Is there a better Other than Kim Jong Il? A Central Casting classic. And how very retro to have an Asian supervillian in these days of Arab-fear…
Amid the rhetoric and red flags (of all kinds), the basic scenario remains as it has for decades: the US will decide who will or will not own or use WMD, and North Korea currently tops the NO list. Thing is, there’s really not much Bush can do about Kim’s stockpile, especially militarily, as any strike would immediately result in Seoul’s destruction, assaults on Japan, and God knows what else. Indeed, a resumption of the Korean war would be a very bad thing all around, which is why Bush is reduced to telling Kim, “We expect you to adhere to international norms,” a command that is both laughable and serious — laughable in the sense that Bush is instructing anyone on global etiquette, but serious in that such blazing hypocrisy is indeed the “international norm.” There are Masters and there are Servants, and Kim is decidedly the latter, a role he continually rejects.
And that is the true nub of this whole “crisis”: Kim’s refusal to assume the position. I know there are numerous obstacles, mostly domestic, that tie Bush’s hands on this front, but still, how hard would it be to put Kim on the payroll? Lord knows the US has bankrolled far worse, and allows other nations to behave in ways that would get North Korea baked were they to act in kind (see Israel in Gaza), so I really don’t see the problem here. Yes, the native ideologues would bark and foam at the very thought, but a serious geopolitical player would make them choke on their own bile. Picture Richard Nixon arriving in Pyongyang, shaking Kim’s hand and slapping him on the back, reviewing his troops and toasting him at a state banquet. Think Kim could resist that? Please…
But Bush is no Nixon. Hell, he rates below Agnew on the political hustler scale. So, here we’ll remain, stuck between calls for military action and Cold War-style containment, when the solution is right in front of us: pay Kim off. What better way to show him the glories of capitalism?
The rest of Dennis’ sensible suggestions are here.
Democratic voters in Connecticut have the right to nominate the candidate of their choice. But it is more than a little disturbing for the longtime popular senator (and the party’s 2000 nominee for vice president) to be targeted for defeat by national fundraisers based on his foreign policy views. There were principled people on both sides of the debate to go to war in Iraq. This page did not support the war, but it cannot cheer on liberal activists who run the risk of being guilty of the same sort of insistence on ideological purity that they deplore in Republicans.
The Democratic Party — the party of Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy — is a big enough tent to include voices on the conservative end of national security policy. Lieberman’s views shouldn’t trigger a nationwide jihad against him.
Speaking as a Connecticut voter, I’m just awfully sorry to learn that these delicate Angelenos find it disturbing to witness democracy in action. The fact of the matter is, Lieberman is a pisspoor excuse for a Democrat, and that’s saying a lot given that the Democrats themselves are mostly a pisspoor excuse for an opposition party. We sure as hell don’t need a Democrat who plays kissy-face with the President, supporting everything from the nomination of Torturin’ Al Gonzales (”I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt”), to this misbegotten war. A Democrat who suggests that rape victims who can’t get proper medical care simply take a “short hike” to another hospital. Etc., etc. Look, I was prematurely anti-Lieberman — I was appalled when Gore chose him as a running mate in 2000, for chrissakes. This is absolutely not about a “single issue” for me — but even if it were, well, the war’s a pretty goddamn big issue isn’t it? Pretty much the defining issue of the day. And the Democratic voters of Connecticut have every right to say, this man simply does not represent my values — and to work to try to replace him. (afterthought: if that resonates on a national level, great. But the decision is ultimately up to the voters of Connecticut, “nationwide jihad” notwithstanding.)
Anyway — and I say this with great affection, as a former longtime Californian — I’m not sure Connecticut voters really need to be lectured about appropriate political behavior by residents of a state in which a legitimately-elected governor was recalled and then replaced — out a field of candidates that also included a porn star, a down-on-his-luck former child actor, and Arianna Huffington — with an actor best known for playing a killer robot from the future.
Like Tom said earlier, go read Glenn Greenwald’s piece about the terror-inciting tactics of the right wing. For me, this is the most chilling part of the post :
This weekend, prominent neoconservative David Horowitz proclaimed that the United States is fighting a war and “the aggressors in this war are Democrats, liberals and leftists.” In particular, he cited the now infamous NYT Travel section article on Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld’s vacation homes as evidence that the employees of the NYT are among the enemies in this war, and he then linked to and recommended as a “proposal for action” this post from his associate, Front Page contributor Rocco DiPippo. The post which Horowitz recommended was entitled “Where Does Punch Sulzberger Live?” and this is what it said:
I issue a call to the blogosphere to begin finding and publicly listing the addresses of all New York Times reporters and editors. Posting pictures of their residences, along with details of any security measures in place to protect the properties and their owners (such as location of security cameras and on-site security details) should also be published.
DiPippo published the home address of NYT Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, along with directions to his home, and linked to a post by right-wing blogger Dan Riehl which contained directions to Sulzberger’s home along with photographers of it. In a now-deleted post, DiPippo also published the home address of Linda Spillers, the NYT photographer who took the photograph of Don Rumsfeld’s vacation home (with Rumsfeld’s express permission), and he urged everyone to go (presumably to the home address he provided) and confront Spillers about her actions.
In an update, Greenwald links to the Supreme Court’s 1982 NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware and notes “I do not believe that the despicable statements referenced in this post can or should be grounds for criminal or civil liability…The point is that these statements are despicable and dangerous, not illegal.” While I respect his adherence to the First Amendment, I believe the conduct of Horowitz, DiPippo, and their fellow thugs have more in common with their tactical brethren American Coalition of Life Activists. The ACLA as you may recall made headlines with their website “The Nuremberg Files” in which they posted the names and addresses of abortion providers. Just last month the Supreme Court refused to hear the final appeal by the ACLA, essentially upholding the 199 Oregon District Court decision that concluded :
I conclude from my independent review of the evidence produced at trial that plaintiffs have proven by clear and convincing evidence that each defendant, acting independently and as a co-conspirator, prepared, published and disseminated the “Deadly Dozen” Poster, the Poster of Dr. Robert Crist and the “Nuremberg Files” with specific intent and malice in a blatant and illegal communication of true threats to kill, assault or do bodily harm to each of the plaintiffs and with the specific intent to interfere with or intimidate the plaintiffs from engaging in legal medical practices and procedures.[1]
I totally reject the defendants’ attempts to justify their actions as an expression of opinion or as a legitimate and lawful exercise of free speech in order to dissuade the plaintiffs from engaging in providing abortion services.
The law requires a higher level of scrutiny and proof for an injunction involving speech than for an award of damages for violation of a statute. [See Madsen v. Women’s Health Center, 512 U.S., 753 (1994). I find the actions of the defendants in preparing, publishing and disseminating these true threats objectively and subjectively[2] were not protected speech under the First Amendment.
. . .
For purposes of this Order and Preliminary Injunction, I consider a person to make a “true threat” when the person makes a statement that, in context, a reasonable listener would interpret as communicating a serious expression of an intent to inflict or cause serious harm on or to the listener (objective); and the speaker intended that the statement be taken as a threat that would serve to place the listener in fear for his or her personal safety, regardless of whether the speaker actually intended to carry out the threat (subjective).
That last part decribing a “true threat” from the footnotes of the opinion is especially important in that it decribes the threshold that must be crossed in order for unpopular speech to no longer be covered by the First Amendment. The “true threat” test was also discussed in the recent Supreme Court ruling that cross-burning by the Ku Klux Klan isn’t a constitutionally protected form of speech. (PDF)
“True threats” encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. See Watts v. United States, supra, at 708 (”political hyberbole” is not a true threat); R. A. V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U. S., at 388. The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats “protect[s] individuals from the fear of violence” and “from the disruption that fear engenders,” in addition to protecting people from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur.” Ibid. Intimidation in the constitutionally proscribable sense of the word is a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death. Respondents do not contest that some cross burnings fit within this meaning of intimidating speech, and rightly so. As noted in Part II, supra, the history of cross burning in this country shows that cross burning is often intimidating, intended to create a pervasive fear in victims that they are a target of violence.
By posting the personal information NYT employees, the right-wing blogosphere is engaging in the exact same conduct as “The Nuremberg Files” (which resulted in a $5 million judgement against the ACLA). This isn’t political speech we’re talking about here. The right-wing bloggers are targeting their percieved enemies through implied threats of violence. The First Amendment gives us tremendous leeway when it comes to expressing unpopular and reprehensible ideas, but it doesn’t give you the right to incite terror.
Many young people come to me and ask: what is fascism? It’s a question political philosophers have studied for decades.
In the end, though, the answer is really quite simple. Here’s a handy guide to understanding what fascism is, and just as importantly, what fascism is not.
As I documented at length this weekend, Michelle Malkin, John Hinderaker, Red State, David Horowitz and many others of that sort spent the weekend engaged in the most vicious and self-evidently misguided attacks on The New York Times based on a puff piece in this weekend’s “Escapes” section. Because the article contained a photograph of Don Rumsfeld’s vacation home, they insisted that this was reckless and even retaliatory– i.e., done with the intent to enable Al Qaeda operatives and other assassins to murder Rumsfeld (as well as Dick Cheney), and that it was further evidence of the war being waged by the NYT and its employees on the Bush administration and the U.S.
For so many obvious reasons, based on easily obtainable information — including the fact that multiple right-wing news outlets such as NewsMax and Fox had previously disclosed this same information months earlier, that this information is commonly reported about government leaders in both parties, and the fact that we always know where our top government officials live and spend their weekends because they have Secret Service protection — these accusations were as false as they were hysterical.
But in addition to those known reasons, I strongly suspected that the Times would not have published those photographs unless they had made certain in advance that doing so would not conflict with Rumsfeld and Cheney’s security concerns. But I did not make this argument because I was not sure that it was true, and unlike Michelle Malkin and John Hinderaker, I’d rather wait to obtain the relevant evidence before running around asserting facts “based” on nothing. As a result, I wrote e-mails yesterday to Linda Spillers (the photographer) and Peter Kilborn (the reporter) bringing these accusations to their attention and asking for a response.
Although I haven’t heard yet from Kilborn, I received an e-mail from Spillers this morning, in which she said:
Ironically, photos were taken with Secretary Rumsfeld’s permission.
The reprehensible lynch mob hysterics - Michelle Malkin, John Hinderaker, Red State, David Horowitz - spent the weekend screaming that the Times was guilty of gross recklessness and/or a deliberate intent to have Rumsfeld killed, by virtue of publication of this article. That bloodthirsty frenzy caused other bloggers to publish the home address and telephone number of Spillers and urged that other NYT editors and reporters be “hunted down.” Other followers of Malkin and Hinderaker suggested to their readers that this was yet more evidence of the unpatriotic recklessness of the NYT.
All along, Don Rumsfeld gave his express permission to the NYT for these photographs to be taken. How can anything other than complete scorn be heaped on Malkin, Hinderaker, Horowitz, Red State, and all of the uber-patriotic copycat accusers who spent the weekend spewing the most dangerous accusations possible based on completely false premises? Who would think that any of them have a shred of credibility after seeing how irresponsible and impervious to facts they are — even when knowingly catalyzing lynch mobs against people?
These people should never, ever be taken seriously. They are complete idiots.
Update: follow-ups from Glenn and Billmon, which you really don’t want to miss.
–The winners of the signed book contest from Michael Moore’s site have been notified via email, but unfortunately, some of them haven’t sent in a mailing address yet. Check your email, because if they don’t hear from you within a week, new winners will be selected. (I’ve got a box of books sitting in my hallway waiting to be signed, and I’d really like to get them out of there.)
–Atrios is exactly right about this morning’s cartoon — reality has outpaced satire. I finished the new one before reading that talk show hosts really were fantasizing about ugly ways for Bill Keller to die, and that real life Rightwing Nutcases were trying to find out what schools the reporters they dislike send their children to. Believe it or not, when I finished the cartoon last Thursday, I was worried that the Rightwing Nutcase’s violent rhetoric would seem way too over the top. Now I think I didn’t go far enough.
The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court….
“The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11,'’ plaintiff’s lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. “This undermines that assertion.'’
It also kind of undermines the assertion that warrantless spying will help protect us from acts of terror, doesn’t it?
… more here. This is seriously beyond the pale. The New York Times has lawyers — it’s time to use them, slap down this dangerous bullshit with some C&D letters (which will almost certainly make these brave little armchair vigilantes wet their pants in fear, incidentally).
