Is That Legal?

Wow... Did that happen a little sooner then you expected?

She'll never admit that this has any connection to her flawed arguments - it is not in her nature.

"By the way, this was not the only time Irons engaged in these sort of shenanigans."

I find it interesting that her retraction includes the retraction of the above phrase. That sentence is a broad smear of Irons, yet her buck-passing apology only focused on the "surreptitiously" and "confidential" issue. It doesn't seem to me that she adequately addressed that particular attack on Irons. She just kind of threw it in with her overall apology/retraction. I see the backstory in the e-mail exchange she posted between herself and Irons and I think Irons should have pressed harder on this point, but maybe he's not so concerned about her blog, only her book. It's just another crystal clear example of Malkin making a negative attack with little accurate information. (I like how she introduces an e-mail that smears Irons for "drag[ging] my daughter into the discussion," as if Irons made a person attack against the little girl, which, of course, he didn't. Pu-leeeze!)

Given how many months ago this was originally brought to her attention, it seems clear that it was only due to the threat of legal action that she did the minimally responsible thing. With no lawyers, Irons would never have gotten an apology. That's why she didn't see fit to apologize to Muller despite how nonsensical her "Update III" looks now.

How can one shame the shameless? The lawsuit threat got the retraction out of her, but one doesn't get the sense that she otherwise cares whether her serious charges against others have any merit. I don't expect that this retraction will stop her from continuing to make baseless charges against all of academia or her ideological enemies.

Why the f$#* would a document from WWII be confidential anyway unless someone is engaged in operation CYA?

I think there should be a general rule: unless there is a tribunal which rules otherwise (in which case the ruling, if not the document itself becomes public), all government documents become completely public (with bare minimal redactions simply to protect privacy rights -- and these must be justified in writing along with the document) after 40 years. I think there already is a policy to this effect, but it needs to be clarified and strengthaned.

While government secrecy is sometimes necessary, it is never better than a necessary evil. After 40 years, whatever war would be effected by the secret ought to be over, whatever career issues may be at play would be no longer issues as everyone presumably would have retired, if not died.

At the very least, if people know what they do will eventually be shown in the light, maybe they'll think more carefully and do a better job at it. Also, this puts a limit on the length of time people can be blackmailed -- after all, you cannot blackmail someone about something that is no longer a secret! Thus having limitations on secrecy will actually protect and strengthan our covert services.

Certainly, why would Malkin's suggestion of cloak-and-daggery prove her point ... wouldn't it disprove it? Doesn't even her smear suggest that she does not know the full story whereas others might?

Why can't we find competent race-traitors anymore? Issuing a retraction based on legal threats? Disgusting. This was her moment to shine - a real public forum to level a set of smears against Japanese-"Americans" that would have assured they NEVER tried to drive across the heartland of America again. Instead she knuckles under like Tojo in Tokyo Bay.

This is what happens when you send a yellow woman to do a white man's job.

Just an FYI but there is a supposed system for automatic downgrading of classified documents...when its allowed to work.

As someone who spent 14yrs producing classified documents in the USAF (but who has been out of it for 15yrs now), the rules used to say, if classified
CONFIDENTIAL - automatic downgrade to unclassified in 6yrs, I believe
SECRET - downgrade to unclassified in 10yrs
TOP SECRET - downgrade in 20yrs
but add a codeword to the SECRET or TOP SECRET
(ie. SECRET JUNK or TOP SECRET MALARKY), and the auto downgrade changed to 30yrs and then only for review to determine if it could be downgraded.
Considering the literally millions of pages of documents classifed by the US Gov't annually, no one has time to make a serious effort to review and downgrade all those documents from 1975 and earlier, so they are either reclassifed en masse (usually either SECRET or TOP SECRET), or are downgraded en masse (which has produced a few embarrassing documents over the years)...

But with the Bushies and their secrecy fetish, they may well be reclassifying every scrap of paper in gov't to the highest possible classification on a routine basis these days...even the coffee table napkins!

"Moreover, I am directing Regnery to excise the words “surreptitiously” and “confidential” from future editions of the book."

Ha, ha, ha, ha,ha ... good joke! future editions! ROTFL

You rule, dude.

Weirdest is what I bold here from her quasi-reversal:

Although Fujita-Rony did not explicitly say that Herzig-Yoshinaga behaved “surreptitiously” or that the documents in question were “confidential,” I believe these were reasonable inferences on my part given what he wrote. I clearly cited Fujita-Rony’s article as my source in my book and on my blog. I did not contact Herzig-Yoshinaga or Irons directly. The passage, as Bruce Ramsey notes, was not central to the thesis of my book.

So, she didn't take the delicate step of defaming someone because it was necessary in the course of proving her important point, she defamed someone for the hell of it?

Yes, but Eric has also failed to fess up fully on a clear factual blunder of his own on this blog. I think Malkin is a freak show, but at least she did directly say "I apologize." Rare these days, even if it took some extra public excoriation.

In my mastery of Google, I found out a few plain factual errors on the posts about new Pope Benedict XVI and waited for a retraction and acknowledgement by Isthatlegal--for example, wrongly attributing a statement by the pope's brother to the pope and citing a webpage that had no such quote (this is the "resistance was impossible" kerfuffle). No such retraction came forth. The closest that ever happened was the following link, which makes a correct attribution but declines to note that it was a correction of prior factual error, due to grade school errors of citation:

http://www.isthatlegal.org/archive/2005/04/airbrushing_the.html

Malkin, for what it's worth, did own up to her errors. I know there are other errors I pointed out in the comments that were never even touched upon, but I haven't been able to dig up my comments to figure out what they were.

The other enjoyable thing about Malkin's tepid retraction is its context on the page: It's surrounded, above and below, by firebreathing rants about the sloppy, shoddy mainstream media. You just can't trust a reporter -- they don't have a commitment to the truth.



It's fun to just watch her tone change when she takes up the topic of her own shoddiness. Love the title for the retraction post: "Book Notes: Errata, Etc." A team of scientists, laboring for a decade in a well-funded lab, couldn't come up with a more calculatedly bland and empty headline. Meanwhile, posts on the topic of other people's screw-ups -- at, for example, CBS or Newsweek -- tend to be pumped full of bilious language about morons and sleazoids.



Either she has great training, or she's a natural.

It's interesting that Ms. Malkin both retracted and apologized for her statements about Irons and Herzig-Yoshinaga, but retracted her (IMHO equally defamatory) statements about Eric Muller *without* apology. What's up with that?

RWS: the old "other people do it so they can't say anything" angle? that's a pretty weak argument. Even someone covered in sh!t can point out someone else has poo on their lapel. Doesn't make the fact of the poopy lapel any less factual.

Plus, sheesh, she attacks someone in a wild flail and wait three trimesters to retract, and only after being threatened?

"for what it's worth", indeed.

Not sure I made the paragraph breaks large enough, yeah?

Malkin writes.

"The disputed sentence in my book and my subsequent comments on my blog were based on the following passage in an article ..."

Goodness! Scotty McClallan needs to hop all over her for only using one source.

Garth, I'm not saying that Eric's excellent impeachment of her over the last year or so is invalid, just that his indignance towards her apparent liberty with the facts is a little laughable. I disagree with you in that, generally, if you have poo on your face because of your own error, in fact it's pretty lame to condemn someone for such circumstance for having committed a similar error. Inconsistency, especially in this kind of blameworthy issue, is very much worth pointing out. The post was not just about pointing out the facts without any other dimension to the post.

Generally, successfully pointing out someone's basic methodological flaws is the door to a more general impeachment of that person's work--as if a link in the chain has been broken, and, just as importantly, that a basic defect in judgment somewhere probably means other such defects. This part of the debate can be easily seen by the fact that some of these commenters, as well as the original post, connect this flaw to a more fundamental attack on the book. Malkin, predictably, contends this "erratum" was peripheral. It helps, of course, if one can show if one's own side is much more trustworthy with the analysis than the other side.

The original issue revolved around a paragraph in another publication, which she cited and footnoted. She drew a conclusion from that paragraph. When the authors of that paragraph contacted her and retracted their statement, she retracted hers. Based upon the original paragraph she cited it was a plausible assumption that some circumvention happened. Irons states that he was refused permission to make copies. It's the conclusions she drew from that fact and the way in which he resolved his problem that are at issue. She was under no obligation to investigate the interviews of other authors when the alledged injured party had not approached them about their alledged error.

In the course of his 39 e-mails on the subject, Irons attacks her character, her ethics, her professionalism and her work, all without ever having read it. Hardly the definition of a scholar in my book. I would have expected a far more professional tone from a man of his academic stature, as well as the ability to check his own spelling. To quote the dictionary and misspell the word involved is somewhat laughable.

Prof. Irons won a legal case. That doesn't make him right, only a winner, nor does the case invalidate the thesis that Malkin advances. Irons himself has written that there were Japanese spies on the West Coast, both citizens and non-citizens. The government had an obligation to take action.

Let me qualify any statement of respect for Malkin in terms of having been forthcoming and apologized by the fact that she's apparently been threatened with legal action. It would appear that her apology was not pursuant to intellectual integrity and biting the bullet but straightforward legal CYA. Anyway, I'd hate to do anything to defend her much, because she's just a cheap Coulter copycat and generally a disgrace to conservatism.

Eric,

Nice work. I tell my students, every semester, that lawyers, for all the jokes and problems that we have, are valuable to society because they are experts in complexity, and sometimes that expertise is necessary to get things done. When moral suasion fails....

Oh Chuckles, that's a great characterization of the Irons/Malkin e-mails . . .TO POOP ON. Her ridiculous, whiny insistance on having every single person, including the graduate researcher, 'retract' statements before she will do the decent thing would try a saint. In addition, she clearly and deliberately distorted statements made by Maki et. al. If Malkin doesn't understand National Archives policy on access and copying, she's not up to writing this book, which she clearly wasn't.

The fact that it took threat of legal action to retract does her no favors.

In short, everyone, don't buy into Simmins' lame attempt to attack Irons on the basis of the e-mails. Read them. They are a nice insight into just how paranoid, stilted, and nasty she is.

At the request of the person who posted this comment, the comment has been deleted.

Renn is right. You gotta read the emails, just to see how hard it was for Irons to get Malkin to admit that the obvious was, in fact, true.

What a mindless, numbingly stupid [omitted] she is.

I notice you did not apologize on your earlier post:

Sometime later today, I'm quite sure that Michelle Malkin will post an item in which she defends her smearing of political scientist Peter Irons and researcher (and former internee) Aiko Herzig. She will trumpet her source for her bogus "facts": an article by Cal State Fullerton Professor Thomas Fujita-Rony that appeared in the April 30, 2003, issue of the academic journal "Frontiers: A Journal Of Women Studies."

I also noticed in reading the email exchange between Dr Irons and Ms Malkin that one writer was rude, abrasive, snarky, threatening, insulting, and demanding, while the "Right Wing Hack" was the consummate professional.

Ms. Inagi,

My absolute admiration for letting your emotions rip.

An ounce of abrasion is worth a [wasted]lifetime of consummate professionalism.

With apologies to your mother and father,

John A

The actions of the American government at all levels to deprive American citizens of their property without due process was wrong. Ms. Inagi, your father volunteered for combat, just as my father did. That the war, a just war, left him with unspeakable memories is a tribute to his inate goodness. Your conscience should not be entirely at ease with war.

Were this only about race, then all citizens of Japanese ancestry would have been interned. Every nation interned citizens of enemy states. We interned Germans and Italians along with Japanese. There is no doubt that American citizens of Japanese and German ancestry were involved in spying for the enemy.

It was wrong to have beggered the people that were interned. It was un American. I am not convinced that the interning in and of itself was. Please recall the the military was segregated at this time and that was generally accepted. As much as you might not like the notion, I suspect that a vast majority of the American public accepted the internments as necessary.

It is unwise to view the actions of men from two generations ago without trying to view them in the manner that they did. The fact that there was serious discussion on the matter at the highest levels shows that the internments were not undertaken lightly. In order to believe that these men were evil, you must posit that FDR, the Supreme Court, the War Department, et al, were all blindly racist and the evidence shows that most were not. They did what they thought was best.

Men of goodwill will do things that, when viewed from the future, appear wrong. At the time, it was the best they could do. And, to posit an added possibility, what if it had been the Germans attacking by suprise that Sunday morning, at Norfolk? Had Bismark or Tirpitz shelled the Atlantic Fleet, can you conceive of a time when German-Americans would be interned? Recall, if you will, the actions at Pearl Harbor were regarded as an unprovoked attack. Would an unprovoked German attack not have drawn a similar response?

Jim E. Writes:

" 'By the way, this was not the only time Irons engaged in these sort of shenanigans.'
I find it interesting that her retraction includes the retraction of the above phrase. That sentence is a broad smear of Irons, yet her buck-passing apology only focused on the "surreptitiously" and "confidential" issue. It doesn't seem to me that she adequately addressed that particular attack on Irons. She just kind of threw it in with her overall apology/retraction."

On the contrary, I find it odd that Malkin bothered to include that phrase in her retraction at all. The national media was filled with the story of how Irons had signed a limiting agreement not to reproduce or allow to be reproduced for any purposes other than for private research and teaching purposes audio tapes of oral arguments before the Supreme Court which were kept in the National Archives. But, as the story went, Irons had ignored the agreement and reproduced such tapes for sale to the public at large.

On August 29, 1993, the L.A. Times described Irons as a "dedicated confrontationalist" not concerned with court's "fulminations," likening the Court to a "sputtering volcano" which might or might not erupt. Iron's action was not met with universal enthusiasm. Charles Fried, professor of law at Harvard and solicitor general in the Reagan administration was quoted as saying that selling edited tapes would "trivialize" the Court, noting that transcripts were already readily available. Said Fried: "All this man is doing, is trying to make these tapes available in a format that heightens their entertainment value." Defending his actions, Irons was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying the agreement he signed was "legally unenforceable" and thus didn't didn't have to be obeyed. Legally unenforceable, perhaps, but what about the ethics of it?

Although the L.A.Times described Irons' tape selling project as a "non-profit" venture, Mr. Irons said in an e-mail to Malkin this week that "...my publisher...sold 75,000 sets of the tapes at $75 a pop. I bought my dream red sports car with the first royalty check."

"Given how many months ago this was originally brought to her attention, it seems clear that it was only due to the threat of legal action that she did the minimally responsible thing."

I doubt that. Seems to me the matter was blown out of all proportion to its importance vis-a-vis the thesis of Malkin's book and Irons is certainly a public figure, legally speaking, who might have a hard time showing malice aforethought against him on Malkin's part. When shown to be in error, she did the honorable thing and made a correction. Would that her adversaries were as honorable.

"With no lawyers, Irons would never have gotten an apology. That's why she didn't see fit to apologize to Muller despite how nonsensical her "Update III" looks now."

I'm sure Professor Muller will be delighted to hear himself described as a non-lawyer.

"I'm sure Professor Muller will be delighted to hear himself described as a non-lawyer."

Why am I not surprised that you would deliberately misread two sentences taken out of context? How Malkin-like of you.

"Prof. Irons won a legal case. That doesn't make him right, only a winner, nor does the case invalidate the thesis that Malkin advances. Irons himself has written that there were Japanese spies on the West Coast, both citizens and non-citizens. The government had an obligation to take action."

Posted by: Chuck Simmins at May 18, 2005 04:03 PM

Everyone admits that there are Rapists and Murderes on the East Coast, both citizens and non-citizens. The government has an obligation to take action.

Intern the Eastern seaboard now!

http://www.foitimes.com/internment/

The human cost of these civil liberties violations was high. Families were disrupted, if not destroyed, reputations ruined, homes and belongings lost. By the end of the war, 11,000 persons of German ancestry, including many American-born children, were interned.

IMHO Internment of the Japanese was largely a result of institutionalized racism which stated that Japanese had an inordinate amount of attachment to their homeland which was not seen in other races.

But, do not forget that some German-Americans were interned. Was it racism that caused these people to be interned? No, because if the anti-German bias was as strong as the Anti-Japanese bias based on race, then there would have been many more than the 11,000 interned Germans.

"You obviously had a pre-conceived conclusion and went looking only for material that supported it, which is poor historical practice (although, in fairness, you're not a historian, just a right-wing journalist)." - Peter Irons

That's how right-wingers do their research. Just ask how evidence to support the Iraq invasion was "being fixed around the policy" as far back as July 23, 2002?

Here is what Michelle posts as the full email exchange with Irons, though wish Ms. Malkin added the text in the html instead of having the Word attachment:

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/ironsletters.doc

Ignore the pro-Malkin fanatics (e.g., W.J. Hopwood) and look at the bottom line here. Michelle and Jesse Malkin simply set out to try and make a few bucks. They probably said, "Hmmmm....what controversy can we stir up that will be a winning formula for the right vs. left model? Oooh, how about we write about how the Japanse internment camps were justified? Let's look up all the information that we can find that we can twist to meet our agenda. We'll have the backing of the conservatives and will make a few bucks."

They must not have realized that there would be people that actually did real research on the topic that actually know what they're talking about. It's another example of the all-too-familiar shoddy reasearch and journalism from team Malkin. Don't they realize that they wouldn't have had to issue any retractions or "apologies" had they gotten their facts straight in the first place? Of course not. We're dealing with the Malkins here. All the education in the world can't buy common sense.

Eric, the Malkins probably think that they have you digging in your heels, but that's not the case. They're completely delusional and the more they back-track, the more foolish they look. Please keep up the good work of successfully disputing this book of garbage...

She owes James Yee an apology as well.

Here is an excellent post on the topic from Reverend Mykeru.

What was the name of the Asian chick who rejected you?

That one made me smile, Norman. Funny.

The great refuge of pundits of all stripes is that libel and slander have to be intentional under U.S. law. That provides a huge umbrella to the Malkins, Coulters, Goldbergs, Drudges, O'Reillys, Hannitys, Savages and Limbaughs of the world.

All they have to do is plead ignorance ("I didn't know I was full of sh*t"), and they're free to say anything they damned well please. And if they are ever confronted with their flagrant disregard for the truth (or basic fact-checking, or intellectual dishonesty), they can put off admitting error until threatened with legal action. And even then they can make the most mealy-mouthed of retractions and all is well. It standard practice for these wastes of protein... shout your unfounded, unsubstantiated, untrue allegations from the top of the mountain... repeat them as often and as loudly as you can in any forum given to you... and when caught lying, bury a retraction somewhere where the rubes you regularly target won't ever see it.

Lie... obfuscate... deflect... repeat. The right-wing pundits formula for success.

What would be really useful is for someone like George Soros, instead of giving money to liberal think tanks, to fund an organization whose sole purpose was to expose right-wing punditry's frequent misinformation to the light of day... loudly and often. Every time Malkin or one of her ilk makes a gross misstatement like this, take out a full page ad in the top 250 newspapers in the country exposing the error and correcting it. And when they try to deflect or equivocate rather than admit error... expose that too.

Shine a f*cking spotlight on them so bright it blinds them.

It won't change the minds of the rubes they regularly mislead, but don't ceed the truth to these merchants of lies. Never give on inch!

BKC

What was the name of the Asian chick who rejected you?

You know, I once loved a Filapina goddess... It was 1989 and I was a freshman at the University of California at Berkeley...

Her name was Ellen Pacleb and she made my heart sing. Cute, smart and funny with tea-colored skin. She had wire rim glasses through which her eyes smiled. She smelled of soy sauce and chicken adobo.

Why did you have to forsake me, Ellen?

Why?!

Brian Curley,
Mediamatters.org doesn't buy full page ads, nor does it receive any of Soros' money. But it does moniter conservative pundits and straight news. It does a nice job of exposing and correcting right-wing errors -- you should check it out.

That is the single most insincere and forced apology since Otto held Archie Leach by his ankles out a window in "A Fish Called Wanda".