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Dolt of the Day

ArchPundit January 16, 2007 8 Comments

Sure to be a repeat winner, Fran Eaton raises the flag that Obama’s attendance at Trinity UCC under Jeremiah Wright, Jr., might be preaching that one race is superior to another.

The evidence?

Well, errrr, ummmm, there is none.

So congratulations to Fran Eaton for producing the most vacuous column I’ve read in some time.

Recently I questioned whether a man with such close ties to a church and spiritual advisor that teaches Afrocentricity — Sen. Obama — would feel compelled to politically advocate hot button issues such racial quotas and affirmative action if he were to be elected president.

A Trinity member responded, “I am offended by your insinuation that people cannot be proud and embrace their ethnic heritage without being blinded to the needs and concerns of others.

“For you to suggest that only members of non-denominational/multicultural congregations are open-minded enough to be president is highly misguided and inflammatory,” she wrote.

This lady was understandably offended when I visited her church out of curiosity and came away with questions about the church’s teachings. Those questions became the subject of a column in a city known for its racial strife.

Racial division bothers me. As a firm believer in a creator and His wisdom and creativity, I believe we are all here because the creator allowed us to be. I revere Him and His design of each human. Skin color means no more to me than hair color does. God alone determines who our parents are and when we are allowed to be on this earth.

Elevation of any race over another, especially when preached from a pulpit, should disturb us all. We should question the wisdom and sensitivity of anyone — including Barack Obama — who can sit under angry teaching year after year and still look to the divisive messenger as a spiritual adviser.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. cautioned against teachings of racial supremacy. Two months before the historic march on Washington and his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, King told thousands at a Detroit rally, “I can understand from a psychological point of view why some caught up in the clutches of the injustices surrounding them almost respond with bitterness and come to the conclusion that the problem can’t be solved within, and they talk about getting away from it in terms of racial separation. But even though I can understand it psychologically, I must say to you this afternoon that this isn’t the way.

“Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy.”

Missing, however, is any evidence that Wright or Obama are racial supremacists. As the quote Eaton uses demonstrates, Africentrism (as Wright actually refers to the idea) is that African-Americans are protagonists in history, not just subjects acted upon by those in the west. In other words, African history matters too and not only when it interacts with Western history. This isn’t a terribly difficult concept to understand.

And before Eaton whines again, she should specify a teaching by Wright that actually suggests African-Americans are superior racially.

It’s On

ArchPundit January 16, 2007 1 Comment

On the web site

Because the embed for the video is nearly impossible to figure out.

UPDATE: WP users have to install a special plugin from Brightcove That really, really needs to be improved–it should work with video tags as do almost every other video sharing service/app.

sharedVideo(422873237)

Republican micro-targeting

Daniel Biss January 11, 2007 9 Comments

As Larry points out, there was nothing new in Bush’s Iraq speech last night, and so I certainly don’t have anything new to say about it, but I couldn’t help but notice one thing.

In the 2000 campaign, Bush ran as a “uniter” and at least claimed to be trying to appeal to all Americans.

By 2004, he’d completely alienated about 45% of the country and was left with a campaign structured around Republicans, religious conservatives, and middle-class or upper-middle-class independents in the suburbs and exurbs.

Sometime in 2005, he lost independents, which was why their 2006 campaign was a desperate attempt to turn out the Republican base.

They lost in no small part because the Republican base itself has waned as the administration’s mismanagements grew more obvious.

But, finally, last night, we reached a whole new plane. The President gave a speech aimed directly at Republican members of Congress, knowing that there was pretty much nobody else he could possibly convince. In other words, in the space of 7 years, he’s gone from an audience of over 251,000,000 people to an audience of 251.

And, from the looks of it, even that’s a tough sell.

It’s the incredible shrinking constituency.

Groundhog Day

ArchPundit January 11, 2007 2 Comments

Steve Chapman:

But the administration keeps trying the same things it has tried before, because it can’t admit that Iraq was an irredeemable error. As one official confided to the Times: “We’re reliving all of the issues that have been discussed since 2003. It’s like `Groundhog Day.'” Except the movie had a happy ending.

Via Americablog

More later….

When You Screw Up

ArchPundit January 8, 2007 8 Comments

Just admit it. Seriously, last week I discussed briefly the Jamil Hussein story and how some right wing blogs are out to prove the AP just made up 61 stories wholecloth. But it hasn’t been a good week for them. Glenn Greenwald has a rather long post on the Jamil Hussein affair, Khamenei’s death, and lonely John Kerry.

The thing about the Jamil Hussein story is that the story regarding the six Shia’s burned to death was corroberated by AP with other sources, it’s just the right wing bloggers that were on the crusade wouldn’t accept it and insisted they were making up the story.

I understand jumping on a story and screwing it up–I’ve done it and done it pretty spectacularly in two instances. The thing is after you realize you screw-up, you just admit it instead of trying to either continue the story as Malkin and others have tried to do. I can understand the initial response waiting for confirmation even, but at some point, when the key evidence of a conspiracy falls apart–and in fact there was never any evidence of such a conspiracy with Jamil Hussein, it’s time to give it up.

For today’s right-wing warbloggers, whose contempt for journalists is matched only by their unbridled hatred of Arabs and Muslims, the AP kerfuffle represented a perfect solution that, at least temporarily, lifted their November blues. By early this month, they had dubbed the scandal “Jamilgate,” with Malkin referring to the AP as “The Associated (with terrorists) Press.” (Get it?)

Keep in mind that in the seven days surrounding the Burned Alive story, hundreds and hundreds of Iraqis were killed in sectarian violence. Here’s a very small sampling, via Reuters, of the bloodshed that flowed around the time of the Burned Alive dispatch:

Mosul — Police said they recovered 14 bodies, including three women, in different areas of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. [November 22]
Baghdad — Up to six car bombs killed 133 people in a Shi’ite militia stronghold in Baghdad and a further 201 people were wounded, police said. [November 23]
Baghdad — Baghdad police recovered 30 unidentified bodies around the capital in the 24 hours to late Friday, an Interior Ministry source said. [November 24]
Baghdad — Baghdad police retrieved 30 bodies of victims of violence on Friday and 17 on Saturday, an Interior Ministry source said. [November 25]
Baquba — Police in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, found the bodies of 25 people, including seven teenagers blindfolded and each with a single gunshot wound to the head, in various parts of Baquba in the past 24 hours, police said. [November 26]
Baghdad — Baghdad police retrieved 39 bodies in the 24 hours to Monday evening. [November 27]

To date, warbloggers have not raised serious questions about any of those slayings or the reporting surrounding them. Yet viewing Iraq through the soda straw that is the Burned Alive story, they insist the press, thanks to its pro-terrorist sympathies, is creating the illusion of “chaos” in Iraq.

Whereas readers like you and me might see a completely illogical obsession with the Burned Alive story, given the statistical fact that the Iraqi civil war will likely claim six more victims within the next hour, for the warbloggers the half-dozen fatalities represent something much more important — an exit strategy, a way out of their own man-made disaster that is Iraq. Because warbloggers think they can claim the whole Iraq fiasco was the media’s fault, that the press did the terrorists’ bidding, spread their propaganda, turned Americans against their fighting sons and daughters, and ruined what would have otherwise been a brilliant Bush foreign policy maneuver to spread Western-style democracy throughout a troubled part of the world.

In other words, the press lost the war. Period. And worse, the press lost the war through phony, biased reporting. My hunch is the Burned Alive excitement revolves around the fact warbloggers see an opening to try to raise doubts about, and even dismiss, all the Iraq reporting. “In short, the AP has been relying on a bogus source for much of its reporting on Shia violence against Sunnis since at least April,” right-wing blogger Jeff Goldstein wrote at Protein Wisdom.

The thing is that these fantasies do serve a purpose and a little different than Boehlert points out. Boehlert argues it’s a way out to blame the press and he’s correct in one sense, but in another the Chewbacca defense is perfect because when faced with report after report of chaos and civil war, pretending that there is a conspiracy and concentrating on one piece of evidence that might be wrong allows them to distract themselves and others from the reality that Iraq is a giant shit sandwich which we are savoring.

Never mind that there is a one in 6 billion chance that the blood could be someone else’s blood besides OJ’s on the gate at Nicole Simpson’s place, if the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit. If we can find one instance of a reporter getting something wrong, the vast conspiracy will be demonstrated even if all the other evidence is still there and uncontested.

The distraction allows the cognitive dissonance to continue. One of the most obvious aspects of the campaign is that no evidence can prove them wrong. There are no falsifiable hypotheses, only faith based claims that look for evidence to support those claims.

Kerry isn’t being shunned by the troops as he was having a conversation with reporters, he was shunning the troops.

Daily Dolt

ArchPundit January 7, 2007 5 Comments

Narcissism Unleashed:

“I am running for president,” he told “Meet the Press” anchor Tim Russert. “I’m going to be Joe Biden, and I’m going to try to be the best Biden I can be. If I can, I got a shot. If I can’t, I lose.

Because, of course, no one can get enough Biden in their lives.

And Daily Dolt wins–it rolls off the tongue. Rich came through with it.

However, considerable acts of wingnuttery are now known as Keyes’ Company from a suggestion in comments.

Reader Input

ArchPundit January 5, 2007 18 Comments

It’s quite clear that I’m going to be able to fill up a daily feature on the wanker of the day, but I’d rather come up with a new title to at least pretend I have some originality.

Suggestions? Snark encouraged.

Oh

ArchPundit January 4, 2007 No Comments

Rich already ranted on that–same point, but go read. Jimenez is a moron of the first caliber.

Let me add–who do you think finishes the test the fastest? Those who are better readers and have some common sense. This is exactly the kind of perverse incentive that lowers morale of good workers.

Moron. Huge Moron.

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.