Monthly Archives: September 2004

RNC Internal Tracking Polls Show Big Kerry Bounce

Posted on September 21, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

How do I know Kerry is surging in the RNC's overnight polls? Easy: TalkLeft: Unnamed Officials Warn of 'Spectacular' Al Qaeda Attack in U.S.

Must be yesterday's speech.

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 1 Comment

Speaking Truth to Power

Posted on September 21, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

One way in which professors justify their existence — and especially the institution of tenure — is speaking truth to power. [In the case of some critical legal studies scholarship, it's more a case of speaking “power” to truth, but that's for another day.]

Comes now Eric Muller to note just how much of a double standard is operating in two parallel discussions of history with contemporary relevance: On the one hand, the massive blog-driven campaign to track down and prove CBS's negligence and obstinacy in Memogate. On the other hand, the relative silence and continuing propagation (in blogs and other media) of the repulsive falsehood in Malkingate.

Despite clear and as yet undsiputed proof that Michelle Malkin's new book (praising the Japanese internments and suggesting we might profitably emulate that history today) contains significant historical error that invalidates its thesis — and incidentally that the story she tells about one of the figures on the cover of her book is all wrong because she couldn't be bothered to drive a short way from home to see the evidence, partisans continue to endorse her book, and tp promote her.

Read all about it at IsThatLegal?

Personally, I'm writing to the Miami Herald, which sometimes runs her column, to suggest that they not do that any more.

Posted in The Media | 1 Comment

On This, GW Bush Told the Truth

Posted on September 21, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

On this blog I have often suggested that GW Bush's relationship to the truth is somewhat opportunistic. So I suppose it's only fair to point out that today's news demonstrates that on one issue at least GW Bush did tell us the truth during the 2000 campaign: When push comes to shove (and when investigations into Halliburton make it an unlikely candidate for further contracts in Iraq) Bush does not believe in 'nation building'. Even when it's going to create more chaos:

Iraqi officials in charge of rebuilding their country's shattered and decrepit infrastructure are warning that the Bush administration's plan to divert $3.46 billion from water, sewage, electricity and other reconstruction projects to security could leave many people without the crucial services that generally form the backbone of a stable and functioning democracy.

…

But the move comes as a grievous disappointment to Iraqi officials who had already seen the billions once promised them tied up for months by American regulations and planning committees, consumed by administrative overhead and set aside for the enormous costs of ensuring safety for the workers and engineers who will actually build the new sewers, water plants and electrical generators. Of the $18.4 billion that Congress approved last fall for Iraq's reconstruction, only about $1 billion has been spent so far.

“Nobody believes this will benefit Iraq,” said Kamil N. Chadirji, deputy minister for administration and financial affairs in the Iraqi Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works, which has responsibility for water and sewage projects outside Baghdad.

“For a year we have been talking, with beautiful PowerPoint documents, but without a drop of water,” Mr. Chadirji said, waving a colorful printout that he received from American officials.

The decision to shift the money, which had been earmarked for rebuilding everything from roads and bridges to telecommunications and the outdated equipment pumping oil, appears to signal an abandonment of the administration's original plan for putting Iraq back on its feet as a functioning nation.

They can't even spend the money they run around saying Kerry opposed?

Posted in Iraq | Comments Off on On This, GW Bush Told the Truth

Magazines Run Mushy Editorial Cartoons

Posted on September 21, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Romenesko points to an LA Times piece arguing that when it comes to editorial cartoons, editors prefer mush:

Week in, week out, editors at these publications, and at many others across the country, fill space with our lamest throwaway stuff. This has gone on so long that an entire generation of readers and, sadly, editors, seem to regard editorial cartoons as just another infotainment medium, something to break up the gray type and give a comforting chuckle. If the cartoon mentions sex, sports or celebrities, so much the better.

The article argues that editors are just scared of angering readers, so they pass on [update: 'pass on' in the sense of 'decline,' not in the sense of 'forward'] the hard-hitting stuff such as this.

Posted in Readings | 1 Comment

Don’t Forget

Posted on September 21, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

War crimes? Criminal activity? Criminal neglect? Major cover-up? Any of these is enough to demonstrate the moral unfitness to govern of the current lot.

TalkLeft—Female Abu Ghraib Prisoner Speaks Out: Huda Alazawi was one of the few females imprisoned at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. She was a wealthy businesswoman, blackmailed by a lowlife informant who falsely dropped a dime on her and her brothers, claiming they were supporters of the Iraqi resistance after she refused to meet his demand for money. Recently released after several months at Abu Ghraib, she recounted her ordeal to The Guardian.

Alazawi was imprisoned with two of her brothers and a sister. One brother was brutally sexually assaulted —hours later he was thrown at her and her sister's feet, bleeding from his head, knees and between his legs. He was dead.

The torture, abuse and degradation of Alazawi and other prisoners went on for months. She was able to document some of the abuse in a Koran. Other aspects of her report match those of other prisoners.

A few bad apples? No way.

Posted in Iraq Atrocities | 2 Comments

The Crapshoot

Posted on September 20, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Newsweek reports the soundbite du jour: Kerry's New Call to Arms. Seems Kerry will now roll the dice and make Iraq the main issue.

This is a sensible, but high-stakes strategy. On the merits it's Kerry's best issue: while people still don't agree on the merits of the attack, everyone honest agrees Bush's post-invasion plan was to collect garlands from the happy natives. It sure didn't work out that way.

While some will say Kerry has adopted this tactic now out of desperation, and who knows they might be right, the fact is that there was no sensible way Kerry could have done it any sooner. Facts on the ground were too fluid, and there was the danger that something might work out right. Now that danger seems attenuated.

A different danger for Kerry remains: that the Bush admin will lean on Pakistan to scoop up 'Osama bin forgotten' sometime during the next four weeks. That would — very unfairly but very effectively — take a good chunk of the wind out of Kerry's sails.

So it's a good strategy, a timely strategy, but still something of a risky strategy. That's in a way good too: any challenger who doesn't take risks usually loses, and there haven't been any risks taken since Kerry mortgaged his house to pay for Iowa.

Hmmm. That risk worked out OK, didn't it?

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 1 Comment