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October 31, 2006

Rush Limbaugh Isn't Really an Obese, Thrice-Divorced, Draft-Dodging Drug Addict - He's Just Faking!!!!

ell, now that we have kicked off the home stretch of the campaign with Limbaugh's attack on Michael J. Fox for openly exhibiting symptoms of Parkinson's disease, and brazenly using his illness to try to find a cure for ... his illness, it's only going to get worse.

George Allen has attacked Jim Webb for the fictional content of his novels. Santorum says that Bob Casey has aided and abetted genocide. Bush says that "if Democrats win, the terrorists win." What's next?

How about this one? Tammy Duckworth is the Democratic candidate for Congress in the 6th District of Illinois. She is a veteran of the Iraq War who lost her legs when her Black Hawk helicopter was struck by a rocket propelled grenade. She's an obvious target for a good swift-boating.

So what will the Republicans say about her?

A. She still has her legs and is just hiding them.

B. She got her legs blown off on purpose so she could get a medal and run for Congress.

C. Both. And she speaks French.

D. Oh my God, a couple of gay guys in Massachusetts are trying to destroy the marriages of all decent Americans by settling down and getting married! Vote Republican!

Please send your ideas for creative smears!

Posted by TFW at 12:20 PM | Comments (6)

October 30, 2006

The Descending Philadelphia Eagles

esterday, with winds gusting over 55 mph, the Philadelphia Eagles' head coach -- Andy Reid -- put on a clinic showing how field, weather, and locker-room conditions will not dissuade him from calling his usual 64% passing plays versus 36% rushing plays (or thereabouts). The Eagles lost to Jacksonville 13-6, as the Jags kicked the Eagles around for 206 yards rushing -- sealing the win with a first down late it in the 4th quarter after having a 1st and 20, and then running the ball three times for 21 yards to keep the clock moving. The Eagles have now lost 3 in a row and, facing a miserable second-half schedule, go into their bye week at 4-4 with the distinct possibility of a 6-10 season starring them in the face..

Here's what guard Shawn Andrews reportedly said when asked if Reid should have called more runs instead of his usual pass-happy play calling:

“I wouldn't personally say I'm a student of the game, but if you've got 57 mph winds, you tell me.”

Similar player sentiments have been expressed after other recent losses.

Reid clearly has been successful as the Eagles' head coach. Personally, while I prefer the Steelers' version of smash-mouth football (not this year, though), it's hard to argue with the balanced approach of the New England Patriots -- who, seeing that power football wins, brought in Corey Dillon two years ago and drafted a big halfback in the 1st round of this year's NFL draft.

Reid? He disdains running for pass, pass, pass.

Maybe the league's caught up with him. Worse, maybe his players are buying that theory, too.

Posted by shertaugh at 1:39 PM | Comments (1)

October 28, 2006

Why President Bush's Resolutely Positive Attitude May Be A Negative

n the "Up Front" section of Business Week's October 30th edition, the magazine reported on a recent study about positive thinking.

The conclusion? That "ambivalent thinking" is more likely to lead to better results than positive thinking. According to the snippet:

MIT neuroscience professor John Gabrieli explains it this way: Problem solving requires access to all our mental resources, and an ambivalent state broadens thinking, perhaps allowing us "to cast a wider net" over the information in our brains.

So, let's hope for more ambivalence in the Oval Office -- about everything.

Posted by shertaugh at 3:53 PM | Comments (1)

The Worst World Series Winner Ever?

he 2006 St. Louis Cardinals -- with a regular-season record of 83-79 -- now own the title of the World Series Champion with the lowest regular-season winning percentage at .512. They've displaced the 1987 Minnesota Twins (who, coincidently, beat the Cards that year). The Twins won only .525 percent of its games (85-77) during the '87 season. Behind Minnesota is the 2000 New York Yankees, who won their third title in a row and fourth in five years, with a winning percentage of .540 (87-74).

The worst loser of the Classic? That's easy. The 1973 New York Mets, who finished the season 82-79 for a winning percentage of .509 -- in the season that no one wanted the NL East title.

On August 14th, the Mets were in last place, 8.5 games behind the Cardinals. But behind Seaver, Koosman, Matlack and Tug McGraw, the New Yorkers played .688 ball down the stretch, going 31-14 -- and closing the year with a 13-4 run. They beat a superior Cincinnati Reds team 3 games to 2 in the best-of-5 NLCS -- a series highlighted by a brawl at second base between the sliding Pete Rose and Mets SS Buddy Harrelson in the 5th inning of game 3 (along with the Reds' Pedro Borbon biting off a chunk of the bill of a Mets player's cap as the umpires broke up the fight). In the World Series, the Mets led the eventual winner, the Oakland A's, 3 games to 2 when the series returned to Oakland for games 6 and 7. The Mets started Seaver and Matlack. But they were out pitched by the A's Catfish Hunter and Ken Holtzman.

Posted by shertaugh at 2:43 PM | Comments (1)

October 27, 2006

The Sky Is Falling . . . Uh-gain

s it me, or does this country have bigger problems to worry about than this.

Posted by shertaugh at 3:06 PM | Comments (2)

October 26, 2006

Rain Outs

aseball's post-season this year has had a more than its share of rainouts, futher pushing the World Series into mitten-and-muffler weather -- which, on top of the late starts, further ruins the game.

The worst run of rainouts, I think, came during the 1962 world series, when the Yankees beat the San Francisco Giants.

Game 5 in the Bronx was rained out. Then, after the teams traveled to San Franciso, with the Yankees up three games to two and looking to clinch, the players had to sit for 4 more days -- as the west coast was pummeled by Typhoon Frieda.

The Yanks of course won the series. In game 7, Ralph Terry -- the goat of the 1960 World Series -- shutout the Giants of Mays, McCovey, and Cepeda, 1-0.

That game is perhaps most famous for how the last out was made. Matty Alou led off the bottom of the 9th with a drag-bunt hit. With two outs, Willie Mays doubled to right. Roger Maris, playing with a bad throwing shoulder, quickly cut-off Mays hit and made a fast relay to Bobby Richardson in shallow right to keep Alou at third.

With runners on 2nd and 3rd, Terry elected to pitch to Willie McCovey, who already had collected 3 hits off Terry in the Series, rather than intentionally walk him to create a force out at every base for Orlando Cepeda.

McCovey then lined a 1-1 pitch right to Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson -- hitting what some say was was the hardest hit ball they've ever seen.

It would be 16 years before Yankees won another World Series. And it would 40 years before the Giants made it back to the Classic.

UPDATE: Ooops . . . commenter Rex reminded that the Giants made the Classic in 1989 -- when an earthquake hit the bay area and, again, delayed the series. Apologies to Giants fans.

Posted by shertaugh at 6:49 PM | Comments (2)

I keep forgetting that I was a victim of attempted murder.

t's been five years since the anthrax letter attacks on news organizations and the U.S. Senate; the anniversary was little noted. The attacks began the week after 9/11 and ended in mid-October of 2001 with the Senate attack. I happened to be across the hall from Senator Tom Daschle's office where a letter containing anthrax was opened. Like hundreds of others I was put on high-dose Cipro. That was unpleasant, but I was unharmed. Five people were killed. Their names were:

Robert Stevens of Florida
Kathy Nguyen of New York
Ottilie Lundgren of Connecticut
Thomas Morris Jr. of Washington, DC
Joseph Curseen of Washington, DC

After five years, there appear to be no promising suspects, at least as far as the public has been informed. Nobody in authority seems especially concerned about it. I often forget myself that somebody tried to kill me and thousands of others. I never got sick, probably wasn't exposed, so it has never seemed fully real. Churchill said,"There is nothing so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." He might have felt differently about an attempt on his life with microscopic spores - it's too abstract, too slow.

The false assertion that there has been no terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11 must be hurtful to the families of those who were were dealt a painful death by the anthrax terrorist(s) and to those made horribly sick and made to fear for their lives. Five years and no progress on the investgation. Maybe I'm not the only one who keeps forgetting.

Posted by TFW at 6:36 PM

My Kids Are in A Cool Band

t's called the "Chunky Noodles" and their best song is called "Smoking Baby" - a musical admonition against early tobacco use. Click here to hear "Smoking Baby."

Posted by TFW at 11:48 AM | Comments (3)

If he Wrote it Today, It Might be called "Sand"

here is a new anthology of Carl Sandburg Poems out, edited by Paul Berman. In an interview on NPR this morning Berman discussed some of Sandburg's poems with Susan Stamberg, including this one:

Grass
by Carl Sandburg

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.

"Grass" was published during World War I, when dissent was not greeted gently. I suppose that if Sandburg were writing today, he might write a poem like this and call it "Sand." In school we got a sunnier picture of Sandburg, celebrating American life, but he was more complicated than that. Click here to hear "Grass" and "Fog" recited by Sandburg.

Posted by TFW at 10:55 AM | Comments (2)

October 25, 2006

A Stupid Idea Whose Time May Have Almost Come

aranoia never sleeps. On Election Day the ballot in South Dakota will include Amendment E, the Judicial Accountability Initiative Law ("JAIL") popularly known as JAIL FOR JUDGES. This breathtakingly moronic initiative is opposed by every informed observer from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the major unions and everybody in between, but in a Zogby poll released on Sep 21 it had the support of 67% of likely S.D. voters. After oppostion came in floods from every possible source from left to right, a more recent poll conducted OCt 16-17, the numbers have flipped; now 67% say they would oppose it. But they might have sneaked this thing by.

Amendment E would pretty much destroy the notion of judicial immunity by establishing a "Special Grand Jury" made of up of citizens who volunteer for a pool and then are chosen at random. Members of the Special Grand Jury may hear complaints from litigants or criminal defendants who are unhappy with the outcome in their case. The Special Grand Jury may strip the judge, and jurors, of their immunity and expose them to civil and criminal liability for deciding a case adversely to the complaining party, with no requirement even that appeals be exhausted. Arguably, it would create the same exposure for county commissioners, school board members, etc.

Here's another twist - judges, lawyers, law enforcement officers and elected officials would be ineligble to sit on the Special Grand Jury and immunity would be preserved for one group: members of the Special Grand Jury. This idea got nowhere in California where it was first tried, so its backers have taken a break from searching the skies for black helicopters and railing about posse comitatus to move their money to South Dakota where it can have a greater impact. Here is their wacky website and the website of the opponents of Amendment E

The wacky neocon right has been hogging all the attention lately. "Jail for Judges" is a reminder that the wacky paranoid right is still around and making mischief.

Posted by TFW at 11:07 AM | Comments (3)

Karl Rove Remains "Confident"

ach morning we are greeted with a new version of this headline. More polls roll in showing Democrats all but certain to take the House and about even money to take the Senate, but Karl Rove and others in the White House blithely assert their confidence that they will lose neither house of congress. This doesn't sound like the usual whistling past the graveyard. They are really getting out on a limb.

Is it just bluff or do they know something that pollsters don't know? What do they have planned? It's a little late for some big onslaught of negative ads - they can't really top what they are already doing, and while they have the financial edge (as usual) over Democrats, its a smaller edge than in recent past elections. Thier vaunted GOTV operation remains in place, but Dems have been working for two years to duplicate it, with some apparent success. All of those advantages, if they still exist, won't be nearly enough to make up the apparent leads Dems hold. An old-fashioned October surprise would be pretty obvious at this point, so it would have to be really scary.

What, if anything, are they counting on? Let the speculation begin!

Posted by TFW at 10:39 AM | Comments (9)

Wyomingites Sour On Cubin

f the comments left by readers of the Casper Star-Tribune are reflective of sentiment in Wyoming, Representative Barbara Cubin is in big trouble as a result of her threat to slap a wheelchair-bound opponent.

Cubin promised in 1994 to serve no more than 6 terms. She's running for her seventh. Enough.

Posted by Eric at 8:11 AM

October 24, 2006

The President's Campaign Message . . . Say What?

he president is campaigning in GOP-leaning districts to motivate the base.

His message, according to a writer for the well-respected nonpartisan "Cook Report," is this:

“Don’t make it about me . . . . Remember that you guys are Republican at your core. Remember what happens when you elect Democrats.”

Okay, I'll bite. What does happen, Mr. President?

1. A balanced budget. And that's bad because . . . why? Oh, yeah, that was only when we had a Democrat in the White House. My mistake.

2. The highest level of economic growth since, well, the post-WWII boom. Oops. My mistake again. That was when a Democrat was in the White House.

3. Maybe the lowest level of poverty in our history. Damn. That was when a Democrat was in the White House, too. My bad.

Let me try again:

1. A fairer federal tax code with substantially fewer loopholes for high-income individuals and corporations?

2. No give-aways to oil companies and insurance companies.

3. About 10,000 fewer earmarks per year.

And how 'bout these:

4. More manufacturing jobs (see below). Okay, we can't blame the GOP Congress for the laws of economics. But I don't get it. They crow about the "booming" economy. I just don't hear them say: "well, when you get a GOP Congress, you lose a million manufacturing jobs every 4 years; but don't worry -- you unemployed folks can watch the DOW ticker crawl along on FoxNews while you sit at home in front of the TV eating Spam from a can . . . and that's good 'cause it'll increase advertising revenues for Fox."

5. Constitutional protection from the potential for aribitrary Executive-branch decisions to lock up an American citizen as an unlawful enemy combatant, call that American a non-citizen alien, hold him at Gitmo, deny him counsel, and -- by saying he's really an alien -- deny him the right to seek habeas, and then use abusive interrogation techniques. And there's nothing anyone can do about it.

6. Pressure on this president, using EVIDENCE accumulated during . . . what are they called, again? . . . oh yeah, OVERSIGHT HEARINGS . . . to formulate policy using information from the REALITY-BASED WORLD.

And these, too:

1. Legislation that creates incentives to develop renewable energy sources. The market place is not "working" toward this end because this administration and the GOP Congress are using the tax code to subsidize continued dependency on oil. (Why would they do that -- to keep our good friends the Saudis happy?)

And what would America get -- JOBS, JOBS, JOBS and $,$,$. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon. And for the rest of our lives.

2. No more tax breaks for billionaires.

3. Tax cuts for people earning less than $200,000 -- that would be 99% of the US.

AAARGH!!! Stop! These are all terrible lies.

The truth is, all we'll get from a Democrat[ ] Congress are huge deficits, weakness in our foreign policy, big government giveaway programs, and Washington dictating how our schools should work.

Yep. Vote Republican. That way we can have more debt. More rogue government's with nuclear weapons. More lost jobs here. More energy dependence. More federal control over our local schools. And less Constitution. Less income. Less personal security. (You read that right. . . because in my book, we've just blown about $400 Billion -- that could have been spent on energy research -- fighting a really stupid and unnecessary war that aliented the world and has left us impotent to deal with North Korea and Iran. Not to mention domestic spying, and Congress's "Gitmo for Americans" campaign.)

Look around. Can't you see. Can't you see. What the GOP's been doing to . . . .

Posted by shertaugh at 6:10 PM | Comments (5)

"Compassionate Conservatism"

ongressperson Barbara Cubin (R-WY) is an embarrassment. An out-and-out, utter embarrassment.

Yesterday's episode: after a debate with her multiple-sclerosis-suffering, wheelchair-bound Libertarian opponent, Thomas Rankin, Cubin walked up to Rankin and said, "If you weren't sitting in that chair, I'd slap you across the face."

Her spokesman doesn't deny that Mr. Cubin made the comment, but wants us to know that "she's over it."

Glad she's over it. Must have been very traumatic for her.

Posted by Eric at 1:10 PM

If the Senate goes Democratic, it still won't be democratic.

f polls are right, the House will go Democratic with seats to spare, but the Senate is up for grabs. No matter who controls the Senate, a Republican bias is built into that body. I love the Senate; years ago, I worked there. It's a fascinating institution where every member has the power to bring things to a halt, but the majority's power to move forward is limited. That is by design. The Senate is supposed to be a check on small-d democracy, a bulwark against the mob. That's proven generally to be a good arrangement for the country these last two centuries, as far as the operation of the senate is concerned, but the selection of the members of the Senate is far more undemocratic than any drafter of the constitution ever anticipated. This is an empirical fact.

We all learned in civics class (I hope) why the Senate was set up as it was, with the metaphor of the hot tea from the cup (the House) that cools in the saucer (the Senate.) Our civics teachers left out alot of the politics that led to that arrangement, much of it related to slavery. (Garry Wills has written a good book that addresses the history on this.) But when the decision was made to set up the Senate in this way, and intentionally give voters in small population states more power in the upper chamber than their fellow citizens in highly populated states, the difference between the most populous state state and the least populist state was just a fraction of what it has become, in both absolute and proportional terms.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau the 1790 census showed that Virginia had 747,610 people, more than any other state. Little Delaware had only 59,046 people, the least of any state. So in 1790 the people of Delaware were, in effect, 12.7 times "more represented" in the Senate than were the people of Virginia. (Senators were appointed then and the method of counting slaves was a cruel distortion, but still the framers had accepted the arrangement that all states would have two senators regardless of size. They did this for many reasons, but certainly that included a legitimate desire to "protect" less populous state, and the more dispositive political imperative to get the votes of small states to ratify the entire document.)

According to Census Bureau estimates for July 2005 the population of most populous California is 71 times that of least populous Wyoming (36,137,147 vs. 509,294)

The original "mulitplier" of 12.7 given to small states was a stretch, and certainly not "democratic" and it had the stink of slavery all over it. Now we have multiplied the multiplier almost six-fold, so half a million people in Wyoming have as much to say in the Senate as 36 million Californians, and one of their Senators can stop anything that the other 99 and their 300 million constituents might want. I like the filibuster - it prevents the Senate from doing every dumb thing that might do well in focus groups, but the original idea is distorted.

Here is what it get us:
- when agricutural interests come into conflict with other interests, ag usually wins
- public transportation will never be properly funded - what good is a subway in Wyoming?
- everyone has to pretend that Mike Enzi is a serious person
- Republicans who predominate in the smallest states, will for the foreseeable future, be able to gain a majority in the Senate without anything approaching a majority of votes cast by citizens
- in our nation of about 300 million, states containing an aggregate of about 38 million people get to pick half the Senate
- states containing about 30 million people (10% of the total) get to pick enough senators (41% of th total) to stage a successful filibuster
- a Republican-skewed Electoral College - states get two votes for every senator, one for every House member. That means that Wyoming has one electoral vote for every 169,764 people, while in California its one electoral vote for every 657,039 people. Without this distortion, even stealing Florida might not have been enough to win in 2000.

Well, that's the bad news and it can't be remedied by constitutional amendment because the fix is in - as commenter Russell has reminded me, the Article V process for amending the Constitution provides that "...no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."

So this is my long-winded way of saying: Democrats better turn out, because you need more votes to win.

Posted by TFW at 11:01 AM | Comments (3)

FREQUENT FLYER FRUSTRATION

have been trying for months to get tickets to take my family to Europe next summer using Northwest frequent flyer miles. (There are four of us - too expensive to buy tickets.) I have been flexible about dates and even about destinations. No luck. I hear that it is the same with other airlines. They are not living up to their end of the bargain.

Two questions:

Is this a gigantic class action suit waiting to happen?

Does anybody know how to beat the system?

Posted by TFW at 10:45 AM | Comments (8)

Our President: Not Quite 100 Points of Bright

his whole flap about "staying the course" puts me in mind of something, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Posted by Eric at 9:03 AM

October 23, 2006

Fright Night

s there any evidence at all that kids are more at risk from sex offenders on Halloween than any other night?

Just wondering.

Posted by Eric at 3:22 PM | Comments (5)

"Five years after 9/11, the world is surprisingly peaceful." OR How Bush Could Have Managed Not to Ruin Everything

s Republicans review the bad polls that keep rolling in, many are not waiting for the elections to begin the fingerpointing. This internecine struggle already has a name: "precriminations." (Props to Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, I think.) They may still rally to minimize their losses on Election Day, but its nice that they are joining the rest of us in thinking about how some wiser choices in the last six years could have made for a happier and more peaceful state of affairs here and abroad. It's tragic to think how much death and suffering might have been avoided with a little more wisdom and little less pride - (That's "pride" in the biblical sense, as in "Pride goeth before a fall.")

At the September 11 anniversary, Jonathan Alter wrote An Alternate 9/11 History
which describes the last five years as they might have been, if anybody but Bush and Cheney, of either party, had been elected in 2000 and 2004, or if, as Alter imagines it, Bush had been overtaken by an unexpected spasm of good judgment. The piece begins with a quote that nows seems absurd, but could have been true:

Five years after 9/11, the world is surprisingly peaceful. President Bush's pragmatic and bipartisan leadership has kept the United States not just strong but unexpectedly popular across the globe. The president himself is poised to enjoy big GOP wins in the midterm elections....

Feeling wistful? Or just pissed off? Either way, don't forget to vote.

Posted by TFW at 2:34 PM | Comments (4)

Obama Puts His Toe (and most of his leg) in the Water

join IsThatLegal (Thanks, Eric) on the day after Barack Obama finally did what Oprah (and countless others) breathlessly had asked him to do. He has said he may run for President. That's a good thing, whether he actually runs or not, because Obama is good for the process of American politics. I have worked on a couple of presidential campaigns and been around lots of politicians and I am as cynical as anybody about them, but he is a different kind of politician. I met Obama when ...

he was polling fourth or fifth in a field of six in the Democratic primary for Senate early in 2004. He was so unknown that he held an event in Washington that was free, and held in a basement meeting room with about 15 people - he just wanted to meet some people. I talked to him for just a few minutes and joined right up with his campaign and told everybody that he would win. By any reading of the polls, or the conventional wisdom about Illinois politics, that was an absurd thing to believe. But I believed it, as did many others, often for reasons that were difficult to articulate. For me, it wasn't because of his prodigious political skills or his winning personality, but because of the way he talks about America - he has a notion of American community that is broad and accessible to people of most any political stripe. I am cynical about politicians, but there is something special going on with this guy; he is a liberal that conservatives can like and respect, and a few will even vote for him. All of this is married to a keen political instinct, and yesterday's announcement surely won't harm sales of his new book, The Audacity of Hope . Obama's rhetoric is remarkable mainly in its insistence on the premise that there is some common ground among Americans, and that we can make progress in the areas where "red" and "blue" overlap. This is not something any consultant told him to do. It's almost a reflex with him, and if you read his autobiography you see that he came by it honestly. He comes from Kenyans and Kansans. His own family is diverse in every way, not just racially, but geographicaly, economically. That background is a metaphor (not always explicit) is his speeches and his writing. It appeals to people who are tired of all the contention-for-its-own-sake in our politics. It's the reason my mother (in her '80s) calls him "that nice young man." Obama is well to the left of Mark Warner; certainly left of Bayh, but he will fill some of the space left by Warner, who shared with him a moderation in his way of doing politics.

So if he runs, or merely flirts with running, he will pull our politics in a healthy direction. The reasons for him not to run are plain: too young, no executive experience; young kids at home. In pure poiltical terms, another word for experience is "baggage." Senators cast votes year after year on controversial issues, issues that can be twisted in 30 second spot. It's no surprise that the last Senator to reach the White House was young, inexperienced John Kennedy. And Obama can see that if he doesn't go now, he may not have another chance for many years, if ever. For two years, everybody has been telling him he can do it. He may believe them; they may be right. He may feel the weight of history, pushing him just as hard as Oprah. It will be fun.

So what do you think?

Posted by TFW at 10:59 AM | Comments (2)

October 22, 2006

Introducing Guest-Blogger TFW

uddenly I am awash in talented guest-bloggers. Shertaugh has been doing his thing here for a couple of weeks, and will continue. And now we'll also be joined by TFW, who'll be with us at least through the election, to share his views on politics, popular culture, and whatever else happens to be on his mind.

Welcome, TFW.

Posted by Eric at 8:11 PM

The Inevitable "Cut & Run" Call by the President

ccording to an article in Sunday's NYTimes, "[t]he Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in securing the country, senior American officials said."

This announcement would appear to be the precursor to an administration plan for a phased withdrawal of American troops. The posited rationale I expect: so the Iraqi troops can take over security of their own country and show the world they are indeed a functioning democracy.

I think we are finally seeing the Vietnamization of Iraq.

Was there any other way this could have gone? Was there any other way Vietnam could have gone?

Would Iraq have gone any differently if Roosevelt, Churchill, and Eisenhower were all in charge -- holding the decision to attack as a given.

Anyway, the difference between Vietnam and Iraq -- in rolling out this policy now -- seems to be the lack of more frank communication between the president and the American people. I was pretty young during the Vietnam war, so I don't know one way or the other. But that's the impression of a kid formed from CBS News's vivid, brilliantly colored footage of soldiers jumping out choppers into the war's tall grass, the sound of their blades whirring in the background, with the voice of Dan Rather reporting from Saigon.

And the next big event for the U.S. after the draw-down on the Vietnam war began in earnest was, well, Watergate.

Posted by shertaugh at 6:43 AM | Comments (1)

October 21, 2006

Paging Ken Mehlman, Paging Ken Mehlman . . .

en Mehlman took to the airwaves in the fall to bad mouth those "cut and run" Democrats when compared to his own "adjust and win" Republicans. We hear it still, though only at a Rovian (i.e., think dog whistle) volume.

Well, perhaps KM -- or someone else -- will explain this. If our leaders have been constantly adjusting to win since the start of the Iraq war, then isn't "adjusting to win" just staying the course? Hmmm?

And if, after all the adjustments Bush/Cheney/Rummy constantly have been making, things have progressed to this point, then what's one to think about the people making all these adjustments?

Just wondering?

Posted by shertaugh at 8:19 AM | Comments (3)

October 20, 2006

"And Always -- Always -- Wrong."

ake eight and a half minutes for this.

Posted by Eric at 4:28 PM | Comments (2)

"Animal House"

he movie Animal House has always been a favorite for many reasons.

One in particular is the movie has some pretty good lines and pretty rich scenes -- not as many as Casablanca, but enough.

After reading this article this morning about the fall of Iraqi City, I couldn't help but recall poor Chip Dillar -- the young, crew-cut conservative in Animal House as he yelled "Remain calm! All is well!" . . . while being stampeded.

Posted by shertaugh at 12:45 PM | Comments (1)

October 19, 2006

GOP's Secret Plan to Stop the Tet-like Offensive in Iraq

he president sees the violence in Iraq as a Tet Offensive -- merely a political tool directed at Americans. (As I remember the Tet Offensive, the Viet Cong and the No. Vietnam army attacked US toops and So. Vietnamese troops. I don't recall civilians being killed by the scores on a daily basis.)

Echoing Nixon's so-called 1968 campaign promise, one GOP Senator has said the president, and the GOP, have a "secret plan" to win the Iraq war (whatever that means at this point).

Really, this all makes sense. I mean, Henry Kissinger is consulting on how to win in Iraq.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.

Posted by shertaugh at 10:48 AM | Comments (8)

October 18, 2006

White Armbands?

ead this important post by Michael Froomkin on protesting the new Torture Law.

Posted by Eric at 8:56 PM

The Acceptability of Asian American Stereotyping.

veryone understands that when you agree to be interviewed by the Daily Show, all bets are off.

But are they off equally, or are some bets off more than others?

That's one of the things I've been thinking about since watching my friend Jack Chin – a lawprof at the University of Arizona – get mocked for his Chinese ancestry on a segment that aired last Monday night on Comedy Central.

As you can see, Bakkedahl and his writers didn't do much with Jack besides use him as a springboard for some Jackie Chan jokes.

Now, I understand that a big part of the joke was that the name mistake made Bakkedahl look stupid. And Jack surely knew he was running risks by talking to the Daily Show. But I doubt he imagined those risks included racial belittling. And that's what troubles me about the segment: it illustrates so clearly how OK it still is (judging, if not by the segment itself, then by the audience's laughter) to humiliate Asian Americans – even to their faces – with old stereotypes.

Think of it this way. Imagine the same segment, with an interview of a hypothetical black law professor named Stephen Fechet – introduced by Bakkedahl as "constitutional law professor Stepin Fetchit." During the interview, Bakkedahl continually calls him "Mr. Fetchit" and then asks him if he's angry enough about a voting lottery "to get off his lazy ass."

Hard to imagine, isn't it?

Yet that's not too unlike this bit.

I suppose you could argue that once an American minority group reaches the point where it can be stereotyped like this in "mainstream" discourse (think of Italian Americans, for example), that's a sign that the group has finally "arrived."

I don't think I buy that, though. You?

Posted by Eric at 2:23 PM | Comments (16)

Behind Enemy Lines, No Less.

'm not sure exactly what it takes to be labelled an "enemy combatant" and bundled off to Gitmo, but Orin Kerr is pushing his luck.

Posted by Eric at 12:15 PM

Judge -- Rather Than Jury -- Nullification?

very interesting little case out of Wyoming: an American Indian was charged with a federal misdemeanor for killing a bald eagle for a religious ceremony without first seeking a license to do so.

Federal district judge William Downes, who sits in Casper, WY, recently dismissed the charge (pdf file), concluding that the licensing process operates in such a "biased and protracted" way that it is not the "least restrictive means" of protecting Native American religious freedom under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

It's a kind of judge-nullification: the defendant was plainly guilty under the regulations (which the defendant neither knew about nor followed), but the judge dismissed the charge anyway.

It's interesting that the judge dismissed the charge rather than trying the defendant and acquitting him. Had he done the latter, the acquittal would have been unappealable, and the case would have just gone away. By dismissing the charge, Judge Downes sets up an interesting appeal to the Tenth Circuit -- and focuses public attention on the inadequacies of the licensing process. A shrewd move on Judge Downes's part -- reminiscent of a very similar move that a judge made 60 years ago to try to focus public attention on the morality of drafting Japanese American internees into the U.S. Army from behind barbed wire.

Posted by Eric at 9:43 AM

October 17, 2006

RedState: My Brain Hurts.

osted yesterday on RedState.com:

I have been thinking about the problem of homegrown terrorists and came to the following conclusions.

We are too tolerant in this country. Yup, we are in a war on terror and yet we allow radical Islamic mosques to exist in this country. Oh yes they do exist, and are paid for by Saudi Arabia; teaching Wahabi Islam. Why do we allow them to exist? It is the equivalent of allowing Nazis in our country during WWII!

Why hasn’t American clerics enacted a Fatwa against any Muslim who commits an act of terror? Because we are not retaliating in any way against Muslims. We should threaten that if any American Muslims are caught, and they already have been caught, planning a terror attack or committing a terror attack then we are going to deport all Muslims. Yes, you heard me deport all Muslims. Then you can bet there would be fatwas against terrorist.

In WWII we rounded up Japanese, Italians and Germans in this country, so why are we allowing Muslims to run free during this war on radical Islam? Yes the Left has gotten everyone brainwashed about the internment camps during WWII. It was not all Japanese and they were places that many people didn’t even want to leave when the war was over.

In this war it makes even more sense to either make American Muslims stand up against Islamic terrorists or get out.

We also must close all mosques teaching radical Islam, such as Wahabi Islam, in this country. Even Satanic cults don’t blow up innocent people! I am sorry but freedom of religion has to have its limits!

I will now jump off the cliff and say if modern Islamics in this country do not stand up for what is right then we will have to ban Islam in our country as a violent subversive religion.

I am sorry if this offends my Muslim readers, because it shouldn’t! You should be agreeing with me and help to stop these maniacs.

Posted by Eric at 12:29 PM | Comments (7)

The Ehren Watada Case

ere is an interesting article about First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, who is facing court-martial for refusing deployment to Iraq because of his political opposition to the war.

The article focuses not so much on the merits and demerits of Watada's position as on the impacts that the case is having on the Japanese American community. (Lieutenant Watada is Japanese American.)

In particular, Watada's stand is reawakening the 60-year-old memory of the several hundred Japanese Americans who resisted the draft during World War II. Their story is the subject of my book "Free to Die for their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II."

At a certain level of abstraction, there is a parallel between Lt. Watada and the WWII resisters; both cases involve contests between obligation to country and obligation to strongly held principle. There are, however, very important differences: the overwhelming majority of the WWII resisters were not opposed to the war in Europe or in the Pacific on principle; they were opposed to being conscripted into service after being stripped of all of the benefits of their U.S. citizenship and placed behind barbed wire.

Posted by Eric at 12:11 PM

October 16, 2006

In Memoriam: Claudia J. Flynn

was very sorry to learn of the death over the weekend of my old friend and U.S. Attorney's Office colleague Claudia J. Flynn.

Claudia was everything one could possibly hope for in a public servant: reflective, brilliant, fair-minded, intense, and dedicated to the public interest. She held a variety of important government positions: Director of the Justice Department's Professional Responsibility Advisory Office, Senior Counsel to the Director of the Executive Office of United States Attorneys, Chief of Staff to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, and Chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey.

Claudia was also -- and this is actually how I'll remember her best -- a great singer. She was a 1976 graduate of Brown University, where she sang with the Chattertocks, a female a capella group. Between 1991 and 1993 she sang lead for a US Attorney's Office garage band that I was also in. She did a mean Bonnie Raitt. And singing backup to her lead on "Black Velvet" is a musical experience that I'll always cherish.

Bye, Claudia. You'll be missed.

Posted by Eric at 10:17 AM | Comments (2)

October 15, 2006

Reason #4,296 For Avoiding An Elected Judiciary

hat on earth is the point of making judicial elections "nonpartisan" when the Republican and Democratic Parties continue proudly to identify their candidates on their websites?

Posted by Eric at 10:27 PM | Comments (5)

October 13, 2006

At UT, They're Gonna Party Like It's 1899!

t's odd that there has been no discussion in the blawgosphere about this story: a group of 1Ls at the University of Texas threw a "Ghetto Fabulous"-themed costume party at which " partygoers carried 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor and wore Afro wigs, necklaces with large medallions and name tags bearing traditionally black and Hispanic names."

UT Dean Larry Sager called the party "singularly heedless and odious" in an email to the student body.

Yup.

Posted by Eric at 1:22 PM | Comments (1)

Torture, Necessity, and Senator Hillary Clinton

ndrew Sullivan asked yesterday if Hillary Clinton is back-sliding in her opposition to U.S. government-sponsored torture of suspected unlawful enemy combatants, as expressed on the Senate floor during the debate on the Military Commission Act. In an interview with the editors of the NY Daily News, Senator Clinton apparently suggested that when faced with the so-called "ticking time bomb" scenario, the use of techniques that may constitute torture would be okay -- so long as whoever is president approved them and reported their use to Congress, even secretly.

It seems to me that Senator Clinton is just voicing a version of the long-recognized Anglo-American legal principle of "necessity" -- also called the "choice of evils" defense. When faced with imminent peril, a person may use deadly force against another person to protect himself or others.

So I don't see her back-sliding at all. What I see her doing is articulating a rational, morally defensible exception for the use of otherwise unacceptable interrogation tactics in extraordinary circumstances. It's the type of exceptional standard that should have been adopted in the first place -- not the general rule that abusive interrogation tactics are acceptable in all circumstances.

[A quick side note. During the Vietnam war, two individuals -- Francis Kroncke and Michael Therriault -- broke into their local Selective Service office in July 1970 to steal draftee registration cards to save those draftees from being sent to Vietnam and possibly killed or maimed. They were prosecuted for violating the Selective Service Act and creatively but unsuccessfully invoked the "necessity" defense. Kroncke acted as his own lawyer. Therriault was represented by Kenneth E. Tilsen, who just one year later coordinated the legal defense for the leaders of the Wounded Knee incident. ]

Posted by shertaugh at 1:20 PM | Comments (1)

I Don't Believe In Ghosts, OK?

esterday, the guest on our local afternoon talk radio show was Joshua P. Warren, a ghost hunter and president of L.E.M.U.R. Paranormal Investigations, a leader in the ghost-hunting industry.

This morning, the New York Times carries a lengthy story about haunted houses in Columbia County, NY:

Then a guest, Bill Placke, a banker from Summit, N.J., was dozing off in the guest bedroom, lying next to his sleeping wife, he said, when a smiling skeletal apparition robed in a white gown and ruffled collar appeared at the foot of his bed. It bobbed toward him, then vanished. “I have never been gripped by such fear!” he confessed.

To which I say: Enough already.

I've had it with ghost stories.

Why is it that ghosts always seem to appear as pale and/or skeletal apparitions in vaguely nineteenth-century apparel? Guys in stove-pipe hats ... ladies in flowing dressing gowns or big hoop skirts ... drivers of horse-drawn carriages.

I mean, homo sapiens has been living and dying for 130,000 years. Where are the first 129,800 years' worth of dead people? Why do we never see some dead prehistoric dude walking around in a saber-tooth-tiger fur?

And why is it always just vaguely-nineteenth-century humans, with the occasional horse or dog thrown in? Who has ever seen the the skeleton of a fifteenth-century racoon scampering across a road late at night? Where are all the spectral skunks?

Show me the ghosts of a ninth-century American Indian and a couple of dolphins. Then maybe I'll believe your stupid ghost stories.

Posted by Eric at 8:08 AM | Comments (4)

October 12, 2006

Another Little Village Along The Information Superhighway

ust when you think you've seen everything the web has to offer, somebody points you to a site like www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com.

It's a site where people who own cats that resemble Adolf Hitler submit photos of their cats. That look like Hitler.

Posted by Eric at 9:46 AM | Comments (4)

October 11, 2006

Heil Weiner!

n his nationally syndicated radio show tonight, a Jewish man ranted for the creation of an American Nationalist Party -- led by a powerful orator and based on a program of "Borders, Language, and Culture" -- that would first appeal for support from the ranks of the police and the military.

For the better part of three hours. To his audience of 10 million Americans on 377 radio stations.

Posted by Eric at 9:21 PM | Comments (3)

October 10, 2006

It Is Emphatically The Duty of the Judicial Department To Have Lunch.

oday I took a group of students to the United States Supreme Court to hear oral arguments. We got a tour of the building, which is surprisingly ornate and beautiful in many places. Portraits and busts of former members of the Court are everywhere!

The photo below is from the Marshall Dining Room, a small-ish annex to the Justices' sumptuous main dining room.

The portraits on the wall are a visual gag, and a humorous one at that. Any idea who those fellas are?

Posted by Eric at 11:12 PM | Comments (33)

Y'all Vote

orth Carolinians will want to check out Y'all Vote, a non-partisan site devoted to generating voter turnout for the November election.

Y'all click on over there now, y'hear?

Posted by Eric at 7:32 AM | Comments (1)

Another 60 Bodies Found in Baghdad

''We anticipated it and we expect it to continue,'' said chief U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell.

Good to know we're on top of it! Excellent work!

Posted by Eric at 5:39 AM

October 9, 2006

High School Gang Violence

ere's a horrifying news report of gang-related violence in Atlantic City High School -- literally one block from a casino I've been to.

As a side note, one well-known attendee of ACHS includes D.C. Circuit judge Laurence Silberman (if memory serves) -- although he graduated from another school. Also, George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, attended high school there.

A graduate of the school was the late Carroll Rosenblum, famous for trading the Baltimore Colts for the L.A. Rams. Former NBC Nightly News weekend anchor and Emmy-award winner Jessica Savitch graduated from Atlantic City High School. And Hollywood producer Vincent "Bo" Zenga is an alumnus of the high school.

The Democrat party held its 1964 nominating convention in Atlantic City, when LBJ was re-upped to run against Barry Goldwater. It was, recent history proves, the last highwater mark for the Democrat party.

Posted by shertaugh at 5:20 PM

Fornicating with Sheep Again?

ne of my favorite campaign stories goes something like this. A young Lydon Johnson accuses his opponent of fornicating with sheep -- apparently, a not-so-unusual occurence that the accusation wasn't dismissed out of hand. Johnson's advisor says cautiously, "but, sir, we have no evidence of that." Johnson's precious response was, "I know, but I just love watching him deny it."

Yesterday, on CNN's Late Edition, Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry from North Carolina was caught trying to use the LBJ treatment on the Democrats by accusing them of holding back evidence of disgraced Congressman Mark Foley's emails until October to gain a political advantage, despite their repeated denials. Wolf Blitzer demanded of McHenry whether he had any evidence to support his accusation.

McHenry's precious response: "Do you have any evidence that says they weren't involved?"

Wow. Wouldn't LBJ have looked great on CNN?

(Hat-tip to Huffington Post.)

Posted by shertaugh at 11:16 AM

"Objects In Rear View Mirror Are Truer Than They Appear."

ometime today, or tomorrow, or this week, anyway, take twenty-four minutes out of your busy schedule to listen to the first story from this past week's NPR radio program "This American Life." (Scroll to the show called "With Great Power" and click on the little blue icon on the left to start the audio. The story starts at about 4:05 and continues until about 28:30.)

It's one of the most remarkable stories I've heard in years. There's nothing I can tell you about the story to do it justice. Law types will be interested in its very powerful depiction of the horrors of plea bargaining, but that's really just a side note. It's a story about the power we have, or are maybe led by the powerful to believe that we don't have, over the lives of others, even strangers.

Listen and leave a comment here, if you're so inclined. It affected me deeply. Maybe it will you too.

Posted by Eric at 7:48 AM | Comments (2)

October 8, 2006

Francis Fukuyama: "Trust But Verify."

n today's NYT Book Review, Francis Fukuyama continues his fall from neocon grace:

Even if we do not at this juncture know the full scope of the threat we face from jihadist terrorism, it is certainly large enough to justify many changes in the way we conduct our lives, both at home and abroad. But the American government does have a track record in dealing with similar problems in the past, one suggesting that all American institutions — Congress, the courts, the news media — need to do their jobs in scrutinizing official behavior, and not take the easy way out of deferring to the executive. Past experience also suggests that the government would do far better to make public what it knows, as well as the limits of that knowledge, if we are to arrive at a balanced view of the challenges we face today.

Posted by Eric at 12:35 PM

Accidents Do Happen

his from a story in Sunday's Washington Post about Uber-Veep Cheney on the campaign trail:

The crux of his [Cheney's] pitch is what he calls the continuing "danger to civilization." Cheney, who warned in 2004 that the United States would be hit by terrorists if Democrat John F. Kerry was elected president, has not gone that far this time but does say that it "is not an accident" that the country has not suffered another attack since Sept. 11, 2001, giving Bush credit.

So, what exactly is Cheney's explanation for the U.S. not being attacked from February 1993 through the remainder of the Clinton administration -- and we didn't even have to invade Iraq to fight the terrorist there so they didn't come here?

We've spent $500 Billion dollars of our children's and grandchildren's inheritance on the Iraq war. History suggests -- justifications aside -- that it was totally unnecessary. Or was it just an accident that America wasn't attacked for 8.5 years while we had a Democrat in the White House?

Posted by shertaugh at 12:53 AM

October 7, 2006

House Intelligence Committee - Silence!

eter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intel Committee, has apparently refused to subpoena convicted former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham as part of a House investigation into whether Cunningham abused his position on that committee in accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors.

Hoekstra's rationale, apparently, is Cunningham -- whom Hoekstra has also apparently been communicating with secretly -- will refuse to discuss what he did by invoking his 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

My understanding is that Cunningham, having already pled guilty to accepting numerous bribes, no longer can invoke his 5th Amendment privilege on this general subject.

Why would Hoekstra refuse to even try to subpoena a former House member and Intel Committee member who's already admitted exploiting his position on that committee as well as its secrecy rules to repeatedly accept bribes from beneficiaries of federal largess? Hmmm . . . this is a hard one.

Posted by shertaugh at 4:17 PM

Baseball Behind Barbed Wire

ere's an interesting article on how baseball helped keep teenagers out of trouble in Japanese American "relocation centers" during World War II.

A lovely children's book that explores a similar theme is Ken Mochizuki and Dom Lee's "Baseball Saved Us." (Regrettably, the internment revisionists have trashed the comment section of the amazon page.)

Posted by Eric at 9:09 AM

October 5, 2006

Oh, Those Crazy Teenage Pages . . .

s I predicted in a post yesterday, the GOP media machine has turned its cross-hairs on the pages themselves.

The storyline now shapes up this way: The pages wanted it, the Democrats knew it, and they're both using the media.

Oh, those crazy pages . . . no wonder the House Speaker didn't do anything. Being an old high school wrestling coach, he knows when teenagers are just being teenagers.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Posted by shertaugh at 6:17 PM

Words From A Judge Who Knows Bankruptcy When He Sees It.

t's not every day that you hear a federal judge quoted in the "Letters to the Editor" segment of NPR's "Morning Edition." But John Yoo's defense on Morning Edition of the recently passed detainee legislation led the Honorable Leif Clark, a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Western District of Texas, to send into the radio program a smoking-hot letter that condemned both Yoo's defense of the legislation and the legislation itself. (You can listen to it here.)

Of Yoo, Judge Clark said this: "The very idea of holding anyone without trial, without the right to see the evidence that was used to justify naming them an enemy combatant, and depriving them of the ability to challenge why they're even there, is so repugnant to a constitutional democracy that I'm shocked this man actually claims to be defending American values."

Judge Clark continued: "How easy it would be for a President to use such a law to make his political enemies simply disappear!"

Strong public words from a federal judge, especially one who lacks the protection of life tenure.

Posted by Eric at 1:15 PM | Comments (4)

Terror Surveillance Won't Matter Much If You're Dead

enator John Cornyn (R-Tx) famously said about objections to the administration's domestic syping, "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead."

Well, here's an especially depressing article about how one third of Earth will be a desert in less than 100 years.

I read things like this and feel compelled to say our political leaders really stink. And so does the media.

UPDATE: To clarify my last sentence: "I read things like this and -- believing that if there's even a 1% chance millions of people in the U.S. could die because of indifference -- I feel compelled to say our political leaders really stink . . . "

Posted by shertaugh at 9:07 AM | Comments (1)

October 4, 2006

Bloggers Gone Wild

he New Orleans Times-Picayune reported today that the FBI is investigating potential threats MADE BY BLOGGERS against a north Louisiana teenager who received suggestive e-mails from former Congressman Mark Foley.

If true, this is a case of bloggers gone insane. I suppose it's one thing to publish the personal contact information of someone in retaliation for exposing conduct that embarrasses the political party with which you identify. In that same vein, disparaging remarks about someone's mental state is another classic D.C. retaliation tactic (though fraught with the risk of defamation liability).

But communicating directly with a witness to intimidate him and influence a high-profile federal investigation? That carries the strong odor of a federal crime under "the Witness Tampering statute" (among others).

If I were the supervising federal prosecutor for this investigation, I'd already have a grand jury subpoena in the hands of the FBI for facsimile service on the head of security for the kid's internet service provider. By tomorrow, I'd have FBI agents knocking on the front door of the bloggers at 6:00 a.m. to ask just exactly what they had in mind when they sent the kid the communications at issue.

Politics is not life and death. Unfortunately, it looks like the current and former pages who had contact with Foley, whether unwelcomed or not, are next on the hit list for those whose sympathies lay with the GOP.

UPDATE: To clarify my remarks about sending FBI agents to speak to the bloggers in question, two points. First, such action would have to be based on confirmation that the contents of the communications to the Louisiana victim were in fact of a potentially threatening nature. Second, the reason I would suggest such a course is because there is nothing more fundamental to a criminal investigation than protecting young victim-witnesses from retaliation of any kind. This is not to say I'd recommend the same action if an investigation involved allegations of fraud by corporate insiders witnessed by other high-level corporate officials.

Posted by shertaugh at 4:58 PM | Comments (1)

DOW Hits New High -- Unadjusted for Inflation, That Is

esterday, the DOW closed at 11,727.34 -- an all-time high. The previous high came in January 2000, when the DOW closed at 11, 722.98.

Adjusted for inflation, however, the DOW continues to lag well below its January 2000 high-water mark. In 2000-dollars, yesterday's DOW close equals about 9,900. To get us even with January 2000, the DOW needs to hit about 13,880 this year.

Also, the S&P 500-stock index closed Tuesday at 1334.11 -- still, even unadjusted for inflation, below its 2000 high of 1527.46. And even worse is the Nasdaq composite index, which closed yesterday at 2243.65 -- less than half its 2000 peak of 5048.62.

We still have a long way to go to get back to the "Roaring '90s". As good as the unadjusted DOW numbers appear on the surface, the lagging NASDAQ and S&P 500 numbers, particularly NASDAQ, should raise serious concerns. Why? Because unlike the DOW's bluechip stocks, the NASDAQ typically is composed of stocks of smaller companies and especially technology companies. These are the kind of companies that keep America's economy growing.

So, given the NASDAQ's current level, what's the market saying -- and these are global traders here -- about their longterm view of America's economy? Maybe not so good, eh?

UPDATE (revised):[My update is based on what may be a misunderstanding of the point made by the commenter whose observation follows. I have asked the commenter for clarification.] One commenter said this: "So, either the market is in the most extreme bubble in 80 years, or the economy is 'not so good'? You have an unusual definition of not so good." Perhaps the commenter is not concerned that real wages -- that is, current wages adjusted for inflation -- have performed miserably since 2000. It seems the commenter is measuring the U.S. economy's overall performance by how the DOW is doing. As the adjusted numbers show, the DOW remains below its 2000 high.

UPDATE II: From the commenter whose post I didn't quite understand: "All I wanted to say was that I don't think that the NASDAQ (or DOW)'s being below 2000 level is an anyway a reason for economic concern. I'm primarily objecting to your one sentence about that. I'm not claiming that the economy is great, and I would agree entirely that real wage growth is a big problem, as are the trade and budget deficits and the housing bubble. . . . " I commend to you all the rest of his very thoughtful comment.

UPDATE III: Here's an inflation-adjusted chart of the DOW since 1925 to the present (prompted by one commenter's suggestion).

Posted by shertaugh at 8:19 AM | Comments (6)

October 2, 2006

Building A Better Onion?

recently read The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, which is about the interdependent relationship between plants and humans, and how each has shaped the other's development.

The book led me to wonder, the other day while cutting onions, why it is that plant geneticists have not yet figured out a way to create a yellow onion that really tastes like a yellow onion but doesn't make you cry.

Posted by Eric at 9:58 PM | Comments (3)

F. Robby

esterday was Frank Robinson's last game as manager of the Washington Nationals. "F. Robby," as he was called in his playing days, was a personal favorite when I was young. I didn't know much about him except he hit and threw righthanded and played the outfield (as I did), and hit a homerun in the 1971 All Star game -- the first one I followed.

Robinson played 21 years in the majors, winning Rookie-of-the-Year honors in 1956 for the Reds and finishing as a player-manager for the 1976 Cleveland Indians, with stops in between at Baltimore, L.A., and California. In 1966, he won the Triple Crown in his first season as an American leaguer with the Orioles, leading them to the A.L. title and a shocking 4-game sweep of the Dodgers in the World Series, in which he was MVP.

He finished his Hall-of-Fame career with 586 HRs, an MVP award in both leagues (the only player to do that), a gold glove, 10 times finishing in the top 10 for average, 17 times in the top 10 in SLG, 13 times among the top 10 in runs, and 5 times in the top 10 in hits, 15 times in the top 10 in HRs, and 13 times among the RBI leaders.

His 17 seasons as a manager were not nearly as successful, never once finishing first. He managed Cleveland, S.F., Baltimore, and Montreal-Washington. He won manager-of-the-year honors in 1989 when he led the Orioles to a second-place finish in the A.L. East, 2 games behind a superior Toronto team on the cusp of two world titles. Though he never won a pennant, Robinson did something greater. He bore the burden of being baseball's first black manager.

Robinson was one of the great players during what I think was baseball's golden era. His departure reminds me again how much the economics, style, and quality of the game has changed in the 35 years I've been watching -- not for the better, I think.

Posted by shertaugh at 1:10 PM | Comments (1)

UPDATE - Americans as Unlawful Enemy Combatants

've posted on Americans as Unlawful Enemy Combatants the past few days. A commenter, A.S., thoughtfully pointed to the case of Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942), holding that "Citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government" are subject to trial by military commission for sabotage.

Does Quirin extend to an American acting solely in America who associates with a band of nongovernment actors (solely Americans let's say) -- creating a private criminal enterprise, as it were -- and then commits acts of aggression against people and property in the United States motivated by some extremist Islamic dogma? Because, unlike the Quirin situation -- where associating with an enemy government is clear evidence of status -- now it is proof of motive that makes them terrorists.

In reading both the majority and especially Justice Scalia's dissent in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004), I stand by my earlier view -- given, as several commenters have said, habeas has not been suspended -- that in the circumstances I describe, Americans cannot be treated as Unlawful Enemy Combatants consistent with the Constitution. As Justice Scalia said:

Where the Government accuses a citizen of waging war against it, our constitutional tradition has been to prosecute him in federal court for treason or some other crime. Where the exigencies of war prevent that, the Constitution’s Suspension Clause, Art. I, § 9, cl. 2, allows Congress to relax the usual protections temporarily. Absent suspension, however, the Executive’s assertion of military exigency has not been thought sufficient to permit detention without charge. No one contends that the congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force, on which the Government relies to justify its actions here, is an implementation of the Suspension Clause. Accordingly, I would reverse the decision below.

So I still believe that a law allowing the president to indefinitely detain Americans seized on U.S. soil for acts in support of other non-governmental actors undertaken on U.S. soil is unconstitutional.

Further, as to the habeas question -- which, in my haste, I wrongly said to a commenter had been stripped from Americans. Yes, Americans held in indefinite detention somewhere in the world awaiting a designation by a military tribunal continue to have the right to file a habeas petition.

I guess I'm just a bit more than skeptical that, in those circumstances, the right to file a habeas petition is not worth much more than the paper the T/T Act is written on. Speaking practically, exactly how and when will the detained American be in a postition to actually file the petition? I'm guessing, but I believe -- in the absence of the immediate appointment of counsel -- no habeas petition will be forthcoming for quite awhile . . . a very long while.

UPDATE: The following from commenter CT seemed worth reprinting:

Shertaugh: One additional wrinkle that you might want to consider here is that the CSRTs are not the same as the law-of-war tribunals at Gitmo. The CSRTs review the initial decision to preventively detain a person to prevent his return to the "battlefield" -- thus distinguishing the CSRT from the Hamdan-style tribunals, which seek to punish a combatant for violating the law of war rather than engaging in preventive detention.

This distinction becomes important for habeas challenges, because Hamdan only applies to law-of-war tribunals. Habeas challenges to the preventive detention of enemy combatants are governed by Hamdi, in which the plurality indicated that the detainee is entitled only to notice and a "fair opportunity" to rebut the government's factual assertions before a "neutral decisionmaker." Under the plurality's definition, a neutral decisionmaker could include a special military tribunal along the lines of the CSRT. Thus, the detainee's habeas claims may well be limited to arguing that the CSRT is not a "neutral decisionmaker" that gives a "fair opportunity" for the detainee to dispute the government's factual assertions -- and this would be a pretty easy argument for the governnment to win under the loose guidelines the Hamdi plurality laid down (hearsay is a-okay, detainee bears the burden of proof, etc.).

As a side note, the military's power to preventively detain U.S. citizens affects more than just those detained under military authority. It also harms the integrity of the criminal justice system -- particularly during the plea bargaining process in civilian prosecutions of terrorists. If you're interested, . . . [see] Terrorizing Justice: An Argument that Plea Bargains Struck Under the Threat of "Enemy Combatant" Detention Violate the Right to Due Process, 47 B.C. L. Rev. 581 (2006), and it's available on SSRN.

Posted by shertaugh at 8:26 AM | Comments (4)

October 1, 2006

Silence Card Is Golden, Again

oday, House Speaker Dennis Hastert formally requested that the Justice Department launch an investigation into the allegedly salacious emails of former House GOP Florida congressman Mark Foley to underage House pages -- underage pursuant to the federal criminal statute prohibiting the use of the internet to solicit sex from someone under age 16. (The White House and Democratic leaders likewise had asked for a criminal inquiry.)

Yesterday, House GOP leaders were scrambling after the Foley disclosure because of allegations that, in 2005, Hastert had actually seen some of the allegedly sexually-charged emails Foley had been sending. The response on both sides of the aisle has been a demand for an internal House investigation. No such investigation appears forthcoming, however.

Here's where the rubber hits the road.

If a DOJ investigation commences -- and, likely getting one based on preliminary reports of an FBI inquiry already underway -- House GOP leaders will be able to play the "silence card".

The "silence card" is the one that instruct politicians to say, "I can't comment on an ongoing criminal investigation." The White House repeatedly played it in the Libby/Rove investigation into the Plame leak.

A federal criminal investigation of Foley's activities would allow the House GOP leadership to remain silent with the media and, more important, resist any internal inquiry on the ground that doing so might interfere with the Justice Department's investigation. In other words, stonewall and push the story into next year.

With the election 6 weeks away, the House GOP leaders -- and of course Bush and Rove -- desperately want to be able to play the silence card now.

Posted by shertaugh at 7:12 PM | Comments (1)

Where's the ACLU When You Need Them?

n commenting on my post about the new Terror/Tribunal legislation extending "unlawful enemy combatant" status to U.S. citizens acting on U.S. soil, it was said, in essence, "so what, Americans always could be UECs" and "so what, American UECs can file for habeas." I never suggested those not to be the case. The objection I have with the T/T act is that UEC status for Americans acting in America has removed them from the criminal justice system -- a scenario foreshadowed in Justice Scalia's dissent in Hamdi.

Before the T/T legislation, an American who provided material support on U.S. soil to a terrorist organization was guilty of federal criminal activity that may include treason -- hence, that person went directly into the criminal justice system where counsel was appointed immediately.

Now, thanks to the anti-constitutionalists in the White House and Congress, and in the body politic at large, Americans who provide material support to terrorists can end up detained and subject to "alternative interrogation techniques" at GitMo or maybe somewhere else on the mainland or abroad. All while awaiting to find out if a miltary commission will conclusively designate them as a UEC.

But if that scenario is not harrowing enough -- which, of course, most Americans don't need to worry about because they have nothing to hide, right? -- the American UECs at GitMo, or wherever the DoD will hold them, will not have immediate access to legal counsel, as they would in a criminal prosecution.

Why is that important? Let's think. Maybe because, while it is true the T/T legislation did not suspend habeas as to American UECs, it is no less true that these individuals will have to file a habeas petition by mailing it to a federal judge. I don't recall reading in the T/T act that American UECs get government-paid attorneys to act as a go-between with the CIA interrogators and the American UEC.

So raise your hand if you think American UECs will get a pen and paper when they're taken into custody, along with a list of addresses for the federal courts with jurisdiction to hear a habeas petition. Oh, and an air-mail stamp to mail the petition.

Yeah, sure. Habeas for American UECs hasn't been suspended. But exactly why, in practical terms, does that make a difference when you have no access to the ACLU or any other lawyer?

Posted by shertaugh at 4:41 PM | Comments (3)

Yom Kippur Blogging

onight is Kol Nidre, the start of the holiday of Yom Kippur --a holiday to which, this year, I come with more than the usual dedication.

Al chet shechatanu lefanecha bedibur pe.

For the sin which we sinned before you with our words, we seek pardon and forgiveness.

To anyone I may have hurt through my words on this blog during this past year, I am sorry, and ask forgiveness.

Gamar tov.

Posted by Eric at 2:18 PM

Worst MVP Snub?

n 1960, Roger Maris edged teammate Mickey Mantle for the AL MVP award by 3 points. It was Maris's first year in pinstripes. He hit 39 HRs, 112 RBI, and .283. Mantle had 40 HRs, 94 RBI, and a .275 avg.

In 1961, when Maris and Mantle chased Ruth's record of 60 HRs, Maris again bested Mantle for the MVP -- winning the award in another tight vote by only 4 points.

In 1962, Mantle won the MVP award. He played in only 123 games for the Yankees that year, hit 30 HRs, had only 89 RBI, and a .321 average.

Roger Maris, in 1962, led the Yankees with 33 HRs, 100 RBI, second in 2B with 34, second in BBs with 87, fourth in Runs with 92. As for his league-wide numbers in 1962, Maris finished 9th in SLG, 7th in TB, 5th in 2B, 5th in HRs, 8th in RBI, 9th in BBs, 9th in runs created, 3rd in extra-base hits -- a pretty damn good season by any account that would have justified a then-record third straight MVP trophy.

But Maris received NOT ONE POINT in the MVP balloting. Not even a single 1-point third-place vote. Even ChiSox outfielder Al Smith, who had 16 HRs, 82 RBI, and a .292 avg. for the 5th place Sox received a 3rd place vote. Smith, though, was not in the top-10 in any AL hitting category.

Since its inception in 1931, the MVP award has always been voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America (2 reporters for each team's city). Maris reputedly had a pretty rocky relationship with the media, particularly during the last weeks of 1961 when he was chasing the homerun record. Does that explain his shutout in the MVP voting in 1962? Hard to know. But baseball writers have always been known to be notoriously vengeful.

Other players -- Ted Williams, especially -- suffered at the ballot box for their bad media relations. Williams won only two MVP awards (1946, 1949) and finished second in years in which he had far superior numbers to the winner (1941 - DiMaggio, 1942 - Joe Gordon, 1947 - DiMaggio, 1957 - Mantle). But he never was left entirely off every writers ballot in any year in which he played a full season -- not even in 1959 when he hit .254 with just 10 HRs and 43 RBI, and the BoSox finished 5th in standings.

But Maris's snub [update: OF NOT GETTING EVEN 1 POINT FROM ANY VOTER] in 1962, given his offensive numbers, seems an awfully harsh tribute to have paid the protectors of baseball's reputation.

Posted by shertaugh at 12:51 PM | Comments (4)