bustardblog

Thomas Edsall

Reading Thomas Edsall's op-pieces during his current tenure as a guest columnist at The New York Times is sort of  a tense experience for me.  The same kind of anxiety was provoked when I saw a Tennessee Williams play this summer in Williamstown, MA.  As the show begins everyone on stage has a perfect southern accent, but starting in the second act you're anxiously waiting for them to lose it and their true voice to emerge.

Edsall is still in his first act; and I can feel him striving to appear reasonable. But if he gets a permanent slot, how long before we discover that he's as much a wing-nut as  Safire, without even that hint of charm from being a word smith?

In today's piece he paints a picture of a Republican Party that should never have been allowed behind the wheel of a car.  It's a completely accurate and damning portrait that we mustn't forget when we need to define just who it is that we oppose.

The G.O.P. is the party of risk, aggression, military assertion and dominance - an approach that led to the implosion in Iraq and the Republican's defeat in November...

While inflicting destruction on the Iraqis, Bush multiplied America's enemies and endangered this nation's military, economic health and international stature. Courting risk without managing it, Bush repeatedly and remorselessly failed to accurately evaluate the consequences of his actions.

The embroilment in Iraq is not an aberration. It stems from core party principles equally evident on the domestic front. For a quarter-century, the Republican temper - its reckless drive to jettison the social safety net; its support of violence in law enforcement and in national defense; its advocacy of regressive taxation, environmental hazard and pro-business deregulation; its 'remoralizing' of the pursuit of wealth - has been judged by many voters as essential to America's position in the world,. producing more benefit than cost...

In November, voters concluded that the Bush administration had run one risk too many.

So let's hope that I'm wrong about this Edsall guy, and that  he's not actually the wolf in sheeps clothing.

 

Emmet Kelly Jr.

Next time some wing nut tries to argue that the N.Y Times is a liberal paper, just remember today's Obit Page.

The designer and manufacturer of large stinkpots for rich people, is higher on the page and deserving of more than twice as much space as Emmet Kelly Jr. (Tom Fexas= 16 inches above the fold.  Emmet Kelly Jr 4-3/4 inches, most of them below the fold)

Clearly the Times concluded that a guy, probably a very nice guy, who devoted his life to motor boats, was far more important than an enormously talented clown devoted to giving a little happiness to others. Mr Kelly "went on to entertain at more than 2,800 hospitals."

I know, it's a values thing, and as a leftie I don't understand values.

World Aids Day

I first heard of AIDS back in 1981 when it was called GRID.

Since then more than 25,000,000 around the world have died.

Today someone is infected every 8 seconds.

It took Ronald Reagan 6 years to publicly utter the word "AIDS," by which time 41,000 Americans had died of it. "He sided with his Education Secretary William Bennett and other conservatives who said the Government should not provide sex education."

Recently Bush chosen for his new cheif of family programs someone who does not like family planning. (Eric Keroak)

Both the U.S. and the Vatican have harmed the war on AIDs in huge ways. They have both acted in ways to hamper condom distribution. Over the years they have both lied, and argued that condoms are not an effective weapon with which to fight this war.  All scientific evidence has consistenly provem them wrong. Countries like Brazil and Thailand, where condom use is aggressively promoted are among the countries where AIDS is most on the decline.

Just in case you forgot what Liberals are about.

Protein Wisdom

I'm a bit fearful about getting involved in the latest Jeff Goldstein uproar, which of course means that I really have no choice but to do so.

The lastest brouhaha regarding the author of the blog Protein Wisdom, concerns some totally despicable comments made by a troll from the left.

This has caused enormous amounts of outrage from the right.(here, here and here are examples) The question is whether this outrage is in any way sincere, or is it as manufactured as Bush's playacting when he appeared to be angry about the New York Times' "disgraceful" article concerning SWIFT and international banking.

Blackfive, a very conservative blog, is one of those taking the lead on this, describing the situation as one in which the troll "has repeatedly and quite disturbing levied DEATH THREATS against Jeff's 2 year old child." Another wrote how the troll "made a stream of death threats against Goldstein's two-year-old son." In fact, the troll made no death threats. None. All of the quotes and links that these guys refer you to, are hideous statements to the effect of 'if something atrocious happens to your kid, it would not bother me one bit. I wouldn't mind if your kid was killed." This is not the same as saying that ' I want to kill your kid.'  It's disgusting, but not threatening. It's hard to tell if this is a sincere, albeit hysterical, overreaction, or an attempt to manipulate their readers by essentially lying to them. Last week, Morgan was really inappropriate when she said 'If Bill Keller were to be tried and found guilty of treason and then sent to the gas chamber, I wouldn't have a problem with it." But she did not threaten his life.

Blackfive then ratchets it up a notch by giving the name of the troll, as well as the name, address, phone number and contact name of the troll's employer. Blackfive explains that she contacted the employer, and kindly publishes the information in case her readers would like to contact them as well.  Essentially they are trying to get the troll fired because they hate her comments. I agree that her comments are hateful, but not nearly as hateful as trying to get the troll fired.

If Mr. Goldstein had really been upset about the comments, why did he not ban her IP address? Instead, his friends are lobbying to have her fired.

I do not know the dates on which the troll made her comments, but I suspect that they might be retaliation. Not that the comments are acceptable, but it has to be noted that while the right is fond of characterizing Jeff Goldstein as "the very insightful conservative blogger", he also is a particularly vicious one. After a contentious argument with a blogger from the left, Goldstein thought it perfectly appropriate to "out" his anonymity, as well as his wife's. He proceeded to give details of the man's employer. A commenter of Goldstein's made a sexually abusive comment about the man's young child.

This kind of commenting is despicable. Destroying someone's anonymity is unacceptable. But trying to get someone fired because of despicable comments is even worse.

UPDATE:

Whle I was writing this, the troller resigned from her job. After speaking to Jeff Goldstein,  Blackfive  chose to contact the troller's employer, and published details so that others could do the same. The troller's life has now been in fact threatened, even though, she never threatened anyone. She has lost her job.  Blackfive will soon be changing its name to Brown Shirts.

Writing to Michelle Malkin

I just sent the following e-mail to Michelle Malkin:

Ms Malkin,

I am writing to complain of the utterly misleading post of yours of July 3, 9:03 P.M., entitled “Our Homes are not our Castles.” Yesterday I posted a piece on my little site, http://bustardblog.typepad.com, in which I pointed out how faulty was the evidence which you gave to support your argument that lefty bloggers  are hell bent on discovering personal data about conservatives and publishing it. The first two sites to which you link are the same site. So thus far you have evidence of one lefty blogger’s behavior. The fourth site is in fact the site of one of your supporters, and in no way constitutes proof of your assertion. I was not able to determine if the third site was in fact a lefty one. It is ironic that your linking to them spread Rumsfeld’s data, at a level far more detailed than anything published in the Times, to a far larger audience than the relatively unpopular and unknown site to which you linked could ever have hoped for. By feigning outrage that the Times showed a photo of the house, you manage to spread the specifics to an enormous audience, your readers. I can only guess what might be your real motivation for linking to the site. If you truly believe that publishing Mr Rumsfeld’ personal data was wrong and potentially dangerous, you only increased that risk by linking to it. The existence of the site in no way buttresses your argument, since it is a site that specializes in publishing data that was meant to be  secret. . The only reason that I can see that would motivate you to post that link, was that it enabled you to publish the home addresses of Mr Sulzberger and Mr Keller of The Times, without taking any responsibility for doing so. My already low opinion of you, Ms Malkin, has sunk even lower. 

bbbustard

Please respect and protect my anonymity

UPDATE:

Reading Atrios led me to Glenn Greenwald's excellent piece on a similar aspect of this issue.

Lies About the N.Y Times

There is no let up in the right's utterly dishonest attacks on the New York Times. Michelle Malkin posted about it both today and Monday. The lies in her longer piece from Monday are quite shocking. Even by her standard.
Her post focuses on the dastardly publication by the Times of information about the Cheney and Rumsfeld summer homes in Maryland. Michelle Malkin is outraged that the paper would publish a picture of Rummy's house - even after Rummy said it was fine by him, and the secret service said no harm was done. She entitled the post "Our Homes are not Our Castles," as she wanted to sream to her Gods of the left's propensity to publish personal information about political opponents, while the right, the far too nloble right, could nevercommit such evil.

She writes that "Leftists scoff at my observation that there is a concerted effort to dig up and publicize the private home information of prominent conservatives in the media and blogosphere to intimidate them"  To prove her point Malkin lists four links. The first and the second are two posts from one blog. The fourth is in fact a conservative blog who is a supporter of Michelle's. The first and the last links are speaking of posts containing personal data about Michelle herself, which were part of a response to Michelle's publishing personal data about someone on the left. So, in looking at this problem so far, we have found one lefty blog and one righty blog that post personal info on political opponents; the righty one being Michelle herself. (april 19/2006, 8:53 P.M.) The fact that she had posted an opponent's personal info should have surprised anyone who had read the following sentence a few paragraphs earlier in the post: "Conservative readers have asked me to publish the private home addresses of NY Times reporters, editors, and photographers.  My response: NO."

Which brings us to the third link. While this does give out some information about Rumsfeld's personal data; it's unclear to me that it is a "lefty" site. It lists so much foreign data, that I suspect it's not even a site run by Americans. But it provides personal data on at least two more Americans - that would be the addresses of the winter and summer homes of both Mr Sulzberger and Mr Keller. These gentlemen are the publisher and the editor in chief of the New York Times.

So while Michelle thinks it an outrage that the Times named the town in which Rummy has a house, and showed a photo of the house, with Rummy's permission, she herself links to a site that gives the exact street addresses of the homes of two people who run the Times, even though she explicitly said she refused to do so.

This sleazy, reprehensible behavior is not part of the Republican tradition. The party that offered us Goldwater, Rockefeller, would never want us to  waste our vote so that idiots  can conspire to keep a liar in power.

Al Qaieda's Secretary of State Explains.

A Question to my 4th of July readers:
Imagine if you would that Osama bin Laden had been captured 9 months ago. Do any of you believe that his right hand man would be offering excuses such as " But who could have anticipated that they would be listening in on our phone calls?"  "Who could have expected that the U.S. would ever be looking at SWIFT international transfers?  - They didn't even have the proper subpoenas!!"

Have a Wonderful 4th! !

Bustard Reads

Barry R. Chistwick wrote an anti-immigrant in today's NY Times. I have had no training in economics, and would appreciate any comments that might help me understand his position better.  I am especially confused by these three issues:

1. He talks of the "goods that other countries can produce more efficiently", but he seems to really mean that 'they can produce more cheaply.' To an economist, are these terms synonymous?  A country that pays a child pennies for his labor, or even uses slave labor, will produce a T-Shirt more cheaply than we can in the U.S.? Is this "more efficient"?
2. He states that new immigrants are not evenly distributed in the U.S, and instead are concentrated in the "big six" - California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas. If you forget New Jersey, the remaining "big five" for immigrants are the "big five" for everyone else in this country. They are the five most populous states in the U.S. (New Jersey is #10.) What's the point?
3. He then takes it to the next level, and points out the unequal distribution of where the immigrants move to within those states: "while there are many in New York City"... "relatively few are in upstate New York." It might be news to Chiswick, but nobody is moving to upstate New York. It's population decreases each year. What is the significance of stating that immigrants are not moving to places that American workers are fleeing from

Chiswick seems to be one of a thankfully small group of academics whose opinions are supported by "facts" - facts which are utterly without relevance to the argument at hand.

The Bustard Writes

Today. John Tierney wrote of the crime of rent control in New York.  He confessed to his having benefitted from this unfair practice, and we're sure that he'll return his ill gotten funds. He's written before on rent control - on June 12, 2001 he admitted that he was a "profiteering thief."  An e-mail to Mr. Tierney was sent today, as follows:

Dear Mr. Tierney,

Luckily, you work for the Times. Thus it won't be difficult for you to find classified ads for apartments similar to the one you lived in for the 17 years you were a "rentocrat." You can easily calculate how much less you paid than the market cost for your apartment, and can start reimbursing your former landlords. Personally, I look forward to hearing how much money is involved, and what your re-payment plan will be.

Sincerely,

p.s. (What rate of interest will you pay?)

News

A lot of news about the news today.  Bush's appointment of Tony Snow as Press Secretary could enliven our political discourse. Naming a pundit to the post is an unprecedented appointment, and a real sea change from the weak, ineffective McClellan.  A lot of centrist journalists have talked of Snow's honesty, and it should be fun to see how he copes with all of the lying that Bush has made a prerequisite of the position. He will be incapable of playing the innocent boob that was Scott's life boat when the waters got rough. Apparently they wanted a professional in place before Rove is over.

Maureen Dowd was in fine fettle in today's Op-Ed entitled "A Prius in Every Pot."  She clearly laid the blame for our disaster of an oil policy exactly where it belongs - on the Republican "Oilman in the Oval," and pointed out how profitable this administration has been for the oil barons who made it all possible. (An added bonus was her use of "ahold of" in a Times editorial.

Adam Cohen wrote for TimesSecret on the blunderbuss that is Justice Scalia.  The piece was useful in itemizing the unprofessional, embarrassing and damaging antics of Antonin, but was overly restrained and respectful, IMHO.