We Write Letters

And sometimes they get published:

Editor:

Debra J. Saunders ("Harry beats Goliath," Feb. 10), draws a very peculiar conclusion from the saga of Bernie Madoff: that "regulation, too, can fail."

I would suggest a more precise and useful conclusion: that when regulation is put in the hands of people who are ideologically hostile to regulation, it is guaranteed to fail.

TOM HILTON
San Francisco

Of course, to Republicans that's a feature, not a bug; the guaranteed failure of their own efforts is what allows supporters like Saunders to say regulation doesn't work.

Dumbass du Jour

Debra Saunders, in a column about Harry Markopolos, and the people who ignored his warnings about Madoff:

While many on the political left have blamed the 2008 financial meltdown on a lack of regulation, the Madoff story shows that regulation too can fail - big time.

Well, yeah--regulation can fail...especially when it's put under the control of people who don't believe in regulation.

Dumbass.

CIA Welcomes End of Torture; Debra Saunders, Not So Much

This is interesting: according to an article by Spencer Ackerman, Obama's executive order prohibiting torture is likely to be welcomed by the CIA:

“It’s a great leap forward in terms of respect for human rights,” said John Kiriakou, the retired CIA official who supervised the early interrogation of Al Qaeda detainee Abu Zubaydah in 2002. “From the very beginning, the CIA should not have been in the business of enhanced interrogation techniques and detentions.” CIA interrogators waterboarded Abu Zubaydah, but not while Kiriakou supervised the interrogation....

Kiriakou said that the reaction to Obama’s harmonization of interrogations policy would get “a very positive reaction” inside the CIA.....“This should make people very happy. No one wants to be in harm’s way [legally]. Despite what the Bush White House and Bush Justice Department said was legal, I think people at the CIA understood that this was not legal and [the techniques] were torture.”

And if the name 'John Kiriakou' sounds familiar to IIRTZ readers, it may be because Debra Saunders quoted him in a column justifying torture. Once again, the guy who said the one thing on which her whole pro-torture rationalization rested Doesn't. Support. Torture.

Nor, in fact, does anyone else with an ounce of decency or honesty or integrity. Which, again, leaves out Debra Saunders.

Debra Saunders: Still an Idiot (Torture Edition)

It turns out Bill O'Reilly isn't the only one who cites fiction to justify torture; Debra Saunder's column yesterday also quoted Jack Bauer putting those Senate weasels in their place. Saunders might understand that 24 is fiction (O'Reilly obviously doesn't), but I wouldn't bet on it.

But that wasn't the stupidest thing in her column. That would be this: More...

Former CIA operative John Kiriakou told ABC's Brian Ross that the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks." That's a lot of lives. Operatives didn't act on impulse, a la Jack Bauer. Kiriakou explained that agents had to ask the deputy director for operations before using any coercive technique.

Never mind that Kiriakou didn't actually witness the interrogation he says worked (after "about 35 seconds") to save lives.

Or that Kiriakou's account contradicts other sources who were actually there, who say Zubaydeh provided information before he was tortured.

Or that Zubaydeh wasn't the high-level target the CIA made him out to be.

Never mind any of those things she could have learned in five minutes using The Google on the Stevens Tubes. At the very least, even if she remained blissfully ignorant of all of the above, she could have included the other thing Kiriakou himself said about torture:

I've come to the belief that not only is it unnecessary, but that as Americans, we're better than that and we shouldn't be engaging in a practice like waterboarding.

To sum up: torture: still wrong; Debra Saunders: still an idiot. Any questions?

Memo to Debra Saunders: Rape Is, in Fact, a Crime

For the background, see Echidne. Long story short: 17 year old girl gang-raped at a jock party, rescued by three other women (college soccer players), D.A. decided not to press charges.

The case was reviewed by the state Attorney General's Office, and brought to a grand jury...which, this week, declined to indict anyone. Apparently they felt there was insufficient evidence...although the Santa Clara County grand jury never talked to the three who saw it all.

So far, so bad. It gets worse: today Debra Saunders writes about the case. The worst part comes in the last graphs:

"The issue isn't whether it's acceptable conduct, the issue is whether it's a crime," argued attorney John Cahners, who represents Steve Rebagliati, whose parents own the home where the party took place.

And if it is a crime, is it the same as premeditated rape? It may well be that civil courts are better suited to redress what happened at that March 2007 party.

According to Grolle and another source, the vomit on Jane Doe was not hers. Is it in society's interest to prosecute kids who are months older than Jane Doe for doing things in an alcohol-fueled atmosphere that they never would have done sober or alone? I think there's reasonable doubt.

"If it is a crime"? What the fuck?

Let me make it clear for poor dim Debra: if the (underage) girl is passed out drunk, there is no consent. If there is no consent, it's not sex--it's rape. Rape. Is. A. Crime. No motherfucking 'if' about it.

Now the defense attorney knows very well the issue isn't "whether it's a crime"; he knows it is a crime, no whethers about it, and to spin it otherwise is completely despicable. It's also, in a despicable sort of way, part of his job. Not an excuse, but a mitigating factor.

But there's no such mitigation for Debra Saunders. How fucking stupid do you have to be to buy into that despicable spin?

Debra Saunders stupid, I guess.

Update: corrected my misreading of the Chron article.

Debra Saunders: Still Clueless

Yes, I know: and the sun still rises in the east. Still.

In a column about Fred Thompson's possible candidacy, she can't resist another attack on Fitzgerald:

I think it's an outrage that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald prosecuted Libby for covering up his actions during Fitzgerald's probe into the leak of a former CIA official's identity -- especially because Fitzgerald never saw fit to prosecute the original leak itself.

And yes, once again, she trots out the supposed parallels between Libby and Clinton.

Okay, now, once more for the slow students:

• Fitzgerald has made it clear that Libby's perjury and obstruction made it impossible to determine what underlying crimes may have been committed. That was, in fact, the purpose of Libby's perjury and obstruction. Saunders (like all the other wingnuts who take this line) is saying, in effect, that perjury and obstruction should be charged only if they're unsuccessful.


• The difference between Libby's perjury and Clinton's 'perjury' is that the thing Clinton lied about was not even potentially a crime. It wasn't even relevant to the civil suit in which they originally went fishing for it--a civil suit that was, of course, ultimately determined to have no merit. Again: Libby covered up potential crimes; Clinton didn't. See the difference?

Something tells me I'm still going to have to explain it to her all over again in a week or two...

The Great Social Security Con, Part XLVIII

When someone like Debra Saunders takes it into her head to write about Social Security, you just know it won't end well. She starts with a summary of a Christopher Buckley novel (Christopher Buckley being, of course, one of our finest and most incisive thinkers on thorny socio-economic questions)...and it goes downhill from there:

According to Harry Zeeve of the bipartisan budget watchdog group, the Concord Coalition, Boomsday falls some time next year, as the first Baby Boomers become eligible for early retirement at age 62 in 2008.

Things will only get worse. The Concord Coalition figures that by 2018, Social Security will spend more than it takes in. (Medicare already spends more than it takes in.) In 1960, there were 5.1 workers for every 1 retiree. Today, the ratio is 3.3 to 1. By 2040, it will shrink to 2.1 to 1....

President Bush has made matters worse -- by pushing yet another entitlement, a prescription drug program that spends more than it takes in. With the 2008 presidential election looming, Washington won't touch entitlement reform until 2010 -- if then.

It doesn't help that Washington politicians know that older people -- the folks most likely to get more money from Social Security than they paid into the system -- vote. Which means Washington may not try to implement reforms to avoid federal bankruptcy until it is so late that any fix will be exceedingly painful. And extremely necessary, as the Congressional Budget Office estimates that entitlement spending and interest payments will consume 100 percent of federal revenues in 2020....

The Concord Coalition argues that Washington needs "a fiscal wake-up call." But as long as the Un-Greatest Generation produces politicians who get elected to higher office by spending more than the government takes in, that call will never happen....

And: "What happened to the concept of bequeathing our children a better world?" The answer: That was for the last generation. Not us.

Stop and savor the jaw-dropping chutzpah of this. Bill Clinton, whom Saunders hates with a fiery passion, built up a budget surplus in order to fund Social Security. Gore, whom she hates even more than Clinton, would have kept the surplus safe for exactly that purpose. Bush, whom Saunders defends more often than she (ever so mildly) rebukes, blew the wad on tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. Clinton and Gore: in favor of the bequeathing; Bush: opposed. These are the three basic, essential facts without which any discussion of Social Security is an exercise in willful ignorance. Saunders ignores all of them.

But, as I said, we knew this would end badly. Less expected and more depressing: that the Chronicle would devote an entire page to ill-informed and misleading anti-Social Security propaganda, including charts helpfully provided by the Concord Coalition and a stunningly shallow and ignorant commentary by one Caille Millner, who apparently (god save us) is a Chronicle editorial writer. Some excerpts to give you the general flavor:

ALL RIGHT, Boomers. Even if you haven't read Christopher Buckley's satirical novel "Boomsday," you've probably read about how your generation is on the verge of bankrupting the ones who come after you....

I'm sure you're shaking your heads as you read this, thinking how terrible, what a shame, but you still have no plans to give up your Social Security checks. After all, it's not as if the Boomers created the system, they just have to live with it (It's so tough to be a Boomer, isn't it? How do you manage to function, always getting victimized by the Man?).

Enter Mr. Buckley, who perhaps feels the same sort of resentment toward his generation as others do (Why will they never pack up their psychedelics, their self-righteousness, their dreadful Grateful Dead albums and their habit of insisting that the Vietnam War was the *worst*thing*ever -- and move offstage?)....

We don't want to fight the Man -- we want to be the Man....No doubt these beliefs were formed in response to the Boomers' hypocrisy and self-absorption, just as the Boomers' beliefs were shaped in reaction to what they deemed the stodginess of their parents....

Some experts have projected that, in order to maintain Social Security at its current benefit level, Congress would need to raise payroll taxes to 50 percent or more...Can you see my generation, obsessed as we are with making money and having families, agreeing to that? I can't.

And so that leaves us with only one option -- to default....We're not going to kill you off, Boomers, as much as we'd like to sometimes, but we're not going to pay for your old age, either. All the more reason to not only accept but lobby for cuts in benefits now -- before you turn to younger workers for a handout, and realize that we've fled for higher ground.

Yes, we're talking stereotypes so broad and simple-minded that your average braindead wingnut gibe would be ashamed to be seen with them.

Note that both Saunders and Millner conclude that the 'only' solution is to cut benefits--because the 'only' alternative is confiscatory payroll taxes. Both, whether dishonestly or stupidly, buy into the imaginary accounting that arbitrarily disallows funding Social Security from anything but payroll taxes (I think for Saunders it's more of the former, and for Millner more of the latter).

But the dishonesty goes much further than just how to fund Social Security. As Ezra Klein points out (repeatedly), the problem is not Social Security (which is 'insolvent' only under the most pessimistic assumptions, and only at a date that each year moves further into the future) but Medicare (the cost of which is spiralling out of control). Just for perspective: according to the (exceedingly pessimistic) Social Security Trustees' Report, Social Security can be 'fixed' with a 16% increase in payroll taxes; Medicare would take a 122% increase to fund over the long run.

And as Ezra further points out, when we talk about the problem of Medicare, we're really talking about the problem of health care costs in general--the non-Medicare portion of which is rising even more rapidly than Medicare costs. The real problem won't be 'fixed' by cutting benefits or increasing payroll taxes, but by massive change in the health care system as a whole.

All of this said, Millner is almost right in one respect: there really is a tremendous inter-generational injustice being perpetrated here. It's the shifting of the tax burden from taxpayers today to taxpayers in the future (and, more to the point, from wealthy taxpayers to middle- and lower-class taxpayers). This shift is not just something Bush did, it's GOP policy; it's not just GOP policy, it's their fundamental raison d'etre. This is the core of Millner's astonishing stupidity: there is an egregious injustice and an easily identifiable culprit, and Millner never notices either one.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

Pity poor Debra Saunders: yesterday she came heartbreakingly close to beating the WaPo editorial board for the coveted¹ Wanker of the Day award. Close...but not quite there. Her near-winning entry began with this:

YOU CANNOT look at Lewis "Scooter" Libby without seeing Bill Clinton.

Well, yeah...if you're a fucking moron.

It goes downhill from there (Clinton perjury blah blah blah, out-of-control prosecutor yadda yadda yadda, Joe Wilson liar and so on and so on). Attacking Fitzgerald is part of her standard repertoire, along with global warming denial and mocking Gore, so who can blame her for indulging in it one last time before it goes out of style forever?

And of course every time she writes this same column, she begins with the premise that Libby's perjury charge is bogus just like Clinton's. I've addressed this false equivalence, but perhaps not as clearly as I could have, because she doesn't appear to have grasped the concept.

So here I provide a handy chart for the easily confused:

	Clinton	Libby
Underlying offense	Not criminal; at worst, arguably relevant (tangentially) to a civil case that was dismissed by the judge as failing to state a cause of action.	Potentially serious criminal offenses (including, possibly, conspiracy) with deleterious consequences for national security.
Practical impact of lie	No apparent impact on litigation.	Made it impossible to determine what, if any, criminal offenses had been committed, or by whom.
Prosecutor	Conservative Republican; active in prior partisan efforts to embarrass the president.	Conservative Republican Unaffiliated; no partisan motivation.
Scope of investigation	Initially limited to Whitewater, later expanded into unrelated areas. Perjury prosecution was for testimony completely irrelevant to original scope of investigation.	Limited to facts surrounding the leakage of a covert operative's identity, scope never changed. Perjury prosecution was for testimony directly related to original scope of investigation.
Media Leaks	Prosecutor's office systematically leaked information embarrassing to the president.	No significant leaks.
Washington press corps party line	This is serious, and the president should resign.	This is trivial, and the prosecutor is out of control.

You're welcome, Debra, and I hope this helps you avoid any further embarrassment.

Update: Edited to correct link and table header (thanks, De).
Other Update: Added a bit of essential information (italicized) I had neglected to include originally. I swear to god I will get this right eventually.
Other Other Update: Corrected re Fitzgerald's partty (non-)affiliation; added a bit re the Paula Jones lawsuit.

¹Joe Klein: "I'm as proud of being named 'Wanker of the Day' as I am of being Sean Hannity's 'Enemy of the State for the week.'"

It Can Always Get Worse

Debra Saunders's latest starts out with what looks like it could almost develop into a grain of sense:

THE MOST NAIVE sentence in the English language is: It couldn't get any worse.

Yup, that's about right.

If she stopped there, it would be her Best Column Ever. Sadly, she doesn't:

That's an argument many who have protested the war give for getting out of Iraq -- that nothing could be worse than 3,000 U.S. troops killed as the Iraq insurgency has grown stronger.

There she goes with those voices again. Do you know anyone who made that argument? Neither do I. In fact, I recall people making the opposite argument.

And yet she forges ahead:

There is something worse: Some 3,000 U.S. troops dead, followed by the collapse of the Iraqi government, thousands of Sunni Arabs dead, Iraqis who worked with the coalition forces assassinated and their families butchered, and thousands more refugees swarming across the Middle East. Something worse would be 3,000-plus U.S. troops dead after a defeat that has emboldened jihadists, who want to kill Americans, and have become convinced that if they do, the United States won't fight back -- not for long, anyway.

Yup, that's worse, all right. But you know what's even worse than that? All of the above, with 5,000 U.S. troops dead (or 4,000 or 10,000 or however many have to die before we pull the plug).

And additional U.S. casualties are just a small part of the equation. The longer we stay, the more human lives and money and national prestige we invest throw away in Iraq, the worse it will be when we lose--for us, for Iraqis, for stability in the Middle East.

So yes, Debra, it can always get worse. That's why we need to leave now.

[That's all, folks]

Debra Saunders Argues with the Voices in Her Head

I remember this one time many years ago, in a Burger King at the Sacramento Greyhound station, there was a woman carrying on a heated argument with herself in two different voices. It was a little unnerving.

I hadn't thought about that woman for at least a decade...until I read this column by Debra Saunders:

THERE ARE certain arguments that partisans repeat as if they are holy and certain -- until the arguments are no longer convenient. Here are some bromides and political arguments that were broadly used in the last few years, but now have outlived their usefulness, so you probably won't hear them much in 2007:

What, the reader asks, are those arguments? Are they real arguments, advanced by people who are...y'know...real? Or are they...something else?

Let's take a look:

The Pottery Barn Rule: You broke it, you own it. There was a time you couldn't go a day without hearing an Iraq-war opponent invoke former Secretary of State Colin Powell's famous warning about sending U.S. troops into Iraq. Apparently these folks never really believed in the rule, because they now want America to disown an Iraq mired in chaos.

I don't recall anyone using this as an argument against invading Iraq, and a fairly diligent Google search confirms my recollection: not a single pre-war use of the line as an argument against invasion.

Except for those voices, of course.

Impeachment is an attempt to overturn a popular election. The left used that argument repeatedly when the GOP House impeached President Bill Clinton. Funny, you don't hear the left making that argument when Democrats call for the House to start impeachment proceedings against President Bush.

This is the Debra Saunders Rule of Semantic Moral Equivalence: if the same label can somehow be applied to two different things, then those things are exactly the same, as long as their equivalence bolsters one's preconceptions. (If it doesn't, then they're totally different.)

The president should be more skeptical of U.S. intelligence on Iraq. Forget former CIA chief George Tenet's assurance that it was a "slam dunk" Saddam Hussein had WMD. Bush was supposed to not believe that finding of U.S. intelligence on Iraq. But now, when U.S. intelligence estimates suggest that Iraq is unwinnable, editorial boards across the country assume the intelligence must be accurate.

So the voices in her head tell her the problem was too much deference to the CIA, not manipulation of dubious 'intelligence' for political ends. Meanwhile, the liberals in her head were calling for more manipulation of intelligence by the executive branch. That makes real liberals total hypocrites when they say the president should pay attention to actual intelligence instead of making up their own.

It all makes sense.

Washington's deficit spending is unconscionable. This year, Republicans will want to maintain the Bush tax cuts and Democrats will be enjoying their return to power. In 2007, many 2006 deficit hawks from both parties will go wobbly.

Right. Because if the Democrats, after six years of arguing against the tax-shifting bills that got us into this mess, don't immediately abandon their own spending priorities (while leaving in place said tax shifting), they're total hypocrites.

Americans need to sacrifice and cut back on their energy use to fight global warming. Global warming remains an article of faith, but you can say bye-bye to the notion that fighting global warming will require good citizens to cut back. GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sees no problem with owning four Hummers and tooling around in a private jet -- while he orders the state to reduce its output of greenhouse gases. Former veep Al Gore, who once wrote that fighting global warming would require "sacrifice, struggle and a wrenching transformation of society," now tells gullible movie-goers that fighting global warming will be good for the economy and create jobs.

That Schwarzenegger--he's like the poster child for liberal hypocrisy. Except for, y'know, not being a liberal. No matter how much those voices say he is.

And if you can find the contradiction in what the voices in her head tell her Gore is saying, you're a better Republican than I am.

Bush hasn't asked Americans to sacrifice because of the war in Iraq. Most of the folks I see making this argument aren't sacrificing anything to further the war effort either -- they're just using the war to bolster their support for higher taxes on the rich. And they want the need for sacrifice to turn Americans against the war. Now that polls show that Americans don't support the war, the pro-sacrifice crowd will ditch the phony sacrifice argument. [emphasis added]

Isn't it nice that the voices in her head tell her all about the future as well as the present? Don't you just want to call her up and ask her for tips on the horse races...and bet on any horse but the ones she recommends?

[That's all, folks]

Consensus, Unanimity, and 'Controversy'

I sort of glossed over a point in this post (the distinction between consensus and unanimity) that bears a little more scrutiny, because it's essential to how scientific 'contrarians' like Singer operate. Consider this bit:

"Well, which is it?" Singer asked. If there is a consensus, there should be no deniers.

And apply it to, say, the Holocaust:

"Well, which is it?" David Irving asked. If there is a consensus, there should be no deniers.

Under the Singer/Saunders standard, there is no consensus that the Holocaust occurred; after all, if there is a consensus, there should be no deniers. There is no consensus that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, for that matter--not as long as a single person asserts that it is flat.

And so, knowing that many reporters unconsciously apply this standard, people like Singer are able to manufacture 'controversy' simply by asserting something contrary to the (genuine) consensus. (It's not just corporate shills, either; this is exactly what the creationists do as well.) It doesn't work so well with the Holocaust, probably because most journalists are better versed in history than in science, but it is maddeningly effective in matters requiring a modicum of knowledge in any area of science.

[That's all, folks]

Debra Saunders: Still Scientifically Illiterate After All These Years

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing...and a very little knowledge is damn near lethal. See, for example, Debra Saunders, whose general impression that global warming is a crock makes her vulnerable to all sorts of misinformation.

As usual, she finds a scientist to validate her ignorance. Unfortunately for her, the scientist is Fred Singer. Singer, a professional global warming denier, is founder and president of the SEPP--which, in the past, has also argued against links between CFCs and ozone depletion, and secondhand smoke and lung cancer. You won't be shocked to read which industries fund them.

She triumphantly cites a couple of articles about the UN IPCC report that came out earlier this month. One is a Telegraph piece reporting that the IPCC has downgraded its estimate of the potential rise in sea level. Happily, Tim Lambert disposes of this neatly:

The reporter has confused climate sensitivity (how much warming you eventually get from doubling CO2), with predicted warming in 2100. In the third assessment report the top end of the range for sensitivity was 4.5, while the top end for warming by 2100 was 5.8. These numbers haven't changed in the new report, all that has happened is that the reporter has mistaken the 4.5 number for sensitivity as a new estimate for warming and reported it as a reduction from 5.8.

The other reports that methane from livestock is a greater contributor to global warming than automobiles. Saunders, of course, trivializes this as 'cow farts', and appears to think it's a 'trees cause pollution' sort of thing (hey, it's animals releasing those greenhouse gases!). If you read the UN press release, though, you see it's still all about human causes: increasing methane emissions are just another part of the heavy environmental price we pay for the fact that more people are eating meat. (Industrial agriculture appears to contribute in other ways, if I read the piece correctly; what livestock are fed, for example, appears to be a factor in methane emissions.)

But what does that matter when she has someone like Singer to reinforce her ignorance:

If there's one thing that irritates Singer, it is Gore's belief that there is a scientific "consensus" about human-induced global warming, even as Gore incessantly complains about scientists who deny global warming.

"Well, which is it?" Singer asked. If there is a consensus, there should be no deniers.

I don't know if Singer is being stupid or dishonest here; I'm inclined to guess the latter, as surely anyone with his background should understand the distinction between consensus and unanimity. Debra Saunders, though--I'm pretty sure she doesn't. And that's just one reason why science should get a restraining order to keep her from coming any closer than a thousand yards of it.

[That's all, folks]

Shiny Happy Iraqis...Or Not

Shorter Debra Saunders: "I wrote an entire column based on cherrypicked numbers from an outdated poll, and the newer poll results are so bleak that even I have to admit they aren't totally rosy, but I'm still going to pretend I was right in the first place."

The longer version is a study in the mental contortions necessary to sustain the faith of the dead-enders...

For example, a reasonable person might say that if the number of people who think Iraq 'is moving in the wrong direction' is itself moving in the wrong direction, it suggests that, in an objective sense, Iraq is moving in the wrong direction. Saunders, however, looks on the bright side: the current number "beats the 44 percent of Californians who told the Public Policy Institute of California that the state is heading in the right direction." (That just tells me Iraq would be even worse off if they had Schwarzenegger as governor.)

Or take this bit:

The majority of Iraqis still answer, despite all the hardships they have experienced since the U.S.-British invasion, that they personally believe ousting Saddam Hussein was "worth it." The latest number is 61 percent -- 81 percent of Kurds, 75 percent of Shia Arabs and 11 percent of Sunnis -- although the overall number is down from 77 percent in January. [emphasis added]

You or I might see the vast discrepancy between Sunni and Shiite (or Kurdish) opinion as an ominous sign of intractable differences; we might well wonder if the Shiites are happy because Iraq is moving toward a Shiite-dominated theocracy, or if the Kurds are happy because Iraq is moving toward dissolution. Not Saunders, who clings resolutely to the 61% figure as a kind of vindication. There is no bad news; there is only good news that hasn't yet been spun as such.

Even unspun, it seems to me that the poll results in question are probably overly optimistic--not through any fault of the pollsters, but because of basic Iraqi reality. I think it's a pretty safe bet that the most dangerous and discontented areas are probably undersampled. (Drastically undersampled, if the polling agency has any concern for the safety of its employees.) What's more, if I read the methodology correctly, they made no attempt to survey the 1.5 million Iraqis who have fled the country. (I think it would be fair to put them all in the 'moving in the wrong direction' camp.)

Questions of accuracy notwithstanding, though, I give the pollsters credit for trying to learn something of what Iraqis think. That's credit I don't give to people like Saunders, who care only about proving themselves 'right', and see only what they need to see to keep believing until the bitter end.

[That's all, folks]

Experiments in Child-Rearing

Debra Saunders nearly always makes me want to bang my head against a wall, but yesterday she nearly gave me a concussion with a column headed Intolerance, a San Francisco treat.

The background: San Francisco supervisor Bevan Dufty, who is gay, had a child with a lesbian mother; they're now living together and raising the child together. Local anchorman Pete Wilson, who also has a radio show, devoted an hour of his show to criticizing the whole arrangement. Among other things, he said a baby is "not an experiment. It is not an opportunity to see how far you can carry your views on parenting, alternative lifestyles or diversity in family structures." In response, two other Supervisors, Tom Ammiano (who is gay) and Ross Mirkarimi (who is not) have called for Wilson to resign.

Which sets up Saunders' pet theme of The Intolerance of People Who Are Tolerant:

Yes, San Francisco is very tolerant -- unless you hold the wrong opinion. Then the supes will try to get you fired....gays and S.F. supes are...trying to get a man fired for expressing views they don't like. They clearly don't appreciate the beauty of free speech: When you don't like what someone says, you talk back. You don't silence dissenters, unless you are afraid of what they say.

Now, I think calling for Wilson's resignation was supremely silly. It's silly on a substantive level, and it's incredibly dumb on the level of appearances. It's crap like this that gives Saunders and her kind a fig leaf for the lie that lefties are 'intolerant'.

What's more, I don't think Pete Wilson's comments were necessarily bigoted. Narrow, yes, but bigoted...he's been a friend in the past, and I think it would be stupid and false to call him an enemy now.

That said, what Saunders completely misses is that Wilson's comments really were completely inappropriate and uncalled-for. They were inappropriate because it's none of his business. (Saunders not only fails to understand this but joins in the fun: "While I am sure Dufty's daughter is a beautiful child, I, too, wonder if this Instant Family will last." Thanks for sharing, Debra.) Nobody is accusing Dufty of abusing his child, or neglecting her, or doing anything at all that would make his home life our--society's--business. So while I wouldn't call for Wilson's resignation, I would cordially invite him to shut the fuck up.

Jon Carroll, writing in Monday's Chronicle, does get it:

Here's the breaking-news non-flash: It's all an experiment. Every adventure in parenting is trial and error, generally performed by people totally unqualified for the task. I think of myself at 23, which is how old I was when my first daughter was born, and I think: Would I entrust an infant to this man? Absolutely not. I remember him well. He was barely sentient. He meant well, usually, but he was deeply ignorant....

This isn't about political correctness, whatever the hell that means now. This is about raising a valiant child, and Dufty and Goldfader should be allowed to do that without having to worry about talk show hosts looking for a horse to ride.

Families are different. Families change. Traditional families become non-traditional, and vice-versa. What doesn't change is that raising a child is the most difficult thing in the world. Those people who have the courage to do it should be allowed to do so without unwarranted interference from bystanders with an agenda.

[That's all, folks]

Wingnuts, Armitage, and Plamegate

Debra Saunders, who never met a Republican talking point she didn't like, jumps on the Plamegate-is-really-nothing-because-Armitage-was-the-leaker bandwagon:

WITH the disclosure that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the initial source for Robert Novak's July 2003 column that outed CIA operative Valerie Wilson -- also known as Valerie Plame, wife of former ambassador and Iraq-war critic Joseph Wilson -- it is now clear that all the hype about a Bush-inspired vendetta against the Wilsons is bunk.

The basic premise (for Saunders, and for all the other wingnuts repeating the party line) is that only the leak to Novak could possibly be considered wrong, and that any subsequent leak was perfectly okay.

To illustrate one reason why this is ridiculous, here's a little timeline:

• June, 2003: Armitage tells Woodward about Plame; Woodward sits on the information.


• June 23, 2003: Libby tells Judy Miller Wilson's wife might work for the CIA.


• July 8, 2003: Libby gives Miller more details about Plame's position. Armitage meets with Novak and tells him.


• July 11, 2003: Rove tells Marc Cooper.


• July 14, 2003: Novak column about Valerie Plame.

In other words, both Libby and Rove leaked the information before it was common knowledge. Miller testified that Libby was her original source, and Cooper testified that Rove was his.

And then there's the enormous leap of logic to the conclusion that "all the hype about a Bush-inspired vendetta against the Wilsons is bunk." To accept that, we would have to assume that Armitage's leak erases the actions of Rove and Libby--that because Armitage was apparently first, what Rove and Libby did not only wasn't wrong but didn't happen at all. But we know it happened. We know they did what they did. We know that both of them lied about it (although Rove ultimately skated on that charge). We also know that Cheney gave Libby a copy of the Wilson piece with notes that appear to be marching orders for the anti-Wilson pushback ("did his wife send him on a junket?").

I won't go so far that the case is proven...but, really now: we have the documents; we know who Cheney is, and how he operates; we know who Rove is, and how he operates; we know what the administration as a whole is, and how it operates; and it all adds up to circumstantial evidence strong enough for ordinary people (if not a Federal grand jury) to judge them guilty. The claim that the Armitage leak vindicates the White House--that it proves their innocence--is a sad and desperate attempt to deny the obvious.

Update: Via Atrios, I see that the WashPo editorial board are also drinking the Kool-Aid.

[That's all, folks]

Mavericks and Opportunists

Debra Saunders is the latest to recycle the stupid and ridiculous Democrats-are-hypocrites-because-they-hate-Lieberman-but-love-McCain line:

MONTHS AGO, I was lunching with some savvy Democrats, when one of them asked me: What is the problem with all those Republicans who can't stand maverick GOP Sen. John McCain?

....Then again, I added, Democrats have their own maverick -- Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman....That's when the table got quiet. It is one thing for Democrats to feel superior to rube Republicans who don't like McCain because he is not sufficiently doctrinaire. When, however, a Democrat gets along with Republicans and espouses moderate positions, well then, he is a turncoat, plain and simple. The episode demonstrated how voters value bipartisanship -- from the other side, only.

Thing One: I've known some Democrats who have, in the past, expressed respect for McCain...but at this point I don't know any Democrats who have anything but contempt for him.

Thing two: most Democrats have an entirely consistent position on Lieberman and McCain. We can't stand Lieberman because he kisses Bush's ass, and we can't stand McCain because he kisses Bush's ass. No inconsistency at all.

Thing three: the 'maverick' standard is completely inane in the first place, an insipid elevation of personality over substance that pretends to the status of savvy commentary.

Thing Four: there are mavericks and there are opportunists, and it doesn't pay to confuse the two.

Russ Feingold is a maverick--that is, he parts ways with the party on genuine matters of principle. I don't like some of his votes, and I don't always like the way he does things (I think he completely and unforgiveably bungled the censure resolution), but I respect his motivation.

Chuck Hagel is a maverick. Hagel has been one of the most vocal critics of Bush on the Republican side, not just on Iraq but on other issues as well, and he's been marginalized within the party as a result. I don't think I'd ever vote for Hagel, but I respect his willingness to deal with the real world instead of party-line ideology.

Lieberman and McCain are opportunists. They're 'mavericks' only in the narrow sense that they differ with their respective parties on some issues. When it really matters, what they do is gravitate toward power and popularity. In Lieberman's case, that means crossing the aisle because that's where the power is. The very things people like Saunders see as Lieberman's 'maverickness' (Iraq, attacking his fellow Democrats) are in fact evidence of his slavishness, of his instinct for kissing up to those in power.

McCain's opportunism is a little different because he's on the stronger side. He differs with his party on the little things because it plays well with the people he'll need to win the presidency; on the big things (e.g., Iraq) he goes along with the administration. So he sponsors a toothless bill that says torture is sub-optimal, knowing full well that as long as this administration is in power it'll never have any practical impact; he gets some cred with the people who are uncomfortable with torture (also known as 'sane people'), but he doesn't pose any serious challenge to the people whom he'll need to get him through the primaries.

So, yeah, show me a real maverick and I'll at least grant him or her a little respect. Lieberman and McCain aren't it.

[That's all, folks]