an insurmountable task to take them all on. (I mean, don't get me started on how ridiculous it is for Glenn Beck to claim Thomas Paine as a spiritual father.) Every time I start in with a post about those errors, I find myself stymied by their sheer number, so I'm glad there are still some optimistic souls out there who are still willing to wade into the stupid.

Update: Also: Why Thomas Jefferson would have liked the Tea Party.

Kirk's getting comical

2010-06-15T11:20:00.008-07:00

Update: It seems to me this is actually easier to solve than I thought.

Kirk's campaign states, in this timeline they released, that he conducted interviews during pre-deployment training.

2. On December 10, Senator Durbin raised the issue of a special election for the senate, instead of a governor's pick.

3. That day, the Illinois media began calling all Illinois congressmen and other figures asking if they could run. Congressman Kirk was doing pre-deployment training as a reservist in Springfield, Virginia, each day, then working in his congressional office each night. DoD rules allow congressmen to perform duties incident to their congressional office while on reserve duty. Kirk gave interviews with WIND, WLS, WFLD, MSNBC. He mainly commented on the arrest of the Illinois governor and when asked, said he would not rule out a run.

4. On December 11, Congressman Kirk was interviewed by Politico, Fox National TV, WLS and WFLD.

5. CDR Kirk then went dark and departed the United States on the night of December 13, 2008 for Afghanistan. He served for two weeks in Afghanistan and did not give interviews.

Pre-deployment training isn't "reserve duty" it's active duty and the Pentagon considers it as much. If Kirk disagrees, he should release a copy of his fitrep that covers the time as well as a copy of his orders.

Update: It would also seem this violates the regs, too, considering the letter was released while Kirk was on active duty, but the DoD didn't mention it.

MaddowBlog catches Mark Kirk thanking a commenter at the Chicago Sun-Times for "setting the record straight" about his mixing politics with his military service. The only problem, the commenter in question "clears" Kirk of violating regulations, but not during the time of the incidents the DoD mentioned.

In other words, the comment might as well say "Mark Kirk didn't violate regulations during this time when the DoD isn't saying he violated regulations."

Update: [Removed]

Update: It seems to me that the confusion here could stem from the fact that the commenter mentions the dates between December 15th and January 2nd, when Kirk was actually in Afghanistan. However, Kirk has said before that he was actually on active duty for three weeks, which would include some of his time stateside. This is probably when he took part in the interview the Pentagon mentioned, which still makes it a no-no.

I have been extremely careful to back up every statement I've made about Kirk, so I apologize for this hasty post. I will continue to research and correct the record. I have contacted the Pentagon for further clarification. Regardless of this comment, the Pentagon spokesmen assures me their statement was exhaustively researched and vetted.

Update: A mention of a forthcoming post was deleted, as a source asked me not to continue with a line of inquiry.

Will Matthews really cover Mark Kirk?

2010-06-15T11:09:00.004-07:00

I just spoke with a Hardball producer. If you remember, I first contacted the program a month ago about the Mark Kirk issue, since Chris Matthews all but suggested Richard Blumenthal should fall on his sword over his military misstatements.

The producer said they wouldn't get time to deal with it today, considering the president's speech tonight, but might have time tomorrow.

I said, "I understand, but, considering the way Matthews treated Blumenthal, it's going to be a real credibility issue if you continue to ignore or gloss over the Mark Kirk story, which has proven to be much larger."

The producer said he saw my point, but we'll see if Hardball staffers really care about credibility.

BREAKING: Pentagon confirms Kirk violated policy

2010-06-14T13:46:00.016-07:00

In a statement released today in response to Nitpicker queries, Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Major April Cunningham* confirmed that Rep. Mark Kirk had taken part in partisan political activities while on active duty.

From the statement:

In December 2008, Commander Kirk, while on active duty, participated in video discussions in the media about the unfolding situation involving then-Governor Blagojevich of Illinois. Members of the Armed Forces on active duty may not participate in television discussions as an advocate for or against a partisan political party, candidate, or cause.

In July 2009, while on active duty in the Washington area, either Commander Kirk or a staff member posted a "twitter" to his Senate campaign web site that indicated he was on duty at the National Military Command Center. At the time, Commander Kirk was a candidate for the Senate. Candidates for political office may not participate in any campaign activities while on active duty. They may not update or revise their websites, and they must inform their campaign staff of the applicable restrictions.

Department of Defense Directive 1344.10, Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces, addresses these matters.

The statement explains the "partisan political activities" referred to in the December 18, 2009 DoD memo published here last week.

More important is that the statement basically points out Kirk has continued to lie about these events.

Commander Kirk was counseled about each of his violations after they occurred and signed a statement acknowledging the limitations on his ability to participate in campaign activities while on active duty. He was required to complete this acknowledgement before being allowed to begin active duty in December 2009. (Italics mine.)

So, while Kirk has been saying publicly the memo was "off the mark," the Pentagon says he was counseled about the violations and, therefore, Kirk knows his statement that he has "never violated Defense Department policies" is, in fact, a lie.

Update: This post has been edited for clarity.

Update: The Tribune's John Chase has also picked up the story.

he Pentagon today offered details to support its assertion that Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk twice violated military policy by participating in political activities while on active duty -- once in 2008 and once in 2009.

Kirk--a congressman and Navy reserve commander--broke the rules when he gave TV interviews in December 2008 about the corruption arrest of then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the Defense Department said. Kirk violated policy again in July 2009 when he or a staff member posted a tweet on his Senate campaign Twitter account that indicated he was on duty at the National Military Command Center, the department said.

The explanation came a week after questions were first raised about a December waiver from the military that Kirk needed to serve in Afghanistan. The Pentagon referred to the policy violations in that waiver, adding fodder to the controversy over Kirk's embellishment of his military record. The five-term North Shore congressman is engaged in tough Senate race with Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, the state treasurer.

The Pentagon approved the waiver and allowed Kirk to go to Afghanistan but expressed “concerns arising from his partisan political activities during his last two tours of active duty.”

Kirk’s campaign denied he violated any Defense Department policies and called the memorandum written by Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Gail H. McGinn “simply off the mark.”

I'm starting to get offended by the way these guys refuse to say where these "questions were raised," but I guess I'd be embarrassed too if I were a reporter for a major daily getting punked by little old me.

Update: As Rich Miller points out, Mark Kirk's response is "nonsensical." I think the key here is that Kirk spent a month saying his previous falsehoods were misstatements, misrememberings and clerical errors. Yet just last week he told Rich he had “never violated Defense Department policies.” Now we know he was lying when he released that statement, which shines a new light on his previous statements.

* Major Cunningham's rank has been adjusted. I initially listed her as a lieutenant colonel and she's been accepted for promotion, but hasn't pinned on the new rank yet. Congratulations, Lt. Col.!

'Cause I said so. So there!

2010-06-14T11:08:00.007-07:00

For the record, I love Jane Hamsher. You know where she stands, which is nice, even though there are times she seems to think President Obama could create a liberal Utopia by snapping his fingers, the need to get laws through Congress be damned! Hell, I even forgive her willingness to lend credibility to Fox and Friends and the execrable Grover Norquist because I believe she thought it was the best thing to do to move the country toward more progressive health care reform. (Did I agree with her decision? No.)

But this Hamsher article on Huffington Post is, frankly, bullshit. (Leave aside the fact the article which launches her tirade is typical Politico Drudge bait from the reporter who brought us the claim the media treats Obama with "kid gloves" and said John Edwards would have been our "first woman president.") How can anyone take seriously Hamsher's 1,300-word full-throated complaint about the "reluctance of the environmental groups to criticize the administration over the cleanup" when it provides not a single reason why the administration should be criticized? Nor does it even attempt to take down the claims of the environmental groups Hamsher trashes. Is Obama "the best environmental president we've had since Teddy Roosevelt"? Who knows. Certainly Hamsher makes no attempt to rebut that claim.

Hamsher even quotes Obama's statement that, "when you look at what most of the critics say ...and you ask them, specifically, what is it that the administration could or should have done differently that would have an impact on whether or not oil was hitting shore, you're met with silence." She then provides more silence on that issue.

In fact, all Hamsher does is provide ammunition for Republicans who have been chastised by the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council or other organizations by labeling those groups "partisan cheerleaders." It's only a matter of time before a Republican points out that "even the liberal Jane Hamsher"--or, better yet, "even the left-wing extremist Jane Hamsher"--says environmental groups are simply organs of the Democratic Party. Even as she admits the "Sierra Club has one of the most well-known progressive brands," she has no qualms about chipping away at that brand because it "appears that they have opted for an 'inside' game."

Appears. In other words, Hamsher has no evidence this is the case. She points to no areas where the Obama administration has failed in its cleanup efforts. She just seems to sense collusion.

It "appears" Hamsher feels she has to destroy the Progressive movement in order to save it.

Update: A Hamsher defender points out that she does mention the MMS was "still granting offshore drilling permits, even after Ken Salazar promised they wouldn’t," but the thesis of her article is that, by failing to go after Obama in regard to the cleanup efforts, environmental groups are proving they are bought and paid for. She can't actually chastise the Sierra Club and others for ignoring the drilling permit issue since they've filed suit to stop drilling permits. Also, they called for a moratorium on offshore drilling on May 20 and got it seven days later. Call me a tribalist, but that seems like an effective organization to me.

Update: Now these seem like valid, substantive criticisms of the administration's policy regarding the cleanup. Of course, Hamsher did not mention any of these problems--or, again, any cleanup failures--but instead chose to attack and tarnish environmental groups by unjustifiably smearing them as paid-for puppets.

Kirk campaign: The Navy doesn't know what it's talking about

2010-06-14T07:43:00.004-07:00

As I've pointed out, journalists are catching up to Nitpicker on the issue of Mark Kirk's claims to have "deployed" to Afghanistan. But Kirk's campaign seems to be making some bold claims in defending their candidates exaggerations.

Referring to Kirk's missions, Navy Cmdr. Danny Hernandez said, "I would think that would be (considered) two weeks of annual training," Hernandez said. "A deployment is a deployment and annual training is annual training."

Kirk, a five-term congressman and Navy Reserve commander, is locked in a battle with Democratic opponent Alexi Giannoulias, the Illinois state treasurer, for the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Obama.

Kirk's campaign responded the congressman was accurate, saying deployment constituted any reassignment of forces.

"Congressman Kirk was proud to deploy to Afghanistan in 2008 and 2009 on military orders issued by the U.S. Navy," Kirk spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said.

In other words, the Kirk campaign is claiming the Navy spokesperson doesn't understand what constitutes a "deployment." Too bad for Kirk the Navy has a clear cut definition for the word.

Deployment. Either a period of at least 90 consecutive days with a deployed unit or two deployments of at least 80 days each with a given 12-month period. No waivers of this requirement will be made.

Finally...

2010-06-12T10:49:00.003-07:00

It looks like someone's reading Nitpicker, although it seems they'd rather die than admit it.

When Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk says he repeatedly deployed to Afghanistan with the Navy, he's referring to two-week training missions as part of his annual reservist requirements.

After acknowledging a series of misstatements that embellished his Navy service, Kirk is being challenged over his use of the military term "deployment," and this could be yet another opportunity for critics to parse his words in what has recently become a resume-bashing battle with Democratic Senate opponent Alexi Giannoulias.

Deployment can mean more than one thing in the military, but it is often used to describe service members going off to war for an extended time.

Navy Cmdr. Danny Hernandez said there is a difference between annual training and being deployed, which can sometimes last more than a year.

"I would think that would be (considered) two weeks of annual training," Hernandez, a Navy spokesman, said of Kirk's stints. "A deployment is a deployment and annual training is annual training."

Thank you, CDR Hernandez, you've confirmed what I've been saying for some time.

The Ghost Writer 2: The Beck-ening

2010-06-11T11:48:00.003-07:00

Isn't it weird to think it took two people to make Glenn Beck's book staggeringly awful? Here's a scene from my script about its creation:

Beck ghostwriter KEVIN BALFE sits busily typing away at his computer. He's disheveled and it appears he's been weeping. A stack of catalogs from master's degree programs are piled sloppily beside him. BALFE quits typing, sits back and pulls a bottle of Southern Comfort from a drawer in his desk. He takes a swig as we hear footsteps in the hall. He hastily hides the bottle in the drawer again as GLENN BECK comes to the door. Beck is in shirt sleeves with his top collar button undone, his tie loose. He's carrying a hoagie sandwich and a half-empty 2-liter bottle of Orange Crush.
BECK
Hey, "co-writer." How's the book coming along?
BALFE
Uh...great, Glenn. It's coming along great. Your latest ideas were...(there's a strange hiccuping noise in his throat)...they were just the best yet.
BECK
(Talking around a bite of his sandwich.) Yeah, I knew they would be. I had a dream and God told me that would be great to put in the book.
BALFE
God told you to have the villains create a detailed PowerPoint of their plan for the protagonists to find?
BECK
Um...(Barely paying attention, he nudges one of the college catalogs with his foot and frowns.) Yeah, yeah, of course. We have a third co-writer. It's God. He wants this book to be awesome.
BALFE
(Looking a bit stunned.) Uh, OK.
BECK
(His attention returning to the conversation.) Oh, so I came here to tell you that, after Noah and Mary--
BALFE
Molly.
BECK
Huh?
BALFE
The female protagonist is named Molly.
BECK
Right. OK. Whatever. (Beat.) Anyway, after Noah and Molly kiss for the first time, I'd like them to talk about the flat tax.
BALFE
The flat tax?
BECK
Yeah. I want to get it in there somewhere and that's where I think it would be best.

BALFE simply stares at BECK for a few seconds. Finally, BECK leans over the desk until his face is a foot away from BALFE's.
BECK
(His voice is a cold whisper.) Kevin, that's where God wants that discussion to go.
BALFE
OK, Glenn. Sure. Sure. It's great. Really. You're the writer, after all.
BECK
That's right. So have him say he thinks our country needs spending cuts and we need to get the tax code down to a few short statements.
BALFE
Short statements? You mean, uh, like bullet points?
BECK
Yeah! You got it. (He takes a big swig of soda.) That's it!

BECK stands silently for a few seconds, a satisfied smile on his face. BALFE's eyes roam to a clipped article taped over a picture of his smiling family. The headline reads: "Publishers Expect Beck Novel Will Be Bestseller." He sniffs, seems to rally himself and then smiles up at BECK.
BALFE
Well, I should--
BECK
Yeah, write, write. Don't let me stop you. That's enough for me today anyway. I'll catch you later. Give me a call when you've got another 20 pages for my agent to read, OK?
BALFE
Sure, Glenn. Will do.
BECK
I'm gone, then.

BECK leaves the room, taking another large bite from his sandwich. After a few seconds, BALFE slumps forward in his chair, sobbing.

You think I'm kidding (and I am), but Balfe sure seems eager to give Beck all the credit, pointing out the ideas are "right out of (Beck's) brain." He also seems pretty happy for a writer whose name appears nowhere on the cover of the book. Then again, since Balfe's actually an accountant by training, I'm sure he knows what's really important.

An open letter to Edward McClelland

2010-06-11T11:13:00.004-07:00

Dear Mr. McClelland,

First, I take issue with your complaint that pointing out the concerns of the DoD about Kirk's politicking in uniform is nagging. I broke that story and only someone inured to a world of lies or oblivious to the meaning of military honor could find it unimportant. While I may not put a lot of faith or trust in politicians, I do expect commissioned officers to live up to a set of principles and the DoD--not me--says Kirk failed to do so.

Second, your suggestion the Giannoulias campaign had something to do with the revelation is false and gratuitous. I have no connection to their campaign or, for that matter, the state of Illinois. I'm simply a veteran who hates to see the military politicized and hates military fakers even more. I first pointed out Kirk was lying about his record in 2005, long before there was an open Senate seat over which Kirk and Giannoulias could fight.

Military people take this stuff seriously. You might have asked a couple before you wrote this toss-off column. You might also have noticed that I, an independent blogger with no ties to the Giannoulias campaign, broke those stories. It's not opposition research, it's reporting. You should try it.

You want "better voters." I want better journalists.

-Nitpicker

Smerconish drives Campbell Brown's waaaaaahmbulance

2010-06-10T23:55:00.006-07:00

Here we go again with the whole media polarization is ruining America crap.

Any conversation about political polarization would be incomplete without a look at the media's role in shaping opinions. From my view on the front lines, I have seen a rapid escalation of extreme dialogue -- sadly, something sure to guarantee high ratings. Indeed, Campbell Brown's departure from her CNN show last month marks another tombstone in the graveyard of moderate, thoughtful analysis.

Why does this matter? I'd argue that the climate in Washington is being shaped by an artificial presentation of attitudes on cable TV and talk radio. To view and to listen is to become convinced that there are only two, diametrically opposed philosophical approaches to the issues.

The ratings for any news programs--even the ones doing well on Fox--would make the producer of "How I Met Your Mother" put a bullet in his head. The only people who care to spend their evenings watching the news are people who have skin in the game--even if it's just the symbolic skin of their beliefs. Add in a right wing movement that believes Hollywood is immoral and they're the only sane people in a world gone mad and you can see why Fox's ratings are so high. It's porn for the pissed off right-winger.

MSNBC saw this and added the lefty equivalent in the evenings, though far more explanatory and cerebral, just like liberals like it.*

But, if you're trying to drive down the middle of the ideological road like CNN, you have to realize that by the time evening comes everyone has heard about those five or six stories you're about to report. It popped up on their iPads or cell phones or laptops or whatever and, if they care to hear anymore about it at all, they want to see it from a different angle. People who do care about the news hear about a major event and they think, "I can't wait to see what Olbermann (or Maddow or O'Reilly or Colbert) has to say about that later." And it's not simply ideological. I'm a lefty, but sometimes I simply have to see what nutty take Bill O'Reilly will have on something.

Here's the truth Smerconish and Campbell ignore: There is no one who has ever seen a major story break and then thought, "Wow. I'll bet Campbell Brown will have a fascinating take on this tonight."

* Which, I have to say, is one of liberals greatest failings. It's not that they like smart and thoughtful, it's that they don't realize smart and thoughtful isn't enough. If you don't believe me, listen to the showmanship in Rush Limbaugh's voice sometime as he says some inane thing about how Obama's trying to bring down the country. Then listen to Ring of Fire, an undeniably intelligent show featuring Robert Kennedy Jr. as one of its hosts. Kennedy sounds like a sickly 72-year-old woman and can't seem to find anything that affects him enough it changes his inflection (see Tom's comment). If you want to drive the debate, folks, you first have to get people listening. There were some obvious exceptions but nearly every show on Air America seem to be hosted by a Mo Rocca clone and/or your buddy's mom, the social studies teacher.

Kirk has been shameless

2010-06-10T13:56:00.009-07:00

Another B.S. Kirk quote from last year:

“We’ve sent three armies to the Middle East and I’ve fought in two of them. As combat veterans, we get to ask, ‘Are we going to still being doing this 20 years from now?’ So I’ve been in favor of anything that gets us to energy independence,” said Kirk, an intelligence commander in the Naval Reserve who was deployed in December to Afghanistan.

As I've pointed out before, Kirk does have wartime service, but that is very different from being a combat veteran.

More importantly, what the hell is he talking about? Afghanistan is not in the Middle East--as even the worst intel officer would know--so he must be referring to the Iraq missions Operation Desert Storm, Operation Northern Watch and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Kirk served in Northern Watch. Period. So, regarding his statement he "fought in two" Middle Eastern conflicts, was he referring to his false claim to have served in Operation Iraqi Freedom or his false claim to have served in Desert Storm?

While Kirk blamed both of those falsehoods on staffer errors, here's the lie coming right out of his mouth.

Someone's paying attention

2010-06-10T13:34:00.002-07:00

Greg Hinz gets it.

The story is a department memo, first revealed by the blog Nitpicker, that Mr. Kirk engaged in "partisan political activities while on his last two tours of duty." It's not clear whether it involved tweeting or some other activity, but Mr. Kirk's campaign does not deny the authenticity of the memo.

[snip]

But, even if the Dems are wrong on the facts, someone in the Pentagon — reportedly a deputy undersecretary of defense — felt he did break the rules. And that is a problem.

As I said, Kirk can make all the gratuitous accusations of conspiracy he wants to make, but it doesn't change the fact the document is real and someone in the DoD thought he acted wrongly--a career Defense employee appointed to Under Secretary by the Bush administration, no less.

Whom do you believe?

2010-06-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

During the 2004 election, it became clear that Republican activists were gathering a pile of money to attack John Kerry's military record through a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. It didn't matter that, time after time, the claims of the the group were discredited, were proven to conflict with statements the members had given at the time of the incidents they described or were just simply proven to be bullshit.

For some reason, Kerry's team couldn't figure out how to counter even these easily discredited falsehoods.

I was in Afghanistan at the time and out of the political loop, but the response seemed very simple to me. Slather t-shirts, bumper stickers, refrigerator magnets, posters and every other type of campaign paraphernalia with a very simple message:

I BELIEVE THE NAVY

Republicans would have had the difficult task of explaining how the Navy--not Kerry--was full of crap. Because everything Kerry had said and done was backed up explicitly in his records. He had earned his three purple hearts and his bronze star. His fitness reports showed he was rated as "the acknowledged leader in his peer group" by one of the same people who tried to claim he was a slacker in 2004. At every turn, all one had to do was look at the record and compare it to Kerry's statements and those of his detractors and you saw that Kerry was supported by the facts.

I bring up this depressing subject because it's time for us to apply the same simple logic to the Mark Kirk story about which I have done so much reporting. At the end of the day, I still believe the Navy. And, in this case, the DoD.

That means that, as I've said before, I do believe Mark Kirk's fitness reports, which describe him as a stellar Reserve intelligence officer. It's all there in black and white and I have no reason to doubt those descriptions.

However, when it comes to the most recent revelations, we must weigh a DoD memo's claim that Kirk conducted "partisan political activities during...tours of active duty" against the Kirk campaign's assertion the memo is "off the mark." It has come down once again to the documented record and the word of a service member, but, this time, the record and the man are in disagreement. Whom do you believe? Look at the history before you decide.

Mark Kirk repeatedly claimed over a number of years to have won the Navy Intelligence Officer of the Year Award. The record showed this was false and Kirk admitted as much. Kirk claimed the award was "misidentified."
Also, the award was for Kirk's unit, not Kirk individually.
In belatedly correcting the record, Kirk claimed his staff had caught it while scrubbing his record, but the Navy said they tipped the Congressman to the fact reporters were researching his background.
In 2005, Kirk's web site claimed he was "the only member of Congress to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom." The Navy said Kirk's claim was false.
Kirk claims his staff meant to say "during" rather than "in," but records show he wasn't "the only Congressman to serve during Iraqi Freedom" either.
Kirk claims he "deployed" to Afghanistan, but he only spent Annual Training periods there, which do not meet the definition of a deployment.
Kirk claimed he was fired upon while in a plane over Iraq, but Kirk himself withdrew that claim, telling the Chicago Tribune editorial board it might not have been true because there was no record of whether his aircraft was being fired upon.
Kirk also claimed to have served in Desert Storm, but he did not.
When a blogger pointed out that Kirk had been placing tweets on his campaign account while on duty in the Pentagon, the Congressman first claimed a staffer, not he, had posted a preapproved tweet, but later said, "It's something that I will not do again."
On a non-military note, Kirk also appears to have invented anecdotes he used to illustrate his foreign policy beliefs.

So, time and time again, Kirk's grandiose claims about his military background have proven to be false when compared to the record. In this most recent case, Kirk's campaign admitted the memo in question was part of his "confidential record," but claims that it's just not true he conducted "partisan political activities during...tours of active duty."

Look at the list of Kirk's claims above and decide for yourself who's telling the truth.

A response to Mark Kirk

2010-06-09T17:23:00.005-07:00

Kirk's campaign tells Capitol Fax Blog:

Mark Kirk has served our nation in the U.S. Navy for two decades and has done so honorably. The fact is, Congressman Kirk never violated Defense Department policies. He has misspoken about his record, acknowledged it and apologized. Mark Kirk left for Afghanistan and he did not engage in political activities - even in the face of radio commercials accusing him of being gay. The memorandum in question is simply off the mark. Furthermore, this raises grave concerns and questions about who gained access to Kirk’s confidential records. The document in question should be viewed for what it is - a baseless political ploy by partisans bent on defending a U.S. Senate seat at any cost.

Going forward, we will be submitting a Freedom of Information Act request for all correspondence between Administration officials and Democratic campaigns or political operatives regarding Mr. Kirk’s personal military records. We will not stand by and allow partisan attacks invalidate two decades of military service, both here and overseas.

The memo was sent to me from someone who received it from inside Kirk's own camp. Suggesting it came from administration officials or political operatives is baseless. I have backed up every single statement I've made about Mark Kirk, but he has chosen to respond to substantive and substantiated claims I have made with unsupported accusations. I'm not a political operative. I'm a pissed off vet who hates fakers and, as I and others have extensively documented, Mark Kirk is a liar.

If Kirk's campaign wants to accuse me of colluding with someone in his opponent's campaign or in the administration, he better bring some proof. The truth is Kirk has a leaky campaign.

Surprising for an intelligence officer, no?

Also, it would seem an intelligence officer would understand the term "confidential" is an official DoD classification level meaning "material (that) would cause 'damage' or be 'prejudicial' to national security if publicly available." The document is not marked CONFIDENTIAL and, if this were a confidential document, then Kirk himself, by emailing it to unsecure email accounts, would have violated Department of Defense security policy and should lose his security clearance.

As for the substance of the memo's claim itself, Kirk should take that up with the Under Secretary of Defense who wrote the memo. Unlike him I don't make up stories about his military service. I only report them.

Update: The heart of Kirk's statement above, that "Kirk never violated Defense Department policies," has been proven to be a lie.

DoD Under Secretary says Mark Kirk broke the law

2010-06-09T09:45:00.024-07:00

While even those coming very late to the game realize Mark Kirk has used his Navy Reserve service--both actual and imagined--as a "centerpiece of his campaign and an integral part of his message," it seems the Department of Defense was unhappy with Kirk for making his status as a politician part of his service while on active duty.

Because of his position as a Congressman, Kirk was required to receive a waiver in order to perform training in Afghanistan, as numerous DoD and civil codes forbid such service (pdf link). Yesterday, a source with connections to the Kirk campaign forwarded me the DoD's "exception to policy" memo which allowed Kirk's most recent trip to Afghanistan and included a very interesting paragraph. (See full document below.)

As a candidate for the vacant Senate seat in Illinois, Commander Kirk must complete the appropriate acknowledgment of limitations required for all candidates on active duty (DoDD 1344.10, paragraph 4.3.5.). Ordinarily this acknowledgment must be completed within 15 days of entering active duty. Because of the short period of active duty and concerns arising from his partisan political activities during his last two tours of active duty, Commander Kirk must complete this form prior to his entry on active duty.

You see, most of this document is the usual regulation-laced DoD gobbledygook, but those last few sentences should be shockers to people who know how the military works. The Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Plans) is clearly stating that Kirk violated DoD regulations in the past by conducting "partisan political activities" while on active duty. Not only that, but she is calling Kirk out over those violations.

And those violations are, in fact, a prosecutable offense. As the regulation states, "Violations of paragraphs 4.1. through 4.5. of this Directive by persons subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice are punishable under Article 92, 'Failure to Obey Order or Regulation...'" A violation of Article 92 is punishable by up to two years of confinement and a dishonorable discharge. Mark Kirk broke the law at least twice according to this memo and seems to have escaped any punishment at all.

It's possible some of this was dealt with before, when Capitol Fax Blog's Rich Miller noted Kirk's Tweets while on active duty probably violated regulations. Kirk initially claimed a staffer, not he, had posted a preapproved tweet, but he seemed to tacitly admit culpability for the messages later, saying, "It's something that I will not do again." Regardless, "behind-the-scenes activities" are also against regs (as TPMDC pointed out).

Though Capitol Fax Blog's initial post includes a promise by the Navy to provide more information about Kirk's actions by the early part of August 2009, Miller says he has received no further statement from the Navy despite numerous requests. This memo, then, is the first evidence of official Department of Defense acknowledgment that Kirk violated regulations against political activity while on active duty. To be clear, there's no way of knowing at this point if the tweets are even what's being discussed in the memo. I have been in contact with Major April Cunningham, a DoD spokesperson. Perhaps she can provide explanation of the exact "partisan political activities" mentioned, but I am still awaiting her response.

I also contacted the Kirk campaign for a statement, but have received no response.

It should be pointed out, though, drill weekends are not usually referred to as "active duty," so it's possible the violations mentioned in the memo are separate from the Twitter issue and may have occurred while he was on annual training, perhaps including his service in Afghanistan in December 2008 to January 2009. Until the Kirk camp or the DoD responds, however, there's no way of knowing when Kirk violated the regulations (and the law) or, perhaps more importantly, how he avoided punishment for those violations.

Mark Kirk Waiver

Update: To the emailer who suggested I would be prosecuted because this is a classified document, I ask that you review the document again.

This document contains nothing which could damage national security, the threshold for the lowest levels of classification.
Nowhere is it marked CLASSIFIED.
If it were classified, then the fact that it was emailed between Kirk staffers on unsecure email accounts (I received it from a source who verifies this) would mean that Mark Kirk, an intel officer with a top secret clearance, would have mishandled classified information. Therefore he would be subject to the loss of his clearance and possible criminal charges.

Nice try, though.

What?

2010-06-09T08:41:00.001-07:00

Lindsey Graham requires air to be business friendly.

Or something.

Clip and save

2010-06-08T12:54:00.005-07:00

Please put this list by Steve Benen in a safe place. He's done excellent work keeping track of the double standard Obama is held to by Fox and the rest of the right. I'm sure we'll be adding to the list soon.

You know, it's almost as if Obama's election drove the right completely nuts. Someone should write a book about that.

Oh wait.

Helen Thomas wasn't trying to bring back the Holocaust

2010-06-08T11:09:00.004-07:00

V.D. Hanson brings his usual careful insight to Helen Thomas' statement:

By picking Poland and Germany as the ultimate destinations to which she wishes Israelis would go, Thomas was, deliberately or carelessly, saying that they should be uprooted and sent to places where 6 million of them were liquidated. In other words, Thomas was not voicing the usual prejudice, but something much creepier, a sort of flippant pop blueprint for a repeat of 1939–45, echoing the shout from one of the seaborne “peace” protestors, “Go back to Auschwitz!”

Um, no. Not to excuse her statement, but Thomas was saying that the many Jews of European descent could return to their families' countries of origin. It's still a ridiculous and outrageous statement, but hardly one that equates to suggesting a revival of the Holocaust.

In fact, if Hanson would bother to do the tiniest bit of research he would find that so few Jews agree Germany=Auschwitz (or, to be geographically correct, Bergen-Belsen) that Israel has actually tried to get Germany to keep Jews from immigrating there.

The mass migration of Jews from the former Soviet Union to Germany likely will come to a swift end with the introduction of a new law drawn up by Germany’s 16-state governments.

German authorities presented the new restrictions on Jewish immigration to Germany’s two national Jewish organizations last week. As put forth, the restrictions effectively will end the wave of migration that has brought almost 200,000 Jews and their relatives to Germany from the former Soviet Union, causing a Jewish renaissance in the most unlikely of places.

The law drew praise from Israeli authorities, who have long been uncomfortable with Jewish immigration to Germany, especially since it began topping immigration to Israel in the last few years. Michael Jankelowitz, a spokesman for the Jewish Agency for Israel, a quasi-government agency responsible for immigration to Israel, said the changes were “positive.” Jankelowitz said that his organization aggressively had lobbied the German government for the new law.

But the new restrictions provoked concern in German and Russian circles. “This means the death of our immigration,” said Larissa Sysoeva, European director of the World Congress of Russian-speaking Jews.

The law has created confusion among German Jewish communal leaders, who were informed of the changes only on December 13 and soon will be responsible for administering parts of the new law. In particular, communal officials are scrambling to understand the consequences of a clause requiring that all new Jewish immigrants to Germany be certified as Jewish by one of the country’s two national Jewish organizations.

In other words, Israel--not Helen Thomas--fought for a law that limits the mobility of Jews and requires them to be "certified as Jewish" for the purposes of the German government. Take from that what you may.

(h/t Juan Cole)

Really? Still with this?

2010-06-07T22:56:00.005-07:00

Got a lovely email from someone who visited because of the Mark Kirk stories and then, apparently incensed, decided to wander around my site looking for evidence that I didn't serve and am generally a big commie pinko.

I guess he finally settled on this post and writes, "No one who served could believe the Iraq War wasted lives" (which suggests he didn't really read the post). He goes on to call me un-American for not supporting my country.

You know, whenever someone tells me I'm not supporting my country enough, I hear this:

Chuck and Helen and Pat and Fred

2010-06-07T16:08:00.004-07:00

In 2002, Michael Moore interviewed Charlton Heston for his film Bowling for Columbine. During the interview the actor said part of the reason the United States has many more gun deaths than other developed countries was because the United States "probably has more mixed ethnicity than other countries."

Remember, Heston was president--and a national spokesman--for the National Rifle Association at the time and remained in that position for a year after the film came out.

Yet The American Prospect excused Heston's racist statement, claiming Moore "harass(ed) a stooped and elderly Charlton Heston at his Hollywood home." This was, in fact, the general response to the interview. The ever-thoughtful Roger Ebert called it an "ambush." Everyone decided that making a big deal out of a small comment by a man who was 77 at the time of the interview was unconscionable.

Certainly Heston's announcement--around the time of the movie's release--that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's made people feel sorry for the man, but Moore had no knowledge of the fact when he began the interview and, I hate to say, racist statements are not a symptom of Alzheimer's. The disease can, though, lead to a decrease in inhibitions. In other words, Alzheimer's doesn't make one more racist, but it does make one more likely to give voice to racist feelings with a wayward statement.

Yet, over and over again people said Moore was wrong to show the interview with Heston. Chris Ayres wrote in The London Times Online the interview "arguably backfired on Moore, eliciting sympathy for the frail and, by then, somewhat confused actor."

While Heston does look elderly in the video, he doesn't seem confused and, again, he went on to serve as the NRA president into 2003.

I bring up this old story because people went out of their way to excuse Heston's statement because of his age. Google "elderly Charlton Heston" and "michael moore" and you'll find Moore gets the short end of the stick on this argument. I have to admit I even agree with most of those who chastise Michael Moore because I feel like Heston was being nice and got suckered into a wild comment and, yes, I admit I forgive a certain amount of racism in the elderly. So Heston got away with making a horrible comment because of his age.

Yet, when journalistic icon Helen Thomas makes a similarly wild comment and says the Jews should "get out of Palestine" and go back to Poland, Germany, etc., no one seems willing to allow her a similar amount of leeway. Heston was 77. Thomas is 89.

The press attacked her, she resigned and Abe Foxman argues the statement should lead to a renaming of an award named for the journalism pioneer. And the organization which presents the award might actually do it.

I'm not excusing Thomas' statement. But it is worth wondering how Michael Moore got pilloried for his interview with the "elderly Charlton Heston" (or, at least, using the interview) and Rabbi David Nesenoff is getting plaudits for using Thomas' statement to drive traffic to his site.

Meanwhile, somewhere in D.C., Pat Buchanan is probably preparing for his next appearance on the liberal MSNBC (while the right has his back). Nixon's "Jew counter" Fred Malek is getting off work at his current gig, as chairman of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's Commission on Government Reform or making a few calls as an adviser to Sarah Palin (with Abe Foxman's blessing).

Apparently everything, even racism and anti-Semitism, is OK if you're a conservative.

Steve Blair goes the full Sarah Palin

2010-06-07T13:40:00.003-07:00

Steve Blair, the Prescott, Arizona, Councilman who started a race-based firestorm over a mural on the side of a school believes, like Sarah Palin, that the First Amendment protects him from criticism (3:25).

In the city of Prescott and the world we live in we have rights and those rights we should be able to say without being chastised for what we think as an individual. That's the hard part.

Later he argues that someone should explain to him why he should like the painting and the only reason he opposed the painting was because it was a public building.

But Blair said on his show that he disliked the painting because putting a "black guy" in the painting was creating a racial issue.

I am not a racist individual, but I will tell you that depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's President of the United States today, and based upon the history of this community when I grew up, we had four black families, who I have been very good friends with for years, to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, "Why?"

...

I disagree with the whole perspective that you would have a black guy painted on both sides of that building when the history of Prescott never had a culture issue, never had a problem with whether you're black, white, yellow, we didn't look at race, color, creed, and what they've done is they've made it an issue, in my opinion.

...

Everybody can have their own opinion about what they think. I don't disagree with diversity in a community, because I think its wonderful, but it came naturally to the people that lived in Prescott because I think it wasn't foisted upon us. And I feel like now that they're drawing pictures up trying to foist it upon is, I feel intimidated by it.

...

Well, I'm just saying, why do you have to keep dragging up diversity, when you may have diversity in a community, but you have a group of people that keep dragging up the fact that we're not doing the right thing. It's like the gay pride parade in San Francisco. I don't care who you are, or what you are, but you don't need to try to shove it down everybody's throat.

So, by merely depicting someone who doesn't appear to be of northern European descent on the side of the building you are confusing and intimidating Steve Blair and "shoving it down his throat" that there are people of color in his city.

And to say he's being racist when he says that is, somehow, to deny him his right to free speech.

Tell it to Helen Thomas, Steve.

I ain's sayin' she's a golddigger...

2010-06-06T15:00:00.003-07:00

but she ain't hanging with no broke fatass, racist drug addict who takes Viagra-fueled trips to foreign countries.

Do reservist/congressmen in the field put soldiers at risk?

2010-06-05T07:48:00.005-07:00

As I've been chipping away at Kirk's falsehoods about his military service (which seem, by no means, to be the full extent of his lies), it struck me this morning that the worst part of Kirk's stories might be the parts that are true.

When I was in Afghanistan, one of my jobs was to help get journalists embedded in units in the field. When we sent a reporter out, we had to decide whether to send a public affairs soldier along as well. This decision was made depending on the unit's mission and the journalist's background. We couldn't take the risk of screwing up a mission or getting someone hurt because a grunt had to save some reporter's ass.

Kirk claimed to have "deployed" to Afghanistan, but he merely traveled there for two-week-long orders. He has said that during his tour he saw "some of the roughest districts" in the country. Despite the danger, he pulled strings and made these trips without going through the pre-deployment training that all other military folks have to complete before they arrive in country.

That training is important. It's where service members have the current rules of engagement explained to them. It's where tactics on how to deal with current threats--especially IEDs and other booby traps--are laid out.

So, when Kirk arrived in Afghanistan, he did so without the baseline training that all other service members receive. He was, in a word, unprepared . And, while journalists in civilian clothes and weird-looking protection gear are easy identify as possible weak links in a mission, Kirk was wearing a uniform and traveling around just like any other service member.

And he's not the only one. Lindsey Graham has also been able to swing these "mini-tours" for himself.

If anything good can come out of the scrutiny Kirk's lies have received, I hope it will lead the DoD to reconsider these political tours for politicians. It would be unforgivable for an unprepared pol in uniform to choke at the wrong moment and cause the death of a fellow service member.

But, but...

2010-06-04T16:38:00.002-07:00

Powerline said Arizonans weren't driven by racism.

A group of artists has been asked to lighten the faces of children depicted in a giant public mural at a Prescott school. The project’s leader says he was ordered to lighten the skin tone after complaints about the children’s ethnicity...

R.E. Wall, director of Prescott’s Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting at one of the town’s most prominent intersections.

Chris Matthews finally finds the Mark Kirk story

2010-06-04T08:21:00.001-07:00

A week-and-a-half after I contacted his producers, Chris Matthews finally decided to spend a minute on Mark Kirk after spending, I believe, four full segments on Richard Blumenthal over the course of a week. Some liberal media we've got here.