Posted 8/31/2003 11:10:00 PM by The MinuteMan

No, No, No, It's WAG The Dog!

Am I the hundredth caller?

Posted 8/31/2003 08:11:00 PM by The MinuteMan

In The News

From the very interesting NY Times piece about the author of "Who Killed Daniel Pearl?":

...his conclusion is anything but fictional: that Pakistan's military secret service, the Inter-Services Intelligence, widely known as I.S.I., is deeply involved with both the Islamic fundamentalist groups responsible for Mr. Pearl's death and with Al Qaeda.

From TIME magazine, about the interrogation by the US of captured Al Qaeda biggie Zubaydah:

Zubaydah, writes Posner, said the Saudi connection ran through Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, the kingdom's longtime intelligence chief. Zubaydah said bin Laden "personally" told him of a 1991 meeting at which Turki agreed to let bin Laden leave Saudi Arabia and to provide him with secret funds as long as al-Qaeda refrained from promoting jihad in the kingdom. The Pakistani contact, high-ranking air force officer Mushaf Ali Mir, entered the equation, Zubaydah said, at a 1996 meeting in Pakistan also attended by Zubaydah. Bin Laden struck a deal with Mir, then in the military but tied closely to Islamists in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (isi), to get protection, arms and supplies for al-Qaeda. Zubaydah told interrogators bin Laden said the arrangement was "blessed by the Saudis."

And from Josh Marshall:

Now it appears that Iran's rapid progress toward a nuclear weapons capacity came thanks to substantial assistance from Pakistan. Add that to the fact that we now know that North Korea's progress along the uranium-enrichment track (as opposed to plutonium) was similarly the product of key assistance from Pakistan. If we're looking for the unstable Islamist-leaning state which has nuclear weapons and is the chief proliferator of nuclear technology to other unstable rogue regimes, we've found it: Pakistan. The urgent question to be answered is whether such assistance is continuing. If it's ended, when did it end?

As a very minor point - the NY Times reported that we are trying to add non-US troops into Iraq, particularly Muslim troops:

The top American commander for Iraq [Gen. John P. Abizaid] said today there was no need for more American troops there, but he encouraged Muslim allies like Turkey and Pakistan to send peacekeepers and said accelerating the training of a new Iraqi army should be considered.

OK, Turkey once occupied Iraq as part of the Ottoman Empire. Whether their troops would be welcome in a return engagement I leave to the bright lights and sensitive souls at the Pentagon and the State Dept.

Pakistan had troops in Somalia as part of Black Hawk Down, and apparently has been involved in 25 UN peacekeeping missions. But given the grim connections noted above, could someone explain to me, slowly, as if I were a complete idiot, why we want Pakistani troops in Iraq?

Posted 8/31/2003 01:41:00 PM by The MinuteMan

I'm Sure I Am Over-Simplifying

Ian Buruma, writing in the NY Times magazine, explains to us "How to Talk About Israel". My take-away - we went to war with Iraq because a bunch of black schoolboys beat up a nerdy Jewish kid.

I need to concentrate.

MORE: OK, let's add a "Disingenuity Alert". The author is noting, and debunking, the widespread notion that a "Jewish cabal" dominates US foreign policy. I agree with his conclusion, but find this unconvincing:

There are several myths to be considered. The first is the idea that the American or the British government is dominated or manipulated by Jews. In fact, none of President Bush's cabinet members are Jewish, and the last time individual Jews played a prominent part in any British government was under John Major.

OK, if reaching all the way back to John Major is allowed, maybe he should mention that under Bill Clinton, we had Robert Rubin at Treasury, Madeleine Albright at State, and William Cohen at Defense. I include Mr. Cohen because I suspect that fans of Jewish conspiracies will look at his name and suspect (correctly, it turns out) that he has Jewish roots.

STILL MORE: A serious, and seriously vexed, response. The Judd Bro fits this into a Grand Unified Theory, and informs us that Jewish men are like, well, women.

For the non-motivated, this chap should convince you of my seriousness, and save lots of reading. And let's put Daniel Urman of Oxblog in the mix.

Posted 8/31/2003 12:41:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Crazy Like A Fox

From the LA Times:

...U.S. and allied intelligence agencies have launched a major effort to determine if they were victims of bogus Iraqi defectors who planted disinformation to mislead the West before the war.

...Hussein's motives for such a deliberate disinformation scheme may have been to bluff his enemies abroad, from Washington to Tehran, by sending false signals of his military might. Experts also say the dictator's defiance of the West, and its fear of his purported weapons of mass destruction, boosted his prestige at home and was a critical part of his power base in the Arab world.

Hussein also may have gambled that the failure of United Nations weapons inspectors to find specific evidence identified by bogus defectors ultimately would force the Security Council to lift sanctions imposed after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. U.S. officials now believe Hussein hoped to then covertly reconstitute his weapons programs.

Well, the scheme was evidently not as carefully calibrated as Saddam might have hoped, since we invaded anyway. So, was Saddam just crazy? Who knows? My candidate for "crazy like a fox" is Jeff Hauser, who aired the "he was bluffing" theory back in early June. Yesterday's wild leap is today's CW.

MORE: I have never before heard of the Power and Interest News Report, but this is on topic.

Posted 8/30/2003 03:24:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Getting Ready For The Man On A Horse

The Wesley Clark for President buzz is picking up.

Here is the General on "Meet The Press", June 15; and on "Crossfire", June 24. Here is an article trying to sort out his position of gays in the military: "Let's hope he gets his story straight - and his position gay."

So, with "Clark for President" as an excuse, I will now channel the conventional wisdom on the various candidates.

First, this idea that the Democrats need more candidates is silly - several of the current crop have admirable resumes, and appear to be perfectly Presidential. What is really happening is that the Democrats are trying to conjure up a candidate who can appeal to their base and sneak past the rest of us. A track record is a burden for this exercise; hence, the current muttering for new faces.

As to the individual candidates, Sharpton, Moseley-Braun, and Kuchinich will not be affected by a Clark candidacy, because their campaigns are not reality-oriented.

Graham has apparently said he will be the Presidential nominee, or retire. I believe he will not run as a "ticket-balancer" - better to reign as an elderly Senator than serve as an elderly VP. Therefore, Clark's entry will not affect his already-neglible chances.

Edwards is running for the VP slot this year, as an escape route from a 2004 Senate race he might well lose. Clark would be a more compelling VP pick than Edwards, who is almost as politically inexperienced as Clark, and has a less impressive background. We assume here that Clark, as a military type, will have Southern appeal. Edwards' strategy must now be to oppose tort reform, and prepare to re-enter the practice of law in 2005.

Gephardt is a fellow I have never had a feel for. I think he has no hope of gaining the nomination, and no appeal as a VP pick. Clark's entry doesn't help him, so it must hurt.

Lieberman at this point believes his mission is to preserve the credibility of his party on the subject of national security. Clark's entry would help Lieberman on this score. As to getting himself nominated, Lieberman may be entertaining the fantasy that, if we find WMDs and Saddam, his positions will merit a second look. We will, they won't.

Kerry has already begun his death spiral. The rest of us will be thankful if a Clark candidacy means that Kerry does not mention his Viet Nam service every three minutes, but one wonders what else Big John might offer. Self-financing of his campaign is out; eighteen years of distinguished public service, during which he annoyed us with his arrogance and issue-straddling, will count for little.

Dean will not lose one of his current supporters to Clark. However, Dean needs to pick up support amongst the Democrats who need a fresh face with whom to fall in love, and have so far resisted his charms. Clark will hurt here. Also, the fickle media will have a back-to-school crush on Clark, dumping Dean like an old newspaper. Still, on balance, a Clark candidacy hurts Kerry much more than it hurts Dean, so we score this as a plus for the eventual Democratic nominee.

Wild cards? Al Gore stepped aside last year, thinking primarily of his own situation. Now, he will listen to folks tell him that the party is on the brink of disaster, and only he can unite it, deliver the message, defeat Bush, and end the madness. It is not about Al anymore, this one's for all humanity! Gore in the balance! Groan. He may fall for this rubbish, put personal considerations aside, and give Dean even more stature when Dean steamrollers him.

Folks who remember McCarthy v. Kennedy will know what sort of resentment I am picturing if Big Al joins the hunt. Al ran a screwed up campaign in 2000, he has been damn near AWOL in opposing the war, and if he thinks he can waltz in at this late date to pick a position and claim the prize.... well, that is what Dean's folks will be thinking. And saying.

And Hillary? Hillary! versus Dean would be the brawl to settle it all, and we would pay extra to see it. Although her current ploy is to sit this one out, we remain convinced that, unlike her hubby, she will not duck the draft.

OK, dream ticket - Dean-Clark? The fiscally responsible / socially irresponsible Governor, the General, two guys that gun nuts could love - why not?

We will no doubt think of reasons as the day approaches.

Posted 8/29/2003 11:16:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Good Catch By The Cal Pundit

Kevin Drum presents a vivid example of misleading reporting by Reuters. However, we aren't sure he appreciates his own discovery:

POSTSCRIPT: The more I think about Rumsfeld's recent comments [Reuters link], the more they piss me off. Here's what he said three days ago:

"There are some recommending that more U.S. forces go in. I can tell you that if Gen. Abizaid recommended it, it would happen in a minute. But he has not recommended it."

Technically that's true: Abizaid doesn't want more U.S. forces. But he does want more forces.

Crikey. Can you trust a thing these guys say without parsing every single phoneme to within an inch of its life?

Hmm. I fear that by "these guys", the estimable Cal Pundit might actually mean Bush, Rumsfeld, and company.

But he should have targetted Reuters. Let's go the to transcript:

Rumsfeld: My position is that we ought to have as many forces in the Middle East as is appropriate. And if we're going to make an error, we ought to have too many, rather than too few. And that is the position of the president. It's the position of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the vice chairman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff completely, all of them, and the combatant commander. John Abizaid's the combatant commander. He has indicated that he has the level of forces there, U.S. forces, that he believes is appropriate at the present time --

Q: (Off mike.)

Rumsfeld: -- for the tasks that he has.

He has also said that we need to increase the coalition forces. And we've been working to do that, and they're flowing in now, in larger numbers.

But most important, he and the Coalition Provisional Authority have been working very hard to increase the number of Iraqi forces. So the Iraqi forces in the police, the army, the militia, the border patrol have all been growing at very rapid clip. And I don't know the number at the moment -- it changes from time to time -- but the last time I looked, it was something in the neighborhood of 40 or 50 thousand Iraqis are now either trained or in training and on the job, armed, to contribute, to provide security in the country.

If you think about it, if you had a choice between foreign presence for security and Iraqi presence for security, with an Iraqi face on it, clearly the latter is preferable. It is, in the last analysis, the responsibility of the Iraqi people to take control of their country and to provide the kind of security and stabilities and an environment that's hospitable to economic recovery and political recovery.

The -- there are some recommending that more U.S. forces go in. I can tell you that if General Abizaid recommended it, it would happen in a minute. But he has not recommended it, and we are putting a full court press on trying to increase the number of Iraqis.

From which Reuters extracted the quote above, thereby irking sunny Southern Cal.

Trust, and verify. But with Reuters, skip directly to "verify".

Posted 8/29/2003 11:02:00 PM by The MinuteMan

A Little "Flypaper" Rally

Don Rumsfeld, speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on August 25:

"In Iraq moreover we’re dealing not just with regime remnants but also with tens of thousands of criminals that were released from the jails by the regime before it fell, as well as terrorists and foreign fighters who have entered the country over the borders to try to oppose the Coalition. They pose a challenge to be sure but they also pose an opportunity because Coalition forces can deal with the terrorists now in Iraq instead of having to deal with those terrorists elsewhere, including the United States."

If Rumsfeld is describing a flexible adaptation to a difficult situation, fine. We are big supporters of "when life hands you lemons, make vodka-tonics". However, his remarks are a long way from saying it was the initial plan.

With that caveat, and however we got here, Rumsfeld is certainly suggesting that "flypaper" is sticking around.

Posted 8/29/2003 06:07:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Reflexive Bush-Bashing Drives P. Krugman Insane (We Tried To Warn You)

The first prominent victim was TAPPED. Now, Prof. Krugman has succumbed, joining the calls for a larger military.

TIME has more.

Posted 8/28/2003 07:51:00 PM by The MinuteMan

The Unbearable Lightness Of Being Paul Krugman

De Broglie, as you recall, enunciated the view that matter could be characterized as both a particle and a wave. Apparently, wave-like behavior is most easily detectable amongst smaller particles, such as electrons, and leads to puzzling results - because the wave is (or at least, can be thought of as) a probability distribution, an electron can appear to be in two positions simultaneously, and has some (albeit small) probability of being anywhere.

Yes, these ruminations have taken us somewhat afield, and no, we are not prepping for a Star Trek convention. Rather, we are attempting to connect the physical sciences with the social sciences, and especially the dismal science.

The Man Without Particle Accelerator has recently discovered the astonishing shrinking HDP Krugman. With the help of Don Luskin and Matt Hoy, we also observe that the newer, smaller HDP K is able to appear nearly simultaneously in two very different positions on the matter of California's fiscal health.

We are fascinated. What other insights has physics to offer? Onward to the frontier!

UPDATE: The Man Without Conflicting Opinions finds P. Krugman is everywhere, but always gloomy:

Nationally, state and local taxes are highly regressive, and have become considerably more regressive over time. California's system is regressive, too, but not as much so as the national average.

versus:

What is true is that California's taxes are highly inequitable: thanks to Proposition 13, some people pay ridiculously low property taxes.

So, taxes are highly inequitable in California, and really, really deplorable elsewhere. Well, we don't like 'em either.

Posted 8/28/2003 12:47:00 PM by The MinuteMan

I'd Rather Be Lucky Than Good

The Chinese (YES, all one billion of them) are making very encouraging noises about North Korea: "China Says N.Korea Wants Nuclear-Free Peninsula".

And over at the UN, we see this: "U.S. Now Signals It Might Consider U.N. Force in Iraq".

Critics of the Bush Administration foreign policy effort may soon have to contend with the fact that, by luck or design, we may see multilateral (and, God bless us, successful) efforts in both North Korea and Iraq.

It will be all very well to assert that Bush and Compnay would never have staggered to the correct course without the goading of their critics, but that may prove to be a tough sell come the election.

Josh Marshall is right - painfully so.

Posted 8/28/2003 09:01:00 AM by The MinuteMan

The Old Black Magic Is Working At The Crow

Harrison Ford is annoying us.

MORE: This is a very funny discussion of liberal politics in Hollywood. The panelists are Rob Long and Harry Shearer.

Orrin Judd has argued repeatedly that all comedy is conservative. In this discussion, we learn that Hollywood drama is conservative as well.

Can I count on you to follow the link and find it (and to skip the rebuttal)? Here's the excerpt:

Harry Shearer: ...if you look at the--the vast majority of--of pictures that Hollywood likes to crank out, are intensely conservative in their world view. It's an individual, a sole individual who embodies, a--a--an eternal sense of right and wrong that's not relativistic in any sense, a raid against a very threatening world, and, you know, he'll cooperate to a limited degree, but in the full knowledge that most of those he'll cooperate with will either will betray him or be killed, and he'll be standing alone as the lone hero at the end of the film.

The sort of role that Harrison Ford would take.

Posted 8/28/2003 08:36:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Wesley Clark - We Narrow Down His Timing

Will he, or won't he, and when? First, we have no doubt that he will enter the Presidential sweepstakes.

Now, about the timing. The NY Times provides an interesting detail:

"More than likely, General Clark would wait until sometime after Sept. 15, a financial reporting date for presidential contenders. If he announces before then, he would have to reveal how much money he raised in the third quarter of the year, which pales beside the millions generated by Dr. Dean, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and other leading Democratic candidates."


However, we also have this:

"...the retired army general told The Des Moines Register on Tuesday that he would decide whether he will be a candidate by the time he speaks at the University of Iowa on Sept. 19."

We note that "deciding" and "announcing" are two different things. The General could certainly use this speech, and the media speculation it would attract, as an opportunity to announce a decison made previously.

Campaign strategists will agonize over whether to announce in Iowa, New Hampshire, or elsewhere. I could see the benefits of a Clark double-play; stage an announcement in New Hampshire, which the bored press will eagerly attend; then give the big fopo speech in Iowa, and get more press coverage.

There's my two cents - where's the change?

MORE: From the Times, we see that the subject of the speech is "The American Leadership Role in a Changing World." Historians will have to suggest a time in the last century when such a subject might have been inappropriate.

Posted 8/27/2003 02:42:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Rich Lowry At NRO Is Taking Wesley Clark Seriously

Seriously enough to give him a swift smack in the nose. We invite rebuttals.

UPDATE: This does not exactly count. We were hoping, perhaps unreasonably, for new facts, or an explanation, or some boring stuff like that.

MORE: Here we go. Links to the world! But only a few addressing the specific question of his competence as a leader in the Kosovo campaign.

Posted 8/27/2003 02:10:00 PM by The MinuteMan

CNN Is Fair And Balanced

Jesse thinks that might be a mistake. We agree, and share his lack of surprise.

Posted 8/27/2003 09:13:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Howard Dean And The Four Pillars Of Fire

Howard Dean has found the magic, so we will try a bit of a Harry Potter thing today. First, a big sloppy kiss on the front page of the Times - he's the front runner, he's energetic, he gets rock-star crowds - Go, Howard!

The Times also mentions this Zogby poll, which is a bit of a breath-taker:

Zogby International, an independent firm, is scheduled to release Wednesday a poll showing Dr. Dean leading in New Hampshire with 38 percent of the vote to 17 percent for Senator John Kerry; in early July Senator Kerry had 25 percent to Dr. Dean's 22 percent. The poll has a margin of sampling error of 4.5 percentage points.

Smokin'!

OK, the bad news:

...the presidential-style trip could increase the risk of Dr. Dean peaking too early — and revealed other potential pitfalls. Holding oceans of blue Dean placards at every stop were nearly all white hands, a homogeneity the campaign tried to counter with a rainbow of supporters on stage, which only drew more attention to the lack of diversity in the audience. The feisty crowds were filled with Birkenstock liberals whose loudest ovations always followed Dr. Dean's antiwar riff — there were few union members, African-Americans, or immigrants.

Now, last week TAPPED noted an absence of women amongst Dean's supporters. This puts Dean in the odd position of completing a Democratic Quadrefecta, since he is not supported by any of Donna Brazile's famous Four Pillars.

And, since we love his wordplay, we will pitch in some commentray by Al Sharptongue:

"No one has even asked about the fact that [Dean's] surge of support has been really one-dimensional," Mr. Sharpton said.

In addition, Mr. Sharpton said he is often asked about how he can hope to lure white voters in key early states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, while Mr. Dean is never pressed on how he will appeal to minorities.

"When I come to Iowa, they ask 'How can Sharpton get the white vote?' " the minister said. "I've run [for governor] in New York and gotten more white votes in my races than he's gotten black votes in Vermont. Why aren't we talking about that?"

The Dean response is described, mercifully briefly, in the Times article:

...while the people introducing him included Hispanic teachers and black preachers, the people buying the "Doctor is in" buttons were mostly aging flower children and the tongue-studded next generation.

"We're working really hard to change that," Dr. Dean said. At the union convention yesterday in Chicago — where the undecided audience offered mainly polite claps for the zingers that had delighted the devoted — he tried one of his newer lines: "When white people and brown people and black people vote together, that's when we make social progress in this country."

Oh, hold the front page, that line ranks up with "I have a dream". Just extend the list to include "and women, and union folks, and gays, and lesbians..." and you have a Saturday Night Live skit right there. [Jane Galt has more.]

Now, the sports metaphor of choice in this story is the marathon. However, I suggest folks think of a prize-fight - it can go twelve rounds, or it can end in ninety seconds. Dean is going to put some of his opponents out of their (and our) misery very soon.

Dean also is doing a nice job of shifting to a defensible position on Iraq and Afghanistan - the President is an idiot, but we have to finish the job.

Last tidbit - the reporter for this story is Jodi Wilgoren. Who? I don't know either, but if she is the Girl on the Bus with the Dean campaign, her reporting may suffer from a bit of the Helsinki syndrome.

UPDATE: Yes, it was a big sloppy kiss. Compare it to this story, where they can't shovel dirt on John Kerry's grave fast enough. If Wesley Clark's entrance into the race will force Kerry to speak about something else, go Wesley!

MORE: The Tough Democrat is, well, tough on Ms. Wilgoren of the Times. (BTW, my ears, and hit counter, are burning)

David Adesnik thinks the Times is marginalizing Dean's supporters, and has a follow-up.

If the Dean crowd is unhappy with the story, their criticism is pretty subtle.

Posted 8/27/2003 09:00:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Tom Friedman Throws Down The Gauntlet To Brad DeLong!

Today Tom Friedman repeats an aphorism that we liked the first time:

'I have to repeat the dictum of Harvard's president, Larry Summers: "In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car." '

As Prof. DeLong's readers demonstrated, it was wrong then, and it is still wrong. WRONG! Check the calendar - Summers is nearly over.

Boola, boola.

Posted 8/27/2003 01:35:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Valerie Plame Wilson - Breaking Developments

Via Mark Kleiman, we learn that an enterprising blogger went to Congressman Inslee's Iraq-war presentation that included, as a panelist, Ambassador Wilson.

Although it has been totally ignored by the press, apparently the video includes these comments by the Ambassador on the prospects of a criminal investigation (stolen from Mr. Kleiman):

"I have confidence at the professional level that whatever they think is doable will be done." He acknowledged some uncertainty about whether public discussion might inhibit the investigation rather than forwarding it.

Then he opened up:

At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words.

Now, he had alluded to a suspicion about White House political operatives back on August 10, as reported in the must-read St. Petersburg Times:

He said he believes that political operatives in the White House gave his wife's name to Novak, and he thinks he knows who they are. But he's "not ready, yet" to name them. He hopes an investigation - by the FBI, Congress or both - will take care of that.

Mr. Kleiman, ever the optimist, says this:

Now that Rove has been accused, it's for him to respond. It's a simple yes or no: Did he talk to Novak about Plame, or instruct anyone else to do so? I hope that some credentially journalists will be asking him that question.

Well, in my role as permanently damp blanket, I will point out that Karl Rove is unlikely to respond to a charge that the entire press community has ignored. Look at the Seattle PI - they had a breathless eidtorial about Wilson on Aug. 10, ran an AP story before the event which noted the Plame controversy, and then ran a follow-up AP story (different reporter) on the Inslee meeting, which ignored the Rove quote. Who dropped the ball? One wonders how many other suggestions of Bush aides led away in handcuffs were made - even my nose for news might have twitched at that.

Frankly, it is a puzzle that this was overlooked. But knowing our Ambassador, I expect he will try again. He is meant to be on Nightline on Tuesday night.

And I may try again too. E-mail the Seattle PI editors at: editpage@seattlepi.com

For our man in St. Petersburg, David Ballingrud, who ought to be interested in this follow-up: national@sptimes.com

Posted 8/26/2003 10:53:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Reader Revolt At The NY Times

Interesting reader revolt in the letters to the NY Times. The subject is the recent parole of Kathy Boudin, the former 1960's militant who took part in a robbery two decades ago that left two police officers and a security guard dead.

First, an embittered 60's radical offers his thoughts:

To the Editor:

Re "As Ex-Radical Nears Release, Old Wounds Are Reopened" (news article, Aug. 22):

Prof. Todd Gitlin's characterization of Kathy Boudin's case as representative of a "cultural conflict" appears to rationalize and dignify the elitist arrogance of the Weather Underground movement in the late 1960's into the 1980's.

I, like Mr. Gitlin, participated in the antiwar movement. I was a regional organizer for the Students for a Democratic Society.

The S.D.S. movement was kidnapped by deluded, self-important people like Ms. Boudin, who lived out a revolutionary fantasy that was spawned while she lived a life of upper-middle-class privilege.

The deaths of the police officers and the suffering of their families were tragic. The actions of Ms. Boudin were criminal and socially irrelevant.
FRANK MIATA
Brooklyn, Aug. 22, 2003

And my theory about the second letter is that the Times couldn't dredge up anyone to provide this quote on the record, so they printed this instead:

To the Editor:

Re "Parole Officers Won't Appeal Decision to Free Kathy Boudin" (news article, Aug. 23):

Kathy Boudin participated in the murder of three persons. Her motive, according to her testimony before the parole board reported in your article, was a desire to play Robin Hood, stealing from whites to give to blacks, because of guilt over the white color of her skin.

The commissioners who granted her parole and who are black "did not explain their reasoning." Their sympathy with her state of mind, although understandable, is deplorable.
BARRY FREEDMAN
Los Angeles, Aug. 24, 2003


The key paragraphs that prompted that observation would seem to be:

...Ms. Boudin, who is white, was a passenger in a rented getaway van the police stopped. One guard was killed during the robbery at the mall, and two police officers died in a shootout with the robbers, who leaped from the back of the van.

...The commissioners who granted her parole, Daizzee D. Bouey and Vernon C. Manley, did not explain their reasoning, but in questioning Ms. Boudin, they seemed to express understanding about what she described as her confused state of mind at the time of the crime, her deep feelings of guilt for being white, and her deep desire to prove that she was committed to helping blacks.

The commissioners, who are black, sometimes finished her sentences or tried to sum up her testimony, according to the transcript. At one point, as she described the kinship she had felt with Civil War abolitionists, Commissioner Bouey interrupted, "You should write a book, or write something."

The system works!

Posted 8/26/2003 08:18:00 PM by The MinuteMan

I Rally To The Support Of Doc Drezner

However, I may be obliged to substitute conviction for evidence.

The good doctor violated the Hippocratic Oath, rasing blood pressure and causing heart attacks with this:

...in the Afghanistan war, ...skeptics questioned the wisdom of attacking so soon after 9/11, and called for more boots on the ground when the initial bombing campaign seemed to produce meager results.

His meaning seemed clear to me, but Atrios chipped in with this:

Lately I've seen a lot of people implying that after 9/11 there was substantial opposition to the campaign in Afghanistan.

... there were of course some who questioned the wisdom of winning the hearts and minds of people in Afghanistan by bombing the shit out of them, but on what planet was there "considerable public criticism?"

First, as to the matter of George Bush standing tall and staying the course, here are three ABC News polls from Oct., Nov., and Dec of 2001. This is the era of the 90% approval rating, so the poll evidence of serious public skepticsm is not conclusive (well, it is, but I am in denial).

So ignore the polls! I vividly remember the "Afghanistan quagmire" story by Johnny Apple on the front page of the NY Times from Nov 2001. (Ooops, it was a Happy Halloween story). And now I am having too much fun - here is timely, yet timeless wisdom from Ms. Dowd!

I recall, as I presume Dr. D does, that there was a stretch in early November where people questioned whether the bombing could be effective (more troops!), whether we could bomb during Ramadan (Nov 16 to Dec 16), and whether we would be bogged down until spring. However, the dam burst, so for flavor, here is a John Leo "quagmire backlash" piece from Nov. 19.

Comparable pundit angst resurfaced during the second week of the war in Iraq, when we clearly had too few troops, our supply lines were hopelessly over-extended, Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker was reaching for a towel suitable for throwing in, and Josh Marshall was publishing a letter wondering if his readers could spell "Dunkirk".

Last April, as in Nov. 2001, polls did not capture the fickle mood of the commentariat. Only the experts were smart enough to panic - fortunately, Bush, Rumsfeld, and the rest of us were stupid. And still are!

However, in a bit of a change of direction, please join me in gawking for a moment at the Dec 20 poll - where the heck was the Christmas spirit?

I excerpt:

Dec. 20 — Despite the collapse of Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, most Americans believe the toughest work in the war on terrorism is yet to come. And most set a high standard for success: They want not only Osama bin Laden's capture, but the toppling of Iraq's Saddam Hussein.

...it doesn't end there — 61 percent also say the war won't be a success unless the United States ousts Saddam, long a bugaboo in U.S. public opinion. More, 72 percent, support U.S. military action against Iraq to achieve that aim.

Looks like the public was not exactly waiting for the "16 words".

Posted 8/26/2003 09:19:00 AM by The MinuteMan

A Saucy Find By Jane

Condolences to Jay.

Posted 8/26/2003 09:10:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Conspiracy Theories, Anti-anti American Frenchmen, Poetry, And More

All at the Brothers Judd.

Posted 8/24/2003 10:06:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Now TAPPED Agrees With SC Justice Scalia

TAPPED:

JUDGE NOT. Roy Moore is unfit to be a judge. That's the only conclusion we can draw from this New York Times article, in which Moore seems to believe that when civil laws -- and his oath to uphold them -- conflict with his religious beliefs, the latter should win. Tapped has no problem with people believing there's a higher law than human law. But if you're a judge, you need to enforce the latter. And if he can't do so in good conscience, as Moore says, he should resign immediately.

Antonin Scalia:

I pause here to emphasize the point that in my view the choice for the judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral is resignation, rather than simply ignoring duly enacted, constitutional laws and sabotaging death penalty cases. He has, after all, taken an oath to apply the laws and has been given no power to supplant them with rules of his own. Of course if he feels strongly enough he can go beyond mere resignation and lead a political campaign to abolish the death penalty—and if that fails, lead a revolution. But rewrite the laws he cannot do.

Resign and run for Governor, Roy. In this case, less is Moore.

Oh, a photo of Roy's Rock.

Posted 8/24/2003 09:57:00 AM by The MinuteMan

The NY Times Is Fair And Balanced?

Maybe the regular editors are on vacation. Maybe the critics (yes, I am one) have been wrong about media bias at the Times.

OK, I am backing the "vacation" theory. But the front page of the Sunday Dead Tree Times has me in a Twilight Zone.

The center picture connects to a very encouraging story about the occupation of Iraq, as noted below.

On the left, we have a story titled "New Kind of Electricity Market Strains Old Wires Beyond Limits", which tells us, starting in the second paragraph, that:

No single authority is in charge of the grid, and few have an incentive to invest the money needed to improve its reliability. Deregulation increased the vulnerability of the grid to failure, regulators and industry executives broadly concur.

Deregulation is actually a misnomer for the restructuring of the power industry, because only the generation of electricity was freed from strict government controls, beginning in 1992. Companies were allowed to charge market-based rates for generating electricity, creating the financial incentive to build more power plants.

But the transmission of electricity over high-voltage lines and the distribution into homes and buildings remained regulated. Power companies received only a relatively low, government-set return on their investment in the grid, so they allocated far less money to improving transmission reliability than to building power plants.

As a result, much more electricity is moving over virtually the same transmission wires, pushing them to carry loads they were not built to handle, according to many regulators and experts.

My goodness. Deregulation not the exclusive problem? I am agog.

And my "agogagolity" continues over on the upper right, with "Rumsfeld Seeking to Bolster Force Without New G.I.'s".

WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, seeking to increase the nation's combat power without hiring more troops, is poised to order a sweeping review of Pentagon policies, officials say. It will include everything from wartime mobilization and peacekeeping commitments, to reservist training and incentives for extended duty.

The story actually describes Rumsfeld as in charge, and making sense. For example:

Another approach is asking allies to help shoulder the burden. Officials say 3,000 Germans now stand guard at United States bases in Germany, replacing Americans sent to Iraq. Before Mr. Rumsfeld asked Germany to provide those patrols, thousands of reservists were almost mobilized for the mission.

Say it with me, Times readers - "D'uh!". Germans on guard in Germany - works for me. And, in the same story, we see kind words for privatization of some administrative services currently performmed by uniformed troops. Disorienting - don't they read Paul Krugman?

Now, I happen to think that the Times has sensibly realized that, in the long run, a larger military is not how they want to see our nations resources expended. Don't anyone tell TAPPED, though.

Posted 8/24/2003 08:36:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Hope Is A Good Thing, Maybe The Best Thing

And no good thing ever dies. Oh, you knew that was Stephen King, originally from "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", on which the movie was based.

Our source of inspiration this morning is Dexter Filkins, featured on the front page of the NY Times with this very encouraging story from the rest of Iraq.

Do check the photo and caption, which was front and center on the Times - no one can complain that they are burying this one.

A few excerpts, but I am wasting your time - go read the whole thing.

DIWANIYA, Iraq, Aug. 19 — As the area around Baghdad endured a week of repeated violence, a happier scene unfolded in this city, a two-hour drive to the south.

American soldiers, without helmets or flak jackets, attended graduation ceremonies of the Diwaniya University Medical School. At ease with the Iraqi students and their parents, the American marines laughed, joked and posed in photographs. One by one, the students walked up to thank them, for Marine doctors had taught classes in surgery and gynecology and helped draw up the final exams.

We like the Americans very much here," said Zainab Khaledy, 22, who received her medical degree last Sunday. "We feel better than under the old regime. We have problems, like security, but everything is getting better."

Words from a Marine Colonel:

The marines are even able to go beyond immediate postwar needs and move toward strengthening the civil society. They are supervising construction of a women's shelter here, and they make regular deliveries to a local nursing home. They have even set up a Rotary Club.

"We are in lock-sync with the Iraqis," Colonel Malay said. "We want what they want."

It is worth remembering that our differences with "the Iraqis" (who are far from monolithic) are not irreconcilable. We want out, they want us out, and the sticking point seems to be, what kind of society and government will we leave behind. Not at all hopeless.

However, this chap has discouraging words for free-marketeers:

Hassan Naji, a records clerk at the Diwaniya children's hospital, is critical of recent changes but only up to a point. Like many at the hospital, he is convinced that newborns are dying needlessly because the hospital lacks the electricity to run its sterile ward for premature babies. Before the war, an emergency line kept the electricity flowing.

Mr. Naji could produce few records on the recent infant deaths, attributing the inability to the new freedom brought by the Americans.

"Democracy has ruined this hospital," he said, sifting through uncollated notes and jottings. "In the past, people really worked at their jobs, if only because they were terrified of their supervisors. We kept the most accurate records. We had weekly meetings on the worst cases.

"Now, with all this freedom, no one cares anymore," he said. "We don't keep records anymore."

However:

For all that, Mr. Naji said, he would not pine for the days of Saddam Hussein. "Never," he said. "The Americans did a great thing when they got rid of that tyrant. Things could even get worse here and I would still feel that way."

"Believe me," Mr. Naji added, "most of the people in Diwaniya would feel that way."

The story also glosses over some apparent OSHA and minimum wage violations. However, we are heartened.

Buried inside, the Times also reports on three British soldiers killed in Basra, and riots in the Kirkuk area.

Faux links to story, picture.

UPDATE: "in reality there is no situation in Iraq...". So I AM just dreaming this NY Times story! Actually, it makes more sense when he says it.

Posted 8/23/2003 04:39:00 PM by The MinuteMan

This Seems Especially Poignant A Year Later

From the time vault, we reprint Nathan Newman's "California: Where Democrats Can Be Democrats".

And, we deplore all injuries and loss of life due to "blue on blue" incidents, but Ann Coulter's thoughts on the California experiment are a natural bookend to Mr. Newman's.

UPDATE: We stroll down Nathan's lane for a frank response.

Posted 8/23/2003 10:52:00 AM by The MinuteMan

The "Do Not Call" Brawl

Don't you hate it when you make a snide comment about someone behind their back, and it turns out they are listening? I know I do.

The CalPundit has some links to Jonah Goldberg's angst, so let's put him in the mix, too.

Posted 8/22/2003 12:54:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Orrin Judd - NOT A Lawyer!

OK, I'm confused too.

Posted 8/22/2003 11:36:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Great Moments In Mixed Messages

Tom Hanks, Woody Harrelson, Martin Sheen, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Cybill Shepherd, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Warren Beatty, Susan Sarandon, Al Franken, Ed Asner, Mike Farrell and Rob Reiner all agree - people should not take actor-turned candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger seriously.

Good to know.

Posted 8/22/2003 10:39:00 AM by The MinuteMan

The Terminator Without Qualities Tracks Prof. Krugman

To paraphrase our President, "Enough with the fuzzy math, already!"

Posted 8/22/2003 08:26:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Flypaper

Daniel Drezner is doubtful, the Cal Pundit more so.

We were non-buyers of this theory back on July 9, as was Mr. Belgravitas, who follows up here.

Now, a bit of a puzzle: Donald Rumsfeld's war objectives, as of March 21, included (third of eight):

"to search for, capture, drive out terrorists who have found safe harbor in Iraq."

So, would flypaper devotees care to explain whether Rumsfeld was lying then? Or have our objectives quietly changed, and why have the American people not been told?

Or, have we been told? I haven't checked every transcript of every Sunday talk show.

IF the switcheroo has not been announced, I don't think "strategic deception" will be persuasive, BTW. I'm only guessing, but I doubt that a few words from Rumsfeld to Russert explaining that the Administration views this influx of terrorists as a golden opportunity would prompt the jihadist equivalent of "D'oh", followed by a rapid retreat by same.

Although if pacifying the country were that easy, it might be worth a try.

UPDATE: By "pacifying the country", I meant Iraq! Unrest struck other cities too, as this on-the scene report confirms.

Posted 8/22/2003 12:26:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Campus Diversity

The Cal Pundit tackles campus diversity:

CONSERVATIVES IN THE ACADEMY

...What I'm interested in is whether it's really true that there are cases of conservatives/Republicans who have been denied tenure solely because they are conservatives/Republicans.

Here is the case of Jim Miller of Smith College, denied tenure in part because of an article he wrote for NRO decrying political correctness on America's campuses. (More here, short reg. req'd.).

Well, there is an example for Kevin. Can we go home now?

Not so fast. Kevin linked to the pseudonymous John Lemon, who explained his need for a secret identity thusly:

With a secret identity, I can parade around in tights and a really cool cape while battling evildoers, especially lefty ones.

NO, he didn't say that; however, John Lemon is a "Scrappleface" fan, so I thought I would join the fun.

What he did say was:

I was once warned that no Republican would ever get tenure in this department -- I assume that can be generalized to all sorts of other unpleasantries.

Hence, Kevin's question.

Well, there may be two ideas running together here - do faculties discriminate against conservative academics, and do they discriminate against academics who are also conservative?

If a group of marxist economics honestly don't take seriously the work of a free-marketeer, well, that may not be discrimination - it may simply be disagreement. Or, if a group of deconstructionists in the English Department simply can't see the point of hiring some expert in dead white European authors, well, its their department, and if they want to run it into the ground, good for them. There is a technical term for that sort of behavior, which is "Duke". No, not John Wayne! The University. The Duke was not a deconstructionist! My goodness. Anyway, my buddy Emma takes this tack - it's not discrimination, conservatives are just wrong. Thanks for clearing that up!

So, fine, conservative academics may have a bit of a rum go, depending on the department. But John Lemon is complaining about discrimination against academics who are also conservative. By this I mean, the actual job performance, i.e., the teaching and publishing, does not have an unavoidable poltical tilt (I infer, or how is he publishing?). And the discrimination would be of the form, "love your paper, your students rave about you, but I saw a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker on your car, I heard you say you want us to drill in ANWR, good-bye".

If discrimination of this type is happening, that would be bad. OTOH, as some of Kevin's commenters helpfully explain, conservatives are basically greedy and annoying anyway (also stupid), so what's the problem?

The point is this - many of the same folks who are sure that there is no anti-conservative tilt in our universities routinely decry the vast right wing conspiracy ("VRWC"), in which think tanks play a major role.

TAP has a fascinating history of the VRWC, from which we take this excerpt:

When William Simon, U.S. treasury secretary under Presidents Nixon and Ford, took over one of the four sisters, the John M. Olin Foundation, he was appalled at corporate giving patterns and took the lead in organizing corporate allies. Simon urged business to "cease the mindless subsidizing of colleges and universities whose departments of economy, government, politics, and history are hostile to capitalism" and to move funds from "the media which serve as megaphones for anti-capitalist opinion" to more "pro-freedom" and "pro-business" media. While there are no available statistics for corporate support of conservative media, the Alliance for Justice reports that corporation funding still provides the core of support for conservative public interest law firms.

Preception drives reality.

And we have a bit from the PFAW on how the conservative foundations attempt to level the academic playing field:

Olin fellowships are an academic haven for academics who support Reaganite economic and social policies. According to the Nation, the foundation's 1988 annual report shows that $55 million in grants were distributed, primarily to underwrite university programs "intended to strengthen the economic, political and cultural institutions upon which...private enterprise is based."

...One of Olin's chief program areas is "Law and Economics," an interest of the foundation for almost 30 years. Under this program, the foundation first established a seat at the University of Chicago in the 1960s for the purpose of teaching "free market economics" as it applies to law.[155] According to an Alliance for Justice report, the Chicago School emphasizes "'economic efficiency' and 'wealth maximization' as the conceptual cornerstones" for judicial opinions.

...Subsequently, the foundation has funded a number of conservative "Law and Economics" programs at a number of otherwise mainstream institutions of distinction, as well as conservative history, business, and political science programs.

Now, obviously any proper lefty deplores this. However, would this have been happening if conservatives felt that the normal channels of advancement were open at our nation's universities? According to TAP, this took off in the 60's and 70's - was there a certain anti-war, anti-Nixon, anti-Republican tilt on campuses back then? Was there an anti-Reagan tilt in the 80's? Am I seriously asking this?

OK, put differently, did conservatives only become sinister and sly in the 70's? Why weren't corporations funding these right wing think tanks and right wing university programs in the 30's, or the 50's? Surely big business wanted to exploit the little guy back then.

Posted 8/21/2003 02:09:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Maureen Dowd "Dowdifies" Josh Marshall

If only she used her creative ellipsis on his recent post, she would produce Mr. Marshall informing us that:

...if the result of the invasion of Iraq is an Islamic theocracy, governed by Osama bin Laden, and purchasing nuclear weapons from Pakistan at bargain-basement prices, we'd... say... this was in fact... a positive development.

Why does he hate America?

Oh, come on, it's Friday afternoon, and the post is actually quite sensible.

I see from Matthew Yglesias' site that there is a notion being peddled by certain conservative columnists that the bombing of the UN mission in Baghdad is actually a sign that the bad guys are on the ropes.

I went along with the idea that bombings in Bali, rather than Berlin, or Boise, were a sign of Al-Qaeda weakness. However, I concur that this latest spin on the Baghdad UN bombing is a bit much.

I'm probably getting certain particulars of this wrong, but there's a basic principle in scientific theory: an hypothesis, to be a real hypothesis, must be capable of disproof. In other words, for an hypothesis to be a valid basis for research, there must be some data which, if found to be true, would prove the hypothesis was false. Otherwise, there's no way to test it.

Now, foreign policy is no science. But some looser version of this principle must apply here as well. To be a policy, as opposed to a theological position, there must be some potential results that would show the policy was not working. The proponents of the policy should be able to say ahead of time that if this or that result happens, the policy has failed.

...So I think it's time for the hawks to give us a few examples of events that would show that our policy was not working or at least facing setbacks. You know, just so we can put down some benchmarks, so we can know what we're working with ...

Very reasonable. And for now, my response is to duck and cover. Eventually, we hope to dredge up some cryptic comments about building a better Iraq. Probably available here.

And we definitely want to avoid the rhetorical trap of accepting the notion that war advocates (Iraqi liberation advocates? Human rights advocates? National security advocates?) are monolithic in their views. Here we see that Dan Drezner is not stuck on "flypaper."

[Mini-update: Someone was kind enough to recommend this blog to me as one I should read more carefully. The author made the same point as Mr. Marshall, albeit at greater length, back on July 9.]

We also note his preceding post, which tells us that the Saudi jihadists entering Iraq are being pushed by a Saudi crackdown, as much as pulled by a burning, unquenchable desire to burn the flesh and break the bones of the hated Amercian infidels..., oh, whatever.

I have a strong feeling that this development will be spun as good news by the war advocates. (Hey, I am one!). Flypaper Plus! Which is hardly responsive to Mr. Marshall's request for clarity in goal setting.

UPDATE: The ever-popular "Eight Steps" - Donald Rumsfeld's war objectives. We note the third:

"to search for, capture, drive out terrorists who have found safe harbor in Iraq."

Bit of a sticky wicket for the flypaper theorists - why was Rumsfeld lying to us?

UPDATE: A response to Josh Marshall.

Posted 8/21/2003 11:58:00 AM by The MinuteMan

We Are Thinking Big Here - SoBig, In Fact

A Big Idea: inspired by the now-defunct "Futures on Terror", someone should attempt to set up a "Futures on Software Terror".

The goal will be to create a market predicting the activity of computer viruses. Contracts predict the OS to be attacked, the software to be attacked, and other such techie info. Participants can be anyone - college kids, system administrators across the country, hackers who want to bet on their own success and score a big payday when their virus hits, engineers at Microsoft or Symantec who want to earn a bit on the side (OK, that could be troubling). Anonymous participation would encourage more evil-doers into the market, which would be a good thing (some caveats below).

If participation were broad, the prices would probably provide useful information about what might be targeted next. It also would provide (weird) incentives on both sides of the aisle - hackers could target longshot vulnerabilities in hopes of a big score; system defenders watching the price and volume of the various contracts might get useful clues as to where the next attack is coming from. And some talented amateurs might decide to profit by engaging in "good guy" hackery, if there is a way for them to bet against a successful attack and then thwart it, perhaps by tipping the right folks at Microsoft.

So, the prices in this market really could reflect tacit knowledge, and provide useful signals (and incentives) for future activity.

That's it - the futures on software terror! There are obvious problems:

- The underlying activity may be illegal, and not all participants will want to get involved.

- Contract specifications could be difficult - what is a successful virus triggering a payoff, and who judges?

- As noted, the prices will themselves encourage activity. Some of this is good, but if the new market increases the quantity and quality of "black hats" developing viruses and betting on their own success, then I think we will say this was a bad idea. Right now the payoff to unleashing viruses seems to be bragging rights (and PC capture for spamming!) - why add cash to the mix? Offsetting that, if the good guys have better info, and amteur good guys emerge, the trade-off might be worth it.

Problems, problems. I bet they could be solved.

Posted 8/21/2003 11:40:00 AM by The MinuteMan

The Futures On Terror, And A Big Idea - SoBig, In Fact

Prof. DeLong resurfaces the "futures on terror" question with a fascinating post, which we excerpt thusly:

I've been thinking about this argument by Daniel Davies for nearly two weeks now. I've concluded that it is either a brilliant innovative analysis, or utterly barking mad. Unfortunately, I don't know which:

Crooked Timber: Hayekian markets reconsidered : A week late and a couple of dollars short, here are my thoughts on the now defunct Policy Analysis Market....

Mr. Davies then presents a long argument which I am reluctant to excerpt or summarize for fear of dropping a key piece. That said, fools rush in:

...I do want to comment on the fact that a number of bloggers analysed it in terms of Hayek’s concept of tacit knowledge and markets as information-creating social entities.... I'm not inclined to take seriously those critiques based on bubbles or based on supposed inefficiencies of market behaviour, at least not unless they have some explanation of why these are particular flaws of market behaviour, rather than general organisational pathologies of groups of homo sapiens.

...I don't believe that Hayek’s discussion of "tacit knowledge" is relevant to the question of a Policy Analysis Market. The defining characteristics of Hayekian tacit knowledge is that it’s practical, non-propositional and local in time and space. I actually think it’s something approaching a category-mistake to suppose that anyone could be in a position to have tacit knowledge relevant to the question "Is the chance greater than 22% that the government of Saudi Arabia face a coup attempt this year?".

...Why does this matter? Well, it suggests that the prices struck in a market will be informative only if the market is well stocked with buyers and sellers operating on the basis of their own tacit knowledge.

...in order to be an efficient information-creating entity, a market has to have both hedgers or [sic - I think "and" belongs here] speculators. Although speculators are vital to the functioning of the market, you can’t have a market with nothing but speculators. And if you think about it, all the really successful "speculative" markets are ones in which the speculative activity clearly takes place in the context of a two-way market between hedgers. Commodities markets have structural demand from manufacturers and structural supply from primary producers. The stock market has structural demand (for stock) from people who want to save, and structural supply (of stock) from companies who want to raise money. The money market has structural demand from borrowers and structural supply from lenders.

There is nobody (to a reasonable first approximation) who has structural demand for more terrorism. The only people who have tacit knowledge of terrorists and would be considered to be on the long side of the market, are terrorists, who would presumably not be material participants.

If you hate that summary, blame me, and follow the links.

Now, first thought in rebuttal - what about sports betting? The folks with a natural long or short position would be players, managers, and owners. Other than a prospective "Pete Rose exception", these people are barred from betting. Hence almost all of the action is speculative. In fact, the price action does not, as best I know, actually guide any social activity - for example, higher coffee prices encourage production and substitution, and discourage use. What does a higher spread on the Giants game this weekend affect? I think the value is personal entertainment, and little else.

That said, I suspect that tests have been done to see whether betting lines are useful predictors of final outcomes. If they are, then it would suggest that a purely speculative market motivated by personal entertainment can still provide useful predictions.

However, how does one evaluate the accuracy of these predictions? I note that TradeSports has two propositions on the Kobe Bryant legal situation - will the case go to trial, and will a jury find him guilty.

I doubt that court insiders are driving the prices of either proposition. Currently, there are 247 contracts outstanding on the "guilty" question (and about a 35% probability that he will be found guilty, in which case, barring new evidence, I will be outraged). At $10 per contract, the total payout will be, IMHO, small (OK, I got out the calculator - $2,470).

So, the consensus of folks who read the papers and have both too much free time and too much free money is that there is a 35% probability that Mr. Bryant will be convicted. As interesting factoids go, I like it. As a quick quantification of the (cash based) conventional wisdom, I like it. However, how would one back test it, to see if this type of probability assessment is "accurate"? There are plenty of football games to backtest; this trial is, we hope, somewhat unique.

The best one could do is test similar predictions in similar situations, and see if any patterns emerge. Good luck finding useful data. Hmm, can I bet against such a study succeeding?

And how does this connect to the "Futures on Terror"? With "Coup in Saudi Arabia", we are going to have essentially one trial. If "the market" says there is a 20% probability of a coup by year-end 2003, we don't learn a lot come January 2004 whether there was a coup or not. If there is no coup, it may still have been the case that 20% was wildy optimistic, or pessimistic, as of August 2003 - we have very little against which to compare it.

The idea for PAM seems to be, markets work where there is lots of data and feedback, so they should work with very little data or feedback. Well, they might, but how would we know, either ex post or ex ante?

OK, sidebar, and the promised SoBig idea. First, as a PR ploy, if I were on Mr. Bryant's payroll (but not as a lawyer), I would drive down the prices on those two propositions, and whisper to my friends in the press that they should check this objective, market based measure to see how absurd folks really think these charges are. Is that hopelessly evil, cynical, and manipulative? No, I think I am serious - if I really believed in my client's innocence, why not punish the speculators betting against him? However, it might be interesting to see whose sense of ethics is offended by this notion of engaging in manipulation of an unregulated market of dubious legality and credibility, in order to help one's client.

Now, finally, the big idea. The theme is this - set up a futures market in computer viruses. Contracts predict the OS to be attacked, the software to be attacked, and other such techie info. Participants can be anyone - college kids, system administrators across the country, hackers who want to bet on their own success and score a big payday when their virus hits, engineers at Microsoft or Symantec who want to earn a bit on the side (OK, that could be troubling). Anonymous participation would encourage more evil-doers into the market, which would be a good thing.

Sorry, bait and switch - the big idea is continued in the post directly above. Think of it as my uncharacteristic attempt to unbury the lede.

Posted 8/20/2003 06:14:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Dan Drezner On The UN Attack In Baghdad

He has lots of links, and says this:

So the question is, what group is nihilistic enough to see victory in the mass immiseration of fellow Arabs and the destruction of international support agencies?

While the B'aathists are contemptible, while in power they were always clever enough to play the United Nations off the U.S. and Great Britain. This attack has the feel of someone incapable of making such distinctions yet willing to hit soft targets. In other words, an Al Qaeda subsidiary. So, my money's on Ansar al-Islam.

I'll back that.

And how should the US respond?

From "No Time to Lose in Iraq", by Tom Friedman:

Everyone has advice now for the U.S.: bring in U.N. peacekeepers, bring in the French. They're all wrong. There are only two things we need: more Americans out back and more Iraqis out front. President Bush needs to give the U.S. administrator, Paul Bremer III, more resources to get basic services here running and Iraqis in charge as fast as we can. This is not Germany 1945. America is much more radioactive in this region. We don't have infinite time.

Which is also why we need Iraqis out front — fast. They need to be seen to be solving their own problems. They need to be manning the checkpoints because only they know who the good guys and bad guys are, and they need to be increasingly running the show so attacks on Iraq's infrastructure are seen and understood as attacks on Iraqis, not on us.

And, most important, we need them out front because the Iraqi silent majority is our only potential friend in this whole neighborhood. Everyone else wants America to fail. But we have not empowered that Iraqi silent majority enough, and it has been too timid and divided to step forward yet.

And Jessica Stern, in a gloomier assesment, reaches a similar conclusion:

...the best way to fight [the terrorists] is to ensure that they are rejected by the broader population. Terrorists and guerrillas rely on getting at least some popular support. America's task will be to restore public safety in Iraq and put in place effective governing institutions that are run by Iraqis. It would also help if we involved more troops from other countries, to make clear that the war wasn't an American plot to steal Iraq's oil and denigrate Islam, as the extremists argue.

The goal of creating a better Iraq is a noble one, but a first step will be making sure that ordinary Iraqis find America's ideals and assistance more appealing than Al Qaeda's.

UPDATE: Thanks very much to Doc. Drezner, who honors me with the company in which he puts me.

Posted 8/19/2003 08:36:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Prof. Krugman Explains How Regulated Companies Operate

We are starting to worry a bit about the Earnest Professor's morale - with recent columns titled "Twilight Zone Economics" and "The Road To Ruin", it occurs to us that his brow may be furrowed over the arc of his professional reputation.

OK, that ends my moment of sensitivity (for 2003!). Today's theme is the recent blackout, and Prof. Krugman delivers a bold new view of how regulated and deregulated companies operate:

...energy experts have long warned that deregulation would lead to neglect of the grid. Under the old regulatory system, power companies had strong incentives to ensure the integrity of power transmission — they would catch the flak if something went wrong.

They would catch flak! Some of us may have thought that companies would review investment plans with the regulator, negotiate some fair return on investment, and upgrade their capacity as appropriate. The incentive was the opportunity to earn the regulated return on investment. Evidently not - it's all about the flak. But there is more:

But those incentives went away with deregulation: because effective competition in transmission wasn't possible, the companies providing transmission still had to be regulated. But because regulation limited their profits, they had little financial incentive to invest in maintaining and upgrading the system. And because of deregulation elsewhere, responsibility was diffused: nobody had a strong stake in keeping the system reliable. The result was a failure not just to add capacity, but to maintain and upgrade capacity that already existed.

In this new economic model, "responsibility was diffused" means "no one catches flak". The opportunity for profit, regulated or otherwise, no longer drives business decisions; rather, investment is targeted to minimize incoming flak.

In some outmoded alternative view, even regulated companies respond to profit opportunities. If more transmission capacity was needed, regulators would (one hopes) agree to an expansion of the rate base. Capacity would be added, prices would be adjusted, life would be good, and the (regulated) profits available to the transmission companies on their new capacity would be acceptable to all.

Now, I understand that this has not happened. However, I am not prepared to discard profit-oriented models in favor of "flak-catching" theories just yet.

The explanation may lie in the fact that the transition from one set of market rules to another can be perilous. If neither regulators nor the transmission companies can predict the future regulatory framework, an investment freeze may occur, regardless of the potential for flak.

Lynn Kiesling has lots more: at Reason, and her blog.

Notes: Prof. Krugman quotes Paul Joskow of M.I.T, whose full comments are here. Despite the scare quote, Paul Jaskow's point was as Prof. Krugman described it: "These experts didn't necessarily oppose deregulation; their point was that deregulation could lead to disaster unless accompanied by policies not just to keep the grid reliable, but to expand it."

UPDATE: The Man Without Peer pulls the plug on the Prof.

MORE: In a vivid display of this phenomenon, Don Luskin presents the Faux Krugmans. I'll pick David Hogberg and John Primmer. And hey, I need to get in there - I have too much free time, too!

MORE: Recovering Krugmaniac Mark Byron takes just one sip. Careful!

Posted 8/19/2003 08:09:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Valerie Plame Wilson - The Curious Incident Of the Big Dogs In The Press

Mark Kleiman posts on the David Corn article we noted (in a sneaky update) last Friday.

Mr. Kleiman closes in frustration, as we stare at the stonewall of this non-advancing story:

...It's a little puzzling to me why we aren't hearing more public outrage from retired CIA officers and from the larger world of people not in the government, or no longer in the government, with credentials to make a fuss about what seems to have been an illegal, politically-inspired act damaging to the national security.

I'm thinking about people like Sam Nunn, Warren Rudman, Stansfield Turner, Anthony Zinni, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and William Cohen. ...But there's also a semi-official CIA alumni group. So far, the only prominent folks who have spoken out have been those with partisan reasons for doing so. If that doesn't change, it's likely that Team Bush will be able to bury this scandal.

Emphasis added. Now, August is a difficult time to advance a story like this - Congressmen and staffers have fled for the recess, and Washington is on vacation.

However, another explanation for the ongoing indifference comes to mind, suggested by the silence of the big dogs - maybe what "seems to have been" a scandal really is not.

Mr. Kleiman, although critical of the right half of the blogosphere for ignoring this story, has not exactly trumpeted the questions we have raised about Ambassador Wilson's own credibility challenges. We also noted, with characteristic absence of brevity, that the Ambassador's initial account of his trip to Niger was incomplete - he told the CIA, but not the Times, that he had also picked up information that Saddam was attempting to purchase uranium.

Other than Ambassador Wilson's dramatic but carefully phrased "hypotheticals", we just don't know anything about his wife's status (Yes, I read Newsday, but under the statute, part of "covert" includes an overseas posting - the CIA doesn't do domestic), or whether her disclosure really harmed national security. The NY Times and several Senators have kicked this story around, but, as Mr. Kleiman notes, many others have not.

Is this lack of interest evidence of a successful stonewall? Well, it is consistent with that, yes. But it is also consistent with a similar theory about Oakland - there is no "there" there. It is possible that folks have quietly concluded that Ambassador Wilson is not someone to whom they want to hitch their wagon.

At this point, I am balancing four non-exclusive (and probably not exhaustive) possibilities: the stonewall, the slow news month, the "no 'there' there", and "the press protects sources, it does not arrest them".

The action, or lack thereof, when Congress comes back will be revealing. Current soundtrack for this story - See You In September.

TIMELINE of Scandal

UPDATE: We will have an Ambassador Wilson sighting on Thurs., Aug 21, at a forum hosted by (anti-war) Congressman Jay Inslee. The Seattle PI has written on Wilson before, so they may break news.

Posted 8/18/2003 03:18:00 PM by The MinuteMan

This May Take A Little Explaining

Dan "The Man" Drezner wonders why Anna Kournikova is sexy. This could be one of those moments where a picture is worth a thousand words. And he has some!

Posted 8/17/2003 06:44:00 PM by The MinuteMan

"Let's Put On A Show" Is Still Brilliant

Mickey was born to cover the California recall. And I mean that in a good way!

Posted 8/17/2003 05:19:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Courtesy Over Accuracy

Via Glenn, we learn that Eric Olsen considers Maureen Dowd's latest column to be "churlish piffle.

He is too kind.

Mr. Olsen properly trounces Ms. Dowd's bizarre conclusion:

This has got to be giving terrorists ideas as they watch from their caves. Osama may be plotting on his laptop right now, tapping into the cascading effect of an army of new terrorists signing up every time we kill or arrest a terrorist.

We join with Mr. Olsen in rejecting her suggestion that we should not arrest terrorists.

However, he slides past this weird bit of class warfare:

...unplugged Gothamites, busy using cigarette lighters to find their way out of subways, had no TV's on which to hear the tips. (Except the paranoid rich, who partied in Westchester with backup generators. Once, private jets were chic; now you must have private juice.)

Paranoid? Well, even paranoids have real blackouts, I suppose. And as evidence that not all preparation is paranoia I would offer the Boy Scout motto of "Be Prepared!", but they are anti-gay, so I suppose that won't do.

Nor does Mr. Olsen pounce on this absurdity:

But all Dick Cheney's secret meetings with unnamed energy officials were, sadly, not about saving us from this day. The White House has been too busy ensuring that Halliburton has no competitors for rebuilding Iraq to worry about rebuilding our own threadbare grid.

Really? Then why did USA Today summarize the Cheney energy plan thusly:

Among Cheney's proposals:

• Increased domestic production of crude oil.

• Stepped-up construction of natural gas pipelines.

• Massive expansion of the electrical power grid.

• Renewed construction of nuclear, hydroelectric, oil- and coal-fired power plants.

Cheney, a former oil services company executive, called alternative fuels such as ethanol or solar power promising but still "years down the road."

Why did a group critical of Cheney's plan summarize it as follows:

The following are some of the practical highlights of the National Energy Policy:

- Oil and natural gas: [ ]

- Coal: [ ]

- Nuclear power: [ ]

- Electric power plants: [ ]

- Infrastructure: New natural gas and electricity transmission lines would be encouraged by granting rights of way on federal lands and by new "legislation to grant rights-of-way for electricity transmission lines, with the goal of creating a national transmission grid." This would create federal power to acquire land for interstate commerce on a basis similar to current law for natural gas pipelines (pp. 7-7 and 7-8).

And why am I asking these silly rhetorical questions? Of course Ms. Dowd is utterly unaware of the contents of the Cheney energy plan, just as she is virtually conent-free on the politics of energy reform. She just knows it is a bad plan, made by bad, bad men. Men!

MORE: "One numbingly stupid ditz." Well, I wouldn't say it, but you don't hear me arguing, either. And surprise! I may have found a less reliable service than "Blogger", since these archive links aren't clicking. Look for, well, "numbingly stupid ditz" on Aug. 17.

The MaHa blog links to Ms. Dowd as a source for the anti-deregulation argument. Somewhat diminishes the credibility of what looks like a fine blog, although we applaud their sense of humor. The post is Aug. 17, and it looks like their time-stamps have me stumped, too.

BlogLeft also seems to take Ms. Dowd seriously on the "Cheney fiddled while the grid burned" meme. I am delighted to see Ms. Dowd has so many followers, and will be sure to put more effort into future trouncings of her.

Matthew Yglesias says Ms. Dowd is "definitely wrong" about tech failures, since the phones were working. Can we get Matthew up to "stone stupid"? Doubtful. But he does suspect a Jayson Blair scenario:

If Dowd had actually been, you know, in New York during the relevant period in time she would know that the still-working equipment was an odd mix of high- and low-tech.

Scandal and malfeasance work for me!

Posted 8/17/2003 11:10:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Tom Friedman On Iraq Today

End the mind control! The InstaMan excerpts my favorite bit. And the CalPundit has a problem with a "libido" metaphor employed by Mr. Friedman - he wonders about its veracity, and thinks Mr. Friedman may have sexed up his reporting.

Matthew Yglesias is also suspicious.

But no one links to the new on-line newspaper started by local Iraqis!

Hassan Fattah is a young Iraqi-American journalist who has returned to Baghdad to start a terrific newspaper called Iraq Today (www.iraq-today.com).

C'mon, let's see how their servers are doing on a Sunday afternoon.

UPDATE: Depends on the meaning of "no one" - how about "none of them"? Sean LaFreniere unburies the lede; and the optimists at the Irish Eagle like Tom Friedman's spirit. But what is up with that slogan, "Life without Baseball"? Are they Mets fans?

Posted 8/16/2003 05:52:00 PM by The MinuteMan

I See The Mean, But Where Is The Variance?

Sports Saturday turns to statistics, with a NY Times piece titled "Statistics-Minded Executives Put a Lower Value on Bunting". The theme is that bunting as a tactic is overrated, and this is offered:

According to Baseball Prospectus, which analyzes statistics, teams with a runner on first base and no outs scored an average of 0.896 runs an inning last year. Teams with a runner on second and one out scored an average of 0.682 runs, meaning their chances of scoring decreased if they sacrificed the runner ahead.

But what is the variance? If it is the ninth inning of a tied game, I don't need to save an out and hope for a five run rally.

It may be the case that the scenario with a runner on second with one out averages .682 runs, but results in zero runs only 35% of the time. Maybe the "man on first, no out" scenario produces zero runs 40% of the time, but also produces more big innings. If this is the case, then bunting is the play.

Incredibly, considering the depths to which it has already been plumbed, we need more statistics. I know the Markov transition matrices are out there.

Time for Michael Lewis.

UPDATE: Last night, I saw a whole new reality about bunting when the Yanks battled the Orioles in extra innings.

With Nick Johnson on first and nobody out in the twelfth inning, Jeter fouled off a bunt attempt - strike one.

Then, Jeter failed to make contact on a hit and run - strike two, and Johnson is picked off in the ensuing run-down.

Finally, Jeter completes his exhibition of prowess by striking out.

However, with two outs and no one on, the O's pitch to Giambi, who crushes a home run. The announcers commented that, if the situation had been Johnson at second with one out, Giambi would have been walked to set up a double play.

So go figure.

BTW, The game-ending play will be on #1 on Sports Center: briefly, with two outs in the bottom of the twelfth, trailing by one run and a man on first, an Oriole doubles to right. The runner on first takes a big turn at third - is he going to try and score to tie the game? NO, he is going to hold up, skid, and fall down. Soriano (Yankee second baseman) throws to third to catch him coming back. A rundown ensues, and oh my goodness, no one is covering home plate!

However, our hapless Oriole decides this would be a good time to fall a second time, and does so, allowing himself to be tagged out just a few feet from home plate. Friends don't let friends drink and play major league ball.

Posted 8/16/2003 05:35:00 PM by The MinuteMan

No Respect

From the NY Times:

Hideki Matsui's locker put him directly in the firing line at Camden Yards today.

Matsui's stall in the visitors' clubhouse is located under a television set that showed the Little League World Series. As the players from Japan were introduced, each one listed his favorite major leaguer. The Yankees howled as kids picked Ichiro Suzuki or Jason Giambi. Only three chose Matsui, who finally threw his hands up and walked away, an embarrassed smile on his face.

Those young players must not have seen the Yankees' game with the Orioles on Thursday. With a game-saving catch and two runs batted in, Matsui lifted the Yankees to an 8-5 victory.

Does anything funny ever happen in the NFL?

And please don't answer, because I don't care.

Posted 8/16/2003 05:32:00 PM by The MinuteMan

The Blackout, And Deregulation

Robert Kuttner, writing in the NY Times:

In the search for the source of Thursday's blackout, the underlying cause has been all but ignored: deregulation. In principle, deregulation of the power industry was supposed to use the discipline of free markets to generate just the right amount of electricity at the right price. But electric power, it turns out, is not like ordinary commodities.

Electricity can't be stored in large quantities, and the system needs a lot of spare generating and transmission capacity for periods of peak demand like hot days in August. The power system also requires a great deal of planning and coordination, and it needs incentives for somebody to maintain and upgrade transmission lines.

Deregulation has failed on all these grounds. Yet it has few critics. Evidently, even calamities like the Enron scandal and now the most serious blackout in American history are not enough to shake faith in the theory.


Bill Richardson, Energy Secretary under Bill Clinton, and now Governor of New Mexico:

There are moves we need to make quickly to ease the crisis facing our electric transmission system. First, we must establish mandatory reliability rules....

Second, we need to outline basic rules of the road for utilities. For some time, the industry has been caught between the old paradigm of vertically integrated monopolies and the more modern approach of competitive wholesale markets. During this transition to competition, utilities have been reluctant to make investments in the transmission grid until they know what the rules will be and how they will benefit by them.

There is no doubt that a poorly handled deregulation can produce deplorable results. That does not in itself invalidate the theory.

UPDATE: Many links at from Tyler Cowen, powered via the InstaGrid.

Good point by Tyler Cowen - briefly, we have many layers of overlapping Federal, state, and local regulations. Deregulation may not work if we only cut part of the thicket, and we probably can't cut all of it.

Posted 8/15/2003 06:41:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Overexposure To Heat Can Cause Disorientation

Evidently, overexposure to stories about excessive heat can have a similar effect.

The French government has been criticized for its inept performance during a heat wave which may have claimed as many as 3,000 French lives. However, in a surprising turn to libertarianism, Atrios defends the French and announces that he does not see a role for Big Government in disaster prevention or relief.

The NY Times has a different, more predictable view of the French situation - of course the French government could have done more.

Let's see:

PARIS, Aug. 14 — While Europe's record heat wave has begun to moderate, the recriminations for what is only now being recognized as an epidemic of heat-related death are just beginning.

The withering heat of the last several weeks is being blamed for hundreds of deaths across Europe, and perhaps 3,000 deaths in France alone, according to Jean-François Mattei, the minister of health in France, where the bodies have been piling up quickly in the 100 degree-plus temperatures.

Emphasis added throughout. Is this the paper of record, or some irreverent blog, with this casual reference to the number of deaths? Continuing...

...Health experts said the stress of such heat, coupled with a general lack of air conditioning and insufficient public preparedness, was to blame for the high death toll.

...In the early days of this summer's heat wave, officials played down its significance, and most of the French government left for the annual monthlong August vacation. But as the death toll grew, the finger-pointing began.

...One factor common to the victims was a lack of air conditioning, which is less common in Europe than in the United States. But the problem was aggravated by the practice, at least in France, Italy and Spain, of shutting down parts of hospitals while doctors and staff take August vacations. The director of the big Saint-Louis Hospital, in Paris's 10th Arrondissement, Jean-Patrick Lajonchère, told the daily Le Monde that 35 percent of the hospital's capacity had been closed because of the summer break.

The city's medical system appeared overwhelmed. The Lariboisière Hospital, one of Paris's largest, reported about 220 admissions a day through the week. As part of an emergency plan, the government on Wednesday [August 13] began calling back hospital workers and government employees.

Earlier in the story, we were told that the heat wave began in mid-July, so this "response" came 3-4 weeks into it.

This being France, the heat also sparked a political emergency. As recently as Tuesday, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin was rejecting criticism of his handling of the heat-related deaths as "partisan polemics." But today he cut short his vacation to convene cabinet ministers who approved, among other measures, extending the Paris emergency plan in place to the entire country and opening military hospitals to those, particularly the elderly, suffering from the heat.

Even a libertarian like Atrios might admit that opening military hospitals is typically a government initiative.

...The Communist Party linked the crisis with government efforts to rein in health spending. The tiny Greens Party called for Mr. Raffarin's resignation.

Mr. Raffarin refused, telling reporters: "I will not resign," adding: "This is not the time for arguing. I feel that I have done all that was necessary at the right time."

Others disagree.

Now, with all respect to those who may think I am gloating, let's just say that the French government failed to identify a problem, and failed to respond effectively as the problem worsened. I at least have no doubt that more effective action could have saved lives.

Notes: The original Atrios post; the WaPo editorial; the InstaPost that inspired Jesse; Bill Quick, and the CNN story that got him started.

And we love the CNN story, from August 12, when the French Government was still in denial:

Doctors have warned that many more people will die unless the government acknowledges there is a crisis.

The French Health Ministry responded to the criticism Monday, insisting there has been no massive increase in emergencies, even if more elderly people were being admitted to hospital.

The government said it was unclear if the heat was to blame.

"People don't come in with 'dying of heat' on their foreheads," The Associated Press quoted Stephane Grossier of the Health Ministry as saying. "Things are not as simple as they seem."

Avoid simplistic solutions.

Finally, a quick response to Jesse's strawman - if Bill Quick, Glenn, and I are criticizing anyone (I am!), it is the French government. So most of his tirade about (paraphrasing) "show me a lefty gloating specifically about soldiers dying, not folks pointing to casualties as evidence of this war's folly" is utterly misdirected. I am pointing to these deaths as evidence of the inability of the French Government to confront a problem, just as war critics point to casualties in Iraq to advance their agenda. I also reject the rest of the strawman, which seems to require Glenn to restrict his criticisms to well-known moderate lefties, since I think we are all free to criticize extremists. I believe that is part of the "anti-idiotarian" platform.

As an example of the sort of "gloating" the anti-war crowd produces, try this.


UPDATE: Jesse responds, identifying the concept of partisan blinders but missing the point as to who is wearing them. Switch the name here, and Jesse and I are in total agreement: Jesse is"a good guy, he's just entirely wrong on this one."

And, inspired by Jesse's helpful suggestion that "it's pretty goddamned solid that Glenn and Bill (and the latter's commenters) decided that the lessons to be learned from this heatwave is that they should have supported the war", we did check the Quick comments. I am missing the "support the war" rhetoric, but we do see the genesis of the "gloating" meme - apparently, if righties do not clearly decry the loss of innocent life, they are reveling in it. Thanks for the tip.

My suggestion - some creative lawyer-bloggers could draw up standard form disclaimers for both sides of the aisle. I will periodically link to the form denouncing racism, McCarthyism, and the loss of innocent life; folks on the left who are so inclined can link to a form denouncing Stalinism, communism, forced collectivism, and whatever else the folks who enjoy the labeling game come up with.

A quicker solution would be for folks to check their default settings, of course.

UPDATE: We deplore the loss of innocent life. We also file this story under "When life hands you lemons, don't whine about it", and have a serious follow-up from CNN.

MORE: We deplore all loss of innocent life as we note that heads have commenced rolling.

Posted 8/15/2003 11:32:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Valerie Plame Wilson - John Dean Speaks, New David Corn

Yes, THAT John Dean, writing in "Findlaw". He presents the facts in their most dramatic light, and discusses the applicable law, but lacks new info. Mark Kleiman comments.

David Corn has a content rich new column on the impediments to an investigation:

...According to several government sources familiar with leaks investigations, this is how it usually works: if the CIA learns of an authorized disclosure of classified information and wants to see the case pursued, it refers the allegation to the Justice Department. The DOJ then evaluates the legal issues and decides whether to have the FBI investigate. After Schumer made his formal request to Mueller, the FBI kicked the matter over to the CIA, according to a government source monitoring the case. Does the CIA want an investigation? Mark Mansfield, a spokesman for the CIA, declined to comment. And what about the congressional intelligence committees? A Senate intelligence committee source says that committee members have made inquiries but that nothing major is likely to happen until the CIA informs the Justice Department that it suspects the law was broken.

The stonewall starts with the CIA. Corn thinks Tenet will stay loyal to Bush (not a bad guess), and that will be that, unless Congress can rally pressure for a special prosecutor.

And until we know for sure that Ms. Wilson was truly covert, and truly compromised, it will take a real Congressional hero to lay down on the tracks on this issue.

TIMELINE

Posted 8/15/2003 11:26:00 AM by The MinuteMan

More Partisan Recycling Of Stale Spin

Sen. John Kerry: "Well, the last person I heard who claimed he had invented the Internet didn't do so well."

Sen. Kerry, meet Bob Somerby.


UPDATE: Sen. Kerry, some free advice from Atrios.

Posted 8/14/2003 04:42:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Critics, Do Your Homework!

Prof. Krugman has started a fight he should have avoided, and can not win, with his "Thanks For The M. R. E.'s" column, and this follow-up, which provided our title.

The Man Sans Q has links and commentary, but I will add these:

TAPPED: Phil Carter says Paul Krugman was flat wrong on military privatization.

Prof. DeLong simply presents without comment the source for one of Prof. Krugman's assertions, and the detailed rebuttal by Phil Carter.

Mark Kleiman, a lefty who is a bit too independent a thinker to be a perfect contra-indicator, says this: "Phil Carter, who speaks from experience, demonstrates to my satisfaction that Krugman is, in this case, talking through his hat."

Ignore Prof. Krugman's constant critics (yes, especially me!). It's when your normal supporters drift away that one knows the end is near.

And, for those handicapping this, Phil Carter is a law student at UCLA who was formerly an officer in the US Army. Prof. Krugman has roughly my military background, which is to say, none. But I bet I have watched more Clint Eastwood flicks.

Mr. Carter disputes Prof. Krugman on a number of issues. The most vivid is the question of whether our troops are really operating in the desert with a mere 3 liters per day of water.

Mr. Carter explains that Prof. Krugman's source is referring to tastier, supplemental bottled water, and that the Army routinely plans for its water requirements. However, what Prof. Krugman originally wrote was:

Letters published in Stars and Stripes and e-mail published on the Web site of Col. David Hackworth (a decorated veteran and Pentagon critic) describe shortages of water. One writer reported that in his unit, "each soldier is limited to two 1.5-liter bottles a day," and that inadequate water rations were leading to "heat casualties."

We suppose there is a small possibility that Phil Carter is wrong, that the Army has never thought of its water situation before, and that they really are providing their troops with a mere 3 liters per day.

However, that would contradict what seems to be US military guidelines readily available through Google.

And, if we follow the charts, it appears that desert conditions call for roughly one quart per hour. As the main article makes clear, officers are strictly admonished to pay attention to the condition of their troops. But maybe all of this is being ignored in Iraq, or perhaps in Princeton. We are sure that Prof. Krugman, having done his homework, is aware of these guidelines, just as we are suprised that his editors missed this.

Phil Carter seems like a chap who would be magnanimous in victory. The only remaining question providing a bit of suspense is whether Prof. Krugman will be gracious in defeat.

Bold Predictions: (1) Prof. Krugman's next few columns will focus on economics, with an emphasis on statistics rather than polemics; (2) we will see at his website a standard form "divide and conquer climbdown" - "some of my critics are deranged, and here is an example of the criticism I get; however, others have raised valid points"; and (3) as with falling off a bicycle, the Earnest Prof will return, one day, to military topics. And he will have done his homework.

We heartly endorse Mr. Carter: "Quotation does not necessarily equal fact-checking."

Posted 8/14/2003 03:47:00 PM by The MinuteMan

United Flight 93

An AP reporter with too much free time dug into the 9/11 report and managed to get his story on the wires a few days ago:

Washington-AP -- It's been one of the great mysteries of nine-eleven: exactly what happened in the final minutes of United Flight 93?

The popular perception is that passengers stormed the cockpit and fought with the hijackers, causing the plane to crash into a Pennsylvania field.

But the government now believes the terrorists intentionally brought the plane down, after a passenger revolt.

Unable to see a huge difference between the popular perception of passengers storming the cockpit, and the reporter's "passenger revolt", I tuned out.

However, this columnist seems to think the AP was belittling the efforts of the passengers, and is prepared to open a can of whup-a**. I'll say this - if the AP did, I would, but I'm a skeptic.

Now, here is the right response, from some of the folks involved:

As America nears the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, families and friends of those who died that day are hoping to transform the date of the terrorist hijackings into a national day of volunteer service and charity.

At a news conference Tuesday, One Day's Pay, the group spearheading the effort, said its purpose was simple: to encourage individuals and organizations to set aside time on Sept. 11 to help others in any way they choose.

"Sept. 11 is a date that has been seared in our memories," said Alice Hoglan, a One Day's Pay board member whose son, Mark Bingham, died on hijacked United Flight 93. She said a day of volunteerism would be "a vehicle to convert that negative, awful energy that was created that day into something beautiful, optimistic and uplifting."

More on United Flight 93.

Posted 8/14/2003 12:05:00 PM by The MinuteMan

A Fabulous Blog I Have Never Seen

I love the design and the writing is first-class. It has a bit more personal info than we are accustomed to around here, however - although it is of limited interest to me, given my situation, the author informs us that, at least at one time, she was at home in the sack. Somewhat unexpectedly, this only ranks at number (5) in interesting tidbits, although it also serves as another data point to complement Ms. Galt (who, I must add, we are always delighted to compliment).

Anyway, my first impression is that it's a great blog. And we know the importance of first impressions.

Posted 8/14/2003 11:47:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Things To Get To Later

Doctors Drezner and DeLong on the EU-US farm subsidies situation. Just remember, "Kobe" means "beef".

Posted 8/14/2003 11:43:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Now It's Doc Drezner Doing Media Bias

What did the President find funny, and when did the President laugh?

It's always the cover-up that gets you. This transcript seems to back the Chicago crowd, so, incredibly, it is the NY Times that comes out second best.

Posted 8/14/2003 11:19:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Arnold Taps Warren As Financial And Economic Advisor

A socially liberal "Republican" allies himself with a revered "Democrat" - this is politically brilliant, and will give long pause to critics who wonder whether Arnold has the clout and savvy to rally California. We can easily imagine "Uncle Warren" reassuring an inexperienced Mr. S:

"Gee, there is so much ink in this budget, Mr. Buffet."
"Is a lot of it Red, Son?" "Ja."
"We can handle it."

The rest of us will experience a combination of reassurance and other emotions, as Brother Judd explains, with links.

And while the media fawns, it is the Man Sans Q who sees the cloud no larger than a man's hand.

UPDATE: Waddya mean, no prize?

Posted 8/14/2003 11:03:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Brilliant Examples Of Time Management

Both Dr. Thomas Sowell and Dr. J. B. DeLong demonstrate their mastery of time management.

Dr. Sowell presents a fascinating factoid:

The latest census data show -- for the first time -- that more Californians have been moving to other states than people in other states have been moving to California. Between 1995 and 2000, California had a net loss of more than 600,000 people to other states. People are voting with their feet.

With this nugget as a launching point, and the recall election as an excuse, Dr. Sowell then pastes in an off-the shelf diatribe about excessive regulation in business-unfriendly California. Total effort, maybe five minutes, allowing for about thirty seconds of thought. Is any attempt made to connect the factoid to the current situation in California? No, that would have slowed the estimable freight train.

Dr. DeLong, nobody's fool, slyly illustrates the absurdity if Dr. Sowell's position with the following rebuttal:

But the 1995-2000 period Sowell references--the one during which Americans "voted with their feet" against California--saw employment grow by 14% in California (as opposed to 12% in the rest of the country). The 1995-2000 period saw real gross state product in California grow by 27% (as opposed to by 21% in the rest of the country).

To call the California economy between 1995 and 2000 a failure doesn't pass the laugh test.

We applaud the subtlety of rebutting a non-argument with a non sequitur. Dr. Sowell didn't actually say the California economy was weak over that time period, and since he is based at Stanford, is probably at least vaguely aware of Silicon Valley and the tech boom of the late 90's.

On the other hand, Dr. DeLong probably manged to zip off this rebuttal in four minutes, so we score it as a victory for him.

Here at "Just Too Much Free Time", however, we do things differently. Our sympathies are, of course, with Dr. Sowell - one can not say enough bad things about California, and my only regret is that he failed to chortle at the dismal performance of the Anaheim Angels this season. That, too, we attribute to Gray Davis, and it is our principled reason for opposing the recall.

I find the factoid Dr. Sowell presents surprising, and the "news" from Prof. DeLong that California had a strong economy in the late 90's only increases my surprise. One wonders what this change in domestic migration patterns might mean.

Dr. Sowell presented his conclusion. I have only questions:

What changed? Dr. Sowell desribes behaviors that have been ocurring in California since the 60's. Can he tell us why California hit a tipping point in the late 90's?

Or, what was the pattern of domestic migration by demographic group? Maybe high real estate prices prompted retired folks to cash out and leave California, and discouraged other retirees from settling in the Golden State.

Or, perhaps, high real estate prices and declining public schools had a similar net effect on families.

Maybe the news that California's economy grew by 27%, relative to the national average of 21%, is interesting but incomplete - IF, for example, Washington and Oregon grew by 30%, that might skew domestic migration. Or, for purists, these (and other) states only have to grow faster than normal relative to California to skew the results. Maybe California normally outperforms the nation by 10%, so these five years were relatively grim. (OK, I would not spend a lot of time on that national scenario, but it is a possibility, and the regional scenario is superficially plausible.)

If I were running for Governor of California, I would find the question posed by Dr. Sowell to be very interesting, and the answers presented by both Dr. Sowell and Dr. DeLong to be incomplete. And clearly, if the problem (is it a problem?) is due to high real estate prices and declining schools, the solution is not necessarily to revamp the business and regulatory environment.

But, end the suspense, I am not running for Governor. I am looking for ideas on time management, however.

Note: Census reports here, and here, in a .pdf format that won't load on my computer. Something around here sets priorities, at least.

UPDATE: Kind words and more thoughts from Prof.DeLong; time management observation from Glenn.

Posted 8/14/2003 10:24:00 AM by The MinuteMan

John Derbyshire, Ever-Helpful On the Subject Of Immigration

Derb won't even out-perform a stopped clock on this topic.

Posted 8/13/2003 01:46:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Jane Galt Is Very Coy On The Subject Of Past Lovers

She gives this hint, and sends us here.

Posted 8/13/2003 12:05:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Reflexive Bush-Bashing Drives TAPPED Insane (We Tried To Warn You)

TAPPED calls for a larger military, arguing we need it to meet our commitments, and calls for a repeal of the Bush tax cuts.

Oh, for heaven's sake, TAPPED - you don't want a bigger Army, you want fewer commitments. Someday, we will leave Iraq, but armies have an incredible bureaucratic resistance to shrinking. Repeal the tax cuts and spend the money on proper liberal programs. You have Wes Clark and a new found commitment to credibility on national security on the brain.

My goodness.

Note: They link to an LA Times article which may be incredibly cogent, but I can't get to it, so don't vex me.

UPDATE: Vexation here, or maybe here. Thanks. I stand by my diatribe - the author describes a short term problem, and a larger army is a long term solution. Or at least, TAPPED ought to think so.

UPDATE: Or, TAPPED could endorse a proposal by Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison! Put the shovels down, chaps, the hole is already deep enough.

BTW, we note this from her column's conclusion: "We need more troops or fewer missions". Just so.

Posted 8/13/2003 10:04:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Is One Man's "Terrorist" Another Man's "Freedom Fighter"?

Good question. But at the NY Times, the editors have found a Third Way.

[Mini-Update: The scales have dropped from my eyes, and I am now bemused by the "Elvis is Dead!" quality of the following post. However, I stand by my point - the contortions undertaken to pretend these are not terrorists are ridiculous]

Prominent on the front page is a story headlined "Rising Tide of Islamic Militants See Iraq as Ultimate Battlefield". "Flypaper" adherents will point to this as proof positive of validation, and well they should.

I am struck by something quite different, however. My puzzlement begins with the headline, where we are fighting "militants". Continuing through the story, we learn that:

Bit of a cliffhanger! Continued here.

That will teach me to bury the lede!

Posted 8/13/2003 08:20:00 AM by The MinuteMan

I Take Inspiration From Ms. Dowd

My wavering concentration failed altogether at this point in her column, which, so far at least, is dedicated to smacking the blogs of the various Dem candidates:

Bob Graham dubs himself "the original blogger" because he has filled more than 4,000 color-coded, laconic notebooks over the last 30 years with a running diary of his every move, from ingestion of morning cereal to debarkation from a plane. (A typical Graham entry: "3:20 p.m. — Take bus to hotel.")

His blog doesn't pick up the tempo. He offers the rhyming motto: "Hate the war? Miss your job? Don't just sit there, vote for Bob!"

I like that motto! Maybe I can steal it for the Bush crowd, Al Franken style.

"Hate your job, miss the war? Vote for Bush 2004!"

That's what I'm sayin'.

UPDATE: Dr. Drezner links to some folks who managed to take this seriously.

A common theme is captured here: Implying that [lame blogs by politicians] means the Internet is "over" is like saying because of infomercials, TV is "over", or that because of campaign books, the autobiography genre is "over".

And our current favorite for "Good Argument Taken Too Far" is Matthew Yglesias, who said, basically, (1) Ms. Dowd is probably right that there is a lot of junk out there, since most of anything is junk; and (2) "I'd guess that most [blogs] are bad, since the blogs I've never read are probably much worse on average than the ones I have seen or else I would've heard of them."

Point (1) is not in particular dispute. However, his commenters are in open defiance of point (2), wondering about new blogs he may have overlooked, or niche blogs that are considered excellent by their tiny audience. Do not conflate popularity, or visibility, with quality!

Mr. Yglesias has an update attempting to clarify his point. We are now wondering whether he comes back again to surrender, or walks away. I should add that I am only interested in a "misery loves company" sort of way.

Posted 8/12/2003 05:24:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Overlooked Evil

Jay and Jane take us to the heart of (lefty) darkness, for the Grand List of All-American Evil.

Conspicuously absent - Sirhan Sirhan. Had he not killed Robert Kennedy, Kennedy probably wins the 1968 nomination over Humphrey, defeats Richard Nixon for the Presidency, and (relatively promptly) ends the Viet Nam war. No Cambodia, no Watergate, no Kissinger, no McGovern, no Carter, no insane wing of the Democratic Party - what's not to hate?

UPDATE: More on Bobby here.

MORE: Hmm, lots of other non-Americans are missing from the list of "Worst Figures In American History". And some folks have suggested that, just maybe, since Sirhan Sirhan was a resident alien rather than an American, he is not eligible.

I reject that! Sirhan Sirhan certainly affected American history, and he was not a world-historical type such as Hitler.

That said, I can see how he might have been overlooked. Picky, picky.

Posted 8/12/2003 04:59:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Doctors Call for Universal Health Insurance

"In our market-driven system, insurers and providers compete not so much by increasing quality or lowering costs, but by avoiding unprofitable patients and shifting costs back to patients or to other payers," the group, who call themselves Physicians for a National Health Program, wrote in JAMA.

"This creates the paradox of a health care system based on avoiding the sick."

This makes it a perfect complement to our tax system, which is based on avoiding the tax-man.

OK, I see at their website a great quotation:

Some services are too important to leave to the marketplace - for everything else, there's MasterCard.

-- Cardinal Joseph Bernardin

That can't be right.

And more - same people, and what superficially appears to be the same plan, from Feb 5, 2003.

A response from the right, written in Aug 2001.

Groan. This isn't "health care that's always there"; this is the health care debate that's always there. C'mon, "Yahoo", try to put the "new" back in "news". Didn't Kobe change his shirt, or park his car, or something?< br>

Posted 8/12/2003 03:29:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Never Send A MinuteMan...

To do a job requiring a Man Without Qualities.

It's ready to go - just add water.

UPDATE: Phil Carter has military experience. Prof. Krugman does not. It shows.

Posted 8/12/2003 01:11:00 PM by The MinuteMan

BigWig Delivers Big For the Democrats

A bit of a role shift, since he is often on the other side of the aisle, but no one can resist the power of a good idea. Which is why we warn all those righty bloggers - use those Dark Powers wisely!

Posted 8/12/2003 01:03:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Lieberman Is Losing Key Dems

His Quixotic quest for the Republican nomination continues, however. Perhaps we will see a Bush-Lieberman ticket in 2004 (the rumor may become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the surprise may prove fatal to "It's the big one" Cheney), followed by a contest between Lieberman and Hillary! in 2008.

Posted 8/12/2003 12:55:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Armando, We Hardly Knew Ye - Hasta La Vista

Jeff Cooper: I feel confident in saying that Benitez is one of those rare players whose genuine weaknesses are not adequately captured by his numbers.

That reminds me of a gibe I loved, penned by Selena Roberts of the NY Times. She was criticizing General Manager Scott Layden, once of the Jazz, and now "rebuilding" the Knicks, and wrote this, roughly:

After years of relying on Malone and Stockton, Layden has developed a keen eye for the third option.

Someday, someone will note that as a blogger, I have a keen eye for the nearly irrelevant detail. Me and Scott, baby!

Posted 8/12/2003 11:58:00 AM by The MinuteMan

No More Fuzzy Math!

We have moved on to the fuzzy alphabet.

Sure, the entertainment capital of the world gave us "Gigli", but it also delivered "Total Recall: The Rise of Everyone", and we love them for it.

And, in a bit of coals to Newcastle linking, Glenn, putting the "Pundit" in "InstaPundit", makes a good point here. In fact, evidence of his point is buried near the end of this story about last nights forum of Democratic candidates. I happen to know, from having watched, that the first question was about the California recall.

Regretably, I could not see the entire performance. But I did see Al Sharpton deliver yet another well-received line, which I paraphrase:

We are going to find out that Arnold Schwarzenegger is an impostor. He isn't the Terminator. I am the Terminator, and I am going to terminate George Bush, and John Ashcroft, and the rest of this Administration.

Leiberman liked it enough to steal it, and I think we will hear it again.

UPDATE: Mickey thinks Glenn has got this "pundit" trhing working.

Posted 8/12/2003 11:26:00 AM by The MinuteMan

This Story Is Big

The WaPo goes behind the scenes to see how the story of the Iraqi nuclear threat was promoted.

Administration supporters (yes, that includes me) will seize on this:

Two senior policymakers, who supported the war, said in unauthorized interviews that the administration greatly overstated Iraq's near-term nuclear potential.

"I never cared about the 'imminent threat,' " said one of the policymakers, with directly relevant responsibilities. "The threat was there in [Hussein's] presence in office.

And, later on:

By many accounts, including those of career officials who did not support the war, there were good reasons for concern that the Iraqi president might revive a program to enrich uranium to weapons grade and fabricate a working bomb. He had a well-demonstrated aspiration for nuclear weapons, a proficient scientific and engineering cadre, a history of covert development and a domestic supply of unrefined uranium ore. Iraq was generally believed to have kept the technical documentation for two advanced German centrifuge designs and the assembly diagrams for at least one type of "implosion device," which detonates a nuclear core.

What Hussein did not have was the principal requirement for a nuclear weapon, a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium or plutonium. And the U.S. government, authoritative intelligence officials said, had only circumstantial evidence that Iraq was trying to obtain those materials.

But the Bush administration had reasons to imagine the worst. The CIA had faced searing criticism for its failures to foresee India's resumption of nuclear testing in 1998 and to "connect the dots" pointing to al Qaeda's attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Cheney, the administration's most influential advocate of a worst-case analysis, had been powerfully influenced by his experience as defense secretary just after the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

Former National Security Council official Richard A. Clarke recalled how information from freshly seized Iraqi documents disclosed the existence of a "crash program" to build a bomb in 1991. The CIA had known nothing of it.

"I can understand why that was a seminal experience for Cheney," Clarke said. "And when the CIA says [in 2002], 'We don't have any evidence,' his reaction is . . . 'We didn't have any evidence in 1991, either. Why should I believe you now?' "

Some strategists, in and out of government, argued that the uncertainty itself -- in the face of circumstantial evidence -- was sufficient to justify "regime change." But that was not what the Bush administration usually said to the American people.

The "better safe than sorry" theme collides with "it was the right war, for the wrong reasons".

Posted 8/12/2003 10:28:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Clash Of Titans: The Cal Pundit Versus Paul Krugman

The sparks fly as highly regarded blogger Kevin Drum takes on highly regarded economist Paul Krugman:

From Mr. Drum:

Can there ever be a decent Republican party while they oppose simple acts of decency like a (barely) livable minimum wage? I doubt it.

And, as if in reply, from a 1998 review of "Living Wage: What It Is and Why We Need It", by Robert Pollin and Stephanie Luce, Professor Krugman says:

...yet there is a problem with markets: They are absolutely and relentlessly amoral.

...Some conservatives have managed to convince themselves that this poses no moral dilemma, that whatever is, is just. And one supposes that there are still unrepentant socialists who believe that one can do away with market determination of incomes altogether.

...The standard economist's solution, which is also the main way the U.S. welfare state operates, involves "after-market" intervention: Let the markets rip, but then use progressive taxes and redistributive transfers to make the end result fairer. However, many liberals have always felt that this solution is unsatisfactory. Instead, they want to increase "market" wages, notably through support of collective bargaining, and through the imposition of minimum wage standards.

The brighest light in the economic firmament then presents, and rebuts, several arguments offered by advocates of a higher minimum wage. His conclusion:

Why increase the cost of labor to employers so sharply, which--Card/Krueger notwithstanding--must pose a significant risk of pricing some workers out of the market, in order to give those workers so little extra income? Why not give them the money directly, say, via an increase in the tax credit?

One answer is political: What a shift from income supports to living wage legislation does is to move the costs of income redistribution off-budget. And this may be a smart move if you believe that America should do more for its working poor, but that if it comes down to spending money on-budget it won't. Indeed, this is a popular view among economists who favor national minimum-wage increases: They will admit to their colleagues that such increases are not the best way to help the poor, but argue that it is the only politically feasible option.

But I suspect there is another, deeper issue here--namely, that even without political constraints, advocates of a living wage would not be satisfied with any plan that relies on after-market redistribution. They don't want people to "have" a decent income, they want them to "earn" it, not be dependent on demeaning handouts.

...In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or even economics, but morality. Its advocates are basically opposed to the idea that wages are a market price--determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of apples or coal. And it is for that reason, rather than the practical details, that the broader political movement of which the demand for a living wage is the leading edge is ultimately doomed to failure: For the amorality of the market economy is part of its essence, and cannot be legislated away.

He is a genius when I agree with him. Well, so is Mr. Drum.

UPDATE: I draw return fire from Mad Max, who should probably be Dr. Sawicky for purposes of the current discussion.

He points out that my post "glosses over the difference between the minimum wage and the living wage. The latter is a national network of decentralized, independent campaigns to raises wages in localities.

Well, yes I do, because the Krugman article does. As to Dr. Sawicky's point that localities should be free to choose, well, let Federalism live! In fact, many states have a minimum wage of their own, some higher than the Federal minimum, so the lines are blurry everywhere (bit of an aside, but I lost my glasses over the weekend).

Since his main beef is with Prof. Krugman, I should slip away while the elephants tussle. But I will grasp this point:

It's true that, contra Krugman and [the MinuteMan], the left would like to bring some morality into the market.

As would we all. However, we on the right, along with our new best friend Paul, constantly fret about unintended consequences, especially predictable ones. Bringing morality into the market by pricing unskilled folks at the bottom out of the market doesn't grab me somehow.

As Krugman suggests, expand Federal programs like the EITC, if a higher effective wage at the bottom of the ladder is the goal. This will force folks on the right to present a new set of heartless generalities and evasions to explain why that is a bad idea.

Posted 8/12/2003 02:46:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Ms. Gorelick And The 9/11 Commission - It's Not As Bad As You Thought...

It's Worse

Ms. Gorelick is one of the ten commissioners on the 9/11 panel, and also an attorney at a prominent Washington firm representing Saudi Prince Mohammed al Faisal, who seems to have an interest in the 9/11 lawsuits brought by families of the survivors.

Dwight Meredith pointed out this conflict of interest, and there has been broad criticism of the situation in the blogosphere. My initial thoughts are below.

And why is it worse than it already looks?

Ms. Gorelick was appointed to the commission in 2002.
The process (Section 6) called for the Republicans (President, House, and Senate) to pick five commissioners, including the Chairman; the Democrats in the House and Senate were also to pick five members, including the Vice-Chairman. Ms. Gorelick was chosen by the Democrats.

In the following April of 2003, Newsweek reports that Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, a major Washington law firm, has been retained by Saudi Prince Mohammed al Faisal, as noted above.

On May 14, 2003, Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering (WCP) issue a press release announcing that Ms. Gorelick is joining their firm, effective July 1.

And I am not quite sure what sequence of events led Dwight and others to connect the dots just now, but here we are: WCP is retained by a prominent Saudi to help with his 9/11 problem, as reported in April; in May, WCP hires a member of the 9/11 Commission.

Did Ms. Gorelick know about her new firm's Saudi client? If she did know, did she get back with the Congressional Democrats who appointed her, and run this by them?

Or did she not know, in which case her confidence in her new partners, not to mention our credulity, may be a bit strained.

This commisison has been fraught with conflicts from the outset. Astute readers have memories of Henry Kissinger accepting the chairmanship to widespread catcalls, and then stepping aside due to the many conflicts of interest surrounding the private consulting firm that bears his name - he would not disclose his clients, and chose to step aside, and good-bye, Henry.

And, because they are very astute, readers have a memory of Sen. George Mitchell (the IRA, the Mitchell Plan in the Middle East, former Majority Leader) stepping aside, because his law firm had clients that gave an appearance of conflicts.

Atrios has noted problems with the current chairman, former Gov. Kean of NJ. And we are shaking our heads, because this also looks bad.

Now, in the case of Chairman Tom Kean, it turns out he is on the Board of Directors of Amerada Hess, an oil company with Saudi connections. You may or may not think this is disqualifying, but at least we have some accountablity, since his conflict could have been identified and criticized at the time of his appointment by the President.

But Gorelick has a newly created conflict. Without more info, it is hard to fault the Democrats who appointed her, or even the woman herself - maybe she was not properly informed my WCP.

But even now, we can find a minor point to pick on - the ubiquitous "Beldar" has picked up Dwight Meredith's suggestion of Warren Rudman as a possible replacement. I don't think this works, unless Rudman has quietly done a "Jeffords" - the enabling legislation says that:

(1) Political party affiliation.--Not more than 5 members of
the Commission shall be from the same political party.

Maybe there is help in the fine print. We need help with this Commission.


UPDATE: Following up on Kean - his appointment was announced very late in the process, so the press did not have any time to dig. USA Today has this story, noting his connection to Amerada Hess, as well as to some companies that lost people at the WTC. The first mention of the Amerada Hess question I have found is in this seemingly non-mainstream outlet in Jaunary.

Posted 8/11/2003 10:34:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Valerie Plame Wilson - August 11

Mark Kleiman notices some coverage in the lesser press. (Oh, now I am snide!).

From the St. Petersburg Times:

[Ambassador Wilson] said he believes that political operatives in the White House gave his wife's name to Novak, and he thinks he knows who they are. But he's "not ready, yet" to name them. He hopes an investigation - by the FBI, Congress or both - will take care of that.

That would be a big deal, especially if we believed him. However, from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, we get a bit of a chuckle:

In carefully discussing what he called the hypothetical possibility his wife is a CIA employee, Wilson noted that the use of her maiden name would compromise work done before their marriage five years ago.

We were alerted to the fact that her maiden name is part of the Ambassador's on-line bio back on July 23. The Ambassador's credibility on this point is, hmm, limited.

Posted 8/09/2003 10:37:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Dwight Meredith, Breaking And Shaking The News, With No Hope Of Success

Glenn tips us with this:

CONFLICT OF INTEREST IN THE 9/11 PANEL: And it's a doozy. Dwight Meredith is right: this is unacceptable.

The soundbite, from Dwight:

Gorelick Must Resign the 9/11 Commision

While [Ms. Gorelick's] her firm is representing Saudi interests against the 9/11 families, Ms. Gorelick is a member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States.

Beldar, an attorney who has puzzled over these issues, is not convinced that this should be disqualifying.

I hate to soundbite his long and entertaining post, but his gist is that Ms. Gorelick has a fabulous resume (she does!), that the revenue she might personally get from the Saudis as a result of this is tiny (almost surely true), that we want Dems on a bipartisan commission (grudgingly, but yes), that conflicts like this pop up all the time and law firms can deal with it (hmmm), and we should move on (Never!).

I think the Beldar argument would prevail in 99.9% of conflict of interest arguments. However, this 9/11 panel is reviewing one of the bigger cases in American history, and its credibility must be unimpeachable, since many folks will reject whatever it concludes anyway.

Appearances and public acceptance are mission-critical: this panel can not operate under the sort of cloud created by this appearance of conflict; it must have the stature of, for example, the Warren Commission.

Or something. But we have to at least try. As a colleague once observed during yet another corporate "right-sizing" - "the challenge used to be to keep smiling; now, the challenge is to keep a straight face".

So, great job by Dwight. Can he send Jamie Gorelick to the "Trent Lott School For People Who Pissed Off The Blogosphere"?

NO! It turns out, she was a significant player in the Clinton scandals - briefly, she was perceived as Bill and Hillary's woman in the Justice Dept after Webb Hubbell left.

Righties hate her, and the WSJ did not want her on this commission last December.

And, since we have Newton's Law of Washington, the Clintonistas will fight back, Hillary will protect her, and we will re-debate the entire eight years of the Clinton Administration.

Or, we will forget about this, and move on.


SUPPLEMENTAL LINKS: Let me take off my Yankee cap with the tin-foil lining, and present these without endorsement:

(1) Ms. Gorelick's role in covering up, on behalf of Bill Clinton, the TWA 800 conspiracy in the summer of 1996;

(2) Newsmax, quoting the WSJ from last December:

"the Wall Street Journal observed last December that the two 9/11 probers were "Democratic partisans [who are] one or two steps removed from James Carville."

"Ms. Gorelick was Hillary Clinton's eyes and ears at Janet Reno's Justice Department...

(3) The always readable "Daily Republican", explaining Ms. Gorelick's role in impeding the investigation of attempts by China (pardon me, "Communist China") to influence the 1996 election.

OK, do I believe these stories? Of course I do, and you should too. KIDDING!

We can reliably predict the reactions of certain prominent lefty bloggers, and we hope that Dwight does not catch too much flack for, no doubt inadvertently, becoming a temporary dupe of the right-wing spin machine.

Posted 8/09/2003 08:55:00 AM by The MinuteMan

The Man And The Professor

The Man Sans Q debunks a newly discovered "Politico-scientific" method discovered by iconoclast-turned-herdrunner Professor Krugman.

Left unremarked are the Earnest Prof's kind words for the environmental policies of Reagan-Bush:

"The Montreal Protocol, signed in 1989, shows how science and policy can work hand in hand."

We take what we can get.

UPDATE: The Salon article that inspired the Earnest Prof.; the floor speech by James Inhofe that led to the brief quote.

NCPA on global warming, and again here.

Press release rebutting WEFA study mentioned by Inhofe.

Posted 8/09/2003 12:01:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Evidently, It Was All Pre-Ordained

Cracking open the time-vault, we come across a TIME article from February 2001 - yes, just shortly after Bush's inauguration, and well before 9/11.

Other than failing to anticipate the 9/11 story, they essentially predict the future of US-Iraq relations quite accurately:

Since the mother of all battles ended in apparent success 10 years ago this month, the U.S. has been engaged in protracted low-intensity combat to bring the conflict to final victory.

...We're going to watch very carefully as to whether or not he develops weapons of mass destruction," said the President. This bombing was a symbolic warning, he hinted, that "if we catch him doing so, we'll take appropriate action."

...During the campaign, Bush was highly critical of Clinton's policy. But he takes office when most of the mechanisms applied against Saddam have worn out. The 10-year-old sanctions imposed by the U.N. have unraveled. Countries such as France and Russia prefer to do business with Iraq. Moderate Arab states don't like Saddam but can't stomach the deprivations suffered by ordinary Iraqis. Egypt has restored diplomatic relations. The U.N. weapons-inspections regime is dead. The Bush Administration is pushing money to opposition groups that most analysts say are too weak, divided and unpopular to do much.

...Powell's mission is to take soundings as the Administration wrestles to devise a new approach to the entire region. Unhappily, Iraq still figures at the center, complicating every other aspect [Note the neocon plot spin]. Saddam has played to the Arab street by embracing the Palestinian uprising, handing out money to families of those killed and portraying himself as the one Arab leader bold enough to take on Israel.

...While U.S. officials like Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld talk of aggressive new strategies to get rid of Saddam, Powell speaks mainly of reinvigorating the sanctions.

...Arriving at a fresh approach the entire Administration supports and selling it abroad will be tough. Even if Powell does, the odds on successfully squelching Saddam still look awfully long. In the meantime, Bush has little alternative to the occasional raid. But it is hard to see that these lead to anything other than the same old policy of containment--unless Bush II is ready to finish the job the way Bush I started it.

Emphasis added. TIME, beating the drums of war with an Administration less than a month old.

And my point? Well, 9/11 may have changed the scope of options that the public would accept, but the prospect of war with Saddam was evidently brewing long before. This may be a bit confusing for those who are muttering "Gee, I thought this was a war on terror, where's Osama?", but for the rest of us, this day was coming. Or at least, some resolution of the Saddam question was coming - even in Feb 2001, the prevailing impasse was not an acceptable long term situation, which takes us to the Ken Pollack argument for war.

Thanks to the Hammer for the tip.

Posted 8/08/2003 09:04:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Kind Words From Mad Max

Mad Max takes a quick glance at his "Readable Righties", and I am one! The rest of you will be interested in discovering some new righty bloggers. I will sit here puzzling over whether my length is adequate, and just how long my rivals would be sans "the loony part".

"Just One Minute" slowly morphs to "Just One Minute More". Hmm. And that reminds me...

Posted 8/08/2003 08:57:00 PM by The MinuteMan

What Is Missing Is A Unit Of Time

Glenn sends us to the StrategyPage for this headscratcher:

August 8, 2003: In the last four weeks, attacks on American troops have declined from about 40 a day to about three dozen. Defining what is an "attack" is sometimes difficult....

OK, three dozen per... day? A drop of ten percent, from forty to thirty-six, may be encouraging, but let's save the fanfare.

Or are we talking about a total of thirty-six in the last four weeks? The daily rate has fallen to a bit more than one, down from forty? Sounds like yet another of my Nasdaq holdings.

File this under "More confusion from, on, and about Iraq".

Posted 8/08/2003 04:25:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Valerie Plame Wilson - Aug 8 - The NY Times Reports

The NY Times enters the field, and joins us in staring at a blank wall. The reporter, Douglas Jehl, did speak with Ambassador Wilson, and he seems to have read the article by David Corn.

Here is a Common Dreams link that may be a bit more durable.

And, I see that Mark Kleiman got this sooner, and saw more. Good job. [Yes, the Blogger archive links are down.]

TIMELINE

Posted 8/08/2003 01:58:00 PM by The MinuteMan

The Shorter MinuteMan

In which I distill my response to Al Gore's speech down to the steaming, odorous essence:

Al Gore gave a speech in which he explained that the majority of the public was laboring under six false impressions during the prelude to the war against Saddam. Although he is too sly a fox to directly say that the Bush Administration was responsible for these misperceptions, that is clearly his intent, as the NY Times makes clear.

So far, he is simply adopting the rhetorical ploy of the strawman - rather than troubling us with a rebuttal of the case that the Bush Administration actually made for war, Gore pretends that the public understood something else altogether. Are there polls supporting his assertion that "a majority" of Americans believed his strawmen? Of course not - this entire speech is a faith based initiative from the left (We approve!).

However, we are especially offended by the arrogance of his argument for the following reason - both Senators Clinton and Lieberman supported the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. Now, I think we can assume that Al Gore considers these two to be thoughtful, serious, and well-informed.

SO, when they supported the war (and Lieberman, at least, still does), were they in the grip of these Bush-inspired "false impressions"?

Or is it Al Gore's position that serious, thoughtful people can have credible reasons for supporting the war, but the average American was too stupid to follow the issues, and ended up supporting the war for bad reasons?

A closing thought from the 2008 frontrunner:

...there is no perfect approach to this thorny dilemma, and... people of good faith and high intelligence can reach diametrically opposed conclusions...

Al Gore evidently has a different view of how people of good faith will approach this.

The post below is a more complete treatment of this subject, complete with tedious excerpts and sly innuendo.

A Cheat UPDATE: We now TOTALLY L-U-V the WaPo!

UPDATE: A while back, Randy Barnett wrote that the Left was "living a lie". Teb Barlow made a convincing argument that the essay was "one of the most useless things I've read in weeks". Jane Galt came at it from right field, and wrote that Barnett's theme "set my teeth on edge".

Fine, I agree. Or did. Now, Al Gore is telling us about the many lies believed by the poor misguided innocents who support Bush's policy towards Iraq.

Is Gore doing what Barnett did? Is it OK, coming from Big Al? Will Ted Barlow or Jane Galt pounce on him? Puzzling.

MORE: Good summary of polling data here.

Posted 8/08/2003 01:57:00 PM by The MinuteMan

The Unsurprising Arrogance Of Al Gore

Former Vice President Al Gore delivered a speech on the war with Iraq yesterday. The NY Times has comments buried in the back of section A, but we want to highlight the special phoniness and arrogance of Al Gore.

I'm convinced that one of the reasons that we didn't have a better public debate before the Iraq War started is because so many of the impressions that the majority of the country had back then turn out to have been completely wrong.

Citizen Gore then outlines these false impressions:

1) Saddam Hussein was partly responsible for the attack against us on September 11th, 2001, so a good way to respond to that attack would be to invade his country and forcibly remove him from power.

(2) Saddam was working closely with Osama Bin Laden and was actively supporting members of the Al Qaeda terrorist group, giving them weapons and money and bases and training, so launching a war against Iraq would be a good way to stop Al Qaeda from attacking us again.

(3) Saddam was about to give the terrorists poison gas and deadly germs that he had made into weapons which they could use to kill millions of Americans. Therefore common sense alone dictated that we should send our military into Iraq in order to protect our loved ones and ourselves against a grave threat.

(4) Saddam was on the verge of building nuclear bombs and giving them to the terrorists. And since the only thing preventing Saddam from acquiring a nuclear arsenal was access to enriched uranium, once our spies found out that he had bought the enrichment technology he needed and was actively trying to buy uranium from Africa, we had very little time left. Therefore it seemed imperative during last Fall's election campaign to set aside less urgent issues like the economy and instead focus on the congressional resolution approving war against Iraq.

(5) Our GI's would be welcomed with open arms by cheering Iraqis who would help them quickly establish public safety, free markets and Representative Democracy, so there wouldn't be that much risk that US soldiers would get bogged down in a guerrilla war.

(6) Even though the rest of the world was mostly opposed to the war, they would quickly fall in line after we won and then contribute lots of money and soldiers to help out, so there wouldn't be that much risk that US taxpayers would get stuck with a huge bill.

Now, Citizen Gore asserted that these "misconceptions" were held by "the majority of the country". I have seen polls suggesting that (1) was popularly believed; I would be fascinated if anyone could demonstrate that a majority of the country believed all six.

However, let's ask a different question: in 2000, Vice President Gore selected Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate, presumably with the belief that Sen. Lieberman was qualified to be one heartbeat away (OK, for Al only, one failed memory board away) from the Presidency.

Sen. Lieberman supported a war to remove Saddam in October 2002, and he supports it today. Is it Citizen Gore's contention that Joe Lieberman was in the grip of the various delusions presented above, or does he think that Sen. Lieberman had serious, thoughtful reasons for favoring the removal of Saddam, by force if necessary?

I will guess that Citizen Gore continues to respect Sen. Lieberman as a thoughtful and serious leader. In which case, Citizen Gore's recent speech can be re-phrased slightly:

There were serious reasons to favor the removal of Saddam by force. However, most people were too damn stupid to follow the arguments, and ended up believing a lot of rubbish...


Trust the people, Al! Almost half of them got it right last time.

UPDATE: OK, excerpts from Old Joe:

Last Wednesday, I joined with Senators McCain, Bayh, and Warner to introduce the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, and I will support it against all challenges.

I did so because Saddam Hussein heads a rabid, rogue regime that is a special danger among all nations: a place where vicious tyranny, anti-American animus, weapons of mass destruction, an unmatched record of using them repeatedly, and support for international terrorism come together to create a very poisonous government.

The United Nations must disarm this dictator now. It is, after all, U.N. commitments that Saddam has consistently defied. But if the U.N. proves itself unwilling or unable to act, America will have no choice but to deploy our military as part of an international coalition to keep the world safe from Saddam. We hope that war will not be necessary, but if it is, we must be ready. We will have friends and allies who will join us. And we will succeed.

The Senator then delivers the neo-con case for toppling Saddam as a way of transforming the Middle East.

And for those looking ahead to 2008, we can deliver thoughts from Sen. Clinton, Oct. 10, 2002, as another example of the insubstantial debate of which Citizen Gore was so critical:

...In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.

Perhaps she was also deluded? We applaud her delivery of the Minority Report, with added emphasis. But we are also puzzled. Sen. Clinton parroting the Bush line of a link between Saddam and terrorists? What terrible hold did they have over her? Perhaps it was this Oct. 7, 2002 letter from George Tenet to Bob Graham, chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

More hysteria and fearmongering, from Sept. 2002:

...Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.

That was Al Gore himself, elevating the debate. Here is more of Big AL, from May 2000, pandering, fear-mongering, and spreading the neo-con vision of Middle Eastern peace via Baghdad:

...there is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein still seeks to amass weapons of mass destruction. You know as well as I do that as long as Saddam Hussein stays in power there can be no comprehensive peace for the people of Israel or the people of the Middle East. We have made it clear that it is our policy to see Saddam Hussein gone.

Well, a lot changed in the intervening two years. I am sure.

UPDATE: Try for five! On delusion (5), these two polls from ABC suggest something quite different from Al's diagnosis of the American psyche. In fact, it appears that 60% of Americans thought we would still be fighting months after the war began.

Also, good links to lots of polling topical polling data can be found here.

We will annoy Citizen Gore's many supporters with this:

One poll has found a slight majority saying that Iraq was behind the attacks. In August 2002, a Gallup poll found 53% saying they believed "Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11 attacks"; 34% did not think so and 13% had no opinion. However it should be noted that this question immediately followed a question in which 86% agreed that Hussein was involved in supporting terrorists generally, so that a 'response set' may have accounted for some of this agreement with the question about September 11.

However, at the end of the section, we find this:

However, it does appear that for a significant minority Iraq's possible links to September 11 plays an important role in its support for taking action against Iraq. When NBC/Wall Street Journal asked in January 2002 whether the US should "take military action against Iraq and Saddam Hussein, even if Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks," only 47% said the US should take military action in that case, while 42% said the US should not. This level of support for military action is approximately 20% lower than questions that have simply asked about taking military action. Thus it appears that were it not for this possible linkage between Saddam Hussein and September 11 in the minds of a minority of Americans, there would not be clear majority support for taking military action against Iraq. [7]

...It also appears that when the President makes an association between Iraq and terrorists this elevates slightly the support for military action.


More support for Gore provided by Jesse, who makes a strong case that the Administration promoted a link between Saddam and terrorists. Yes, sort of like Tenet did, or the Council on Foreign Relations. Whether that means the majority of the American public was under the spell Al Gore describes is not a question Jesse addresses.

Link: The President's prime-time press conference, Mar 6, 2003.

Posted 8/08/2003 11:45:00 AM by The MinuteMan

We Tear Out The Front Page - Gore May Endorse Bush!

This cryptic comment from fromer Vice President Al Gore's "Move-On" speech neither stunned the assembled media, nor shook the Democratic Party, but we are fascinated:

"...I've just about concluded that the real problem may be the President himself and that next year we ought to fire him and get a new one. "

As Billy Crystal famously observed in "The Princess Bride", mostly dead is partly alive. Clearly, Al Gore has not yet concluded that it is time for Bush to go!

Perhaps this is what is prompting Big Al to preserve all his options:

The removal of Saddam from power is a positive accomplishment in its own right for which the President deserves credit, just as he deserves credit for removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.

Well, some observers believe that the Democrats need to counter a public perception that theyare soft on security; perhaps Big AL not-so-secretly shares that view. Or is Mr. Gore rejecting the Democrats because of their inabilty to offer a compelling alternative message?

...the President's case for urgent, unilateral, pre-emptive war in Iraq ...needed to be challenged more effectively by the Congress.

...The way we went to war in Iraq illustrates this larger problem. Normally, we Americans lay the facts on the table, talk through the choices before us and make a decision. But that didn't really happen with this war -- not the way it should have.

He is clearly troubled. However, I will venture the Bold Prediction that, in an upcoming pass through low Earth orbit, Big Al will decide to endorse a Democrat.

Developing....

Posted 8/07/2003 07:59:00 AM by The MinuteMan

US Troops Shift Tactics To Mollify Iraqis

This will presage a shift in tactics in the blogosphere. We linked to a discussion on whether US troops had committed a war crime in Iraq with their aggressive tactics. This new story says that the US is scaling back its raids and targetting more precisely. Why? Because the tactics were successful in reducing attacks on Americans, and because we do not want to (further) alienate the local populace.

SO, from the left half of the blogosphere, we will hear variations of "we were right, and now the military (and Glenn) can see it".

From the correct half of the blogosphere, we will here versions of the "Coffee in Iraq is not decaffeinated" theory: we have a professional, well trained, well-led military in Iraq which is perfectly capable of judging the local situation on the ground far better than we can from 5,000 miles away based on the ocassional new story. They knew the pros and cons when they adopted the iron fist; they know the pros and cons of switching to the velvet glove. Trust, but verify.

Sorry for the near-absence of links. Gotta go.

Posted 8/06/2003 07:38:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Another Laughable Miscue By TAPPED!

I will exploit a rare opportunity to agree with Skippy. C'mon, folks, clap for the Kangaroo.

e-mail: tapped@prospect.org

UPDATE: "Another" miscue? YES, TAPPED has been caught in a mistake. Well, to be fair, time has passed them by, but we will leave "fair and balanced" to others - "unfair and unbalanced" it is, here anyway!

The mistake: Spinsanity highlights an updated UPI story, and wonders whether Robert Scheer should maybe try to stay "au courant" with his reporting. Well, we have the same question about this TAPPED story, which relies on the UPI story to "suggest" that Bush lied in his 2003 SOTU.

Now, for those of you stuck on substance, one wonders whether an Al-Qaeda-Saddam connection might have developed after 9/11. The 9/11 report might not have attempted toinvestigate a subsequent connection, but it would surely be relevant by the time of the SOTU in 2003.

Unlikely? After we pushed them out of Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda went somewhere. George Tenet, Director of the CIA, explains it to Sen. Bob Graham, in a letter from Oct. 7, 2002. Now, maybe Tenet was wrong, but "lied"?

Posted 8/06/2003 07:21:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Words Of Wisdom

You see right through me - next up, topical quotations from a surprising source. Yeah, yeah, it's been done, but here we go anyway:

(a) We must combat an unholy axis of new threats from terrorists, international criminals, and drug traffickers. These 21st century predators feed on technology and the free flow of information and ideas and people. And they will be all the more lethal if weapons of mass destruction fall into their hands.

(b) For nearly a decade, Iraq has defied its obligations to destroy its weapons of terror and the missiles to deliver them. America will continue to contain Saddam, and we will work for the day when Iraq has a Government worthy of its people.

(c) A third challenge we have is to keep this inexorable march of technology from giving terrorists and potentially hostile nations the means to undermine our defenses. Keep in mind, the same technological advances that have shrunk cell phones to fit in the palms of our hands can also make weapons of terror easier to conceal and easier to use.

We must meet this threat by making effective agreements to restrain nuclear and missile programs in North Korea, curbing the flow of lethal technology to Iran, preventing Iraq from threatening its neighbors, increasing our preparedness against chemical and biological attack, protecting our vital computer systems from hackers and criminals, and developing a system to defend against new missile threats, while working to preserve our ABM missile treaty with Russia. We must do all these things.

I predict to you, when most of us are long gone but some time in the next 10 to 20 years, the major security threat this country will face will come from the enemies of the nation state: the narcotraffickers and the terrorists and the organized criminals, who will be organized together, working together, with increasing access to ever-more sophisticated chemical and biological weapons. And I want to thank the Pentagon and others for doing what they're doing right now to try to help protect us and plan for that, so that our defenses will be strong. I ask for your support to ensure they can succeed.

OK, a puzzle - in 10 to 20 years, when most of us are long gone? Long gone from what - this speech was not delivered at a geriatrics' convention. Long gone from public office? Maybe.

Anyway, good call, although, after the fact, a slightly more alarmist time frame might have been better.

And since you are way ahead of me, that was then-President Bill Clinton, at his State of the Union addresses in 1998, 1999, and 2000, warning about terrorists gaining access to WMDs, and the long term threat of Iraq, which, in his formulation, seemed to possess WMDs.

For the curious, Osama gets one mention (as "Usama"), in the 1999 speech:

As we work for peace, we must also meet threats to our Nation's security, including increased dangers from outlaw nations and terrorism. We will defend our security wherever we are threatened, as we did this summer when we struck at Usama bin Ladin's network of terror. The bombing of our Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania reminds us again of the risks faced every day by those who represent America to the world.

UPDATE: We get by, with a little help. Here are some more recent comments from an unexpected source. But I bet you'll guess it.

(1) there is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein still seeks to amass weapons of mass destruction. You know as well as I do that as long as Saddam Hussein stays in power there can be no comprehensive peace for the people of Israel or the people of the Middle East. We have made it clear that it is our policy to see Saddam Hussein gone.

...We have used force when necessary, and that has been frequently. And we will not let up in our efforts to free Iraq from Saddam's rule. Should he think of challenging us, I would strongly advise against it. As a senator, I voted for the use of force, as vice president I supported the use of force. If entrusted with the presidency, my resolve will never waiver. Never waiver.

Darn, there is a bit of a hint there where he says "as vice-president." YES, it was our man Al, speaking on May 23, 2000, to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Conference at the Washington Hilton Hotel. And on behalf of Al's many fans, let's note - although he claimed his resolve would never waver as president, he said nothing about whether he would waive this resolution under the stresses of life as a private citizen.

Hmm. This lacks a bit of suspense, but here we go:

(2) Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power. Moreover, no international law can prevent the United States from taking actions to protect its vital interests, when it is manifestly clear that there is a choice to be made between law and survival. I believe, however, that such a choice is not presented in the case of Iraq. Indeed, should we decide to proceed, that action can be justified within the framework of international law rather than outside it. In fact, though a new UN resolution may be helpful in building international consensus, the existing resolutions from 1991 are sufficient from a legal standpoint.

Here, a clear statement as to whether Presidient Bush is asserting that Iraq is an imminent threat:

[President Bush] has compounded this by asserting a new doctrine - of preemption.

The doctrine of preemption is based on the idea that in the era of proliferating WMD, and against the background of a sophisticated terrorist threat, the United States cannot wait for proof of a fully established mortal threat, but should rather act at any point to cut that short.

Now, let's be fair - the latter snippents were taken from Al Gore's speech on Sept. 23, 2002, where he advocated an "Al-Qaeda first" strategy and opposed war with Iraq now. However, he surely contributed to a public perception that Saddam was a continuing threat to the region.

Stray Aside: This group seems to have assembled all sorts of relevant links on the run-up to war.

Here is Al Gore from July 7, 2003. We will comment on some major news overlooked by others, and mock his effort more directly.

MORE: This "Great Quotes" game is like eating potato chips. And you will never, ever guess the source:

...In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.

Now this much is undisputed. The open questions are: what should we do about it? How, when, and with whom?

Sen. Hillary Clinton, recycling Administration lies on October 10, 2002. Adding emphasis would be too brutal, but I love the "given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists" bit.

And, lest the suspense vex you, first, she offers the neocon argument for war - transform the Middle East:

Some people favor attacking Saddam Hussein now, with any allies we can muster, in the belief that one more round of weapons inspections would not produce the required disarmament, and that deposing Saddam would be a positive good for the Iraqi people and would create the possibility of a secular democratic state in the Middle East, one which could perhaps move the entire region toward democratic reform.

This view has appeal to some, because it would assure disarmament; ...and because it would give the Iraqi people a chance to build a future in freedom.

However, this course is fraught with danger....

So, Mr. President, for all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option.

OK, the suspense is starting to vex me.

Others argue that we should work through the United Nations and should only resort to force if and when the United Nations Security Council approves it. This too has great appeal for different reasons....

But there are problems with this approach as well.

Man, this reads like something I might have written. One more hand, and she could play all the instruments in a jazz band herself. She points out that the UN failed to authorize Kosovo, then adds:

In the case of Iraq, recent comments indicate that one or two Security Council members might never approve force against Saddam Hussein until he has actually used chemical, biological, or God forbid, nuclear weapons.

The sort of alarmist comment Big Al warned about!

OK, we close in on her big finish:

...While there is no perfect approach to this thorny dilemma, and while people of good faith and high intelligence can reach diametrically opposed conclusions, I believe the best course is to go to the UN for a strong resolution that scraps the 1998 restrictions on inspections and calls for complete, unlimited inspections with cooperation expected and demanded from Iraq. I know that the Administration wants more, including an explicit authorization to use force, but we may not be able to secure that now, perhaps even later. But if we get a clear requirement for unfettered inspections, I believe the authority to use force to enforce that mandate is inherent in the original 1991 UN resolution, as President Clinton recognized when he launched Operation Desert Fox in 1998.

I will never say this again, but I could vote for the person who said that. She seems to exactly predict the upcoming diplo-tango: we eventually got the ambiguous "one resolution" approach. Then, when we could not get a second resolution explicitly authorizing force, we relied on existing UN authority. And she goes on:

...a good faith effort by the United States [at the UN], even if it fails, will bring more allies and legitimacy to our cause, I have concluded, after careful and serious consideration, that a vote for the [Senate] resolution best serves the security of our nation.

OK. I am so overcome by her logic that I skipped this inflamatory bit:

...should we put troops on the ground, there is still the matter of Saddam Hussein's biological and chemical weapons. Today he has maximum incentive not to use them or give them away. If he did either, the world would demand his immediate removal. Once the battle is joined, however, with the outcome certain, he will have maximum incentive to use weapons of mass destruction and to give what he can't use to terrorists who can torment us with them long after he is gone.

Good point! But doesn't it follow that he must have them? She was lied to by Bush! So much for Senate oversight committees (she is on Armed Services, and presumably Bob Graham is not a sphinx.)

OK, we are running waay long. No more. Well, this letter from CIA Director George Tenet to Bob Graham, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was made public Oct. 7, 2002, or just prior to the statement by Sen. Clinton, and briefly describes the link between Saddam and terrorist groups. And the reliably port-listing Nation comments on it!

MORE: Can't get enough? Here are more unlikely quotes.

I Can Stop Anytime: But before I do, Joe Lieberman, Oct. 7, 2002:

Last Wednesday, I joined with Senators McCain, Bayh, and Warner to introduce the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, and I will support it against all challenges.

I did so because Saddam Hussein heads a rabid, rogue regime that is a special danger among all nations: a place where vicious tyranny, anti-American animus, weapons of mass destruction, an unmatched record of using them repeatedly, and support for international terrorism come together to create a very poisonous government.

The United Nations must disarm this dictator now. It is, after all, U.N. commitments that Saddam has consistently defied. But if the U.N. proves itself unwilling or unable to act, America will have no choice but to deploy our military as part of an international coalition to keep the world safe from Saddam. We hope that war will not be necessary, but if it is, we must be ready. We will have friends and allies who will join us. And we will succeed.

He then presents the neocon argument for war with Iraq as a means of transforming the Middle East. The neocons are everywhere!

...we must not only "drain the swamp" of terrorists, as Secretary Rumsfeld has aptly put it. We also must seed the garden with our best values, and our best political and economic ideas and support.

This imperative could not be clearer than it is in Iraq, at the heart of the world's most volatile region, amid the violent spawning grounds and training camps of world terrorism. If a civil society can grow there — if a garden of freedom and opportunity can flourish where the biblical Garden of Eden grew — the fruits of that garden will spread throughout the region and the Arab and Muslim world.

Well, who is Joe Lieberman, anyway? In 2000, Al Gore thought he was qualified to be one heartbeat (or, in Al's case, one failed memory chip) away from the Presidency. Now, he is a fellow with no hope as a candidate in his own party. And I really have to stop - too many Dems are making sense.

Posted 8/06/2003 04:15:00 PM by The MinuteMan

The Democratic Candidates Meet With The AFL-CIO In Chicago

Drudge gives us an interesting photo of the delegates' reaction when Sen. Lieberman takes the stage.

But seriously, here are some surprisingly downbeat comments following the presentations by Kerry, Gephardt, et al.

Posted 8/06/2003 04:06:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Prof. Krugman Discovers the US Constitution

And he correctly places the Treasury Department in the Executive Branch!

Traditionally the Treasury, like the C.I.A., stands somewhat above the political fray. Externally, it is supposed to provide objective data that Congress and the public can use to evaluate administration proposals. Internally, long-serving Treasury analysts traditionally ride herd on political appointees, warning them when their proposals are ill conceived or irresponsible.

But under the Bush administration the Treasury takes its marching orders from White House political operatives. As The New Republic points out, when John Snow meets with Karl Rove, the meetings take place in Mr. Rove's office.

My goodness! Where, under this diabolical scheme, will legislators turn for the un-spun truth? Help is on the way!

Normally I don't do requests, but... what's that? Can I play "Melancholy Baby"? Sit right down....

Posted 8/06/2003 09:33:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Cheney And The Intelligence Community

From the Chicago Tribune. His fingerprints are everywhere!

So, points to ponder: was Vice President Cheney simply promoting a "better safe than sorry" strategy with Iraq? The possible consequences of underestimating the threat were grave. Arguably, overestimating the threat rids the world of an evil dictator, gives us a chance to transform the Middle East, and, regrettably, strains the international diplomatic community. Tony Blair struck this theme in his address to Congress.

Secondly, was VP Cheney pressuring the intelligence community, or re-energizing the debate? The CIA was almost surely not monolithic on the matter of Iraq - perhaps Cheney's attention simply elevated the status of long-overlooked Iraqi hawks. Professional resentment and bureaucratic infighting, as the Ins and Outs switch places, would be a natural consequence.

As to the "better safe than sorry" point, we extract this:

In the year preceding the war, unclassified CIA intelligence assessments provided to Congress went from expressing low-level concern about Iraq's weapons capability to expressing the same information in "alarmist" terms, said Joseph Cirincione, director of the nonproliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Well, the "year preceding the war" is also the year after 9/11. It would be interesting to check what, if anything, the Administration was saying about Saddam in August 2001.

And on the matter of jealous, overlooked bureaucrats, we have this poignant bit:

Greg Thielmann, who retired in September as director of strategic, proliferation and military affairs in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, said he saw no similar curiosity from Cheney about the State Department's intelligence shop, known as INR.

That agency was far more skeptical than the CIA about claims that Iraq possessed threatening weaponry.

"One would think if Cheney was on some sort of noble pursuit of the truth and really wanted to get into details, he would have noticed that INR had very loud and lengthy dissents on some critical pieces of Iraq intelligence," Thielmann said.

"You'd think he might want to hear from us," he added. "It never happened, of course, because Cheney wasn't engaged in an academic search for truth."

He never came to see us! Yes, the Mr. Thielmann has a legitimate point, but one can not help but wonder if he felt that his small operation was not as highly regarded as the big boys at the CIA:

...An official in Cheney's office said CIA analysts offered the government's most authoritative information on Iraq and other intelligence matters, and dismissed the State Department's dissent as a small minority view in the intelligence community.

Links:

International Institute for Strategic Studies (A British group): "Iraq WMD Dossier Statement", Sept 9, 2002

White House Archives on Iraq

Condaleeza Rice, "Why We Know Iraq is Lying", describes what disarmament and compliance look like.

Dick Cheney, March 16, Meet The Press

Dicl Cheney, VFW 103rd National Convention, Aug. 2002

Excerpts:

The Inflammatory Dick Cheney, from the VFW:

In the past decade, Saddam has systematically broken each of these agreements. The Iraqi regime has in fact been very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents. And they continue to pursue the nuclear program they began so many years ago. These are not weapons for the purpose of defending Iraq; these are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam can hold the threat over the head of anyone he chooses, in his own region or beyond.

On the nuclear question, many of you will recall that Saddam's nuclear ambitions suffered a severe setback in 1981 when the Israelis bombed the Osirak reactor. They suffered another major blow in Desert Storm and its aftermath.

But we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Among other sources, we've gotten this from the firsthand testimony of defectors -- including Saddam's own son-in-law, who was subsequently murdered at Saddam's direction. Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.

Just how soon, we cannot really gauge. Intelligence is an uncertain business, even in the best of circumstances. This is especially the case when you are dealing with a totalitarian regime that has made a science out of deceiving the international community. Let me give you just one example of what I mean. Prior to the Gulf War, America's top intelligence analysts would come to my office in the Defense Department and tell me that Saddam Hussein was at least five or perhaps even 10 years away from having a nuclear weapon. After the war we learned that he had been much closer than that, perhaps within a year of acquiring such a weapon.

The Strategic Dick Cheney, from earlier in the same speech:

...the President and I never for a moment forget our number one responsibility: to protect the American people against further attack, and to win the war that began last September 11th.

...At the same time, we realize that wars are never won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy. We will take every step necessary to make sure our country is secure, and we will prevail.

...the challenges to our country involve more than just tracking down a single person or one small group. Nine-eleven and its aftermath awakened this nation to danger, to the true ambitions of the global terror network, and to the reality that weapons of mass destruction are being sought by determined enemies who would not hesitate to use them against us.

It is a certainty that the al Qaeda network is pursuing such weapons, and has succeeded in acquiring at least a crude capability to use them. We found evidence of their efforts in the ruins of al Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan. And we've seen in recent days additional confirmation in videos recently shown on CNN -- pictures of al Qaeda members training to commit acts of terror, and testing chemical weapons on dogs. Those terrorists who remain at large are determined to use these capabilities against the United States and our friends and allies around the world.

As we face this prospect, old doctrines of security do not apply. In the days of the Cold War, we were able to manage the threat with strategies of deterrence and containment. But it's a lot tougher to deter enemies who have no country to defend. And containment is not possible when dictators obtain weapons of mass destruction, and are prepared to share them with terrorists who intend to inflict catastrophic casualties on the United States.

The case of Saddam Hussein, a sworn enemy of our country, requires a candid appraisal of the facts....

Now, there are other terrorist groups than Al-Qaeda, and Saddam had certainly cooperated with them. Whether Saddam could be deterred, or might one day deliver WMDs to terrorist groups targetting Israel or the US, is a separate question from whether his current capabilities make him an imminent threat. VP Cheney was making several points, only one of which critics are now disputing.

An earnest reader can undertake a simlar exercise with the Vice President's appearance on Meet The Press. A snippet from near the top of the show:

Vice Pres. Cheney: ...the problem we have is what we have seen in the past is that even on those occasions after the ’91 Gulf War when we did strip him of certain capabilities, when the inspectors were able to go in through the work of defectors, for example, and destroy significant capabilities that he had acquired, and that as soon as they were gone, he was right back in business again.

And I think that would be the fear here, that even if he were tomorrow to give everything up, if he stays in power, we have to assume that as soon as the world is looking the other way and preoccupied with other issues, he will be back again rebuilding his BW and CW capabilities, and once again reconstituting his nuclear program. He has pursued nuclear weapons for over 20 years. Done absolutely everything he could to try to acquire that capability and if he were to cough up whatever he has in that regard now, even if it was complete and total, we have to assume tomorrow he would be right back in business again.

MR. RUSSERT: So bottom line, he would have to disarm completely and leave the country?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I think that would be the only acceptable outcome I can think of at this point...

This is very clearly characterizing Saddam as a long term threat, with regime change (and "war now") the best way of dealing with the threat.

Posted 8/05/2003 06:12:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Glenn Reynolds Lets 'Em Off Easy

And Mark Kleiman contests for King of Comedy!

Let's have the InstaMan go first:

MARK KLEIMAN EMAILS THAT HE'S "FISKING" ME for linking to a piece by Tony Adragna.

The post in question was this:

TONY ADRAGNA WRITES on a U.S. "war crime" that wasn't.

There have been a lot of those, haven't there? But somehow I had missed this one.

Glenn is linking to a discussion of an incident in Iraq where US troops detained for questioning the wife and daughter of a wanted Iraqi lieutenant general, and then left a note saying "If you want your family released, turn yourself in." Was this hostage-taking, or just the detention of legitimate intelligence targets? One sentence is not a lot to "fisk", but if a chap can fisk a sandwich, I suppose it's OK to fisk this.

So, off to Mark Kleiman, who gives some background, then delivers the indictment:

"...where Adragna is merely not convinced that there was a violation, Instapundit, speaking in Andraga's name, somehow knows that this was "a US 'war crime' that wasn't."

Oh, dear. Glenn may have rushed to judgement AND misled his readers. On the other hand, anyone following Glenn's links (as Glenn points out in his own timid and ineffectual defense) would realize immediately that Tony Adragna was not as conclusive as Glenn portrayed him, and that there was a debate raging on this very incident. In fact, by following a few of Mr. Adragna's links, the other side of the debate comes clear.

Let's put in Mark Kleiman's big finish:

When is the Titan of the Blogosphere going to start to hold himself to the same standards of accurate reporting he expects of the New York Times or the BBC?

A fascinating question. But I have a different one. If Mark Kleiman is so keen to "fisk" someone for rushing to judgement on the underlying issue, why doesn't he go "fisk" himself? In a laudable bit of irony, Mark Kleiman provides a link to his original post on this very subject. He did not fisk it himself, but perhaps we can help him do so:

"Mad As Hell" Mark: NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Here's a story (*) from today's Washington Post that turned my stomach, twice: first for the facts reported, and second for the language the reporter and headline-writer use to describe them.

Calmer Kleiman: The Adragna piece (*) is long and convoluted, with a number of references to various bits of international law. He makes out a reasonable case -- which he admits is not a conclusive case -- that the actions in question might be legal under the law of war.

Mad Mark: Now, class, please notice the delicate use of language. "Aggressive" and "nimble." Aren't those interesting words to refer to kidnapping wives and children to put pressure on husbands and fathers?

Can anyone in the class suggest other words? Yes, Tom Spencer? "Morally bankrupt," you say? Very good, Tom. Anyone else?

Okay, Atrios. Yes, I saw that you had your hand up. You always have your hand up, don't you, Atrios? Atrios says "criminal," (*) class. And see the nice piece of the Geneva Conventions Atrios brought for show-and tell?

Calmer Kleiman: ..., that opinion isn't ironclad: arguably, as Col. Hogg's defenders have pointed out, the wife and daughter were legitimate targets for detention as possible sources of information about the whereabouts of their husband and father.

The "Calmer Kleiman" did link to the InstaPundit and some of the other players on the other side of the debate. The closest "Mad Mark" comes to introducing the possibility of alternative viewpoints is this:

For your assignment, please write a brief essay either supporting or rebutting the assertion that the action described in the Washington Post constituted the crime of hostage-taking as prohibited by Article 75 of protocol I of the Geneva Conventions.

With his well honed sense of irony, it is hard to interpret this. However, it is clear that the "Calmer Kleiman" should take "Mad Mark" to task for (a) rushing to judgement; and (b) failing to present alternative views in either his original post or an update to it.

My suspicion is that Glenn would rise to the defense of Mad Mark - its his blog, he can say what he jolly well pleases, and who promised "fair and balanced", anyway?

Whether either "Mad Mark" or the "Calmer Kleiman" want Glenn defending them is problematic; whether either Kleiman wants to extend to Glenn the same freedom to blog that they happily exercise themselves is also an open question.

Posted 8/04/2003 03:04:00 PM by The MinuteMan

A Bold Prediction - We Will Find The WMDs This Week!

Why am I so sure? Well, I promised my wife I would (finally) clean out the toolshed.

I mean, they must be somewhere.

Posted 8/04/2003 03:02:00 PM by The MinuteMan

A Surprisingly Unsympathetic Headline

"Woosie Pulls Out of the PGA After Father's Death".

C'mon, his father just died. He's hardly a "woos" for dropping out of one meaningless tournament.

Oh...

Posted 8/04/2003 01:28:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Valerie Plame Wilson - Aug 4

Ambassador Wilson appeared on "Late Edition" with Wolf Blitzer on Aug. 3. The story does not appear to advance, but on the subject of his wife, we have an engaging extended hypothetical:

BLITZER: I want you to elaborate on what you said, I believe, in Time magazine, that this was a smear job against you, this entire post-mortem that's been coming up since then, including your wife, who works at the CIA exposing her, for example. What did you mean by that?

WILSON: Well, first of all, with respect to my wife, I don't answer any questions. And anything that I say with respect to that, the allegations about her are all hypothetical. I would not confirm or deny her place of employment. To do so would be, if she were, a breach of national security; and if she were not, at a minimum, what they have done is they have forced her to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions from neighbors and friends and whatnot.

Well, that's certainly clear.

The Ambassador is also quite interesting on the question of the missing WMDs:

BLITZER: ... But do you have confidence in David Kay [chief WMD seeker], that they know what they're doing?

JOSEPH WILSON, FORMER U.S. ACTING AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: Oh, absolutely, and I've had confidence in -- that we would find weapons of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction programs from the very beginning of the run-up to the war in Iraq.

687, the initial U.N. resolution dealing with weapons of mass destruction, demanded compliance, and it had as its objective disarmament. We had not yet achieved disarmament, so it was perfectly appropriate to continue to try and gather together the international consensus to disarm Saddam and his programs.

I think we'll find chemical weapons. I think we'll find biological precursors that may or may not have been weaponized. And I think we will find a continuing interest of -- on nuclear weapons. The question really is whether it met the threshold test of imminent threat to our own national security or even the test of grave and gathering danger.

BLITZER: And you believe, going into the war, that that threshold had not been met?

WILSON: No, not at all. I believe that we had to be aggressive in disarming and that the posture we had to take had to include the credible threat of force. And in order for that threat of force to be credible, we had to be prepared to use it.

What I disagreed with was the other agendas that were in play that led us to invade, conquer and now occupy Iraq.

Since that pesky "imminent threat" argument reappears, I refer the dedicated to my review of the most recent State of the Union Address, where we find "16 Words", and a lot more.

UPDATE: "Imminent" arrived sooner elsewhere. Hey, that coffee smells good!

Posted 8/02/2003 12:32:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Very Funny Soundbite


From blogger Ted Barlow:

"Just a few points. (I swear, I can quit any time...)"

I heard that.

Posted 8/02/2003 09:42:00 AM by The MinuteMan

More on The "Imminent Threat" From Iraq

From the AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A close aide to Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) says the Iraqi dictator did in fact get rid of his weapons of mass destruction but deliberately kept the world guessing about it in an effort to divide the international community and stave off a U.S. invasion.

The strategy, which turned out to be a serious miscalculation, was designed to make the Iraqi dictator look strong in the eyes of the Arab world, while countries such as France and Russia were wary of joining an American-led attack. At the same time, Saddam retained the technical know-how and brain power to restart the programs at any time.


OK, we had suggested this very notion back on July 4, and had identified Jeff Hauser as a the source on June 4, so we will accept a flood of congratulatory e-mails, and move on. The post below will peer at the President's State of the Union Address, and we will attempt to see just how "imminent" a threat the President described.

UPDATE: Hint to congratulatory e-mailers - "unusually astute" and "unexpectedly insightful" are somewhat back-handed compliments. Try to minimize the qualifiers, please.

And more on Saddam's subtle poker skills here.

Posted 8/02/2003 09:41:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Help For The Weary

The next post pokes through every corner of the 2003 State of the Union Address to see whether President Bush was describing Iraq as an imminent threat, or an ongoing, potential threat. It is (IMHO) pretty good, in a "too much free time" sort of way, but I understand that some of you have lives to live. So, here is the soundbite:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

Now, you can skip right past the long post by scrolling maniacially.

Have a great weekend.

Posted 8/02/2003 09:40:00 AM by The MinuteMan

The "Imminent Threat" And The President's Packet Of Lies!
or, We Reprise The 2003 State Of The Union Address

Administration critics have enjoyed their July pretending that the famous "16 Words" from the President's State of the Union Address defined the enitire Administration rationale for the war in Iraq.

To help those who have locked in on the "16 Words" to the exclusion of the other 5,000, we give you President Bush's 2003 State of the Union. NO, not the whole thing, we will zip through it. But first, for SportsCenter fans, here is your highlight clip:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

We will find that the President is quite clear on this point. Let the speech begin:


(Applause). Greetings. Many challenges. Schools. Economy. Jobs. Tax relief. Social Security is good, and so is health care. Tort reform! Energy independence, hydrogen, cleaner environment.

Faith based initiatives, Freedom Corps, drug addiction (he is opposed).

Finally, some relevant material. Our first trip overseas is this:

The qualities of courage and compassion that we strive for in America also determine our conduct abroad. The American flag stands for more than our power and our interests. Our founders dedicated this country to the cause of human dignity, the rights of every person, and the possibilities of every life. This conviction leads us into the world to help the afflicted, and defend the peace, and confound the designs of evil men.

Human rights. How about that?

Afghanistan, Middle East, lots on AIDS in Africa, and here comes the segue:

This nation can lead the world in sparing innocent people from a plague of nature. And this nation is leading the world in confronting and defeating the man-made evil of international terrorism.

War on terror, we have them on the run, Homeland Security, and we like this:

Our war against terror is a contest of will in which perseverance is power. In the ruins of two towers, at the western wall of the Pentagon, on a field in Pennsylvania, this nation made a pledge, and we renew that pledge tonight: Whatever the duration of this struggle, and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men -- free people will set the course of history. (Applause.)

They better applaud! Sounds like this war on terror is a long term propostion, too. The President continues:

Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation.

Fascinating. He seems to be discussing a hypothetical future threat, as well as the current state of play.

...Now, in this century, the ideology of power and domination has appeared again, and seeks to gain the ultimate weapons of terror.

Again, the potential threat.

...America is making a broad and determined effort to confront these dangers. We have called on the United Nations to fulfill its charter and stand by its demand that Iraq disarm.

Can't give up what you don't have, so this is consistent with the "he said they have weapons now" argument. Of course, the UN seemed to think so as well, but President Bush can't hide behind them forever.

The President mentions Iran, then Korea, including this:

...today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions. America and the world will not be blackmailed.

On to the last member of the Axis of Evil:

Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean Peninsula and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, with great potential wealth, will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States.

If the lesson of Korea means anything, it is that we should not allow Iraq to develop nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. That our goal is to stop Saddam now, before he is so armed, is, at a minimum, a plausible interpretation of the lead-in to the Iraq segment.

Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons -- not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities.

Pursuit, pursuit, pursuit of WMDs. Not possession.

Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. ...The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq's regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see, and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.

Next, a litany of Saddam's non-compliance. A flavor:

The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

Similarly with "38,000 liters of botulinum toxin" (UN sources), "the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent" (intelligence sources), "upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents" (US intelligence), and "several mobile biological weapons labs" (Three Iraqi defectors).

Next, we come to the sixteen words:

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

The first sentence, about the IAEA, I presume to be true. The uranium sentence has been noted. And the aluminum tube assertion is also troubling.

The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary; he is deceiving.

Followed by a recounting of Saddam's non-compliance, which I suspect was later affirmed by Hans Blix.

Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack.

At one time, he certainly did keep banned weapons hidden from UN inspectors.

With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region.

Again, forward looking.

And this Congress and the America people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

This ought to be controversial. Links between Saddam and other terrorist organizations were well known. The "members of al-Qaeda" are probably the Al-qaeda remnants in the valley in northern Iraq.

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.

My guess, based on polls showing how many Americans think Saddam was involved with 9/11, is that the public lost track of the difference between the past and the future in imagining this scenario.

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

We will pre-empt an emerging threat, as he implied earlier. This seems to directly confront and rebut the "imminent threat" position.

The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages -- leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured....

OK, "is assembling" suggests the effort is now. But I have been assembling a tree house for three months now, so I can see a different view quite easily.

A recital of human rights abuses in Iraq, then:

If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning. (Applause.)

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country -- your enemy is ruling your country. (Applause.) And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation. (Applause.)

The human rights argument.

The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, and our friends and our allies.

...We will consult. But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.

The mounting threat.

We have terrific troops (I agree), and

...A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all.

Finally, his big finish, and yes, there will be applause:

...we go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country.

Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. (Applause.)

We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do not know -- we do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.

May He guide us now. And may God continue to bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

OK, settle down.

First, as to the idea that the President emphasized human rights - well, he mentioned it, but I would not say he emphasized it.

Secondly, as to the idea that the President said "Saddam has weapons, the threat is imminent, we must act now", well, no, not in this speech, anyway.

Thirdly, this speech was far from all the Administration, or even President Bush, said on this topic. Obvious data points to ponder:

Dick Cheney on March 16 Meet The Press - problematic, but near the top of the show, he explains his thoughts on Saddam as follows:

"...if [Saddam] were tomorrow to give everything up, if he stays in power, we have to assume that as soon as the world is looking the other way and preoccupied with other issues, he will be back again rebuilding his BW and CW capabilities.."

Which is consistent with the picture of Saddam as a "continuing threat".

Here are links to the White House archives.

Don Rumsfeld's war aims.

Happy hunting!

Posted 8/02/2003 09:13:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Luckenbach For Kucinich
The Few, The Proud, (The Few).

And do check for her review of what seems to have been a recent forum for Democratic Presidential candidates. Sorry I missed it!

And (my secret sorrow), I found this to be pretty funny. No message discipline, but funny.

Posted 8/02/2003 09:00:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Be Careful Who You Demonize:

Interesting, but the "fellow traveler" quip may prompt a few people to leap off the bus.

Posted 8/02/2003 08:50:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Valerie Plame Wilson - August 2

Mark Kleiman sends us to a fascinating post at Riba Rambles. Evidently, the White House is meant to provide an annual report to the Congressional oversight committees on the procedures protecting covert agents. Does the annual report have pictures? We doubt it. And if it is simply a general description of policies and procedures, it might just gloss right over the Valerie Plame Wilson debacle.

Might an assertive Congress then reject the report as inadequate? Sure. But why wait? If they are so eager to know, they can have have a few hearings this fall, humiliate a few Admin aides under the bright lights, and settle this.

Oh, I'll say it with you - "As If".

Now, my other news is not nearly as exciting, but:

My anagramatic de-crypters assure me that "Valerie Plame Wilson", properly decoded, is "Ream Elvis; Lie now, pal".

That can't be good.

Timeline.

Posted 8/01/2003 10:10:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Valerie Plame Wilson - Aug. 1

Josh Marshall keeps the candle flickering with his latest post, in its entirety:

An investigation into the Valerie Plame affair does appear to be underway at the CIA.

I think something my shake loose on this - either hot news, or a "process" article somewhere about "the scandal that wasn't". I also think Mr. Marshall can do it, either way.

And I have to extends props for this series of posts. Generally, when I blunder I just stay in a death spiral; Mr. Marshall manages to twirl about and turn a bit of a miscue into some pretty funny material.

Posted 8/01/2003 03:52:00 PM by The MinuteMan

For Those Of You Scoring At Home

Glenn Reynolds links to Sen. Tom Daschle's web site, with the news that "TOM DASCHLE has discovered the blog."

I follow the link, and discover that the power of the InstaMan has delivered shock and awe to the government servers, which have clearly lost command and control.

So, having discovered the blog, Sen. Daschle has almost simultaneously discovered the crashed site.

A big first day! But he will truly be one of us when he discovers "mysteriously missing posts".

Trolls come later.

Posted 8/01/2003 03:10:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Nick Kristof On North Korea

Mr. Kristof opines on the situation with North Korea in "Grab The Nettle".

We're so used to the administration's hyping the Iraq threat that it's stunning to see officials playing down the North Korean crisis.

"If you wanted a case of imminent threat and danger, according to the principles enunciated in the National Security Strategy document, then North Korea is much more of a threat than Iraq ever was in the last few years," noted Jonathan Pollack, chairman of the strategic research department of the Naval War College.

First, an aside: is this Mr. Pollack any relation to the "Threatening Storm" Ken Pollack, and what are Thanksgiving dinners like at their house? I wonder about the dinner question with Bruce and Wendy Wasserstein, BTW.

Back to the task at hand. President Bush touched on the very point Mr. Kristof is making in his 2003 SOTU:

...today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions. America and the world will not be blackmailed.

President Bush then moves on to Iraq:

Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean Peninsula and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, with great potential wealth, will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States.

Any questions? We cannot let Iraq acquire the weapons North Korea has already acquired, and become the threat in the future that North Korea is today.

We then have some bipartisan blame-allocation:

In fairness, the North Korea mess is not President Bush's fault, nor, for that matter, President Bill Clinton's fault. It's Kim Jong Il's fault.

Don't blame the victim! And, his conclusion:

...To its credit, after initially botching the crisis, the administration has dropped its initial refusal to talk with the North until it gives up its nuclear programs. But Mr. Bush still hasn't grasped the nettle and accepted the need to engage North Korea and negotiate a new package deal.

A new deal is a lousy option, and perhaps no longer attainable. But as a growing number of people in the administration realize, it's worth trying — if only to strengthen our position if negotiations fail. Otherwise, we're slipping again into the Clinton administration's approach of largely doing nothing and hoping for North Korea to collapse on its own.

That was a failure of the Clinton years. It's even more foolish now that the North appears to be moving aggressively to become the world's first nuclear Wal-Mart.

UPDATE: Dr. Drezner explains all, with lots of links.

Posted 8/01/2003 02:47:00 PM by The MinuteMan

The NY Times Delivers The Snark

A. O. Scott does not like "Gigli", the new J-Lo / Ben Affleck collaboration:

Before we go any further, however, we should clear up the question of how to pronounce Larry's surname, and the title of the picture, in which Mr. Affleck is joined by his real-life fiancée, Jennifer Lopez. In places — especially the long denouement, set on a beach full of bikini-wearing extras — it is certainly jiggly. And audiences, at inappropriate moments, will find themselves helplessly giggly. But Larry's name is pronounced ZHEE-lee, or as he likes to say, "rhymes with really."

As in really, really silly, which is the kindest way to describe this hopelessly misconceived exercise in celebrity self-worship, which opens to nationwide ridicule today.

After that, the reviewer really lets loose. We suspect that writing the review of the film compensated for watching it.

UPDATE: If I had been reading instead of laughing, I would have gotten to this.

Posted 8/01/2003 01:59:00 PM by The MinuteMan

A Bit More On "The Futures On Terror"

Did anyone else connect the "futures on terror" to the Heisenberg Uncertainly Principle from quantum mechanics? I only saw it here, and now I am green.

Follow for more links, and more on Heisenberg.

Posted 8/01/2003 12:18:00 PM by The MinuteMan

Prof. Krugman's Ambitious Political Agenda

Some days we laugh, and some days we just smile out loud. In a too-good-to-finish column titled "State of Decline", the Earnest Prof launches our August with flair. At the risk of intruding on his subtle drolleries, I have inserted the briefest of annotations:

From smog to silicon, from the sexual revolution to the tax revolt, the future has usually arrived in California first. Now the Golden State [with a Democratic Governor and Democratic control of both Statehouses] is degenerating into a banana republic. Can the nation be far behind?

The recall isn't just a case of hardball politics. It's also a grand act of evasion: in the face of a severe fiscal crisis, voters are being invited to focus not on hard choices but on personality. Replacing [Democrat] Gray Davis with someone more likable isn't going to pay the bills.

And California's slide into irresponsibility, in which politicians refuse to acknowledge any connection between the government services the public demands and the taxes that pay for those services, is being replicated all across America.

Thanks to the end of the tech boom and the bursting of the tech bubble — with an assist from energy price gouging — California's budget has plunged into deficit. State and local governments faced with deficits normally respond with a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. That's what [ostensible Republican] Mayor Michael Bloomberg has done in New York, it's what [ridiculous Republican] Gov. Pete Wilson did in California's last fiscal crisis, in the early 1990's, and it's what Mr. Davis proposed earlier this year.

Brief pause. Surely, this is not the direction that the Professor wants to be going. But where is he taking us?

But California's Constitution requires that budgets be passed in the State Legislature by a two-thirds' margin — which gives the Republican minority blocking power. And that minority has refused either to vote for any tax increase, or to make realistic proposals for spending cuts.

Exhale. Neither California nor, by extension, our nation can be free until we have veto proof Democratic majorities. At the national level, the furrows will not lift from the brow of the Earnest Prof until we have 67 Democratic Senators, and Democrats as Speaker of the House and President.

Oh, we'll give you Chaffee. But anyway, our nation needs lots more Dem Senators, and at least one more President, and a few Congressfolks.

I am sure he thinks this is bad news. Well, everything I want to know about California is right here. Have a great weekend, all.

Posted 8/01/2003 11:03:00 AM by The MinuteMan

I Am Nonplussed

Hearings will begin today on the circumstances under which Dr. Kelly died. Dr. Kelly, you recall, was identifed as the source for a controversial BBC report which claimed that the Blair team had "sexed-up" the intelligence on WMDs in order to strengthen the case for war with Iraq.

His death has been widely reported as a probable suicide - the man was under tremendous pressure, and he was found with his wrists slashed, with painkillers nearby.

Today, however, Lord Hutton, who will oversee the inquiry, revealed this:

...Dr Kelly's body had been found with four electrocardiogram pads on his chest -- one of the mysteries he wished to unravel.

What? If some sinister third party staged a suicide, why leave this? Or, if it was a suicide, what is up with the pads?

Or, are we about to find out that Dr. Kelly, on top of his other worries, was being treated for a heart condition? But this explanation seems so obvious that one wonders why it is being characterized as a mystery - surely investigators would have learned of a medical situation by now.

The Vince Foster crowd will never get over this.

Posted 8/01/2003 12:16:00 AM by The MinuteMan

Gray Davis - Not A Ladies' Man?

Mickey provides some "I'd love to go out for dinner, but I am doing my hair tonight... and tomorrow night... and the next night" data points.