... 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.

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.)

Indoctrinate Who?

I haven't yet seen Indoctrinate U, a supposedly Michael Moore-esque but libertarian documentary about leftist university speech codes and such, but efforts to find a general distributor have been abetted, however unintentionally, by a bit of nonsense over at the New York Times, nonsense shown for what it is at The Volokh Conspiracy, FIRE, Power Line and by Evan Coyne Maloney, the filmmaker himself.

Documenting intolerance to non-leftist ideas or the expression thereof on American college campuses isn't far removed from documenting racial bias in the Klan, except of course that the Kluxers acknowledge that they're racists. That's hardly to say that all or even most university faculty members oppose free speech (though many apparently do) or that university administrations are generally intolerant to conservative or libertarian perspectives (though many apparently are) or even that the vocal majority of leftist organizations on most campuses (the various demographically aggrieved or special interest whiners) oppose free speech -- oh, wait a minute, yes it does.

True, most university faculty members are liberals or leftists of one sort or another. The good news here, though, is that many if not most students pay little attention to their professors beyond listening either for confirmation of their preexisting political prejudices or evidence of deviant speech that might fuel their self-righteous indignation. The quest for diversity has university administrations pretty much cowed, for there are few fates worse than getting stuck with a reputation of being a hostile environment to women and minorities. Hence, however approvingly some faculty may look on such nonsense, much of the hothouse political correctness of the schools these days is self-inflicted by students, themselves, with an assist from administrators who care far more about attracting the right demographics for their freshman class than whatever the students experience or learn once there.

I have no idea whether Indoctrinate U is a good film or whether it will succeed in finding a wider audience. I can predict, however, that its attempted showing on college campuses themselves, is certain to result in howls of protest from the usual suspects on those campuses and that they will be utterly oblivious to the irony of it all.

We Interupt Rush Limbaugh for This Important Message...

It should come as little surprise that, the likes of Air America having failed so miserably, the "progressive" left is abandoning (yet again) the notion that it can compete in that metaphorical “marketplace of ideas” better known as talk radio. Their solution?

...any effort to encourage more responsive and balanced radio programming will first require steps to increase localism and diversify radio station ownership to better meet local and community needs. We suggest three ways to accomplish this:

-- Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations.

-- Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing.

-- Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.

So, in a nutshell, the perspective here is that because leftist talk fails to “compete” in one particular news and information medium regardless of how predominant it may be in all the rest, the public interest justifies greater regulation to require its inclusion, the public's actual preferences be damned.

On a personal note, I’m not a big fan of most of the programming from the big radio chains (or, for that matter, conservative talk radio) any more than I am of the boringly identical mall chain stores and restaurants one finds everywhere in America these days. I search out Mom & Pop restaurants when I am traveling and I miss the (often cheesy) programming of independent radio and television stations of my youth. But whether my preferences are optimally served by changes in these markets is irrelevant to whether this poses some sort of action requiring public interest crisis.

But what I find most amusing about these recommendations is the third. Thank you, Center for American Progress, for frankly, albeit indirectly, acknowledging that “public broadcasting” is an essentially left wing enterprise.

Where's Balko's Pulitzer?

I'm pretty sure there isn't a Pulitzer Prize category for investigative blogging and, for that matter, that real journalist Radley Balko (and I say "real journalist" in the nicest possible way here) probably hasn't hit the radar yet of whoever decides those things. But if Balko's continued coverage at The Agitator and Reason of the Cory Maye travesty and the many other now almost weekly occurrences of some jackbooted police SWAT thugs busting in the wrong address and maiming, killing or otherwise brutalizing entirely innocent people isn't worthy of a Pulitzer, I'll be damned if I can think of what is.

Sexist Pigs Abandon Katie

Poor Katie Couric is, according to CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves, the victim of sexism.

Ms Couric has managed a 2 per cent increase in women age 18 to 49 since her September debut. However, that has been more than offset by an 11 per cent decline among men over 55, who still constitute the bulk of the evening news’ audience.

Couric's ratings on the CBS Evening News this month hit a 20 year low, pretty amazing when you consider she took over from Dan Rather.

As I have written before, here's the real deal. Every year there are new "men over 55" who used to be men under 55. They haven't been watching network news for years and nothing is going to change that. Years ago, I used to quip that the most frightening sentence in the English language was "More people get their news from ABC News than from any other source." But whether it's from ABC, NBC or CBS, more and more people of all ages are getting whatever news they do get from the many alternatives now available. Why wait for the local weatherman when you can click on the weather any time you want (or click on the Weather Channel on TV)? It doesn't matter who's selling your product if it's a product no longer in high demand because better alternatives exist, and that has nothing to do with Couric's gender or even her modest journalistic skills.

Could Hell Really Be Freezing Over?

My embedded Weather Watcher in Hell, Frosty the Snowman, reports a cooling trend. Radley Balko takes a break from his increasingly “Dog Bites Man” reports of police SWAT Team brutality, incompetence and unaccountability to report on Reason’s "Hit & Run" that Ron Paul’s campaign has experienced a surge of contributions amounting to between three and four million dollars and is closing in on $5 million. (The lengthy comments section of Balko’s post includes various snipes from former Paul staffer Eric Dondero, whose “Great Man” views of a future libertarian America strongly suggest that the great man he has in mind to lead us to the Promised Land has a surname ending in a sounded vowel.)

In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m toying with the idea of sending Paul a few bucks, too. Mark it up to rational irrationality or expressive voting. ("Geez, Ridgely, more Caplan plugs?") I’d still say Paul has the same chances of winning the Republican nomination that Barack Obama has of being the next Imperial Wizard of the KKK. Even so, between the Dean Factor, i.e., the yet unmeasured political power of the internet, and the historical precedent of Barry Goldwater, who knows?

"It's Fun to Eulogize The People You Despise"

Herewith, a bit of nostalgia from Tom Lehrer's National Brotherhood Week:

Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,
And the black folks hate the white folks;
To hate all but the right folks
Is an old established rule.

But during National Brotherhood Week,
National Brotherhood Week,
Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek.
It's fun to eulogize
The people you despise
As long as you don't let 'em in your school.

One of the byproducts of growing older is the occasionally tedious chore of having to explain dated cultural references to one's children. Hours could be wasted explaining everyone mentioned in Paul Simon's A Simple Desultory Philippic or Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire.

Be that as it may, former Dallas County, Alabama Sheriff Jim Clark died recently and was, if not exactly eulogized, remembered by former civil rights activist and current Georgia Congressman John Lewis.

Clark became the unwitting negative stereotype of the Southern police officer for his generation and an even more unwitting agent of change. The national media attention that followed his (anticipated) overreaction to civil rights demonstrators in what became known as Bloody Sunday actually helped the civil rights movement convince Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Years later, after losing office, Clark was convicted for conspiracy to import marijuana and served nine months in prison. By all accounts, Clark remained unrepentant unto death.

Sheriff Clark was never anything more than a footnote to history. Today, however, one still occasionally hears breathtakingly absurd claims that America is as racist as it was fifty years ago, a claim that cannot possibly be made in good faith by anyone who remembers what the America of fifty years ago was really like. In the story of our collective journey toward a more perfect union, Clark deserves no eulogy, but he needs to be remembered.

Land of Lincoln by Andrew Ferguson: A Semi-Wised-Up Quasi-Review

Not even Mona could begrudge Andrew Ferguson his gig at The Weekly Standard. Together with Matt Labash, Ferguson keeps me returning to the Neoconservative Magazine of Record despite myself. Them boys can write.

Ferguson recently published Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America, a book I heartily recommend despite my general antipathy toward both biography and history. In fact, Land of Lincoln is not so much either history or biography, strictly speaking, as it is the story of Ferguson’s own coming to grips with the Lincoln of both his and our imagination as he road-trips his way from Richmond, Virginia, where a proposed statue of Abe in the Capital of the Confederacy became ‘surprisingly’ controversial, through Springfield, Illinois (home of the Museum of Funeral Customs!) and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (where you can take the Orphan Tour!), then finally to the National Mall and the foot of the Lincoln Memorial.

I came away from the book with a richer sense of what I brought to it; namely, the notion that Lincoln was a complex and contradictory figure both personally and publicly and that our equally complex and contradictory views of him are as much a mirror, albeit of the funhouse variety, of ourselves as they are of the most important man in American history.

That’s quite a claim, “most important man in American history.” Surely, one could argue that Washington, who historian James Thomas Flexner called "The Indispensable Man,” has a shot at the claim. Maybe a few others do, too. But the Civil War is as much the defining event of the republic that followed it as the Revolutionary War was the defining event of the republic that preceded it. It has been repeated endless times that prior to the Civil War the standard phrase was “the United States are” while afterward it became “the United States is,” but what we are today as a people and what the United States is today as a nation began not at Lexington and Concord but at Fort Sumter.

Be that as it may, as enigmatic and contradictory and ultimately unknowable as Lincoln undoubtedly was, all these things made him, after all, only human. Philosophies of history bore me almost as much as, I am somewhat ashamed to admit, history itself; so don’t expect any “do great men make history or does history make great men” musings from this quarter. Moreover, the logic of counterfactual conditionals, of “If X (where X is false), then Y,” permits any Y, any not logically impossible conclusion at all. But while reading Land of Lincoln, I remembered the first “alternate history” I ever read, one of those “If the South won the Civil War” novels aiming for the history buff / science fiction fan crossover market. I didn’t much care for it and never tried another alternate history novel.

In a sense, though, we are all authors of alternate histories, fitting or forcing together whatever we think we know about the past through the filters of what we want to believe about it. Lincoln towers over our imagination even as his Memorial statue towers over the tourist who cannot help but feel a frisson of awe at its sight or the engraved words of the Gettysburg Address.

I am as “wised up,” to use Ferguson’s phrase, as the next cynic and as critical of Lincoln as any Southerner or libertarian opponent of strong government can be. But arguing the right and wrong of history, like playing “what if Lincoln had failed” is, in the pejorative sense, a merely academic pursuit. The United States is what it is today in no small measure because Lincoln did not fail. The important question is, as always, where do we go from here?

"There's not a sex act mentioned in this book."

Carl Bernstein on his A Woman In Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Oh well, there goes the potential Religious Right sales.

Still, patient and cheap internet surfers should fairly soon be able to read all of Bernstein's new book on Saint Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, web site by book-pluging web site. MSNBC excerpts Little Hillary's childhood. Today's Washington Post runs an extract covering Young Hillary's voyage of self discovery from Wellesley to Little Rock, including tidbits of her early experiences with Our Man Bill. Meanwhile, across the pond, Bernstein holds forth in the Sunday Times (of London) about the "other man" in Hillary's life, the late Vince Foster. There's probably more out there already, too, but life is short.

Bernstein has been a less prolific writer than his former Watergate confrere, Bob Woodward, whose cottage industry as the visible ghostwriter of autohagiographies about the rich and powerful has made him a rich and powerful celebrity in his own right. On the other hand, Woodward has never been the subject of a cinematic roman à clef by Nora Ephron.

Bernstein has claimed to be ambivalent about H.R. Clinton and, of course, to have written a balanced, thorough and fair account of her life. The Hilly-Billy Clan has just as predictably reacted to his recounting of the many stormy, seedy, shady and suspicious episodes of that life so far as, you guessed it, old news. “They know better than that. There are 25 front-page stories in this book,” Bernstein replied.

Doubtlessly, one or more at a time, we'll soon be able to read them all.

It's a shame about Plame, but all the same...

"What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?" -- Alex Leamus, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

I stand (sit, actually) at least somewhat corrected. My previous sense was that the Valerie Plame Wilson CIA status disclosure, the subsequent investigation of White House officials and prosecution of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, while great political theater, was of dubious legal or policy significance. I suppose I should reconsider in light of recent developments. I don't recall ever specifically stating that the question whether Plame was indeed a covert operative or what sort of work she was engaged in was part of my reasoning, which at least gets me off the hook of being embarrassed by Glenn Greenwald now; but I'm sure that some questions in that regard were at least in the back of my mind. (A dangerous, dusty and disorganized place, by the way.) So what now, given apparent confirmation of both her covert status and her work concerning "weapons proliferation issues related to Iraq"?

I wrote "apparent" and will make a tiny point at the risk of sounding like a Creationist demanding every last gap in our evolutionary history be plugged, and that is that the Unclassified Summary submitted by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is unsigned, undated and unauthenticated. Surely, Fitzgerald has made or will make appropriate representations to the judge regarding its bona fides, but I find it at least worth noting that the usual skepticism of the blogosphere regarding such things seems to have gone missing here entirely.

But let's assume now that Plame was indeed a covert operative, moreover, one whose ongoing work for the CIA was both of some importance (we still don't know how much) and badly compromised by the leak and, as a result, U.S. intelligence operations suffered. I agree with Greenwald and others that the extent to which the "bureaucrat desk jockey not covert operative" talking point spread throughout conservative talking head circles now appears pretty thoroughly discredited and (should be) embarrassing to those who pushed it or bought into it on, shall we say, faith-based grounds. It further makes Libby's situation far less sympathetic and intensifies the case for further investigation of Cheney and others.

Very well. I ask this now as what the lawyers call a plea in mitigation of my own obdurate failure still to get it. Aside from the technical legal violations involved in revealing Ms Plame's status, the general import of which is certainly a reasonable concern (we can't just go about outing our spies willy-nilly), is this story still anything more than simply further evidence that, like Le Carre's spies, politicians are "just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards"?

Because, frankly, I already knew that.

Top Ten Reactions to "Covert" Iran Destabilization Plans

ABC News reports that the CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government. With apologies to David Letterman, here are my Top Ten reactions:

10. “A coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation,” huh? I wondered what Karl Rove was up to these days.

9. Thank goodness no one in Iran has internet access or reads English.

8. Upon learning that Elliot Abrams has provided advice regarding the covert operation, Iranian leaders have apparently hired Daniel Ortega in response.

7. Shouldn’t that be covert “African American” operation?

6. It was either this or Cheney was going to take Iran quail hunting.

5. It isn’t true that in deference to President Bush’s alma mater the campaign is named “Operation Mullah Mullah” or that Bush is referred to in the plan as “Cheerleader One.”

4. Rudy Giuliani has preemptively criticized Ron Paul over the insulting notion that the Iranians might object and retaliate.

3. In related news, share prices for the Acme Flammable American Flag Company rose 23% on heavy trading.

2. Leaked reports of other “nonlethal presidential findings” include 87 cents in loose change and a Smirnoff Preferred Customer courtesy card in the president’s jeans.

1. Osama who?

Ron Paul: "Double Plus Ungood?"

Well, the good news for both Mitt Romney and Ron Paul is that their New Hampshire Zogby Poll numbers have both roughly tripled from January to May. Of course, that's an improvement from 13% to 35% for Romney and a change from 1% to 3% for Paul, but, hey, you gotta take your good news where you find it.

Over at Unqualified Offerings, Jim Henley thinks Paul's libertarian-in-the-punchbowl act (a.k.a. to Michelle Malkin as a "9/11 Truthist" or to FOX News more generally as "the Invisible Man") may actually enjoy enough blowback to remain "viable late into the primary season." Covering his bases (as I would, too), Jim notes Paul may well flame out long before then, too.

The interesting question to me at this point is whether Paul's continued presence is helping or harming either the front-runners or the Republican party's prospects in general.

Julian Sanchez probably should be working on a PhD in philosophy rather than wasting his formidable intellect vivisecting the conceptually challenged follies of the Republican Idol lineup. Nonetheless, as G.E. Moore once said of Wittgenstein's "dissertation," Sanchez is fully qualified for Talking Head gigs, even if only of the self-produced variety, as here.

Julian suggests that Paul may at least make campaign b.s. more difficult for the front-runners and the other wannabes, who "have a vested interest in preserving a certain level of ambiguity," as when he noted that "enhanced interrogation techniques" was just so much New-Speak for torture in the last 'debate.'

Maybe. I fear such distinctions without differences will continue to be uttered by the candidates because, with or without Paul to call b.s. to such tactics, they resonate with a public deeply desirous of someone who will get the "dirty but necessary" job done but who also will spare them the gory and thus blame-sharing details. (I say this, by the way, as one who does not believe torture never works or can never be morally justified. However, having taken such a position, I think it would indeed be immoral to then try to hide from what an ugly thing it is.)

In any case, unless the Republican Party is willing to thin the herd of all the declared candidates to pretty much the top three at this point, excluding Paul would be a bad move. Not only because of the potential blowback from Paul supporters and sympathizers but also because, truth be told, truth has nothing to do with these 'debates," as the positive reaction to Giuliani's attack on Paul's 9/11 blowback comments so clearly demonstrates.

Michigan GOP Chairman Seeks to Ban Paul from Future GOP "Big Top Tent" Debates

"Michigan party chairman Saul Anuzis said he will circulate a petition among Republican National Committee members to ban Paul from more debates."

So far, no word from Rudy "Oh Thank Heaven for 9/11" Giuliani as to the extent not having Paul to misconstrue and criticize at subsequent debates would damage Don Giuliani's campaign prospects.

Transparency vs. Anonymity on the Internet

In today's Washington Post, former Post reporter and editor Tom Grubisich makes a bad case for greater "transparency" on the internet. It is a bad case because, among other things, Grubisich begins his argument with a false premise, as follows:

These days we want "transparency" in all institutions, even private ones. There's one massive exception -- the Internet. It is, we are told, a giant town hall.

The first sentence, taken literally, is obviously false. I don't want transparency in private institutions, do you? Of course you don't. Your family is a private institution, after all. How much transparency, whatever that means, am I entitled to about your private affairs, institutional or not. Precious little, and rightly so. Mr. Grubisich may want transparency in private institutions, though I seriously doubt it. Perhaps he's just accustomed to writing in the editorial plural. Regardless, the premise is false.

Furthermore, we're told all sorts of things about the internet. Sure, "town hall" is one such metaphor, but metaphors are not to be taken literally. You can't get arrested for speeding on the Information Superhighway, nor do you even need to buckle-up. The internet is a communications medium, similar in some ways to other media, different in others. That it can be used as a sort of public forum doesn't mean that it is sufficiently like a real town meeting or public gathering of any sort to make it reasonable to apply the same rules.

Anyway, Mr. Grubisich's principal complaint is the anonymity of many "hate-mongering" commenters on such websites as, well, as wasingtonpost.com. Grubisich again:

You would think Web sites would want to keep the hate-mongers from taking over, but many sites are unwitting enablers. At washingtonpost.com, editors and producers say they struggle to balance transparency against privacy. Until recently, many of the site's posters identified themselves with anonymous Internet handles -- which were the site's default ID. Now, people must enter a "user ID" that appears with their comments.

Hal Straus, washingtonpost.com's interactivity and communities editor, says the changes "move us in the direction of transparency." But the distinction is not quite a difference, because washingtonpost.com user IDs can be real names or fictional Internet handles. While the site prohibits comments that are libelous, abusive, obscene or otherwise inappropriate, Mr. anticrat424 could still find a well-amplified podium at washingtonpost.com.

The news and opinion site Huffingtonpost.com requires posters to register with their real names but maddeningly assures them that it will "never" use those names.

Well, now. Amused though I am to see the Washington and Huffington Posts thusly compared, a bit of perspective about those nasty anonymous commenters seems in order here.

In the first place, not that many people spend that much time reading that many comments on these or any other websites. Oh, sure, if a reader finds a particular article interesting he might well peruse the reader comments, agreeing with some, disagreeing with others, finding some amusing or insightful and others insulting or disgusting. There are a few popular websites where the readers' comments are at least as interesting and fun to read as the primary article (Reason's Hit & Run strikes me as one example, probably because I frequently comment there), but they are the exception to the rule, at least when it comes to MSM websites like the Post.

Knowing the writer's name would be of little additional value to the average reader at such websites and of no value to the website's owner and operator who can, in any case, delete offensive comments and ban commenters fairly easily. Yes, some internet trolls can get around such bans up to a point, but very few are willing or able to go to the trouble.

In the second place, while there are all sorts of reasons someone may wish to be anonymous on the internet (though some are better, in my opinion, than others), anonymity automatically carries with it a certain penalty in terms of credibility, the only exception being where anonymous commenters build up a reputation, for better or worse, at a particular website over time. In a sense, therefore, market forces are already at play in assigning value to reader comments.

Moreover, Mr. Grubisich's comparison to an actual public meeting is entirely inapt. Internet trolls or, for that matter, "hate-mongers," can't "take over" a website. They can't shout over other commenters and drown them out. Yes, they can collectively flood a site with spam; but that, in fact, rarely happens. In reality, Mr. Grubisich would apparently really rather that the anonymous "haters" have no voice at all on the internet or at least that they be marginalized beyond the extent to which both their anonymity and the substance of their comments already marginalizes them. After all, he already acknowledges that sites can prohibit comments that are "libelous, abusive, obscene or otherwise inappropriate," so what we are pretty much left with is that he would prefer those with whom he disagrees either identify themselves (why?) or, more likely, simply not comment at all.

Websites are free, and should remain free, to treat commenters as they see fit. As I have written previously, the notion that there is something special about an MSM website beyond the fact that it provides straight news reportage is a dubious proposition, though apparently a common one among professional journalists.

On a personal note, odd as it might seem, I am inclined to agree with Grubisich in that I, too, would prefer that commenters used their real names. Again, I understand why many believe they cannot or should not do so; but then I am, after all, merely stating a preference. In fact, my reasons are similar. Using one's real name tends to have a moderating effect on what one posts on the internet. At least it does for me, which is one of the primary reasons I use my real name here and elsewhere.

Now, I've written enough over the past five years or so on the internet that there are already any number of really dumb comments of mine encased in virtual amber for all times. Some of them I now recognize as dumb. Others I may eventually and probably already would have recognized as dumb were it not for the fact that I remain a bear of very little brain. Patience, dear reader, patience!

But the internet is a "big enough place" that there's room for dumb guys like me and for everyone else, too. Of course, neither the Washington Post nor any other website is obligated to give me or you or anyone a forum. But as is unfortunately more often said than believed in some journalistic quarters, the remedy for bad speech is more speech. Even including anonymous speech and even if the likes of Mr. Grubisich disapproves.

Cats and Dogs (Updated: Oh, if only a reporter had been there!)

Oh goody, a Blogwar! Well, a skirmish, anyway. Voicing his views with perhaps unintentional irony by using, of all outlets, a blog, "grizzled reporter" and "no ivy tower thumb-sucker," Jonathan Alter takes Radar's Jebediah Reed to task for his coverage of a conversation including Alter, Tom Edsall and former Sen. Mike Gravel. Salon's Glenn Greenwald then weighs in, skewering the underlying pomposity and arrogance of Alter's journalistic gripes with the blogosphere.

Greenwald gets the better, so far at least, insofar as the the argument is over the parasitic faults of the blogosphere versus the parasitic faults of news reporters. Damning a cat for being an unsatisfactory sort of dog is foolish, especially for someone like Alter who has gone from dogged reporter to feline columnist (and consultant to that hard-hitting news organization, MTV, no less!) over the years.

For that matter, whether Reed's reporting of the conversation was bad (as opposed to Reed merely being "a bad reporter") seems less a matter to Alter of getting the facts wrong than of not interpreting or understanding what was said in the way that Alter, himself, would have done. Yeah, well, welcome to the club, Jon. Wanna take a poll of the people you've reported on over the years who might make the same sort of complaint? Hey, maybe Reed just isn't grizzled enough yet.

One point, though, I'll give to Alter. If the now infamous lunch in question was really "off the record," Reed had no right to report it as he did. Maybe that's a fact in dispute, too. I couldn't say. But fair's fair. Even a mildly grizzled ivy tower thumb-sucker like me knows that.

UPDATE: But wait, there's more! Now Reed fires back, claiming Alter not only knew the lunch wasn't off the record, save for a moment, but that Reed had his tape recorder running and note-pad out the entire time! Well, it could still technically have been "off the record" as background only, but it sure sounds now like there's some pretty good evidence not only that it wasn't but that Alter clearly knew it wasn't. Hmmmmmm. I think Mr. Reed is calling you a liar, Mr. Alter. Care to respond?

Reed's priceless P.S. -- "Thanks for the cup of black bean soup! (Actually, please thank General Electric.)" Meow!

"That's none of your business."

I admit it isn't quite up there with, say, Grover Norquist's Taxpayer Protection Pledge, but if I was of an activist bent, I'd like to start a national movement to get all candidates for elective office to sign a Pledge promising to respond to all questions regarding their private lives with a simple and unqualified "That's none of your business." Break the Pledge, lose the election.

I'm willing to make an exception on health issues. If a candidate has been diagnosed with some imminently life threatening or debilitating disease, voters need to know about it. Not so much because the natural death or disability of a politician in office is such a threat to the republic but because it's disruptive and annoying, especially when your regularly scheduled programming is preempted for tedious and soporific coverage of the state funeral.

Also, anything already on the official record is fair game. If a candidate turns out to have had half a dozen arrests for driving while impersonating a Kennedy, have at him. Otherwise, "That's none of your business." Mere rumors are circulating about the candidate's three 8-ball a day crack habit, membership in a cult that worships a graven image of Carmen Miranda or has an unusual fondness for barnyard animals? I'm sorry, "That's none of your business."

Now the Drudge Report is leaking the "juicy tidbits" from a Mike Wallace interview with Mitt Romney scheduled for airing on Sunday. Drudge writes:

Romney's wife, Ann, who converted to the Mormon Church before they were married, is also interviewed. When asked whether they broke the strict church rule against premarital sex, Romney says, "No, I'm sorry, we do not get into those things," but still managed to blurt out "The answer is no," before ending that line of questioning.

Assuming the Drudge report is accurate, this puts Wallace in roughly the same category as whoever once asked Bill Clinton whether he wore briefs or boxers. The American people do not need to know whether Clinton wears briefs, boxers or frilly silk panties with lace trim. We do not need to know whether Mitt and Ann slept together before they were married. We do not even need to know if they sleep together now.

We didn't need to know whether Clinton smoked pot at Oxford or whether he inhaled, and we especially didn't need to know about his Oval Office ménage à trois with Monica Lewinsky and a Cuban cigar. Clinton spent a lifetime successfully weaseling out of scandal after scandal, and so naturally he tried to weasel out of that one, too. But the nation would have been far better served if he'd simply stuck to his guns and refused to answer questions about such things even under oath. Even if he was the one wearing the blue dress and someone had pictures. Sure, he might have faced a contempt charge as a result. Big deal.

Let me preemptively respond to the argument that such questions inform the public about the real character or expose the hypocrisy of the candidates. No, they don't. All politicians are liars and hypocrites because (1) they're politicians and (2) they're human beings. (Well, for the most part.) None of these people are running for sainthood and Messiah isn't an elective office. I understand people love gossip about the prurient details of the rich and famous, but that's what we have show business celebrities for. And isn't it more fun to learn the ugly secrets of beautiful people than the largely hum-drum peccadilloes of people so boring they willingly chose politics as a career?

We don't need to know anything about the purely private failures, foibles or follies, sins of commission or omission, minor vices or squalid little secrets of our politicians or their spouses or family members. Not only do we not need to know these things, I insist on believing, eternal optimist that I am, that the majority of us really don't want to know them, either. Hence, the "It's none of your business" Pledge. Candidates must promise to repeat this one and only one acceptable answer to all such "gotcha" questions from the press and public, preferably with the same facial expression appropriate to witnessing the questioner pick his nose in public.

The only permissible variation on this theme is that if the questioner is within smacking range and the candidate happens to have a large trout on hand, smacking the questioner over the head with the trout is encouraged. Candidates should, in fact, keep a large trout on hand at all times for this very purpose. Whatever ratings boost Mike Wallace might have hoped to garner from asking about the Romney's sex lives in the first place, it pales by comparison to the millions upon millions of Americans who would tune in specifically to see him get whacked with a trout.

I know I'd watch.

"Con" is short for conservative and "neo" is short for, um, conservative?

Camille Paglia, the liberal feminist liberal feminists love to hate, resumed her former Salon column not too long ago. Paglia’s style and wit reminds me of a fireworks display – brilliant, colorful sparks flying every which way all at once. It suits her well and I’m happy her unique voice is back.

Cohabiting Salon’s virtual digs these days is Glenn Greenwald, whom my friend and former co-blogger Mona much admires but whose pre-Salon blogging I admit to not having much read. His column yesterday, however, reminds me of the indefatigable Paglia, with salvos flying hither and yon over his contention that neoconservatives hold themselves or their compatriots personally above the law much as they have been accused of contending that the state in its war against terrorism must not be constrained by the law of the land. (The latter criticism, I hasten to add, is all too valid.)

Greenwald writes:

[N]eoconservatives automatically and reflexively defend any neoconservative accused of wrongdoing, before any facts are even known. They insist that they have done no wrong, that the real guilty parties are the accusers, and that even where they have done wrong, they should not be punished.

It’s a very, very busy piece of writing and it would take a very long time to give each accusation due deference. I don’t plan to do that here, nor do I mean to contend that there is nothing at all to Greenwald’s concern. Still, where he sees a seemingly vast pattern if not a downright conspiracy among those he calls neoconservatives of both the official and pundit variety and the latter's varied reactions to charges leveled against some of the former, I’m afraid I see little more than politics as usual and nothing uniquely neoconservative or even generally conservative about it at all.

Here’s the quick version of Greenwald’s thesis: Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Conrad Black, Paul Wolfowitz, and several AIPAC officials (with Eliot Abrams thrown in for good measure) have variously been accused, tried or convicted of various wrongdoings, some criminal, some ‘merely’ ethical, at least so far. They, in turn, have been defended “with virtual unanimity” by the “neoconservative” likes of pundits working for FOX News, National Review, the Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic . (Why doesn’t the Weekly Standard make the list? Bill Kristol, a writer who's so Neo that Morpheus probably thinks he's The One, gets mentioned but not his most quintessentially neoconservative platform. What gives?)

First, let’s note that there is a very wide spectrum of wrongdoing involved here. From charges of espionage (the AIPAC case) to the Libby conviction for his statements made in the investigation of the idiotic Plame debacle to the comparatively trivial case of Wolfowitz’s personal / professional conflicts of interest at the World Bank. So, at minimum, this is a very apples and oranges sort of list of wrongful behavior. Okay, apples and oranges are still both fruits; but I'd say selling secrets to foreign governments counts as more egregious conduct than juicing your girlfriend’s salary, wouldn’t you?

For that matter, yeah, I think Libby was a small potatoes fall guy in the Plame affair and should get a pardon, too. Does that make me a neoconservative? I hope the hell not. (Also, just for the record, I don’t really give a rodent’s hindquarters how Wolfowitz’s main squeeze, um, earned her raise at the World Bank -- which I, too, would like to see go bye-bye -- or how much U.N. coffers swag Kofi Annan managed to throw his son’s way, either.)

Greenwald writes, by the way, that Libby was “convicted by an obviously conscientious and unanimous jury.” Yeah, well, you need unanimity for any conviction last time I checked, and it isn’t as though the jury was entirely comfortable in doing its “conscientious” duty under the circumstances, either. I think for good reason. Apparently he disagrees.

But here’s really my basic gripe. Greenwald is simply painting with too broad a brush, or at least it seems so to me, when he rattles off all these various and admittedly conservative defenders of these various current and former administration officials and labels all such writers as neoconservatives. Thusly used, does “neo” do any work at all? Is Jonah Goldberg really a neoconservative? I think the fact would come as news to him (though that isn't to say he might not agree with some neoconservatives about some things some of the time.) Does it matter at all that what he actually wrote about Black was “to the extent I understand the charges, I am all in favor of defending Conrad Black” (my emphasis) and that even that sounds to me like a throw-away line in the context of criticism of a Tina Brown column? Is the entire editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal really comprised now exclusively not only of conservatives but of neoconservatives? Golly! No wonder Rupert Murdoch wants to pay a premium for it.

Look, conservatives, “neo” or otherwise, rising to the defense, sometimes inappropriately, of their fellow conservatives charged with wrongdoing is nothing new in politics, nor is such behavior unique to the right side of the political spectrum. It’s business as usual. Many of the writers Greenwald accuses of unprincipled defense of the likes of Wolfowitz or Libby do indeed qualify under the “neo” rubric, and I probably even agree with him about some of his examples.

But whether everything they or other "mere" conservatives write in such defense stems from the motives Greenwald ascribes to them seems to me a very different sort of thing. It is, after all, possible to do the right thing for the right reason, e.g., write against the onslaught of also dubious and biased liberal media criticism of such persons, even if one is a neoconservative, isn’t it? Or has "neoconservative" simply become a secular catch-all synonym for Satan and his evil minions in some quarters?

I gotta say, this sort of scatter-shot patterning is a lot more fun when Paglia is doing it.

POSTSCRIPT: Greenwald's piece in Salon today, urging Democrats to amend the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and restore habeas corpus is right on the money. I'd only add it would be nice to see more Republicans join in that effort, too. As always, I call 'em as I see 'em.

To the Editor: Dear Sir, Who Cares?

In Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell's latest column, Online Venom or Vibrant Speech?, Howell writes, “Two important journalism values -- free, unfettered comment and civil, intelligent discourse -- are colliding.”

Oh dear. One might ask, only rhetorically mind you, just whose free, unfettered comments journalism has ever really valued?

I grew up with the Post, and I’ve read a number of Howell’s columns and she strikes me as no better and no worse than her WaPo predecessors. Putatively appointed to serve as mediators between the newspaper and its often critical and frustrated readership, ombudsmen such as Howell tend to rise from the ranks of working journalists and thus bring with them both the common prejudices of the trade and the typical obliviousness to those prejudices that especially infuriate their customers.

I don’t mean ideological bias. Yes, the Mainstream Media is biased toward the left, but journalism’s more fundamental problems would remain were the press right-leaning or dead center, whatever that would mean. Too heavy reliance on certain sorts of sources and too much skepticism regarding other sources, sloppy fact-checking and the tendency to ignore for as long as possible and then downplay as much as possible whenever reportage is shown to be erroneous or worse are all endemic problems with the profession. Thus, ombudsmen like Howell tend to see their role, wittingly or not, as one of explaining to critical readers why the newspaper is right and the readers are wrong. Actual criticism of their newspaper’s behavior tends to be both rare and timid, sometimes to the point of being almost apologetic to their colleagues.

On the topic of reader feedback, especially comments posted on the Post’s website, Howell writes:

Complaints first came from the newsroom. Reporters don't appreciate the often rude feedback, which I get, too. (A sample reader comment on my column last week: "I think we can all agree after reading Howell's lame comments week after week that the Post should save money by eliminating her position entirely. She is worse than a dupe.")

But the reader is wrong; Howell is no worse than a dupe. Okay, I admit that’s pretty snarky, but the real issue isn’t Howell. The real issue is that the very concept of a news ombudsman is a rear-guard tactic and a failed attempt at providing the appearance of objectivity and accountability. It doesn't matter. Thanks to the internet, the public no longer needs a media-provided conduit to its editorial desks. Whether the Post continues to publish reader comments at the end of its articles on its website is as irrelevant as whether it continues to publish Letters to the Editor in its print edition. (Which, by the way, newspapers do not print out of any sense of professional responsibility but because they increase circulation.)

Working journalists are absolutely essential to the real business of journalism, which is basic news reportage. But the media no longer needs to pretend to be self-correcting, nor can it withstand or control the forces that monitor and continually criticize and correct its work product any longer. Free, unfettered comment will continue apace, whether or not Howell or her superiors at the Post find it sufficiently civil or intelligent. I might even agree with them more often than not that much of such comment is neither. Fortunately, my opinion on the subject doesn’t matter any more than theirs does.

Just Us as Fairness

The Fairness Doctrine has no place in our First Amendment regime. It puts the head of the camel inside the tent and enables administration after administration to toy with TV and radio.

So wrote the late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. Douglas, it is fair to say, was not George F. Will's (or my) favorite Supreme Court justice, but Will quotes him in his latest column (hat tip to memeorandum) attacking renewed efforts from the Left to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Only today such a doctrine would necessarily attempt to regulate not only broadcast media but cable, satellite and internet communications, as well. Justice Douglas would not be pleased. Neither should you.

The observation is almost as old as the phenomenon, itself, but government takes on responsibilities and the power required to meet them when the private sector is unable or believed unable to get the job done. Thus, the means of (interstate) commerce, e.g., roads and postal services, were once thought the proper province of government because such tasks were too daunting or unprofitable to be performed by the private sector. That is not, of course, the only rationale for government action; the interstate highway system was promoted for, among other reasons, purposes of national defense.

Still, roads aside for now, one would be hard pressed to justify the continued existence of the U.S. Postal Service on grounds that no private company is capable of or willing to deliver mail. (No company may be willing to do so at a loss or to deliver a letter from North Dakota to South Carolina at the same price as a letter going crosstown in Manhattan, but that's a different matter.) But, whatever the original rationale, government does not willingly give up power once it is given to it regardless of the lack of usefulness or even the greater harm caused by its retention.

Anyway, the original Fairness Doctrine derived from a similar notion, indeed, from the notion that served to justify the Federal Communications Commission in the first place; namely, the notion that the broadcast spectrum "airwaves" were and are "public property" and that they are "scarce," hence in need of public (i.e., federal) regulation. Never mind that all resources are scarce, at least a facial case could be made given the state of the art of broadcast technology in the early decades of radio and television that some sort of regulating was necessary. Moreover, the rise of the major television networks in an age when they enjoyed the absence of non-broadcast competition did plausibly lead to the conclusion that they wielded an inordinate amount of potential power and influence in the public's access to news and information.

But whatever the strengths or weaknesses of those arguments were then, they simply do not apply today any more that the notion of a USPS as a necessary artificial monopoly makes sense today. As with campaign financing "reform," those like Howard Dean who "believe we need to re-regulate the media," believe this not because they think the abundance of sources of news and information deprives the public of adequate choices but because they do not like the choices the public has been making.

This is the sense of "fairness" that contends not that all political views and all political candidates should be given equal air time; there is no groundswell of support among either Republicans or Democrats for more airtime for Lyndon LaRouche or for Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan or even for the Green Party. Here "fairness" means that as between the Tweedledum and Tweedledee Parties it is unfair to the Dees whenever the Dums get too much media access and vice versa. "Too much," of course, means too much private access, which usually means too much private money but can, in a pinch, mean simply too much of what money can buy but the government simply forces the seller to give away.

But no one is forced to watch or listen to Rush Limbaugh, Jon Stewart or Katie Couric, at least two of whom are successful faux journalists (obviously, no one was forced to listen to Air America, either), and no one is forced to contribute money or spend his own money on air time or print space or whatever and no one is guaranteed access to such media unless and until the government mandates it.

Like the "separation of church and state," the "marketplace of ideas" is one of those clichés that sounds good on first blush but doesn't really hold up under closer inspection. Ideas are not bought and sold, don't have decreasing marginal utility as every new idea is added and, while the supply of good ideas is always scarce, the demand is perennially lower than it should be. In the political realm, in any case, advocates of re-regulating media to ensure "fairness" haven't the slightest interest in a marketplace of ideas. Like the ABC, NBC and CBS of thirty years ago, the last thing they want to see is the cable and satellite guys knocking at your door.

(Semi-obscure title reference here.)