Hardball: The Assault On Free Speech In America

post from Crooks and Liars on 19 September 2007 11:45:32 AM. © Crooks and Liars

On Tuesday’s Hardball, Joe Conason from The New York Observer and Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink had a lot to say about Monday’s controversial tasering of a University of Florida student and go in depth about the state of free speech, or lack thereof, in America today. The discussion of free speech [...]

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Paulose Admits She Faces A Special Counsel
Investigation

post from TPMmuckraker on 19 September 2007 11:42:31 AM. © TPMmuckraker

Yesterday news broke that the Office of Special Counsel is investigating US attorney Rachel Paulosefor personnel practices in her office, which was roiled with a major staff shake-up this spring when...

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The Great Divergence (And The Krog!)

post from Ezra Klein on 19 September 2007 11:40:00 AM. © Ezra Klein

The demise of TIme Select also marks the birth of the new Paul Krugman blog, The Conscience of a Liberal. I would've preferred "Krog," but still: Exciting! Krugman starts things off with a graph of the top 10 percent's share...[...]

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Foreclosure Crisis

post from Eschaton on 19 September 2007 11:36:00 AM. © Eschaton

This is a couple of days old, but I missed it. Brad Miller has a good rundown on what hopefully might happen in Congress to hopefully ameliorate the foreclosure crisis somewhat.

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Barbara's Daily BuzzFlash Minute for September
19, 2007

post from BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash on 19 September 2007 11:33:19 AM. © BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash

BARBARA'S DAILY BUZZFLASH MINUTE

Chafee defection expected, though puzzling to some. Would that they all become Patriotic Americans rather than Repuglican poodles! It?s time to stand up for real American values, it?s time to relinquish party affiliation and become true American citizens!

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43 Senators Hate America

post from Eschaton on 19 September 2007 11:32:00 AM. © Eschaton

Not too surprising.

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The Difference Between Realism And Hackery

post from The Newshoggers on 19 September 2007 11:31:00 AM. © The Newshoggers

By Cernig

I suppose I should respond to Kevin Sullivan, since he cited links to two of my posts in the following:

But why is it that when one general talks policy he's accused of political hackery, yet when another talks policy he's applauded for being a "realist"?

Is it a double standard?

I think there are two elements to any response.

The first is that, as has been re-hashed time and time again, the military has a tradition of not talking up partisan political policy while still serving, but that Abizaid, unlike Petreaus, is retired from active service.

The second is that if a military man is going to push partisan policy, even out of a sincere belief in it, then telling big porkies is contra-indicated if he doesn't want to be accused of hackery.

Ilan Golberg presents the following graph:

And writes:

There are significant inconsistencies between the numbers General Petraeus showed to Congress regarding civilian casualties and the numbers in the Pentagon?s latest reports. Again, Petraeus?s numbers seem to make the period before the surge look worse and the numbers after the surge look much better.

...According to the MNC-I data there has been no improvement since either December (The numbers Petraeus and the Administration often cite) or February (when the surge actually began). Why wasn?t Congress shown these numbers in the presentation by General Petraeus? Why only the good news numbers? Why the lack of clarity on Petraeus?s sourcing? Especially since he himself acknowledged that the best numbers come from the MNC-I database.

Why indeed. Petreaus refusal to open his data or methodology to independent scrutiny smacks of political hackery in service of an agenda which is harming the national interest. If he has nothing to hide, why won't he release the figures?

And Ilan isn't the only one who has a problem with Saint Pet's charts. I posted a last week suggesting his EID Attacks chart had been massaged to make more look like less.

So yes, there are clear differences and no, it isn't a double standard.

Update Matt Yglesias riffs on a very related theme - the infamous MoveOn ad and reports from cossetted conservative pundits that Bush said "It is one thing to attack me ? which is fine" and continued by saying that in his view the attack on Petraeus was "an attack on men and women in uniform."

The ad was, very clearly, on attack on General Petraeus and there's just no possible way a reasonable person could construe it as some kind of generalized slander against the troops.

Meanwhile, Bush's disingenuousness in saying "It is one thing to attack me ? which is fine" is just staggering. For years, the man took the view that criticism of his policies amount to criticism of the idea of freedom, that to disagree with his Iraq policy was racist and unpatriotic, and all the rest. Eventually, years and years of fruitless, bungled, unnecessary warfare caused him to become so unpopular that this line of counterattack became unviable. Thus, he hit on the strategy of finding a well-regarded media-savvy general and, in essence, appointing him front man for administration. For months and months and months the administration indicated that to question its policy was to question the Great Man Petraeus. So, naturally, people came to criticize Petraeus.

If he doesn't like seeing a politicized officer's corps, he shouldn't have been hiding behind the generals in the first place.

And if the General doesn't like it, maybe he shouldn't be so keen to put himself and his doctored charts up as a wall to hide behind either.

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Acting AG Was Last Minute White House Pick

On Monday, we noted that Peter Keisler was unexpectedly slotted in as the man to replace Alberto Gonzales until the President's nominee, Michael Mukasey, was confirmed by the Senate. This morning,...

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Breaking: Senate rejects habeas legislation.

In a 56-43 vote, the Senate today “narrowly rejected” legislation that would have restored habeas corpus rights to military detainees and given them “the right to protest their detention in federal court.” The roll call fell four votes short of the 60 needed to cut off debate.

UPDATE: Full roll call vote HERE.

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Democratic “Leaders” Table
“Efforts” To Withdraw Troops

Remember how the “stern New Democratic Congress” had promised to bring the troops home time and time again? “How’s this for a deadline - NOW”, they shouted as they pounded their podiums and we voted them into office to “git ‘er done”…The latest update on that? Here you go:“We give up”, says Senator [...]

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