Michael Walzer on Israel at 60

APN :: Recommended Readings:

"Over many years, Western Liberals and Leftists have not had great success at foreign policy. Their strength lies at home, and many of them probably believe that the best foreign policy is a democratic and egalitarian domestic policy. I wish that my friends in Israel could be good liberals and leftists in this old fashioned way. I wish that they could focus their energies over the next decades on reducing the inequalities of Israeli society, improving the quality of state education, separating religion and politics, addressing the rift between Israeli Jews and Arabs, facing up to environmental problems. Surely some of them will work on these and other internal issues some of the time, and so they should. But the hard truth is that the major challenge facing Israel at 60 won't be solved even by the best imaginable domestic policy.

The major challenge, as everyone knows, has to do with war and peace—but also, more specifically, given Hezbollah rocketry in the summer of 2006 and the daily rocketing of Sderot, it has to do with physical security. Israel is immensely strong and immensely vulnerable, and that combination is very hard to think about." ...

As Executions Resume, So Do Questions of Fairness

New York Times:

"John Holdridge, director of the A.C.L.U. Capital Punishment Project, which provided representation for Mr. Jones, said the successful appeals showed that the problem with the death penalty was not the method of execution — the issue ruled on by the Supreme Court last month — but instead “poor people getting lousy lawyers.”

“All these states are gearing up to start executing people again, and nobody seems to be concerned about these systemic problems,” Mr. Holdridge said."

After 60 Years, Arabs in Israel Are Outsiders - New York Times

New York Times:

"For most Israelis, Jewish identity is central to the nation, the reason they are proud to live here, the link they feel with history. But Israeli Arabs, including the most successfully integrated ones, say a new identity must be found for the country’s long-term survival."

Panel Subpoenas Close Cheney Aide - New York Times

Panel Subpoenas Close Cheney Aide - New York Times:

...The panel, the House Judiciary subcommittee on the constitution, civil rights and civil liberties, took the action at a hearing on Tuesday. During the session, law professors called for a full investigation by Congress or by an independent commission of the adoption of the harsh techniques.

Philippe Sands, a British law professor and author of a new book on the approval of coercive interrogation by high-level American military officials, “Torture Team,” said that if no such inquiry took place in the United States, foreign prosecutors might seek to charge American officials with authorizing torture. He said two foreign prosecutors, whom he did not name, had asked him for the materials on which his book is based.

“If the U.S. doesn’t address this, other countries will,” Mr. Sands said....

Marty Peretz on Hillary's common touch

THE NEW REPUBLIC | Blogs:

...The leader also inspires followers. How's this for civilized political discourse? 'She makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy,' said one of her endorsers, Governor Michael F. Easley. I thought we Democrats don't talk like that any more. Or another revealing citation, this one from a labor leader also endorsing Hillary, praising her 'testicular fortitude.' My God, and I had just about stopped using the word 'seminal.'

This degradation of discourse and behavior is part and parcel of her attempt at appearing like what she thinks of as common. Is this the learning she envisions in 'It Takes a Village'? It certainly isn't what she called eons ago 'the politics of meaning.'...

Using race to divide us

newsobserver.com :

Does Clinton really think that Obama is unpatriotic or racist or divisive? If so, she should say that directly and let him defend himself against the charge. But we all know that is not her personal belief; Wright is just another loaded code word or phrase, like 'welfare queen.' Clinton is using him to divide; to gain political advantage among white Democrats, even at the expense of offending or turning off many African-Americans, one of the Democratic Party's most loyal blocs of voters.

Clinton's husband did the same thing in 1993, when he unceremoniously dumped Lani Guinier after nominating her to be assistant attorney general for civil rights. Guinier was attacked by right-wing Republicans as a 'quota queen' because of some things she had written about voting rights that were intended to move us beyond racial politics and force coalition-building among voters based on shared interests, not race....

More important, however, nothing that Wright has said has anything to do with whether Obama should be president. The fact that Clinton has so aggressively exploited Wright in her campaign is only a reflection of her unfitness to be a president who unites us.

Even if she were nominated by the Democrats and elected president, her personal triumph would have been at the cost of four more years of political and likely racial divisiveness. That seems too high a price to pay, for the Democrats or the country.

(James E. Coleman Jr. is a professor at Duke University's law school.)

Gidi Grinstein on Zionism

...The secret of Zionism—the resilience of Zionism—is its ideological agility. Zionism has been driven by… ideas that are inconsistent with each other. So Zionism has been and remains a balancing act.

First I'd like to give you the concept. If there was rigidity in Zionism, there would be no way Zionism could survive the tremendous turmoil of the last sixty or seventy years. But these ideas are not in a hierarchy with each other--they are on a platform, they have equal footing and in every window of time there is a realignment of these ideas to meet the challenges of the day with new priorities.

What are these ideas? First there is the commitment to a special place on the face of this Earth—the land of Israel, the cradle of our civilization. The second big idea was about security for Jews. The third was about the well being of Jews. Not necessarily about wealth but more about economic independence, economic self determination. Then it was a whole nexus of ideas about humanism, liberalism, democracy. The Zionist movement since its inception has been democratic to a fault. That is still reflected and projected into the Knesset, which is a highly ineffective body.

It was about leadership among the family of nations—tikkun olam—repairing the world. It was about being light unto the nations, and the quest to create a model society. It has been about the Jewish character of the state of Israel—which means its language, its national day of rest, the Shabbat, its national holidays. This is the only place on the face of this earth where Jews experience being a majority. We assume full responsibility. This is a radically different existence than being a minority—as economically and politically powerful as a minority can be. Here we take care of sewage, we're responsible for security.

Unforgiven

From The Atlantic, by Jeffrey Goldberg:

"David Grossman, like most of Israel’s leftists, sees binationalism as simultaneously utopian and dismissive of Jewish feelings. “You know, binationalism doesn’t work in so many places in the world,” he said. “You see it in Belgium now. And they expect, with this really hateful combination of Jews and Arabs, that it will succeed here? It’s so wrong. Part of the cure for the historical distortions of both peoples is that they need a place of their own with defined borders. We have to heal separately. I’m a little suspicious of these people who would experiment on us with binationalism.”

Reality, he said, has made a Jewish state necessary. “Since the world has failed to defend Jewish existence, there is a need for a place for the Jews to implement their culture and their values and their language and their history, a place in which to recover.”"

Bill Moyers on Wright and Obama

...Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy; this is wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.

Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettle some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. We are often exposed us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this ? this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner before our very eyes. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".

Jeff Greenfield on Obama and Orwell

From Slate:

..."Everyone who uses his brain knows that Socialism, is a way out [of the worldwide depression,]" Orwell writes. "It would at least ensure our getting enough to eat, even if it deprived us of everything else. Indeed, from one point of view, Socialism is such an elementary common sense that I am sometimes amazed that it has not established itself already." And yet, he adds, "the average thinking person nowadays is merely not a Socialist, he is actively hostile to Socialism. … Socialism … has about it something inherently distasteful—something that drives away the very people who ought to be flocking it its support."

One key to the movement's lack of popularity, Orwell argues, is its supporters. "As with the Christian religion," he writes, "the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents." Then he wheels out the heavy rhetorical artillery. The typical socialist, according to Orwell, "is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism, or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white-collar job, usually a secret teetotaler, and often with vegetarian leanings … with a social position he has no intention of forfeiting. … One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist and feminist in England." (Think "organic food lover," "militant nonsmoker," and "environmentalist with a private jet" for a more contemporary list.)...

Iran Protests to U.N. About Clinton Comments

New York Times:

"On Tuesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran told reporters during a trip to New Delhi, the Indian capital, that he believed that neither Mrs. Clinton nor Senator Barack Obama, the other Democratic presidential candidate, had a chance of winning the election.

“Do you think a black candidate would be allowed to be president in the U.S.?” he asked, the semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported. “We don’t think Mr. Obama will be allowed to become the U.S. president.”"

Cubans Buy First Computers In Latest Change

New York Times:

"They saved for four years in hopes of one day getting a computer and, at the end, needed a loan from his sister to make it possible.

Amanda...will not be using the computer to surf the Internet, which is still not available for most Cubans.

'We don't have Internet. We don't have a telephone,' Fresnedo said."

For Exxon Mobil, $10.9 Billion Profit Disappoints -

From The New York Times:

Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, said Thursday that its first-quarter net income rose 17 percent, boosted by surging oil prices.

But even as it posted the second-most profitable quarter in its history, Exxon’s earnings managed to disappoint investors... Shares closed down $3.37, to $89.70, on a day the Dow industrial average rose 189.87 points. ...

UF to scan student, faculty e-mail in admissions leak

From The Gainesville Sun :

The University of Florida has launched a privacy investigation, looking for students and faculty members who may have leaked confidential information about a controversial admissions decision.

UF's Privacy Office is questioning members of UF's Medical Selection Committee and also searching through student and faculty e-mail for evidence of illegal disclosures of private student information, according to officials. ...

The investigation launched by UF is in part the result of stories that ran in The Sun in April, discussing the admission of a student who did not have the support of the committee that traditionally handles admissions decisions.

The student, Benjamin Mendelsohn, did not have basic qualifications, having never taken the Medical College Admissions Test, or MCAT, according to three members of the selection committee and two other sources close to the situation.

Mendelsohn is the son of a major Republican fundraiser, and a prior application he sent to UF's medical school contained letters of recommendation from Gov. Charlie Crist and Sen. President Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie.

Dr. Bruce Kone, dean of UF's College of Medicine, says he overruled the committee because the student was 'exceptional.'

[AJW: That the student, and the circumstances, are "exceptional" goes without saying in circumstances like these. The more interesting question is the respect in which they are exceptional. And launching a blunderbuss investigation of everyone's email is a sure recipe for notoriety and humiliation of the institution and its "quite exceptional" dean. Or maybe everyone in Florida is utterly without shame on such matters?]

And from an April 10 story, same journalist and newspaper:

Dr. Lewis Baxter, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience in the college, has called on Machen to allow for the Faculty Senate to conduct an independent review of Mendelsohn's credentials to determine how he stacked up against other applicants.

In response to an e-mail from Baxter requesting an independent Faculty Senate inquiry, [UF President] Machen said he was satisfied with the student's credentials and hoped his own assessment would "suffice."

Absent an independent vetting, however, Baxter says he's not satisfied that UF can assure the public that Kone didn't play favorites with a student whose family is politically connected.

"Like Sen. Joe McCarthy, Dean Kone won't show the evidence; he just asserts he has it, and demands others accept his assertion," Baxter wrote in an e-mail.

"This whole thing stinks like a rotten fish, and the university just can't afford this," added Baxter, who completed his undergraduate degree at Yale University and his medical degree at UF. "We just can't appear this way."

Baxter added that he was disappointed his colleagues haven't spoken out publicly about the issue.

"The faculty here, some of them could care less, and a lot of them are just scared," he said.

Several faculty members who contacted The Sun said they feared what might happen to their careers if they were publicly critical of the dean's actions. As evidenced by his Friday e-mail, Kone has openly criticized those with whom he disagrees - even [President] Machen's own staff.

And yet another:

"Two plus two equals five for
sufficiently large values of two."

From another friend:

"You Can Never Be Lost If You Don't Care Where You Are"

From a friend:

"There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who
understand binary and those who don't."

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1460906593/bctid1482434988

Gay Men Breaking Ground at a Jewish Seminary

New York Times:

"While the centrist Conservative denomination in its middle-of-the-road way operates with three different policies on ordaining gay men and lesbians — two opposed and one in favor — the facts have been established, probably irreversibly. Even before J.T.S. made its decision, the Conservative movement’s other major seminary, the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles, had done so.

Conservative Judaism reached a similar juncture a generation ago when it first admitted women as candidates for the rabbinate. Mr. Weininger was born in the same year, 1985, when J.T.S. ordained its first female rabbi, Amy Eilberg. In the months just before he won admission to the seminary, he happened to bump into Rabbi Eilberg at a synagogue in Jerusalem and solicited her advice.

“I encouraged him to remember that since he is a pioneer, some people will project onto him feelings and assumptions that they have about ‘the cause,’ ” Rabbi Eilberg recalled of their conversation in an e-mail message. “As hard as it is not to take others’ criticisms and attacks personally — since they are personal — it is essential to work at remembering that this is about the larger issue.”"

Borowitz on "The Great Debate"

Gibson Trounces Stephanopolous in Crucial Debate

Asks Twice as Many ‘Gotcha’ Questions as TV Rival

In what many considered a must-win contest for the two ABC News personalities, Charles Gibson handed rival George Stephanopolous a resounding defeat in last night’s televised debate.

With over ten million viewers watching, the stakes were high for the two ABC rivals to see who could pepper the candidates with the most so-called “gotcha” questions.

Gibson drew blood first, smothering the presidential candidates with so many trick questions that he immediately seemed to put Stephanopolous on the defensive.

An aide to Gibson later summed up the secret to the ABC anchor’s decisive victory: “He didn’t let the candidates talk too much, and he made sure that this debate would be about Charles Gibson and nothing but Charles Gibson.”

The clear losers: ABC News and the American public.

“It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid.”

Arnold Eisen, Chancellor of Jewish Theological Seminary, quoting Abraham Joshua Heschel

Unintelligible sentence of the week

Carole King, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell: Sheila Weller’s ‘Girls Like Us’ Weaves a Tapestry of Rock Queens - New York Times: By Janet Maslin

"At long last it’s time to acknowledge that even if women who enjoyed “that glamorous little wedge” of early 1970s feminism — “between the fiercely anti-‘sex object’ early feminism and the so-called padded-shoulder ‘power suit’ feminism of later years” — would have cited Billie Holiday as a great female artist, it was Ms. Simon “whose life and issues more closely matched most of their own.”

Michelle Obama on Elitism

New York Times Blog:

"HAVERFORD, Pa. — Michelle Obama, appearing at Haverford College, gave a strong response to criticism that her husband’s remarks at a San Francisco fund-raising event were elitist.

“There’s a lot of people talking about elitism and all of that,” she told a gathering of students and townspeople on Tuesday, alluding to controversial remarks that Senator Barack Obama made at a San Francisco fund-raiser. “Yeah, I went to Princeton and Harvard, but the lens through which I see the world is the lens that I grew up with. I am the product of a working-class upbringing. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago in a working-class community.”

Then, referring to her husband’s student loans, she added sarcastically: “Now when is the last time you’ve seen a president of the United States who just paid off his loan debt? But, again, maybe I’m out of touch.”"

For those who have been waiting:

Bruce Springsteen News:

"Dear Friends and Fans:

LIke most of you, I've been following the campaign and I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand. Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest.

He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where '...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.'

At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man's life and vision, so well described in his excellent book, Dreams of My Father, often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment."

Iran Says Blast at Mosque Could Be Accidental

NYT: By NAZILA FATHI

Officials said that the blast, which injured more than 200 people and killed a dozen others in Shiraz could have been an accident caused by ammunition left at the site.

Interesting. Any spare ammunition hanging around your church, synagogue, mosque, or retreat center?

Mead Releases New Grad-School-Ruled Notebook

The Onion

RICHMOND, VA—After decades of only offering ruled notebook paper suitable for college-level education and below, school-supply giant Mead introduced its new grad-school-ruled notebook Monday, which features lines twice as narrow as college-ruled paper...

According to Mead's website, the ruling lines in the grad-school-ruled notebooks will be placed 3.55 millimeters apart, making them "infinitely more practical" for postgraduate work than the 7.1 millimeter college-ruled notebooks. In addition, the standard 1.5-inch top margin normally provided for dates and headers will be halved, and the left-hand margin will be eliminated entirely.

"Just think: If you are writing a dissertation on elements of thanatopsis and necromimesis as they relate to cacaesthesian themes of mid-20th-century Irish literature, do you really want your notebook lines to be more than seven millimeters apart?" Luke said. "Of course not."

"When you're in grad school, every millimeter counts," he added.

To know, and not to do, is not to know.
--Ralph Nader, quoting a Chinese proverb.

Martin Marty on Pastor Wright

Prophet and Pastor - ChronicleReview.com:

"In the end, however, Jeremiah was the prophet of hope, and that note of hope is what attracts the multiclass membership at Trinity and significant television audiences. Both Jeremiahs gave the people work to do: to advance the missions of social justice and mercy that improve the lot of the suffering. For a sample, read Jeremiah 29, where the prophet's letter to the exiles in Babylon exhorts them to settle down and 'seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.' Or listen to many a Jeremiah Wright sermon.

One may properly ask whether or how Jeremiah Wright — or anyone else — experiences a prophetic call. Back when American radicals wanted to be called prophets, I heard Saul Bellow say (and, I think, later saw it in writing): 'Being a prophet is nice work if you can get it, but sooner or later you have to mention God.' Wright mentioned God sooner. My wife and I recall but a single overtly political pitch. Wright wanted 2,000 letters of protest sent to the Chicago mayor's office about a public-library policy. Of course, if we had gone more often, in times of profound tumult, we would have heard much more. The United Church of Christ is a denomination that has taken raps for being liberal — for example for its 50th anniversary 'God is still speaking' campaign and its pledge to be open and affirming to all, including gay people. In its lineage are Jonathan Edwards and Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr, America's three most-noted theologians; the Rev. King was much at home there."

The Shape of the Race to Come

New York Times:

"And an experienced Democratic operative e-mailed: “Finally, I think [McCain’s] going to win. Obama isn’t growing in stature. Once I thought he could be Jimmy Carter, but now he reminds me more of Michael Dukakis with the flag lapel thing and defending Wright. Plus he doesn’t have a clue how to talk to the middle class. He’s in the Stevenson reform mold out of Illinois, with a dash of Harvard disease thrown in.”

In a close race, that “dash of Harvard disease” could be the difference."

This from William Kristol, a Harvard Ph.D., in a NYT op-ed.

I consider Kristol's column utterly worthless, and the decision to hire him a low point in the history of The Times. I've written several letters to The Times making this point in relation to particular Kristol columns. Unlike William Safire, Kristol's writing is pedestrian at best, he does no real reporting (this column is a joke), and seems utterly incapable of fresh thinking or insight on any issue. I have yet to discover a single redeeming feature. (Safire, the object of a Kissingerian wiretap during his time in the Nixon White House, had the good grace to care about personal privacy of others in subsequent years).

There are, of course, numbers of conservative thinkers and writers doing interesting, well-written, and usefully provocative stuff, who would deserve a place on the rather valuable real estate on the NYT op-ed page and provide a real service to its readership. It is said that the selection of Kristol is due to The Times' publisher, who has been on a rather extended losing streak of late. The publisher can't be fired, but maybe it is time for a nice extended vacation.

And speaking of "Harvard disease", if Obama has "a dash", Kristol is a source of mortal contagion. What a pompous windbag.

Althouse: Wisconsin citizens seem to have demonstrated their liking for conservative state supreme court justices.

Althouse: Wisconsin citizens seem to have demonstrated their liking for conservative state supreme court justices.

My esteemed colleague Ann Althouse (currently in Brooklyn) is blogging up a storm on the recent (in my view, horrific) judicial election in Wisconsin. We have been trading lively postings on an internal faculty list at UW Law School, and my practice is not to quote those communications (other than my own, with quotations from others deleted) "out of school." But I have now made a couple of postings on Ann's blog, and don't see any reason not to reproduce them here [with some editing appropriate to change in context]. Many of Ann's fans are politically conservative, and my remarks are, in part, directed to their comments as well as to Ann's own.

AJW Comment 1:

Ann: "I am only saying that, given the Wisconsin voters taste for conservative judges, we deserve top-quality conservative candidates."

Actually, it would seem to me, the evidence of the past two elections, at least, is [equally consistent with the proposition] that Wisconsin voters (or the relatively few of them participating in judicial elections), and those financing the bulk of unaccountable third party ads, prefer ethically-challenged nonentities.

I see no evidence that they would respond favorably to "top quality" candidates. Which would suggest to me that the sitting Chief Justice--widely recognized as one of the most outstanding and hardest working jurists in the country--may be in real trouble. [Her re-election campaign is next year.]

Given that an important role of the judiciary is to enforce counter-majoritarian constitutional rights--which virtually by definition will be highly unpopular on many occasions--why on earth should justices be popularly elected--even more so given the increasing role of unaccountable and irresponsible money in these campaigns?

AJW Comment 2:
Pretty much all judicial candidates (short of a Robert Bork, and there haven't been many who haven't learned from his experience) read from the same script when describing their judicial philosophies and approaches to interpretation. Once secure in their lifetime tenures [not applicable to many state court judges], a few may go so far as to be slightly revealing of their relative priorities among agreed relevant considerations (one can, for example, meaningfully compare the judicial philosophies of Justices Scalia and Breyer based on their speeches and extra-judicial writings, as well as their decisions).

When it comes to appraising actual performance, much (including the attachment of such content-deprived and typically misleading labels as "activist" or "liberal" or "conservative") is in the eye of the beholder, and it is quite easy to mischaracterize particular decisions by being "highly selective" in contextualizing facts, legal questions presented, consequences, and how the decision fits in with pre-exiting precedent. Of course, the typical 30 second attack ads provide an ideal setting for fully and fairly presenting all of this in a careful and comprehensive fashion. (Yes, I am being ironic here.)

And, of course, we have seen how judicial election campaigns present a careful evaluation of the full range of issues likely to confront state Supreme Court Justices. You have noticed, perhaps, the amount of attention that Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce ads devote to the candidates' positions on deregulation of business and protection of business interests from liability based on injuries resulting from their unsafe practices? And owned up to the degree to which these considerations (rather than the purported safety of Wisconsin families from criminal intrusions) bear on their spending commitments in taking over these judicial campaigns?

Just so we can understand the true meaning of the proclivity of well-informed Wisconsin voters to favor "conservative" judicial candidates.

More Than 1,000 in Iraq’s Forces Quit Basra Fight

New York Times:
By STEPHEN FARRELL and JAMES GLANZ
Published: April 4, 2008

BAGHDAD — More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the inconclusive assault against Shiite militias in Basra last week, a senior Iraqi government official said Thursday. Iraqi military officials said the group included dozens of officers, including at least two senior field commanders in the battle."


Time to send Hillary. She, at least, is not a quitter!
Or, for that matter, McCain. He will stay and fight for another 100 years.

A Note to Hillary on Jerusalem Disunited

The American Prospect: By Gershom Gorenberg

An open letter to Hillary Clinton, telling her what life is really like in Jerusalem and informing her that her stand on uniting the city isn't half the plan her husband proposed in 2001.

Dear Hillary,

A colleague alerted me to your recent position paper on Israel, with your promise of support for an 'undivided Jerusalem.' I appreciate the warm feelings, but I admit I was confused by your description of my city. Since you are a careful, wonky candidate, I figured you must have details at your disposal. So this morning I called a Palestinian cabby friend, and together we went looking for the 'undivided Jerusalem.'" ...

Let me suggest a more honest and more honorable position on Israel: The greatest contribution that America can make to Israeli security is to help it reach peace with the Palestinians, and as president you will resume that effort where it was abandoned in 2001. If asked about Jerusalem, say that the sides will have to come to an agreement, and you are committed to help them do so. The Clinton parameters are still a good basis for that. If you don't take this position, I hope that your Democratic rivals do. It would make me more hopeful about the future of my fractured city.

Pfoo on Yoo

There is a lively debate on Lithwick's column going on at Slate's The Fray. I've made my own posting, and replied to a number of others. Take a look.

Plausible deniability, and other reasons why warfare by midlevel legal memoranda is a really bad idea

By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine:

Pop quiz for the law junkies:

1) Name the lawyer in the Bush administration who was sanctioned, sacked, or prosecuted for anything related to the firing of nine U.S. attorneys last spring.

2) How about the attorney fired for allowing the destruction of thousands of White House e-mails or the CIA torture tapes?

3) The guy dismissed after advocating for warrantless wiretapping in violation of the FISA law?

4) Disciplined for gross civil rights violations through the misuse of National Security Letters?

Can't think of anyone? Me neither. Someday, when we look back at the Bush administration's "war on terror," we'll be unable to point to the "bad guys" because they will turn out to be a bunch of attorneys in starched white button-downs, using plausible-sounding legal analysis to beat precedent and statute and treatise from ploughshares into swords. And not one of them will be held to account. ...

Goldsmith [Harvard Prof. Jack, who took over as heard of Justice's OLC and rescinded the torture memos of his classmate and (former) buddy, John Yoo] argues that when government actors are hemmed in on all sides by domestic and international laws, they become immobilized and fearful. As he notes, "It is unimaginable that Francis Biddle or Robert Jackson would have written Franklin Roosevelt a memorandum about how to avoid prosecution for his wartime decisions designed to maintain flexibility against a new and deadly foe."...

In short, the Bush solution to the paralysis of lawfare seems to be to hire lawyers who don't believe in the law. ...

With Yoo's legal "analysis" in hand, and the accountability for it diffused among many government officials, the system of legal memos promises to give cover to everyone at the top. As Rosa Brooks so wonderfully put it in the /Los Angeles Times/, it takes a village to adopt a torture policy. But accountability should not evaporate just because a lawyer wrote a memo at the start of the chain. ...


By most accounts, John Yoo is, in person, a really sweet, nice guy.
I hope the judges take that into account when he is finally hauled before an International Criminal Tribunal, somewhere outside US borders.
One hopes Boalt Hall will use his vacated faculty slot more wisely.

In case you were wondering...

		Good sexual intercourse last minutes, not hours, therapists say
		March 31, 2008 | Erie, Pa. – Satisfactory sexual intercourse for couples lasts from 3 to 13 minutes, contrary to popular fantasy about the need for hours of sexual activity, according to a survey of U.S. and Canadian sex therapists. Full Details

Big political news!

For those who think they can handle it:
http://politics1.com/

A "Scholar for Peace" in the Middle East

In Gaza, Hamas’s Insults to Jews Complicate Peace - New York Times:

"The chairman of the Palestinian Scholars League, and a Hamas legislator, Mr. Abu Ras is popularly called “Hamas’s mufti,” because he is ready to give religious sanction to Hamas political structures.

Last month, he criticized Egypt for closing the Gaza border at Israel’s request. He complained, “We are besieged by the sons of Arabism and Islam, as well as by the brothers of apes and pigs.”

... “The Israelis can’t accept criticism. They overreact, like any guilty person.” ...

Then he spoke of his son, who tried to volunteer to fight the Israelis at 17. “I convinced him to wait, he had no weapon, until 20,” Mr. Abu Ras said. “Now he’s a member of Qassam,” the Hamas military wing, “and an example for young people.”"

Very sadly, Israel has its warmongers and its racists, as do most peoples of the earth. Some are found among the rabbinate and the extreme religious observant community. They have a greater role in Israeli political life than I would prefer. But they do not speak for the majority of Israelis, or of Jews, and their blood curdling cries for generational or genocidal warfare, to the limited degree to which that may exist, is not celebrated by the wider culture. Indeed, explicitly racist ultranationalist political parties have been disqualified from participating in Israeli elections.

I have been a supporter of the Israeli peace camp for nearly forty years. I have always believed that Palestinian Arabs, like Jews, should have the opportunity for democratic national expression on some part of their historic homeland. I see the century-long turmoil in historic Palestine/Eretz Israel as a battle between two rights, in which some form of compromise, with both sides giving up some part of their maximal aims and historic claims as the only morally acceptable and politically achievable solution.

The challenge to Israel's peace camp is that the Arab World, including but not limited to the Palestinians, will never accept a permanent non-Arab, non-Muslim society in their midst. On this view, Arab offers of compromise are purely tactical, in the service of eventual subjugation, expulsion, or worse, of virtually all Jews, and any form of Jewish sovereignty, from Eretz Israel. Not just from Jenin, but from Jerusalem. Not just Hebron, but Haifa. And Jaffa. And Acre. And Tel Aviv. Proposals for territorial compromise (various formulations of "land for peace") avoid the enduring reality of implacable hostility to a Jewish sovereign presence, and mistake a temporary ceasefire for the prospect of enduring peace, under less advantageous geo-political and military terms.

Steven Erlanger's richly reported piece in today's Times fills in some of the realities underlying these fears. Many in the West prefer to blink, to avert their eyes from this unpleasant piece of the truth. Erlanger makes that avoidance somewhat more difficult, shoving some grim realities before our face.

The problem, I think, is that an exclusive focus on this piece of the truth--a focus characteristic of both some Jewish political groups (such as ZOA and AIPAC) and some scholars (such as Daniel Pipes and Ruth Wisse, author of the recent Jews and Power)--is that they leave supporters of a secure and flourishing Jewish and democratic Israel with no place to go, with no positive vision, with no basis for hope, for change, for constructive action toward a better future for both Jews and Arabs in their shared historic homeland.

Perhaps that is the reality, and there is nothing to be done about it.

I prefer to believe that some change is possible--but certainly not guaranteed. Over forty years of post-1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, both Israel (as the occupying power) and the Palestinian leadership have done far too little to nurture the delicate seeds of growth toward a shared vision of a shared land, one in which parents do not train their children for lives as martyrs, or glory in their "heroic" deaths, on battlefields or in schools or restaurants.

A stable and enduring peace will require dramatic changes in attitudes and behaviors that will take generations to flower fully, not merely the drawing of lines on maps or the signing of formal documents. It is way past time to embark on such commitments, and for political and cultural and religious leaders to look past the tactical considerations of the moment to the transformational efforts that will be necessary. Anwar Sadat understood this, as did Yitzhak Rabin. Their assassinations cut short promising efforts in the right directions, and powerfully reminded us of the brutal obstacles posed by religious and ultranationalist zealotry, that must be overcome if either people is to live in peace.

If not now, when?

Adventures of Chelsea Clinton

Were Bill's excellent Oral Office adventures with Monica strictly a private matter for the Clinton family?

It is beyond tacky to raise the issue with Chelsea, but if she does go out on the campaign trail, is that an adequate response? I'd prefer a simple acknowledgment that it is not a subject she wishes to discuss, perhaps adding (as she did, properly) that its relevance to her mother's qualifications for the Presidency escapes her.

Unfortunately, it may not escape others, who are not eager to see the return of her father (with his various pecadilloes) to that particular stage.

BTW, does this sort of posting belong on this blog? I'm not sure myself, and may delete it.

On US News law school rankings

Professor Brian Leiter, late of Texas Law, now at University of Chicago, is circulating an open letter to US News critical of its methodology in ranking law schools. [Link above] Leiter has long been an influential critic of these ratings, and has given more thought to the subject than most. I agree with many, although not quite all, of his points, but would raise some fundamental additional points. Here is a slightly edited version of an email I just sent to my UW law colleagues on the subject:

I find much to agree with in Leiter's specific comments and criticisms, but would go beyond them (as he probably would as well--we all have our priorities and areas of focus).
Perhaps a broader discussion among legal academics would be constructive...

For example: is it realistic, or constructive, to believe that all law schools try to do (let alone succeed in doing) the same thing? In its undergraduate ratings, US News differentiates national universities from national liberal arts colleges from various regional categories. In its medical ratings, US News distinguishes research-based programs from primary care programs (many schools are rated separately on each). US News' ratings of hospitals recognize that the best place to get a liver transplant is not necessarily the best place for a cosmetic procedure, or for emergency care. Is it time to also recognize parallel differences among legal institutions?

Is it realistic to believe that faculty at leading national law schools (or perhaps anywhere else) can make meaningful distinctions among, say, the bottom 125-150 (out of 184) ranked law schools? On the basis of what? (One presumes prior US News reports--the "echo chamber" to which Leiter refers?)

Are there many judges or practitioners out there (among the relatively few who return US News surveys) who have more than slight anecdotal experience with programs or graduates of more than a few dozen schools? What is the basis for their rankings of other institutions?

The gradations in scores of schools between about 25 and 50 are very fine, and these ratings tend to bounce around a fair bit from year to year, with significant ripple effects (see public relations releases, news stories, firings of Deans, etc.). Is there any reason to believe these are more than random fluctuations--or the results of the various gaming strategies to which Leiter makes reference? Can anyone really be confident that a difference of even ten slots in this range reflects anything consequential to the educational opportunities of students, or that the consequences of such differences in where students attend, or where they are employed, correspond to anything real?

Is it clear to anyone that the criteria applicable in differentiating meaningfully between slot #83 and slot #157 are the same criteria one would want to apply to ranking the top 10, or 15, or 20 schools?

To get more fundamental still--and this is a point on which I differ from Leiter--how clear is it that reputational differences as measured by citation analysis have anything much to do with the educational experience of students at many or most particular schools (or, for that matter, differences relevant to students following different professional paths in the law and adjacent fields--not everyone wants to be a highly paid wage slave at a legal factory)? Might one perhaps think that curricular emphases, styles of teaching and evaluation, emphasis on practice skills, clinical experiences, etc. have more to do with the quality of professional training than levels of pay for support staff (although those are not irrelevant, to the extent that undervalued and demoralized staff can affect the learning environment for both students and faculty)?

Might a more fundamental debate about such questions prepare the way for something better, and potentially more meaningful to students, and less destructive of other pedagogic values in what we try to accomplish as law teachers and as a law school? ...

Comments are welcome.

Fascinating take on a difficult parasha

Two Kinds of Holy Light: Tazria

By Rabbi Phyllis Berman *

As we read from different passages of Torah -- especially from the book of Leviticus -- we confront some of the most difficult concepts in Torah: tahor and tamei.

In many English translations, those words have been translated as "pure" and "impure," or "clean" and "unclean," signifying that one is all good and one is all bad. Understood that way, the Torah has seemed to be condemning menstrual blood, semen, the birthing process - as impure. For many years I felt horrified, offended, every single time I came across the words.

The Tazria portion teaches me a new way to understand the words.

The first eight verses (Lev. 12: 1-8) deal with what happens to a woman who has given birth to a male or a female child -- how much time in each case she is to be separated from the community as tamei, before she rejoins the community as tahor.

Out of my experience as a mother, I remember very clearly that indeed there is a period of time right after you've given birth that you want and need to be separated from the community. Your community narrows down to the baby right in your arms and at your breast and there isn't, for some period of time, another world except for that child.

Then I began to think about other moments in our lives when that kind of close focused attention happens as well: when we're lucky enough to fall in love; when we're taken over by the ruah ha'kodesh (holy spirit); when we're utterly captivated by a creative process.

So I began to think that indeed there are two different kinds of holiness. There is the holiness of such complete concentration and narrow focus - like a laser beam of light - that we can't look out into the larger world, and there is the holiness where we are so at balance that we can see a much broader reality, handle multiple worlds simultaneously.

Then I began to understand a little bit more about these words, tahor and tamei. I began to think that tahor refers to those holy times in our lives when the focus is broad, when we can see the whole picture, and tamei is about that holy time when the focus is narrow and we can see only the immediate concern that's right at hand for us. ...

Barack Obama has gotten past affirmative action. Have we?

By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine:

"Students at the University of Chicago, where Obama later lectured on constitutional law, don't recall him taking a hard line there, either. Erika Walsh, who graduated in 2002 and took Obama's Equal Protection and Due Process class, says she came away with no idea about Obama's personal views on affirmative action or any other hot constitutional issue. 'The way he conducted the class, he wanted you to talk, and he would be provocative,' she says" ...

[out of sequence]:In an interview last May on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos, he was asked whether his own daughters should someday receive preferences in college admissions. His response was unexpected: "I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged." He added, "I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed." His comments lit up the blogosphere with speculation that as president he might spearhead a major policy change, shifting the basis of affirmative action from race to class disparities.

Inauspicious training for ever living together in peace

In Gaza, Hamas’s Fiery Insults to Jews Complicate Peace Effort - New York Times:

"“Jews are a people who cannot be trusted,” Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful. “They have been traitors to all agreements — go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing. Look what they are doing to us.”

At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the “Crusaders,” or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as “the brothers of apes and pigs,” while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control.

Its videos praise fighters and rocket-launching teams; its broadcasts insult the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for talking to Israel and the United States; its children’s programs praise “martyrdom,” teach what it calls the perfidy of the Jews and the need to end Israeli occupation over Palestinian land, meaning any part of the state of Israel."

The real harm Hillary Clinton inflicted on Bosnia

By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine:

"The punishment visited on Sen. Hillary Clinton for her flagrant, hysterical, repetitive, pathological lying about her visit to Bosnia should be much heavier than it has yet been and should be exacted for much more than just the lying itself. ...

"I can tell you for an absolute certainty that it would be quite impossible to imagine that one had undergone that experience at the airport if one actually had not. Yet Sen. Clinton, given repeated chances to modify her absurd claim to have operated under fire while in the company of her then-16-year-old daughter and a USO entertainment troupe, kept up a stone-faced and self-loving insistence that, yes, she had exposed herself to sniper fire in the cause of gaining moral credit and, perhaps to be banked for the future, national-security "experience." This must mean either a) that she lies without conscience or reflection; or b) that she is subject to fantasies of an illusory past; or c) both of the above. Any of the foregoing would constitute a disqualification for the presidency of the United States."


Hitchens' column is entitled "Fighting Words," and these are. Hitchens has rarely, if ever, been noted for restraint, and not much more often for good taste. I read him critically, and carefully, and with more than a grain of anti-bile. All that said, this column is worth reading.

Students apparently copied honor code

Associated Press

1:20 PM CDT, March 30, 2008

SAN ANTONIO - Their goal was an honor code that discouraged cheating and plagiarizing.

However, the wording in a draft by students at the University of Texas at San Antonio appears to match another school's code -- without proper attribution.

A Triumph of Interreligious Understanding?

Severed Ties to Pope Over Catholic Good Friday Prayer: Is Jewish Seder Meal Anti-Egyptian? | PewSitter.com:

March 30, 2008 - Today in Germany, the Central Jewish Committee announced that ties of dialogue with Benedict XVI have been severed. The restored and revived usage of the Good Friday prayer that calls for the conversion of the Jews is at the center of the controversy it seems. The Catholic Church has repeatedly indicated the prayer is not intended to offend Jewish believers, but calls for a conversion of all religious faiths to Christianity. Accordingly, the German organization that represents Jewish religious interests has decided to show its displeasure by announcing the organizations unhappiness with the Pope.

As a Catholic, one needs to raise the question of the Central Jewish Committee…do we tell you how and for whom Jewish believers should pray? The answer is obviously…NO…we do not. Why then is there a continued perception among the Jewish community that Catholic should consider the editorial opinions of another faith when it comes to our liturgical and sacred prayer. Did we ask for the education opinion of the Jewish Council? Once again, it seems there is a concentrated effort on the part of Semite followers to manipulate Catholic prayers and initiate hostilities against our Pope because he is both German and the head of the Catholic Church.

Frankly, Catholics do not seem to consider the nationality or allegiance of any of the Jewish faith’s hierarchy. The same consideration should work both ways. The revised prayer authored by Benedict XVI for the conversion of the Jewish people on Good Friday is not a Jewish concern. It should be treated that way. ...

Joan Walsh on endorsements, and the lack thereof

Joan Walsh - Salon.com:

...But now two months have passed since Edwards dropped out -- tempus fugit! -- and still no endorsement. Why? According to a Democratic strategist unaligned with any campaign but with knowledge of the situation gleaned from all three camps, the answer is simple: Obama blew it. Speaking to Edwards on the day he exited the race, Obama came across as glib and aloof. His response to Edwards's imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat. Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton’s plan (and by extension Edwards’s) for its insurance mandate.'...

Clearly, I favor Obama, but this is part of the picture, worthy of consideration. Hillary has her strengths--she is bright, articulate, and knows the issues well. I prefer her variant on health care with mandated coverage to Obama's current variant, although I think too much has been made of the difference by Krugman and Hillary's campaign--and I believe that both plans (and Edwards' as well) are substantially inferior to a single-payer "Medicare for All" approach (to which I hope theirs might ultimately lead, even if it sadly can't seem to gain traction in today's enfeebled politics).

I am also sympathetic to Edwards' eloquent focus on poverty and the two Americas. I think Obama gets that in his gut, and will act on it if elected--but I can understand a tactical political judgment (not equally applicable to Hillary, or to Edwards) not to give it centrality in his campaign. This may be Obama's equivalent to Hillary's stress on military toughness, somewhat undermined by her misadventures on the Bosnian (fantasy) battlefields.

Hillary's survival strategy

A Response to Joan Walsh, on Salon:

I too speak as a one-time admirer and supporter of Hillary. That stopped after the multiple fiascos of the early years of the first Clinton Administration.

The current pattern of behavior is, sadly, all too reminiscent of an earlier pattern of dissembling in order to clean up after Bill's numerous sexual escapades. Hillary was all too ready to do in other women, misused and thrown away by Bill, when they threatened the unquenchable Clinton ambition. I've never understood, after this unsisterly behavior, how self-respecting feminists can continue to support her.

I've also profoundly troubled by the way "loyalty" works in Clintonland. If anyone who has previously served the Clintons as a loyal retainer finds appeal in other campaigns, he/she is quickly labelled a "Judas." Yet for the Clintons, loyalty works up, and not down. Recall the Clintons' trashing of Lani Guinier when she became a political liability. Under the bus with her--despite a lifelong friendship.

We've seen too much of such demands for loyalty as the principal virtue in politics (in place of competence and principle, not to speak of obligations to the American people and the Constitution), going back to Nixon and continuing through W. At least W shows a modicum of loyalty back down (see Libby, Scooter).

We deserve better. I think Obama offers our best chance of getting it.--The Wise Bard

Rev. Wright to The NYT, and some thoughts on journalism (and truth?)

Daily Kos posts a copy of an unpublished letter from Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the NYT from about a year ago, with much accompanying commentary. It is worth a look.

There are aspects of Wright's letter that I find distinctly uncomfortable, and I fear these are reflective of some larger issues in his character and outlook. That does not necessarily distinguish him in kind from many other religious leaders who have had inordinate (and in my view deleterious) influence through the media and directly on public officials. American public opinion is considerably more tolerant of some of these figures than of others, and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that race (along with the distinctive/minority position of certain faiths in the American context) has a not inconsiderable impact on how objectionable statements are received by the media and the public.

Wright's letter to The Times raises an additional issue worthy of discussion here. I have been a devout Times reader for more than 35 years, since my college days. It is, I think, the best we have in daily print journalism, although I have long tried to seek supplementation via numerous other sources of news--a task made much easier in this age of the "internets" (tubes, lots of tubes).

I often have occasion to reflect on the disparity in my trust in The Times (or any other news source, mainstream or otherwise--I'm picking on The Times here as exemplary of better news sources) in areas in which I am professionally or otherwise expert, and in areas I know less immediately or in depth.

Today is the 29th anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. Digging into my deeply repressed past, I then worked for a law firm representing the owner of TMI, and had been involved in some relatively minor regulatory matters regarding the facility. On the morning of the accident, we were packing up for a trip to the facility, for a hearing on issues relating to--are you ready for this--the likelihood and potential consequences of a direct impact by a large airliner on a functioning nuclear facility.

I am mindful of the continuing obligations of confidentiality, but I think it is permissible to say that for the next year and a half, I attended and privately reported on virtually every Washington-based public meeting of regulatory agencies, Congressional committees, and the Presidential (Kemeny) Commission investigating the accident. I was a pretty highly informed listener, with a substantial sense of the overall context of the developing story. Needless to say to those who were alive then, the story got a lot of media attention (which I also followed closely). Suffice it to say, much of the media coverage got events, both large and small, badly wrong, and almost always in a sensationalistic context (even in the most "responsible" press and media). And I don't think this reflect any enormous skew or bias in my own perceptions--my job (and my personal temperament) was to get things right, in as unfiltered a fashion as possible. This included conveying bad news (of which there was a great deal) as accurately as I could, often directly to senior figures.

The experience had a lasting impact on my thinking, reinforcing perceptions dating to press coverage of student protests (including a building occupation) at Harvard in the late 1960s. I was less confident in my own perceptions as a college student, and recognized that I only had one view of the elephant on that occasion. By 1979, that had changed--I had as clear and complete a first-hand view as most anyone in one of the most covered events of its time.

The media got so much of it wrong, sometimes seriously so, with important public consequences.

This has also been an all-too-typical experience on issues in bioethics and law that I have followed closely over the past three decades. At various points, I have had significant interactions with the press, and often do not recognize myself in the published accounts of the conversations. In recent years, I have taken to imposing conditions on the circumstances in which I speak for publication--with the result that I am called for interviews considerably less frequently, which has been okay. My vanity is satisfied in other contexts, or I do without. (Or I blog.)

And here is the crucial piece. Knowing all this from personal experience, sometimes hard earned, when I read The Times (or other sources) on subjects I know less about, and from a less first-hand perspective, I still indulge a presumption that The Times gets it basically right. I do read things more critically than I once did, and am less inclined to take press accounts as any species of holy writ (a subject adverted to at the top of this posting). But there still is a degree of trust, indeed of credulousness, that I cannot fully bring myself to overcome. The problem, at least in part: what is the alternative?

I don't have any overarching theory of press bias. Over past decades, since my TMI experience, I have talked about this general phenomenon with many folks expert in a variety of fields, often with persons whose expertise is of interest to the media and results in many direct contacts. All report more or less the same story, with local variations. None of us fully trust media reporting in the areas of our own expertise. All of us let down our guard, to a greater or lesser degree, when reading the media on subjects we know less about. None of us have found a fully satisfactory alternative, and virtually all of us have other demands on our time, and cannot devote infinite hours to searching the web (or magazines, or other potential sources) on matters less central to our daily concerns.

If this is true of The Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe--how much the more so for cable news outlets (see my recent postings on that subject).

Is there a reality out there? Can we know it? On what can we base consequential decisions on important public matters beyond our first hand experience? Is meaningful democracy possible in such a complex world?

I'd be interested in your experiences, and in your opinions.

Bloggers on Obama/Bloomberg

By Michael Weiss - Slate Magazine:

"Conservative Ed Morrissey at Hot Air wonders if this means the mayor's a VP possibility: 'Obama will need a dynamic, experienced executive as his running mate to convince general-election voters of his substance and ability. Bloomberg has made no secret of his ambitions, and having put aside the presidency, may see a VP run as an entree to something bigger down the road. He could wind up being the economics guru of an Obama administration — and he could potentially keep Hillary voters from defecting to McCain.' Marc Ambinder is thinking along the same lines: '[T]he best way to look at an Obama-Bloomberg ticket is by noticing their complimentary traits. Obama isn't much of an administrator or a details guy by his own admission, while Bloomberg is so concerned about Your Health and Welfare that he studies intently the ins and outs of congestion pricing and trans-fats. He's a prime minister-type -- although he brings an outsider's sense of efficiency to the bureaucracy. Let Obama be the vision guy; Bloomberg could be the brass-tacks administrator.'"

A black and a Jew on a major national ticket together? Who'd have thunk it possible, even to speculate on, semi-seriously?
On a more somber note, it might provide Obama with some additional assassination insurance, at least from right wing hate types--hard to imagine they would go after Obama with a Jew in the wings.

Barred From Main Road, Palestinians Fear Two-Tiered System

New York Times
For Shame.

Let's focus on the issues

Barack Obama delivered a major speech on economic policy this morning. (I understand Senator Clinton also spoke this morning, but I was otherwise occupied at the time and can't speak to that here. The same analysis may well apply--this is not an anti-Hillary posting).

As is typical, the various cable news networks hyped and hyperventilated in advance of the speech, which they assured us they would cover live--stay tuned, coming soon, coming up any moment. When Obama arrived, both CNN and MSNBC were there live. (I'm told there may be a third cable network as well, but I'm fairly unbalanced on that topic.) Obama embarked on another of his efforts to talk to his Cooper Union (scene of one of Lincoln's famous speeches) audience as if they were serious and thoughtful adults, invoking Hamilton and Jefferson and debates about the proper role of government in regulating the economy and promoting the common prosperity in the early Republic. He wove together an intricate tapestry, recognizing the importance both of market incentives and of an intelligently guided, visible hand of government in promoting fair competition, transparency, and public trust. He recognized the limits of New Deal-era regulatory approaches in keeping up with a dynamic and globalizing economy and the complex instruments of contemporary finance and capital markets. Having established these themes, he began to move to the specifics...and CNN cut away. Switch to MSNBC (I may have these reversed). Another moment of speech, then another cutaway. To what? A bunch of dimwits, blathering on with insipid commentary, doubting that anything much new had been said, with an inaudible half screen of Obama moving his lips as the dolts continued their voice-overs.
These are, of course, what pass for our main sources of live information--the self-proclaimed best political teams, blah blah. The ones that devote interminable periods to highly self-important but transient and largely content- free nonsense on the horse-race and decontextualized clips from sensationalistic utterings of tertiary campaign figures. One of these networks, indeed, cut way from Obama's live speech on the American economic mess to show us--yes, can it be--yet another in the endless looping replays from the Rev. Wright's collected wit and wisdom. Unbelievable.

It has become fashionable, in these days of cant and mudslinging, to urge that candidates debate the issues. To be honest, I haven't discerned enormous differences on the wonky policy details between Obama and Clinton, and what differences there are cut in opposing directions, at least by my lights. There are differences in personality aplenty, in governing style, in political character (and I'm not referring here to sexual habits). Different Americans will reach differing conclusions on whom they would prefer to listen to over the coming four or eight years.

There has been little enough serious, substantive discussion of many of the difficult, and politically fraught and potentially perilous issues facing our nation and the world--in this campaign or in the several previous ones. Those who have chosen to address some of these issues--folks like Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader, for example--have been on the margins (I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to assess the direction of causality in that relationship).

On those rare occasions when mainstream politicians do venture into serious discussions of real issues--as Obama (and perhaps Clinton) did today, it is a scandal that the so-called news networks cut away for drivel and pap. We as the public generally get what we deserve. It is time we demand better from our journalists, and express our dismay when we do not get it.

I'll try to drown today's sorrows in a repeat of the Daily Show, which is perhaps unique in making this point, day after day. Bravo, Jon Stewart!

Rev. Wright in a different light

chicagotribune.com:

By William A. Von Hoene Jr.

During the last two weeks, excerpts from sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., pastor for more than 35 years at Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side, have flooded the airwaves and dominated our discourse about the presidential campaign and race. Wright has been depicted as a racial extremist, or just a plain racist. A number of political figures and news commentators have attempted to use Sen. Barack Obama's association with him to call into question Obama's judgment and the sincerity of his commitment to unity.

I have been a member of Trinity, a church with an almost entirely African-American congregation, for more than 25 years. I am, however, a white male. From a decidedly different perspective than most Trinitarians, I have heard Wright preach about racial inequality many times, in unvarnished and passionate terms.

In Obama's recent speech in Philadelphia on racial issues confronting our nation, the senator eloquently observed that Rev. Wright's sermons reflect the difficult experiences and frustrations of a generation.

It is important that we understand the dynamic Obama spoke about.

It also is important that we not let media coverage and political gamesmanship isolate selected remarks by Wright to the exclusion of anything else that might define him more accurately and completely. ...

Can computers make life-or-death medical decision?

New Scientist: by Roxanne Khamsi

A simple formula can predict how people would want to be treated in dire medical situations as accurately as their loved ones can, say researchers.

The finding suggests that computers may one day help doctors and those acting as surrogate decision-makers to better estimate the wishes of people in a coma. ...

Bioethicist David Wendler of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, US and colleagues wondered whether a formula could be used to better predict a patient’s wishes. They examined information collected by pollsters and scientists about the attitudes towards medical care held by the general US population.

The data suggested that most people want life-saving treatment if there is at least a 1% chance that following the intervention they would have the ability to reason, remember and communicate. If there is less than a 1% chance, people generally say they would choose not to have the treatment.

“The difference between zero and 1% is all the difference in the world for someone,” says Wendler.

Surprising accuracy

His team then looked at subset of the 16 studies in which the medical scenarios were judged to be easier for a member of the public to understand. In these casea, they found that surrogates predicted the patient’s wishes more accurately, 78% of the time. But surprisingly, using the formula that people only want interventions if there is a 1% chance of a good outcome had the same accuracy.

Faculty Are Liberal -- Who Cares?

From Inside Higher Ed :

One of the key arguments made by David Horowitz and his supporters in recent years is that a left-wing orientation among faculty members results in a lack of curricular balance, which in turn leads to students being indoctrinated rather than educated. The argument is probably made most directly in a film much plugged by Horowitz: “Indoctrinate U."

A study that will appear soon in the journal PS: Political Science & Politics accepts the first part of the critique of academe and says that it’s true that the professoriate leans left. But the study — notably by one Republican professor and one Democratic professor— finds no evidence of indoctrination. Despite students being educated by liberal professors, their politics change only marginally in their undergraduate years, and that deflates the idea that cadres of tenured radicals are somehow corrupting America’s youth — or scaring them into adopting new political views.

In a calmer and less disputatious environment, some might well wonder, "What are we doing wrong?"

Slightly more seriously, if exposure to the wider world of ideas inherent in a good liberal arts education does little to affect students' political thinking and attitudes (in whatever direction), we must be doing something wrong--or more likely (I hope), the measures employed in these studies are grossly inadequate, reflecting insipid oversimplifications of mature political thought reflected in one-dimensional bumper sticker labels.

Lest I be misunderstood, I think it is perfectly appropriate for students to be exposed to the thought of figures from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman (discussed in the quoted article and comments thereon). Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom stimulated some of the more lively and usefully provocative discussion and debate in my freshman year introductory economics course in 1967 at liberal Harvard. While I do not agree with most of Friedman's public policy conclusions (especially those more characteristic of his later years as a highly ideological, anti-government policy adviser), serious education requires fair engagement with a broad range of perspectives on contentious political ideas.

Nobel Nobility

Nobel winner gives winnings to 4 schools :

UNC's Nobel Prize-winning professor has decided to give part of his award back to the institutions where he worked and studied.

Oliver Smithies, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at UNC, and his colleagues, Mario Capecchi of the University of Utah and Sir Martin Evans of Cardiff University, were awarded a prize of about $1.6 million. The award was given in Swedish krona.

The three scientists were recognized in the field of medicine for their work with genetic targeting that began in the early 1980s.

Their research focused on genetic targeting, in which mice genes are modified to determine the effect this alteration will have.

Smithies has since split his part of the award, about $530,000, among the four universities where he has worked or studied. Each will receive about $130,000.

The universities that received money were Oxford University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Toronto and UNC.

'All four places had something to do with it,' Smithies said. 'Each in different ways have been part of my going to Stockholm, and this is a nice way to recognize them.'

Smithies received his master's and Ph.D. from Oxford, then did some postdoctoral work at Wisconsin.
He began his research for the work he received his Nobel Prize for at the University of Toronto, then returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 25 years and finally settled at UNC for the past 20 years.

The Nobel Prize money is given with no specific stipulations, and each university that Smithies is giving to, he said, will ultimately decide how the money will be used.

"It's for the benefit of the universities, not for my benefit or anyone else's," Smithies said.

Is society ready for this pregnant husband?

Advocate.com: By Thomas Beatie

To our neighbors, my wife, Nancy, and I don’t appear in the least unusual. To those in the quiet Oregon community where we live, we are viewed just as we are -- a happy couple deeply in love. Our desire to work hard, buy our first home, and start a family was nothing out of the ordinary. That is, until we decided that I would carry our child.

I am transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy. Unlike those in same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, or civil unions, Nancy and I are afforded the more than 1,100 federal rights of marriage. Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights. Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire. ...

Measures of success, Hillary style

Daily Kos: State of the Nation:

Five Ways Clinton Leads Obama

by Cameron Fredman, in Daily Kos

Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 09:39:37 PM PDT

Over the weekend, Senator Evan Bayh suggested we measure the success of the candidates not by delegates earned, but by the electoral votes of the states they’ve won. In the spirit of Senator Bayh, I present you with five additional metrics that I pulled out of my ass. As you’ll see, Hillary Clinton is either winning or tied with Obama in every case....

"Total number of 'New' States

CLINTON: 4

OBAMA:0

Hilllary Clinton has won New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York. By contrast, Obama has failed to win a single state with the word 'New' in its name. Obama’s failure among self-proclaimed new states, raises serious questions about his supposed strength among young voters (new people) and his supposed message of change (new policies).

Average Highest Elevation

CLINTON: 6135 Feet

OBAMA: 6097 Feet

Frankly, I’m surprised that more attention hasn’t been drawn to this. Obama claims to want to elevate the level of discourse, but he has failed in states with the highest elevations. Clinton has won on Mount Whitney (California), Humphreys Peak (Arizona), Boundary Peak (Nevada), and Wheeler Peak (New Mexico). Perhaps more significantly, there are so few peaks left that despite the close margins, Obama has no hope of regaining the altitude vote. Clinton also leads among states with the highest average mean elevation: (Clinton: 1908.8 feet Obama: 1457.7 feet)."...

NO MORE DRAMA, ELECT OBAMA!

Sex, drugs &...

Comment on NYT Blog:

[New NY Gov] Paterson has confessed to sex. He has now also confessed to drugs. Once he confesses to rock and roll, can we be done with this and get on with the business of running this state?

— Posted by dyinglikeflies

The Return of Obama Girl (PG-13)

Gary Hart on "the Democratic party (at its best)"

From Gary hart on Huff Post


... the Democratic party (at its best) is the progressive party, the party of the future, and the Republican party is the party that wishes to hold onto the past. When the Democratic party is truly the party of the future, for change, for experimentation, for adaptation, we win. When we "triangulate," we may create enough confusion to get ourselves elected, but we have no mandate to govern and we sacrifice our identity.

on Yahoo!

The best Democratic leaders, those who succeed as national leaders, are those who define the future and show us how to get there. It shouldn't surprise anyone that those rare leaders, like Barack Obama, also have a "liberal" voting record, especially when, as Senator Obama accurately points out, right-wing ideologues make sure the voting deck is stacked to reflect the old divisive agenda they've perfected. But, as he also points out, "as president, I would be setting the agenda."

Obsessing on rejecting, denouncing, repudiating

O'Reilly Attends Easter Services At Church Lead by Ex-Nazi

From Chris Kelly, Huff Post

The Huffington Post has learned that Bill O'Reilly -- who claims to love America -- spent Sunday at a "church" run by a former Hitler Youth named Joseph Alois Ratzinger. Ratzinger has gone to elaborate ends to hide this connection, including taking on the absurd pseudonym "Pope Benedict XVI." Which, even if it doesn't prove anything, certainly makes you think.

This shocking revelation comes only a week after Barack Obama admitted he attends a church formerly run by Jeremiah Wright, who talks smack about America, although probably less than Goebbels did.

This would all be holy water under the bridge, except for one disturbing and undeniable fact: Bill O'Reilly is a Roman Catholic, and Benedict "Joey Ratz" XVI worked for Hitler, as did Unity Mitford, whose baby sister was Jessica Mitford, who knew Maya Angelou, who knew Betty Shabazz, who was married to Malcolm X, who knew Louis Farrakhan.

Is there any place in our public discourse for men like Bill O'Reilly, who won't even repudiate their links to Louis Farrakhan? I'll give you the last word, and then cut you off in the middle of it: No there isn't. ...

What must you always remember to do?

Be good, and do good.

From HBO's John Adams

An unanticipated endorsement

Doug Kmiec is a very prominent --and quite conservative--law professor, who has served in senior legal positions in Republican administrations and is a frequent "talking head" representing Republican and conservative positions. This is one of the more surprising endorsements of this topsy-turvy political season. The question, I suppose, is whether this will result in any sober second thoughts in the progressive community. I rather doubt it. I do wonder if this is an unanticipated fruit of Obama's speech on race in America.

Today I endorse Barack Obama for president of the United States. I believe him to be a person of integrity, intelligence and genuine good will. I take him at his word that he wants to move the nation beyond its religious and racial divides and to return United States to that company of nations committed to human rights. I do not know if his earlier life experience is sufficient for the challenges of the presidency that lie ahead. I doubt we know this about any of the men or women we might select. It likely depends upon the serendipity of the events that cannot be foreseen. I do have confidence that the Senator will cast his net widely in search of men and women of diverse, open-minded views and of superior intellectual qualities to assist him in the wide range of responsibilities that he must superintend.

This endorsement may be of little note or consequence, except perhaps that it comes from an unlikely source: namely, a former constitutional legal counsel to two Republican presidents. The endorsement will likely supply no strategic advantage equivalent to that represented by the very helpful accolades the Senator has received from many of high stature and accomplishment, including most recently, from Governor Bill Richardson. Nevertheless, it is important to be said publicly in a public forum in order that it be understood. It is not arrived at without careful thought and some difficulty.

As a Republican, I strongly wish to preserve traditional marriage not as a suspicion or denigration of my homosexual friends, but as recognition of the significance of the procreative family as a building block of society. As a Republican, and as a Catholic, I believe life begins at conception, and it is important for every life to be given sustenance and encouragement. As a Republican, I strongly believe that the Supreme Court of the United States must be fully dedicated to the rule of law, and to the employ of a consistent method of interpretation that keeps the Court within its limited judicial role. As a Republican, I believe problems are best resolved closest to their source and that we should never arrogate to a higher level of government that which can be more effectively and efficiently resolved below. As a Republican, and the constitutional lawyer, I believe religious freedom does not mean religious separation or mindless exclusion from the public square.

In various ways, Senator Barack Obama and I may disagree on aspects of these important fundamentals, but I am convinced based upon his public pronouncements and his personal writing that on each of these questions he is not closed to understanding opposing points of view, and as best as it is humanly possible, he will respect and accommodate them.

No doubt some of my friends will see this as a matter of party or intellectual treachery. I regret that and I respect their disagreement. But they will readily agree that as Republicans, we are first Americans. As Americans, we must voice our concerns for the well-being of our nation without partisanship when decisions that have been made endanger the body politic. Our president has involved our nation in a military engagement without sufficient justification or clear objective. In so doing, he has incurred both tragic loss of life and extraordinary debt jeopardizing the economy and the well-being of the average American citizen. In pursuit of these fatally flawed purposes, the office of the presidency, which it was once my privilege to defend in public office formally, has been distorted beyond its constitutional assignment. Today, I do no more than raise the defense of that important office anew, but as private citizen.

9/11 and the radical Islamic ideology that it represents is a continuing threat to our safety and the next president must have the honesty to recognize that it, as author Paul Berman has written, "draws on totalitarian inspirations from 20th-century Europe and with its double roots, religious and modern, perversely intertwined. . . .wields a lot more power, intellectually speaking, then naïve observers might suppose." Senator Obama needs to address this extremist movement with the same clarity and honesty with which he has addressed the topic of race in America. Effective criticism of the incumbent for diverting us from this task is a good start, but it is incomplete without a forthright outline of a commitment to undertake, with international partners, the formation of a world-wide entity that will track, detain, prosecute, convict, punish, and thereby, stem radical Islam's threat to civil order. I await Senator Obama's more extended thinking upon this vital subject, as he accepts the nomination of his party and engages Senator McCain in the general campaign discussion to come.

Posted Sunday, March 23, 2008 9:18 AM by Doug Kmiec

I Like to Watch, TV:

Salon Arts & Entertainment:

"Why awake each morning with a to-do list? When we're old and gray, will we measure our lives in laundry, errands and e-mails? It's time we finally emancipated ourselves from the oppressive, ever-looming burden of productivity. Life is too short to waste time inventing even more supposedly important, time-sensitive tasks. Let's float free of goal-oriented living and drift aimlessly through the world like idle aristocrats or retirees or stray dogs! Let's spend our time wandering and sniffing around and relaxing in the sunshine and sipping coffee and reading the paper and musing on the meaning of it all!"