January 2007

Brilliant

ArchPundit January 4, 2007 5 Comments

Funny that a government might deny the existence of some guy to make things look better.

Not so funny when they finally admit that the guy exists, but….they are going to arrest him. Dandy.

The right wing blogs have been running all over this story thinking they had a big story. The essential thread was that it was the AP making up a story to make things look worse in Iraq than they really were. As d over at LGM put it:

I truly fail to understand Right Blogistan’s obsession with Jamil Hussein, but I suppose if it can be proven for certain that he doesn’t exist, then everything else will arc toward a resolution — the non-existent WMD will suddently unearth themselves; the abattoir outside the Green Zone will de-escalate; the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who fled the country last year will return and bring forth a new generation of virtuous citizens; the death squads being run by the government we ushered into power will put down their guns and drills; the execution of Saddam Hussein will be shown to be a model of due process and sobriety; the insurgency will evaporate like the morning dew; and Iraq’s infrastructure will bloom like wild prairie flowers.

It’s fine to challenge the AP, however, most professional journalists aren’t going to make up people. There are cases like Blair and Glass, but the editors checked their stories eventually and caught it. In this case, the AP pushed back hard–it wasn’t too hard to guess there was a reason for that.

But don’t let the Iraqi Government confirmation of the guy get in the way of a good conspiracy story, Confederate Yankee is trying to assert that the AP made up the fact that the Iraqi government actually identified a guy as Jamil Hussein. Malkin is skeptical of the story still because, you know, they must have made up that ethnic violence leads to horrible events.

Let me give them some advice. When you fuck up a story. Admit it. It makes it all easier in the end. I know this from experience. It might hurt your ego, but it’s a lot less hurt than if you have to do it in three weeks.

Pretty Simple

ArchPundit January 4, 2007 3 Comments

Obama on Ethics.

This past Election Day, the American people sent a clear message to Washington: Clean up your act.

After a year in which too many scandals revealed the influence special interests wield over Washington, it’s no surprise that so many incumbents were defeated and that polls said “corruption” was the grievance cited most frequently by the voters.

It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that this message was intended for only one party or politician. The votes hadn’t even been counted in November before we heard reports that corporations were already recruiting lobbyists with Democratic connections to carry their water in the next Congress.

That’s why it’s not enough to just change the players. We have to change the game.

Americans put their faith in Democrats because they want us to restore their faith in government — and that means more than window dressing when it comes to ethics reform.

Last year, I was hopeful that scandals would finally shame Congress into meaningful ethics legislation. But after the headlines faded, so did the enthusiasm for reform. In the end, I found myself voting against the final ethics bill because it was too weak and unresponsive to the obvious need for comprehensive reform.

This time around, we must do more.

We must stop any and all practices that would lead a reasonable person to believe that a public servant has become indebted to a lobbyist. That means a full ban on gifts and meals. It means no free travel or subsidized travel on private jets. And it means closing the revolving door to ensure that Capitol Hill service — whether as a member of Congress or as a staffer — isn’t all about lining up a high-paying lobbying job. We should no longer tolerate a House committee chairman shepherding the Medicare prescription drug bill through Congress at the same time he’s negotiating for a job as the pharmaceutical industry’s top lobbyist.

But real reform also means real enforcement. We need to finally take the politics and the partisanship out of ethics investigations. Whether or not the House ethics committee has been covering for its colleagues, the secrecy with which its members have operated has led people to question why legislators who are serving jail time were not caught and stopped by the committee in the first place. It’s led people to wonder why Congress cannot seem to police itself.

I have long proposed a nonpartisan, independent ethics commission that would act as the American people’s public watchdog over Congress. The commission would be staffed with former judges and former members of Congress from both parties, and it would allow any citizen to report possible ethics violations by lawmakers, staff members or lobbyists. Once a potential violation is reported, the commission would have the authority to conduct investigations, issue subpoenas, gather records, call witnesses, and provide a report to the Justice Department or the House and Senate ethics committees that — unlike current ethics committee reports — is available for all citizens to read.

This would improve the current process in two ways. First, it would take politics out of the fact-finding phase of ethics investigations. Second, it would exert greater public pressure on Congress to punish wrongdoing quickly and severely. Others have proposed similar good ideas on enforcement, and I am open to all options. We must restore the American people’s confidence in the ethics process by ensuring that political self-interest can no longer prevent politicians from enforcing ethics rules.

The truth is, we cannot change the way Washington works unless we first change the way Congress works. On Nov. 7, voters gave Democrats the chance to do this. But if we miss this opportunity to clean up our act and restore this country’s faith in government, the American people might not give us another one.

It’s a Good Day

ArchPundit January 4, 2007 1 Comment

When you watch your college advisor vote to elect Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House

From Comments

ArchPundit January 3, 2007 1 Comment

Hysterical:

We’ve seen the stages before because we’re from here, but it’s fun to watch the national press go through it all over again.

1. Holy shit, you’ve got to hear this guy speak.
2. Holy shit, this guy was the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review. Everyone we talk to says he’s really smart.
3. Holy shit, in his book he talks about doing blow, this could hurt him big time.
4. Holy shit, the right is going bonkers (He’s not really black because he wasn’t decendant from slaves – Keyes, His middle name is Hussein – tv right, Holy shit he’s in our church – religious political right, He’s a false messiah and the anti-Christ – nutjob right)
5. Holy shit, everywhere you look people are wild about Barack Obama. Don’t they know he did blow and HIS MIDDLE NAME IS HUSSEIN?
6. Holy shit, he won huge.
7. Holy shit, I can’t believe I lost like that. But at the end of the day I can’t really be too upset about it because I like the guy. (Dan Hynes 2004, Hillary Clinton 2008)

Not McCain though, we all know how he gets when Barack steals his thunder. (see Ethics, WATB)

I’m a Conservative!

ArchPundit January 3, 2007 1 Comment

The Illinois Civil Justice League Blog has labeled me a conservative. I imagine it has to do with me defending Barack on the one piece of class action reform and my general dislike of all things St. Clair County (though I haven’t been talking about it as much lately). The hilarity is that I’m right above the Illinois Review.

It’s true that I have actually been critical of trial lawyers from time-to-time, but I’d suggest my views are actually pretty close to Representative Fritchey’s on the subject and he’s a liberal according to them.

I do appreciate the link and when I update, I just realized their link went away in the remodel–it’ll be back up and I’ll be adding some of the Chicago Reader blogs.

Their point on St. Clair’s Circus is pretty good though so take a look.