Defending and Protecting the Constitution (But Only Sometimes)

The following observation is a little late, given that Condi Rice will now testify publicly before the 9/11 commission, but what the hey:

Does it strike anyone other than me as odd that the Bush administration was refusing to have Rice testify because it was concerned about a Constitutional principle? This is the same administration, after all, that, in the name of fighting terrorism, unilaterally suspended the writ of habeas corpus and, whether through overly intrusive elements of the USA PATRIOT Act or through enemy combatant designations, has stripped American citizens of rights guaranteed to them under the 4th, 5th, and 6th (and possibly the 8th) Amendments. For those of you playing along at home, by the way, these are specifically enumerated sections of the Constitution, right there, in plain enough English that almost anyone can read them and understand what the drafters of the Constitution were saying. [link]

Meanwhile, executive privilege -- that is, the right of the Executive Branch not to have to answer to inquiries by the Legislative Branch -- is nowhere enumerated in the text of the Constitution; indeed, one could argue that, to the contrary, that since the President is obliged under Article II, Section 3 to keep Congress informed as to the State of the Union ("He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information on the State of the Union"), testimony by the Executive Branch before the Legislative Branch is entirely consistent with the Constitution, and would not violate the separation of powers. To say that executive privilege is a "constitutional principle" is, to my mind, stretching things a bit.

So to hear the President defend a political position by wrapping himself in that same document that he is only too happy to shred in other areas (and for the media to let him get away with it, too) just makes me mad as heck.

Accountability Gap

Including today's attacks in Fallujah, at least 597 American soldiers have died in Iraq. According to MSNBC, at least 459 have died after President Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared that major combat operations had ended.

I know it's old news, but think about those numbers for a moment. They tell us that more than three out of every four deaths in Iraq came after the combat was supposed to be over.

There is a scene in the movie Fandango in which Kevin Costner and Charlie Sheen are shooting off firecrackers in a cemetery in the dark, and they stumble across the recent grave of a Vietnam soldier (the film takes place in 1972). In a moment of supremely poignant filmmaking, they look at the grave and then suddenly notice the sounds and sights of the bottlerockets and cherry bombs, which have briefly recreated the sounds and flashes of combat that probably surrounded the soldier as he died. Costner sits down next to the grave and, realizing how inappropriate his conduct has been, says "Sorry, brother."

Likewise, I don't think it's asking much for President Bush to personally apologize to the families of each and every one of those 459 soldiers for his act of supreme arrogance, and for his administration's failure to properly plan for what happened after Saddam's regime fell.

But, sadly, it'll never happen.

If we're fighting a war on terror, are terrorists soldiers?

As you may recall, I mentioned that Gail, one of my regular readers, challenged me to give my position on the killing of Sheik Yassin, the Hamas leader, by an Israeli missle. Here is my response.

The key question that you have to answer when you take sides on the killing of Sheik Yassin is whether you believe that terrorists are properly targets for law enforcement or whether they are combatants who are targets of military action.

This is not a new debate. Since 9/11, the Bush administration has clearly taken the position that terrorists are combatants, even to the extent that an American terrorist forfeits his civilian status and becomes instead an "enemy combatant".

And some Democrats have adopted at least a version of this position, too. On September 9, 2003, Howard Dean told CNN's Wolf Blitzer "I think no one likes to see violence of any kind. That's why the United States is involved in this. I will say, however, that there is a war going on in the Middle East, and members of Hamas are soldiers in that war, and, therefore, it seems to me, that they are going to be casualties if they are going to make war." The context of the statement was a question of whether Dean supported Israel's policy of targeting Hamas leaders for assassination. Dean's answer can fairly be read to mean that terrorists who engage in an organized campaign of violence (which arguably descibes Hamas) are legitimate targets for military reprisal.

At the other extreme are many on the Left, who insist that a society that is founded on the notion of due process and freedom of thought can't suddenly decide to suspend due process because of the perpetrator's state of mind when he commits a crime. That is to say, that if two acts of violence are substantively identical in terms of how they were carried out and who the victim was, it can't be case that one is a crime and the other an act of war, or that that determination could fairly rest on the political views of person committing the violent act.

International law provides some help in resolving this issue, and for an easy-to-follow explication of its contours, I recommend an article in last month's Foreign Affairs by Kenneth Roth. [link] Roth discusses the implications of the Bush Administration's view of the law of war, as it is applied to the "war on terror", and concludes that by and large, the "all terrorists are soldiers" formulation is too broad to be either workable or defensible. But significantly, Roth discusses an example that is similar to the attack on Sheik Yassin and acknowledges that there is an argument to be made that the law of war would apply to known terrorists in certain circumstances. Here is Roth's discussion of the assassination by CIA forces of Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi:

Al-Harethi, who Washington alleges was a senior al Qaeda official, was killed by a drone-fired missile in November 2002 while driving in a remote tribal area of Yemen. Five of his companions, including a U.S. citizen, also died in the attack, which was carried out by the CIA. The Bush administration apparently considered al-Harethi to be an enemy combatant for his alleged involvement in the October 2000 U.S.S. Cole bombing. In this instance, the case for applying war rules was stronger than with Padilla or al-Marri (although the Bush administration never bothered to spell it out). Al-Harethi's mere participation in the 2000 attack on the Cole would not have made him a combatant in 2002, since he could have subsequently withdrawn from al Qaeda; war rules permit attacking only current combatants, not past ones. And if al-Harethi were a civilian, he could not have legally been attacked unless he was actively engaged in hostilities at the time. But the administration alleged that al-Harethi was a "top bin Laden operative in Yemen," implying that he was in the process of preparing future attacks. If true, this would have made the use of war rules against him more appropriate. And unlike in the cases of Padilla and al-Marri, arresting al-Harethi may not have been an option. The Yemeni government has little control over the tribal area where he was killed; indeed, 18 Yemeni soldiers had reportedly died in an earlier attempt to arrest him.

As Roth acknowledges, certain factors -- a known link to past and, more importantly, future acts of terrorism and an inability to arrest the suspected terrorist even if located -- may, when added to other "indicia" of war under the Geneva convention (intensity of hostilities, the regularity of armed clashes and the degree to which opposing forces are organized under a recognizable leadership structure), justify the use of military force instead of police force. As Roth puts it, "armed rebellions, once sufficiently organized and violent, are usually seen as 'wars.'"

Which brings me back to Sheik Yassin. I think it's fair to argue that the second intifada is "sufficiently organized and violent" "armed rebellion" that it qualifies as a war for purposes of applying the laws of war under the Geneva convention.

It's also fair to argue, that Hamas has played a leadership role in organizing that "armed rebellion" and frequently and repeatedly claimed credit for mounting attacks on Israel.

Although I don't have specific information, I further think it would be fair to say that at the time of the killing of Yassin, Hamas was planning additional attacks on Israel.

And finally, there's no argument that Yassin was the acknowledged leader of Hamas.

The only question that remains, then, is whether the Israeli action fit the doctrine of "military necessity" (that is, that you don't use lethal force if lesser force would accomplish the same goal). I think it did: given the depth of hostility in Gaza between Israelis and Palestinians and the strong likelihood that a pitched battle and substantial casualities would result if the IDF had tried to arrest Yassin, arrest was not realistically an option.

In the circumstances, therefore, I would say he was an active combatant, and therefore that the laws of war could fairly be applied to him, for better and for worse. As a result, I cannot condemn Israel's chosen course of action, even as I wish that there could have been a better (less violent) resolution.

Just so that I am not misunderstood, I still agree with the thrust of Roth's article, which is that it is far from clear that the US, unlike Israel (which Roth does not discuss), is engaged in a "war" on terror, as that word is used in the Geneva convention. Consequently, as astute readers of Laboville will recall, I stand by my positions regarding Jose Padilla and Yasser Esam Hamdi, and the due process rights that they're being denied. I'm not convinced that the dots have been sufficiently connected on them or their status as "active combatants" to warrant treating them according to the rules that apply in wartime rather than the rules that apply during peacetime.

Mail Bag

One of my few loyal readers (okay, it was my sister, but she still counts) asked the question, "what are you doing hawking a site that thinks Howard Dean is bad for the Jews?!" She is referring specifically to Good for the Jews, which has a post, Howard Dean: Bad for the Jews. [link]

It's a fair question, and I thought it deserved an honest answer. First, however, I disagree that I am "hawking" anything. Not to be snippy about it, but hawking implies I get some reward, whereas blogging is (sadly) without much reward other than psychological.

Regarding my modus operandi, mine is an expansive and somewhat eclectic reading list. Part of the appeal of blogging to me is tramping around the web, seeing what's out there, and then sharing what I have found with the readers of my blog. That process sometimes take me (and by extension, my readers) to blogs that I don't entirely agree with, but which are nevertheless interesting -- indeed, those blogs are frequently the most interesting ones out there because they challenge me to ponder what I think and why I think it. "Good for the Jews" fit that description. As for their position on Howard Dean, I think they're wrong (see below). But I still find the site "interesting" and worth visiting from time to time, and so I labeled it as "interesting" and invited others to see for themselves.

Second, while we're on the subject of Good for the Jews' criticism of Gov. Dean, I do want to comment briefly. In essence, their criticism was based on his statement that the United States ought to be "even handed" in its treatment of Israel, which, the blog claims, is the same language used by the PLO, Hamas and Palestinian supporters. According to this logic, adopting Gov. Dean's formulation would amount to a fundamental shift in American policy.

I response, I refer you to my own comment on September 18, 2003 [link]:

Since you asked my opinion, let me say that I have half a mind that says Dean's off-the-cuff position may have been the right approach notwithstanding his more nuanced position. The fact is that a two-state solution is probably the only morally defensible and politically feasible solution: it satisfies the Arab and Palestinian need for self-determination; and it gets Israel out of the apartheid business, which, to a Jewish state, is ultimately unsustainable. And to get to the two-state solution, it is true that Israel will have to withdraw protection for some settlements, while the Palestinians have to resolve the terrorism in their midst. None of that will happen on its own, however; somebody has to step up and broker the deal. What's more, it's not going to be the United Nations, which is captive to Arab and pan-Islamic interests, and it won't be Europe, which has historically been more supportive of the surrounding Arab states. That leaves the United States. The fortunate or unfortunate result of that is that we have to be perceived by both sides as being even-handed.

My sister asks a second question that I don't have time to answer right now (what do I think about Israel's killing of Sheik Yassin), but would like to answer when I do have time. Watch this space.

**Note that this post was edited after it was originally posted in order to refine the point a bit more. As I noted in the text, I was somewhat rushed when I wrote this initially. Because I have called others to task for editing posts without noting it, I offer this comment as a public service.

Good for the Jews

I stumbled across a blog called "Good for the Jews", which is an old reference to how (particularly Eastern European) Jews viewed the world, fraught as it was with anti-semitism at many turns: whenever an event happened, the first question was "is this good for the Jews?" It's an interesting blog. Try it, you'll like it. Nu, so go read it already! [link]

There is a page of "gentile jokes" for people who are tired of "Jewish jokes". [link] Be warned, unless you are an aficianado of Jewish humor, these jokes won't seem particularly funny. But if you are, they're very funny indeed. Here's a preview:

A Gentile man calls his elderly mother.
He asks, " Mom, how are you feeling? Do you need anything?"
She says, "I feel fine, and I don't need anything. Thanks for calling."

Enjoy.

Restoring Honor and Integrity to the White House?

As we all know, President Bush ran on a platform of restoring honor and integrity to the White House, after a series of "scandals" during the Clinton Administration brought on "scandal fatigue". As it turned out, many of the so-called scandals weren't, and the allegations of supposed dishonor and lack of integrity of the Office of President (if not the President himself) were largely motivated by viscious partisan politics rather than an attempt to investigate wrongdoing. One hates to use the term "vast right wing conspiracy," but you have only to think of the allegations that the Clintons had Vincent Foster murdered (to pick just one example) [link], and you begin to wonder. To be safe, perhaps the phrase "vast right wing confluence of talk radio, money and a damn-the-consequences politics" is more accurate.

Anyway, Carpetbagger Report [link] has taken the time to catalogue some of the scandals that have actually resulted in investigations of Republicans, both in the current administration and elsewhere. The Washington Post has a useful compendium as well. [link]

By and large, I concur in the items on Carpetbagger's list, but I would not have included two of them: the prosecution and conviction of Rep. Bill Janklow, and the investigation of Connecticut Gov. John Rowland. In Janklow's case, being convicted for manslaughter after a drunk-driving accident isn't an ethical lapse. It might fairly be characterized as a criminal lapse in judgment, but that's not on par with the Valerie Plame affair, the 9/11 commission stonewalling, Rep. Tom DeLay's criminal fundraising violations in Texas, and the like. As for Gov. Rowland, while his is an ethical scandal, I don't recall President Bush campaigning that he would restore honor and integrity to the statehouse in Hartford, so it's hard to make the argument that Rowland's lapses are Bush's lapses.

As Carpetbagger acknowledges, the list is not comprehensive. For example, it only generally mentions Halliburton, but does not tie the scandals back to the Bush administration. So I will -- the company now admits that while Vice President Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, the company paid an illegal bribe to the Nigerian government, which may violate federal law (specifically, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act). The Justice Department is currently investigating. [link] Also, there have been allegations that Halliburton engaged in price-gouging in Iraq, and that certain employees accepted kick-backs in connection with Pentagon contracting. [link]

The list doesn't include the investigation into charges that Boeing Corp., while actively negotiating with the Pentagon to lease air-refueling tankers to the Air Force, impermissibly received details of a competitor's bid, and later hired the senior Pentagon procurement officer in charge of the contract to work for Boeing. Both Congress and the Pentagon are investigating. [link]

Only passing reference is given to Enron on Carpetbagger's list, but here too, let me connect some dots: Secretary of the Army (and former Enron senior executive) Thomas White was formally rebuked by the Senate Armed Services Committee over his failure to properly divest himself of Enron shares that he owned and had said he would sell. [link] Apparently, the FBI and SEC poked into those transactions. Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission looked into the role that Enron Energy Services, where White was vice-chairman, played in the Enron-engineered California energy crisis a few years ago. [link] Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs investigated (among other things) efforts by Enron to have Nora Brownell and Pat Wood nominated as FERC commissioners. [link]

Having supplemented Carpetbagger's list, I invite others to supplement my list. Here comes the motivational speech: Just think, with a little bit of effort, people, we can assemble a comprehensive compendium of scandal and ethical lapses by lots of people associated with the current administration. And won't that be a hoot!

Statistics for People Who Do Like to Think

CBS News on Sunday aired a statistic about the ratio of soldiers wounded in action to soldiers killed in action. According to CBS, in World War II, the ratio was 3:1, while in Vietnam, the ratio was 4:1. In Iraq, that ratio is 6:1.

Presumably, two of the reasons that the ratio has gone up since 1945 are first, advancements in how we wage war, and second, advancements in medical technology both on the battlefield and off. A third reason may be the ability to move the injured relatively quickly from the battlefield to a fully functional trauma unit behind the front lines (think M*A*S*H, only with more and better technology), rather than to a facility with only limited capabilities.

These changes in both warfare and medicine got to me to thinking -- what is the relevant comparison when comparing casualties of war? In economics, when prices are compared across a long period of time, the comparisons are often made in "constant dollars" or by using a benchmark currency value (e.g., "in 1980 dollars"). Wouldn't it also be relevant to account for changes over time when talking about the effects of war?

The injured-to-killed ratio might give us some insight in that regard, since comparisons of the number of KIAs in various conflicts is, of course, only part of the picture.

For example, based on the statistics cited by CBS, we could assume that if we had fought the Vietnam War using todays tactics and technology, the ratio of injured to killed would have been 6:1 instead of 4:1. In other words, we could calculate that 1 out of 3 soldiers who died in Vietnam then might have survived today. Thus, instead of 55,000 dead, the number might have been closer to 36,000 dead.

Conversely, one would need to multiply the number of killed in action in Iraq by 1.5 (6 divided by 4), which would bring us to approximately 840 combat deaths, in constant numbers.

Either way, the number of deaths in Iraq remains a fraction of the number of deaths in Vietnam and therefore, the impact of the adjustment might be negligible, but the point remains. If we're going to compare the cost of war across a span of 40 or 60 (or more) years, some sort of adjustment, whether it's revising current figures upward or past figures downward, it might be helpful to make the comparisons more accurate.

Direct Democracy can be Ugly: A Case Study

Once upon a time, the programmers at the Bush-Cheney '04 website allowed visitors to the site to create customized Bush-Cheney '04 signs that could be downloaded as PDF files and printed on any printer. As the website promised, "your message here". [link] The idea was simple enough -- if your local knitting group favors Bush-Cheney in '04, you could create a sign that said "Knitters for Bush-Cheney '04" in the same typeface used by the campaign itself. There was even a footer reading "Paid for by Bush-Cheney '04, Inc."

But alas, the pranksters of the Internet found out about it, and began making signs that weren't, ahem, in keeping with the tone of the campaign. Things like "Orwellian Slogan Makers for Bush-Cheney '04", "Halliburton is supported by Bush-Cheney '04", and two of my personal favorites, "Announcing the Marriage of Bush-Cheney '04" and "Five out of Nine Supreme Court Justices Prefer Bush-Cheney '04". Examples may be found at, among other places, Wonkette.com [link and link]

So the Bush campaign people began filtering the slogans to eliminate certain words. When that didn't work, they deactivated the customizer, and now, you can only customize the posters to include pre-approved messages. Apparently, direct participation by voters is too, well, democratic and uncontrollable, and therefore too dangerous, for the Bush campaign to countenance.

This isn't the first time that the Bush people have eschewed unvarnished contact with real voters, by the way. Among other things, to send an email to the White House from the whitehouse.gov website, you must identify your name and home address and whether you are sending a "supporting comment", a "differing opinion" or a "general comment"; then you must select from a list of "approved" subjects. [link] Similarly, when the Bush campaign set up a campaign blog, they neglected to provide any means for readers to add public comments. [link] Contrast this to Howard Dean's campaign blog, in which the comment sections hosted some of the liveliest political debate that this country has seen in years.

In any event, here are the only ways in which the posters can now be customized:

African-Americans for Bush-Cheney '04
Arab-Americans for ...
Asian-Americans for ...
Farmers and Ranchers for ...
Firefighters for ...
First-Responders for ...
Hispanics for ...
Hi-Tech Workers for ...
Homeschoolers for ...
Investors for ...
Jews for ...
Labor Workers for ...
Law Enforcement for ...
Lawyers for ...
Service Men and Women for ...
Native Americans for ...
Conservationists for ...
Pro-Lifers for ...
Small Business Owners for ...
Sportsmen for ...
Veterans for ...
Young Professionals for ...
Students for ...
Families for ...

A couple of observations:

First, I am somewhat troubled by signs proclaiming "Jews for Bush-Cheney '04" not because Jewish voters can't support the President, but because it is the only religious group named as such in the approved list. In particular, there are are Arab-Americans for Bush-Cheney, but no "Muslims for Bush-Cheney". Why is that?

Also, maybe it's the vaguely messianic cult-like sound of it that bothers me -- it sounds too much like "Jews for Jesus", which has as its main message to convert Jews to a duplicitous and intellectually dishonest version of psuedo-Christianity. Logically, I know that there's no connection between that group and Bush-Cheney '04, but when I hear "Jews for Bush-Cheney '04", it makes my skin crawl.

And while we're on the subject of religious groups, I am fascinated by a group that is not on the approved list, particularly in view of the fact that Jews, Arab-Americans, Asian-Americans and Native Americans all are on the approved list: Christians. Apparently, if you're Christian and support the President, the Bush-Cheney folk don't want you to advertise it.

Another point: I found that the way the various groups are described on the website is interesting. In order to create the poster, you select your favorite "coalition group" from a list. Let's leave aside that I'm not really sure what they mean by "coalition group" (coalition of what?). Most of the list are straight-forward -- selecting "Students" from the list produces a poster that says "Students for Bush-Cheney '04". But one isn't -- to get "Conservationists for Bush-Cheney '04", you would select "Natural Resources" from the coalition group list. Another one is interesting insofar as the list description is slightly, but significantly, different from the poster result -- that is, if you select "Pro-Life" from the list, the poster reads "Pro-Lifers for Bush-Cheney '04". Now, it's a subtle distinction, but I am willing to bet that there are people who are comfortable decribing themselves as "Pro-Life voters" but who would nevertheless be uncomfortable describing themselves as "Pro-Lifers", since that particular iteration of the term has come to be associated with the aggressive tactics of groups like Operation Rescue and a few nuts who think it's okay to hunt and kill gynecologists who perform abortions.

Finally, I was struck by how some of these groups are very narrowly defined, while others are defined quite broadly. Take, for example, "homeschoolers", "farmers and ranchers" and "hi-tech workers" (which, I note, uses the shortened "hi" instead of "high"; I imagine that most high-tech workers, being highly educated, use the latter term to describe themselves, if they even bother to use the "high" at all). Are these really important swing constituencies?

For contrast, consider the sweepingly broad coalition group "investors". I mean, really, when it comes to supporting a candidate, who realistically describe themselves as "investors", particularly when more than half of the country is invested in the stock market either directly or through pension plans? By that logic, what's next, "Drivers for Bush-Cheney '04"?

At the end of the day, score one for the pranksters. By forcing the Bushies to limit their list, the pranksters inadvertently forced them to give us a peek into who are and are not important in the political calculus underlying the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign.

Statistics for People Who Don't Like to Think

I saw a public-service ad on the side of a bus today. It read: "92% of women carry lip protection. 10% carry HIV protection."

Hmmm.

Now, I understand that the purpose of the ad is to contrast the seriousness with which we tackle the dangerous problem of chapped lips, and the astonishingly cavalier way in which we take on the dangers of HIV. Really, I get that.

But those statistics are ludicrous. For starters, exactly who is included in the group "women"? Well, obviously not men, but is a 10 year old girl a "woman"? How about a 90 year old woman? In theory, neither of them is likely to need HIV protection, and therefore the fact that either of them carries lip gloss or Chapstick but not HIV protection is meaningless.

If we limit ourselves to sexually-active women, the group gets relatively smaller, and the statistic perhaps more meaningful, but even there, I'm not so sure. Take married women, for example -- a woman in a monogomous relationship with a man (or a woman) who is not HIV-positive, which describes many married women, has very little reason to carry HIV protection, but may still have reason to carry the aforementioned lip protection. Once again, the statistical comparison is meaningless.

And what about the "carrying" part? It presumes that if you did a spot check on the street, you'd find 92 Chapsticks but only 10 condoms. But is this an accurate test? Think about it -- every time you step outdoors during the day, your lips are at risk of getting damaged from sun, cold and wind, so the fact that a large proportion of the relevant population regularly carries lip protection makes sense, right? Now consider that people are not generally at risk of having sex every time the step outside, and therefore, arguably, don't need to carry HIV protection with them at all times. Isn't it possible that at least some of these 'round-the-clock lip-protectors keep condoms at home, where they're more likely to have sex, or bring condoms with them only when they're considering having sex out of the home?

And what about men? Are there no men who purchase and/or carry their own condoms for encounters that are likely to involve sex? And if a woman is lucky enough to be having sex with such an enlightened man, wouldn't it seem that once again, it's irrelevant whether she is carrying lip protection but not HIV protection?

In any event, I can only speak for myself, but whenever my wife and I go out for the evening, owing to the fact that her dresses frequently don't have pockets, I usually end up holding her lip gloss for her.

Hmmm. I guess that makes her part of the 8% who don't carry either.

Whither (Wither?) the Public Schools

Somehow, a random internet search brought to the homepage of the New York City Board of Education, where there is a prominent button marked "No Child Left Behind". Presumably, this leads you to a page extolling all of the things that the NYC schools are doing to comply with NCLB, or "Nickleby", as education insiders apparently call it.

Something that struck me is a conversation I had with my wife about what to do for our son, who's 2, when the time comes to enroll him in school. We both agreed that we would not be comfortable sending him to the public schools in New York City, where we live, and even in any of the suburbs we would consider living in, we're concerned that the public schools, as good as they might be, are being diverted from teaching to "teaching to the test". As a result, we've agreed that private school is likely to give him the best education.

But ah, what we've lost if that's the answer. It wasn't always the case that the New York City Public Schools were places to be avoided. To the contrary, the public institutions in New York have bred incredible amounts of talent. Just reading a short list of alumni is astounding, particularly when you think about where the schools are today:

John Wells, founding partner, Rogers & Wells (an international law firm)
Hal Linden, actor
Al Shanker, former president, American Federation of Teachers
Sol Shoenbach, principal bassonists for the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy
Robert Siegel, senior commentator, National Public Radio
Joseph Naccio, former CEO, Qwest Communications
Jerome Nadler, member of Congress
Bernard Nussbaum, counselor to President Clinton
Paul Reiser, actor/comedian/writer
Tim Robbins, actor/writer/activist
Nick Meglin, editor, MAD Magazine
Thelonius Monk, jazz musician
Dick Morris, counselor to President Clinton
Robert Moses, organizer, Freedom Summer 1964
Howard Goldin, former Brooklyn Borough President
Eric Holder, Assistant Attorney General
Roy Innis, activist
Robert Alda, actor
Lucy Liu, actress and photographer
James Cagney, actor
Denny Chin, federal judge
Bob Frankston, co-inventor of Visicalc (the first computer spreadsheet program)
Bobby Fischer, chess grandmaster
Barbra Streisand, singer/actress
Harvey Pitt, former chairman of the SEC
Colin Powell, Secretary of State
James Baldwin, writer
Judd Hirsch, actor

I could go on for much longer, but the point is, the New York City schools have been great and could be again, but we're not putting the resources in the right place to foster that...

In Good Company

Matthew Yglesias has an interesting entry on his blog about the popularity of blogging. Apparently, the Pew Foundation found that approximately 2% of internet users in the US blog, and 11% read blogs (and of those, about a third report that they have posted comments on at least one blog). [link] [link to Pew Internet & American Life Project]

Yglesias points out that based on the current population of the internet, blogging reaches a wider audience than cable news. Now granted, there are far more blogs than cable news outlets, so the blogging audience is much more widely diffused; as a result, it's premature to assume that blogging is a power that will displace the traditional media anytime soon. Nevertheless, it says something about the way in which blogging could someday change the way in which we interact with our media sources. Among other things, whereas journalism has been described as the rough draft of history, blogging has been likened to journalistic footnotes. Lest we miss the point, the ability to footnote history represents a democratizing of information akin to the advent of the printing press. In short, blogging shouldn't be lightly dismissed as a fad, yet.

In fact, in a weird way, there may be an analog to what blogging may ultimately do for journalism in what legitimate online music stores are currently doing for the music business. Let me explain: there was an article in today's Wall Street Journal (not accessible online, unfortunately) about how Apple's iTunes store and its competitors have started to offer exclusive material that is not, and is not likely to become, available from the major labels. For example, Beyonce's rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl became one of the most downloaded singles at the iTunes store, but no record label intends to, or easily could, sell it on a CD; as it turns out, even though electronic distribution of the song is cost-effective and profitable, the total number of consumers who have downloaded the song is far too small to justify the production and distribution costs of a CD single, let alone an entire CD.

The same could be said for the media -- there are stories that are just too nuanced to make it onto the 6 o'clock news, and so they don't get on. Now, that doesn't make them unimportant or any less significant than the stories that do make it onto the 6 o'clock news, it just means that they won't find an outlet there. Traditionally, that meant they didn't get reported. True, newspapers can take on some of the nuanced stories, but even newspapers are limited in this regard by the economics of running a newspaper -- a story that is too slow to develop, or seemingly too limited in scope, or too esoteric might not make the cut even if it is an important story.

And that's where blogging could have its biggest impact. To be sure, on paper, two million bloggers far outnumber the reporting muscle of any news-gathering organization (and probably, of all of them combined), but those bloggers' resources will never be focused full time on the news gathering process the way even a local newspaper can focus its resources to get the stories and print them. And so, it's unlikely that those bloggers could ever replace the traditional media, just as iTunes might never be able to replace a major record label's A&R and promotion capabilities. But where iTunes can provide new, and more importantly, complementary content cost-effectively, so too can blogs, whether they're focused on politics, entertainment or virtually any other subject, complement what the media puts out for consumption.

Significantly, there is evidence that the traditional media gets this -- perhaps most prominent is ABC News' "The Note" [link], which is a daily blog that pulls together vast quantities of reporting on politics into a single webpage. The subject matter is somewhat esoteric, and there's no way Peter Jennings is going to cover all of this, but now, thanks to blogging, we have access to information that complements the stories we see on World News Tonight. Other media outlets are beginning to blog in the same way. [This is not to suggest, by the way, that the blogging-as-journalism phenomenon should be limited to major media organizations' blogs, just that they're starting to see what I'm talking about, too.]

Of course, viewing blogging as a complement to journalism raises questions about old-school journalistic ethics, since bloggers aren't likely to be bound by top-down journalistic ethics codes. For a lively debate on this point, check out a point-counterpoint between the Columbia Journalism Review and the Daily Kos. [link] Kos describes the blogosphere as the Wild West, where the rules of ethics aren't worth a damn, and it's up to the readers to understand the ethics of the particular blogger and then vote with their feet (or mouseclick, as the case may be); in Kos's case, readers are presumed to know that Kos is both information source and advocate, and therefore, readers decide for themselves the value of reading Kos's posts.

CJR, not surprisingly, argues that bloggers like Kos are journalists whether they realize it or not, and that they ought to comport themselves as such. CJR notes that historically, newspapers adopted Kos's attitude as well (if readers don't like what we print, they'll stop reading), but then came around to the "modern" point of view:

[M]ost newspapers recognized that it was by agreeing to uphold certain basic ethical standards that they won for themselves the right to play a major role in the national debate -- the right, in short, to be taken seriously. That was a tradeoff they were more than willing to make.

For what it's worth, I think that CJR's view is as idealistic as Kos's is naive (think about how objective the New York Post or the Washington Times are, or, for that matter, Fox News), but both have some merit. Kos is right -- bloggers won't bother themselves with journalistic ethics in the traditional sense, and readers will vote with their feet, so the harm to be done is minimized. At the same time, bloggers should be expected to document, to the best of their abilities, the sources that they rely on in making a statement, and should be expected to distinguish, either explicitly or through context, fact from opinion. This feature of blogging is what drew me to it in the first place -- it was an opportunity first, to share what I know (not much, but what I do know is somewhat specialized), and second, to add my voice to the great American conversation.

For most bloggers, it isn't a problem to separate fact from opinion -- 95% of what I post is solidly in the opinion category, and when it's not, I try to post corroborating links. And if I miss now and then, and misstate a fact, it's not the end of the world. If I can do it, most bloggers, particularly the prominent ones, can easily be held to this standard; it's not all that hard.

And that's a fact.

Now Entering Laboville Overnight

Insomnia is hell, but since I was up, I thought I would troll the web. Courtesy of Liz at Spectator Sport, I found George W. Bush, Will You Please Go Now?, which is abbreviated (if you can call it that) by its author as "GWBWYPGN". It's a bit foul-mouthed, but its irreverant take on the Bush administration is worthy of Al Franken.

I particularly enjoyed what is apparently a recurring public service, known as "Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even that Hot", which deconstructs (again, if you can call it that) her articles point-by-point. Also noteworthy is the entry on once again making the Democratic Party the "party of Hot Chicks" (no, really, it's funny). [link]

Nu, so go visit, already, will you?

Quick Hit

As an exercise, try to guess where the following quote came from:

Pick your favorite constitutional amendment or right: its survival during the war on terror cannot be assumed if the legitimacy of these indefinite detentions [of enemy combatants] is sustained.

The actual answer may surprise you: the quote is from a report by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, which is considered fairly non-partisan as bar associations go.

The report, "Indefinite Detention of 'Enemy Combatants': Balancing Due Process and National Security in the Context of the War on Terror" [link], was issued in early February, but I haven't found many media sources that picked up on the report. Still, it's worth reading, particularly as the Supreme Court prepares to hear the cases of Yasser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla.

I was particularly struck by the last paragraph of the report, which reads as a good soundbite to refute the argument that times have changed and so must our conception of civil liberties:

The Constitution is not a suicide pact, as a Supreme Court justice once famously declared. But neither is it a mere compact of convenience, to be enforced only in times of civic tranquility. It should take far more than the monstrous brutality of a handful of terrorists to drive us to abandon our core constitutional values. We can effectively combat terrorism in the United States without jettisoning the core due process principles that form the essence of the rule of law underlying our system of government.

Insistence on the rule of law will not undermine our national security. Abandoning the rule of law will threaten our national identity.

Couldn't have said it better myself.