UPDATE: Gateway Pundit has more on the surprising progress of the Chinese democracy movement. I guess that’s what’s got the authorities scared enough to commit murder.
Archive for 2005
October 9, 2005
AN ODD SORT-OF CORRECTION at the Washington Post, relating to a Petula Dvorak article on protesters I mentioned earlier.
More journalistic questions at Winds of Change.
WILLIAM SHAWCROSS: Peace is not the answer:
IT SEEMS UNLIKELY that many of the so-called peace marchers who trooped through Washington and London two weekends back listened on Thursday — at least not with an open mind or sympathy — to George Bush’s cogent explanation of why coalition troops are fighting and dying in Iraq.
You did not see in those demonstrations, after all, many banners reading, “Support Iraq’s New Constitution,” “No to Jihad” or “Stop Suicide Bombers.” The crimes committed daily against the Iraqi people by other Arabs who wish to re-enslave them seem to be of little interest to Michael Moore, Jane Fonda and their followers. Rage against the daily assaults on children, women, anyone, by Islamo-fascists and ordinary national fascists is not fashionable. Only alleged American crimes are cool to decry. . . .
The sacrifice of U.S. soldiers, of their coalition allies and of Iraqis is horrifically painful. But if we can stay long enough to enable the Iraqis to lay the firm foundation of civil society, their deaths will not be in vain. We should leave when the elected Iraqi government asks us to do so.
It is the promise of freedom that the fascists who murdered the Iraqi teachers last month want to destroy. It is astonishing and discouraging that those who think they were taking the high ground in marching though Washington do not understand this.
Indeed. Michael Barone observes:
I am struck by the sublime indifference of most critics of Bush’s Iraq policy to the fate of the Iraqi people. They are totally unexultant about the overthrow of a vicious dictatorship and seem to have no interest at all in what would happen to Iraqis if we leave suddenly. Hitchens has argued persuasively that no one deserves the label of liberal who is so indifferent to whether others live in freedom or under tyranny.
Will Collier observes:
I don’t understand why anybody as knowledgeable as Barone would be at all surprised. The western Left didn’t give a tinker’s damn for the fates of the Iranians, Lebanese, Nicaraguans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Koreans, Cubans, Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, or even Russians, so long as the eeeevil American right-wingers were dealt a political defeat (and let’s not even start on Israelis).
Why should anybody be surprised thay they could now care less about Iraqis?
Good point. Judging from the size of this protest, which I saw at the University this morning on the way home from the studio, most people aren’t fooled.
HEH. Or, as The Left Coaster puts it:
Kurtz reports this morning that “60 Minutes” will allow a rebuttal of sorts tonight in the piece through the addition of a statement from somewhat discredited Clinton national security advisor Sandy “I stuffed the papers in my pants” Berger that will contradict Freeh’s claims. Berger is the less-than-perfect choice for this assignment.
“Less-than-perfect.” Yes. Am I wrong, or is politics just getting . . . dumber lately?
HOLY CRAP, the Pakistan earthquake is looking a lot worse:
The quake wiped out entire villages, buried roads in rubble and knocked out electricity and water supplies. Pakistan said more than 40,000 people were injured and between 20,000 and 30,000 likely killed, and the death toll was expected to rise.
The United States is sending aid.
HURRICANE VINCE THREATENS EUROPE: Jeez.
UPDATE: Reader Fernando Colina emails that the devastation caused by Hurricane Stan isn’t getting enough attention. He’s right. With the tsunami, Katrina, Rita, the Pakistani earthquake, and now this, I think people are getting a bit numb.
MORE WELL-DESERVED SLAPS AT M.A.D.D. over at The Corner.
ME, MIKE ISIKOFF, AND JAY ROSEN discuss the Judy Miller case. Ian Schwartz has the video.
CHAD DOTSON WILL BE LIVEBLOGGING tonight’s Virginia gubernatorial debate.
MORE ON AVIAN FLU PREPARATION.
NORM GERAS wonders why The Guardian’s shock and mock approach to open religiosity doesn’t apply to Islamists.
Presumably they’re afraid that the Islamists will kill them if they do that. One hopes that religious Christians, Jews, Hindus, etc., won’t take the obvious lesson regarding incentives . . . .
UPDATE: A post from Ed Driscoll from a while back sounded a similar theme.
J.D. JOHANNES is back from Iraq, as are the Marines he’s been covering. Via email he adds:
One of the Marines asked this morning if, knowing what I do now, I would still have done it?
Yes.
I am coming home sore, bruised, tired, financially destitute, unemployed and probably soon to be homeless, but I have witnessed more acts of courage in one Summer than most people will see in their entire life.
He’ll start editing his documentary in a couple of days.
I BLAME MICHAEL BROWN AND FEMA:
Acting New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley said Thursday that as many as 40 officers from the department’s 3rd District, including the commanding captain, are “under scrutiny” for possibly bolting the city in the clutch and heading to Baton Rouge in Cadillacs from a New Orleans dealership. . . .
Last week, after reports surfaced that the Louisiana attorney general’s office was investigating the alleged theft of about 200 cars from Sewell Cadillac Chevrolet, possibly by NOPD officers, Riley revealed his own internal investigations. All told, Riley said 12 officers were under investigation for looting or failing to combat looting in their presence, four officers had been suspended and one had been reassigned.
IT’S BAY VS. BAY on Miers:
Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers utterly underwhelmed me. Understand I still support Robert Bork. I’d like to see Janice Rogers Brown on the Supreme Court. Kelo? With Justice Brown on the Court? No way.
But my wife disagrees.
A spirited dialogue ensues. But that dialogue isn’t just within a marriage — it’s within Bush’s coalition: Ed Morrissey writes in the Washington Post:
By nominating White House lawyer Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, George Bush has managed to accomplish what Al Gore, John Kerry, Tom Daschle and any number of Democratic heavyweights have been unable to do: He has cracked the Republican monolith. Split his own party activists. And how.
Read the whole thing. And note Ed’s wish that the debate stays as courteous as that within the Bay household.
UPDATE: Mark Steyn: “For what it’s worth, my sense is that Harriet Miers will be, case by case, a more reliable vote against leftist judicial activism than her mercurial predecessor, Sandra Day O’Connor.”
Jeff Goldstein, however, wonders why Bush nominated someone with a track record of supporting affirmative action. The answer to that, I think, comes from the Steyn column: “Bush, it seems ever more obvious, is the Third Wayer Clinton only pretended to be.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s a table summarizing pro and con arguments on Miers, and here’s a summary of what was said on the Sunday morning talk shows. (Via Confirm Them).
MORE: Hugh Hewitt has a lengthy post in defense of Miers. Pejman Yousefzadeh observes:
While it may be unfair to have the roberts standard out there with which to judge future nominees, the fact is that the standard is out there and the Bush Administration’s new nominee will look relatively bad in comparison to the new Chief Justice. . . .
I agree with Hewitt that the rules of Constitutional law can be easily learned. But note his comment that “rules changes are troublesome and greatly contested.” He makes this point about golf, but it applies as well to Constitutional law which is “subject to much more frequent changes” than are the rules of golf. Quite so, which means that those who fight over whether or not there will be changes and what kind of changes might be implemented will have to possess the savvy and background to wage those battles successfully. And there is a vast difference between Harriet Miers’s ability to do that and the ability of John Roberts, Janice Rogers Brown, Michael Luttig and Michael McConnell (just to name a few) to be able to do that. Harriet Miers is simply not in their class.
The White House really should have thought this through.
STILL MORE: “Stealth” — but who’s being stealthed? “What he wants is a centrist on economic and liberty issues, supportive of federal power, coupled with an overriding commitment to the Christian Right’s social agenda. But to nominate someone who clearly has these qualifications would create a revolt in the Party, so we have Harriet Miers. The stealth is against us. I hope we realize it in time.”
Hmm. Maybe. Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin has a big roundup and observes:
I think that Hugh, like many of the Bush White House aides and supporters who are wielding the elitism card, seriously misreads and underestimates the opposition to this nomination coming from grass-roots conservatives. And that includes evangelicals. These are not elites.
I find the “elitism” argument rather unconvincing.
MORE STILL: Unhelpful reassurance: “Yes, this is a fundamental problem. Those most vocally opposed to the Miers nomination are strong social conservatives. But the attempt to win them back repels people who care about the proper functioning of the courts.”
Meanwhile, Bush is also losing support for other reasons.
I’LL BE ON “RELIABLE SOURCES” ON CNN in a few minutes, talking about Miers, Plame, and more.
UPDATE: Here’s a post on press shield laws — with some proposed revisions — that’s worth reading.
“KEEP YOUR U.N. off my Internet!” Given Kofi Annan’s efforts to suppress books critical of his operations, as well as such past crimes as the “New International Information Order,” I don’t trust the U.N. with the Internet at all.
UPDATE: As befits someone who’s been paying close attention to the “UNScam” oil-for-food scandal, Roger Simon doesn’t want the U.N. anywhere near the Internet.
THROUGH THE MIRACLE OF WESTLAW, Beldar looks at Harriet Miers’ case record and pronounces it good.
In the comments, meanwhile, Patterico asks an important question: “Why are we hearing this stuff from Beldar and not the Administration?”
HMM: The Top Secret Avian Flu Plan that everyone was talking about yesterday was reportedly available on the HHS website for a year.
JOE GANDELMAN has a massive roundup on the South Asian earthquake, including links to accounts from a number of area bloggers. Things look to be considerably worse than they appeared yesterday.
A DREADFUL LAPSE IN JUDGMENT at the University of Chicago, where Daniel Drezner has been denied tenure. Tenure denials, while dreaded, aren’t career-enders and I expect that Dan will flourish elsewhere, perhaps in a warmer and more hospitable climate. Nonetheless, this sucks.
Advice to people elsewhere: Grab Drezner while you can!
UPDATE: Juan Non-Volokh: “An obvious question is what, if any, impact Drezner’s blogging had on his tenure vote. . . . I’ve often heard academics disparage non-academic writing in terms that suggest it could be a negative in the tenure process, irrespective of the quality of academic work under review. This is one of the reasons I’ve blogged under a pseudonym — and will at least until my own tenure vote — as I want my file, and the work therein, judged on the merits. In my view, that I spend some of my free time blogging is no more relevant to the process than a colleagues’ decision to spend his or her time attending theater, performing in dance recitals, or raising children, but there is no guarantee that one’s colleagues will agree.” No, though it’s a bad reflection on one’s colleagues if they don’t.
October 8, 2005
A UNITER, not a divider.
ANOTHER LOOMING MIERS DISASTER: This is meant as a defense, but I think it also serves to illustrate that this was a poor choice.
UPDATE: Reader Ben Borwick emails:
i am a regular reader and a fan, but i think you are very wrong on this one….the president has a right to appoint someone he feels shares his judicial philosophy….if that person is qualified, as miers undoubtedly is, all the conservatives who are miffed their own personal favorite wasn’t nominated should accept his decision….all you are doing is helping the democrats score points by portraying republicans as being in disarray…your analysis of miers so far has been petty and unconvincing….if you think she is a liberal why don’t you at least wait for the hearings…the president has a pretty darn good record on appointing judges and people at all levels…i would give him the benefit of the doubt on this one…he needs our support.
Hmm. Well, my worry isn’t that Miers will be too liberal. On the issues that have, say, Robert Bork’s panties in a wad, I’m more liberal than Bush, or Bork, anyway. My question is whether she’s got what it takes to be a Supreme Court Justice. So far, nobody’s shown me much in that department.
BIRD FLU IS IN TURKEY, and the media spin is taking wing.
UPDATE: Romania, too.
ART CRITICISM downunder. It’s not critical enough, if you ask me.
THE BLOGGER BOOBIETHON is in its final stage. Don’t miss it!