This week’s installment of the Life, Liberty, Property community’s Carnival of Liberty is up over at the site of the community’s founding father, Eric’s Grumbles Before the Grave. Go read another fine collection of posts from a libertarian slant.
Category: Politics
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Chirac Admits Riots Reveal French Malaise
I don’t necessarily agree with the ol’ saying that there’ s nothing new under the sun, but I will admit history has a great tendency to repeat itself — tyrants will rise up and oppress again and again, hero after hero will stand forth and face adversity, and a spineless one can always be found presenting meekness as leadership.
Jacques Chirac acknowledged last night that France’s 18 nights of urban violence had revealed a “profound malaise” in society and launched an appeal to combat the “poison” of racial discrimination.
In his first formal address to the nation since the unrest started on October 27, the French president said the problem had to be tackled firmly but justly. “Those who attack … must know that in a republic, one cannot break the law without being caught, judged and punished,” he said.
Mr Chirac said the rioting reflected a “crisis of … identity”, but added that “we can accomplish nothing if we do not respect the rules”. Parental authority was critical, and parents who did not “accept their responsibilities” would be punished. The president confirmed that the government would today put a bill before parliament recommending that the state of emergency be extended for three months until mid-February if necessary.
Everyone should have the chance to share in the benefits of French society, Mr Chirac said, but “discrimination saps the foundations of the republic”. The French media and political class must “better reflect the reality of French society today”, he insisted. At present, the ethnic minority faces on French television can be counted on the fingers of one hand and mainland France has not a single MP of north African or black African origin.
Companies and trades unions must actively encourage diversity and support employment for immigrant youths from depressed suburbs, he said. He also announced the formation of a national volunteer corps that would offer training for 50,000 youths by 2007 and help them to get jobs. “Everyone must commit themselves, companies too – how many applications end up in the bin because of the applicant’s name or address?” he asked. But he ruled out positive discrimination or quotas, saying the country must remain true to its republican values.
Jacques presents little, pointing a finger more at French society than at the Islamic radicals refusing to assimilate into that same society. Ah, Jacques, more than two weeks after the levees figuratively gave way and your country found itself awash with flame and violence, you come sallying forth with wooden sword and stage-prop shield.
Where have heard such words before, why do they sound so familiar? Ah yes, the echoes of inept, defeatist history.
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A Must-Read
Simply that, a must-read essay, courtesy Stephen Green, the VodkaPundit. If you want to know why I have started an “Our” Media category (which still needs older entries added) here at Target Centermass, Mr. Green sums it up better than I could:
So what does matter? What is the postmodern arm of decision?
Previously, I wrote that in order to win the Terror War, we must “prove the enemy ideology to be ineffective,” just as we did in the Cold War. In that conflict, we did so in three ways: by fighting where we had to while maintaining our freedoms, but most importantly by out-growing the Communist economies. I argued that similar methods would win the Terror War. We’d have to fight, we’d have to maintain our freedoms, but the primary key to victory in the Current Mess is taking the initiative.
What I didn’t see then – but what I do see today – is what “taking the initiative” really means.
It means, fighting a media war. It means, turning the enemy’s one great strength into our own. Broadcast words, sounds, and images are the arm of decision in today’s world.
And if that assessment is correct, then we’re losing this war and badly.
Go. Read it. Seriously.
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Texas NOV 05 Election Blogging
I hereby yield the floor to the Swanky Conservative, Down Deep in Texas and In the Bullpen.
Although I didn’t feel that I had a dog in any of the involved hunts, JohnL at TexasBestGrok had certainly made a case against the apparently-successful Prop 2. If anything, he played a role in keeping me undecided on the matter, or at least the verbage of the matter.
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Carnival of Liberty XIX
This week’s installment of the Life, Liberty, Property community’s Carnival of Liberty is up over at The Unrepentant Individual. Go read another fine collection of posts from a libertarian slant.
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Lies, Lies, Lies, Yeah
No, not alleged lies by the Bush administration, but a look at an actual liar — Joe Wilson, early hero of the anti-war movement and husband to allegedly outted spy Plame … Valerie Plame.
Making the best of a weak hand, Democrats argued that the case was not about petty-ante perjury but, as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid put it, “about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president.” The problem here is that the one undisputed liar in this whole sordid affair doesn’t work for the administration. In his attempts to turn his wife into an antiwar martyr, Joseph C. Wilson IV has retailed more whoppers than Burger King.
Okay, so Wilson is known to be a proven liar, obviously acting with motive. How is the media handling the story? Well, here’s a look at a typical example.
There is, perhaps, no better illustration of how entrenched this misleading storyline has become than this past Sunday’s episode of 60 Minutes. In a segment fronted by correspondent Ed Bradley, a host of Wilsonian memes were broadcast without even the slightest bit of skepticism.
The segment began with a misleading question: “Would someone in the government go that far, leak her [Valerie Plame’s] name to the press, in retaliation for her husband’s public criticism of the war in Iraq?” But, Wilson was not merely “criticizing” the war in Iraq, a democratic right that should be protected, as this opening question implied. His “critique” was pure fantasy, a tale woven around his own classified trip to Africa.
As has been shown countless times, no substantive part of Wilson’s story was true. A bipartisan Senate Intelligence Report made this clear in July 2004 (see, for example, here and here.) To hear 60 Minutes tell it, you would never even know that this report existed. The Senate Intelligence Report was not mentioned and Bradley did not ask Wilson a single question about his bogus charges. Instead, for the umpteenth time, Wilson was allowed an unchallenged opportunity to tell his version of events.
By ignoring the numerous deficiencies in Wilson’s account, Bradley ignored one of the more salient questions in this story: Why was a CIA officer, Wilson’s wife, complicit in his lies? The Senate Intelligence Report makes it clear that Valerie Plame orchestrated Wilson’s trip to Africa and attended at least part of his CIA debriefing. She was, therefore, most certainly in a position to know that her husband’s accusations were false.
Both are good reads, though they may leave one feeling quite disgusted. Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit has compiled a timeline of the controversy, chock full o’ supporting links: What CNN Won’t Tell You About the CIA Leak Case.
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Carnival of Liberty XVIII
This week’s installment of the Life, Liberty, Property community’s Carnival of Liberty is up over at Fearless Philosophy For Free Minds. Go read another fine collection of posts from a libertarian slant.
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Senate Dems: Hissy Fit on a National Stage
First, there’s this story, essentially a delaying rear-guard action against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.
Democrats push to delay Alito hearings
Senate Democrats pushed on Tuesday for a 2006 date for hearings on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, challenging President Bush’s call for confirmation by year’s end.
“There’s no way you can do an honest hearing by the end of December, or a fair hearing,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a jab at the White House and the Senate Republican leadership, Leahy said he and the panel’s chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter could likely agree on a date for confirmation hearings if left to themselves.
Specter, R-Pa., was noncommittal on timing for hearings for Alito, a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “This is a swing vote on the Supreme Court…. I don’t know enough yet to say whether it’s realistic by the end of the year,” he said.
[…]
Conservatives in and out of the Senate have greeted Alito’s nomination warmly, many saying they hoped he would move the court to the right if confirmed for O’Connor’s seat.
Liberals, pointing to rulings on abortion, gun control, the death penalty and other issues, have already raised the threat of a filibuster, an attempt to deny Alito a yes-or-no vote by the Senate. Republicans hold 55 seats in the Senate, and while confirmation requires a simple majority, it takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
Republicans have responded to the threat by saying they would seek a vote to abolish the filibuster in cases of Supreme Court and federal appeals court nominations.
A showdown over that issue was narrowly averted last spring when seven lawmakers from each party brokered a compromise. But already, two of the seven Republicans involved in that compromise – Sens. Mike DeWine of Ohio and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina – have indicated they would side with their leadership this time. That suggests Democrats would lose a showdown if it went that far.
Actually, compared to their other major Senate maneuver of the day, I find this development fairly mild, just a postponing of what currently seems a strong likelihood. I would actually welcome an opportunity for the over-threatened judicial filibuster to be broken, but I don’t think the Dem leadership wants to sacrifice that hole card on a losing hand. Rather, I suspect they would settle for drawing out the confirmation, hoping for an unforeseen development while denying the president and his nominee as easy a process as Chief Justice John Roberts experienced. It’s not an action for the betterment of the republic, but instead one to prevent the leader of that republic’s executive branch from scoring any easy political points.
Now, on to the despicable.
Democrats force Senate into rare closed session
Democrats forced the Senate into a rare secret session Tuesday to demand that the Republican majority further investigate the Bush administration’s handling of intelligence related to the war in Iraq.
The surprise maneuver, exploiting last week’s indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff in the CIA leak case, caught Republicans flatfooted and shifted attention back to the increasingly unpopular war and away from President Bush’s day-old Supreme Court nomination.
After a testy showdown that lasted more than two hours behind closed doors, Senate Republicans agreed to restart an inquiry into the administration’s use of intelligence.
Still, furious Republicans called the move a “stunt” and a “scare tactic” designed to score partisan political points.
At issue was a long-standing promise by intelligence committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., to broaden the panel’s investigation into how intelligence was used to go to war. The committee concluded last year that the intelligence was erroneous, but Democrats wanted the inquiry to determine whether it had been intentionally misused to justify the war.
Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada renewed his call Tuesday for that portion of the investigation, invoking Friday’s indictment of Cheney’s aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby on charges that he lied to a grand jury about his role in leaking classified information about a war critic’s wife.
“The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared challenge its actions,” Reid said, moments before springing the secret session.
I’d like to point out at this time that Friday’s indictments [covered here] in absolutely no way whatso-freakin’-ever supported any stance that the administration massaged data. The indictments point not toward any criminal behaviour preceding or during the time of the supposed leak, but rather possible crimes during the investigation. That the Dems are trying to expand this into a dark cloud over our entire pre-war process is almost as disgusting as the media’s willingness to not question their spew.
A visibly angry Bill Frist, the Senate’s normally unflappable Republican leader, immediately lashed back, noting that most previous closed sessions have been called by joint agreement of both party leaders. What especially annoyed Frist was that Reid acted without consulting him.
“This is an affront to me personally,” said Frist, of Tennessee. “It’s an affront to our leadership. It’s an affront to the United States of America. And it is wrong.”
Under Senate rules, the Senate can go into closed session at the request of one senator, provided another senator seconds the motion. Since 1929, when the Senate first allowed treaties and nominations to be discussed in public, the Senate has held 53 secret sessions, most involving discussion of classified materials. Six of the most recent closed sessions occurred during the impeachment trial of President Clinton.
The Democrats’ move had clear political motivations. The war in Iraq is driving down President Bush’s approval ratings and putting Republicans on the defensive. Democrats tried Friday and throughout the weekend to link the Libby indictment to Bush’s overall war policy.
But Bush changed the subject Monday by nominating Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. The nomination thrilled conservatives, angered liberals and turned public attention away from Iraq. Senate Democrats pulled it back Tuesday.
Frist has every right to be angry, not only at his Democrat colleagues but also at himself. How many times must he be caught off-guard, expecting today’s Dems to play by established decorum instead of seeking newer lows to which they can stoop for political gain over national good?
Ace at Ace of Spades shares the anger and is ready for an equal response.
It’s time for a political advertisement knitting together Clinton’s, Gore’s, Hillary!’s, Rockefeller’s, Kerry’s, etc.’s various statements over the years warning against Saddam’s bio, chem, and nuclear programs.
And f***ing blitz it. I’m sick of this. And I’m angry at the stupid fucking GOP for not doing its f***ing job and ridiculing these people the way they should be ridiculed.
Unsurprisingly, Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters looks at the matter a little more calmly.
This shows the emptiness of Democrats, both in head and heart. As Bill Frist said afterwards, the minority party proves it has nothing to contribute except cheap political stunts. They know that the Fitzgerald investigation came up with next to nothing on the Plame leak — because it didn’t constitute a crime under US statute. Despite having a prosecutor independent of the Bush administration run wild for almost two years and exceed the original boundaries of his mandate, the only indictment he could muster was one in which a very stupid and probably criminal act by a single person could be verified — and that just had to do with the investigation and grand jury itself, not with the Plame leak.
Reid says that the Wilson/Plame brouhaha proves that the Bush administration lied about the war. This was practically the entire Democratic Party platform last year — and it lost them the White House and four seats in the Senate. One would think that going back to the well a year later would be stupid beyond belief, but apparently Reid forgot about that big poll taken last November. He also forgot about this bipartisan report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which outlines exactly how Wilson’s report in fact bolstered the case that Iraq still wanted to get material for nuclear weapons — and that Wilson had lied about it in leaks to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and then in his own editorial and book.
Please see the Captain’s post for the supporting links to which he referred.
What are my thoughts? The Dems are using mere illusion and misdirection, smoke and mirrors, to make political hay of something that isn’t really there. They have cast aside precedent of senatorial behaviour in favor of undermining the president, cheaply used revisionism to cast a pall upon our arguments for opening the Iraqi theater, and made common use of exaggeration and outright falsehood to politically cripple our international efforts for possible cheap domestic gain. Should they succeed, score an assist to the mainstream media, who have seemingly been quite content to carry the water and Dem talking points, when unbiased reporting would have presented the American people with the truth behind the Dem stunts, gotchas and lies.
All this while we have troops on the ground in Iraq. Facing what should be our true enemies.
No amount of Pepto could deal with this torrent of bile.
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U.S., Japan Upgrade Defense Alliance
The United States has taken a step forward in integrating its Asia-Pacific defenses with key ally Japan.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has declared the US-Japan security pact a “global alliance” following agreement on an unprecedented level of operational co-operation between American and Japanese forces.
While the headline item for Japan from the weekend agreement is the removal of 7000 US marines from Okinawa, its fundamental thrust is a rapid integration of the military commands and their operational capabilities.
The document also foreshadows a strengthening of tentative security links between Japan and Australia, the key southern partner in the Americans’ Asia-Pacific alliance network.
It calls for US and Japanese forces to regularly exercise with third countries and to strengthen co-operation with them “to improve the international security environment”.
Required exercises with third parties could lead to interesting politics. Obvious number-threes like regional allies Australia and South Korea would certainly be understandable, as would be a naval inclusion of the Brits. Some other matchups may raise more eyebrows and political storms, both regionally, globally and internally to Japan.
“This relationship which was once only about the defence of Japan and stability of the region has come to a global alliance,” Dr Rice said in Washington yesterday after she and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed an interim “force posture realignment” agreement with their Japanese counterparts.
“This relationship which was once only about the defence of Japan and stability of the region has come to a global alliance,” Dr Rice said in Washington yesterday after she and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed an interim “force posture realignment” agreement with their Japanese counterparts.
“We’re now talking about joint activities in various areas between Japan and the US in order to improve the peace security around the world,” said Japan Defence Agency director-general Yoshinori Ono.
Mr Ono said the alliance “opened a new era” but was careful to insist Japan’s expanded role would not contravene the country’s pacifist constitution.
All well and good, until possible global realities add pressure to include nations in future exercises that may have serious ramifications on the Japanese homefront and abroad. Exercises with the U.S., Japan and India would be intriguing for the possible future of the war against radical Islam, but also may really be addressing an issue in direct conflict with Japanese legal constraints. Likewise, the hot potato of exercises with Taiwan would definitely give light to a political powderkeg. Despite that, this Taiwan matchup is a rather likely scenario that must be prepared for and gamed in detail.
However, matters covered by the new US-Japan agreement, including joint missile defence arrangements, push constitutional boundaries, particularly the official interpretation that the war-renouncing Article 9 forbids Japan from engaging in “collective self-defence” with its allies.
While the ruling Liberal Democratic Party proposes amending Article 9 in its new constitutional draft, the suddenly urgent pace of US-Japan alliance “transformation” is racing ahead of the constitutional debate.
It is late 2005. Japan’s constitutional constraints are the results of the nation’s aggressiveness over sixty years past. It is time for a revision — it is time for a great nation and regional and global power to unshackle itself, say it can act responsibly on the global stage, and become the contributor that it should be.
How confident is the U.S. in Japan’s future? Well, it seems they are willing to become even more technologically intertwined with the nation for a shared cause.
The Americans will deploy the powerful X-Band anti-missile radar system and share its information with Japan, which will further bind together Japan’s planned ballistic missile defence system and the US Pacific BMD network.
Common causes. Common potential enemies. This is a good step forward, with a lot of potential for thorns and blessings.
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Libby Indicted
Scooter Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney — check that, now former chief of staff — will face charges resulting from the investigation into the possible outing of CIA employee Valerie Plame. Note, the charges result from the investigation, not the outing.
The CIA leak investigation is “not over,” special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said Friday after announcing charges against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff.
Fitzgerald said he will be keeping the investigation “open to consider other matters.” But, he said, “the substantial bulk of the work in this investigation is concluded.”
Libby resigned Friday after a federal grand jury indicted him on five charges related to the leak probe: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements.
For my favorite blogging on the matter, I’d like to direct you, dear reader, to Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom and his oft-updated effort on the matter.