Self-defense is legal, except when it's not

For Cliff May, nationalism is fine for Americans, but not for those living elsewhere.

Fox headline just now:

CIA Director Pulled the Plug on “Secret” CIA Assassin Plan

But shouldn’t the media — not least Fox — be discussing (now that the cat is out of the bag) whether it’s a good idea to pull the plug on plans to eliminate Osama bin Laden and others dedicated to slaughtering Americans by the thousands?

On a BBC radio show the other night, the interviewer asked me: “Wouldn’t such a plan be illegal?”

I replied that I was pretty sure that defending Americans — and even using force to do so — is not illegal, at least not yet.

Um, I'm pretty sure that efforts by American agents to target and assassinate someone in another country we are not at war with -- even if it's Osama bin Laden -- violate the law of that country as well as our own. That's why this program -- whether it was just a PowerPoint presentation, as some have suggested, or something more actionable -- was kept secret from Congress.

Further, I wonder what May would squeal if we learned that Cuba had plans to "eliminate" this guy in Texas.

And, by the way, I doubt very much we've taken "eliminating" Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders off the table. For all their dubious morality and international legality, those predator drones are still buzzing around, I believe.

Threaten the children

I'm often critical of NPR, but the interview they ran last night, with the real estate developer behind the proposition to deny benefits to the children of illegal immigrants -- children who were born in this country and therefore, U.S. citizens -- was extremely powerful.

Not sure who the interviewer was; I think she's the head of NPR's new "California bureau." She was certainly very good last evening.

Californians should stop blaming "illegals" for an economy -- and a political system that abets it -- that is no less fundamentally "boom and bust" than it was in 18 fucking 49.

Good guy to have a beer with

Remember how that was often posited as one of the central reasons to vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Yeah, future citizens will gasp at the thought of it, particularly when you consider that Bush was, supposedly, a reformed alcoholic.

Nice to have a president with whom one can really be comfortable having a beer.

That said, TPM's slide show does not clear up the mystery of "The Bounce," but, priceless.

The hearings

I dunno, for some reason this reminded me of the Sotomayor roast confirmation hearings.

Engaged against Palin

I get email.

Hi John,

You know how engaged I am and we all need to be on global climate change - so I wanted to send you a couple of links to posts I've done the past couple days, responding with the facts to an op-ed from Governor Sarah Palin yesterday -- we need to fight these distortions every chance we get until we get real reform. Between the way you worked with me to stop the drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the fight you lead last cycle to defeat the smears against Barack Obama, I know you're the team I need engaged to win this one.

Huffington Post

Daily Kos

Thanks, and I'll be in touch with things you can do to help as we go forward. Really have to fight hard on this one.

John Kerry

He bounced it! He bounced it!

Watching President Barack Hussein Obama dare to toss out the first pitch of last night's (actually good, 2:30 or so) All-Star Game, I anticipated wingnuttia comparisons with the steely-eyed flight suited-one's post 9-11 performance, and accusations that Fox (FOX!) intentionally did not show the result of the throw. I was not, I admit, expecting a 700-plus word dissertation on it and the conspiracy involved, one that apparently included the "lefty" sportswriting contingent, Yadier Molina, and...ahem...Stan Musial.

The media fawning really is so shameless it's become self-parody. Take ESPN, for example.

Sadly, he does not provide an example from ESPN, so have no idea what he's talking about, especially since the Bristol, Connecticut Entertainment and Sports Network didn't broadcast the game.

Now, about that player who caught Obama's pitch: It was none other than the Cardinals' great first-baseman, Albert Pujols. What does that matter? Well, the tradition is that the first pitch is tossed to the catcher, not the first-baseman — and, in fact, the starting catcher for the National League last night was the Cardinals' own Yadier Molina. But while Molina is popular, Pujols is like God in St. Louis (in fact, a fan in the stands either last night or the night before was holding a banner that said, "In Albert We Trust").

"Last night or the night before." Yeah, I'd been drinking, too. But allow me to explain "baseball," and "catching" to the former assistant federal prosecutor (!). Yes, typically, the first pitch is thrown to a catcher, and Yadier Molina is indeed a catcher for St. Louis and was starting for the Senior League. But, just as typically, the starting catcher for the home team spends his time just before the game in the bullpen, warming up the starting pitcher.

As for the "booing." Didn't hear it, though I'll give Andy "Birther" McCarthy" the benefit of the doubt. But given "reality," their releative popularity, and the comparative manners between St. Louis and New York crowds, I doubt it matched the crowd's reation to a certain VP's trip to the Bronx, where his presence was merely announced.

UPDATE: Now, that's more like it!

Minority report

If the GOP wanted to be perceived as the party of aggrieved white males, their performance in the Sotomayor hearings is boffo.

Hanging breaking ball

Baseball (yeah, sorry) is a seemingly slow game played at blink of an eye speed. But sometimes you see the look on the batter's face when he realizes that the 80 MPH curve the pitcher attempted to throw simply is not going to break, making it a batting practice fastball. The batter's eyes grow wide with anticipation.

That's the look on Judge Sotomayor's face as she waits for Sessions to finish asking his question.

If Iran falls and there are no conservatives to see it...

I know the wingnutosphere is ADD Central, but it is astonishing to me that attention to what is happening in Iran is simply nowhere to be found. I mean, what to make of the silence to this?

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Three prominent clerics criticized the Iranian authorities on Monday for failing to condemn the recent killing of Muslims in western China. Their comments often seemed aimed at the Iranian government’s own conduct during the crackdown after the disputed June 12 presidential election.

One of the clerics, Ayatollah Youssef Sanei, a reformist, drew a sardonic parallel, suggesting that Iran, which considers itself the defender of Muslims worldwide, could not criticize China’s repressive tactics while it was doing the same thing. He also said Iran’s silence was related to its commercial, military and political links with China.

“How could China suppress the Muslims so violently and seek good relations with Muslim countries, and sometimes dominate their markets?” Ayatollah Sanei wrote, in comments published on news services and reformist Web sites.

Several Parliament members and a member of the Tehran City Council have invoked the same comparison, Web sites reported. Although some seem genuinely upset by the deaths of Muslim Uighurs in western China, the issue has clearly gained a special resonance in light of the violence in Iran, where many opposition protesters have been killed and wounded since the election.

Is it because the right actually opposes the democracy movement in Iran as that might...might...diminish the blood lust towards bombing the country?

Or is it because they're siding with China anyway?

Heritage foundations

Gene Robinson is making sense.

There is, after all, a context in which these confirmation hearings take place: The nation continues to take major steps toward fulfilling the promise of its noblest ideals. Barack Obama is our first African American president. Sonia Sotomayor would be only the third woman, and the third member of a minority group, to serve on the nation's highest court. Aside from these exceptions, the White House and the Supreme Court have been exclusively occupied by white men -- who, come to think of it, are also members of a minority group, though they certainly haven't seen themselves that way.

Judging from Monday's hearing, some Republican senators are beginning to notice this minority status -- and seem a bit touchy about it. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) was more temperate in his remarks than most of his colleagues, noting that Obama's election victory ought to have consequences and hinting that he might vote to confirm Sotomayor. But when he brought up the "wise Latina" remark, as the GOP playbook apparently required, Graham said that "if I had said anything remotely like that, my career would have been over."

That's true. But if Latinas had run the world for the last millennium, Sotomayor's career would be over, too. Pretending that the historical context doesn't exist -- pretending that white men haven't enjoyed a privileged position in this society -- doesn't make that context go away.

I'd go further. The Republicans grilling Sotomayor -- Cornyn, Sessions, and Graham -- are southern white males. Their heritage is one of oppression. Come to think of it, that may be why they are so fearful of those who would pay heed and respect to their own heritage. Having a "heritage" of oppressing minorities, finding themselves in the minority must be distressing.

One of the last voices of reason

says goodbye to the blogosphere. Godspeed, Hilzoy.

Drill baby, drill

When I first saw the link, I thought it was a joke.

Look, even Sarah Palin has First Amendment rights, and since the WaPo editorial page has already proven itself to be an embarrassment, with a miasma of Fred Hiatt, George Will and Charles Krauthammer, I don't think this will cause any further damage. But, really, there are other avenues for Sarah Palin to repeat right wing misdirection about cap and trade to shore up her bona fides for the base. No where in the column does she mention that the energy policy is an attempt to do something about carbon emissions. And somehow a provision to retrain workers in the oil sector to find jobs in other, green technology fields is a bad thing. And, as one would expect of her, she blatantly lies about "progressing on the largest private-sector energy project in history" -- a pipeline that right now has about as much chance of being built as is Sarah Palin's chance at being taken seriously on energy policy. But I love this:

Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be:

This is like something off of SarahPac website.

Reproductive rights

Justice Ginsburg has long championed the notion that government should not make reproductive choices for women. That said, I did not know this until I read Emily Bazelon's interview with yesterday.

Q: Let me ask you about the fight you waged for the courts to understand that pregnancy discrimination is a form of sex discrimination.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I wrote about it a number of times. I litigated Captain Struck’s case about reproductive choice. [In 1972, Ginsburg represented Capt. Susan Struck, who became pregnant during her service in the Air Force. At the time, the Air Force automatically discharged any woman who became pregnant and told Captain Struck that she should have an abortion if she wanted to keep her job. The government changed the regulation before the Supreme Court could decide the case.] If the court could have seen Susan Struck’s case — this was the U.S. government, a U.S. Air Force post, offering abortions, in 1971, two years before Roe.

Q: And suggesting an abortion as the solution to Struck’s problem.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes. Not only that, but it was available to her on the base.

The whole timely interview is well worth your time.

The past isn't even past

The image of a howling pack of hyenas, braying at a recalcitrant White House, demanding it investigate the malfeasance of the Bush administration, is ironic in the extreme. And while I may be bitterly disappointed, I don't believe the former constitutional law professor would derail an investigation by his own Justice Department (as opposed to "the Department of Law"). I do feel Obama wants to control the timing of those investigations and would very much prefer to get health care reform and and the energy bill through the Senate before this hits the fan.

But John McCain is a fool.

Professor Kumar said a president’s signature accomplishments often come in his first year in office, a pattern that Mr. Obama and his aides are keenly aware of. In addition, investigations at this time could open Mr. Obama up to accusations from Republicans that he is undercutting national security.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said on “Meet the Press” on NBC that despite his dismay at the Central Intelligence Agency’s past interrogation methods, including waterboarding, he opposed a criminal inquiry into torture, which he said would “harm our image throughout the world.”

“I agree with the president of the United States, it’s time to move forward and not go back,” Mr. McCain said.

Our image is already harmed. One way to fix it would be to show the world they we take our political leaders to account when they violate domestic and international law

Ben Stein's ignorance

Shorter Ben Stein: We should emit more carbon, not less.

Not a fluke

The Yankees have been very good this season at beating the weaker teams in the AL, but against the elite teams? Well this weekend's nightmarish series against the LAAofA was pretty indicative of their chances should they make it to October.

Fair enough. They are 51-37 and if the playoffs started tomorrow, they would be the wild card.

But the Yankees have played four teams (the Angels, Red Sox, Phillies and Tigers) who lead their respective divisions at the break and they are 5-15 against those teams. That’s why you can’t dismiss this weekend as just some bad luck.

The idea for a $210 million team in a $1.5 billion ballpark isn’t to make the playoffs, it’s to win them. For now, the Yankees have not been especially competitive against the best teams.

That has to change in the second half. The Yankees have 10 more games against Boston, three against the Angels and three against the Tigers starting on Friday. And don’t forget the nine games left against Tampa Bay.

The Yankees had the bases loaded and no outs in the seventh yesterday. Teixeira struck out and Rodriguez hit into a double play, though he did hit the ball on the screws and Figgins made an outstanding play at third. Dem's the breaks.

Blue Monday, Bob Dylan edition

Seems appropriate given that Barack Hussein Obama has sold us out to the Ruskies.

Ever elusive

Funny, a few weeks ago and you couldn't swing a cat without hitting images of Dick Cheney telling us Obama's making us less safe. Now...not so much.

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

Efforts to reach Mr. Cheney through relatives and associates were unsuccessful.

He got his money's worth

Inspired by one of this blog's only favorite commenters, and a-course by Tag-gate, we bring you The Master.



"You in the Hall of Fame? For what? Fucking up the World Series?"

Fantastic.

What keeps Time afloat?

After we noted that Time magazine slid off the journalism road, crashed, burned and exploded, we find one of the people behind the wheel bragging about it and trying to start it up again.

I'm back from the Last Frontier with this week's dead tree cover story on Sarah Palin, written with the very excellent editor-at-large David Von Drehle. I don't think this will be the last we hear from the soon-to-be-former governor. To me, one of the most interesting aspects of the story is how vehemently the Palin camp blames Barack Obama.

From the story:

For Palin, however, these aren't isolated incidents. She believes they grow from the same root, which is too big and too formidable to ignore. "A lot of this comes from Washington, D.C. The trail is pretty direct and pretty obvious to us," says Meg Stapleton, a close Palin adviser in Alaska. Awaiting a flight back to Anchorage from distant Dillingham, Stapleton adds that the anti-Palin offensive seems lifted straight from The Thumpin', which describes the political strategies of Rahm Emanuel, who is now the White House chief of staff. "It's the Sarah Palin playbook. It's how they operate," Stapleton says.

Palin and her Alaska circle find evidence for their suspicions about the White House in the person of Pete Rouse, who lived in Juneau for a time before he became chief of staff to a young U.S. Senator named Barack Obama. Rouse, they note, is a friend of former Alaska state senator Kim Elton, who pushed the first ethics investigation of Palin, examining her controversial firing of the state's public-safety commissioner. Both Rouse and Elton have joined the Obama Administration. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs scoffed at the theory. "The charge is ridiculous," he said. "Obviously there is no effort ... From my vantage point, a lot of the criticism she is getting from others seems to be generated from self-inflicted wounds.

Meg went a step further at one point telling me, "I just hope to God Rahm Emanuel isn't using taxpayer money to come after Alaska." That's the way they think about it: that these Alaskans filing ethics complaints have been hoodwinked by Obama operatives into wasting the Alaskan government's time and resources. They believe that with Palin gone, the state will no longer face this barrage of "frivolous" compliants. On that point, they are probably right -- there will be much less interest in filing complaints against Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell. Palin, Meg said, was their target all along because she "represents the biggest threat to Obama. She's the only one who can get the base excited." I'm not entirely convinced of Obama's Nixon-esque sabotage capabilities, but I do think Palin has felt under attack for the last eight months and it wasn't a hard leap for anyone in her orbit to connect local progressive wingnuts and the Administration. Palin has never been great at playing defense.

Now, that is the Sham-Wow of hacktastic newsmagazine "journalism." Extol your own story and then proceed to accept, more or less at face value, the paranoid rantings of a press flak, claiming, Victoria Jackson-like, that Rahm Emmanuel is the anti-Christ. Well done, Ms. Newton-Small!

And think about the charge Newton-Small makes: "They believe that with Palin gone, the state will no longer face this barrage of 'frivolous' compliants. On that point, they are probably right -- there will be much less interest in filing complaints against Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell." Thisis not in the context of the Alaskan state legislature. It's about Rahm Emmanuel. She is charging the Obama administration with laying out ethics probes to hurt what she seems to perceive as a political rival. Did the Bush administration's criminality so soil the reputation of the Justice Dept. that this is not only believed, but accepted as par for the course? Or is Jay Newton-Small a fucking idiot? I report. You decide.

It's funny, this morning I clicked on a link to a story claiming Levi Johnson "knows" why Sarah Palin quit (Was someone in Palin's family one of his mom's customers?, I wondered). Only to learn that, according to him, she did it to "cash in." Whoa, I thought. Who'd a thunk it? But then I read the bizarro-world post from Jay Newton-Small and I realized that only those who know the Tundra-billies up close and personal can catch the grift.

The parent trap

John Ensign of Nevada, who is perhaps the only man in America who wants Mark Sanford to keep talking, still can't keep himself out of the news.

“After the senator told his parents about the affair,” the statement issued by Mr. Coggins said, “his parents decided to make the gifts out of concern for the well-being of longtime family friends during a difficult time. The gifts are consistent with a pattern of generosity by the Ensign family to the Hamptons and others.

Now clean up that coffee you just spit out.

Meanwhile, "the media" is tearing these families apart.

John Bachar, RIP

I guess this is how he would have like to go.

Around noon Sunday, he fell from a formation called Dike Wall, not far from his home. He is survived by a son, Tyrus. He also leaves climbing routes bearing his name across the Yosemite Valley.

Drake Levin, RIP

At least I think he's playing lead guitar here.

That's why they call it "small ball"

Joe Mauer, one of the best hitters in baseball, led off the seventh, down 6-4, with a bunt single. On cue, the Yankees announcers are extolling his baseball virtues and how smart he is. "Even if he hit a home run they'd still be down a run," says Ms. Waldman. Justin Morneau promptly hits a slow grounder to second, just missing a double play. Kubel strikes out. The slow-footed Morneau is caught trying (inexplicably) to take second on a wild pitch that didn't get past the catcher nearly far enough.

If Mauer (.390/.463/.654) had hit normally, he may very well have gotten a double. In that case, he may very well have been on third on Morneau's grounder.

"Still down a run." But I'd rather enter the eighth down by one than two.

Meanwhile, Tag-Gate is getting more interesting every day.

Jeter calls Umpire Foster a liar. Craig Calcaterra wonders why Derek wasn’t fined for this:

So, we have a clear instance of a player saying that an ump is lying. Which is worse than simply saying that an ump blew a call, which in the past has gotten players and managers fined. No one seems to be rushing to fine Jeter this morning, however, which suggests one of two things: (1) that Jeter gets special treatment because he’s Jeter; or (2) that Major League Baseball thinks Jeter has a point and isn’t buying the ump’s story.

It’s more than (1). As Hirschbeck implied, Jeter isn’t a player to just spout off over a bad call. Derek built up a lot of credibility over the years by acting like a professional on the field. For Jeter to be this upset, for Jeter to call an umpire a liar, something real happened. I’m guessing Mr. Foster will be back in the minors real soon.

We had an election?

Time magazine skids off the journalism road, rolls multiple times down the hill, catches on fire, and explodes in a mushroom cloud of debris and despair.

In a classic example of newsmagazine overthink, Time profiles Sarah Palin with a cover story that practically celebrates her thin résumé and essentially makes the case that know-nothingism could be good for America. Seriously:

Palin's unconventional step speaks to an ingrained frontier skepticism of authority — even one's own. Given the plunging credibility of institutions and élites, that's a mood that fits the Palin brand. Résumés ain't what they used to be; they count only with people who trust credentials — a dwindling breed. The mathematics Ph.D.s who dreamed up economy-killing derivatives have pretty impressive résumés. The leaders of congressional committees and executive agencies have decades of experience — at wallowing in red ink, mismanaging economic bubbles and botching covert intelligence.

If ever there has been a time to gamble on a flimsy résumé, ever a time for the ultimate outsider, this might be it. "We have so little trust in the character of the people we elected that most of us wouldn't invite them into our homes for dinner, let alone leave our children alone in their care," writes talk-show host Glenn Beck in his book Glenn Beck's Common Sense, a pox-on-all-their-houses fusillade at Washington. Dashed off in a fever of disillusionment with those in power, Beck's book is selling like vampire lit, with more than 1 million copies in print.

Citing Glenn Beck as proof that many Americans are eager to turn to a pol with little expertise in national policy? But didn't the country just have an election? And didn't a significant majority vote for the guy with two Ivy League degrees who talked about bringing professionalism, science, and expertise back to policymaking in Washington? (Anyone remember Palin's climate change denialism? Not the Time people.)

Too tan

A man named Barack Hussein Obama is the president of the United States. The first lady is the daughter of a working class couple from the south side of Chicago. Derek Jeter, who is just now stepping up to the plate, is the top vote getter for the AL All Star Team. Gays and lesbians are getting married in more and more states (box turtles may be next).

Surely we are living in a golden age of tolerance and understanding.

Surely not.

"They just kicked us out. And we were about to go. Had our swim things and everything," said camper Simer Burwell.

The explanation they got was either dishearteningly honest or poorly worded.

"There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club," John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.

Via DH Riley.

Elitism

The Right will never stop thinking that all of life is a battle of the Orthogonians versus the Franklins.

Why elide the fact that Sarah Palin is a darling of Fox News, the highest-rated cable-news network in America? Or that she is regularly defended by Mr. Limbaugh, famous television personality Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin, a nationally syndicated radio host whose latest book just ended a run atop the New York Times bestseller list? Or again, surely these savvy Sarah Palin defenders know that the editors of National Review and The Weekly Standard, tenured members of the political establishment, lined up behind her candidacy, and that Gov. Palin herself is a millionaire who enjoyed a six-figure family income before she ever took the statehouse—never mind the lucrative book contract and pricey speaking fees now available to her.

Isn’t it actually the case that a good chunk of elite America loves Sarah Palin, or at least is willing to lend rhetorical and financial support to her? Why pretend otherwise? The cynical view is that elite conservatives benefit by hiding this fact from their audiences. Better to convince them that America’s cultural and political tastemakers are as thoroughly liberal today as was the case a generation ago. In that bygone era, The New York Times and the Big Three networks determined the news cycle, the Fairness Doctrine constrained the market for conservative radio, and the post-World War II democratic coalition dominated two-thirds of the federal government.

Way back in the year 2000, I can still remember where I was when I heard the news that one George W. Bush had launched an "exploratory committee" to determine whether he would run for president. I laughed ruefully, thinking, fucking GOP really is a cynical bunch. They'll hitch their wagon to that nasty, vicious incompetent all on account of his name recognition and connections with the christianists. They know he's not qualified to run a shoe store, let alone the country, but governing doesn't really matter to them. Winning does, and whipping up the base is their strategy to do just that.

I am not surprised that many in the Republican "elite" are using Saint Sarah in the same way and she's returning the favor. It's a grifter's party and she's the grifter queen.