Thursday,
March 3 2005
WHAT SENATOR BYRD DIDN'T SAY: At this point I'm sure
you're all aware of Senator
Robert Byrd's intemperate tirade on the floor of the Senate
the other day where he likened the proposal of a possible rule
change to prevent filibustering of judicial nominees by allowing
for a simply majority vote (known as the "nuclear
option") to a Hitlerian tactic. "Witness how men
with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust
ends," Byrd fumed.
Well.
This morning reader Rick Walsh emailed with an interesting bit
of political history. It seems that back in 1975 Majority
Whip Robert Byrd was the primary sponsor of a proposal to
reduce the super-majority in the Senate from two-thirds to three-fifths.
Walsh also found this gem of a quote in an
article by Ronald Rotunda published last year by the Cato Institute
:
In
1975 the Senators changed the filibuster requirement from 67
votes to 60, after concluding that it only takes a simple majority
of Senators to change the rules governing their proceedings.
As Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT) said at the
time: "We cannot allow a minority" of the
senators "to grab the Senate by the throat and hold it
there." Senators Leahy, Kennedy, Byrd, and Biden, all agreed.
(emphasis added)
Thirty
years ago Senator Byrd was a leading proponent of changing the
rules of the Senate to lessen the threshold of votes his majority
would need to impose its will on the minority. - T. Bevan
11:32 am Link |
Email | Send
to a Friend
Wednesday,
March 2 2005
MORE THOUGHTS ON KERRY, DOWD, AND THAT PESKY 180: Mickey
Kaus has been on the Form 180 story for a while, speculating
that it could be the linchpin of a strategy among anti-Kerry Dems
to keep him out of the 2008 Presidential race. As usual, I think
Mickey is on to something.
Here's
a further thought: Jerome Corsi (co-author of Unfit For Command)
has said he's
thinking about moving to Massachusetts and challenging Kerry in
2008. It's probably safe to say that pigs will take flight
before Corsi wins in Massachusetts, regardless of whether Kerry
signs Form 180 or not.
But
if Kerry continues to stonewall and obfuscate, a primary challenge
by a young, ambitious Massachusetts Democrat in 2008 could be
a slightly different matter...
In a related
post, Tom
Maguire explains how the Democrats could reap a benefit if
Kerry would just take one for the team and sign the form. Maguire
is right when he says that whatever information is contained in
Kerry's military records (like a dishonorable discharge that was
upgraded years later) is unlikely to be so damaging as to cripple
his Senate reelection bid.
Personally, now that Kerry lost the election I don't really care
what is in his files. That said, I still think it is an absolute
outrage that this man ran for president using his military service
as the cornerstone of his candidacy and the media didn't bother
to require him to provide full and complete access to his records.
That is a courtesy we've not seen the media extend to other presidential
candidates, nor does it comport with their supposed desire to
"inform the public."
And now the issue is about whether John Kerry is going to be held
to his repeated public promises (ones he certainly did not have
to make at this point) to fully release his records by signing
Form 180.
Finally,
a question for Maureen Dowd: IF there is something damaging in
Kerry's military records, and IF Karl Rove is as evil and underhanded
as you say, and IF Bush has been creating a "Potemkin press"
that includes right-wing ringers like Jeff Gannon who are used
to disseminate slime and sludge leaked from the administration,
and IF the Bushies are so desperately craven they will do anything
to retain power, IF all of these things are true then why have
John Kerry's military records remained safely private this entire
time? Just asking.
A
$64 THOUSAND DOLLAR QUESTION: You'll never guess who
said this:
"America
has done more good for the rest of the world than any other
society. The single biggest gift that America has shared with
the impoverished billions on our planet is hope.
At
the end of the Cold War, America made an awesome strategic error:
It decided to behave like an ordinary country. There is nothing
inherently wrong with behaving like an ordinary country, especially
a peaceful ordinary country. The only problem is that, over
the course of 200 years, America had succeeded in convincing
mankind that it was an extraordinary country."
Bill Kristol?
Nope. Charles Krauthammer or Paul Wolfowitz? No and no. Try Kishore
Mahbubani, Singapore’s former Ambassador to the United
Nations. There's more to the interview worth reading.
A
BIAS I'VE NOT SEEN BEFORE: This is remarkable. Today's
Louisville Courier-Journal runs an
op-ed by Harry Binswanger from the Ayn Rand Institute viciously
attacking the Ten Commandments:
The
first commandment is: "I am the Lord thy God."
As
first, it is the fundamental. Its point is the assertion that
the individual is not an independent being with a right to live
his own life but the vassal of an invisible Lord. It says, in
effect, "I own you; you must obey me."
Could
America be based on this? Is such a servile idea even consistent
with what America represents: the land of the free, independent,
sovereign individual who exists for his own sake? The question
is rhetorical.
Binswanger
goes on to conclude, as only a true disciple of Rand's objectivism
could, that the Ten Commandments are "the polar opposite
of the philosophy underlying the American ideal of a free society."
The Courier
Journal has every right to publish this piece, though I think
it's safe to say that most of their readers (if not most Kentuckians)
will find Binswanger's views to be quite distasteful if not outright
offensive. So why did they do it? The answer lies in the final
sentence of the attribution:
The
writer is a member of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand
Institute (www.aynrand.org) and teaches philosophy at ARI's
Objectivist Graduate Center. The Institute promotes the ideas
of Ayn Rand -- best-selling author of "Atlas Shrugged"
and "The Fountainhead" and originator of the philosophy
she called "Objectivism." She is a particular
favorite of Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher.
At this point
do we even need to point out that Governor Fletcher is a Republican?
I didn't think so. - T. Bevan 10:32 am Link
| Email | Send
to a Friend
Tuesday,
March 1 2005
PLAYING HARDBALL WITH MAUREEN DOWD: Maureen
Dowd's column on Sunday was full of the usual hyperbole and
ridiculousness, but one phrase in particular stood out:
"This
White House seems to prefer softball questions from a self-advertised
male escort with a fake name to hardball questions from journalists
with real names..."
I'm
confused. Every day Scott McLellan steps into a room filled with
big-name journalists - some, like the now-retired Helen Thomas,
with political leanings every bit as far to the left as Gannon's
were to the right - who ask their "hardball questions."
It may be a bit of an overstatement to say the White House press
room is a hostile environment, but it certainly isn't a Bush-friendly
one.
Dowd's
remark brought to mind a recent
observation made by Thomas Sowell that "media bias does
not consist in having liberal or conservative opinions but in
how you do your job -- or don't do it."
Sowell
went on to outline the most egregious case of softball journalism
we've seen in a while (of which Ms. Dowd and her well-respected
paper played a big part): the pass given to John Kerry for not
fully releasing his military records.
Here
is how the game of softball has been played. In April of last
year, Tim Russert asked
Senator Kerry about releasing his military records:
MR.
RUSSERT: Would you agree to release all your military
records?
SEN. KERRY: I have. I've shown them--they're
available to you to come and look at.
MR. RUSSERT: But you'll make all your records
public.
SEN. KERRY: They are. People can come and see
them at headquarters and take a look at them.
Both
of these responses were demonstrably untrue. Yet Kerry was never
called to account on these falsehoods by members of the press,
nor was he pressured into signing Form 180 (the document that
gives the government permission to release all military records
to the public) even after the Swift Boat Veterans raised questions
about about Kerry's service later in the year.
On
January 30, 2005 Kerry
pledged on national television he would sign Form 180:
MR.
RUSSERT: Would you sign Form 180?
SEN. KERRY: But everything, Tim...
MR. RUSSERT: Would you sign Form 180?
SEN. KERRY: Yes, I will. But everything that
we put in it, Tim--everything we put in--I mean, everything
that was out was a full documentation of all of the medical
records, all of the fitness reports. And I'd call on those who
have challenged me, let's see their records. I want to see the
records of each of those people who have put up a challenge,
because some of them have some serious questions in them, and
it hasn't been appropriate..
MR. RUSSERT: So they should sign Form 180s
for themselves as well?
SEN. KERRY: You bet.
What
you didn't see reported by the "journalists with real names"
is that the day after Kerry appeared on Meet the Press and called
for "those who have challenged me" to release their
records, John
O'Neill executed a Form 180 and released it to the media authorizing
the "total voluntary release of all records to anyone interested"
(click
here to enlarge image):
Jerome
Corsi, the co-author of Unfit For Command, did not serve
in the military and thus has no records to release. Senator Kerry's
office didn't return phone calls asking for the names of other
people Kerry would like to see release records.
But
the point is moot. On February 7 Senator Kerry not only repeated
his pledge to sign Form 180, he said he would do so irrespective
of whether others released their records. "I’ll sign
it anyway" Kerry told radio show host Don Imus.
Kerry has
been stalling for more than a month now, using the canard that
he needs extra time to get things "clarified with the military."
Not a single "journalist" has thought to question this
patently bogus excuse. Executing
Form 180 is so simple even a witless columnist from the New
York Times could do it in less than 10 minutes.
What
conclusions can we draw from all of this? First, Kerry's unwillingness
to sign Form 180 means it most likely contains damaging and/or
embarrassing information. Second, it is inconceivable that the
mainstream press would stand for such behavior if John Kerry was
a Republican. Anyone who can't admit that is fool or a liar (or
both). And last but not least, we can safely conclude that Maureen
Dowd doesn't know the difference between hardball and softball.
- T. Bevan 2:32 pm Link
| Email | Send
to a Friend
Monday,
February 28 2005
THREADS
OF CHANGE: Michael
Barone has nice wrap up of various comments supporting the
idea that changes in the Middle East are occurring with surprising
rapidity.
Add
to Barone's list this lead paragraph from an editorial in today's
Arab
News:
All
nations which aspire to a genuine democracy must have at the
forefront free and fair elections. They must, of their choosing,
elect representatives who will be of the people and for the
people. Any country lacking a genuine ballot box can only pretend
to be democratic. In the Middle East, pretenses are now being
pushed aside for the real thing. We have seen unprecedented
elections in Iraq and Palestine and nationwide municipal elections
in the Kingdom. Now Egypt is also to be added to the list of
countries participating in democracy in the Middle East.
And
this from today's Gulf
News:
The
decision (for election reform in Egypt) can only be described
as historic because the changes widen the base of popular participation
in the political process. Any measures that facilitate the representation
of the popular voice should be applauded and welcomed.
There
are also encouraging signs for women. Hamid Karzai is set to appoint
the first woman governor in Afghanistan's history. Again today's
Gulf
News editorializes:
There
has been opposition to her nomination, but the fact that it
is certain to materialise speaks for the changing times.
As
the governor of a province populated by warlords and commanders,
Sarabi will represent all that is going right for Afghanistan
in its efforts to shed the shackles of the past.
Finally,
check out the responses of Prince Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia
in a recent
interview with Lally Weymouth of Newsweek:
Q:
Should Saudi women be allowed to vote in the next municipal
elections?
PRINCE SAUD: Even the commissioner of elections has said that
he is going to propose that they vote. So I am assuming that
they will vote in the next election, and that is going to be
good for the election, because I think women are more sensible
voters than men.
Q:
Do you agree that women should take a more active part in your
society?
PRINCE SAUD: I agree wholeheartedly. Things must happen in a
gradual way. But I am proud that the Foreign Ministry is doing
its part. For the first time, we are going to have women in
the Foreign Ministry this year.
The
most deeply pessimistic view one can take of all this is that
regimes in the Middle East and the Arab world now feel pressured
into giving lip service to election reform and to making cosmetic
changes allowing women more rights and participation in the process
of government. But even this is an improvement from where we were
just a few short months ago. You don't have to be a full-blooded
neocon to feel a twinge of cautious optimism in your gut over
these recent events and to hope they are the beginning of something
much bigger.
THE
WAR AT HOME: Meanwhile, some at home still aren't getting
it.Ten days ago Anna Schlotz and Snehal Shingavi wrote
in the Daily Californian:
The anti-war movement has a responsibility to support the resistance
as the struggle for the basic human rights of freedom from occupation,
self-determination, and the ability to live with dignity; and
to place the blame for chaos, civil war and terrorism squarely
at the feet of American bombs and foreign policy. After all,
the only thing standing in the way of U.S. plans to attack North
Korea, Iran or Syria is the implacability of Iraqi resistance.
We
believe it has become impossible any longer to be anti-war without
also being pro-resistance. The occupation will only end if the
Iraqi people are successful at dealing increasingly decisive
blows to a U.S. military that shows no signs of leaving.
No doubt
Schlotz and Shingavi are taking great satisfaction in the murder
of more than 100 innocent citizens
in Hilla yesterday by the "Iraqi resistance."
I
don't want to make too much of of a couple of morally confused
campus radicals or to suggest there are more than a handful of
hard-left Democrats felt the same way. But, at the same time,
it's fair to recognize that the position these two people are
taking is only a step or two further down the slippery slope from
Michael Moore calling the insurgents in Iraq "freedom fighters."
AND
THE AWARD FOR BIGGEST LIAR AND CHEAT GOES TO...: Ward
Churchill. And as many of you predicted, is wasn't that close:
Churchill beat Bonds by more than 2 to 1.
Most
who voted for Churchill felt that his offenses were greater because
they had to do with issues much larger than baseball and that
at the end of the day Barry Bonds is just lying about a silly
game.
Still
others pointed out that Bonds had a certain God-given talent for
hitting a baseball which he sought to chemically enhance while
Churchill's only God-given talent seems to have been the ability
to lie about everything from his resume to his research to his
skills as an artist.
Many
who voted for Bonds, on the other hand, felt he was more deserving
of the award because of his stature in society as an influential
role model. After all, despite being a professor of "ethnic
studies" at a major state university, Churchill is a fringe
left-wing crank who nobody takes seriously and who will be forgotten
about five minutes from now. Barry Bonds is (or probably was)
a hero to millions of kids and a steward of America's national
pastime. The damage he has done to the game is significant and
irreparable.
Anyway,
thanks to all who voted. - T. Bevan 1:52 pm Link
| Email | Send
to a Friend
