brainiac conspiracy

Bacteria We Can Believe In

Pace Rick Perlstein, can we chalk this one up to Salmonella conservatism instead?

---Vitelius

Guess He's Not Too Keen on Math, Either

Shorter Huggy: The guy who beat me by 9 million votes two months ago really should have asked for my blessing before bringing a stimulus bill to the Hill.

---Vitelius

In Today's GOP . . .

We're all Magic Negroes now. Good luck on the diversity initiative, Mike Steele. You're gonna need it.

---Vitelius

The Pro-Labor Presidency

I said it yesterday and I'll say it again today, but we really are getting some change we can believe in:

I also believe that we have to reverse many of the policies towards organized labor that we've seen these last eight years, policies with which I've sharply disagreed.  I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it's part of the solution. We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests, because we know that you cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement. We know that strong, vibrant, growing unions can exist side by side with strong, vibrant and growing businesses. This isn't a either/or proposition between the interests of workers and the interests of shareholders.  That's the old argument. The new argument is that the American economy is not and has never been a zero-sum game. When workers are prospering, they buy products that make businesses prosper.  We can be competitive and lean and mean and still create a situation where workers are thriving in this country.

So I'm going to be signing three executive orders designed to ensure that federal contracts serve taxpayers efficiently and effectively. One of these orders is going to prevent taxpayer dollars from going to reimburse federal contractors who spend money trying to influence the formation of unions. We will also require that federal contractors inform their employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Federal labor laws encourage collective bargaining, and employees should know their rights to avoid disruption of federal contracts.

And I'm issuing an order so that qualified employees will be able to keep their jobs even when a contract changes hands. We shouldn't deprive the government of these workers who have so much experience in making government work. (Emphasis added.)

Of course Obama's preaching to the congregation here, but think about it a moment: when was the last time any American president spoke so unambiguously in favor of a strong and vibrant union movement in this country? I mean, you have to go all the way back to John Kennedy to find any Democratic president who didn't come from a union-busting right-to-work state, so the position that Obama is staking here really is a game-changer. And not a minute to soon, far as I'm concerned.

---Vitelius

Mega-Open Thread

Time has blown past the Baron's poor blog lately. First, he went out of town, then he came down with the flu for two weeks, and to top it off, he's a had a fairly hectic social calendar of late, which likely wasn't the smartest thing to do given my sickness. I'll also admit, I haven't been feeling as bilious of late now that we have adult supervision in the White House. But now, with the host more or less returned to health, it's time for a little housecleaning today. I'll try to compose some trenchant analysis in time for the weekend.

• One week into the Obama administration, it appears as though the statute of limitations on Batack's Bipartisanhip Initiative has already expired. It really is simple: Obama ran as the candidate of change, the Republicans didn't, and Obama won. He's opened the door to the GOP, and they've slammed it shut in his face. Time to govern now, and if the brats on the doorstep want to hold their breath until they turn blue, let them. Obama and the rest of us, have work to do.

• Blago made his case before the Illinois legislature today, arguing that incipient assholism isn't sufficient grounds for impeachment. Apparently, the lawmakers didn't agree.

• Obama signed his first piece of legislation today. In case anyone still had any doubts, this is looking like the most unapologetically pro-labor Presidency we will have seen in 40 years, and more power to it.

• Obama also expressed some, er, indignation over certain Wall Street business practices of late. WHich is all well and good, but how about, well, signaling your displeasure in a more pointed fashion by simply not giving these bastards any more taxpayer rescue money instead?

• Even on its way out the door, the Bush administration couldn't help but stick it to the French one last time.

• In case you missed it last weekend, Bob Simon's top-notch if sobering report on everyday life for Palestinians in the West Bank for 60 Minutes bears watching. It's quite a statement that even mainstream media outlets such as CBS are daring to insinuate what has become more-or-less open knowledge these days, that Israel has effectively colonized the West Bank to the point that it can never completely disentangle from it, and hence sabotaging even the remote possibility of a two-state solution---at least, involving the West Bank. Unfortunately, to discuss the subject in the most obvious terms is still forbidden amongst the Wise Men of Washington, as Glennzilla (and others) have so eloquently noted. Either way, give the 60 Minutes report a watch---then remember, your tax dollars have helped to pay for it.

• Republicans in Congress are still blaming Fannie and Freddie for the failure of America's financial services sector, even though this brilliant post by Brad DeLong proves once again that they are patently full of shit.

• If you voted for Proposition 13 back in 1978, I sincerely hope you're happy now since you're finally getting the government you've always wanted. Unfortunately, the rest of us in California are stuck with it too.

• The government of Iraq would appear to have more decency and common sense than our own.

• The Iraqi people are obviously resilient. Despite having their country trashed courtesy of the Bush administration and US taxpayers, they apparently haven't lost a sense of humor.

• The Moose Whisperer has formed her own political action committee. Keep up the good good work, Sarah---we'll see you at the GOP Convention in 2012. Please!

Anything else? Let the open threads unravel.

---Vitelius

Birthday Greetings

Because we need more great masters on this blog.

---Vitelius

Gotta-Read of the Day

Back in the day when I was an Angry Liberal Blogger Consumed by Irrational Bush Hatred®, I would've spent the better part of today ranting against this familiar old target for espousing the familiar "liberal" line about moving on from past transgressions and not prosecuting the felonious behavior of GOP political leaders, etc. But today, we let a pro take over so we don't have to. Because we're too busy basking in the perpetual glow of bipartisanship. Or at least 'till Eric Holder takes charge at DOJ.

---Vitelius

The Defining Case for a War Crimes Probe

If there are still any folks in the Obama Administration who don't think it's advisable to investigate war crimes on the part of your predecessor, guess again: this story in today's Post renders such an investigation not only advisable, but necessary.

President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials---barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees---discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is "scattered throughout the executive branch," a senior administration official said. The executive order Obama signed Thursday orders the prison closed within one year, and a Cabinet-level panel named to review each case separately will have to spend its initial weeks and perhaps months scouring the corners of the federal government in search of relevant material.

Several former Bush administration officials agreed that the files are incomplete and that no single government entity was charged with pulling together all the facts and the range of options for each prisoner. They said that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were reluctant to share information, and that the Bush administration's focus on detention and interrogation made preparation of viable prosecutions a far lower priority . . .

In a court filing this month, Darrel Vandeveld, a former military prosecutor at Guantanamo who asked to be relieved of his duties, said evidence was "strewn throughout the prosecution offices in desk drawers, bookcases packed with vaguely-labeled plastic containers, or even simply piled on the tops of desks."

He said he once accidentally found "crucial physical evidence" that "had been tossed in a locker located at Guantanamo and promptly forgotten."

Why necessary? Because this finally puts to rest the concept that the Bush administration was the least bit interested in seeing terror suspects brought to justice, or even paying lip service to it. No executive department or individual was put in charge of gathering or collating evidence against suspects; no one was assigned the responsibility of coordinating evidence between agencies; no one, it appears, was even assigned the duty of building prosecutable cases against a number of suspects who were detained without charge for years.

And why did this happen? Because they didn't care. Repeat after me: They didn't fucking care. The Global War on Terror™, like every other stage-managed promotion of the Bush era, was not about adherence to legal precedent, or even about results. It was about the appearance of results and the illusion of legality. There were no plans in place to bring dozens of terror suspects to the bar of justice because the Bush people had no intention of ever showing them there. They would be tortured at Gitmo for as long as the torturers could hope to get away with it; then the suspects would either be rendered to secret prisons for more torture, or repatriated to their home countries under cover of darkness when they had outlived their usefulness.

And this is why Attorney General Holder must appoint a special war crimes investigator: Because we now know by the Bushies' complete indifference to legal processes that the sadistic behavior that was condoned at Gitmo was the end in itself, not a means to an end. The last legal fig leaf has been plucked away. There's no more time for excuses, and those of us who care in the least for our Constitutional rule of law should be willing to add our voices to the host of fellow citizens who refuse to be silent until a war crimes investigation is at the very least convened.

---Vitelius

Yet Another Side-Effect of Actually Having Grown-Ups Run The Federal Government

Happy and motivated government employees!

The reaction of State Department employees as Hillary Clinton arrived this morning apparently bears comparison to the liberation of Paris at the end of World War II.

There are great hopes for Hillary at State. I met last week with a number of career State Department employees and was surprised when one said she was looking forward to the “Glinda Party” next week. I asked her: if Hillary was Glinda, the Good Witch of the South from the Wizard of Oz, did that make Condoleezza Rice the Wicked Witch of the West?

“You’re on to it,” she said. Another person pointed out to me that after Rice’s arrival in 2005 the tone of official State Department publications changed; they began to praise and glorify Rice. “No prior secretary,” said the twenty-year veteran, “did anything like this.”

---Vitelius

Virtual Reality of the Year

Move over, Super Obama World: Calvinball mets the TSA. Now playing on your iPhone as well.

---Vitelius

The First 100 Hours

I sure as heck have no idea how the first hundred days are going to pan out, but the first two days of the Grown-Up Administration have been, well, a dream come true: "Enhanced interrogation" is out, the Army Field Manual is in, CIA overseas prisons are no more, Guantanamo will be shuttered inside of a year, there are no more renditions to nations that torture, and the Bush family can't claim executive privilege over their White House papers forever. I am sure Obama will disappoint us progresssives . . . eventually . . . over something . . . but for now, I sure am enjoying this. Guess he really meant it when he swore to uphold the Constitution on Old Abe's Bible the other day because so far, he's been keeping his promise.

---Vitelius

Transportblogging: Interstates We Can Believe In?

Over at Steve Coll's excellent new Fox & Hounds blogsite, local journo Joe Mathews implores Obama to use the power of the federal purse to intervene in one of Southern California's longest-running regional turf wars: The 710 Freeway extension through the legendarily "endangered" city of South Pasadena:

For a half-century, the 710 has been unfinished. It was supposed to go all the way from the Port of Long Beach up to Pasadena, where it would connect to the 210 Freeway, allowing drivers and truckers to skirt downtown LA on their way northwest (to the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita, the Antelope Valley or even the Central Valley). But the highway stops 6 miles short of the 210 in Pasadena, dumping drivers onto the surface streets of Alhambra. Why? The power of one very well organized special interest: the residents and city fathers of South Pasadena.

For decades, South Pasadena has blocked this last bit of the interstate highway system with legal and other appeals. South Pasadenans know that the freeway would go through the center of their town, making it a much louder, less pleasant place. Of course, their actions have made other cities in the region louder, less pleasant places. The people of nearby Alhambra and Pasadena (disclosure: Pasadena's my hometown) have made clear they want the freeway to no avail.

This is a classic case of the needs of the few frustrating the needs of the many. The 710 is the main transportation artery out of America's largest port, the Port of Long Beach. It'd be a big boost for commerce if the freeway didn't abruptly end before its destination. Truckers are instead forced onto other freeways, clogging traffic---and slowing the business and personal lives of others. And with the country requiring an economic boost, there's no better time than right now to get construction started. This isn't a bridge to nowhere---it's a vital transportation link in the middle of a metropolitan area. And you want to talk shovel-ready? The 710 has been waiting for shovels to finish it for 50 years.

I'm no expert on urban planning, but speaking as a guy who's lived close to half a century in and around the city of LA, I'm not so sure how shovel-ready a 710 extension is anymore. Perhaps 50 years ago, when the hollow-and-hill country of the old Castilla land grant west of Alhambra was more sparsely populated than it is now. This isn't like the 210 extension from San Dimas to Rancho Cucamonga, built 10 years ago as a straight-line road-level shot along mostly undeveloped frontage. To get from Alhambra to Pasadena these days, you will almost have to either elevate or sink the roadbed, which only escalates your already foreboding construction costs; to simply build an eight-lane Interstate extension, you are looking at construction costs of upwards of a billion dollars per mile, and that's without factoring in your related public domain seizures and reimbursements. Which, it might be added, only figure to get even more costly once you proceed north of the 110 along the last mile and a half of the route, where the proposed 710 extension would slice through one of the priciest neighborhoods on Pasadena's (extremely) affluent south side before reaching the Del Mar connector.

Now, there's also a Caltrans study underway (it kicked off last summer) to test the feasibility of digging a 710 tunnel extension beneath South Pasadena instead, but again, this is going to be extremely costly given the total mileage involved, $10 billion or more for what at this point amounts to a six-mile connecting road.

Now Joe Mathews makes some good points, particularly regarding the stubbornness (bordering on snobbishness) of South Pasadena's resident community. And he's also right to say, at this point in time, that this project will never be completed (if it ever is) without federal impetus behind it. There simply isn't any money in Sacramento to kick-start this project, most likely ever. However, I think he understates the effect a 710 extension would have on South Pasadena, at least as it has been typically proposed; whether elevated or sunken, an eight-lane highway through the heart of South Paz would basically trash the community, the locals know it, and that's why they've fought against it, hammer and tong, for over four decades.

Joe Mathews' argument is in the end an egalitarian one, and taken in that light, it can't be easily dismissed. But the essay begs a larger question: Should we be asking the federal government to spend money on transit projects that make it more convenient for us to get from Points A and B to C and D in our cars, or should government spend that same money on public works projects that will encourage more of us to get out of our cars, and into alternative modes of transportation such as light rail and buses, with the aim of (a) relieving urban Interstates corridors of surplus commuter traffic to expedite the flow of commercial traffic, and (b) creating transit hubs around which higher-density, pedestrian-friendly communities can develop? You know, like, walkable neighborhoods with character and street life, and local businesses and shops? Neighborhoods like, well, South Pasadena, come to think of it.

---Vitelius

The Inauguration Speech

Well, he has always tended to treat us like grownups, and damn if he didn't do it again today. He could have given us some boilerplate Shining City on a Hill of a Thousand Points of Light Where Change Has Finally Come to America, but instead he used his gift of inspiring and uplifting language to pour a the rhetorical equivalent of a bucket of ice water on us. Barely five minutes into the speech, after a summing up our current state of crisis and anxiety, Obama sums up:

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.

Of course, this is an obvious denunciation of Bush-era politics, but it's also a pretty stinging rebuke to anyone who ever got caught up in the Sandbox Politics of the past eight years. Whether we like it or not, there were 60 million people who voted for Bush the last time around, and while plenty of those people would just as soon like to forget it, I suspect that Obama isn't going to let them---or the rest of us---off the hook so easily. The same goes for all the Tommy Friedmans and Richard Cohens out there who got on the Iraq bandwagon just because we had to kick some Arab ass; for all of us who ever treated the Bush people as good-faith businessmen, from September 11, 2001 to the September '08 bailout (Obama included); for all the greedy little speculators big and small who got conned by the likes of Bernie Madoff promising huge riches for no risk; for everyone who ever fell for the foolish and unsustainable notion of a mortgage-based Ownership Society. Obama knows there's plenty of blame to go around for the last eight years, and that's why he didn't call out the outgoing administration on anything too specific. In a lot of ways, they gave millions of people on both sides of the aisle something they desperately wanted, be it global war on Islam or zero-interest home loans. It certainly says volumes about Obama's writing and rhetorical skills that he could turn such a sobering speech into a sweeping call for uplift and renewal, and that the crowds and pundits in attendance seemed receptive to his appeal, but apparently he managed to pull it off.

Finally, let's hope today's opening invocation has weaned Obama off the idea, once and for all, of any further fellowship with the likes of Rick Warren. The scion of Saddleback could have played it straight---as did Obama, with his nods of equal respect toward Muslims, Jews, Hindus and non-believers---by invoking our universal human creator in his address, but doggone it, he just couldn't resist invoking the name of Rick Warren's creator instead. And that's the problem with people like Warren, and with their creed---it is at once selfish and narcissistic, self-promoting, and more than a little corrupt. Thankfully we got a real pastor to close out the inauguration ceremony with reflections and invocations of genuine faith.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on he side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

---Vitelius

Blogging the Bush Years, in 50 Words or Less

2001: September 11.
2002: Axis of Evil.
2003: Shock and Awe.
2004: Abu Ghraib.
2005: Heckuva job.
2006: Loyal Bushies.
2007: Telco immunity.
2008: The Great Meltdown.

In the end, I think it's all right there: Incompetence, secrecy, politicization. The Bush Legacy in a nut.

---Vitelius

"Nah, We Straight"

One imagines there won't be many more outings such as this for the next four years, but if our Unitary Chowhound needs some home-cooked chili delivered, I am at his service.

---Vitelius

This Wouldn't Have Happened if Jimmy Carter Was President

On the final weekend of the second Bush Administration, a poetic parting gift from the Era of E. Coli Conservatism. Hope you like those jelly sandwiches, kids.

---Vitelius

Profound Insight of the Day

Y'know, it is finally, finally dawning on me that Obama is actually going to be President one day.

---Vitelius

Views From My Window

Detroit, Michigan, 8:00 am.

---Vitelius

In Praise of Anti-Heroism

Given the circumstances, this kind of coverage isn't too surprising, but I'd caution against labeling the brave and facile pilot of US Air Flight 1549---or anyone else, for that matter---a "hero." Perhaps I'm over-semanticizing here, but the word strikes me as one of the most overused, and hence meaningless, in the language, like "genius," or "artist."

Personally, I really don't think there's anything as a hero per se among homo sapiens. Such an appellation suggests the possession by a small group of adepts of some sort of superhuman powers that simply aren't available to us mortals. It's a convenient way to explain the inexplicable, such as yesterday's disaster averted, but it's also a convenient mechanism for letting ourselves off the hook when things go wrong. ("Our heroes have failed us!" is a common meme trotted out by certain public thinkers as an attempt to explain the failure of Utopia to materialize in our lifetimes, despite their best assurances.)

Now, that's to not say, that there aren't people who aren't capable of performing what we would call heroic acts on a moment's notice by virtue of their training and temperament, because there clearly are. And judging by his resume, it would certainly appear that Capt. Sullenburger was, simply put, the right man at the right time and place to bring down a mortally wounded Airbus safely in that particular environment.

Put it this way: what if the pilot of Flight 1549 had been a certain Capt. Jones, who, while possessed of nearly the same degree of experience as Capt. Sullenburger, had made just the slightest, minutest fractional deviation during his emergency landing maneuver while following all other procedures to the letter, and laid down the A320's fuselage just the slightest bit too soon, causing the plane to break apart and killing all passengers and crew? What if Capt. Jones had followed the exact same procedures as Capt. Sullenburger before running into a bit of bad luck---a sudden wind shear, perhaps--- a hundred feet above the water line, causing the Airbus to plunge nose-first into the Hudson? Would Capt. Jones be a hero to us today, or merely another casualty to be background-checked by the NTSB? I think you can see where we are going here.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, while we celebrate the good fortune, and the great skill, of the US Air pilot, his crew and the passengers, we should be careful not to lapse into sloppy and careless thinking when offering up our tributes. After eight years of beholding manufactured heroes strutting the decks of aircraft carriers in flight suits, and serving up plastic turkeys in Marine barracks in Iraq, we should be aware by now of ascribing superhuman qualities to all-too-ordinary people.

---Vitelius

The Brawn (and Bluster) of the Blogosphere

Okay, okay, I'm back from a break that was longer than anticipated. I was in Detroit last weekend covering the North American Auto Show for my day job. Then my laptop died, and I buried it in the bowels of the Reniasssance Center. Then I came down with the flu, and stayed in bed for a couple of days. Now then, time to return to skewering some some sacred critters.

Courtesy of David Brock, Eric Boehlert at Media Matters examines the Moose Whisperer's latest claims of victimization by media, pronounces them patently full of shit, but then devotes a great deal of bandwidth chastising those of us in the blogosphere who smelled something rotten in Wasilla Denmark over the provenance of Trig Palin and who dared to speculate in public about it:

"I strongly believe [Andrew] Sullivan should have laid off this. I could have linked to it yesterday, but didn't, since at that point it was only fodder for a pseudonymous diarist at the Daily Kos," wrote Dan Kennedy at his site, Media Nation, just hours after Sullivan posted."This is the sort of hurtful story that reputable news organizations should check out thoroughly before injecting into the debate. I mean, come on. Does anyone think Josh Marshall hasn't been following this? Or dozens of other liberal political blogs and Web sites, including Media Nation? None of us went there, and Sullivan shouldn't have, either. This is the definition of a story that shouldn't be hashed out publicly."

Perhaps not. But was it surprising that some observers in the blogosphere reacted the way they did? Let's recount: Sarah Palin concealed her fourth pregnancy from everyone in Juneau for over seven months---even from her own chief of staff---until she was no longer physically able to do so. For someone who claims to unabashedly celebrate the Culture of Life®, this seems an odd choice to make. The question: Why the secrecy? When Palin's water broke and she needed to hustle herself off immediately to the nearest maternity ward, she instead embarked on a 2,000-mile transcontinental airflight that virtually every OB-GYN who was interviewed for this story characterized as dangerous, life-threatening, and reckless in the extreme. Again, this makes no sense from someone who values the Culture of Life®. Why the recklessness? No official record of Trig's birth is apparent at the hospital in Wasilla where he was born, and the Palin family refused---and still refuses, to this day---to release as much as a photocopy of the baby's birth certificate. Why the enduring mystery? It seems to me that those are the kinds of questions that people like Eric Boehlert need to be asking, not flagellating a few of us in the blogosphere who chased a cat up the wrong tree for a few days before getting a grip. (For the record, I never subscribed to the "Bristol maternity" meme either, and didn't blog about it here. But take a look all at all the minutiae in this story from a big-picture perspective: Here you had a young and relatively unknown political player suddenly bursting upon the national scene: All we really knew for sure was that she was a governor, aspired to the White House, and had already shown a penchant for secrecy, recklessness and concealment. Sound familiar? Is it any wonder why a few red flags shot up across the blogosphere over this?)

Now, asking for some clarification from the Palins over little Trig is not, repeat not, like asking the Clintons to prove that they didn't kill Vince Foster--disproving the negative, as it's said, is impossible. This is about simply clarifying the particulars surrounding an event that demonstrably did happen under some rather extraordinary circumstances, and which Palin and her handlers have done their best to obfuscate by erecting all manner of smokescreens. So the speculation about whether Sarah Palin was Trigg's mother was erroneous. So what? Not every tip that Woodward and Bernstein ran down in their Watergate research panned out either. And the one indisputable fact in this matter, then and now, is that the Palins could have easily shot down, disarmed and otherwise disabled the rumor mill that spun wildly over Trig's parentage by simply providing some plain and honest explanations of the candidate's behavior during the late stages of her latest pregnancy. That, and a copy of Trig's birth certificate. The fact that they still refuse to produce one still makes this, in my opinion, a perfectly valid story to to run with.

Simply put: these people have been trying to conceal something all along: An honest journalist would ask, what is it?

Then again, when an otherwise harmless spinner of fanciful yarns such as Jayson Blair can be blacklisted from the profession while a fawning courtesan of high power such as Tim Russert can be eulogized as a titan of modern-day journalism, where unabashed apologists for lawbreaking such as Bill Kristol and active collaborators in government misinformation campaigns such as Judith Miller can be rewarded with book deals and think-tank appointments, I suppose it's perfectly normal that we save our most outraged opprobrium for the likes of Andrew Sullivan. Beltway journalism isn't really about exposing inconvenient truths anymore---it's all just an elaborately stylized public relations game. The only genuinely important thing lies in knowing your client, and trimming your message to push the client's product. And that's the biggest difference between the folks at the Times or the Post or even the New Republic---their clients are different than Andy Sullivan's, or mine.

Now I need to lie down in the barnyard for awhile. The swine flu is a rough one to shake off.

Update: Another thing to consider when claims and counterclaims of groundless conspiracy theories are being bandied about is the source of all the outraged anguish. It ain't pretty, but it does reveal things, if one stops to think about it a bit.

---Vitelius