Housekeeping - July 2008

Throughout most of August, I shall either be on the road or on the beach, though in neither case at all like Jack Kerouac's nor, I pray, Nevil Shute's characters. Neither beach vacations nor road trips lend themselves to blogging, but little goes on in August, anyway, as politicians and journalists alike pay homage to one of the three great French contributions to Western civilization; namely, taking a full month off from what are largely phoney-baloney jobs, anyway. (The other two contributions, by the way, are baguettes and Pepe Le Peu.) It would be churlish of me not to follow suit, so new postings here will be few and far between until, at long last, schools re-open and the NFL season begins. See you then.

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Retired Header ‘Quotes’:

March 2007 – “Pay no attention to that man behind the veil!” – the Wizard of Rawls

April 2007 – “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one may still post on the internet.” – Ludwig Blogenstein

May 2007 - “Don't follow leaders, watch the blog hit meters!" - Blog Dylan

June 2007 - "Thanks to minoxidil, Russell is a damned liar!" - the present King of France

Jobs Immigrants Won't Do

Planning a family road trip from Delaware to Texas this August, my wife and I were researching various cities and other attractions along the way we might want to check out with the kids. We've never been to Little Rock, Arkansas, for example, but then we read on one web sit that among the Top Ten things to see there was Murry's Dinner Theater (located at the corner of Asher and University in the K-Mart Shopping Center; dinner at 6, the show starts at 7:45.) So much for Little Rock.

Dollywood looks promising, both because I have faith that Dolly Parton ("You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap!") would never lend her name to anything shoddy and also because, hey, I mean, it's Dollywood, fergawdsakes! Tickets are a bit pricey though, no doubt due to the high cost of living in in Pigeon Forge, TN, so we're still pondering that option.

My wife suggested a day or two in Memphis, which frankly surprised me. Neither of us are, to put it mildly, Elvis fans and a trip to Graceland based on its astronomically high kitsch/camp/cheese factor would be lost on the kids. While I'm sure Memphis (and, yes, even Little Rock) has many family attractions worth seeing, the only thing other than Elvis that comes to my mind is Beale Street which, like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, is best seen late at night and definitely without the kiddies.

Doing a bit of web surfing this morning, however, I did chance on at least one other Memphis attraction hitherto unknown to me. It seems Memphis is the first city in America to offer lawn mowing and other gardening services by bikini clad women! Actually, Tiger Time Lawn Care's Bikini Cut service appears to be in very good taste as this sort of thing goes.

But it struck me that this clever marketing stunt also belies the old canard about immigrants doing jobs like gardening that Americans won't do any longer. Judging from the company's photos, I deduce two conclusions. First, it is clear that these are jobs native born Americans definitely will still do if the price is right. Second, and I believe I am on very safe ground here, it is almost inconceivable that first generation Latina women would don bikinis to mow lawns for a living. Then again, something tells me that when their affluent grandchildren own their own suburban McMansions they won't let their husbands hire bikini clad Anglo gals to mow the lawn, either.

Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Voldemort!

J.K Rowling has again cast her Novelus Blockbusterus spell on most of the English speaking, or at least the English reading world with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There probably follows a two to three day plummet in the demand for electricity, as televisions and game systems are temporarily abandoned for the unpracticed pleasures of reading. Woe be it, also, to the author whose publisher thought so little of him as to release his book for sale this week, as both display and shelf space in bookstores will have been slavishly devoted to Pottermania to the exclusion of virtually everything else.

I'm not wild about Harry, having read and enjoyed the first book because of its clever inventiveness and charmingly offbeat characters but grown, well, disenchanted with each newer, longer, darker and more convoluted offering. I gave up somewhere around the fourth or fifth book, I honestly can't remember which, and my interest in Harry's fate or that of his friends isn't particularly keen. My guess, though, is that Rowling isn't nearly big enough of a goose to kill the wizard that laid the golden royalty check and that Harry will survive his "final confrontation" with He-who-must-find -a-good-plastic-surgeon just in case she decides, say, ten years from now that she misses the attention or is down to her last billion pounds.

In any case, Megan McArdle has written an interesting column in the (U.K.) Guardian, complaining about Rowling's muddled sense of economics in the Potter novels. I'm not sure McArdle, herself, is a economics wizard (her use of the term "opportunity cost" is a bit wierd), but she's definitely on to something amiss about the magical world Rowling has wrought. Why, for example, are the Weasleys poor? Why would any even semi-accomplished wizard want for material goods when they learn how to change inanimate boxes into mice and such in elementary school? Can changing lead to gold be that much harder? For that matter, why on earth would gold, itself, be valuable to such people, unless of course they were using it to buy goods from ordinary people, which apparently they do not. It seems they have their own self-contained demimonde society with shopkeepers and such. It is one thing, after all, if only a few people possess magical skills or such magic is clearly limited in its power. But in Rowling's world everyone has enough magical power to live in the style to which Rowling, herself, has since become accustomed.

McArdle's larger point is that there is no satisfactory explanation of the distribution of magical powers or their limitations in the books. There is no internal consistency, either. Rowling is forever inventing new gizmos and spells to resolve otherwise impossible situations. To paraphrase McArdle, Rowling can't get by with the occasional deus ex machina; she needs an Olympian pantheon of such plot rescuers time and again. On any sort of close scrutiny, the world she has created simply isn't believable, not because of the existence of magic but because of the sort of world the widespread prevalence of magic has supposedly created. It has, at best, a sort of ad hoc dream logic about it, so little wonder the dream turns so easily into a nightmare.

In a sense, therefore, one can understand Voldemort's perspective. What good is magic, after all, if the end product is no more than some sort of quaintly absurd pseudo-Victorian society where the economy makes no more sense than the officious but otherwise useless bureaucracy? What better way to put magic to use in such a world than to acquire power over such a dimwitted lot who, by the way, seem not at all troubled by their own effective enslavement of a different sentient species? Voldemort's ambitions may be ignoble, but at least they make sense.

... or would Jason vs. Freddie be more apt?

Let's take a break from consideration of Emperor George's sweeping new antepenultimate claim of Executive Privilege. (The penultimate claim will be that even if Bush were impeached and convicted, actual ouster from the White House would require executive branch personnel whom, as a matter of Executive Privilege, the President can order to disregard the impeachment. The ultimate claim will be indefinite suspension of elections, "lest the terrorists win.") Let's look instead at something slightly less trivial than fired U.S. Attorneys like, oh, say, the war in Iraq.

Admittedly, taking sides in a p*ssing contest between the Bush Administration and Hillary Rodham Clinton is a bit like taking sides in Alien vs. Predator. To quote the movie's tag line: Whoever wins... We lose. Still, the contratemp between the Department of Defense and Hillary in her occasional capacity as a U.S. senator is worth a quick look. The story thus far is that Clinton wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates requesting information regarding current DoD contingency plans for troop withdrawal from Iraq or, if such plans did not exist, an explanation why.

Now, let's not kid ourselves, boys and girls. The letter was almost certain a political ploy from the start. Clinton knows that the Defense Department has contingency plans tucked away somewhere for just about every scenario imaginable probably including invasion by Vatican City. (That's not to say such plans have been approved at any high level, but only that they exist.) She also knows full well how Congress goes about seeking and securing information from the Defense Department and therefore how to make a 'request' designed to be rebuked, however politely and respectfully.

Be that as it may, all hell broke loose when recess appointee Eric S. Edelman, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, sent Clinton a reply, the verbatim second page of which (as opposed to the snippets commonly excerpted by the press and blogosphere) is as follows:

Although we share our commanders' belief in ours and the Iraqi Security Forces' ability to establish security in Baghdad, this is only a precondition for further political and economic progress, not a guarantee of it. Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia. Such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks in order to achieve compromises on national reconciliation, amending the Iraqi constitution, and other contentious issues. Fear of a precipitate U.S. withdrawal also exacerbates sectarian trends in Iraqi politics as sectarian factions become more concerned with achieving short-term tactical advantages rather than reaching the long-term agreements necessary for a stable and secure Iraq.

I assure you, however, that as with other plans, we are always evaluating and planning for possible contingencies. As you know, it is long-standing departmental policy that operational plans, including contingency plans, are not released outside of the department.

I appreciate your interest in our mission in Iraq and would be happy to answer any further questions.

Courtesy of TPM Cafe, here is Sen. Clinton's reply:

July 19, 2007

The Honorable Robert M. Gates
Secretary of Defense
The United States Department of Defense
The Pentagon
Suite 319
Washington, D.C. 20301

Dear Mr. Secretary:

On May 22, 2007, I wrote to you to request that you provide the appropriate oversight committees in Congress – including the Senate Armed Services Committee – with briefings on what current contingency plans exist for the future withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq. Alternatively, if no such plans exist, I asked for an explanation for the decision not to engage in such planning.

I am in receipt of a letter from Eric Edelman, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy who wrote that he was responding on your behalf. Under Secretary Edelman's response did not address the issues raised in my letter and instead made spurious arguments to avoid addressing contingency planning for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

As I noted in my original letter, "the seeds of many problems that continue to plague our troops and mission in Iraq were planted in the failure to adequately plan for the conflict and properly equip our men and women in uniform. Congress must be sure that we are prepared to withdraw our forces without any unnecessary danger."

Rather than offer to brief the congressional oversight committees on this critical issue, Under Secretary Edelman – writing on your behalf – instead claims that congressional oversight emboldens our enemies. Under Secretary Edelman has his priorities backward. Open and honest debate and congressional oversight strengthens our nation and supports our military. His suggestion to the contrary is outrageous and dangerous. Indeed, you acknowledged the importance of Congress in our Iraq policy at a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee in March, when you stated, "I believe that the debate here on the Hill and the issues that have been raised have been helpful in bringing pressure to bear on the Maliki government and on the Iraqis in knowing that there is a very real limit to American patience in this entire enterprise."

Redeploying out of Iraq will be difficult and requires careful planning. I continue to call on the Bush Administration to immediately provide a redeployment strategy that will keep our brave men and women safe as they leave Iraq – instead of adhering to a political strategy to attack those who rightfully question their competence and preparedness after years of mistakes and misjudgments.

Other members of this Administration have not engaged in political attacks when the prospect of withdrawal planning has been raised. At the June 7 Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing on Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, I asked General Lute "what level of planning has taken place" and "whether the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs have been briefed about the level of planning." I also asked General Lute to determine "what kind of timeline would exist if a decision for either military or political reasons were taken to begin withdrawal" and if he considered this kind of planning to be part of his responsibilities.

General Lute replied, "Thank you Senator. I do think such an adaptation, if the conditions on the ground call for it, will be part of this position."

I renew my request for a briefing, classified if necessary, on current plans for the future withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq or an explanation for the decision not to engage in such planning. I also renew my concern that our troops will be placed in unnecessary danger if the Bush Administration fails to plan for the withdrawal of U.S. Forces. Finally, I request that you describe whether Under Secretary Edelman's letter accurately characterizes your views as Secretary of Defense.

I would appreciate the courtesy of a prompt response directly from you. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely yours,
Hillary Rodham Clinton

Okay, it is a fair reading of Edelman's letter that all public discussion of troop withdrawal is harmful to what he blithely calls "our mission in Iraq," but it is at least equally fair to read the entire letter as the Department of Defense, itself, declining to engage in such public discussion for fear of the consequences. Moreover, only an idiot could deny any plausibility to the concerns Edelman raises. That's certainly not to say that the American people or Congress shouldn't discuss withdrawal; but a blanket denial or disregard for those concerns is, from a strategic and tactical point of view, simply insane.

I don't have access to Clinton's original request and it seems to me impossible to pick a side in this dust up without that verbatim request. Given the administration's track record to date, the outrageous conclusions Clinton reads from the letter can't be dismissed out of hand. Given Clinton's ambitions and known political ruthlessness, however, one cannot dismiss out of hand that her original request wasn't specifically designed to generate controversy for political mileage, either.

It does seem likely to me, however, that there is more spin than substance on both sides here and that Sen. Clinton's personal outrage should be taken with at least a grain or two of suspicion.

"... the whole warmth business..."

Hat tip to Arts & Letters Daily, Slate's Bonnie Goldstein publishes an 11 page Richard Nixon memorandum (pdf) to H.R. Haldeman (remember him?) addressing the need to get the public to know and appreciate the kinder, gentler Nixon. You know, the guy who made telephone calls "to people when they are sick, even though they no longer mean anything to anybody," and the guy who treated subordinates "like dignified human beings, and not like dirt under my feet." Ah, the common touch!

Dick Cheney was a White House intern back in those days (no, not that sort of intern) and a staff member working for Donald Rumsfeld. Maybe that's where Cheney learned to project the warm, cuddly image we all know and love him for today.

Barnett on Libertarianism, the War and Ron Paul

Today's online FOX Wall Street OpinionJournal includes a column by Georgetown Law professor Randy E. Barnett entitled Libertarians and the War. He is especially keen to make the point that Ron Paul's opposition to the Iraq War is not the 'official' libertarian position and that one can be, as many libertarians were and some still are, supportive of the war without grave violation to what they hold to be the essence of libertarianism.

This is certainly true, though not entirely for the reasons Mr. Barnett articulates, and the key word is "entirely." There simply is no single set of libertarian principles shared by all who define their political views as such, so Barnett's unqualified claim that "libertarians believe in robust rights of private property, freedom of contract, and restitution to victims of crime ... that ... define true 'liberty'" is not, strictly speaking, true. Some do, some don't, and that is a point at least worth making as his point that Dr. Paul does not speak for all libertarians.

There is something structurally odd about that quoted assertion (the literal text of which I have edited but the sense of which remains intact) and it is his unqualified assertion of certain rights as definitional of (the oddly scare-quoted) liberty. The strong implication here is that libertarianism rests on some sort of natural rights theory, which indeed it does for many but does not for others, and that such view is the only (possible?) theoretical foundation of libertarianism. That is certainly wrong, and for several important reasons.

First, it is always important to distinguish moral claims of rights from legal rights. Legal rights exist, if at all, by operation of government including a legal system established to enforce such rights. I may or may not have a moral right to hold you to your promise to pay me for painting your house, but it is my legal right under the law of contracts that makes commerce possible. (Whether the mechanisms of legal rights enforcement must be governmental or can be privatized is a matter of dispute among libertarians but is irrelevant here.) So, too, whatever Lockean or other natural rights in property one might argue in philosophical debate, it is the law of property, essentially a creature of the state, that gives the contemporary concept of property most of its useful substance.

Natural rights theories have been out of fashion among academic philosophers for some time now. It is true that academic philosophers have a long and notorious history of changing their minds but being wrong both before and after, but that is not to deny that they have analyzed natural rights theories down to the subatomic level and found them wanting for good and serious reasons. My own view is that any theory of natural rights weak enough to be conceptually defensible is unlikely to be sufficiently robust to get most libertarianism where they want to go. That said, I also think that if any natural rights do "exist" (I trust my use of scare-quotes makes sense here), they include the moral right under most circumstances to be left the hell alone. (That is, I take individual autonomy to be presumptively legitimate and the moral burden on those who would violate it, but that does not quite equate to a theory of natural rights.)

In any case, while one can attempt to defend libertarianism in terms of rights and duties (to use the philosophical jargon, on deontological grounds), many prefer a purely consequentialist, usually utilitarian, approach. They argue, in effect, that libertarianism, by maximizing individual liberty, results in or at least affords the greatest good for the greatest number or at least the greatest opportunity for the greatest good or some such. Barnett inches toward that justification in the same paragraph, claiming that his rights defined concept of liberty:

... provide[s] the boundaries within which individuals may pursue happiness by making their own free choices while living in close proximity to each other. Within these boundaries, individuals can actualize their potential while minimizing their interference with the pursuit of happiness by others.

This formulation, interestingly enough, is a "virtue ethics" approach; that is, an ethical justification that goes to the goal of individual self-actualization or flourishing in the Aristotelian sense rather than the objective of collective good that tends to be the focus of most political theory.

It isn't so much that I disagree with what I think is Barnett's rather muddled one paragraph justification of libertarianism (it is, after all, only one paragraph and in an opinion column at that), as that it needs to be said that libertarianism as a living political movement is more about its generally shared conclusions than its specific theoretical justifications. That said, it is certainly true that Ron Paul's current fifteen minutes of fame could well misrepresent libertarianism in general and Barnett is correct to point that out. I might add that Paul's position on abortion, which I largely share, is even less widely held by libertarians.

Finally, I suspect Barnett is mistaken in his implied belief that most of the Americans who have taken note of Paul identify him as a libertarian. Whether they do or not, the presence of an elected official and major party presidential candidate voicing libertarian themes and receiving even modestly positive reactions among the public at large is surely of greater value than the loss of any prospective converts to libertarianism because of Paul's anti-war position. On that point he happens to be in the majority at the moment, a fact that augurs well for the prospects of liberty in post-Bush America.

Two-Fer's

Via memeorandum, I happened upon a Boston Herold column by Margery Eagan that articulates something telling about Hillary Clinton. When her husband first ran for president and suggested the nation would get, in effect, a "two-fer" if he was elected, reaction was swiftly and strongly negative. While Hillary does not, of course, use the phrase now, there is no doubt that but for her husband she would never have been elected to the Senate, let alone the front runner now for the Democratic presidential nomination. Indeed, Bill's slowly increasing visibility in Hillary's campaign strongly suggests their probably correct belief that she cannot win unless the nation now does believe it would, in effect, be getting a two-fer.

Most career politicians are neither very intelligent nor very honest. Intelligence (as opposed to cunning) is not a particularly useful political trait and can be a serious handicap. Voters say but do not really believe they want leaders much smarter than they are and most voters are not very smart. Honesty, on the other hand, is a fatal quality in a politician, as the art of politics is essentially the art of self-interested lying. What a career politician really needs most is likability of the game show host variety (think Pat Sajak, not Alex Trebek).

Neither of the Clintons lack intelligence, though neither is nearly as smart as claimed, either; and, of course, neither has ever been hampered in the slightest by even the most occasional outburst of honesty. But what makes Bill Clinton sui generis among contemporary politicians is his almost superhuman ability to make people who don't know him like him and trust him. Okay, maybe not with their wives or girlfriends, but with something less important like the presidency.

And therein lies Hillary's major political liability: her own uncanny ability to make strangers dislike her is almost as keen. Whatever she may be like in person behind closed doors when her public persona is not in jeopardy and no matter how hard she tries to improve that public persona, Hillary Clinton has a Nixon-like offensiveness about her. Simply put, she lacks the common touch. In spades.

Whether Bill Clinton's presidency, blemished as it was, is ultimately deemed a success (and I believe it will be), the fact that he ever became president was as much an accident of fate as the result of his lifelong will to power. George H.W. Bush's popularity had scared away the likely Democratic candidates, opening an opportunity for an obscure governor to have a shot at the nomination when conventional wisdom unanimously believed Bush would easily win a second term. So much for conventional wisdom.

The Clintons could not, of course, make any of that happen. They could only be ready and willing to run when it did, and they were. They have been planning a comeback ever since, believing correctly that 2004 would have been too soon for Hillary and 2012 might be too late. And now yet another failed Bush presidency may be handing them the keys to the White House yet again, for no Republican candidate likely to win the nomination can or will distance himself far enough away from Bush to escape partial blame for the damage Bush and his willing accomplices in Congress have done to the party and to the nation in the last six and a half years.

The only thing really standing in their way is Hillary, herself, who must now hope the country is at last ready for a two-fer.

Kristol Finds Whole Herd of Ponies!

NeoCon extraordinaire and Editor-über-alles of the Weekly Standard, William Kristol whirls like a dervish in today's Washington Post to gin up support for his claim that "George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one."

Those who neither debated in high school or college nor suffered the subsequent tortures of a legal education may be left agog at the brazen audacity of Kristol's argument, falling as it does into the category of destroying the village to save it or begging the court's mercy for the fellow who, having murdered his parents, is now an orphan.

His opening gambit here is breathtaking in its audacity. Let's simply pay no attention, he asserts, to that man behind the curtain, er, Bush's "unnecessary mistakes and ... self-inflicted wounds." And you have to admit it, if we willfully ignore his unnecessary mistakes, that is, the overwhelming majority of them, Bush doesn't end up looking nearly so bad after all. Also, focusing on Bush's self-inflicted wounds distracts attention from the more numerous and serious wounds he has inflicted elsewhere; so that's a nice piece of misdirection on Kristol's part, too.

So, what accomplishments do Kristol tout to support his claimed successful Bush presidency? Why, (1) the absence of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11, (2) the strong economy and -- wait for it -- (3) the war in Iraq! Oh, and a couple of conservatives on the Supreme Court, an almost throw-away point for Kristol but probably the only thing I might agree was both Bush's doing and, on balance, a good thing.

Not that the absence of terrorist attacks here or a strong U.S. economy are bad things. Only there's precious little reason to believe that Bush can take much responsibility for the latter and little tangible evidence that he is responsible for the former. Tax cuts are presumptively good, though not nearly as good as tax cuts combined with cuts in government spending, and we all know the administration's record on that point. In any case, Kristol's blithe causal connection between tax cuts alone and the state of the economy over the past five years is tenuous at best. Then again, Kristol's claim that Bush's prescription drug benefit Medicare expansion has "gone ... smoothly ... under projected costs" studiously ignores the elephant in the living room that is the looming, long-term cost of my Baby Boomer generation as we only now start to reach Medicare eligibility age. I guess economics wasn't Leo Strauss's strong point.

Shrouded in greater paranoia secrecy than any other administration in my lifetime, the Bush Administration has consistently refused to offer any serious or credible evidence of its purported success in staving off post-9/11 attacks. Perhaps it has, perhaps it hasn't. Without such evidence, what neither Bush nor his fawning supporters can claim is that we should simply take the mere absence of such attacks as proof. The time has long since passed where Bush is entitled to even a presumption of honesty with the American people. While I do personally believe that the war in Iraq has drawn the attention of would-be U.S. attackers to more easily reached Middle Eastern and European targets, most of the plots discovered world-wide since 9/11 have shown far less grandiose ambition than 9/11. Meanwhile, America and Americans have lived as though under a constant state of siege with, if Bush and Kristol have their way, no end in sight.

Finally, amazingly, Kristol touts the war and hangs his hopes on General Petraeus, this year's -- let's be candid -- Great White Hope for the remaining supporters of this absurd and tragic misadventure. Of course, had we not attacked Iraq, Saddam Hussein would still be in power, doing, um, well, we really don't know what. Neither does Kristol, but he assumes the worst because at this point it is only such counter-factual speculation that could possibly support the claim that America, never mind Iraq, is better off for having ousted Hussein in 2003.

Kristol concludes with a bit more wishful thinking about how the prospect of Democratic control of both the White House and Congress is so frightening that one of the lackluster or worse Republican presidential candidates may actually win next year, thus somehow vindicating Bush. Yeah, sure. His bottom line?

"If Petraeus succeeds in Iraq, and a Republican wins in 2008, Bush will be viewed as a successful president."

And if we had some bacon, we could have bacon and eggs for breakfast.

If we had some eggs.

Iranians Arrest 14 Squirrels for Spying

"Islamic Republic's intelligence agents allege rodents were carrying advanced Western spy gear."



The picture isn't part of the story, but this is (so far) being reported as true. I can't make this stuff up, folks; but, yeah, I have a sneaking suspicion in this case that someone did.

Constant Viewer: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is not a good movie to take the kiddies to see. Whether it is a good movie, on the other hand, depends on one's criteria.

Constant Viewer can't imagine many first-time viewers for this film -- that is, folks who somehow managed to avoid all four of the previous movie versions of J.K Rowling's fabulously successful books -- so CV won't bother setting the stage or, for that matter, describing the plot or characters. Everyone and just about everything from Potter-ville is back; indeed much of the first hour feels a bit like the first Star Trek movie where half the film was taken up reintroducing characters we already knew as well as friends or family back from a long trip abroad. Depending on how one feels about one's friends or family, this could be a good or a bad thing.

From a purely filmic point of view, however, Order of the Phoenix works quite well as an entertaining and more or less self-contained movie. The plot, though complicated, makes sense and proceeds to its logical conclusion, the special effects are appropriately dazzling, and the adult cast of A-list British acting royalty all turn in splendid performances. More importantly (since, after all, we have two more films to look forward to), Daniel Radcliffe has developed into a competent actor whose post-Potter film career looks increasingly promising. Special mention must be made of Imelda Staunton, whose bravura performance as Ministry of Magic hack and Hogwarts' new sadistic teacher Dolores Umbridge should forever leave viewers feeling repulsed by pink Angora. CV heartily approves of this result.

No review of Order of the Phoenix can avoid using the word "dark," so let's get to it. Yes, the film is dark, symbolically and literally, so much so that damned little of its two hour and eighteen minute running time takes place in daylight. Rowling's essentially Manichean universe is peopled with good guys and bad guys and Order of the Phoenix is definitely a tale from the dark side even though, of course, the good guys manage to prevail. Speaking of the "dark side," CV had to start laughing toward the end during Dumbledore's battle with one of Voldemort's henchmen for the -- let's be charitable -- homage director David Yates pays to a certain well-known George Lucas franchise. Well, what the heck, Lucas swiped the scene from just about every Errol Flynn swashbuckler ever made, so let's just call it a set piece.

CV cannot vouch personally for how well Order of the Phoenix tracks the novel, having given up on the Potter series somewhere around page 2,347 of that fifth book. CV's two sons, however, found little to object to on that score. Frankly, once the novelty of Rowling's initially charming and wondrous universe has faded, one pretty much has to be a die-hard fan to keep slogging through the books or the films. CV admits he is only mildly curious about how the final book will conclude.

The film-makers in particular have to give the movie audiences something worth returning for when there are, after all, next to no surprises awaiting them. Order of the Phoenix fills that need by showing us a Harry Potter who, childhood innocence having long ago been taken from him, is now on the verge of becoming a man. That's a story worth watching, magic or no.

Rags to Riches ...

... or at least to more widespread literacy. (Not to mention -- hold your britches! -- a 13th century case of recycling that made sense.)

How Not To Honor Our Honored Dead

Where's Jack Kevorkian when the nation really needs him? I sometimes think I'd rather see the 1st Amendment put out of its misery quickly than witness its lingering, painful death at the hands of contemporary politicians, regardless of their motives. In the case of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain–Feingold), of course, the motive is entirely self-serving. "Bipartisan" is the tipoff here and the objective is simply to further entrench the two-party system and make it that much easier (read: cheaper) for current incumbents to retain office.

Not every attempted rape of the 1st Amendment is self-serving, however. Occasionally, benighted legislators act out of genuine, if misguided, concern for some competing interest other than their own. Several states have already passed (and other states are considering) legislation banning the sale of the t-shirt shown below, the fine print being a Vietnam Memorial style listing of U.S. personnel who have thus far died in Iraq. The other side of the shirt reads "BUSH LIED" with the same background.



In Congress, Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla) introduced H.R. 269, the proposed Soldiers Targeted by Offensive Profiteering Act of 2007 (STOP Act), which includes the following language:

Except with the permission of the individual or individuals designated under subsection (d), no person may knowingly use the name or image of a protected individual in connection with any merchandise, retail product, impersonation, solicitation, or commercial activity in a manner reasonably calculated to connect the protected individual with that individual's service in the armed forces.

Let us acknowledge at the onset that many, perhaps most, perhaps even all of the U.S. casualties of the Iraq War believed in the cause they were fighting for and that many of their survivors continue to do so or, at the very least, are emotionally harmed by the use of their loved ones' names in this manner. The Defense Department made similar arguments about photographs of the caskets of such casualties and I freely acknowledge that at least part of the rationale for the objection was and is a legitimate concern for the feelings of the survivors and a moral, if not legal, right of privacy on the part of the deceased.

That said, let us also acknowledge that the primary rationale for the 1st Amendment is the protection of free political speech. (See, e.g., various commentaries here.) As such, whatever other dubious exceptions the Supreme Court has carved out to the amendment's apodictic prohibition against any federal "law ... abridging the freedom of speech," even the High Court has given special deference (except, alas, in the case of McCain-Feingold) to political speech.

Some state legislatures, at least dimly aware of this fact, have attempted to construe the t-shirt and its printing as "commercial speech." Ordinarily, commercial speech is understood by the Court to mean "expression related solely to the economic interests of the speaker and its audience," so I rather seriously doubt these state laws will withstand constitutional scrutiny if and when they are challenged in court. Here, in any case, is the current prevailing test under Central Hudson Gas & Elec. v. Public Serv. Comm'n for regulation of commercial speech. Commercial speech may be regulated if:

1. The regulated speech concerns an illegal activity,
2. The speech is misleading, or
3. The government's interest in restricting the speech is substantial, the regulation in question directly advances the government's interest, and the regulation is no more extensive than necessary to serve the government's interest.

I simply cannot imagine how any state legislatures have managed to convince themselves that their prohibitions can meet this test. Then again, one should never underestimate the capacity of legislators either to delude themselves or to engage in a bit of grandstanding when it comes to such emotionally sensitive issues as properly honoring our war dead. (A phrase I want to make completely clear I do not mean at all ironically. Those men and women unquestionably do deserve to be honored for their sacrifice.)

Similarly, I serious doubt that congressional attempts to justify such restrictions on both the allegedly commercial nature of the speech and creation of, in effect, new property rights for the deceased and their family members as "protected persons" can withstand both these and other constitutional concerns, e.g., the fairly glaring viewpoint discrimination involved.

I suspect Boren and others genuinely believe they are doing, or at least trying to do the right thing here. But they're not. If anything, and however unintentionally, these laws do a disservice to our war dead. If the American men and women who have died in Iraq did not give their lives to preserve the very freedoms some claim our enemies hate us for, why on earth did they die?

(Hat tip to Reason's Radley Balko.)

Location, Location, Location

That's the mantra of every real estate agent I've ever encountered, their way of saying, in effect, that the price of real estate is a function of, well duh!, supply and demand. Pack millions of people into an island roughly 23 square miles in size like, oh, say, Manhattan and it's little wonder that supply and demand makes for a healthy seller's market. So it is that the New York Times reports on the sale of condominium parking spaces in Manhattan with a going price of $225,000 apiece.

However outrageous such prices may seem to many of us, the fact is, at least according to Steven E. Landsburg, what is really outrageous is how underpriced parking is in most cities and how significantly that contributes to the problem of urban congestion.

Food for thought the next time you complain about feeding the meter.

Not What The Doctor Ordered

Today's New York Times is running a fairly scathing report of Administration attempts "to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations" during Dr. Richard H. Carmona's four year tenure as Surgeon General.

According to the Times, those reports included such topics as embryonic stem cell research and "a landmark report on secondhand smoke [that] concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm."

Reasonable people can reasonably disagree about the moral status of human embryos. As such, that issue, itself, is a legitimate policy matter for the Bush Administration. What is not a legitimate policy matter but a purely scientific question is whether or to what extent embryonic stem cells are essential or vitally important in medical research. Again, one might hold that human embryos being persons, no medical advances would justify their intentional destruction, but we should at least know as best we can what the likely payoff of such research would be and what, if any, alternatives exist.

So, too, many have questioned the scientific validity of the aforementioned study on secondhand smoke. I haven't read the study or the criticism, so I won't offer an opinion beyond acknowledging skepticism about the sweeping nature of some of the claims reported in the press. Be that as it may, scientific research needs to be made available precisely so it can be challenged scientifically. Ethical and policy concerns remain, but we should at least have the benefit of a full examination on the scientific merits of such studies first.

Beyond that, though, it seems clear to me that if the nation is going to have a Surgeon General at all, the office must be accorded greater independence from both political branches of government. As matters stand, the office falls under the Department of Health and Human Services which is, frankly, a prime target for political manipulation regardless of the party controlling the White House.

Conversely, we could simply eliminate the office or relegate it to its primary function as head of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and create some independent medical advisory authority in its place. Science and health policy is properly the responsibility of policy makers, not of scientists and physicians, themselves. But it is equally true that the soundness of the scientific or medical research required to make those policy decisions must remain in the unfettered province of the scientific and medical community, itself.

Oh, and for goodness sakes, drop the silly uniforms.

Security Clearances, the Supply and Demand of Them

The Hill reports today that the Pentagon is seeking "repeal of the department’s [seven year old] restriction on granting security clearances to ex-convicts, drug addicts and the mentally incompetent."

Good.

Lest the casual reader think the Pentagon has lost its wits entirely and seeks to share nuclear technology secrets with drug addled criminal psychopaths, the reality here is that lower level security clearances up to and including a "Secret" clearance are required simply to work in any capacity at all in many government installations. The laws of supply and demand, especially given the rapid growth of the Department of Homeland Security and the need for both federal and contractor personnel in other civilian agencies, for which the restrictions do not apply, have created a tremendous backlog of applicants seeking clearances for DoD jobs and artificially high (dare I say windfall profit level?) salary demands from those already possessing high level clearances. (Oh, by the way, did you know that the background checks for security clearances has, for the most part, been contracted out?)

Moreover, classified materials are not left strewn about the Pentagon or elsewhere in DoD facilities like so many FBI records cluttering the halls of the Rose Law Firm. The mere possession of a clearance does not entitle its holder to access to classified materials, one must also have a legitimate need for such access on a case by case basis.

I'll refrain from making the too obvious jokes about mental incompetence and elected officials, and note that the particular crime a felon has been convicted of may be entirely irrelevant to whether he is an acceptable security risk. More important in terms of sheer numbers of applicants, once again our idiotic War on Drugs is providing further evidence of the mental incompetence of its advocates. (Okay, so I couldn't resist.) One can certainly make the case that a prospective employee with an ongoing addiction to drugs or alcohol is not an acceptable risk. The notion that anyone ever convicted of mere possession of marijuana is an unacceptable risk is, by contrast, simply absurd.

The article ends with a bit of ax-grinding about whether repeal of the restrictions would permit recently convicted felon I. Lewis Libby to obtain a security clearance. The better question, I think, is whether the current restrictions would have prevented an even higher level official with a documented history of alcohol abuse to have ever gotten a security clearance in the first place. Of course, that would be an argument in favor of their retention. Never mind.

Live Earth D.O.A.

Ho-hum.

The predictable disease of stardom, whether of the Hollywood variety or among musicians, is egotism ranging from fragile narcissism to full blown monomania. Little wonder, then, that the Gore-Fest better known as Saturday's Live Earth concert was so much sound and fury punctuated by hot air. Or, as the (U.K.) Daily Mail reports, a foul-mouthed flop.

Gore now qualifies, of course, as one of the Hollywood crowd, having picked up his Oscar en route to becoming Bono with a better tailor. The concerts did nothing to raise public awareness of global warming, as the affluent segment of humanity has already heard all about it and the rest of humanity have more pressing concerns on their minds. The fate of the earth a century from now is of only modest interest to someone suffering from malaria or dysentery or trying to feed her children or find shelter or potable water. Only rock stars and their ilk could possibly convince themselves that jetting across the world to leave mountains of garbage in their wake could be a net contribution to stopping global warming.

Charity rock concerts, whether to raise money or public awareness, have a checkered history. George Harrison's 1971 Concert for Bangladesh was at best a mixed and controversial success. However noble Harrison's intentions or those of the many who (myself included) bought the subsequent album to support victims of the 1970 Bhola cyclone (think Katrina, only much worse), ineptitude and corruption both took their toll on the final results. At least, however, it was a humane attempt at responding to a genuine catastrophe.

Then again, as far as the motives of the attendees go, massive rock concerts "to change the world" have always been, to put it mildly, a mixed bag. Sure, some of the hundreds of thousands who went to Woodstock were bona fide "hippies." Most, however, were just there for the sex and drugs and rock & roll.

Ali

Forty years ago, back when Americans enjoyed due process of law even if they were Muslim Americans, in fact, even if they were Black Muslim Americans, Muhammad Ali was convicted on June 20, 1967 in federal court for refusing induction into the United States armed forces. America was, after all, at war, defending itself from encroaching world-wide communist domination and, we were told, if the North Vietnamese won it would have a Domino Effect throughout Asia.

Three years earlier, in the same year he first won the World Heavyweight Boxing championship from Sonny Liston and became a member of the Nation of Islam, Ali had failed to pass the Armed Forces qualifying examination. In 1966, however, the test was revised -- the laws of supply and demand being what they were even then -- and Ali was reclassified 1-A, draft eligible. Ali claimed but was denied conscientious objector status, famously declaring, “I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. They never called me a nigger.” After refusing induction, Ali was tried and sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. The conviction was upheld by the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals but in 1971, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the conviction.

In the interim, however, Ali was stripped of his title and banned from boxing during what boxing experts believe would have been his prime boxing years. Also in his prime, George Carlin described the situation (roughly, and with apologies to Carlin because I couldn’t find the exact quote) as follows:

Muhammad Ali has a strange job - beating people up – but the government wanted to give him a new job – they wanted him to go to Viet Nam and kill people – but Ali said, “No... that’s where I draw the line. I’ll beat ‘em up but I don’t want to kill ‘em" – and the government said, “If you won’t kill ‘em, we won’t let you beat ‘em up!”

Boxing, it must be said, is a brutal, barbaric sport; the only sport still legal where the primary objective is to injure one’s opponent to unconsciousness. But for Muhammad Ali, I would never have become a fan of boxing at all. After Ali, I quickly lost interest. But Ali became, and remains, the only athlete who ever came close to being a hero to me. It was impossible, for me at least, not to be astonished and delighted by his athleticism, his great speed and agility; impossible also not to admire his uncompromising integrity.

That is, of course, not to say I agree with or approve of everything Ali has done in his life. I’m not about to argue the merits of the Nation of Islam (Ali converted to Sunni Islam in 1975) or whether, on legal or moral grounds, he was entitled to conscientious objector status, nor would I claim that his personal life – he has been married four times – is exemplary.

Most significantly, he fought too many times and took too many blows to the head especially in his later career, resulting in his chronic traumatic encephalopathy (or Parkinson’s Syndrome). Once, and perhaps still, the most famous and beloved man alive, Ali deprived both himself and his literally billions of fans the pleasure of each other’s company after his final fight in 1981, some six years after his last great fight against Joe Frazier in the Thrilla in Manila. Ironically, both that fight and his decision to continue boxing afterwards, whatever the reasons at the time, probably cost him tens of millions of dollars if not more, as the public demand for him remains largely unabated even after all these years and in his unfortunate condition today. Last month, for example, in one of his now rare public appearances Ali was given an honorary doctorate by Princeton.

Trite though it is to mention, no one who did not live through the 1960’s can fully appreciate what that decade was like. We speak too easily today about how polarized America has become in the last twenty years, but the truth is that America was far more polarized by both the Viet Nam War and the Civil Rights Movement than it is today. It is worth remembering that Muhammad Ali was reviled and despised by much of white America forty years ago, perhaps as much for his refusal to accept control by the white-dominated boxing establishment as for his refusal to serve in what he believed was the white establishment’s war in Southeast Asia. Undaunted, he stood his ground like a true champion and, more importantly, like a man.

Ellen Goodman's Race Problem

Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize winner and current resident of Brookline, Massachusetts (Estimated 2005 median house / condo value: $1,115,200. Estimated black population: 2.7%), has a race problem. Try as she might to understand Clarence Thomas as a man (and, truth be told, she doesn't try very hard), all she can see is a black man.

Goodman opens her column gladdened "that [the Supreme Court] won't do any more damage until the first week in October" and closes it by dredging up Anita Hill (remember her?) and implying that Thomas is a "rigid ideologue." In between, we find her serving up a few buckets of psycho-babble about how Thomas's Court opinions are really little more than rebellion against the sort of "black stereotypes" one suspects nicely characterize the majority of Goodman's (no doubt numerous) black friends.

It's all about race for Goodman, you see. Thomas can't really be independently conservative; that is, he can't possibly be the Court's "most predictable member of the conservative camp" because he honestly and rationally believes that nonsense. He can't possibly have rationally come to view racial discrimination of any sort as wrong despite having personally benefited from it. Could he? No, of course not. It's all about his resentments, the ingrate!

Poor Ellen, you see, didn't get a black liberal "successor to Thurgood Marshall." In Goodman's ideal world there should be a black liberal on the Court and a Jewish liberal and a female liberal, etc. That's diversity! She is outraged that Justice Thomas might seriously doubt whether forced racial integration has been the unqualified success she believes it to be.

What nonsense. And racist nonsense, at that.

I often don't agree with Thomas's opinions. But I have listened to liberals denigrate his intelligence and competence and -- Gasp! -- his blackness ever since he was appointed and I have yet to find any evidence at all of the first two claims. As to the last, I'm not a black man and do not, therefore, know what his experiences as a black man in America have been. Neither, it should be obvious, does Goodman. Then again, we will never understand Clarence Thomas or anyone else in this world if we can't ever get past the color of his skin.

The Democrats' Shakespearian 'Fool'

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously claimed there are no second acts in American lives and spent the rest of his life proving it. Politicians, on the other hand, are occasionally capable of reanimation, horror movie style, after a dormant period long enough for the American memory, not our strongest faculty, to fade.

Thus, once upon a time, we saw the “new Nixon” arise from the politically dead and these days we are witnessing the re-branding of the “new and improved” Hillary Clinton. In Hillary’s case, of course, we knew the monster hadn’t been completely destroyed at the end of the first movie. Merely exiled to the Senate after eight years in the White House, the Clinton’s had learned well from their Hollywood pals about setting up a sequel in the final reel.

When lesser luminaries than headliners like Nixon and Clinton suddenly see the spotlight once again, it is usually because of the vicissitudes of fate. Take, for example, Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Gravel.

Gravel is to the Democrats what Ron Paul is to the Republicans, the Shakespearian fool providing both comic relief and almost zen-like insight into the true folly of our two-party presidential marathon. Gravel represented Alaska in the Senate from 1969 to 1981, and first came to light back in the Viet Nam war era as a key figure in brokering an end to the military draft and in the public release of the infamous Pentagon Papers. Thanks for the most part to the war in Iraq, he's back on stage, however briefly.

A populist at heart, Gravel’s positions range from immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq to elimination of the IRS and institution of a “progressive” national sales tax to universal health care vouchers to decriminalization of minor drug offenses. Unlike all of the other candidates except for Ron Paul, Gravel no doubt believes in every single stand he is taking, oblivious to the pollsters and spin doctors who tailor the other candidates’ campaigns. As a predictable result, and as with Paul, there is something for everyone to like about Gravel’s platform, and something to dislike, too.

Of course, it doesn’t matter. Gravel’s chances of securing the Democratic nomination are infinitesimal. Not even Shakespeare could pull off a final act where the fool gets the crown, let alone a tragedy where everyone lives happily ever after.

The Protectionist Price of Patriotism

The price for American flags will rise in Minnesota when, as the (U.K.) TimesOnline reports, a new law goes into effect requiring "all US flags sold in the state to be of American manufacture. Violations of the law, which comes into force at the end of the year, will be punished by a $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail."

The man behind the law, Democratic state congressman Tom Rukavina, reasons as follows:

The biggest honor that you can give the flag is that it be made by American workers in the United States of America.... Nothing is more embarrassing to me than a plastic flag made in China. This replica of freedom we so respect should be made in this country.... I think this Bill is about jobs, jobs for Americans.

Several things, elected officials high among them, embarrass me far more than Chinese plastic flags, but we'll let that ride.

I don't know if Minnesota ever had any extensive textile manufacturing, but if it did I rather doubt it wasn't lost years ago to cheaper Southern textile manufacturers who, in turn, lost to cheaper foreign concerns. But who knows? Apparently the Flag Manufacturers’ Association of America is behind the legislation (surprise, surprise!), and perhaps they have offered to keep or build in Minnesota a flag plant to supply the state's new "Made in the U.S.A." needs.

Of course, the state government can impose any restrictions on itself it wants and if taxpayers have to pay a fraction of a penny more in state taxes because their flags have just tripled or quadrupled in price, well, that's just another case of concentrated and visible benefits and diffuse and invisible costs.

Whether Minnesota can, let alone should, keep it's own citizens from buying U.S. flags made in China is another matter entirely. Even if the law is a constitutionally permissible restriction on interstate commerce, which I doubt, its practical effect will be to drive "unpatriotic" Minnesota flag buyers to make their purchases via mail-order or online. Of course, I have no idea what the size of the market for flags in Minnesota is, but the law might even end up reducing the state's net number of jobs. If so, let's hope state congressman Rukavina is among the first to be let go.

Fourth of July Memories

Some twenty-five years ago my wife and I and a couple dozen friends, mostly from college, met every 4th of July down at the National Mall to make a day of the festivities. In those days glass bottles were prohibited but cans were permitted and one could still take coolers filled with beer (oh, and food) and stake out some territory by the Washington Monument for a perfect overhead view of the fireworks.

We were all in our 20's or early 30's at most, in the final days of the first stage of our adult lives, still mostly childless and still early in our careers, mostly as doctors or lawyers -- lots of lawyers! -- with an odd journalist or bureaucrat or two as well. After all, we are talking about Washington, D.C. here. People played Frisbee and shot off illegal bottle rockets and ate and drank and burned in the hot July sun. Even then, the most casual look at the tens of thousands of people who had gathered on the Mall made it obvious beyond question that we are both a nation of immigrants and a single people.

These were the early days of the Reagan Administration, and in 1981 and 1982 that most quintessentially American band, the Beach Boys, played their most quintessentially innocent and joyful music at the big concert stage down by the Monument. The National Symphony also played pop and light classical music at the Capitol steps, but that was at the other end of the Mall and, besides, even today I'd opt for "Fun, Fun, Fun" over Tchaikovsky in a heartbeat.

But 1983 was far and away my favorite year, for it was then that Interior Secretary James Watt decided the Beach Boys were, well, attracting the wrong element to the Mall and booked Wayne Newton instead. Perhaps Watt was a secret fan of Lenny Bruce, who once observed that there was no place in America more American than Las Vegas. In any case, Wayne brought all the trappings of his Vegas act with him, complete with dozens of feather-headdress wearing, scantily clad but sequin festooned showgirls. It doesn't get any more American than that, except perhaps at the Folies-Bergere in Paris.

Getting close to the stage was much harder than when the Beach Boys played because it was already heavily surrounded by a mosh pit of silver-blue haired women. Fortunately, their average height was only around 5'4", so I didn't have to elbow my way through little old ladies to see the stage clearly. It was, to put it mildly, quite a show. Newton sang his hits as the showgirls shook their, well, you know, and concluded appropriately enough with "America the Beautiful." But then he came back to do a Vegas style encore, probably "Danke Schoen" though I don't recall exactly, and it was at that exact moment that I grasped the genius of Watt's decision. Alas, Nancy Reagan liked the Beach Boys better and they were back the next year, another government program that, once started, refused to go away.

The fate of the United States, indeed, of the Earth was still very much in jeopardy in those days from the Cold War's Mutually Assured Destruction. Thank God, it never happened, but we lived with that terrible risk as we now seem incapable of living with the risk of a small number of fanatical enemies who, even in our most nightmarish scenarios, don't pose a tenth of a percent of that decades-long threatened nuclear holocaust. Our biggest complaints about air travel were that it was uncomfortable, boring, expensive and too often delayed. We were spending a vast fortune on defense, but at least we were defending ourselves against a credible threat. Accusations of an imperial presidency focused more on Nancy's White House china patterns than on jackbooted thugs hauling U.S. citizens off to prison without so much as a hint of due process.

Of course, both the world and America have changed in many ways for the better in the past quarter-century. Many, but not all. I have no idea what sort of controlled environment or enhanced security the National Park Service is imposing on the crowds today down at the Mall, but I know I want no part of it. And I'm not at all nostalgic for the 1980s, however much this comes across that way. Sure, I'd like my youth back, but that doesn't mean I'd like to be living in 1983 again.

I merely note, like Joni Mitchell, that the passage of time involves loss as well as gain. Some things, like youth, we cannot help but lose. Whether we lose other things, like the courage to demand free lives and accountable government, is up to us, as is our relationship with the rest of the world. I, for one, would prefer the world to think of us as a people willing to risk a bottle rocket or two with a can of beer in our hands singing along to "Fun, Fun, Fun," than for the nationalistic bombast of the 1812 Overture, especially when you consider how the Battle of Borodino turned out.

Bush Commutes Libby Prison Sentence (Updated)

The Washington Post reports that President Bush has commuted Lewis Libby's prison sentence. Here are the concluding paragraphs of the President's statement announcing the decision:

I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting.

The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby's case is an appropriate exercise of this power.

In other words, for political reasons the remaining pardon will have to wait until the closing weeks of the Bush presidency.

For the record, I continue to believe that the Libby prosecution was little more that raw partisan politics by other means. For that matter, I agree with Bush that the sentence was harsh. More to the point, I am inclined to think Libby should have been permitted to remain free on bail pending his appeal.

No, that isn't exactly par for the course, but damned little about this trial has been, anyway. Bush's decision will immediately be judged either as yet more arrogant abuse of power or as an act of courageous and politically dangerous loyalty. I should think by now it is well understood that any support I ever gave, however grudgingly, to Bush has long since vanished. However, I can't help but think that, on balance, he's done the right thing here.

UPDATE: Well, I never thought I'd live to see the day, but here's a post by Alan Dershowitz with which I agree almost entirely.

I'll also cross-post some (slightly edited) remarks I made at Hit & Run earlier. I think Libby lied under oath trying to shield his boss and, yeah, I think Fitzgerald pursued Libby as opposed to the others hoping to flip him to get to Cheney. I don't think Fitzgerald, himself, was politically motivated, but when you consider the context in which he was appointed as a special prosecutor, the years he spent and the indictments (or lack thereof) he finally sought, I continue to believe that the heart of the matter was partisan politics. YMMV.

Subtract the political context and what are you left with? Misleading investigators and twice making false statements under oath to a grand jury. Serious, but not 2.5 years incarceration serious when you consider the rest of the consequences that have befallen Libby.

(Here, BTW, is the indictment against Libby for anyone wishing to sort out the facts as alleged and apparently accepted as true by the jury.]

Okay, so life is unfair and lots of other people get screwed in the criminal justice system and don't get presidential clemency and blah, blah, blah. All true. Still, the most apt comparison here is to Sandy Berger.

Berger took five copies of the same classified document with him and cut up three of those documents. (Apparently he only needed one extra copy to check to see if the first one was correct. The others went to, what, classified ransom notes?) So we have an underlying case of a breach of national security, a statutory offense. Berger eventually copped to a misdemeanor, an option probably not offered Libby but which (yes, for purely partisan political reasons) Libby was not in a position to accept anyway since the price would have been to roll on Cheney.

Anyway, Berger was fined $50k, got two years probation, did 100 hours of community service and relinquished his law license. (This sentence was, btw, more severe than the recommended sentence.)

Again, I'm saying these are only roughly analogous and if you want to argue Berger should have served time, too, okay. Bearing in mind, however, the original purpose of the special prosecutor's appointment and the end results of his investigation, I'd say sending Libby to prison because Fitzgerald couldn't make his case against Cheney or Rove, etc. is unreasonable.

Freeman Dyson's Optimistic Biotech Future

Freeman Dyson is the sort of intellectual one must take seriously even when writing what may amount to little more than a review of his own book and, along the way, a tribute to microbiologist Carl Woese. Those of us who have not read The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet (and that would include me) might well find their appetite whetted by this New York Review of Books article from one of the best minds of the 20th century.