Lawrence v. Texas and marriage:

a little delayed, but I saw this as I was shifting through my computer- thought I'd post it here for kicks...

The ruling:
Many commentaries are critical that Justice Kennedy failed to clearly articulate: 1) whether there is a fundamental right to consensual sexual activity, and 2) the standard of review applied (strict scrutiny or rational basis). Thus, the critics contend that it is difficult to find the guiding law from this case. I do not agree—there are clear principles in the case:
1) The case rules on Substantive Due Process grounds. The plaintiffs are “free as adults to engage in the private conduct in the exercise of their liberty under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.” See beginning of § II. While Justice Kennedy does not go the typical route in Substantive Due Process (finding a fundamental route and then applying strict scrutiny), it is not clear that his chosen route is inadequate. Rather, Kennedy establishes consensual sexual activity within the boundary of protected privacy under the precedents of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, Meyer v. Nebraska, Griswold v. Connecticut, Eisenstadt v. Baird and Roe v. Wade.
2) Bowers v. Hardwick is overturned. This is the precedent case that contained many similar facts to Lawrence. There, as here, police officers observed two adult males engaging in intimate sexual conduct with each other. In Bowers, the court upheld a Georgia sodomy statute. Finding no fundamental right to engage in sodomy, that court applied rational basis review—considering historical roots and the legislature’s valid enforcement of morals.
a. In Lawrence, Kennedy calls into question the historical roots relied upon in Bowers. He also makes it clear that morality alone will no longer serve as a legitimate government purpose in creating legislation. See pg 7 of my printout.
3) The court’s ruling is limited in scope: the case involves “two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle.” This limitation—namely consent and adulthood—is an important to the established precedent on privacy law.
a. Kennedy gives an extended list of what the case is not about; in summary, it does not involve minors, persons that might be injured or coerced, prostitution, or whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter. From his list, we can see that legislation with purposes including public safety or legal relationships remains valid under Lawrence. What Kennedy says in this opinion is that the court can find no purpose in the Texas sodomy law other than morality. As such, the law cannot survive in light of it’s invading the liberty interest involved.

While this case should certainly make invalid the existing North Carolina sodomy laws, it has no direct on marriage. This is made clear by Kennedy’s insistence that the case does not involve a government’s legal recognition of relationships. However, note Ms. Grossman’s argument in FindLaw that the interest in marrying a person of the same sex is at least as strong as the interest I intimate sexual relations. She notes that it will be strange if the court recognizes a right to all forms of intimate relations without recognizing the right to a “permanent, legally sanctioned” relationship.
I disagree with her reasoning because at center of Lawrence is a privacy interest—and marriage is not a private affair. It is a legally recognized institution, and thus, appropriately in the public sphere. Kennedy argues that the government has no place in the bedroom of consenting adults engaged in non-harmful activity. The liberty interest that protects this conduct is in no way analogous to the liberty interest in marriage. There, a couple seeks a formal recognition of their relationship that extends beyond the private sphere. Indeed, one might say marriage is the public manifestation of a private relationship. Because government is the entity that deems a marriage valid, it is necessarily involved. Conversely, Kennedy could find no legitimate reason for the government’s involvement in adult, consensual sex.
It is my opinion that another case is needed to bridge the gap created (or recognized) by Lawrence between private and public. This will be either an Equal Protection case (marriage laws discriminate against gay couples) or a Substantive Due Process case that finds a fundamental right to marriage extending to gay couples.

Israel blog

Micah reflects on a recent visit to the West Bank...

well i have finally done it.
i finally got to spend some time in the embattled settelments of the wet bank.
it was incredible, just amazing. i got to take a bullet proof bus. and hang out
with the villains, the settlers. these are beautiful people who love hashem and
believe him, when he promised the land of israel to the jews. i dont have much
time, but when you spend shabbos with people who are willing to put their
lives, and the lives of their families on the line for to strengthen their ties
to hakodesh boruchu (the holy one, or another name of god) it is a truly life
enhancing occasion. on the other hand i am having an awesome timehere in Ir
Hakodesh (another name for Jerusalem. Literally translated as the Holy City) i
am walking everywhere. and that is saying something in a city built on numerous
mountains. today i walked a huge distance. i feel great. i hope everyone is
well in NC.
micah p cooper
p.s. i had planned on writing more, but i have to get to class, which is
awesome. and i still have quite a long walk back to my yeshiva

casino

and the flamingo it is. i spent the last week educating myself on the history, attractions, and relative pool size of almost every lodging in vegas; and am now happy to give the search its rest, having settled on the elder (but newly worked) flamingo. the promise of seeing penguins by the wonder-pool and an special offer that gives me a few free drinks won the day.
now its on to my two other brothers to plan the rest of the trip (booking vegas was my corner). elder jon wants to see roswell.
we'll promise to throw some pics of the trip on this site to add some color.

flypaper...or fly-creator?

Talking Points Memo has a response to the flypaper theory floating around about our presence in Iraq -- the theory that the fighting in Iraq has become a theater of the war on terror--in that we are attracting the terrorists to Iraq and fighting them there (you can see the analogy to flypaper). Marshall points out that this theory reeks of simplicity.

But isn't the main fallacy that there isn't some finite number of "terrorists" out there whom we can draw to one place, kill or arrest, and then be done with it? I mean, let's be honest: Is there really any shortage of these dudes? Are they gonna run out?

Do you remember Afghanistan? Not this 'Afghanistan', but the last 'Afghanistan.' The US-Pakistan-backed jihad against the Soviets made Afghanistan into a sort of jihad Club-Med where young Saudis could go for a few weeks or months of firing guns and fighting for God. (Of course, some stayed on rather longer.)

Good point, indeed.

I've stayed away from discussions of recalls in the Golden state. In lieu of my own two cents, here's a link to an interesting article on the subject. Vikram David Amar and Alan Brownstein look into the argument that "suggests at least part of California's recall process, California Elections Code §11382, violates the United States Constitution under U.S Supreme Court precedent."

Been putting together plans over this past weekend for a trip across the country with my two brothers. The younger, Adam, is moving out to L.A. having finished up his film studies. The elder, Jon, and myself are going along ostensibly to help the boy move in. I've spent the past severeal days in deep thought over the choice of hotels in Vegas- I'm leaning to the Palms, off the strip (I want to lay by the pool all day), or Mirage on the Strip. (please leave any suggestions below).
In any event, the happenings will be blogged.

Go listen to Nina Totenberg's story on yesterday's vote in the judiciary committee on sending Pryor to a vote- and explain to me why I shouldn't think the GOP are a bunch of thugs.
This commercial sent out by the GOP, declaring that the Democrats are discriminating against Pryor because of his Catholicism is especially distressing, because of the layers of intellectual dishonesty involved. Listen to Totenberg's story to see why.
The commercial, put out by a group supporting President Bush's judicial nominees, showed a locked courthouse door with a sign reading, "Catholics need not apply." During Pryor's confirmation hearings, Senator Hatch, asked him to acknowledge that his beliefs stemmed from his strict Catholicism. The beliefs being those of anti-abortion and favoring policies to further the role of Christianity in public life. The GOP ad bluntly says that the Democrats, because of Pryor's Catholicism, are blocking the nominee.
Hmmm...the GOP and that 'technically true' thinking: Here, the GOP is asserting a discriminatory effect- because Catholicism doctine opposes abortion, and becasue Democrats traditionally oppose anti-abortion judges, the Democrats oppose Catholics. Pretty nifty reasoning, ain't it?
Of course, that's B.S. Democrats don't oppose anti-abortion judges, they oppose judges that rule on their own principles rather than the principle of law. One's beliefs regarding abortion should never dictate their role as judge- and any Democrat that turns down a nominee on that belief I will disagree with forever. However, it is certainly right to have concerns about a judge who was nominated largely because of his anti-abortion views- and with the expectation that the judge would rule in accordance with those views. Why, it is perfectly obvious to wonder, is this belief such a qualifying criteria in the selection of judges? Namely, does the nomination of judges who despise Roe v. Wade arise out of an academic agrement that that decision was a mess- or does it arise out of a mutual hatred of abortion, and an expectation that the judge will do whatever possible to end abortion? If this is the case, the judge is an activist who cares more about his agenda than about the particular case before him.
Further, as was mentioned in the comittee meeting, Cathlolics oppose the death penalty. And even though Antonin Scalia gave a speech once arguing that those opposed to the death penalty should perhaps not be judges, I submit that such judges make perfectly wonderful judges to the extent that their belief does not capture their legal mind. Is Scalia anti-Catholic for his remarks? Seeing that he is a Catholic, I doubt it. I'm guessing that he is arguing that the anti-death penalty belief causes judges to slip into activist roles. Much is similar to anti-abortion judges. The Dems should have Scalia explain all this to the GOP.

Perhaps I should summarize my complaints as such: it is too simplistic to "wave the bloody shirt" of discrimination in this circumstance. Or more directly, it is a corrupt deception.

Note: I am being overly simplistic on the Scalia/Catholicism/death penalty discussion. For greater depth, see the forum in the National Catholic register here, and here.

Good one from Safire, on that the House vote yesterday to reject the FCC's recent rule-change; and Bush's veto threat (Bush is pro-Rule change).

The Four Horsemen [Viacom (CBS, UPN), Disney (ABC), Murdoch's News Corporation (Fox) and G.E. (NBC)]were confident they could get Bush to suppress a similar revolt in the House, where G.O.P. discipline is stricter. When liberals and conservatives of both parties in the House surprised them by passing a rollback amendment to an Appropriations Committee bill, the Bush administration issued what bureaucrats call a SAP — a written Statement of Administration Policy.

It was the sappiest SAP of the Bush era. "If this amendment were contained in the final legislation presented to the President," warned the administration letter, "his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill."

We'll see what happens. Safire suggests a way out for Bush- don't follow the advisers' advise.

It's time to talk
Josh Marshall pulls alot together in this article from yesterday's TPM; an attempt to show the importance of pre-war discussion. Namely, he answers to the question of 'who cares how Bush sold the war?'

Because it is a concrete, demonstrable example of the administration's bad faith in how it led the country to war.

The article has a greater point to it- almost a question really. The general idea is this: To what extent should we, as voters, want our leaders to decide on a course of action and pursue it without full disclosure to the public. Let me quote some material here:

But over time after 9/11 one overriding theory of the war did take shape: it was to get America irrevocably on the ground in the center of the Middle East (thus fundamentally reordering the strategic balance in the region), bring to a head the country's simmering conflict with its enemies in the region, and kick off a democratic transformation of the region which would over time dissipate the root causes of anti-American terrorism and violence: autocracy, poverty and fanaticism.

That is why we are in Iraq today. That is the theory of this war. I have little doubt that many in the administration and in certain think-tanks in DC who really don't like much of what they've been reading on this website recently will have little to disagree with in that description.

And here comes the kicker:

It's important to note that this theory of the war actually does have a lot to do with stopping terrorism and the generalized instability of region -- but in a way that is almost infinitely more complex than the Saddam-WMD-hand -off-to-al-Qaida idea that the administration pushed in the build-up to the war.

It's much more complicated, much more complex, and vastly more difficult to achieve. It's not that the main war-hawks didn't believe there were WMD or that rooting them out wouldn't have been a great coup for US national security. But it is almost as if administration war-hawks told the public a vastly simplified, fairy-tale version of the Iraq war's connection to stopping terrorism and justified this benign deception because the story contained a deeper truth, almost in the way we tell children similar stories because their minds aren't advanced enough to grasp or process all the factual details connected to the lessons or messages we're trying to convey. Got all that? Good.

So, to use Marshall's analogy, should we be told fairy tales? This is not a thetorical question- it is something on which I'm undecided. There is no way for an administration to fully educate the electorate, nor should it. We elect these folks to act as proxy policy wonks, don't we. Furthermore, it is odd to imagine every politician pitching their plans with concessions on the weakness of the idea.
On the other hand, there is, perhaps, a line. Usually, while a politician can't/won't outline every detail of a proposed policy, we do assume that the goal, the end result, is as they portray it. Thus, while we don't learn every detail of a health care plan, we hold the leader accountable to their promise of, eg, cheaper drugs, broader coverage, or what have you. Marshall's point in this article is that we were duped regarding the goal of the war; we were told a "fairy tale" that was oversimplified possibly to the extent of straghtaway deception. And we were handed this line by people who, it seems, do not think we deserved to think through the complex issue and deliberate.
Its time to have a discussion. Not so much about african uranium, but about what we want as voters. Apathy or responsibility. I choose the latter.

Say the GOP, federalism when convenient

You'll see examples of this alot (think, federal tort claims regulation)-- and Dionne's opinion article, Defending States' Rights -- Except on Wall Street, has some good language on the intellectual 180s some folks will turn.

States' rights are a matter of high principle -- except when they become inconvenient to some powerful interest group. Then they can be ignored or swept aside.

That lesson, taught over and over, will be put to the test again, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. That's when the House Financial Services Committee may take up a proposal that would sharply restrict the power of state regulators to oversee the securities industry. The measure, introduced by Rep. Richard Baker, a Louisiana Republican, would prevent state regulators from working independently of the federal Securities and Exchange Commission in seeking structural changes in the way brokerage houses and investment banks work.
...
States may have a lot of rights, but if they embarrass a few Wall Street firms, the power of big government in Washington will be brought in to stop them. So it seems to Spitzer, a Democrat. "The federalism of the Republican Party seems to apply when the issue is the rights of the poor, and they want to leave that to the states," Spitzer said in an interview. "But when it comes to using power to help their corporate patrons, they bring it back to Washington."

And to be fair, there are principled Republicans:

Strong words? Some Republicans are also worried about the inconsistencies on display in this battle. "As Republicans, we do believe in states' rights, state prerogatives and state control," said Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican who, like Baker, is a senior member of the Financial Services Committee.

Before Congress cuts back on state authority, King continued, "we need very compelling evidence, and right now the evidence goes the other way. It's state officials who have been cracking down on corporate corruption."

I point out this story because I hear the tenth amendment states-rights argument all the time. Honestly, I'm a local power guy myself- local government law is certainly the closest we get to direct democracy; and more importantly, acocuntability. But it is difficult, in a three tiered power system (I refer to local, state, and federal) to hold absolutes on wherein the most power shall lie. In my mind, its a case by case discussion. But what really irks me is to hear someone argue for state-power (to further accountability and connection to voters) but then balk at local government power. If one really wants the decision maker close to the voters, put that power in the city hall.

What boggles the mind is the extent to which the story of questionable spinning in leading up to the war is portrayed as a suprising turn of events.
Certainly I understand that a big news story (sadly) is big largely because of timing- but this doesn't abate my sadness. 1) the story is probably big now because of the less-than success we're seeing with Iraq. But if duping the country into a war is wrong, it should be as such regardless of the war's relative ease. If there was no threat like the threat we were cautioned of, then the use of force is just as wrongheaded whether or not there is a guirilla uprising.
2) has the wisdom of forethought been lost? I regret that our society, in this endeavor, seems to have jumped before looking. We've been duped (I'd say by the press) that making bone-headed decisions without cautious delay is 'bold' and a sign of 'leadership.' This is a false notion that I hope we are sooon cured of.

So, I wanted to link here to a plethora of blogs from January and February that sounded out the concerns of whether we're being deceived by questionable intel, whether it is not wiser to let the inspections work, whether it is wise to poo-poo the security council, whether a greater danger might be posed by a deposed Hussein who feels free to give any existing weapons to terrorists, and etc.
But, (thank you Minute Man) I have been directed to a letter sent by Congressman Waxman to Mr. Bush on March 17, expressing very well the misgivings felt by so many at the time. Waxman, mind you, voted to condemn Iraq and authorize necessary force:

Despite serious misgivings, I supported the resolution because I believed congressional approval would significantly improve the likelihood of effective U.N. action. Equally important, I believed that you had access to reliable intelligence information that merited deference.
Like many other members, I was particularly influenced by your views about Iraq's nuclear intentions. Although chemical and biological weapons can inflict casualties, no argument for attacking Iraq is as compelling as the possibility of Saddam Hussein brandishing nuclear bombs. That, obviously, is why the evidence in this area is so crucial, and why so many have looked to you for honest and credible information on Iraq's nuclear capability.

So, the purpose of the letter?

In the last ten days, however, it has become incontrovertibly clear that a key piece of evidence you and other Administration officials have cited regarding Iraq's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons is a hoax. What's more, the Central Intelligence Agency questioned the veracity of the evidence at the same time you and other Administration officials were citing it in public statements. This is a breach of the highest order, and the American people are entitled to know how it happened.
The evidence in question is correspondence that indicates that Iraq sought to obtain nuclear material from an African country, Niger. For several months, this evidence has been a central part of the U.S. case against Iraq. On December 19, the State Department filed a response to Iraq's disarmament declaration to the U.N. Security Council. The State Department response stated: "The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger." A month later, in your State of the Union address, you stated: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Defense Secretary Rumsfeld subsequently cited the evidence in briefing reporters.

It has now been conceded that this evidence was a forgery. On March 7, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, reported that the evidence that Iraq sought nuclear materials from Niger was not authentic. As subsequent media accounts indicated, the evidence contained crude errors, such as a childlike signature and the use of stationary from a military government in Niger that has been out of power for over a decade.

Even more troubling, however, the CIA, which has been aware of this information since 2001, has never regarded the evidence as reliable. The implications of this fact are profound: it means that a key part of the case you have been building against Iraq is evidence that your own intelligence experts at the Central Intelligence Agency do not believe is credible.

It is hard to imagine how this situation could have developed. The two most obvious explanations, knowing deception or unfathomable incompetence, both have immediate and serious implications. It is thus imperative that you address this matter without delay and provide an alternative explanation, if there is one.

The rest of this letter will explain my concerns in detail.

Ah screw it...I was going to refer you to the letter at this point, but I'm going to paste it on here. His laying out the issue is thoughtful and detailed. That reason alone is worth its reading. But again, I can't understand why, in a country of thoughtful people, these issues weren't addressed head on. My suspicion, if I remember correctly, is that to have done so would have been dubbed unpatriotic. Well...to echo the great line, if thoughtful inquiry and deliberation is wrong, then I don't wanna be right.
Here's the rest of the letter (see Waxman's web-site for footnotes):

The evidence that Iraq sought to purchase uranium from an African country was first revealed by the British government on September 24, 2002, when Prime Minister Tony Blair released a 50-page report on Iraqi efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. As the New York Times reported in a front-page article, one of the two "chief new elements" in the report was the claim that Iraq had "sought to acquire uranium in Africa that could be used to make nuclear weapons." [1]

This evidence subsequently became a significant part of the U.S. case against Iraq. On December 7, Iraq filed its weapons declaration with the United Nations Security Council. The U.S. response relied heavily on the evidence that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Africa. For example, this is how the New York Times began its front-page article on December 13 describing the U.S. response:

American intelligence agencies have reached a preliminary conclusion that Iraq's 12,000 page declaration of its weapons program fails to account for chemical and biological agents missing when inspectors left Iraq four years ago, American officials and United Nations diplomats said today.
In addition, Iraq's declaration on its nuclear program, they say, leaves open a host of questions. Among them is why Iraq was seeking to buy uranium in Africa in recent years. [2]

The official U.S. response was provided on December 19, when Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the Security Council. As the Los Angeles Times reported, "A one-page State Department fact sheet . . . lists what Washington considers the key omissions and deceptions in Baghdad's Dec. 7 weapons declaration."[3] One of the eight key omissions and deceptions was the failure to explain Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country.

Specifically, the State Department fact sheet contains the following points under the heading "Nuclear Weapons": "The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger. Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?" A copy of this fact sheet is enclosed with this letter.

The Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Africa were deemed significant enough to be included in your State of the Union address to Congress. You stated: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."[4] As the Washington Post reported the next day, "the president seemed quite specific as he ticked off the allegations last night, including the news that Iraq had secured uranium from Africa for the purpose of making nuclear bombs."[5]

A day later, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at a news briefing that Iraq "recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."[6]

Knowledge of the Unreliability of the Evidence

The world first learned that the evidence linking Iraq to attempts to purchase uranium from Africa was forged from the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei. On March 7, Director ElBaradei reported to the U.N. Security Council:

Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents "which formed the basis for reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger" are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded. [7]
Recent accounts in the news media have provided additional details. According to the Washington Post, the faked evidence included "a series of letters between Iraqi agents and officials in the central African nation of Niger."[8] The article stated that the forgers "made relatively crude errors that eventually gave them away" including names and titles that did not match up with the individuals who held office at the time the letters were purportedly written.[9] CNN reported:

"one of the documents purports to be a letter signed by Tandjia Mamadou, the president of Niger, talking about the uranium deal with Iraq. On it [is] a childlike signature that is clearly not his. Another, written on paper from a 1980s military government in Niger, bears the date of October 2000 and the signature of a man who by then had not been foreign minister of Niger for 14 years. "[10]
U.S. intelligence officials had doubts about the veracity of the evidence long before Director ElBaradei's report. The Los Angeles Times reported on March 15 that "the CIA first heard allegations that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger in late 2001" when "the existence of the documents was reported to [the CIA] second- or third-hand." The Los Angeles Times quotes one CIA official as saying: "We included that in some of our reporting, although it was all caveated because we had concerns about the accuracy of that information."[11] The Washington Post reported on March 13: "The CIA . . . had questions about 'whether they were accurate,' said one intelligence official, and it decided not to include them in its file on Iraq's program to procure weapons of mass destruction." [12]

There have been suggestions by some Administration officials that there may be other evidence besides the forged documents that shows Iraq tried to obtain uranium from an African country. For instance, CIA officials recently stated that "U.S. concerns regarding a possible uranium agreement between Niger and Iraq were not based solely on the documents which are now known to be fraudulent." The CIA provided this other information to the IAEA along with the forged documents. After reviewing this complete body of evidence, the IAEA stated: "we have found to date no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq."[13] Ultimately, the IAEA concluded that "these specific allegations are unfounded."[14]

Questions
These facts raise troubling questions. It appears that at the same time that you, Secretary Rumsfeld, and State Department officials were citing Iraq's efforts to obtain uranium from Africa as a crucial part of the case against Iraq, U.S. intelligence officials regarded this very same evidence as unreliable. If true, this is deeply disturbing: it would mean that your Administration asked the U.N. Security Council, the Congress, and the American people to rely on information that your own experts knew was not credible.

Your statement to Congress during the State of the Union, in particular, raises a host of questions. The statement is worded in a way that suggests it was carefully crafted to be both literally true and deliberately misleading at the same time. The statement itself "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" may be technically accurate, since this appears to be the British position. But given what the CIA knew at the time, the implication you intended, that there was credible evidence that Iraq sought uranium from Africa, was simply false.

To date, the White House has avoided explaining why the Administration relied on this forged evidence in building its case against Iraq. The first Administration response, which was provided to the Washington Post, was w'e fell for it.' [15] But this is no longer credible in light of the information from the CIA. Your spokesman, Ari Fleischer, was asked about this issue at a White House news briefing on March 14, but as the following transcript reveals, he claimed ignorance and avoided the question:

Q: Ari, as the president said in his State of the Union address, the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. And since then, the IAEA said that those were forged documents.
Mr. Fleischer: I'm sorry, whose statement was that?

Q: The President, in his State of the Union address. Since then, the IAEA has said those were forged documents. Was the administration aware of any doubts about these documents, the authenticity of the documents, from any government agency or department before it was submitted to the IAEA?
Mr. Fleisher: These are matters that are always reviewed with an eye toward the various information that comes in and is analyzed by a variety of different people. The President's concerns about Iraq come from multiple places, involving multiple threats that Iraq can possess, and these are matters that remain discussed.

Thank you [end of briefing]. [16]
Plainly, more explanation is needed. I urge you to provide to me and to the relevant committees of Congress a full accounting of what you knew about the reliability of the evidence linking Iraq to uranium in Africa, when you knew this, and why you and senior officials in the Administration presented the evidence to the U.N. Security Council, the Congress, and the American people without disclosing the doubts of the CIA. In particular, I urge you to address:

Whether CIA officials communicated their doubts about the credibility of the forged evidence to other Administration officials, including officials in the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, and the White House;


Whether the CIA had any input into the "Fact Sheet" distributed by the State Department on December 19, 2002; and


Whether the CIA reviewed your statement in the State of the Union address regarding Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Africa and, if so, what the CIA said about the statement.
Given the urgency of the situation, I would appreciate an expeditious response to these questions.

Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Ranking Minority Member

So we come to find out that the source of the Niger intel was an Italian journalist? Her paper, Panorama, refused to run with the story because the document seemed fake.
And to top it off, the owner of said weekly is Silvio Berlusconi, who is currently 'clearing brush' in Crawford with our favorite blow dried cowboy as we speak.

Body and Soul, Calpundit, and the Associated Press, via LA Times have the story.

Corriere della Sera, an Italian daily, quoted Elisabetta Burba as saying her source "in the past proved to be reliable." Burba, who writes for the weekly Panorama, refused to reveal her source.

"I realized that this could be a worldwide scoop, but that's exactly why I was very worried," Burba was quoted as saying. "If it turned out to be a hoax and I published it, I would have ended my career."

I wonder if it's forgery-nature will end someone's career?

Corriere della Sera quoted the journalist as saying she went to Niger to try to check out the authenticity of the documents. Burba told the paper that she was suspicious because the documents spoke of such a large amount of uranium — 500 tons — and were short on details on how it would be transported and arrangements for final delivery.

On her return, she said, she told Panorama's top editor that "the story seemed fake to me." After discussions at the magazine, which is owned by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Burba brought the documents to the U.S. Embassy.

"I went by myself and give them the dossier. No one said anything more to me, and in any case the decision not to publish it was already taken — with no further way to check out the reliability of those papers, we chose not to risk" it, she said.

It's nice to know that our President's State of the Union addresses have a lower standard of accountability than an Italian tabloid.

I was set to launch into a wee dissent from Safire's opinion article from this morning's Times; but, Mr. Marshall has already surpassed any work that I could do. Go read his TPM on this.
I'm somewhat bummed, in light of the string of consents I and Safire shared lately. But Marshall's final paragragh sums up this latest:

Let's be honest. Homefront disputes over war aims, justifications and policy are seldom helpful to the conduct of a war, at least in an immediate operational sense. But accountability and responsibility are so alien to these people that the responsibility for their manipulations, reckless enthusiasm and lack of planning rests not with them, but on the shoulders of those who now choose to call them on it.

In fact, I think this might give too much. Though the readership of this blog most likely would be the choir to whom I'd be preaching, I will lay out at least one clear post on just why it is of utmost importance to inquire as deeply as possible into the use of intellegence and the "selling" of this war.
Anyone who guff-aws at the use of "selling" here must not have been in the U.S. for the months/year leading up to April, 2003. The war was unquestionably sold in the sense that the Administration wanted the American public to support its initiation. Nothing wrong with that. The questions we need to answer, as a voting public, are: 1) 'what degree of spin will we tolerate from our leaders when they lay out reasons for war?' and 2) 'with what degree of trust will we absorb what they say?'

blogs were made for isolated thoughts, right?:

Is Hamlet a response to the Platonic warning that the unexamined life is not worth living? Is Shakespeare countering that, perhaps, the over-examined life carries a few problems of its own?

findlaw commentary today

Two good pieces, one topical, the other academic.
first, an excellent essay by John Dean pulling together the uraniumgate issue- into a more thoughtful analysis of 8 facts claimed in the state of the union address. What is especially helpful is his structure--Dean quotes the relevant section of the speech, and the cites (with links) the documentation relied upon.
After chronicling the facts, and finding them misleading, Dean asks whether this is a crime (again, citing the relevant statute.

This 1934 provision makes it a serious offense to give a false information to Congress. It is little used, but has been actively available since 1955. That year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Bramblet that the statute could be used to prosecute a Congressman who made a false statement to the Clerk of the Disbursing Office of the House of Representatives, for Congress comes under the term "department" as used in the statutes.

After which he discusses some precedent of its use. Dean also looks into the need for a special prosecuter now; despite the statute's being void. But:

Because that law has expired, if President Bush truly has nothing to hide, he should appoint a special prosecutor. After all, Presidents Nixon and Clinton, when not subject to the Independent Counsel law, appointed special prosecutors to investigate matters much less serious. If President Bush is truly the square shooter he portrays himself to be, he should appoint a special prosecutor to undertake an investigation.

Finally, some "Polk precedent":

Bush is not the first president to make false statements to Congress when taking the nation to war. President Polk lied the nation into war with Mexico so he could acquire California as part of his Manifest Destiny. It was young Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln who called for a Congressional investigation of Polk's warmongering.

Lincoln accused Polk of "employing every artifice to work round, befog, and cover up" the reasons for war with Mexico. Lincoln said he was "fully convinced, of what I more than suspect already, that [Polk] is deeply conscious of being wrong." In the end, after taking the president to task, the House of Representatives passed a resolution stating that the war with Mexico had been "unnecessary and unconstitutionally commenced by the President."

Not unlike Polk, Bush is currently hanging onto a very weak legal thread - claiming his statement about the Niger uranium was technically correct because he said he was relying on the British report. But that makes little difference: if Bush knew the British statement was likely wrong, then he knowingly made a false statement to Congress. One can't hide behind a source one invokes knowing it doesn't hold water.

The next article I will limit myself to commending to you. It is a review of Daniel Farber's Lincoln's Constitution . Farber argues that Lincoln did not act unconstitutionally (as many scholars will disagree) and that southern secession was illegal (with which many scholars disagree. A quick snapshot of the review:

In Lincoln's Constitution, Farber offers a concise synthesis of the pertinent history, extended discussion of Lincoln's reasons for his actions, and elegant analysis of the relevant issues. For these reasons alone, the book is worth reading.

But Farber also goes further, to address the potential contemporary relevance of some of the issues that Lincoln face. Thus, he gracefully integrates into his discussion recent cases raising similar questions concerning civil liberties, federalism, and separation of powers.

Sounds good...

Donald Rumsfield, postmodernist:

"The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass murder. We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light through the prism of our experience on Sept. 11.

Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee
7/9/2003

I thought it was Stanley Fish I saw Rummy having that martini with. Proabably discussing truth as perception, and the ultimate unvarifiability of all perceptions. I am certainly gdad to to see his embrace of the mature thinking.

The Most Important Story of the Day

This is just out from the New York Times. Both immediatly pertinent, and timeless. A beautiful piece of journalism.

ELGIN, Scotland: IAN URQUHART, a gently spoken, 55-year-old Scotch whiskey man who heads the firm of Gordon & MacPhail, led the way through his firm's 6,000-barrel warehouses here in northeastern Scotland, identifying some of the choicest lots for an overseas visitor.

"That's 60-year-old Mortlach," he said fondly. "We bottled some of it in 2000 and more in 2001. There's still a little left. That cask was filled for my grandfather. It slept right through my father's generation."

He walked past a cask of 1949 Benromach with the comment, "Haven't decided when to bottle that," past 10 casks of 1951 Glen Grant in an aisle with barrels piled eight or nine high, past 1957 Glenlivet and 1988 Highland Park — the best all-round malt, many say — and on to the "graveyard." Whiskeys from defunct distilleries rest there, quietly eking out a kind of afterlife.

"Hillside," Mr. Urquhart said, in the tone of a man mourning a lost friend. "Demolished for a housing scheme. Seventy-eight Millburn. Millburn's gone, too. It's a Beefeater Steak House these days, outside of Inverness." Scots take their whiskey seriously, and not just because they fancy a wee dram themselves. (Or not so wee a dram; Lord Dundee, who drank his whiskey by the tumblerful, once said, "A single Scotch is nothing more than a dirty glass.")

The word whiskey, after all, evolved from the Gaelic word usquebaugh, which means water of life, exactly like eau de vie in French and aquavit in Scandinavian languages.

Some cultural advice:

Most Scots and connoisseurs from other countries drink blends, which are generally less expensive, if they want to mix their whiskey with water or soda in a predinner drink, and take their single malts neat, either before, during or, most commonly, after dinner, like Cognac or Calvados. The addition of ice to a blend is tolerated as an American eccentricity; the addition of ice to a single malt is treated as near-sacrilege.

Some history and practical knowledge:

Once upon a time, whiskey was an artisanal product, produced by farmers in the wintertime when they could not work out of doors. The process is simple, if exacting, as Johnny Miller, the distillery manager at Glenfarclas, showed me. After threshing, barley is first of all allowed to germinate by soaking in water, then dried (usually over peat fires) to halt germination.

Ground and mixed with hot water in a huge vat called a malt tun, the malted barley becomes a wort. Mixed in another vat called a washback with yeast — water, barley and yeast are the only ingredients permitted in making whiskey — the wort is transformed in about 48 hours into "a kind of sour beer," as Mr. Miller explained, in a seething, noisy and rather smelly process.
The "sour beer," known as "wash," is then run successively through a pair of heated stills, bulbous at the bottom, narrow at the top, with a swan's neck extending down to a coiled copper pipe in a tank of cold water that converts the resulting vapor back into liquid. The first part of the run (the foreshots) and the last (the feints), both full of impurities, are eliminated.

What results may not, by law, be called whiskey; it must be aged in wood for three years before it earns that name. Mr. Miller let me taste some, and I was astonished. Though fruit, of course, had played no role in distilling it, it tasted distinctly of pears and plums, like French eaux de vie.

The amount and type of peat burned helps to shape the taste of the whiskey. So does the character of the water; what is used at Glenfarclas flows down from a granite mountain called Ben Rinnes.

Glenfarclas is one of the last distilleries in private hands. Most of the others are owned by big international corporations with roots in France (Pernod Ricard), Japan (Suntory), Cuba (Bacardi) and Spain (Allied Domecq), as well as in England and Scotland. All operate in basically the same way, with subtle yet important differences.

Jim Cryle, the master distiller at Glenlivet, a muscular man with steel gray hair, offered me insights into the process, along with sips of his 12-, 18- and 21-year-old Scotches, among others, of which the flowery, creamy 18 was my favorite. The following, he said, are among the most important determinants of flavor:

The size and shape of the still (tall ones, he thinks, are best) and how it is heated (by internal steam coils or fires); what kind of cask is used (old bourbon barrels, old sherry butts, new oak), how long the whiskey is kept in wood (once it is bottled, the maturing process stops), where (a damp cellar or a dry one) and by whom (the distiller or an independent merchant like Gordon & MacPhail or William Cadenhead).

Though not as much as with wines, the year of production has an impact, too. Macallan, a highly regarded distillery surrounded by fields of highly regarded Golden Promise barley, offers 26 vintages; an American recently paid $140,000 for a fifth of each. No wonder Macallan's stills are pictured on the reverse of the Bank of Scotland's £10 note.

Must be aged three years, eh? So law dictates the terms of whiskey production...there's still hope I can one day be a whiskey-lawyer.
And I note some trademark law as well:

Glenlivet, the largest-selling malt in the United States, is made in Speyside. Granted a government license in 1824, the first distillery to receive one after generations of illicit whiskey-making, Glenlivet became so widely known that other distilleries added the word Glenlivet to their names. Finally, in a famous legal case in 1880, it won the exclusive right to call itself "The Glenlivet."

Maybe its time to move to Scotland, hang a Whiskey Legal Center sign outside my window, and wait for the clients to come rolling in.
In the meantime, I'm off to have a dram...

pardon the changes

hope you like the new digs....
I wanted to make a few minor aesthetic modifications...but mainly i needed to change things around in order to get blockquotes working.

cheers,
andrew

Josh Marshall gives us two illuminating quotes:

I think the thing that discouraged me about the vice president was uttering those famous words, 'no controlling legal authority.' I felt like that there needed to be a better sense of responsibility of what was going on in the White House. I believe that--I believe they've moved that sign, 'The buck stops here,' from the Oval Office desk to 'The buck stops here' on the Lincoln Bedroom, and that's not good for the country.

George W. Bush
October 3rd, 2000

President Bush on Friday put responsibility squarely on the CIA for his erroneous claim that Iraq tried to acquire nuclear material from Africa, prompting the director of intelligence to publicly accept full blame for the miscue.

Associated Press
July 11th, 2003

I wonder what the Supreme (fed) Court will say about this.

Excellent, and biting opinion article from the Post:
a snippet:
"Ever since Watergate, a smoking gun has been the standard for judging a Washington scandal. Many a miscreant has escaped with his reputation undamaged -- or even enhanced by the publicity and pseudo-vindication -- because there was no "smoking gun" such as the Watergate tapes. But now it seems that standard has been lifted. You would think that on the question of who told a lie in a speech, evidence seen on TV by millions of people, might count for something. Apparently not. The Bush administration borrows from Groucho: "Who are you going to believe -- us or your own two eyes?"

The case for the defense is a classic illustration of what lawyers call "arguing in the alternative." The Bushies say (1) it wasn't really a lie, (2) someone else told the lie and (3) the lie doesn't matter. All these defenses are invalid.

(1) Bushies fanned out to the weekend talk shows to note, as if with one voice, that what Bush said was technically accurate. But it was not accurate, even technically. The words in question were: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Bush didn't say it was true, you see -- he just said the Brits said it. This is a contemptible argument in any event. But to descend to the administration's level of nitpicking, the argument simply doesn't work. Bush didn't say that the Brits "said" this Africa business -- he said they "learned" it. The difference between "said" and "learned" is that "learned" clearly means there is some preexisting basis for believing whatever-it-is, apart from the fact that someone said it. Is it theoretically possible to "learn" something that is not true? I'm not sure. But it certainly is not possible to say that someone has "learned" a piece of information without clearly intending to imply that you, the speaker, wish the listener to accept it as true. Bush expressed no skepticism or doubt, even though the Brits qualification was added as protection only because doubts had been expressed internally.

(2) The Bush argument blaming the CIA for failing to remove this falsehood from the president's speech is based on the logic of "stop me before I lie again." Bush spoke the words, his staff wrote them, those involved carefully overlooked reasons for skepticism. It would have been nice if the CIA had caught this falsehood, but its failure to do so hardly exonerates others. Furthermore, the CIA is part of the executive branch, as is the White House staff. If the president can disown anything he says that he didn't actually find out or think up and write down all by himself, he is more or less beyond criticism. Which seems to be the idea here.

The president says he has not lost his confidence in CIA Director George Tenet. How sweet. If someone backed me up in a lie and then took the fall for me when it was exposed, I'd have confidence in him too.

(3) The final argument: It was only 16 words! What's the big deal? The bulk of the case for war remains intact. Logically, of course, this argument will work for any single thread of the pro-war argument. Perhaps the president will tell us which particular points among those he and his administration have made are the ones we are supposed to take seriously. Or how many gimmes he feels entitled to take in the course of this game. Is it a matter of word count? When he hits 100 words, say, are we entitled to assume that he cares whether the words are true?"

And the snowball rolls downhill

Kevin Drum puts together a few stories on Bush's flirtations with untruth.
Back in 2001 during his famous stem cell speech, Bush said:

"As a result of private research, more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines already exist. They were created from embryos that have already been destroyed, and they have the ability to regenerate themselves indefinitely, creating ongoing opportunities for research."

Drum: "But as Timothy Noah points out in Slate, at the time Bush made this statement the actual number of usable stem cell lines was....one.

At least it wasn't zero. That means he was closer to the truth with stem cells than he was with Iraq's WMD...."

And a 'darn good' piece out of the Post today.

"The president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring: Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them effective.

In the face of persistent questioning about the use of intelligence before the Iraq war, administration officials have responded with evolving and sometimes contradictory statements."

Two hits today inthe Times Opinion page:
Kristoff on the pattern of dishonesty coming out of the white house:

"So the problem is not those 16 words, by themselves, but the larger pattern of abuse of intelligence. The silver lining is that the spooks are so upset that they're speaking out."

What is helpful about the article is that it exposes the continuing danger (ie, why it matters) of an administration that is willing to manipulate intel (i would label it Machiavellian).

"While the scandal has so far focused on Iraq, the manipulations appear to be global. For example, one person from the intelligence community recalls an administration hard-liner's urging the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research to state that Cuba has a biological weapons program. The spooks refused, and Colin Powell backed them.

Then there's North Korea. The C.I.A.'s assessments on North Korea's nuclear weaponry were suddenly juiced up beginning in December 2001. The alarmist assessments (based on no new evidence) continued until January of this year, when the White House wanted to play down the Korean crisis. Then assessments abruptly restored the less ominous language of the 1990's."

Essay two comes from Paul 'old faithful' Krugman.
He begins with his own 'state of the union':
"More than half of the U.S. Army's combat strength is now bogged down in Iraq, which didn't have significant weapons of mass destruction and wasn't supporting Al Qaeda. We have lost all credibility with allies who might have provided meaningful support; Tony Blair is still with us, but has lost the trust of his public. All this puts us in a very weak position for dealing with real threats. Did I mention that North Korea has been extracting fissionable material from its fuel rods?"

But what is troubling is that we came to be in this position based on half-assed explanations of intel reports, and immoral politicizing.

"Literally before the dust had settled, Bush administration officials began trying to use 9/11 to justify an attack on Iraq. Gen. Wesley Clark says that he received calls on Sept. 11 from "people around the White House" urging him to link that assault to Saddam Hussein. His account seems to back up a CBS.com report last September, headlined "Plans for Iraq Attack Began on 9/11," which quoted notes taken by aides to Donald Rumsfeld on the day of the attack: "Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.""

Is it immoral to "sweep it all up. Things related and not"? Yes. Is it immoral to 'sell' the war to the public with untruths (or, manipulated evidence, if you prefer the term)? Yes. While politicians will put spin on their actions- there must be a line. It is immoral to gear a country to one of the most important decisions that can be made, whether to go to war, with carefully parsed and deliberately misleading statements. That is what the White House did, and they should be ashamed.

This will be a very important story if the administration keeps pushing the blame on the CIA for not preventing the misleading line in the state of the union address.

very good bit, from Kevin Drum at CalPundit, on Why the Uranium Matters. Namely, he discusses why the issue matters on a political scale.

"So while the uranium is only a symbol, it's a powerful one. George Bush says we live in an era of preemptive war, and in such an era � lacking the plain provocation of an attack � how else can the citizenry make up its mind except by listening to its leaders? In the end, we went to war because a majority of the population trusted George Bush when he presented his case that Iraq posed an imminent danger to the United States and the world.

Uranium-Gate is a symbol of that misplaced trust. If George Bush's judgment had been vindicated in Iraq, a single sentence in the State of the Union address wouldn't matter. But it hasn't, and he deserves to be held accountable for his poor judgment by everybody who believed him.

And that's why those 16 words matter."

Bumpersticker Watch:

"Draft SUV Drivers First"

Israel Blog:

[Micah has now been in Israel for a couple weeks, and is fully into his Judaism studies at Yeshiva. His update is below, in all caps because, apparently, his computer slips into Hebrew if the caps button isn't down.]

BUT, BACK TO SHABBOS. IT IS A TIME TO REFILL YOUR SPIRITUAL GAS TANK FOR ANOTHER WEEK. A DAY OF COMPLETE REST. LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY EXPERIENCE LAST SHABBOS. MY YESHIVA SENT A BUNCH OF GUYS TO A NEIGHBORHOOD CALLED HAR NOF. LITERALLY TRANSLATED THAT MEANS "MOUNTAIN OF VISTA." IT IS A RELATIVELY NEW NEIGHBORHOOD IN JERUSALEM. BUT IT IS MADE UP EXCLUSIVELY OF HASIDIC JEWS FROM THE WEST. THERE ARE SOMETHING LIKE 3000 FAMILIES THAT LIVE THERE, AND 2500 OF THEM ARE EITHER AMERICAN, BRITISH OR SOUTH AFRICAN. SO I GOT TO THE FAMILY THAT I WAS STAYING WITH AND IT TURNS OUT THAT THEY WERE FRENCH. AND NOT JUST FRENCH, BUT FRENCH OF NORTH AFRICAN DESCENT. THEY WERE VERY NICE, BUT THEY SPOKE ONLY A LITTLE
ENGLISH, AND MY HEBREW LEAVES A LOT TO BE DESIRED. SO I DROPPED MY BAGS OFF AND STARTED UP THE MOUNTAIN TO MEET UP WITH THE REST OF MY GROUP. IT TURNS OUT THAT THE FAMLY I WAS STAYING WITH LIVED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE MOUNTAIN AND THE PLACE I WAS GOING WAS AT THE TOP. I ALMOST GAVE UP, LITTLE DID I KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I WOULD BE MAKING THAT CLIMB OVER THE NEXT 28 HOURS--MANY OF THE RABBIS FROM MY SCHOOL LIVE IN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD AND ALL INSISTED THAT WE VISIT. WELL AFTER WE WERE DONE AT THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN I CLIMBED BACK DOWN TO THE FAMILY I WAS STAYING WITH. WE ATE A TRADITIONAL NORTH AFRICAN SHABBOS DINNER OF COUSCOUS AND BOULETS, WHICH IS JUST THE FRENCH WAY OF SAYING MEATBALLS, IT SOUNDS MUCH CLASSIER. THE JEWS OF NORTH AFRICA HAVE A DIFFERENT TRADITION OF PRAYER THAN DO THE JEWS OF EASTERN EUROPE THAT IS MY TRADITION, SO AS I WAS MAKING MY WAY TO THE SPANISH SYNAGOGUE, (THE JEWS IN SPAIN ARE VERY SIMILAR TO THE ONES IN N. AFRICA),AT 7:30 THE NEXT MORNING I COULD BARELY THINK. AND THE WAY THEY PRAYED GOT ME SO CONFUSED. THE TUNES THEY USED IN THEIR PRAYERS SOUNDED MORE LIKE A MOSQUE THAT A SYNOGOGUE THAT I AM USED TO. THE SERVICES LASTED FROM ABOUT 7:30 UNTIL ALMOST 11 WHICH IS A MARATHON IN MY OPINION. BUT AFTER THAT WE WENT TO A NICE AMERICAN FAMILY FOR LUNCH, AND NAPPED FOR THE REST OF THE DAY. AFTER SHABBOS ENDED I WENT TO THE OLD CITY AND HUNG OUT WITH ANDREA AT THE KOTEL (WESTERN WALL) UNTIL ABOUT 3 AM. IT IS AWESMOE TO BE ABLE TO GO TO THE CENTER OF FAITH FOR ME, AND ALMOST 4 BILLION OTHER PEOPLE WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT. (IT IS ONLY ABOUT TWO MILES FROM THE PLACE I AM STAYING. DONT EXPECT ANY GOOD STORIES FROM NEXT SHABBOS. I AM ON MY WAY TO TEL AVIV. I FIND IT AMAZING THAT ON35 MILES FROM THE MOST HOLY SPOT IN JUDAISM IS A PLACE FULL OF JEWS YET NEARLY DEVOID OF ANY SPIRITUAL CONNECTION TO HASHEM. HAVE A NICE WEEKEND AND SEND MY REGARDS TO THE CREW.

MICAH P COOPER

This is probably the most important piece lately on the WMD/deception issue. As Josh Marshall point's out today, David Sanger, the writer of the article, is the one that was getting Ari into a spin-tornado yesterday.

"The White House acknowledged for the first time today that President Bush was relying on incomplete and perhaps inaccurate information from American intelligence agencies when he declared, in his State of the Union speech, that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium from Africa"

TNR on Edwards

In today's Etc. blog, the New Republic discusses John Edwards' values rhetoric. After noting that the corporate accountability issue is largely a non-starter with most voters, TNR looks into Edwards' use of the issue:

"So what gives? The answer, as Slate's Will Saletan has suggested, is that Edwards doesn't care so much about corporate accountability per se. In fact, Edwards isn't even really making an economic critique. He's making a cultural critique, and the corporate accountability issue just happens to be the most convenient--and tactically sophisticated--way of framing it. According to Edwards, the difference between people like you and him and people like the president and all those corrupt CEOs is that we have values and they don't.

"Will any of this work? Tough to say. But here are two thoughts. First the obvious point: Most Americans aren't rich powerful insiders, which means that if they voted their economic interests alone, Democrats would win every time. The corollary is that to the extent the Republican project of the last 20 years has succeeded, it's been because Republicans have been able to redefine economics (and class) as a cultural proposition rather than an, er, economic proposition. That is, Republicans have been able to talk about economics in the language of values--Your money belongs to you, not to some out-of-touch politician in Warshington, D.C. ...'--which is how a bunch of lower-middle-class ex-urbanites end up clamoring for the repeal of the estate tax. If Democrats can either neutralize Republicans on the economic values question--or, as Edwards is trying to do, out-values them--they just might have a chance."

After listening to Edwards' town hall meeting last night, I think he can frame the values discussion in a way that can capture the voters' attention.

More Lessig for Edwards:

Well it seems Professor Lessig is one post short of endorsing Mr. Edwards for the next run. In two more recent entries, Lessig praises Edwards' speech on economic policy and Edwards' stance on stating stock options.
The "extraordinarily good" speech on econ policy can be found here.

Israel Blog

(Over the next few weeks (or months) I'll be tossing in a blog of my friend's travels in Israel. Micah has recently set off to Jerusalem in order to study his Judaism- but I will leave the presentation of further details to him.)

let me tell you everything. the flight to geneva was awsome, with the exception of some very tiny seats. there was the advanced in flight entertainment system that gave me a choice of mvies (which were all shit)or video games, or flight status display, and as i was busy with harry potter i used the flight display most of the time, though i did attempt some of the games. the flight over switzerland was beautiful. and when i landed all of the adds were for watches and banks, i almost thought it was a joke. then i swithced to an elal flight for the last leg to israel. that was uneventful.
my first night i spent in tel aviv and it was good. then on friday (the next day) i went to jerusalem and met up with mike able. that was awesome. we had some lunch and got ready for shabbos. we went to one of his teachers houses this guy was from manchester and very nice. we went to pray, then walked to his house. (this was in a bedroom community called beit shemesh.) we had some dnner and hung out. the next day afer praying we walked back to the rabbis house and everbody got super drunk. this was in the middle of the afternoon. then we went back to jerusalem. After that, days progressed and i went to learn at my yeshiva (religious school). i am in classes 10 hours a day. but i have the freedom to come and go as there is no compulsion to attend. monday night I went out with mike and his friends to all you can eat sushi it cost 135 shekels which is about 30 bucks. that is quite alot. then he and i missioned (south african for walked) down to the old city and prayed at the wall. it was great. today i will meet my sister and maybe see andrea later.
i will hope fully email you with some thoughts and craziness, but i am running out of time now.
micah

i reckon being back from the beach and at work puts me back online. and on on-line publications like salon. i was tipped by 'tapped' to check out this story- which coincidentaly echos a chapter from my beach reading of 'What Liberal Media.' This Salon article compares the media's treatment of Gore's non-lies during the campaign (read: lies, if you're the media) to Bush's actual lies during the presidency (read: merely his views, or, slight exagerrations if you're the media). When yopu get to the web page, just click on 'free day pass' button for salon premium.