I used the word "refugees" in an earlier post to describe those who were dispaced by Katrina. TPM Reader DW objects:
That word is insulting to the American citizens who fled their homes to seek safety. I understand that it is technically the correct word, but it carries negative connotation. I also know that your intention is not to be pejorative. But still...
I am aware of that concern, which was raised frequently in the weeks following Katrina. The "negative connotation" that DW and others refer to is that "refugee" suggests second-class citizenship. In so far as many of those displaced by the storm were poor and African American, the specter of enjoying something less than full citizenship is very real.
But, as DW concedes, "refugees" is technically correct. No other word as succinctly and dramatically conveys the plight of those forced out of their homes by Katrina. The word should not be insulting to those to whom it is applied. Rather, the continued refugee status of many storm victims a year later should be an affront to all Americans.
Commenting on Katrina recovery Saturday in his weekly radio address, the President sounded as if he were reading from one of his Iraq speeches by mistake: "We will stay until the job is done." Well, it's not as if the federal government can hightail it out of Louisiana or Mississippi. Where would it go exactly?
The further implication of the President's remarks is that the federal government was not present before Katrina struck, an absurd and offensive suggestion. New Orleans would not have existed as a modern city if not for the Army Corps of Engineers. The President would have us believe that the federal government came to the rescue after this natural disaster, albeit a bit late. In fact, the Corps and decades of federal flood control policy played a pivotal role in what was a manmade disaster in New Orleans--the failure of the levee system. (No one has done a better job of banging this drum than Harry Shearer, the actor, comedian, author, media critic, and sometime journalist.)
The New York Times published a fascinating graphic this past week showing, based on change of address forms submitted to the U.S. Postal Service, where Katrina evacuees have re-settled. Places like Baton Rouge, Houston, and Atlanta have borne the brunt of the exodus, but, as the NYT graphic shows, the impact has been felt in communities large and small from coast to coast.
Some of these former Gulf Coast residents will settle permanently elsewhere, but many are merely waiting for the right time to return, like TPM Reader PP, who checked in with TPM today:
Just moved back into my house in the Broadmoor section of NOLA last week after a year of exile. I've spent this morning scrubbing off the bathtub ring around my house - hot but immensely satisfying work.
No shame in that.
--David Kurtz
I have a friend, TPM Reader SC, who was is a former resident of New Orleans now living in Georgia. She lost her job, her apartment, and her cat to Katrina and the catastrophe that followed. I asked her what she most wanted people to understand about Katrina and its aftermath that they don't understand now:
What to say about Katrina and the aftermath? I find I have a hard time saying anything, and I hope that doesn't sound overly dramatic.I don't say much, because I just feel weighed down when I try, but I dream about it a lot. Every night so far this week, in fact. What I dream about is not my house or my job or anything like that, although my cat does show up sometimes because that guilt is alive and well. (And I really do miss that annoying little bastard.) I dream that I am leaving people.
You know, I really do have good memories of the Superdome and the convention center, almost all of them from college. Tulane football games down at the Dome; walking down the aisle of the convention center to get my diploma. But I don't understand how anyone can look at either of those two places ever again and not be shattered by the absolute abandonment of the poor by their government in the days after Katrina. Heck, who can look at the entire city and not think about that?
But I feel like the knowledge of that is slipping away somehow. I feel like people think oh, that's just in New Orleans, you know, that crazy banana republic down South. But you rip the lid off any major urban setting in this country the way the lid was ripped off N.O., and I think you get the same thing. But we aren't really talking about that. I think that Katrina proved that America has absolutely abandoned its underclass. We don't like poor people. And that serves up a big dollop of shame to go with my sorrow.
Yes, New Orleans was built in a f------up way in a f------up place. And yes, the local and state govt has done nothing at this point to get things -- anything -- going again. And yes, we need to knock some Corps of Engineers heads because of the levee situation. And yes, the insurance companies are screwing OLD PEOPLE every which way they can to get out of paying. And yes, Nagin is a jackass and Bush is a nincompoop.
I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about any of that. But sweet Jesus, how are we not talking about poverty and class? I can't watch that footage, I really can't. It tears me up.
I think individual Americans responded with amazing generosity after the storm; I think as an aggregate, though, we suck. Because, so far, we've been unwilling to look in the mirror of New Orleans and see what we have allowed to happen.
I hate this stupid anniversary.
--David Kurtz
Remember the "we'll stand down as they stand up" strategy? It needs some work:
Iraqis looted a military base vacated by British troops and stripped it of virtually everything removable on Friday, an indication of possible future trouble for U.S.-led coalition forces hoping to hand over security gradually to the Iraqi government.Men, some with their faces covered, ripped corrugated metal from roofs, carried off metal pipes and backed trucks into building entrances to load them with wooden planks. Many also took away doors and window frames from Camp Abu Naji.
"The British forces left Abu Naji and the locals started looting everything," 1st Lt. Rifaat Taha Yaseen of the Iraqi Army's 10th Division told Associated Press Television News. "They took everything from the buildings."
The plundering was likely to embarrass the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has said that Iraqi army and police plan to take over security for all of Iraq's provinces within the next 18 months.
Maybe the most troubling part of this incident is that the base in question is located in southern Iraq, which used to be considered relatively stable. Relatively.
--David Kurtz
While the anniversary of Katrina's final landfall is not until Tuesday, the storm memories harbored by many survivors and refugees begin on this Friday night a year ago.
Those who were prudent and cautious by nature had started paying attention to the storm--really paying attention--earlier in the day. They had evacuated once already that summer, for Dennis, and the year before for Ivan, both of which hit the Florida panhandle. The Mississippi and Louisiana coasts were largely spared by those two earlier storms, and many residents there were perhaps reluctant to pack up again. The only thing more tedious than evacuating for a hurricane is evacuating for a hurricane that ends up striking somewhere else.
But if you had ever experienced the traffic jams during a hurricane evacuation, especially leaving the cities along the Gulf Coast, then you knew that you better get out while the getting was good. And Friday night, the getting was still good.
Traffic was a little heavier than usual, but drive times were about normal. Gas was available. Weather conditions were good. If you wanted to avoid the chaos that the weekend might bring, you went home from work, packed the car, and headed out before dark. If you had the means to do so. If you had someplace to go.
--David Kurtz
Shift change. Matt Yglesias is back over at the Cafe. I'll be guest-hosting this weekend for Josh. You can email me at tpmguesthost (at) hotmail.com. More soon . . .
--David Kurtz
There's lots not to like in National Review's symposium on Iraq, but oddly it's the most dovish contribution, from General Bernard Trainor, that's most maddening:
By just about every measure, our strategy is not succeeding. Common sense would dictate that we cut our losses and get out as soon as feasible, leaving the Iraqis to settle matters in their own way. But that would be taking a leap into the great and highly dangerous unknown, perhaps creating problems more vexing than those we currently face. Opponents of precipitous withdrawal raise “out of the frying pan, into the fire” scenarios — and they may be right. If so, staying the course and working for improvement is the only logical choice unless at some point the chaotic situation absolutely forecloses that option.
Trainor clearly has a grip on reality that many of his fellow contributors lack. What's more, as a retired Lt. General from the Marines he has a kind of credibility that, say, a 25 year-old guest blogger lacks. These are the kind of voices the country is going to need to hear more from if we're ever going to straighten ourselves out. And yet his argument here is that opponents of withdrawal are correct to oppose withdrawal if and only if opponents of withdrawal are right. But, obviously, we shouldn't leave if withdrawal opponents are right. The question is are they -- am I -- right?
--Matthew Yglesias
Were I a more interesting writer, I would have written an article about Veronica Mars and class conflict, but apparently Chris Hayes already did it.
--Matthew Yglesias
Breaking: Sen. Conrad Burns' (R-MT) state finance director accused by Montana officials of securities fraud.
Update: Details here.
Later Update: A Burns spokesman just told us that the director resigned (very quietly, apparently) from the position July 27th.
--Paul Kiel
August is a hard month for journalists, since not much is happening. The good news, however, is that editors tend to be on vacation, so you can get a little goofy. Take, for example, the conclusion to this New York Times account of the marketing campaign being waged by the new CW network in the wake of the UPN/WB merger:
The solution, Mr. Haskins said, was to focus on what the predecessor networks had in common, which was their younger viewers, “and create an environment that was relatable to their lives.”Someday, there will be an article about television in which no executive uses the word “relatable,” industry jargon for something with which viewers are supposed to identify or connect. Alas, this is not that article.
Be that as it may, the network's lineup will include the unjustly low-rated Veronica Mars, which is far and away the best show on broadcast television. It's eminently "relatable."
--Matthew Yglesias
My little disquisition on growing oranges in Siberia seems to have engendered some understandable confusion. Unlike Cliff May, I was just speaking totally literally when I said putting an orange grove in Siberia was possible but not advisable. That's just a whimsical aside about citrus fruit, not an effort to promote a foreign policy analogy.
--Matthew Yglesias
Another Charles Krauthammer column, another brazen effort to mislead his readers: "North Korea went nuclear a long time ago. Our time to act was during the Bush 41 and Clinton administrations."
Really? Well, no, not really.
Fred Kaplan's 2004 article remains the best accurate account of what went down with North Korea. Krauthammer, as usual, has an admirable rhetorical flair but dubious analytic skills and a tenuous grasp on the facts.
--Matthew Yglesias
Interested in a webcast of me debating Pluto's demotion to non-planet status with Ann Althouse? Of course you are! Whole thing here. I think I get unusually indignant here.
--Matthew Yglesias
Once upon a time, I thought the neoconservative right was sincere in its dedication to democracy-promotion. Then I came to the view that they were cynically lying. But then I started to come back around on this point, especially after I started living in Washington and gaining the ability to soak up a bit more of the atmosphere. They seem to be genuinely confused.
Give this Cliff May post a read. He's writing about yesterday's op-ed from Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a well-known Egyptian democracy activist and writing who's quite widely admired in DC circles across the board. Ibrahim's op-ed expresses what would can only call the Arab conventional wisdom -- Israel is primarily to blame for the problems in which it finds itself enmeshed, the war in Iraq was primarily designed to bolster American regional hegemony, and thanks to the unpopularity of US policy, democratic movements in the Middle East are likely to be hostile to the United States. So far so good.
May reads the op-ed, however, and reaches the conclusion that this is a data point in favor of the proposition that "fostering freedom and democracy in the Middle East" may be impossible, "akin to trying to establish orange groves in Siberia."
But how so? Why? It only makes sense if you assume a perfect congruence between the idea of democracy and support for US-Israeli regional security priorities. May doesn't say that Ibrahim's hostility to these priorities makes him doubt the desirability of fostering democracy, which would be a coherent conclusion, he says it makes him doubt the possibility of doing so. It's a perfect storm of confusion.
At any rate, while it's not strictly relevant let me also state for the record that while I've actually seen an orange grove not in Siberia, but in Iceland. What they do is construct greenhouses on top of geothermal vents. Foolishly, I failed to take a photo of the oranges growing but here's tropical flowers. This was the photo I took of small Icelandic oranges sitting in the supermarket before I saw the greenhouse. The whole "let's grow citrus fruit on a sub-arctic volcanic island" plan is a result of what I would characterize as the world's craziest agriculture policy. Point being -- I'm fairly certain you could grow oranges in Siberia if you really wanted to, but I don't think it would be advisable.
--Matthew Yglesias
A perk too far: one midwestern congressman has been traveling on the dime of a foreign terrorist organization. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
The latest in the ongoing battle between Pennsylvania Democrats and the Green-Republican alliance....
--Paul Kiel
Mike McGavick, Republican Senate candidate from Washington, is being mighty slippery about phasing out Social Security:
Social Security benefits must be maintained for current retirees and those near retirement. I support examining phasing in voluntary personal accounts for younger workers to both ensure the long term future of the program and to help create more ownership over individual retirement. I do not support privatization—Social Security must remain a government program.
In other words, he does support privatization (i.e., "voluntary personal accounts for younger workers") but he's not prepared to admit it. Nor is he prepared to take responsibility for his views:
It’s time that we move Social Security reform—so long bogged down in political gamesmanship—to a more thoughtful and productive place. I propose the creation of a commission, like the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which makes decisions about the closure of military facilities, be enacted for Social Security reform to remove the partisanship and create results on this crucial issue.
In other words, vote McGavick and he'll try to get an unaccountable commision to phase Social Security out, but one way or another he won't be up front about what he's doing.
--Matthew Yglesias
Lieberman on Iran: Greg Sargent has the excerpts from Joe Lieberman's appearance on the Glenn Beck show during which Beck said a whole series of absurd things about Iran to which Lieberman happily agreed. The highlight is that Lieberman assented to Beck's view that "The weapons of mass destruction was a nice side benefit" of the Iraq War, but that fundamentally, "We were trying to go and pop the head of the snake in Iran."
--Matthew Yglesias
Justin Logan writes about the long history of unduly panicked intelligence on Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons.
--Matthew Yglesias
Lots and lots of interesting email on the "Hitler's Cross" restaurant topic. If this blog had comment threads, it'd be a hell of a good one. Fortunately, I've set up a thread for discussion purposes over at the Cafe. Beyond that, let me just quote one message from D.G. because I went to summer camp with him he's a bona fide Jewish resident of Bombay:
I just wanted to weigh in on the whole Hitler's Cross Restaurant thing as an honest to god Jewish resident of Bombay. (No kidding, I don't know if you heard, but I got sick of Washington and wanted an adventure. I have outsourced myself to Bombay. It's actually pretty awesome, Hitler theme restaurants aside.) First of all, though it's obvious, I think it's important to note that the guy fairly explicitly wants, and has received, attention, and he's gotten it, even if he's already been forced to change the name. He's really more Paris Hilton than David Duke. Secondly, Hitler would almost certainly not be terribly pleased with the of idea of an Indian restaurant/hookah bar bearing his name. It's a little ethnic for him.That being said, there is an incredible amount of Hitler fascination in India, often tinged with Nazi-sympathy. I noticed this weeks ago, well before this whole restaurant thing blew up. I think there are two reasons for this. A) Hitler and the Indians were to some extent on the same side, and even though Indians know that they shouldn't like him, they tend to appreciate his role in breaking Britain's back, and B) they think that if anyone could have made the trains run on time in this country it would have been Hitler. (They're wrong in that respect, by the way. No one could organize this place.)
I had a surprising conversation with a friend who said that yes, the holocaust was bad, but he heard that the autobahn is the best highway system in the world, and you have to keep things in perspective. (Given that Bombay's big modern highway has a posted speed limit of 50 km/h, which it's hard to imagine anyone ever achieving, building an awesome highway system does probably overshadow 13 million or so murders.) Another friend told me about how her husband used to learn all about how great Hitler was by the priests at his catholic school (one wonders what Pope Ratzinger would think about this.) She did, however, seem a bit freaked out by that. You can buy Mein Kampf at the Indian equivalent of Barnes and Noble, with a forward by some Indian guy talking about how everything must be read in it's context blah blah blah. Anyway, the holocaust is all quite far from here, as are most Jews and Gypsies and (at least uncloseted) Gays. My friends are very concerned about my feeling uncomfortable, but once they realized I wasn't particularly horrified, they all wanted to be the first to take me.
Food for thought? It's certainly something. At any rate, in my initial post I wasn't trying to say that Nazi kitsch and Soviet kitsch are exactly the same. Rather, I just wanted to note that our conventions in the USA treat them very differently for reasons that are non-obvious and possibly not totally comprehensible to people approaching these questions from a different historical background.
--Matthew Yglesias
From reader J.L.:
On Foxnews just now, they started up two big new themes. Richard Minter was the guest.Theme number 1 - Iran is a bigger security threat and more important to deal with quickly than Bin Laden.
Theme number 2 - Iran is supporting Bin Laden anyway, via their intelligence services and funding, so going after Iran is really the same thing as getting Bin Laden.
I'm imagining a good roundtable discussion -- Minter versus Laurie Mylroie on the subject of whether Saddam or Ahmadenijad was the real culprit on 9/11. Anyways, I guess I've been remiss in my Lieberblogging . . . any reader intel on what Connecticut's favorite independent has said about Iran recently?
--Matthew Yglesias
Bad news for journos: Yesterday a federal judge ordered a probe into the leak of an investigation's details to CBS, the third inquiry of its kind in the past two years.
Even worse, the judge also ruled it was acceptable for the government to spy on anyone who handles government information "not generally available to the public"-- a category which seems to cover any reporter worth his or her salt.
--Justin Rood
Thanks to a reader's observation, I find myself reading the House Intel report (PDF) on Iran and wondering why the missile range graphic shows the missiles being fired from Kuwait rather than, say, Iran. Note also that the outer circles describes the range of a missile that doesn't exist.
--Matthew Yglesias
Comparative kitschology aside, let's return to the subject of Republicans more or less openly demanding that the intelligence community start cooking the books on Iran intelligence. Laura Rozen, doing some guest-blogging for Kevin Drum, wonders has "the marketing campaign against Iran begun?"
In various ways, I think it's been under way for a while, but clearly things are kicking into a new gear. As I was saying yesterday, this is part of the meaning of the President's embrace of the "Islamic fascism" locution. If the United States is at war with al-Qaeda, then a big confrontation with Iran is psychotic. But if the United States is at war with Islamic fascism, then the term fits the Iranian regime about as well (or as poorly) as it fits al-Qaeda, so we may as well start a war with Iran. Note that although the administration itself didn't play this particular card in selling the Iraq War the basic structure of how the sales pitch goes was previewed in Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism. He argued that al-Qaeda should be seen as a species of "Muslim totalitarianism" and that Baathist Iraq was also a species of Muslim totalitarianism, and that, therefore since we were at war with the one we should also be at war with the other.
Bush and Cheney, of course, preferred the more straightforward gambit of simply implying that Saddam was behind 9/11 but the blueprint for the semantic switcheroo is already out there. And now we have the demands for the intelligence to be cooked up to order.
Democrats had better be prepared to confront this business aggressively. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that they won't be. Months and months ago when the groundwork for all this was being laid by conservative pundits and so forth I made it a habit to ask every Democratic politician I came across whether or not they were prepared for Iran to be an issue in the '06 midterms. Absolutely none of them seemed to be. People were either confident it wouldn't come to that, confident they could gin up a counter-pan if it did come to that, or else just expressed outrage at the idea that the GOP might politicize national security. But of course the GOP will politicize national security. What's more, they should politicize national security -- it's an important and legitimate issue in political debates. Democrats can't just plead for the refs to call a foul, they need to try to engage in this debate and win it.
--Matthew Yglesias
"Hitler was a bad man, but what's wrong with having food here?" That's what Ashwini Phadnis has to ask Jews upset about the opening of a Hitler-themed restaurant in Kharghar, India near Bombay. More here. As Mike Crowley notes the guy at the end of one of these articles who says naming a restaurant "Hitler's Cross" is just like naming a place "George Bush Footwear" seems to have lost the plot.
I'm surprised, though, that nobody seems to be making the analogy that actually is appropriate here -- plenty of businesses operate on a Communism theme. When I lived in the Boston area, I used to go to People's Republic in Central Square. When I'm in New York City I've been known to frequent KGB Bar and while I think it may have closed, Nikita on MacDougal Street was definitely more Nikita Khruschev than La Femme Nikita.
I don't really understand why we have this particular convention in the West. If you actually went around singing Stalin's praises people would be horrified. But Communist kitsch is fine. Nazi kitsch, however, is not. You can see why Indians might find this nonsensical and think that calling a spot Hitler's Cross is no more an offensive endorsement of the Holocaust than calling a place KGB Bar is a pro-GULAG statement.
--Matthew Yglesias
Which GOP lawmaker has vowed not to "cut and run" -- from Tom DeLay? That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
Shocking. Republican politicians warn that intelligence professionals are being insufficiently alarmist about Iran. And rightly so. After all, last time there was a dispute like that, the alarmist politicians were completely vindicated and the skeptics in the intelligence community definitively refuted. You all remember that.
Right? Right?
Come to think of it, neither do I.
--Matthew Yglesias
The past week or so has seen some renewed attention to the longstanding hawk-pundit gambit of referring to people as "Islamofascists" since the President, in what I can only understand as a sign of increasing desperation, decided to more-or-less sign on to this agenda by adopting the slightly-less-absurd formulation "Islamic fascists." The other day, Spencer Ackerman made the fundamental pragmatic argument against this -- Muslims everywhere really, really, really don't appreciate this terminology.
That aside, however, it's worth calling attention to the function of this rhetoric. "Fascist," in this context, just roughly means "bad." Add in the "Islamic" and what you come to is the conclusion that we're in a war and that the enemy in this war is Muslims who subscribe to bad ideologies. This has the consequence of taking a set of institutionally and ideologically distinct actors -- Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, Iraq, Iran, Syria, al-Qaeda, the Mahdi Army, Iraqi insurgents, etc. -- and treating them as a single phenomenon. To do so would be a serious mistake. And to call it a mistake is not to deny the obvious fact that these are groups that are to some degree interrelated. There's some ideological overlap. Some of these groups are allied with each other at the moment. Some have been allied in the past. Some might ally in the future.
Nevertheless, they are different things. And the essence of sound strategy has long been to look at potentially hostile actors and try to divide them. To decide what your top priority is and focus on it. The "Islamofascism" rhetoric is part of a continuing campaign to do the reverse.
--Matthew Yglesias
No stunt left unpulled. Will Bunch has the story of Bush's "surprise" meeting with a Katrina survivor who happens to be a former GOP candidate for electoral office.
--Matthew Yglesias
Ignorance is, if not bliss, then at least widespread. One of the things political pundits least appreciate about America is that substantial numbers of people basically have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to politics and that the deeply ignorant are also much more persuadable than the well-informed. Scott Winship has a nice post about some of this.
--Matthew Yglesias
Verizon and BellSouth impose new broadband fees in tandem, while FCC proclaims broadband market adequately competitive.
--Matthew Yglesias
As the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches, new details of the government's incompetent response are being examined. For instance: who knew that DHS relied on CNN Headline News for its vital intelligence?
--Paul Kiel
The New York Times picks up Joe Lieberman's talk radio appearance yesterday.
--Paul Kiel
When I was first reading Mickey Kaus' riposte to my argument that universal health care would be more affordable than he thought it seemed to me that we had some yawning disagreement about the nature of health care costs. Upon reflection, though, the disagreement is different. His vision of a universal health care system is one that will be sufficiently generous that even families in, say, the 89th percentile of the income distribution never feel inclined to make private expenditures for additional services on top of what the government provides and that won't involve any potentially innovation-starving price controls. That, I'm inclined to agree, really would be very expensive.
And if you could really pay for such a system by severely means-testing Social Security benefits I wouldn't have a particular objection to that. I don't think that provides a case for pre-emptively slashing Social Security. The way, in practice, that you would get from where we are to where Kaus wants to go is that the politicians proposing the generous health benefit would either lowball the costs or else simply ignore the question of payment (see, e.g., the 2003 Bush Medicare bill) and then when it became necessary to cut something, means-testing Social Security would look like one reasonable approach.
Fundamentally, though, I find this an unlikely path to universal health care. I think it's much more plausible that we'll either put something together based primarily around individual- or employer-mandates (which is an idea that I think has a lot of problems but sharply reduces the need for new taxes by financing the system primarily through the de facto tax of the mandates) or else by continuing the upward creep in Medicaid eligibility (this would be my preference) which would lead to a system that's universal, but not nearly as generous as the one he's envisioning.
--Matthew Yglesias
Medicare involved in $50 million "glitch". Just a drop in the bucket, of course, compared to the overall size of wastage of funds involved in the administration's reform bill.
--Matthew Yglesias
One small but important point related to the Non-Proliferation Treaty discussion below is that, as several readers have pointed out, Israel, India, and Pakistan aren't signatories to the NPT so they can't really be said to be violating it. This is true, but it amounts to much the same thing. The NPT allows any member to withdraw from the treaty with no real penalty -- all it needs to do is to offer three months' notice -- and in the wake of the Bush administration's nuclear deal with India none of the non-member countries are paying any meaningful penalty for their non-membership.
Ultimately, I tend to think the Iran crisis has shown the need to create a much more robust non-proliferation regime than the one the NPT provides for. Getting that done would require a lot of things, among them a renewed determination to deal with the status of the non-NPT Three in a meaningful way.
--Matthew Yglesias
When telecommunications giant Qwest refused to give the NSA its subscribers' call records, civil libertarians hailed the company. So why are those same groups booing now? That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
The case for al-Jazeera as made by David Ignatius. It's a small point he makes, but a good and important one. If you want to understand the Arab media, the Abu Aardvark blog by Marc Lynch is vital reading. His book on the subject's worth your time too if you're willing to delve deep.
--Matthew Yglesias
The Iranian nuclear program and the ongoing diplomatic moves around it pose some serious questions. It's also provided the opportunity for some deeply unserious commentary. Take, for example, this post on National Review's blog from Mario Loyola arguing that if Iran prevents IAEA inspectors from entering a certain facility "we should bomb the facilities right now" and that as legal justification for doing so we ought to invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter because we "consider . . . Iranian violation of the nonproliferation treaty an act of armed aggression within Article 51 of the U.N. Charter."
Since in times of peace conservatives usually make no bones about the fact that they don't care about international law it's hard for me to understand why they go in for such tortured legal rationalizations about starting them. Article 51 preserves the "inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations." It's right there in the text -- armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations. Violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty is not an armed attack against the United States or any other country. This is pretty clear-cut. If anyone would have an Article 51 case in the event of the Loyola Plan being implemented it would obviously be Iran, the country subjected to an armed attack (veto power comes in handy here).
Now what's more, the general idea that a state which is not in compliance with the NPT should be subject to attack by whoever feels like attacking is very much not a principle I think people are going to want to endorse. Does that rule apply to India and Pakistan? To Israel? Presumably not.
Which is all beside the point because, as I say, it's obvious that neither Loyola nor really any of his conservative colleagues actually cares about international law the UN Charter or what have you. If they did, their commentary on the subject might evince some familiarity with what these things say or what the implications of the principles they suggest are. But since they don't care, why bother? What's the point?
Meanwhile, I can't help but note that last time I was guest-blogging here at the TPM Mothership, the nation was also in the grips of Iran-related war fever. This seemed to fade away soon after Josh returned, but now it's back. Just a coincidence, I hope.
--Matthew Yglesias
Following up on my earlier post about poll numbers, there's one point I left implicit where I should have stated it explicitly.
I said before that partisan polls (ones commissioned by one of the candidates or the candidate's party) are inherently suspect. The reason is not that these polls are necessarily flawed or cooked, though they can be. The problem with them is that a partisan poll only gets released when it's good for the candidate who sponsors it.
So, hypothetically, a candidate could commission three polls, get a range of results and only release the one which shows him doing the best, a reading that's likely an outlier and thus misleading.
Of late, we've been seeing lots of (D) partisan polls. And that's, as I said, because the Dems are the ones who have an interest in showing how close a lot of these races are.
The point I didn't mention is this: the normal response when one candidate puts out a poll favorable to him or herself is for the other side to go into the field and (if they can) and get a better number to release. And back in July they did just that. According to Roll Call (sub. req), the NRCC dropped $450,000 to conduct polls in 28 competitive districts. The article was dated July 31st. And the polls were conducted "over a two-week period this month." In other words, the polling was almost certainly done at least a month ago.
So far as I can tell, I've seen few if any of those polls. And it's not hard to figure out why.
Cricket, cricket ...
--Josh Marshall
Joe Lieberman and right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck have a chat and agree about pretty much everything. Are we in the midst of World War III? Check. WMD wasn't why we went into Iraq? Check. Etc.
--Josh Marshall
You have to be really deep in the weeds to see it. But if you watch close, you can see it happening.
What am I talking about?
If you're a political junkie like me, every cycle you know of a few dozen members of the opposite party who are never more than a handful of points ahead of their opposition. 6 or 7 points? Not that far. But of course it's a million miles. Campaign's can work like crazy but a member of the House who wins by 55% to 45% generally just keeps on winning by the same spread. Like I say, it's a million miles.
But not this cycle. It's no mystery that things aren't looking good for the GOP this year. But I like looking at numbers in the individual races. And again and again, I'm seeing races that never quite become competitive tip on to the other side entirely.
One I noticed a few weeks ago was Rep. Chris Chocola in Indiana 2. First was a Democratic poll showing him a stunning ten points behind his Democratic opponent. Partisan polls are of course inherently suspect. But, as has happened again and again over the last six or seven weeks, that was followed by an independent poll which showed a smaller but still serious deficit. Chocola with 41% to his challengers 46%.
For an incumbent in July those are very bleak numbers.
And he's not the only one.
I keep seeing polls showing swing district Republicans either neck and neck or behind their Democratic challengers. Lots of them are polls sponsored by Dems -- which makes sense, since they're the side that wants to preview the level of competitiveness in the race. But in most of the cases I've seen, those numbers have been substantially confirmed by subsequent independent polls.
And if you watch closely, the water just keeps rising.
--Josh Marshall
The tide changes? ARG has Lieberman 44%, Lamont 42%. Well within the margin of error.
--Josh Marshall
A break in the Plame scandal: a top official at the State Department met with Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003, AP confirms. Woodward is believed to be the first journalist to have discussed Plame's identity with a Bush official. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
I've been waiting for someone to say this, someone who can say it not with the guide of history and logical inference but with actual knowledge of the IDF. And here it is.
In the Israeli daily Ha'aretz tonight, military affairs writer Ze'ev Schiff says that the main conclusion that will be drawn from the IDF's disappointing performance in the Lebanon war will be that the army's fighting capacity and edge has been blunted by years of policing duties in the territories.
Writes Schiff ...
Most units, in their training and operations, followed fighting doctrines of police forces and not of standing armies. Hezbollah trains, fights and is equiped as an army, utilizing some of the most advanced anti-tank missiles and other weapons.The character of the IDF - known for its blitzkrieg methods, encircling movements deep inside enemy territory, and the ability to bring about a quick and decisive conclusion to the fighting - has been spoiled by years of involvement in operations that tied it down, emotionally and politically.
A couple weeks into this war, long enough that it seemed clear that things weren't going exactly according to plan for the Israelis, TPM Reader EF wrote in and put the matter more acidly but I think correctly ...
The IDF’s troubles are the bitter legacy of the endless occupation. Armies engaged primarily in harassing civilians tend to perform poorly in combat. The Argentine army, which had been engaged in a dirty war against its own people, mostly powerless to fight back, suddenly found itself in a real fight in the Falklands. The British soldiers and Marines did not arrive strapped to tables with electrodes attached to their genitals, so the Argentines didn’t know how to handle them. They lost pretty quickly. Nor is this because the whole Argentine military were simply bullies and cowards; the Argentine air force, which had not been involved in rounding up and torturing helpless people, put up a good show against the Royal Navy. Occupation duty is always bad for combat units. The American units in Korea in 1950 and those sent to Korea from occupation duty in Japan to stop the North Korean offensive performed poorly by most measures. It would take months to get them back into fighting trim, and non-occupation troops, brought in from the States, would do most of the heavy lifting in driving the North Koreans back from Pusan and Inchon.
I don't want to get sidetracked on to the question of equivalence between the Argentine military regime and modern day Israel. I certainly don't think they're remotely equivalent. 
But that question is irrelevant to the point EF is making.
Occupation degrades a fighting force -- a reality the Israelis need to confront right now and we Americans need to come to grips with as well. The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is something Israel really cannot afford now as it becomes more clear that she is in renewed need of a very potent fighting army.
But, of course, this goes beyond the military sphere. Or rather the military sphere is revealing a deeper reality. The occupation itself is corrupting Israeli society just as it seems to have corrupted (remember that in its original and deep meaning, 'corruption' means 'decay', 'rot') the IDF. And here too, can we not see the echoes for ourselves?
As Amos Oz, the great Israeli novelist, wrote just after the Six Day War, in his first foray into public letters. “Even unavoidable occupation is a corrupting occupation."
The occupation has become Israel's weakness, not its strength. True friends of Israel realize this.
--Josh Marshall
SurveyUSA has a new poll out with George Allen up by only 3 points against Jim Webb.
--Josh Marshall
There are certainly a lot of other questions to ask about the invasion of Iraq. But because the 'Was It Good for Israel?' question is such a live one, both for critics of Israel in the US and her staunchest defenders, I thought I'd return to it.
And basically along these lines, can any defender of this policy still claim with a straight face that the US invasion of Iraq hasn't been pretty much an unmitigated disaster for Israel?
I think the Israelis -- pretty much across the board -- understand that. Do the hawks in this country see that?
I really don't know if they do or not.
I can think of one very marginal advantage that has accrued to Israel's strategic position: the virtual destruction of a unified Iraqi state and thus what was at least once a fairly powerful Arab army, which was always an over the horizon threat to Israel, at least to some degree. That's one.
Against that, let's consider the following.
The vast increase in power of Iran, which is clearly the state that is the greatest threat to Israel in the Middle East.
The sharp weakening of the US's standing in the Middle East -- which amounts to a profound strategic setback for Israel in as much as US influence over the Arab and Muslim states of the Middle East has been a key factor in securing tentative acceptance of Israel by certain states in the region. Consider Sadat's switch from the Soviets to the US, as Egypt's key ally, as a backdrop to the Camp David accords.
Increased pressure on Middle Eastern regimes who've made either formal peace (Egypt, Jordan) with Israel or de facto reconciliation (like a few of the Gulf emirates.)
The dimensions of the disaster are so vast and its permutations so varied, it's hard to know quite where to start or where to end the discussion. But as number four we might say, the fact that the entire region has been set on fire. That can't be a good thing for a small country on the edge of the Levantine littoral that can't be a great thing.
What do you think? We've openned up the discussion in this thread over at TPMCafe.
--Josh Marshall
Keep your eyes peeled for some more data out of the Virginia senate race. I think we've got a real race on our hands here.
--Josh Marshall
We're going to be putting up an email link right here on the right -- just like we did with our Social Security rolls last year. But until that goes up. I wanted to remind you that we want your tips from the field for our Election Central site over at TPMCafe. If you're keeping a close eye on a race in your area, let us know. Maybe you've seen a story in the local media which hasn't gotten national attention yet. Or maybe you're seeing something happening on the ground that no one else is seeing. Let us know. Our election coverage is based on your eyes and ears. Email us at the comment email address over there at the right and include the subject line "Election".
--Josh Marshall
This really is sort of a bad joke. A judge has thrown out a verdict against a corrupt defense contractor who swindled the CPA (the US occupation government of Iraq) because, he says, the plaintiffs hadn't adequately demonstrated that the CPA was an "instrumentality of the US government."
Basically the CPA was too multinational in character for the contractors who swindled it to be sued in American courts.
--Josh Marshall
I had missed this column from Jon Alter last month in Newsweek.
He says we need a pledge for the 37 senators and 193 members of the House of Representatives who voted to sustain President Bush's recent veto of the bill that would have loosened the restrictions on promising stem cell research into cures for cancer, diabetes, paralysis and various motion disorders.
The vote's already happened so we know just where these folks stand on the issue. So Alter proposes a pledge that would ask these worthies to go on record pledging not to accept future treatment with any cures they are now voting to block.
His proposed pledge goes as follows ...
“Because of my strong opposition to embryonic-stem-cell research, I hereby pledge that should I, at any point in the future, develop diabetes, cancer, spinal-cord injuries or Parkinson’s, among other diseases, I will refuse any and all treatments derived from such research, at home or abroad, even if it costs me my life. Signed, ______”
This is rough stuff. And a lot toothier than the normal pledges which only touch one's voting behavior. But someone who's genuinely morally opposed to the use of stem cells (actually, ones which already have come into existence and are going to be disposed of) wouldn't have a problem signing. The only folks put on the spot would be those who are just playing politics with other people's lives.
Just imagine Rep. Jones who votes against allowing stem cell research but isn't willing to forswear using the fruit of it if and when it's his life on the line.
So why not? I think it's a good idea. Who can pick up the ball and run with this?
Did your senator or representative vote against? You can ask them yourself. The phone's always handy. But a lot of these folks are out there on the campaign trail. So you could ask in person.
--Josh Marshall
The lying just never ends. Did anyone in the Bush administration ever suggest that Saddam Hussein might be behind the 9/11 attacks? The president today: "Nobody's ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks." This despite the fact that various members of the administration -- especially the vice president -- have repeatedly suggested that the Iraqi government and Saddam Hussein may have played a role in the attacks.
See the video and the facts that say otherwise, here.
--Josh Marshall
The Brits open an investigation into whether passing information about British banking transactions to the CIA is against British and European law. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Paul Kiel
An investigation is underway in Britain into whether the Blair government's cooperation with U.S. spying on international banking transactions violated British and European law, The Guardian reports.
--David Kurtz
Pat Buchanan coughs up another xenophobic hairball, while anti-immigration counter-demonstraters in Riverside, N.J., show their true colors:
Opponents of a local law cracking down on illegal immigrants clashed on Sunday with residents chanting "go home" as both sides proclaimed their loyalty to the United States.An estimated 300 to 400 people gathered outside the town hall to protest a recently passed ordinance that bans hiring or renting to illegal immigrants, who are accused of overburdening local services such as schools and hospitals without paying taxes.
The protesters, representing the largely Brazilian immigrant community of Riverside, were heckled by about 500 counter-demonstrators kept at bay by police on the other side of the town's main intersection.
As immigration supporters accused the town's council of racism, opponents chanted "USA, USA" and waved placards saying "Scram" and "Stop Illegal Immigration." A passing pickup truck drew loud cheers by flying a Confederate flag with the motto "The South Will Rise Again."
I like that last part. The South will rise again--in New Jersey?
Update: Apparently there was a secret pact between New Jersey and the Confederacy heretofore unknown to historians. More here.
--David Kurtz
Lebanese PM Siniora: "I think that if Israel acts wisely, this would enable us to transform the tragedy that was inflicted on Lebanon into an opportunity to move towards true peace."
--Josh Marshall
Reader MF takes the same view as many TPM readers do (albeit more politely than some):
Sorry but with your and Atrios' blog battle over Joe Momentum the real issue is being missed.This is now an issue about the basis of the Democratic Party - if Lieberman gets re-elected as a Independent after loosing a Democratic Party primary and the Dems in the Senate welcome him back into their caucus like nothing has happened our Party is dead. The Dems in Washington will have said that the wishes of the States don't matter and will be ignored when its handy and that there are 2 Parties, the one that lives in the States and the one in Washington and on this and all things Washington rules. Sometimes there are things that are more important than a majority. It doesn't matter if he's needed to get the 51 votes or not Lieberman has to be forced out of the Party.
If there is no Party discipline there is no Party - if there aren't rules and regulations there isn't a Party.
This whole mess is more important than Lieberman, the Dems in the Senate, and the nutmeg State.
Putting self above party at the expense of party should have consequences. But at what cost? I part ways with those wanting to enforce party discipline even as they admit it might cost Dems a Senate majority. As I have said before, a Democratic Senate with Lieberman in it far surpasses a GOP Senate without Lieberman.
--David Kurtz
Practical question: If the concern is that Lieberman is going to drive up GOP turnout in Connecticut, thereby hurting Democratic congressional candidates, is casting the Lamont-Lieberman race as a crucial battle between the forces of darkness and light the best way to dampen Republican turnout?
--David Kurtz