With a week to go before a close election, the New York Times continues to move beyond Democratic cocooning (though it does some of that too) in the direction of flat-out misrepresentation.Yes, I'm getting a bad feeling from the New York Times this week. The whole front page seems designed to orchestrate a sense of destiny and entitlement about the election.
Of course, it's not just the NYT. Anyway, if the Democrats don't win, everyone's going to wake up on Wednesday and wonder how that could have happened. I remember sitting down to watch the election returns in '04, entirely resigned to watching the news of the Kerry victory accumulate through the evening. At one point, I muted the TV to talk on the phone for about an hour and hardly noticed as the real outcome started registering.
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I think once you resign yourself to the realization that the media is indistinguishable from the media relations arm of the Democratic party, it makes more sense. (And in many cases, are in fact the same - Chris Matthews is Carter's speechwriter.)
Agreed. Anyone who does not recognize that Kerry has contempt for the military has not been paying attention and will likely not get ever it. His speech in 1972 and the recent "joke" come from the same worldview. He has not and will not change. Big deal, move on.
But the current political process draws heavily from Jerry Springer drama for inspiration, so the Republicans will try to surf this to the election.
What about the economy? What about abortion? What about the war? What about our immigration problem?
Glad I early voted.
Trey
The Republicans cannot lose if everyone votes as often as Ann Coulter did.
Gerry:
The Dems have to take the polls that favor them seriously, it forms the basis of their accusation that the election was stolen.
Dems/Reps = Same Thing (Crooks)
Ann says she's getting a bad feeling about the NYT this week, but unfortunately the problem is a bit bigger that just this week's coverage. There was a time when the NYT took its reputation as the "paper of record" seriously. Today, its model seems to be Le Monde, or perhaps the Guardian -- clearly identified with a particular political party, with the understanding that its reporting will toe the party line. Both Le Monde and the Guardian are, in their different ways, worth reading. But you know in advance that what you're getting is not "all the news that's fit to print."
Mortimer - I've read that Coulter cast her ballot in the wrong precinct but never heard anyone accuse her of voting more than once in the same election. What are you talking about?
For some reason, when thinking about a subject such as this (and one or two of the responses), I am reminded of Jack Nickolson's line ... "The truth? You can't handle the truth."
Conservatives display a ridiculous inferiority complex by appearing to seek validation for their beliefs in the pages of the NYT.
I totally agree with this comment of Edward's. 2/3rds of Hugh Hewitt's site is dedicated to complaining about the MSM and the stories it ignores, gets wrong, and the favoritism it shows. It sticks in his craw (Malkin, Powerline, and the others are the same) that the MSM won't admit they are partisan. Well, why should they admit they are partisan? If they did, they wouldn't be as effective in promoting their partisan agenda!
But -- if they aren't fooling you, Hugh Hewitt & co., who are they fooling? By this time, probably nobody. Does anyone under 80 pick up the New York Times and say, "Ahhh, now for some completely objective, unbiased reporting!"
Hewitt and many other Republicans are convinced that the Democrats will prevail in this election, if they do, completely because of the media. And yet, in the same breath, they brag about how blogs and the Web are supplanting the MSM, and that the MSM's circulation/viewership numbers are down. If that's true, why bother complaining about the MSM anymore? Evidently, these papers want a smaller, more homogeneous audience. They've heard your complaints about bias--and they have made it pretty clear they aren't gonna change. So, you know, move on. Succeed in your own venues.
The history of media being partisan is much longer and more vibrant than the relatively brief history of the media being "objective." History shows us -- the "objectivity" of the media was a marketing scheme all along. It's obviously not as relevant to them now, so they've dropped it.
They’re just putting forward the best candidates they can and making the case that they will do better than this failed Congressional leadership.
Given that the Republicans have had pretty much the same policies for the last three elections, doesn't the fact that the Democrats kept getting trounced anyway suggest that either (a) they aren't picking the best candidates or (b) they haven't GOT any good candidates?
The Democrats are doing better this time because the public approval of the Republicans has finally fallen low enough for Democrats to look like a lesser evil. But when you consider just how low those approval ratings are, and how close the election is anyway, that says something about the current state of the Democratic Party.
Fen,
They essentially have. And conservatives have done a pretty good job of tarring them with that depiction. It's over. Media is partisan now. I don't care what they pretend anymore. I read the NY Times because it's a great paper; and it happens to have a serious liberal bias. I don't watch much cable news, but I do watch Fox's coverage from time to time (not O'Reilly or Hannity-bleah) and I can see why Republicans tend to prefer it. But they still do a very creditable job.
There's just something irritating about all the complaining, especially people like Hewitt who waste hours on the radio asking reporters the same question: "How did you vote in the last election?" I mean literally. He'll ask it 25 times in a row. Most reporters never tell him. Well--there's your fucking answer!
If that's true, why bother complaining about the MSM anymore?
You know the answer to that, John, as well as I do: because it sells / draws viewers, as in "if it bleeds, it leads." Most political blogs would be extremely dull if not for the picking apart of the "conventional wisdom" as expressed in the "conventional press."
History shows us -- the "objectivity" of the media was a marketing scheme all along. It's obviously not as relevant to them now, so they've dropped it.
True, but most people alive today were raised believing that objectivity was not a marketing tool but a sacred pillar of society and have a hard time accepting the fact that it isn't.
They essentially have. And conservatives have done a pretty good job of tarring them with that depiction. It's over. Media is partisan now.
I'd take issue with the "now", since the only difference between now and a few decades ago is that there's more than one political pole represented among the partisanship.
But in any case, it is not widely admitted on the left that the media is biased in their favor. Hell, a significant minority claims the media is biased in favor of the *Republicans*.
edward,
CNN and MSNBC are much closer to being objective than people here give them credit for.
If you're talking about news coverage rather than the opinion segments, Fox is does an even better job of being "fair and balanced" than CNN and MSNBC do.
Edward - Please name the news programs you actually watch. My guess is that you are not talking about news programs, but opinion programs.
Hardball is NOT a news program. Bill O'Reilly's Factor is NOT a news program. Olbermann is NOT a reporter - he is an opinionator, like a columnist. Nancy Grace, on the other hand.... well, there's absolutely no excuse for whatever it is that Nancy Grace does.
I'm surprised by what Edward says. We live in New York City, and we don't get the New York Times. Most of the important news (like the yield curve being inverted lately) is in the Journal. And if there ever is anything important in the Times, Prof. Althouse will let me know.
Ronin,
I don't mind what used to be called the Fisking of stories in the media. That's a great thing about the Internet and blog world. But it seems like the bottom line is to prove a case that's long since been proven -- bias. Instead, just tear the story up factually. What did they get wrong? What did they leave out?
Frankly, I wish the left would do more of this. Their blogs tend to look at everything from the standpoint of "good for us? bad for us?" If they hate Fox News so much, get a transcript and show us where all these Rovian lies are buried. There's a bit of a smug reaction you get on those sites: Name-calling instead of actual analysis.
Like Sean, I discoverd many years ago that the Wall Street Journal was the best source of national news that really mattered, with a relatively light editorial slant.
I'm with you all the way, John. Like you, I find Hewitt's interviews increasingly boring because they are so repetitive. (Which is too bad, because there is occasionally a gem or two buried therein but it is getting so hard to slog through to find it that I think there must be better things for me to do - like trim my toenails.)
What I'm trying to say is that Hewitt's schtick will continue as long as it works for him. You and I are tired of it, but his regular readers aren't, and they are his targets, not us.
As for the left criticism of Fox, the only occsaions I have seen someone actually mention something specific have involved O'Reilly or Hannity & Colmes. I am suprised how many intelligent people can't make a distinction between news and opinion.
Edward - Please cite one specific instance of a Wall Street Journal editorial confusing homosexuality with pedophilia.
"Oh grow up," gj rightly advises. The NYT has always been written by and for bien pensant Manhattanites. It's true that the NYT's advocacy-journalism these last few election cycles has been particularly shrill. But even in the pre-Pinch Sulzberger days, it was never all that difficult to detect the political agenda.
If you want to see what real, unblushing political bias looks like, take a look at any archival newspaper from the 19th century.
If you want to see what real, unblushing political bias looks like, take a look at any archival newspaper from the 19th century.
Boy ain't that the truth. One of Madison's papers in the 1860s was owned by the Mayor! Guess what it's editorial slant was?
No need to go back to the 19th century. Just about any time before the late 1950's should do.
Until then, almost every large town had two papers - one Republican and the other Democrat. The morning paper was usually pro-GOP and the afternoon paper was pro-Democrat.
Republicans who have never lived in Los Angeles might be surprised to learn just how rabidly Republican the Los Angeles Times was (and that it is still a non-union shop). Hearst papers were unabashed Democratic Party boosters throughout WR Hearst's lifetime. (I can imagine that some fans of Citizen Kane might be surprised by this.)
No, Edward, I don't want long quotes from WSJ editorials you believe are homophobic. I can do that myself, if I wanted to.
You specifically alleged that Wall Street Journal editorials routinely confuse pedophilia and homosexuality. I submit that you can provide no such evidence and that your statement was a gross misrepresentation of fact.
Once again, Edward, I ask you to provide a direct quote where the Wall Street Journal editorialized that gay men as scout leaders are a "grave threat." There may actually be one in this case, but I've never seen it myself, and I've read most of their editorials on this subject in the past decade, so I'd appreciate a citation.
What I recall of their editorials is the consistent position that what private organizations decide about the makeup of their membership is the business of private organizations, a position the Wall Street Journal has advanced, for good or ill, throughout its history.
The WSJ basically said that Foley’s misbehavior with the young male pages is exactly what you should expect from a gay man in power who has access to male adolescents. If that’s not homophobic, I don’t know what is.
The only WSJ article I could find about Foley's behavior was this one, which says nothing of the kind.
After hearing you spin Boehner's observation that Rumsfeld is not the sole commander of the US Armed Forces as "blaming the generals for Iraq" I don't know that I trust you to honestly summarize anything. Go find the editorial and link it.
And in any case, it would only be homophobic if they said a straight male wouldn't behave similarly towards female adolescents. Last I checked, the WSJ wasn't supportive of the idea of middle-aged men and teenaged girls spending a lot of time together either.
For the record, Edward: Pedophilia involves young children who have not reached puberty. Pederasty is the term used for sexual interest in those who have. There is a difference.
Do you mean this editorial, entitled, "The Foley Fires"?
We hope that when the Mark Foley story expires, the Washington political community will step back to reflect. It is generally argued that stories such as this gain prominence because the news is slow. But the news cycle is not slow. Russia is imposing trade and travel restrictions on an independent nation (see the editorial on Georgia nearby1). It was possible as we went to press yesterday that North Korea this weekend would carry out an underground nuclear-weapon test; and if it does, how should the U.S. respond? This story was deep inside the major newspapers yesterday, while the Foley flap covered their front pages.
Mr. Foley's activities with congressional pages, described so far as exchanges of sexually explicit emails and instant messages, were vile. The Republicans should have notified the Democrat on the Page Board. Mr. Foley should have been barred from contact with pages. He has resigned. He is being criminally investigated. If, however, the modern media forces in play over the Foley affair can conspire to submerge all other political life, then batten down the hatches for the 2008 presidential election. The 2004 election will look like toy boats on the water.
Most likely, the Foley fire will burn on. The House Ethics Committee has issued some four dozen subpoenas. They will learn something about who knew what when. This gasoline will be leaked. And given the volatility of the subject, the fire could burn well beyond the Speaker's office.
One useful lesson may be we'll find that the House "system" that should have caught this problem is in fact a bloated bureaucracy of staffs for committees upon subcommittees created to oversee every nook in the federal empire. It is not beyond imagining that the private life of Mark Foley could slip through. Would it be reprehensible if true? Yes. Shocking?
Speaker Hastert should not resign before the election. It would be a disservice to send voters to the polls in five weeks amid tumult over Mark Foley. Those for whom this is a deciding issue should certainly vote on it. Our view is that the country would be better served with a clearer sense of the electorate's sentiment on dealing with the global threat and domestic well-being. Those are fit subjects of a serious national election.
(Appeared on 10/7/2006)
Or this one,on October 5, 2006, entitled "Getting Beyond Foley"
Now that Mark Foley's carcass has gone over the side, the political waters are filling with sharks fighting over the remnants. We're going to find out how fast Denny Hastert can swim.
First to the site as always was House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Republican leaders "failed to protect the children in their trust," intoned Parson Pelosi, last seen on this issue voting to revoke the Boy Scouts' charter for its ban on gay scoutmasters. So exercised is Ms. Pelosi that she wants the GOP leadership "immediately questioned under oath" by the Ethics Committee.
One can hardly blame the Minority Leader for diving toward the jugular of a Republican Party already on its knees and on the brink of losing control of the House. More difficult to explain are the cultural conservatives and others on the political right swimming alongside Ms. Pelosi.
The call for Mr. Hastert's head by the editorialists at the Washington Times has by now been prominently featured by the same media who usually dismiss them as conservative cranks. They were suddenly joined in the mainstream spotlight by Richard Viguerie -- he once claimed Ronald Reagan was insufficiently conservative -- who also called for the resignation of any House "enablers who made it possible."
A statement on behalf of the executive committee of the family-coalition Arlington Group, including cultural conservative leaders Don Wildmon, Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer and Paul Weyrich, wants the "whole truth," which apparently consists of "when House Leadership or other members from either party knew of this situation." The group demands that "legal authorities prosecute any person who had knowledge of any such activity but did not report it immediately." And of course while the House Speaker was taking this public beating, his No. 2, Majority Leader John Boehner, pulled down the shades and turned away with his now-famous dismissal: "It's in his corner; it's his responsibility."
And so with an election weeks away and its troops already at the edge of the cliff, the Republican elites decided to jump into the sea over Mr. Foley.
We doubt that Messrs. Boehner, Wildmon, Perkins, Bauer and Weyrich will feel as politically cleansed as they seem to be this week if they wake up November 8 to a House run by Ms. Pelosi and Messrs. Rangel, Murtha, Dingell, Waxman, Obey and Frank. And if the pundits are right, the Foley wilding may even give them a Harry Reid Senate.
Certainly there are plenty of reasons for the right to be upset with this Congress. As these columns described Monday in "The GOP Record," the flops of the party now in control of Congress have been significant: Taxes, health care, Social Security, immigration, earmarks, Abramoff. All this is enough to bring the charge that Speaker Hastert has been an absentee landlord. But if it's enough to justify his removal -- and it may well be -- the time for doing so is after the election, win or lose. We are hard put to see what these conservatives think will be gained by burning down the entire coalition before the election over Mark Foley.
What is Mr. Hastert's supposed firing offense, anyway? We've seen no evidence to date that he lied or attempted a cover-up. His office responded to complaints from the parents of a former page by having the head of the page board and clerk of the House speak with Mr. Foley and order him to stop communicating with the minor.
Republicans should also have alerted the Democrat on the page board to the warning, but to force a Speaker's resignation because he didn't demand an investigation into every communication between Mr. Foley and current and former pages is politically convenient hindsight. Two newspapers also saw the same emails and declined to publish a story on them, no doubt for similar reasons of privacy and fairness.
On current course, the Hastert-must-resign conservatives are likely to wash away even the moral victory of the past week. Discounting for political calculation, prominent figures across the spectrum have repudiated and vilified Mr. Foley's behavior with minors. Melanie Sloan of the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said lax oversight of Mr. Foley had left "a potential sexual predator on the loose." This sounds like a consensus standard. But it will be a minor footnote if the get-Denny posse enables a larger Democratic victory next month.
Let's imagine, for instance, that a seat on the Supreme Court opens up next year with a Democratic House and GOP Senate majority called Lincoln Chafee. Approve another Alito? The diminished GOP Senate would be lucky if it got someone as conservative as Harriet Miers. Think Son of Souter.
Want to choke down more gall? Try this: Making Mark Foley the fulcrum of defeat will let the spendthrift GOP appropriators off the hook. Reforming the earmark caucus was never going to be easy, but it'll be nigh impossible -- in or out of power -- if every political writer in America is describing how Republican elites pulled down the temple in 2006 over one Congressman's moral turpitude.
It's possible cooler Republican heads have begun to notice that joining the Democrats' Foley bonfire makes no sense. On Tuesday, Mr. Boehner sent a letter to the Washington Times realigning himself with Speaker Hastert. Perhaps Republicans are regaining their political balance. We hope so. The war on terror, and Iraq, really are the largest issues in front of the American people. We need a clear reading on that in November, not on the personal ruin of Mark Foley.
This editorial of 10/3/2006, entitled "Paging Mr. Foley" may be closer to what you mean. If it is, please explain to me how it differs from what Democrats were loudly saying at the time about the failure of Hastert and co. and what they should have done:
Florida Republican Mark Foley's sexually explicit emails to a Congressional page certainly warranted his resignation from the House, and they may well merit prosecution. But this being five weeks from an election, the GOP House leadership is also being assailed for not having come down more strongly on a gay Congressman for showing a more than friendly interest in underage boys. That's a different issue altogether.
At least this seems to be the essence of the Democratic and media charge against Speaker Dennis Hastert, who admits his office was told months ago about a friendly, non-explicit 2005 email exchange between Mr. Foley and another page. In that exchange, Mr. Foley had asked the teenager "how old are you now" and requested "an email pic."
In our admittedly traditional view, this was odd and suspect behavior, especially because Mr. Foley was well known as a homosexual even if he declined to publicly acknowledge it. And Mr. Hastert was informed that fellow Illinois Republican John Shimkus -- who oversees the page program as part of a six-member board -- spoke privately with Mr. Foley, who explained that the email was innocent.
What next was Mr. Hastert supposed to do with an elected Congressman? Assume that Mr. Foley was a potential sexual predator and bar him from having any private communication with pages? Refer him to the Ethics Committee? In retrospect, barring contact with pages would have been wise.
But in today's politically correct culture, it's easy to understand how senior Republicans might well have decided they had no grounds to doubt Mr. Foley merely because he was gay and a little too friendly in emails. Some of those liberals now shouting the loudest for Mr. Hastert's head are the same voices who tell us that the larger society must be tolerant of private lifestyle choices, and certainly must never leap to conclusions about gay men and young boys. Are these Democratic critics of Mr. Hastert saying that they now have more sympathy for the Boy Scouts' decision to ban gay scoutmasters? Where's Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on that one?
Mr. Foley's explicit emails -- which were sent to a former page who had returned home -- clearly crossed the line into "vile and repulsive," as Mr. Hastert put it yesterday. And the Floridian has now resigned in disgrace and is being criminally investigated. This is harsher treatment than was meted out in the past to some Members of Congress who crossed another line and actually had sexual relations with underage pages. Democrat Gerry Studds of Massachusetts was censured in 1983 for seducing a male teenage page, but remained in the House for another 13 years and retired, according to the Boston Globe, with a rich pension.
Mr. Foley lied to many people over the years, most notably to himself. It's one of those human mysteries that someone so prominent, and so active as a spokesman against sexual predators, would send emails that he knew would destroy his career if they became public. That kind of psychoanalysis is above our pay grade.
Yes, Mr. Hastert and his staff should have done more to quarantine Mr. Foley from male pages after the first email came to light. But if that's the standard, we should all admit we are returning to a rule of conduct that our cultural elite long ago abandoned as intolerant.
Produce some facts to support your allegations, Edward!!!
Within the space of minutes, I politely gave you plenty of fodder but you can't seem to do more than prattle on about things you know nothing about.
IF you really don't need a lecture about the difference between pederasty and pedophilia then I suggest you NOT confuse the two while writing your polemics.
IF you are capable of independent thought, give some time to reading the press reporting and the statements of leading Democratic politicians immediately after the Foley scandal broke If you can find daylight between their positions about what happened and what should have been done by people like Hastert and the Wall Street Journal's position, let me know.
They threw you and all their true-believers overboard so fast my head was spinning. For the first time in my life, as a gay man I was genuinely concerned. And if you can't see it, you are a simpleton, Edward.
mOh, Edward, the fifth paragraph says no such thing. I bet you would find the New York Times and Washington Post said similar things in their editorials.
BTW, There is no subtitle about quarantining Congressmen in my copy of the editorial provided by the Wall Street Journal itself.
I provide details to back up my contentions, Edward. Here's what the New Mexico darling of KosKids everywhere said about the issue:
A number of individual Democratic challengers called on Republican incumbents to return money raised by Mr. Foley. For example, in New Mexico, where state Attorney General Patricia Madrid is running against Rep. Heather Wilson, a news release from Ms. Madrid's campaign read, "Wilson has $6,000 in dirty money from congressman who made improper advances to underage boy."
There it is, Edward, guilt by association, someone tried and convicted by an appeal to public outrage while fanning that fanatical outrage. And the charges did not some from a conservative Christian-right looney but a liberal Democrat who will probably be sitting in the next Congress.
Lots more where that same from, but I know I am wasting my breath.
I see no such equation at all, Edward. And there almost nothing in that editorial that you will not find mentioned in the New York Times, Washington Post, any other "reputable" newspaper or most of the press releases issued by Democratic leaders in the week that followed (except any partisan references).
Wake up and smell the coffee, Edward! I agree, Edward, the Republicans aren't you're friends, but it seems to me that you don't realize that the Democrats are only pretending to be. As this incident shows, they'll turn on you as quickly as a sleeping rattler that's been stepped on and will bite you just as furiously.
I’ve now quoted at least two specific instances – actually more, because I believe the WSJ has editorialized more than once on the Boy Scouts issue.
You've quoted zero articles.
You've cited zero articles.
All you've done is claim the articles exist, but that you don't remember exactly what they are or where they are. After *I* cited a WSJ about Foley you cooked up the usual lame-assed story about how even though the article isn't homophobic it "obviously" contains coded references to the homophobia you're certain the author really felt. Weak -- really weak. Find a real example of this homophobia.
I'm not sure how we got on the topic of homosexuality, given the original topic of Ann's post. Still, I can see how Edward could read the WSJ editorial from October 3rd as linking homosexual men with pederasty. I don't agree with that reading, but I can see it. Instead, I think the editorial was pointing out the practical problem the Scouts (and Speaker Hastert) have in this area. If the Scouts were to knowingly allow a gay man to serve as Scoutmaster, the Scouts could not rely on having a jury made up with people having the same view as Edward on this topic. With 20/20 hindsight, outraged parents are apt to do more than just ask, "How could you let a gay man go on camping trips with our boys?" That's the question Pelosi (!) was demanding Hastert answer, "How could you let a gay Congressman have contact with male pages?" Edward might know that there is no link, none whatsoever, between same sex attraction and pederasty, but outraged parents, juries, and political opponents cannot be relied upon to act with Edward's restraint. The fact that the Scouts (or Hastert) knew that the guy was gay will, after something bad happens, be taken as proof the Scouts were (or Hastert was) negligent in allowing him to serve as Scoutmaster (or have contact with pages).
Edward said: "It’s really easy, on the other hand, to go on a no-Fox News diet. Just watch CNN and MSNBC instead. You won’t be missing anything important on this diet, which I would recommend to everyone here."
Edward no matter what your politics, except for Paula Zahn, Fox has all the really hot babes reading their news.
That's right, Dave. And Pelosi & Co. will make political hay by fanning anti-gay hysteria while convincing people like Edward that it is really the evil Wall Street Journal that is doing it.
And the Democrats' favorite source of funding, the trial lawyers, would happily make millions pandering to prejudice while raking the Scouts over hot coals for allowing a gay person to head a scout group when everyone knows the unfortunate result was to be expected.
But Edward says they are his friends, so they must be. The rest of us have seen a sterling example at how all such friendships can be discarded in the quest for political power. "Screw our principles, screw the gays, and most of all, screw the Republicans. Let's ride this baby for what it's worth! About 25 seats, it would appear.
Holy crap- I just tried to argue with Edward (who sees gay rights in every conversation) that the Fox News Bevy of News Reading Babes makes viewing Fox worthwhile.
Christ, this blog attracts way more than its share of whack-job trolls. Compared to Edward, I think I miss whatisname (xxlr???something or other).
I saw some statistic that something like 75% of the Times readers identify themselves with being liberal. At this point the Times has its core audience and they will continue to play to that audience - that includes writing biased and slanted stories.
Imagine what a biased right wing newspaper would be writing about... it.e. the bizarro times. at least once a week there would be a story gracing the front page about how social programs impoversh people. Instead we get articles from the left wing media about how people are impovershed by the right wing and need more social programs.
Apologies to all for unintentionally hijacking the thread. I'm weary of unsubstantiated claims being passed off as fact.
Let's see, where were we? The New York Times... unproven accusations... facts.... Oh, I guess that is sort of "on-topic" after all, isn't it? ;-)
Sevn- I agree the Times can be extraordinary on a regular basis. And I feel somewhat cheated when its bias creeps across and into so many sections of the paper. Cause hell I paid the same price as the libs they are pandering to.
But I have to ask why Kaus was "startled" ? It's not lie this happened overnight. For instance, I know Dowd does "opinion" but she has been a caricature of a caricature for about ten years now.
"Compared to Edward, I think I miss whatisname (xxlr???something or other)."
Please, stop and think what you're saying. Edward is sincere and well-meaning, if naive and misguided. Quxxo was insane.
I agree that the Times is staffed with very talented people. The writing can be beautiful. Jason Blair, for example, wrote some very good stuff. It was captivating, almost too good to be true. My complaint with the Times is not the quality of the wordsmithing. My complaint is that I cannot rely on the Times' account to be accurate. If you can't rely on the accuracy of the news pages, what good is a newspaper? Well written or not, a paper's only fit for wrapping fish if you can't trust it and you can't trust the Times.
Why did this happen? I suspect it's partly the result of professionalizing journalism. Talk to most journalism students and you'll hear them say they're drawn to the profession out of a desire to bring about positive change in society. No. Your job is to accurately chronicle what's going on in the world. If you are trying to bring about change, you are part of the story. It's true that an (accurate or inaccurate) story can bring about change, but that should never be the motovation.
The Times does do good work. I'm very happy, for example, that the questions it asked prompted the Government to shut down a website that included instructions on how to make a nuclear bomb (What were they thinking?)
Here's the problem Madison Man.
Those documents that provided advanced methods on how to construct an atomic bomb were dated from 2002 -- right before the invasion.
What invasion, you ask?
The invasion of Iraq. Those documents are Iraqi documents.
Meaning those documents prove that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to build a nuke. Within a year.
Of 2002.
And sell it.
To anyone.
Yeah, too bad we invaded Iraq.
mortimer, if the idea of nuclear-armed Iraq is troubling you (rightly), why should the US publish all their notes so, say, Iran can look at them?
mortimer, if the idea of nuclear-armed Iraq is troubling you (rightly), why should the US publish all their notes so, say, Iran can look at them?
Oh, but why did we publish them?
Because conservatives felt the need to justify the invasion.
Oh, but why did conservatives feel the need to justify the invasion?
Because liberals kept complaining about our ill-advised occupation, carping about how Bush had duped them, whining about how Bush misled us into war, crying about how Bush and Cheney hyped the evidence.
The liberals just wouldn't stop repeating that Cheney had lied when he claimed there would be a mushroom cloud if we didn't invade.
Only these documents imply there would have been a mushroom cloud if we hadn't invaded.
Meaning the liberal criticism of the war was total poppycock.
That's what concerns me. That liberals (not Democrats, mind you, but liberals) play children's games with national security.
Yes mortimer, it's all the liberals' fault that Conservative Republicans allowed sensitive documents to be posted onto the web. Just like Rove is behind Kerry's gaffe. No one is responsible for their own actions any more.
Tell me, why did the sound processes designed to ensure that sensitive documents didn't wind up on the web fail? Was that liberals' fault too?
Tell me, why did the sound processes designed to ensure that sensitive documents didn't wind up on the web fail? Was that liberals' fault too?
Did you even read the article?
The documents were released because conservative legislators were going to pass a law to override those processes and force the release of the documents.
And they did so because of the pressure and criticism of liberals. You can't pressure someone into doing something and then claim you're not responsible when they buckle under the pressure.
The liberal criticism was unwise, and unfounded, and unpatriotic.
And you, sir, should be ashamed of yourself.
Certainly I've read the article. It tells me that the Republican Heads of Intelligence in the House and Senate, Mr. Hoekstra and Roberts, respectively, considered publishing the data to be a minimal risk. Even when the sensitive nature of the postings were revealed, Mr. Hoekstra's spokesmen called it no big deal.
I will respectfully suggest you re-read the article. There was supposed to be a procedure to keep sensitive data off the web. Why did that fail?
I respectfully suggest that you read the article for a first time.
Minimal risk? Hardly.
Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.
European diplomats said this week that some of those nuclear documents on the Web site were identical to the ones presented to the United Nations Security Council in late 2002, as America got ready to invade Iraq. But unlike those on the Web site, the papers given to the Security Council had been extensively edited, to remove sensitive information on unconventional arms.
The deletions, the diplomats said, had been done in consultation with the United States and other nuclear-weapons nations. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which ran the nuclear part of the inspections, told the Security Council in late 2002 that the deletions were “consistent with the principle that proliferation-sensitive information should not be released.”
In Europe, a senior diplomat said atomic experts there had studied the nuclear documents on the Web site and judged their public release as potentially dangerous. “It’s a cookbook,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his agency’s rules. “If you had this, it would short-circuit a lot of things.”
The New York Times had examined dozens of the documents and asked a half dozen nuclear experts to evaluate some of them.
Peter D. Zimmerman, a physicist and former United States government arms scientist now at the war studies department of King’s College, London, called the posted material “very sensitive, much of it undoubtedly secret restricted data.”
Ray E. Kidder, a senior nuclear physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, an arms design center, said “some things in these documents would be helpful” to nations aspiring to develop nuclear weapons and should have remained secret.
A senior American intelligence official who deals routinely with atomic issues said the documents showed “where the Iraqis failed and how to get around the failures.” The documents, he added, could perhaps help Iran or other nations making a serious effort to develop nuclear arms, but probably not terrorists or poorly equipped states. The official, who requested anonymity because of his agency’s rules against public comment, called the papers “a road map that helps you get from point A to point B, but only if you already have a car.”
Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a private group at George Washington University that tracks federal secrecy decisions, said the impetus for the Web site’s creation came from an array of sources — private conservative groups, Congressional Republicans and some figures in the Bush administration — who clung to the belief that close examination of the captured documents would show that Mr. Hussein’s government had clandestinely reconstituted an unconventional arms programs.
“There were hundreds of people who said, ‘There’s got to be gold in them thar hills,’ ” Mr. Blanton said.
Apparently, in addition to having no common sense, liberals cannot read.
There was supposed to be a procedure to keep sensitive data off the web. Why did that fail?
I would guess that it failed because the people were sick of getting beaten up over the WMD issue and were tired of hearing the now widely-believed lie that Iraq's WMD program posed no threat. Either Iraq posed no threat *or* there was nothing dangerous about publishing the documents -- people can't have it both ways.
Anyway, the people responsible for posting the blueprints still endangered American national security and should be punished for doing so, of course. But then, NYT reporters should be facing criminal charges for the work they've done revealing secret anti-terrorism programs, too. Not holding my breath on that one.
I forgot to ask, in the context of this comment thread: is the publishing of this story by the New York Times a good thing?
I think it is.
mortimer: It's certainly interesting that we're both reading the same article. I did not claim minimal risk, Peter Hoekstra did -- a mere 4 paragraphs from the end of your quote.
mortimer: It's certainly interesting that we're both reading the same article. I did not claim minimal risk....
The point is that the documents prove that the liberal criticism was completely unfounded. We wouldn't know that if the documents had been edited. And any carelessness in the release of the documents does not justify the utterly baseless liberal criticism that led to their release.
You know, this is like when people called Bush dumber than Kerry all throughout the 2004 election season. Then both their military intelligence tests and SAT scores and grades were released and Bush had beaten Kerry by every measure: IQ, SATs, and grades. But no liberals stepped forward to apologize for getting it absolutely wrong and calling Bush dumber than Kerry.
Just like you simply won't admit that liberals were wrong about the threat posed by Iraq and they're the ones who created the political climate in which releasing these documents was a plausible option.
The long-term threat to our national security comes not from whatever minion who forgot to edit these documents, but the liberals who -- without a speck of evidence -- attack those public officials charged with protecting the American public from foreign threats. Liberals who play games with national security are the problem, and you know it.
That is why you should be ashamed.
You should step away from your computer and go look in the mirror and be disgusted.
The problem in this case is the way the Iraq War was sold to the public. First, it started before the was in Afghanistan was done, before OBL was captured, before we were finished there.
Then, Iraq "had" to be invaded for a series of reasons given. Some seemed plausible, others were demonstrably false, and eventually it seemed like the Administration was throwing darts at a board to see what would stick. And the rosy scenarios we were asked to swallow, and ridiculous cost esimates? Given that brave soldiers are dying in Iraq, I'd like to know for what reason. WMD? Mushroom Clouds? Establish Democracy? Overthrow a dictator that was once an ally? Pardon my cynicism towards the Government in this case -- I didn't believe their reasons, or trust their capability to win this war. Maybe you think criticism that arises from this background is baseless. I most certainly do not.
There is plenty of blame to go around. Those who used the lack of data to try to prise power from those who had it, and those who let the data get out to keep their grip on power.
At one point, people in Washington might have cooperated and shared this information. Wonder why that doesn't happen anymore.
Boy am I up late. I'll be worthless at work tomorrow.
"I'm not sure how we got on the topic of homosexuality, given the original topic of Ann's post."
I guess you're inexperienced with the ways of the Althouse blog comments section!
That article is embarassing.... the fact that it doesn't even include what Kerry really said--the most damning evidence, naturally.
Does anyone under 80 pick up the New York Times and say, "Ahhh, now for some completely objective, unbiased reporting!"
I know a couple in their sixties who watch the NBC nightly news religiously. They haven't the first clue that what they are seeing is biased. What's strategically left out of a story is often signigicant, as in this NYT story... and unless you actively pursue other outlets of information you literally don't know what you're missing.
I'd bet there are thousands of people who feel they are pretty well informed because they are reading The Times and feel no need to enhance their news intake.
A little harsh towards Edward, people.
Just sayin'
Drudge: Look! Over Here! Nancy is Missing!
While they slip the disgraced evangelical out the back door...
Much too rich.
I agree with tjl, Edward is no Q. We can have a civil discussion
The WSJ basically said that Foley’s misbehavior with the young male pages is exactly what you should expect from a gay man in power who has access to male adolescents
This represents the problem on both the right and the left. We are basically interpreting what is written through the filters of our own bias. Trying to present what you feel the WSJ is saying without any references of the original document is a waste of time. We won't believe you until you show the proof. It may be true and I'm not unwilling to agree with you if the proof is presented. If you or I or anyone wants to be considered seriously, we need to present just the facts (as Jack Webb would say) and not twist the words or misrepresent the facts, as was done the a recent NYT story about what John Kerry said, meant, thought or whatever.
Facts are facts and we can interpret them through our own filters. But...we need to have the facts along with your/our biases. Otherwise discussion is futile and we are all talking into the echo chambers of our own minds.
I am perpetually canceling my subscription to the damnable paper.
My Father has read it for years and says its gone nothing but downhill.
Chris Mathews once Let slip that he thought (the thing is...)"the bias runs through the entire paper"
That’s the amazing thing, Its in the food section and lifestyle,
I don’t read that small column on contract bridge but I bet its in there to.!!!!
My wife subscribes to the NYT Sunday only and has for years. We both have been disappointed over the last few years. Funny how that correlates with the rise of internet news and blogs.
If only there were a Sunday edition of the WSJ...
When will Ann open a thread for us to talk about Ted Haggard and the political implications of this new Republican scandal?
I don't know how you can call this a Republican scandal -- other than the fact that Mr. Haggard is likely a republican -- apparently a self-hating republican as well, if you consider his sermonizing and his personal behavior. I'm guessing he's headed for rehab.
Given that the list of Evangelicals who have sinned spectacularly is long and deep, I don't know how anyone would even be shocked at this behavior. Isn't private behavior almost always different from perceptions drawn from public behavior? Saddened, yes. Shocked, eh.
rogera, what does BDS stand for? I've seen that a lot in the past days, but can't place the acronym
BDS - "Bush Derangement Syndrome." An infectious disease rampant on the left. Leading victims include Paul Krugman and Frank Rich.
On his blog, Dilbert creator Scott Adams runs an annual "Weasel Poll" where readers are invited to vote for the weaseliest this or that.
The staff of the NY Times came in a close second to Michael Moore as "Weaseliest Pundit/Reporter," both far outdistancing also-rans Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. Before the Democrats reading this cry foul, please note that George W. Bush was the runaway winner in the "Weaseliest Politician" category.
For me, the best thing was Scott Adam's line about this year's elections:
Kim Jong-il would win a seat in Congress this year if he ran against an incumbent Republican.
Yep!
shanna, tjl, thanks. I kept thinking is was BS Detector. Then I'd realize that acronym didn't work!
"Haggard was practically a member of Bush’s kitchen cabinet."
Edward, I think you're suffering from BDS.
Edward, I have to agree with tjl. You're not making any sense on the Haggard thing.
Heads up, Edward:
Ted Haggard's accuser failed a polygraph test early this morning about the truthfulness of his accusations that he had had a three-year homosexual affair with the influential Colorado Springs minister.
The test was given to Michael Jones, 49, an admitted male prostitute, who made the allegations on the Peter Boyles Show on radio station KHOW Thursday morning.
The shocking allegations were denied by Haggard, who told KUSA-9News he never took part in a homosexual affair and had always been faithful to his wife, with whom he has 5 children.
So Boyles invited Jones to take a polygraph test at 5 a.m. this morning.
The test administrator, John Kresnik, said Jones' score indicated "deceptions" in his answers. However, Kresnik said he doubted the accuracy of the test he administered because of the recent stress on Jones and his inability to eat or sleep, according to KHOW producer Greg Hollenback.
Kresnik suggested that Jones be re-tested early next week after he was rested.
Edward,
Aha! The all-powerful Karl Rove strikes again! Whenever someone starts hyperventilating about Rove and how his tentacles extend everywhere, it tends to activate the BS detector (as well as the BDS detector).
What was your source for this hot little nugget? The Daily Kos? I must admit that like Shanna I'd never heard of this Haggard character until his debut appearance on this thread.
Saddam v. Sodom
How about a thread on the upcoming Saddam verdict instead of a thread on Sodom?
Edward,
what ever happened to that other "big scandal" out in Idaho a few weeks ago, the one about the guy who downtownlad wished would commit suicide?
According to reliable reports, Ted Haggard spoke to Bush, Rove, or another really high-level White House aide each and every week.
Are these reports as reliable as the WSJ editorials you still haven't been able to find? :)
"This story just broke in the past 24 hours, and it’s still gathering steam."
Edward, I'm having a hard time understanding why you're so enthusiastic about media campaigns that out closeted gay people. Doesn't it occur to you that this kind of thing that in the long run reinforces the notion that homosexual acts are some guilty nasty secret that must be rooted out and the perpetrators destroyed? Will the ideals you have professed on some of your other comments be well served by applauding a witch hunt?
Recall Andrew Sullivan's comments on the Foley scandal: gay people who are pleased at what they see as the unmasking of hypocrisy will in the long run rue the day that this particular fire was lit.
To the extent Haggard was connected to the White House, so freakin" what? An evangelical sexual hypocrite, gee no big deal. We all fall short in one way or the other and most Christians I know, view these big shot Holy Rollers with suspiscion (Billy Graham excepted).
Yeah I was thinking he might have been related to Merle, a modern version of Jerry Lee and Swaggart.
There are a number of closeted gay Democrats in Congress. Most people in Washington know who they are. If they don't come out of the closet on November 8th, they never will. The GOP hard-liners are going to go for pay-back, but they will bide their time, letting them twist slowly in the wind, always looking over their shoulder, wondering who may be recording their online or phone conversations, or surreptitiously recording their dates or jaunts to bars. Then, just before the 2008 election, they will start leaking the stories out in dribs and drabs.
In the meantime, really astute gay sex workers will be busily searching through client files and congressional websites to verify if this or that new Chair of this or that committee was that john of a couple weeks, months or years ago. The sweet smell of large amounts of hush money (See Sherwood (R-PA) $500,000) a few mortgage refinancings no doubt.
Those who self-righteously play with fire eventually get burned by it, as Mr. Haggard's story, if true, amply demonstrates.
"I just think the truth needs to be pursued and revealed."
That sounds like an extract from the sermons preached by Cotton Mather in Salem in 1692.
Haggard has been a key informal advisor to George W. Bush., and if he is guilty of what he has been accused of, then the public needs to know.
Even if your assertion that he is a "key informal advisor" is true, why should we care? Are we to worry that his advice carried some kind of gay taint? Or the worry a prostitution taint?
Or the worry a prostitution taint?
Should read: Or is the worry a prostitution taint?
All these references to "Bush's kitchen cabinet" are making me picture Bush sitting at a table with Ted Haggard, a Kitchenaid stand mixer, a toaster, a can opener, a sauce pot, a spice rack, and a rolling pin.
Edward says, "Homosexual acts are definitely not “some dirty nasty secret” if they are carried out by responsible adults in a context of love."
The accuser is 49 years old. They're both responsible adults.
Then Edward contradicts himself:
"Closeted gay people who hide their orientation are the ones who make homosexuality seem shameful."
If you believe in principle #1, then you should not be celebrating the unmasking and destruction of someone who, however hypocritically, is simply implementing your recipe for joy.
Edward, unless there's something out there I haven't read about, being a closeted Republican gay who weighs against gay rights and all for (cough) family values, and who is then revealed to be someone who bought meth (but didn't use it, oh no no no) and who got a naked massage from a male prostitute (but didn't have sex, oh no no no), that's just not a political scandal. The man's not a politician, he's just a big ol' Hell-bound hypocrite.
Was it a Republican scandal when Jimmy Swaggart was caught with a prostitute? Or when Jim Bakker paid hush money to the secretary he was supposedly raping? Or when Bennett was shown to be Mr Big Time Gambler? Bakker and Bennett and Swaggart were all Republicans, I don't recall any "Republican scandal" talk.
Given that history, take the Gay part away from Haggart -- would you still call this a scandal? Why? Or this only a scandal because he's supposedly gay?
Sure, Haggart is a loathesome man, and I always find it enjoyable when a Scold (Republican or Democratic, 'though in my mind they're usually Republicans) is shown up for a hypocrite. But that's about it.
The interesting thing about the recent outings is the message they send. Democrats aren't just pushing the message "these guys are gay". They're pushing the message "these guys are gay pedophiles and tweakers".
Given that most Americans already think homosexuals are predisposed to pedophilia and/or dissolute living, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the message they're likely to take away from these outings is "yep, we were right about gay people all along". And, of course, the flip side to the "these people were hypocrites" spin is the unspoken message people will take away from it -- that gay people can't be trusted.
Unsurprisingly, polls show that attitudes towards gays worsened in the aftermath of the Foley scandal. They'll get worse still from the Haggard thing. What people like Edward don't grasp is that there are a hundred million evangelicals in America. Taking Haggard down does nothing; there are ten million Haggards ready to replace him. The harm taking him down does to gay rights is not so easily repaired.
Average evangelical voters deserve to know whether their beliefs were being cynically exploited for political gain by this White House and by religious leaders like Haggard who didn’t even live the message they were preaching.
How does Haggard paying for gay sex exploit the beliefs of evangelicals?
>Here's a little history on Ted Haggard
At least by Jeff Sharlet at Harpers
Edward asks,
"Are you a relativist offended by the word “truth”?"
Actually, I'm alarmed by avenging self-righteous zeal. Pay attention to what Revenant is saying in the preceding post.
And a little moral relativism never hurt. It's earnest moral absolutism that has the potential to do really serious damage.
Revnant said:
"Unsurprisingly, polls show that attitudes towards gays worsened in the aftermath of the Foley scandal."
Great points. I'll buy that on a personal level but could you share the link?
And government and society should work together to eliminate any remaining forms of discrimination that intimidate closeted gay people and discourage them from being honest about who they are.
And the best way to do that is to tell closted gays, "Admit that you're gay or we'll find you and out you and ruin your closeted life"?
I look forward to the accusation that Rove was behind all these outings
Seven Machos said:
"Stop being a sick, fascist pig."
thank you for not using the adjective "american"
Edward asks,
"Why is it so difficult for all of you to understand that the pathological behavior of self-hating, closeted gay men does not reflect on all gay people?"
Why is it so difficult for you to understand that by focusing such obsessive attention on the pathological behavior of closeted gay men, you reinforce some people's bigoted stereotypes? There are many who won't understand the distinction between closeted and non-closeted gay people, and who wouldn't try to tell them apart.
Or do you now suddenly believe that gay prostitution is OK and that the clients of gay prostitutes deserve to have their “privacy” protected?
No. My comments were specifically about your attempt to paint Haggard's issues as a Republican scandal, your assertion that Haggard's behavior constitutes an exploitation of Evangelicals, and your support for the outing of gays in general. I'm also not going to jump onto the accusations of an admitted meth dealing prostitute until a bit more evidence is collected.
Everything makes sense now if Edward is or works for Karl Rove!
Edward said:
"I think there are very few people reading the Althouse blog right now."
You may be right. Mr Lad only seems to come out after dark
Why is it so difficult for all of you to understand that the pathological behavior of self-hating, closeted gay men does not reflect on all gay people?
Because it does reflect on all gay people. That's how the human mind works.
I just want the laws enforced, and I don’t want any exceptions for closeted gay men
Try again. Nothing Foley did was illegal, and you still wanted him raked over the coals.
Edward: I submit your initial framing of the Haggard story:
Haggard was clearly a member of Bush’s kitchen cabinet, and now he’s been caught up in a huge gay sex scandal.
Note that you didn't say a "huge prostitution scandal." I don't see any indication in your comments up to now that you "just want the laws enforced, and [you] don’t want any exceptions for closeted gay men."
You began this as a discussion about closeted gays and Republicans and are now backpedaling to say that your issue is with the enforcement of prostitution laws.
Edward, I am a conservative, and I voted a straight (unfortunate choice of words) Republican ticket for the first time in my life.
Foley should have been kicked out of the Congress before he had a chance to resign and Haggert should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Perhpas we agree on that, but that is how I feel!
And the child sexual abuse perpetrator who was a Democrat in the Congress was a HUGE disgrace. That his colleagues gave him a standing ovation is appaling. Do we still agree?
Trey
That his colleagues gave him a standing ovation is appaling.
And fiction.
Revenant: There’s a primitive, illogical part of the human mind that may work that way. Yet the more intelligent and advanced part of the human mind can think things through better and arrive at the truth.
Sure, it can. It seldom does, in politics.
Indeed, if the rational part of the human mind was a significant factor in political decisions, the Foley scandal wouldn't have affected any elections other than Foley's. The people who outed Foley knew as well as I did that it would taint other Republicans, including ones who neither knew nor approved of Foley's behavior.
You're hoping the same thing will happen with Haggard, which is why you keep highlighting his ties to Bush. The intelligent, advanced part of the human brain tells us that obviously Bush doesn't approve of Christians having drug-fueled gay sex with hookers. The guilt by association part -- the part you're counting on -- tells us that Bush's association with such a person reflects poorly on him.
I agree that it requires a certain amount of thought and education to understand why legal equality for gay people is necessary, but most Americans are capable of that.
Given that most Americans are opposed to legal equality for gay people, that's a really dippy thing for you to say. Either gay rights aren't necessary or most Americans can't see that they are.
Nothing Foley did was illegal, and you still wanted him raked over the coals.
Has the legality of what Foley did been determined? I recall an argument over whether his actions violated the federal law he helped get passed. But I don't recall an outcome.
Has the legality of what Foley did been determined? I recall an argument over whether his actions violated the federal law he helped get passed. But I don't recall an outcome
To the best of my knowledge the people Foley exchanged sexy IMs with were adults. He wrote emails to a teenager, but the emails weren't sexual.
Something else I thought of, actually, regarding Ed's "I just want the laws enforced" stance... wasn't he *against* arresting those two gay guys in Texas who got busted for violating the laws against sodomy? I'm sure there's some "oh I mean I'm for enforcing laws against Republicans er oops I mean enforcing laws I agree with" spin to be put on that.
Personally I don't think there's a coherent case to be made for keeping prostitution illegal and giving sodomy Constitutional protection. If the legislature can't ban free consentual sex, how can it ban consentual sex for money?
Edward,
All this scandal stuff aside, the reason I refuse to be swayed to vote democratic this year (and I voted straight democratic from 1978 to 2002) is because the leaders of that party now trivialize the efforts of our president and armed forces to actively oppose and fight true religious wackos who want to kill us both.
No matter who "wins" on Tuesday, we will all lose if we fail to perceive this threat.
It's actually the "for money" part. The Commerce Clause allows the federal government to make laws about economic transactions.
But it doesn't allow the federal government to make laws about financial transactions if those laws violate Constitutional rights. For instance, the government can't make it illegal to sell newspapers. So the Commerce Clause can't explain how it can be legal to pay somebody to exercise their constitutional right to have consentual sex.
Enforce the laws, or work to repeal them if they’re unjust.
And if that fails, just get the Supreme Court to invent a new right and have the law thrown out regardless of the people's wishes. But be sure to enforce it rarely and in a nonsensical manner, as has been done with the Lawrence "right to consentual sex" (but only if it's the right kind) and the Roe "right to control of your body" (but only if its to kill a fetus, not if its to sell a kidney or inject a drug).
But no matter what, don’t be a world-class hypocrite and liar on these issues.
I see we've come full circle. Edward's rationalization for being anti-Foley and anti-Haggard has gone from "hypocrisy" to "lawbreaking" to "bad behavior" and back to "hypocrisy" once again. The self-defeating nature of publicizing gay people's misdeeds continues to escape him, alas.
There is a constitutional right to a free press. There is no constitutional right to have sex with a prostitute.
There is now. The Supreme Court recently discovered it. You're just not allowed to *pay* the prostitute -- but if the two of you want to have sex for free, no government in America is allowed to stop you.
My point, Seven, is not that the text of the Constitution legalizes prostitution (although the text of the constitution does forbid the feds from outlawing it -- it is NOT interstate commerce), but that the body of constitutional law as it currently stands offers no coherent explanation for why people have a right to free sex but not sex for cash.
If something is not in the Constitution, it is neither constitutional nor unconstitutional
Um, the Supreme Court found that the laws against sodomy were unconstitutional on the grounds that they violated a right to sexual autonomy. So which of your claims is wrong -- the one above, or the one where you said there was no Constitutional right to sex? Because at least one of them IS wrong.
Now, you may think that the Supreme Court is wrong on this point. But since their opinion of what is constitutional matters and yours does not, that isn't of consequence to me. My point is simply that the Court's position is incoherent on this issue. The inescapable logical consequence of Lawrence is that states can't ban prostitution, either.
i have to admit, the level of flat idiocy in here today is more than i can take.
kerry, decorated war vet, because he stuck his foot in his mouth, hates the troops but draft dodgers bush and cheney love them (while sending them into a disastrous wars of adventure and refusing to sufficiently supply and arm them). right.
the nyt, which skewered gore mercilessly, pushed bush's iraq war unblinkingly, and pursued a decade long vendetta against the clintons, is some sort of democratic mouthpiece. right.
you guys are doing a heckuva job, keep it up.
kerry, decorated war vet, because he stuck his foot in his mouth, hates the troops but draft dodgers bush and cheney love them
I would say the fact that Kerry launched his political career by conspiring with the North Vietnamese to slander and libel US troops is the main reason for saying he hates the troops. The fact that he's spent that career fucking over the military at every opportunity would be further reason. That he's never shown the slightest respect for the troops when it wasn't to his immediate political advantage to do so would be yet another.
That he said academic failures wind up in the military really did no more than remind us of what we already knew -- and that he tried to sell the "I didn't insult them" story, which nobody but a Democrat would be dumb enough to fall for, just reminds us that he's a lousy politician, too.
"Kerry, decorated war vet, because he stuck his foot in his mouth, hates the troops."
Wrong,exalted, wrong wrong wrong. Kerry's disdain for the military is evident, not just in one Freudian slip, but in the words and deeds of his entire career. Take a look at Kerry's Winter Soldier utterances and his Congressional testimony circa 1972. Review his description of American troops in Vietnam as war criminals behaving "in a manner reminiscent of Genghis Khan." Look at Kerry's long history of routinely voting against defense appropriations in the Senate.
I could go on, but why continue pointlessly beating that dead horse?
Your comments on the NYT are even more bizarre. The Times skewered Gore? The Times supported the Iraq war? Somebody had better give you a subscription to Times Select, so you can catch up on all the NYT's actual, real-world content.
Admittedly, the NYT was sometimes critical of Clinton, but it was criticism from the left. The NYT scolded Clinton when he offended liberal orthodoxy by signing welfare reform and triangulating against the Congressional Democrats.
The fact that he's spent that career fucking over the military at every opportunity would be further reason. That he's never shown the slightest respect for the troops when it wasn't to his immediate political advantage to do so would be yet another.
Then we should easily be able to prove this, by the way he voted, since the time he has been in Congress. Right? How does our Military grade his his votes? How does our Military grade his service?
Care to take this test?
Hint: It's pretty easy to find. If you would just try
Machos
I don't really even like Kerry. His actions when he got back were regrettable. His military service, and his record in Congress are excellent.
And no, I haven't seen anything yet, that indicates the Kerry gaffe did much. Do you?
How does our Military grade his his votes? How does our Military grade his service?
The active-duty military voted against him by a three to one margin in 2004.
Any other questions?
"I don't really even like Kerry."
Nobody likes Kerry, even his defenders dislike him. What uncanny force holds him in place as a public figure? Surely there's a more complex explanation than just Theresa's money.
His military service, and his record in Congress are excellent
Setting aside the question of whether a man who signs up for one of the safest jobs around and then pussies out of the war at the first available opportunity after it starts to get dangerous can be said to have had "excellent service", there's still the little fact of him deliberately lying and painting his ex-comrades as rapists, murderers, and war criminals the minute he got back home. There's still the little fact of him repeatedly voting against benefits, pay increases, and necessary wartime equipment for the soldiers. There's still the little fact of VVAW conspiring with the North Vietnamese to coordinate their propaganda campaigns.
People who respect their fellow soldiers don't flee the war the first chance they get and then shit all over the enlisted troops when they get home. Kerry did. Draw your own conclusions.
Surely there's a more complex explanation than just Theresa's money.
Undoubtedly, but the reasons he is unlikely to disappear off the political stage soon are very simple: all 800,000,000 of them.
The election markets in 2004 were all predicting a Bush victory.
This year, they give Democrats a 77% chance of taking over the House and only a 30% chance of taking over the Senate. However, the Democrats will still make substantial gains.
If Rove's strategy is to try and turn a 25 loss seat in the House and a 5 loss seat in the Senate into a "victory", he can try. But only the gullible will believe him.
Ted Haggard is clearly one of the five most important evangelical leaders in the country today. For goodness sake, he’s the president of their organization, the National Association of Evangelicals!
Add my name to the list of people who had never heard of Haggard until this week. Nor was I ever a member of the National Association of Evangelicals, or even more than vaguely aware of its existence. And I was an evangelical for ten years, and still have a lot of evangelical friends.
Evangelicalism isn't a denomination. You don't have to belong to, or have heard of, the National Association of Evangelicals to be an evangelical. Most evangelicals owe their allegiance to their local church and pastor, and to their denomination if their church is in one. They're bound by common beliefs more than they are by any formal organization.
Give it a rest, Edward. This Haggard person is of no importance or interest except to members of his flock, or whatever it is that televangelists have.
The only detail of this sorry tale that stands out is the fact that the male prostitute is 49. Who knew they have such a long shelf life?
I've heard of Colorado Springs and Focus on the Family, naturally. I don't assume that Haggard was necessarily affiliated with them by proximity, although perhaps he was.
But I still dispute his importance to most evangelicals. If I haven't heard of him, if my evangelical friends haven't heard of him, if pretty much everyone I've seen comment on this who you'd think would know has never heard of him, why are you so certain he's that important? Should I take your word for it, or the word of, you know, actual evangelicals?
Also, I take "evangelical leaders" to be different than "evangelicals in politics," since evangelicals aren't just interested in politics. Maybe Haggard was an important political mover and shaker. But if you actually asked evangelicals whom they would call the five most important evangelical leaders, I doubt most of them would include Haggard.
I did type Haggard's name into Amazon. What I found is that his bestselling book at Amazon is ranked at #32,776, which doesn't strike me as extraordinarily popular. Books by Joel Osteen and Rick Warren are in the top 1000.
Seven Machos said...
Exalted -- Your assignment:
1. Provide two instances when the Times skewered Gore at all, let alone without mercy.
2. Demonstrate that the Times has ever supported any candidacy of George W. Bush at any point in the history of time.
Looking forward to the results!
6:52 PM, November 03, 2006
Gore: The Times, along with every other media outlet in the country, joyfully painted Gore as some sort of insane habitual liar, buying hook line and sinker into the GOP pushed meme. After the debates, the NYT, again, along with every other outlet, skewered him for having a so-called problem with the truth for insignificant inconsistencies (like forgetting who he travelled to the flood zones with, the cabinet secretary or the deputy cabinet secretary) while his opponent, George W., was able to get away with murder, misstating his positions and record with impunity. If you really want an exhaustive list, check Bob Somerby's Daily Howler, where he has recorded probably 100+ examples.
Bush: Have you heard of Judith Miller? Do you forget that they ran her ridiculous fact free pro-war pieces (often straight from the WH) on the front page? Do you remember that the NYT sat on the wiretapping article for a year because it bizarrely "didn't want to influence an election?"
Clinton: Attacked from the left by the NYT? That's just bizarre and untrue. They ran piece after piece of bs that was fed to them from GOP operatives because Howell Raines hated the Clintons. Ever step back to think that nothing ever came of all those bs "gates" from the Clinton era? Travelgate, White Water, the "clintons trashed the WH during the transition," etc? All of those stories had nothing to them, they were nonsense pushed by GOP operatives. This is pretty well documented.
read this for a fairly thorough examination of the press's war on gore:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5920188/the_press_vs_al_gore
if you find inconsistencies or items you disagree with, i'd be interested to hear them.
http://www.rollingstone.com/
news/story/5920188/the_press_vs_al_gore
Seven,
It's always a comfort to know there's a fresh field open to your talents.
Edward asks,
"can we at least agree that the Ted Haggard story demonstrates that real gay men are not interested in teenage boys?"
I agree in theory. But here you are including Haggard with the "real gay men." Doesn't this clash with all your posts of yesterday? You thought it made political hay to vilify closeted gays like Haggard as evil hypocrites who, unlike virtuously out gay people, deserve to be humiliated and destroyed. Does this mean you have retreated from your earlier maximalist position, i.e., that gay people are deserving of respect and acceptance only as long as they are publicly out, and espouse progressive politics?
There is no doubt that McGreevey has permanently given up his secret life of anonymous sex with random men.
Well, I doubt it. Leopards like McGreevey don't change their spots.
Edward, irony is an accessory that no gay person should ever be without. Too much earnestness makes you look insincere.
My point was that your posts appeared to place all the blame on the occupants of the closet, and revel in their downfall, without taking into account how the closeted life warps and distorts and eventually destroys. But you were far more sympathetic to McGreevey than the others -- does the "D" after his name make a difference to you? If so, I consider my point proven.
It seems very strange to me to witness your dredge up the same events from the distant past you damned others for bringing up when they disagreed with you.
Edward, James McGreevey is a scum. His self-publicizing actions since coming out of the closet continue to be reprehensible. Just because he's out of the closet now does not change that fact any more than the fact that Mark Foley is out of the closet now changes the fact that he is a pederast.
I am quite aware of how difficult it can be for those who live "in the closet," but, unlike you, I am unprepared to grant instant sainthood to anyone who comes out of the closet.
There are plenty of gay men of McGreevy’s age who began living honestly much earlier in their lives than he did.
I'm the same age as McGreevey. You bet your sweet ass they did. There was absolutely no excuse for entering into a fraudulent marriage not once but twice in order to satisfy his personal political ambitions.
They probably sacrificed certain career opportunities by choosing to live out of the closet early on, and that is entirely to their credit.
People sacrifice career opportunities for a host of reasons every day, and always will. The vast majority deserve neither credit nor discredit for that decision. That's life and they are free to choose.
McGreevey, on the other hand, chose to lie about who he was so that he could have a successful political career.
Yep. Selfish bastard that he was, and remains.
Morally speaking, that kind of compromise is extremely problematic
Problematic? Problematic??? Oh, Edward.
But he’s not a monster, and now that’s he’s out of the closet, he has an important voice to contribute to the cause of gay equality.
No, he is not a monster. He is, however, a proven fraud, a serial abuser of both private and public trust. He is not the role model you and other apologists for his long life of intentional lies and deceptions appear to believe he has become now that he is out of the closet.
Naturally, I disagree with you: His book is a cynical attempt to manipulate people like you into feeling sorry for him and he has succeeded in your case. His tome is an invaluable contribution to the opponents of gay rights everywhere.
In the future, Edward, I promise to make every effort to avoid remarking on your comments.
"McGreevey may have chosen to remain in the closet and to get married, because he thought his religious faith required him to do so."
And I suppose his religious faith also led him to run an administration that was corrupt even by NJ standards. McGreevey was so notoriously on the take that even the NYT, usually a friend to Democrats everywhere, ran a series of articles on him -- and this was before the Golan Cipel affair surfaced.
McGreevey was seriously morally compromised in many more ways than in his sexuality.
TJL: No doubt that same religious faith requires all adherents to be in a state of perpetual wedded bliss. So McGreevey was only adhering to his faith after his first divorce when he entered into that second fraudulent marriage. It had absolutely nothing to do with private ambition.
Of course, God only knows how many people he paid off with private and public money over the years to keep his dirty little secret.
And no one has yet taken a moment to consider the positions of McGreevey's two ex-wives (and Haggard's no doubt soon-to-be-ex-wife): a lifetime of HIV tests.
Always wondering.
Always wondering.
Good point, Paul. I think Sullivan continues to defend "barebacking," although not by name, by his repeated public comments that unprotected sex between two HIV+ men poses no risk of developing more virulent forms of HIV. (One assumes that Sullivan checked all of his potential partners to determine that the strains of HIV carried by them were identical to the strains of HIV carried by him, and that none of them had developed any mutations caused by use of the HIV drug cocktail.)
Edward --- READ THIS VERY SLOWLY SO IT FINALLY SINKS IN: As I have said MANY TIMES BEFORE, I am gay, Edward. What part of that statement do you not understand?
I ridiculed the contention, first advanced BY YOU AND YOU ALONE, that that McGreevey's religious beliefs may have caused him to get married. WELL, Edward, they sure as Hell didn't dictate HIS SECOND marriage, now did they???
I have a heart, Edward, but not much of one for lying bastards that cruelly use women to advance their selfish interests, and not for people who prey on MINORS for sex, never apologize for their actions and die 40 years later defiant to the end, and not for people who abuse their PUBLIC TRUST.
How many ex-wives of closeted gay men do you know Edward? I've known too many. (And I've known a few who died of AIDS because they found out too late.) Have you ever witnessed the wholesale destruction of a family caused when these men finally admitted the truth, which they knew all along?
It is not true that I assume the worst, Edward. Most gay people, living in and out of the closet, don't behave like McGreevey, Foley, Studds, or Haggard, Edward. And you know that as well I do.
And, Edward, I was born in 1955. I have intimate knowledge of the supposed horrors of growing up gay 30 years ago. It was The Age of Harvey Milk, Edward, not the Dark Ages, as McGreevey would like you to believe.
I haven't a clue, however, what you mean by my "puny" moral indignation or its need for "exercise." It is quite healthy, thank you, and, as a rule, reserved for liars, thieves, and their apologists, whether they be straight or gay; young or old; black, white, brown, yellow or red; Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian, Peace & Freedom, or Declines to State; fat, skinny or otherwise.
It is true, Daryl, that, based on what we know now, there really is no need to test beyond the window period, but I do know a couple of women who still get tested every year "because you never know." It may not be what others consider rational behavior, but it is a consequence of their traumatic experiences.
Bravo, Ronin
"Or do you just like getting angry and indignant for the sake of it?"
Reading comprehension skills seem to be a little impaired this morning. Review Ronin's responses to your attempts to manufacture excuses for McGreevey. Ronin is rightly annoyed at what Seven called "the political impressionism of the Left," perfectly displayed in your McGreevey posts.
"Any intelligent, sincere person examining the issue of closeted gay men marrying women must admit that it is morally complex."
Morally complex the first time, maybe. The second time it's fraud.
"Issuing condemnations left and right doesn’t do anyone any good."
Review your comments on Haggard and say that wasn't what you were doing.
If I were you, I’d go the doctor and have my blood pressure checked.
I was there last week. As usual, it was 97/68. Thank you for your concern.
Given that your heart bleeds so profusely for the wives of married gay men
If my only choices are to bleed profusely for victimized women or thoughtlessly promote and defend their victimizers, I'll continue to bleed profusely.
I’d like to know what concrete proposals you have for reducing the number of marriages like the ones Jim McGreevey entered into.
Don't do it.
Or do you just like getting angry and indignant for the sake of it?
No, I'm just responding to your posts, even though I was really trying not to (even before I said I would try not to).
Or perhaps to make yourself appear saintly to other people?
I believe that I have never written anything here that remotely supports that allegation. I have certainly never claimed I was a saint, saintly, or a role model for anyone. I have attempted to live my life without spending much time wondering "What will the neighbors think?" It is easier that way. YMMV
seven,
i gave you a site whose mission is basically to document what i am talking about. if you can't be bothered to check it out, then so be it.
i imagine you didn't read the rolling stone piece either? or maybe that was the "far left" site you are talking about.
cheers.
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