Durham Torture Tape Case Dies, US Duplicity in Geneva & The Press Snoozes

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From the best available information as to the original destruction date of the infamous “Torture Tapes” having been on November 8, 2005, the statute of limitations for charging any general crime by employees and/or agents of the US Government for said destruction will expire at midnight Monday November 8, 2010 as the general statute of limitation is five years. By operation of law, the statute would have run yesterday were it not a Sunday. So, by the time you are reading this, it is over. Absent something extraordinary, and I mean really extraordinary, a criminal statute of limitation is effectively a bar to subject matter jurisdiction and that is that. Ding dong, the John Durham torture tape investigation is thus dead.

Last week, I wrote a letter to the DOJ and saw to it that it was delivered to the main contacts, Dean Boyd and Tracy Schmaler, as well as John Durham’s office. None of them responded. Finally, late Monday afternoon I called Durham’s office, and they acknowledged having received the letter. Although extremely cordial, there was simply no meaningful information or discussion to be had on the subject. “We have no comment” was about the size of it. I asked about the remote possibility of the existence of a sealed indictment; there was “no comment” on that either, and there is absolutely no reason in the world to think anything exists in this regard.

Oh, there was one thing; when I asked why there had been no formal response to my letter, I was told perhaps it was a “little edgy”. Apparently actually phrasing an inquiry with legal specificity and facts makes it too “edgy” for the United States Department Of Justice. Who knew? Ironically, at the same time this discussion was transpiring today, the very same Obama DOJ was in US Federal Court, in front of Judge John Bates of the DC District, arguing for their unfettered right to extrajudicially execute an American citizen, and do so in secret without explanation. But my letter asking about the dying Durham investigation was edgy. The DOJ’s priorities, morals and duties seem to be a bit off kilter when it comes Read more →

Juan Williams’ Irrational Fear of Non-Terrorists

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I’m happy to see Juan Williams and his crappy analysis gone from NPR. But the whole ruckus over Juan Williams’ firing from NPR over his admission that he does a double take when he sees people dressed in obviously Muslim garb is missing a key point.

Williams says he gets anxious when he sees people in Muslim garb.

WILLIAMS: Wednesday afternoon, I got a message on my cell phone from Ellen Weiss who is the head of news at NPR asking me to call. When I called back, she said, “What did you say, what did you mean to say?” And I said, “I said what I meant to say” which is that it’s an honest experience that went on in an airport and I see people who are in Muslim garb who identify themselves as first and foremost as Muslims, I do a double take. I have a moment of anxiety or fear given what happened on 9/11. That’s just a reality. And she went on to say, “Well that crosses the line.” And I said, “What line is that?”

And she went on to somehow suggest that I had made a bigoted statement. And I said “that’s not a bigoted statement. In fact, in the course of this conversation with O’Reilly, I said that we have as Americans an obligation to protect constitutional rights of everyone in the country and to make sure we don’t have any outbreak of bigotry but that there’s a reality. You cannot ignore what happened on 9/11 and you cannot ignore the connection to Islamic radicalism and you can’t ignore the fact that what has been recently said in court with regard to this is the first drop of blood in a Muslim war on America. [my emphasis]

Of course, the “reality” that Williams is missing is that when Islamic terrorists get onto planes to try to blow them up, they don’t dress in Muslim garb. On the contrary, we know that Islamic terrorists make sure they appear as “normal” as possible by shaving and dressing as mainstream Americans would. Moreover, Islamic terrorists are increasingly recruiting people who look like westerners.

The last people you should be afraid of on a plane are those self-identifying by their dress as Muslims.

Maybe this is a side-effect of hanging out at with the stupid people and bigots at Fox News for so many years, this really irrational sense of what we should fear. But no matter whether you consider Williams’ statement itself bigoted or not, it is undeniably stupid. Really stupid. And on that basis alone, NPR is justified in firing Williams.

Update: George Stephanopoulos asks Williams whether he should have admitted he was being irrational.

Greg Mankiw Proves Raising Taxes Is a Win Win

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Oh sure, in this NYT op-ed, Greg Mankiw shamelessly fiddles with numbers to try to show that raising taxes on rich people like him will be bad for the economy. But you don’t even have to point out the obvious flaws in his math [Update: Kevin Drum shows some of those flaws here] to read this op-ed as an unrestrained argument in favor of raising taxes on the rich.

For starters, Mankiw claims he’ll stop writing NYT op-eds if his federal taxes go up.

I am regularly offered opportunities to earn extra money. It could be by talking to a business group, consulting on a legal case, giving a guest lecture, teaching summer school or writing an article. I turn down most but accept a few.

[snip]

HERE’S the bottom line: Without any taxes, accepting that editor’s assignment would have yielded my children an extra $10,000. With taxes, it yields only $1,000. In effect, once the entire tax system is taken into account, my family’s marginal tax rate is about 90 percent. Is it any wonder that I turn down most of the money-making opportunities I am offered?

So if we raise taxes, less of this kind of transparent bullshit with numbers will appear on the NYT op-ed page.

WIN!

Moreover, if Mankiw stops writing these crappy op-eds, it’ll open up an opportunity for someone else to write op-eds for the NYT. That person, according to Mankiw’s logic, would have to be someone less wealthy than him (because Mankiw shows no sane rich person would write an NYT op-ed for only $523 of savings). And since that person is by definition not rich, she will probably spend more of the $1000 the NYT would pay her right away, rather than pass it on to her kids as Mankiw says he will do with his pay for writing this NYT op-ed.

WIN!

I’ve seen no more compelling, succinct argument for why we should raise taxes. Not only will it result in more money flowing through the economy immediately, but it’ll save us from having to read the ramblings of rich people like Mankiw, David Broder, and Tom Friedman.

Todd Purdum & Vanity Fair Discover McCain the Gluehorse

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Todd Purdum has a pretty extensive and in depth article on John Sidney McCain III just up at Vanity Fair. Here are the take away quotes and ethos of the article:

The prevailing question about John McCain this year is: What happened? What happened to that other John McCain, the refreshingly unpredictable figure who stood apart from his colleagues and seemed to promise something better than politics as usual? The question may miss the point. It’s quite possible that nothing at all has changed about John McCain, a ruthless and self-centered survivor who endured five and a half years in captivity in North Vietnam, and who once told Torie Clarke that his favorite animal was the rat, because it is cunning and eats well. It’s possible to see McCain’s entire career as the story of a man who has lived in the moment, who has never stood for any overriding philosophy in any consistent way, and who has been willing to do all that it takes to get whatever it is he wants. He himself said, in the thick of his battle with Hayworth, “I’ve always done whatever’s necessary to win.” Maybe the rest of us just misunderstood.

Yes, no kidding, you certainly did misunderstand. Or were willfully blind because the bloated national media depiction of McCain has always been as fraudulent as he has always been.

There is a difference between facing a changed and shrunken external reality (which McCain surely now does) and changing one’s essential nature (which McCain almost certainly has not). He has always had a reckless streak, and he has repeatedly skated by after conduct that would have doomed others less resourceful, resilient, or privileged. As a navy pilot, he crashed three planes before being shot down by a surface-to-air missile over Hanoi. He spent harrowing years in captivity in North Vietnam, and parlayed that fame into a high-profile job as the navy’s liaison to the Senate, and then parlayed that—with the help of his second wife’s family fortune—into a political career in his adopted state of Arizona, first winning a seat in the House of Representatives in 1982, and then taking Barry Goldwater’s Senate seat upon his retirement, in 1986.

Yes, indeed. Put more simply, McCain is a dilettante who has always relied on his blue blood and family history, and then his POW status and wife and family’s largesse, to get everywhere he has gone; he has never been a man of accomplishment of his own accord. Nice of you to finally Read more →

The Telenovelas Beat the Crappy Reruns

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Almost a year ago, Obama offended DC’s chattering class for appearing on Univision’s Sunday show, Al Punto, but not appearing on Fox News Sunday. But as I noted at the time, Al Punto is actually a more popular show than Fox’s Sunday swill.

And, as it turns out, the White House can justify blowing off Fox for Univision not just to reach out to Latinos rather than white racists. According to Univision’s corporate communications, Al Punto (531,000) does better than FNS (417,000) in the all-important 18-49 demographic (and has done so for the last 10 months), and it often beats CBS’ Face the Nation in that demo as well.

And last week, Univision as a network was actually more popular than any other.

Univision was the most popular network among television viewers aged 18 to 49 years old last week, the first time a Spanish-language station has beaten the English ones in this key demographic in the United States.

Soap operas reaching key points in their stories combined with a desultory week of reality and reruns at the English broadcast networks made the milestone possible.

Maybe the advertisers could do something about the ginned up anti-Latino racism fueling politics of late, since they’re going to want to stay in good graces with the increasingly powerful Spanish-language network?

Ceci Connolly Cashes In

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Who knew the world of journalism had the same kind of revolving door as government does? But apparently, if you build a reporting beat entirely around portraying the views of top corporate representatives as the only views that count, and if your newspaper pimps you out as the “play” in a Pay2Play scandal, then you, too, can make the jump to consulting.

CECI CONNOLLY leaves the WP for McKINSEY: “Friends, Pardon the group email but I wanted to tell you all my big news. After 13 great years on the National staff of the Washington Post I’ve decided to take on a new adventure, serving as a senior adviser at McKinsey & Co. to the firm’s new Center for US Health System Reform and its global Health Systems Institute. It is a phenomenal opportunity to grow, learn and have an impact on health care worldwide. I have been blown away by the brainpower at McKinsey and felt that its non-ideological, fact-based approach is the ideal environment for an old-fashioned news gal like me. Throughout 25 years in journalism, I have been blessed with fascinating assignments, warm colleagues and generous sources. Six presidential campaigns, epic health care battles, Hurricane Katrina, two blogs and the machinations of Capitol Hill gave me all I could have ever hoped to write about. Whether bumping along the frost heaves of New Hampshire, talking politics with Juan and Brit on Fox and Gwen on PBS, racing to catch Air Force One (and Two) or sneaking a bite of black market lobster in Cuba, it has been an amazing journey. I hope to catch my breath for a few weeks, do some cooking and play a little golf. I’ll send out my McKinsey coordinates soon. Chrs, Ceci.”

Mind you, I’d rather Connolly be brokering health care deals for McKinsey than do it under the guise of “reporting,” which is what she was doing at the WaPo. So we’re probably all better off!

The biggest problem, though, is the lesson it offers for other journalists: the best way to get out of the troubled news industry and into something more lucrative is with corporate shilling masquerading as journalism.

Sparky Takes a Dump, Produces Turd Named McCain and Other News and Notes From Wingnut Hell In Arizona

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Yes, that is Sparky the Sun Devil and the small turd next to him is John McCain (no, it is not a photoshop; is a real picture McCain himself put out on Twitter). As you may have heard, the Arizona primary was last Tuesday and McCain squeaked by the “serious challenge” of gasbag extraordinaire J.D. Hayworth. McCain beat Hayworth by 25 points. But for months, going back even well before Hayworth finally was forced to quit campaigning on his radio show and admit he was actually running, the national media clucking heads were yammering relentlessly about how McCain was “vulnerable” and “in the fight of his political life”. It was, as just about everything with McCain is, a complete gin job and fabrication by the national media.

Here is what I said in an email discussion with a number of colleagues back on February 24 after one of them started talking about McCain being in trouble:

I am telling you, I just do not, at least yet, see any giant tidal wave here for Hayworth. … It may change, but so far in Arizona, the Hayworth bandwagon is far overrated by the national chattering classes.

….

Again, the problem is there is a very established Republican party and attendant power and money machine here and they do not like JD Hayworth for shit and never did; they did not give a rat’s ass about him losing to Harry Mitchell, in fact if they had, he would not have lost. Quite frankly, McCain is not their favorite either in some regards; but he sure is compared to Hayworth historically. Plus McCain has Grant Woods behind the scenes again, and he is very good and pretty ruthless. Hayworth’s sound bites make for dandy fodder for FoxNews, MSNBC and, to a lesser extent CNN, but they do not mean diddly shit here. This is not a national election, it is an Arizona Republican primary.

I tried to correct the record with any number of places and people when I saw this meme, right up to the election; mostly to little avail. I am a native here and have been around a long time, there was just never a chance in hell that Hayworth could even get close to McCain; but you just could not stop the national political horserace chattering chowderheads like Chuck Todd, Chris Matthews, Chris Cillizza, the Politico boys etc. from perpetrating this pile of dung.

They were full of it as the vote total demonstrated. Now they have blithely moved on to compensating for their ignorance and/or incompetence by clucking about “yes, yes, McCain won big, but he had to sell out and be someone he wasn’t to do it”. See for instance USA Today, NPR, Reuters, and Dan Balz of the Washington Post.

It is all pure unadulterated rubbish. A con. McCain has always been a completely self serving grifter con who has never been dedicated to any principle or cause other than John McCain. McCain walked out on his first wife and family after returning from Vietnam, after she had waited for him the entire time and while she was crippled and laid up bedridden from a tragic car accident. Left her while they were still married and brought his flim flam carpetbag to Arizona because it provided what he thought was his best shot of anywhere in the country to get a seat in Congress and because there was a very cute and very rich beer heiress here whose family could provide him with the juice and Read more →

“He didn’t threaten anybody. He opined.”

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When Hal Turner was led away to jail for writing that three judges who had upheld the Chicago gun ban (which has since been overturned at SCOTUS) “deserved to be killed”–and provided maps to help his readers find the judges–his son insisted Turner didn’t threaten anybody, he opined.

But the third jury that ruled on charges that he threatened to assault and kill judges in retaliation for performing their official duties (the first two juries deadlocked) didn’t see it that way. After two hours of deliberation, they found him guilty.

As luck would have it, this country’s fearmongerers and bigots are rather busy sowing fear of Muslims right now, or there might have been a bigger response to this. But particularly given the delay through three trials, this verdict seems almost curious. Turner got sent to jail for behavior that is becoming increasingly acceptable of late. After all, more than one candidate for Congress has implicitly threatened violence as part of their campaign (though I wonder whether Sharon Angle and Ben Quayle are smart enough to draw maps, as Turner did). Yet much of the the press seems hesitant to call out that rhetoric as beyond the pale.

Hal Turner did step over the line (though I think it’s a close call legally). But just as big a problem is the media circus that allows someone like Turner to thrive, include the so-called objective media that apparently has a difficult time discerning between the violent rhetoric from right wing activists and policy arguments advanced through legislative means of lefty activists.

MoDo Applauds Gibbs for Making Shit Up

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I know. It almost never pays to read one of MoDo’s columns seriously. But enough good lefties are pointing to this one approvingly, I thought I’d do them the favor of pointing out how typically stupid it is.

Let’s start with this lovely four-sentence passage:

Not because of his outburst against the “professional left.” He was right about that. In an interview with The Hill last week, Gibbs once more proved Michael Kinsley’s maxim that a gaffe is just truth slipping out.

He said the president’s lefty critics “ought to be drug-tested,” would only “be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon,” and “wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

MoDo says Gibbs “was right” in his intemperate rant early this week. Then she goes on to repeat two attacks Gibbs used–that we should be drug-tested and we want to eliminate the Pentagon–that he made up out of thin air.  Even CBS’ Chip Reid–not usually one to point out blatant lies–called Gibbs on the fact that no one, in fact, has ever actually called to eliminate the Pentagon.

Q    Well, who wants to eliminate the Pentagon?

MR. GIBBS:  I think that was — wasn’t that a proposal during the presidential campaign?  Didn’t Dennis Kucinich — or maybe it was adding the Department of Peace.

Q    The Department of Peace —

Q    There’s a big difference between adding a Department of Peace and eliminating the Pentagon.

(Though I will say I am among those who believes Canadian health care would be an improvement.)

Shorter MoDo: I think Gibbs is at his best when he just makes shit up about people I don’t like.

Much of the rest of MoDo’s column illogically complains that Democrats aren’t as effective as Republicans at using their activists, but then accepts the DC narrative that Dems shouldn’t embrace their activists because we’re “radicals:”

Rand Paul and Sharron Angle aside, Republicans often find a way to exploit their extremes for political advantage, while Democratic extremes typically do damage to a Democratic president.One of the most disgusting things about Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl, and now the former maverick John McCain, is that they are happy to be co-opted by the radicals in their party to form one movement against President Obama.

On the Republican side, the crazies often end up helping the Republican leadership. On the Democratic side, the radicals are constantly sniping at Obama, expressing their feelings of betrayal.

Therein lies MoDo’s blindness: the problem here is not with liberal activists espousing real solutions. The problem is the fact that Democrats are so disdainful of their activists they prefer demonizing them rather than embracing their moderate solutions that are, themselves, pragmatic compromises. MoDo’s column, then, is actually part of the problem, not something to link approvingly.

Besides, why would any self-respecting liberal link approvingly to what is basically more self-indulgent bitching from the press?

MoDo’s “clever” point is ultimately that Gibbs should be fired not because he made shit up in his attack on the party’s base, but because he is mean to journalists.

He needs to communicate more clearly. And, in that department, Gibbs isn’t helpful. He’s often unresponsive and sometimes hostile to the press. His adversarial barking has only heightened tensions with a press that was once lampooned for fawning over his boss.

Call me crazy, but I think any press spokesperson who gets caught blatantly making shit up about any topic should be fired because he should, after that point, lose all credibility.

But not with this press corps. Not with MoDo, who finds Robert Gibbs most right when he just makes shit up. And then complains that Robert Gibbs doesn’t take “journalists” like her–the ones who applaud him for making shit up–seriously.

Helen Would Have Asked about the Rape Threats for Teens

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That last thread is getting a bit long, and since McCaffrey the MilleniaLab says we’re going on a walk NOW, I wanted to throw up more space for discussion.

So let me just make this observation. Apparently, not one of the crack reporters at yesterday’s White House press conference asked any question about what it means that a judge speaking for the United States of America decided the other day that using rape threats with teens is an acceptable way to force confessions.

As I suggested, perhaps Robert Gibbs’ intemperate rant wasn’t so stupid after all. It distracted from the sad state of America’s claims at being a law-abiding nation. Lots of questions about the professional left. No questions about threatening a teenager with rape and then using the confession that results as admissible evidence.

Which brings me to a point WaldenE made. Used to be, these kinds of questions got asked in White House press briefings. Back when Helen Thomas was still the Dean of the White House press corps, she would have asked about military interrogators using rape threats with teens (after which, Robert Gibbs would have sighed and given her a patronizing response). No longer. Because she was chased out because–they say–she was an opinion journalist and because she made a comment that Robert Gibbs might call “inartful.”

These things are all connected somehow…