Glass Houses and all that

It seems that what goes around really does come around. The latest is a story from Bloomberg (reported in the New York Post [link]) about Phil Angelides, the California Treasurer. For those of you who weren't paying attention this past summer, Angelides was a key player in the ousting of New York Stock Exchange Chairman and CEO Dick Grasso, and has been a vocal critic of the mutual fund companies that have been implicated in recent scandals.

The gist of Angelides complaints in the NYSE matter was that even if Grasso didn't do anything illegal, the appearances of impropriety in his pay package and his running of the Exchange were enough to warrant his ouster. Well, it turns out that Angelides might not have been as pure as the driven snow: according to Bloomberg, Angelides has solicited campaign contributions from at least 22 financial services companies and investment banks who were in a position to do business with the state of California.

Can you say "appearance of impropriety"?

But it gets worse. When pay-for-play [in which local and state officials accept political contributions from financial institutions, while awarding lucrative bond underwriting business to those same firms] was outlawed by the SEC in the early 1990s, Angelides and other state treasurers began using a huge loophole to keep the dollars flowing: money that is contributed by a parent company of a potential bond underwriter is not barred, nor is money contributed by lawyers or lobbyists for the potential underwriter. And how much has Angelides collected from these sources? Well, the Post is reporting that he's gotten $408,000 from lawyers alone.

Kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it?

His master's digitally remixed, edited and enhanced voice

I have to say, I'm getting sick of the Orwellian revisions of history being practiced by the White House, various Republican groups and now, the GOP.

Recently, I noted an instance in which the White House press office altered the transcript of a speech that President Bush made to the Australian Parliament to "correct" a misstatement by Mr. Bush. [link] The official Australian transcript recorded what President Bush actually said. I also linked to two instances of conservative Republican websites being "altered" to remove offensive material; in one case, the offensive phrase was edited and the piece reposted, and in the other, the offensive article simply disappeared off the group's website.

Today, it is reported in the New York Times that the Republican National Party digitally altered a clip of the President's State of the Union address to make him sound more "presidential" when they used the clip in a campaign commercial. [link] The Republican National Committee claims that they merely edited out a pause and fixed a mangled word ("vile" instead of "wile"), so what's the big deal?

Well, here's my take: the big deal is that it is dishonest, plain and simple. Sure, it's a small lie, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a lie. Same thing with changing the transcript of the President's speech in Australia; sure, he meant to say we "seek" a democratic China, but the fact remains that he said we "see" a democratic China, and the official transcript ought to reflect that. The thing is, legitimizing the small lies blurs the line between what should be permissible and impermissible in governance, and makes it possible for the bigger lies to gain a foothold.

[As an aside, I think that the ability of members of Congress to "revise and extend" their remarks is equally dishonest, and ought to be stopped. If you're not going to keep an accurate record, why bother keeping a record at all?]

Unfortunately, the pattern of the Bush administration seems to be to advance "small" lies and then hope that nobody will notice the truth, or, if they do, that the people insisting on truth can be painted as petty and missing the forest for the trees. As a tactic, it's insidious and inimicle to the ideal of democracy.

I don't mean to harp on anti-Semitism, but...

This time, it's Ann Coulter, the right-wing's take-no-prisoners trash-talker, who has, among other "highlights" of her career, praised Sen. Joseph McCarthy and accused basically everybody who isn't a conservative Republican of treason.

Her most recent column mocks the Democratic presidential candidates for (a) relating stories of personal tragedies (death or near death of siblings, children, etc.) while running for President and (b) having some connection to Judaism, whether by having Jewish ancestry like Gen. Clark and Sen. Clinton (who is not a presidential candidate except in the minds of the right wing), being married to a Jew like Gov. Dean, or actually being Jewish, like Sen. Lieberman. [link] Now, maybe she's not exactly stooping to calling Jews "Shylocks" and the like, but the insinuation is pretty gross:

In addition to having a number of family deaths among them, the Democrats' other big idea – too nuanced for a bumper sticker – is that many of them have Jewish ancestry. There's Joe Lieberman: Always Jewish. Wesley Clark: Found Out His Father Was Jewish in College. John Kerry: Jewish Since He Began Presidential Fund-Raising. Howard Dean: Married to a Jew. Al Sharpton: Circumcised. Even Hillary Clinton claimed to have unearthed some evidence that she was a Jew – along with the long lost evidence that she was a Yankees fan. And that, boys and girls, is how the Jews survived thousands of years of persecution: by being susceptible to pandering.

What exactly does Coulter mean when she says that Jews are "susceptible to pandering"? And what about saying Sen. Kerry is "Jewish since he began presidential fund-raising"? Is she implying that our support can be bought? Or that we once we get our pound of flesh, then we'll support a candidate?

On second thought, maybe it's not so far from calling us "Shylocks" after all.

Anti-Semitism Update

Since GOPUSA no longer is publishing the anti-Semitic remarks of one of its regular columnists, you have to look elsewhere for the full text. Like here. [link]

The article comes from a group of websites that go by the name "Breaking All the Rules". It's clearly a lunatic fringe, that includes a columnist writing a screed against the ADL [link] and another decrying the "Beltway-Lifestyle-Left Libertarian alliance" [link]. But for the fact that substantial Republicans have associated themselves with it, at least tangentially through GOPUSA, I wouldn't waste my time with it. But the fact is, they have, and I find that appalling. Clearly, prominent Republicans ought to be called to task for their flirtation with anti-Semitism. Of course, I'm not optimistic that that would ever actually happen...

Exposing Anti-Semites

So, Josh Marshall, at Talking Points Memo, has a post about an anti-Semitic opinion piece at GOPUSA.com. [link] It's pretty incendiary. But you're going to have to take Marshall's word for it (and the word of Atrios, another blogger), because the article has been removed from the GOPUSA.com website.

As quoted on Marshall's site, the article describes George Soros as follows:

No other single person represents the symbol and the substance of Globalism more than this Hungarian-born descendant of Shylock. He is the embodiment of the Merchant from Venice. His public reputation as an astute currency speculator is generous, while his skills as a manipulator and procurer of pain and suffering is shrouded in the footnotes of the financial journals. Claiming to be a philanthropist, his record is literally one of being a patron for indentured enslavement.

...

Double standards for an advocate of a permissive, yet regimented globe? If you think he is a friend of humanity, beware of his public attempt to influence his tribe, by insulting their benefactors. Before the Jewish Funders Network, he recently made these remarks: "There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that," Soros said. "It's not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself in anti-Semitism as well. I'm critical of those policies." The inevitable outcry from the usual suspects, just illustrates the orchestrated nature of the Soros effort to rationalize his own social agenda, while deflecting criticism back to his ancestral blood line.

Pretty outrageous, no? GOPUSA.com, by the way, is not affiliated with the Republican Party, and you might therefore ask, who cares? Well, it turns out that many notable Republicans, including some current members of Congress, have associated with the organization, most recently as scheduled speakers at a GOPUSA conference. [link] Some of the brighter lights: Sen. John Cornyn (TX); Chuck DeFeo (eCampaign manager, Bush-Cheney '04); Grover Norquist (President, Americans for Tax Reform and Republican uber-advisor); Pete Jeffries (communications director for House Speaker Dennis Hastert); Rep. Steve King (IA); and Rep. Tom Tancredo (CO).

All of which leads me to say, Oy.

And now for something completely different...

Attention, loyal readers (you four know who you are)!

As you can see, Now Entering Laboville has been updated with a new look. Unfortunately, the old blog template was based on outdated HTML code that was incompatible with new Blogger features. Since I know this much about HTML (picture my thumb and finger really really close together), I gave in and updated to one of the new and improved Blogger templates. One of the benefits of the new template is that the text is larger (bigger fonts, same low price) and presumably easier to read. As a direct consequence of this, I will now be using longer and more obscure words in an effort to make you all work the way you used to with the old template.

The downside of this is that there will be a short shakedown period while I figure out how to incorporate features of my old blog into the new blog. Please bear with me. At the moment, the links to external sites are not working, and neither is the commenting feature. For now, if you want to comment, email me at dlabovitz@earthlink.net and I will post the comments for all to see and read.

I hope you enjoy the new and improved Now Entering Laboville. If not, keep it to yourself.

Vive la cognitive dissonance!

I have often lamented that the tone of what passes for political discourse in the U.S. means that we spend our time talking, or rather shouting, past each other. Everybody is so busy yelling that sometimes it feels like no one is listening.

Therefore, when someone whose views I generally disagree with says something that I can agree with, I think the responsible thing to do is acknowledge it. Yes, I'm talking about Bill O'Reilly. Yeah, I was shocked myself.

O'Reilly's thesis in his syndicated article today is that President Bush is vulnerable, but that the radical left may be too angry for the Democratic party to capitalize on that vulnerability, thereby handing the election to the Republicans. [link] Here is O'Reilly in his own words:

There are certainly legitimate questions about how the Bush administration could apparently be so wrong about WMDs and the violent aftermath of the formal war. But Bush can avoid addressing those questions if they are lost among irrational harangues by his opponents.

I hate to say it, but I think O'Reilly is on to something. He's not saying that some anger isn't productive, just that when the left wing gets angry, it brooks no compromise, and it is that tendancy that will turn off swing voters. O'Reilly again:

Bush also realizes that the more the bomb-throwers bellow, the easier it will be for him to stake out "the voice of reason" territory. Thus, he is adopting the Muhammad Ali technique of rope-a-dope. He is laying back, letting the frenzied opposition flail away, knowing it will eventually exhaust itself and collapse in a heap. Most Americans are not ideologues and will soon find the fanatics tiresome.

I don't know that I endorse his view wholeheartedly -- I think that there is a lot of anger out there that needs to be tapped into and directed as a motivational force. Still, anger is like electricity: if you're not careful to direct it and control it, it can be deadly.

How to Read the New York Times

Forget the front page of the New York Times, the real news is buried on page A8 and A12.

On page A8 is an article about comments by Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, in which he describes the conflict in Iraq as a "war" in a conscious effort to "inject some realism" into the discussions in Washington. Gen. Sanchez also says that the failure to capture Saddam Hussein was "critical" and has impeded US efforts to make headway in Iraq. [link]

Now can we legitimately say that there's a disconnect between what's going on in Iraq and what the Bush administration is saying is going on in Iraq? Certainly, the commanders in the field think so.

* * *

On page A12 is an article noting that the House and Senate have passed a bill that significantly expands the FBI's ability to get access to financial records without a warrant. The section, tucked away in the intelligence appropriations bill for 2004, is a masterstroke of hiding in plain sight. At the end of this post is the link to the Times article, but in the interest of this academic exercise, don't click on the link until you get there...

The section in question, Section 354, reads as follows [link]:

The Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978 (12 U.S.C. 3401 et seq.) is amended--

(1) in section 1101(1) (12 U.S.C. 3401(1)), by inserting `, except as provided in section 1114,' before `means any office'; and

(2) in section 1114 (12 U.S.C. 3414), by adding at the end the following:

`(c) For purposes of this section, the term `financial institution' has the same meaning as in section 5312(a)(2) of title 31, United States Code, except that, for purposes of this section, such term shall include only such a financial institution any part of which is located inside any State or territory of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, or the United States Virgin Islands.'.

Ask yourself how any reasonably intelligent person is supposed to know what that means. The title of the section gives you some clue that we're modifying the definition of "financial institution", but from what and to what? Hard to say. So perhaps an enterprising senator would look to the Senate committee report, which would simply tell you that

The definition of `financial institution' in the Right to Financial Privacy Act--essentially unmodified since the Act became law in 1978--significantly excludes certain entities that provide financial services to the public. Financial records maintained by these entities are not covered by the Act and, thus, are not accessible by counterintelligence and foreign intelligence elements of the U.S. Government under the Act, limiting the effectiveness of national security investigations. In order to expand the definition of `financial institution' for purposes only of section 1114, this subsection adopts, in part, the definition of `financial institution' found in section 5312(a)(2) of title 31, United States Code. The expansion of this definition is consistent with the definition used in section 804(5) of the Counterintelligence and Security Enhancements Act of 1994, Public Law 103-359 (50 U.S.C. 438). [link]

Not very helpful, huh? But hey, we all know what "financial institutions" refers to, don't we? We could all make a list of financial institutions and it would be pretty exhaustive, wouldn't it? It would have banks of various stripes (federally insured, thrifts, foreign charters, etc.), and broker-dealers, and credit-card companies. If you thought about it, you might include insurance companies and currency exchanges on the list, right?

But would your list include jewelers? Mine does. It also includes telegraph companies, travel agents, car dealers, marinas, casinos, Indian bingo halls and the U.S. Postal Service. I'm willing to bet that your list doesn't have those things on it. In fact, section 5312(a)(2) of title 31 of the US Code contains no fewer than 24 types of entity that are considered to be "financial institutions", many of which no reasonable person would suspect of being on such a list. [link to statute] [link to Times article]

So there you have it -- a sweeping new invasion of the Fourth Amendment gets hidden in plain sight and made into law with no one knowing what they've done. On the bright side, however, we now have another reason to hate used car salesmen...

Pols vs. Polls (follow-up)

Bruce commented on my last post by pointing me to Zogby's actual poll results. [link] Shame on me for not finding the results myself. Anyway, Bruce also challenged Zogby's own statement to Nicholas Kristoff regarding "manufacturing results" by the Bush Administration.

Respectfully, I disagree.

Bruce writes In the question on models, it's true that US democratic model got 23%, but that was out of a field of 8 choices the poll offered, and it was the largest specific choice. So it's true to say it won. Claiming "hands-downness" for that win may be hyperbole, but there are no established standards of "hands-downness" that I know of.

It seems disingenuous to me to say that a US style democracy was the preferred political model, based on the results of the poll. Actually, given the margin of error (+/- 4.1%), the US (23.3%) was in a statisical dead heat with "Not Sure" (21.9%). At the same time, the cumulative results tell a more nuanced story -- a cumulative 29.3% chose "Saudi Arabia" (17.4%) or "Syria" (11.9%) as their preferred political model, while a cumulative 26.4% chose either the US or the loosely-democratic Iran (3.1%) as their preferred model. Since neither Saudi Arabia nor Syria could be characterized as even "loosely" democratic, I'm not willing to say that a democratic model (whether US-style or indigineous) "won".

Perhaps the best evidence that democracy didn't win is the result of another question in the poll: Which of the following statements, A or B, comes closer to your view? A: Democracy can work well in Iraq. B: Democracy is a Western way of doing things and it will not work here. Statement B beat Statement A 50.8% to 38.6%.

At best, given the margin of error, a hybrid category -- call it "some form of democracy" -- finished in a three way tie with "not sure" and a second hybrid category, "some form of authoritarianism". But given the question about attitudes toward democracy, I have to say that the edge goes to "Not Democracy" over "Democracy."

Now, I agree that there's no standard for "hands-downness" (an elegant term, if ever I heard one!), but I think that reasonable minds can agree that one who finishes in, at best, a three-way tie doesn't "win hands-down" by any standard you can name. And given the attitudes question, I think "hands down" was a lie.

Bruce continues: On the second question, again "stay for a year" was the most popular answer. If you add the "1 YR" and the "2+ yrs" responses, they, in fact, do add up to a majority of the total responses. So where is the lie?

Fair's fair. As explained below, I think Vice President Cheney may have been "technically correct" and therefore technically "not lying." Here, I think the problem is in the question. According to the poll results summary, the question was "Given a choice, would you like to see the American and British forces leave Iraq in six months, one year, or two years or more?" The results were 31.6% for "six months", 34% for "one year" and 25% for "two years or more".

The problem, of course, is the "one year" answer -- it can be added to either of the other two answers to prove your point, because it doesn't answer whether "out in one year" is a firm deadline (that is, one year at the outside) or an approximate period. Thus, the poll results could reasonably be interpreted to say that 65.6% of those surveyed want the US out within a year, or they could be interpreted to mean that 59% are content to wait a year or more before the troops leave. Given that ambiguity, Vice President Cheney's statement -- that a majority of Iraqis want American troops to stay at least another year -- is technically correct.

Bruce concludes The lie might be in the government cherry picking arguably favorable responses and ignoring the more challenging ones. But even here, there are several other favorable to US interest answers in other questions on Zogby's poll, such as religious pluralism being favored and Bin Laden being disapproved of. I suspect there are biases all around, but that Kristoff's and Zogby's, while different from those of the administration, are no smaller.

Cherry-picking only the favorable results is a recurring theme in this administration, and that's why I hesitate to give Vice President Cheney the benefit of the doubt. As you point out, there are "favorable results" elsewhere in the survey, but interestingly, the Bush administration didn't choose to highlight those results as evidence of progress. They chose to highlight one statistic that I think was at best, misleading, and at worst, an outright lie, and one statistic that was at best ambiguous.

That hardly gives me confidence in the administration.

Pols vs. Polls

A quick hit:

Nicholas Kristof's op-ed in the New York Times today has an odd quote from John Zogby, the pollster, about how the Bush administration is trumpeting the results of a Zogby International poll. [link] Apparently, the poll showed that 23 percent of Iraqis favor the U.S. democratic model, but Vice President Cheney has been saying that Iraqis chose the U.S. model "hands down". And while 65 percent of Iraqis said they favor a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq within a year or less, Vice President Cheney says that a majority of Iraqis want American troops to stay at least another year.

So here's the curious quote from Mr. Zogby: "I am not willing to say they lied, but they used a very tight process of selective screening, and when they didn't get what they wanted they were willing to manufacture some reults . . . There was almost nothing in that poll to give them comfort." (Emphasis added)

Say what? Can someone please explain to me the logic of saying that the President and his senior subordinates are "manufacturing some results" yet not say that they're lying? If it were my poll, and they had misconstrued it so grossly, I'd be screaming "Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!" through a megaphone.

Those who forget to revise history...

Damned if they're not up to it again.

Last Tuesday, I posted a brief entry about how the Bush White House was caught "revising history". That is to say, the White House changed press releases from May 2003 about the announcement of the end of combat operations in Iraq from ending "combat operations" to ending "major combat operations." [link]

Now I see that Josh Marshall, at Talking Points Memo, has caught the Bush White House in another example of "massaging" the record. The offending change this time was in the official transcript of a speech that President Bush made to the Australian Parliament when he was in Asia last month. According to the transcript released by the White House at the time, Bush said that "We see a China that is stable and prosperous, a nation that respects the peace of its neighbors and works to secure the freedom of its own people." That sentence, of course, is fairly significant endorsement of China's policies, and, incidentally, a change in U.S. foreign policy. Apparently, it may have also been an error by Bush. According to Marshall's sources, the President was supposed to say "We seek a China that is stable and prosperous," etc. That's a very different statement.

So how did the White House handle it? Well, as Marshall points out, they simply edited the transcript, without any indication that it was ever different. Now, if you go to the White House website, the official transcript says "seek" and not "see", even though, of course, the idea of a transcript is to record what was actually said, not what was intended to be said. In any event, thanks to Josh Marshall, who made a PDF file of the original, we can see the edit for ourselves. Please visit Marshall's site, and give him the proper credit for his investigative journalism. [link] [Marshall has recently posted an update on this story here]

I said it before, but it bears repeating. The web sees all, so if you're thinking about trying to cover your tracks when you make a misstatement, it's probably going to come back and bite you in the ass, because someone saw your original and made a copy of it.

So much to talk about, so little time.

First up, Kathleen Parker, a columnist on the Heritage Foundation's website, initially advocated that the 9 Democratic candidates "be lined up and shot." More sensible heads must have prevailed, because the article was quickly revised to read that they "be lined up and slapped." [link] Alas for the Heritage Foundation, the web sees all, and someone caught a screen shot of the original language. [link].

But here's the icing on the embarrasing scandal: the changed language is supposed to be a quote ("Here's a note I got recently from a friend and former Delta Force member, who has been observing American politics from the trenches").

The friend and former Delta Force member either did or didn't say that the candidates should be lined up and shot, so the change in the text strikes me as curious. To me, the quick change suggests that Parker fabricated the whole "note" to make a point that she was too embarrased to own herself. [It's not the first time that conservatives have tried to couch radical sentiment in faux-populism. As I commented a while back, in 2000, there was a "mob" that stormed an election office in Florida to demand that a recall be halted. The "mob" turned out to be primarily Republican staffers.]

Next up, the Republican Party's reign of terror begins. This refers, of course, to the Reign of Terror in 18th century France, in which the radicals who had led the French Revolution turned on their fellow revolutionaries for lacking "ideological purity" in service to the Revolution. People were guilty of this "offense" were summarily executed.

Now comes a story out of Washington about a senior majority staffer (and lifelong Republican) on the House Armed Services Committee, who formerly served in the Armed Forces in Europe as an aide to Gen. Wesley Clark, formerly the supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe. Apparently, when Gen. Clark was recently in Washington to meet with Democrats on Capitol Hill, this staffer greeted General Clark warmly, as befits a man greeting a former boss and personal acquaintance. All sources agree that the staffer merely greeted Clark, and did not attend the meeting that Clark had with the Democrats. Nevertheless, the warm greeting was noticed by Republican operatives, who promptly arranged to have the staffer fired from the Armed Services committee staff. They later said that the staffer had never been "fired", but the aide resigned in disgust, and as a postscript, pledged to do whatever it takes to get Gen. Clark elected. [link (scroll down to the bottom)]

Isn't this the tone in Washington that then-Governor Bush campaigned that he would "change" if he were elected? Instead, Tom DeLay and other Republican partisans have implemented a rule that they won't take meetings from lobbying firms that employ former Democratic staffers, effectively barring Democrats from being hired as lobbyists...And now this.

Confessions of a Banner-Hanger

I confess. You know that banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln? The one that no one will take "credit" for? Well, it was my idea. I'm in debt to W for covering for me, but I can't live the lie anymore. The truth wants to be free.

I remember it like was yesterday...It was late April, and at about 3 in the morning, my phone rang. It was Cmdr. Ron Horton, the executive officer of the Lincoln. I think he realized by my groggy tone that he had woken me up, because he mumbled something about the International Date Line and how it was like 4 in the afternoon of next Tuesday where he was.

But I digress. Ron was in a tizzy. "Look, we're having W over for tea, and we don't know what to serve. Watercress seems so trite, but the guy who's got the good chili recipe is on shore leave, so we're panicking out here."

I offered some menu suggestions that, for reasons of national security, I am not at liberty to divulge (although I did tell Robert Novak about the menu). But then I asked the fateful question, the one that led to this whole fiasco: "Say, Ron, where're you gonna be when W comes calling?"

"Tied up in San Diego. Why?"

"So your photo-op will be of your commander in chief walking up a gangplank like a lowly seaman?"

"Um..."

"Ron, Ron, Ron. How many times do I have to tell you? That's no way to treat a colossus like W as he bestrides the world. No, a hero like W deserves a hero's entrance. In your case, that means flying him to your ship on a fighter jet. Trust me, Ron, a tailhook landing onto your aircraft carrier is a sure way to make a big splash, if you'll pardon the expression, in the media!"

"A tailhook landing? Are you nuts? We'll be in dry dock in San Diego for repairs by the time he gets here! You can't land a jet on a carrier in dry dock! There are regs against that kind of thing, you know."

"Relax, Ron, we can fix that. Call the dry dock people and tell them you'll be late, and please hold your appointment. Say that, I don't know, you're running late, you have to stop at the dry cleaners and drop the kids at daycare, and then you'll be right over to get the boat serviced. Then, just keep the ship circling around with San Diego just over the horizon until the big day. That way, no one will ever know how close to home you are."

"Okay, fine, but usually, we have a Naval band from San Diego on deck that plays 'Hail to the Chief' as he walks up the gangplank. Now how do we honor him?"

"Have you thought about hanging some kind of banner, you know, that would welcome the commander in chief?"

"Ooh, great idea. But what should we say? How about 'Welcome, President Bush, to the USS Lincoln, the best darn ship in the Navy'?"

I had to cringe. The man had no flair for creating a mood. But no matter, that's why he was calling me. "Ron, you guys just completed some kind of whaddya call it, a mission of some sort, right?"

I wasn't a Navy guy, obviously. "It's called a 'deployment'", he sniffed

"Yeah, well, that sounds technical and dorky. So how's about we keep it simple, huh? Make a banner that says 'Mission Accomplished', and hang it from the CIC, so that it's visible from the flight deck."

And that was it. Ron sounded visibly relieved as he hung up the phone, but I'm afraid that he didn't hear my last words, which were "Just be sure that W doesn't get photographed under the sign."

[for another, more implausible, version of how it happened, look here]