The Commentariat -- September 10

President Obama holds a press conference:

     ... Here's the transcript of the full presser.

New York Times: "The 'don’t ask, don’t tell' policy toward gay members of the military is unconstitutional, a federal judge in California ruled Thursday. Judge Virginia A. Phillips of Federal District Court struck down the rule in an opinion issued late in the day.... The plaintiffs, challenged the law under the Fifth and First Amendments to the Constitution, and Judge Phillips agreed." You can read the 86-page ruling here.

Greg Sargent on allowing tax cuts for the rich to expire. Dear Democrats, the public is already on board. Please, go for it: "This, of all things, is not an issue where Dems should conclude in advance -- as they often do -- that once Republicans go on the attack, it's game over and Dems can't possibly win the argument."

The don’t ask, don’t tell act infringes the fundamental rights of United States service members in many ways. ... Far from furthering the military's readiness, the discharge of these service men and women had a direct and deleterious effect on this governmental interest. -- Federal District Judge Virginia Phillips

Thom Shanker of the New York Times: "... Salvatore Giunta of Hiawatha, Iowa, who is now 25 and a staff sergeant, will become the first living service member to receive the Medal of Honor, the military’s most prestigious award, for action during the wars since September 11, 2001." Washington Post story here, with more details of Giunta's heroics.

Samuel Freedman: for years there was a Muslim prayer room on the 17th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center. The bombing by Muslim extremists in 1993 did not change that. ...

... Oh, What Will Newt & Mitt Do? Justin Elliott of Slate: Gingrich, Romney & some other big-name Republicans & conservatives will be sharing the stage next week with virulent Islamophobe Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association (such a nice name) at the Values Voters Summit (such a nice name) next week. Elliott thinks leaders have an obligation to call out Fischer of bigots.

Jonathan Salant & Kristin Jensen of Bloomberg: "At least 25 'super PACS,' including one linked to Karl Rove, are fueling a surge in money for this year’s elections following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down limits on corporate campaign spending. These political action committees can take unlimited company, union and individual donations and explicitly urge voters to support or oppose candidates, unlike ordinary PACs and nonprofit groups":

Americans are ... seeing a flood of attack ads run by shadowy groups with harmless-sounding names. We don’t know who’s behind these ads and we don’t know who’s paying for them. -- Barack Obama (view video here)

T. W. Farnum of the Washington Post : "Capitol Hill employees owed $9.3 million in overdue taxes at the end of last year, a sliver of the $1 billion owed by federal workers nationwide but one with potential political ramifications for members of Congress.... Ssome Republican members are pushing for the firings of government workers who owe the IRS...."

Nature Editorial Board: "There is a growing anti-science streak on the American right that could have tangible societal and political impacts on many fronts — including regulation of environmental and other issues and stem-cell research."

Guess I'd better start promoting this guy...

... or I'll be helping out these guys:

Burn This Book, Con'd.

With the Crazy Cap'n. Crunch pastor from Gainesville teetering from yes to no to maybe* on whether or not he'll light the Bonfire of His Vanities, the Ocala (Florida) Star-Banner reports, "Westboro Baptist Church, the small Topeka, Kan., church that pickets funerals of American soldiers to spread its message that God is punishing the country for being tolerant of homosexuals, has vowed to hold a Quran burning if Gainesville's Dove World Outreach Center calls its off." Here's the Gainesville Sun story. ...

* AP: "Negotiations between a local Muslim cleric and the leader of a tiny Florida church who had threatened to publicly burn copies of Islam's holy text left the heated debate in a state of confusion with the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks a day away."

He clearly, clearly lied to us. -- Terry Jones, on Florida Imam Muhammad Musri

And The Tennessean reports that the Rev. Bob Old, a "longtime-Baptist minister ... plans to set fire to a Quran on Saturday at his home and then post a video of the burning book online. And if he had his way, there would be no Muslims in America":

If they want to have their religion, they can have it somewhere else.
-- Bob Old

... Chip off the Old Blockhead. Gainesville Sun Update: "A leading national minister and the adult son of Dove World Outreach Center Senior Pastor Terry Jones said they do not expect him to burn copies of the Quran on Saturday at the church in northwest Gainesville.... The younger Jones appeared in front of reporters with a gun on his right hip Friday morning...."

Constant Weader: am I the only one to think the real reason Terry & the Disciples won't be burning any holy books is this? -- Gainesville Sun: "The city of Gainesville ... will send Terry Jones ... a bill for the estimated tens of thousands of dollars it will cost to police the area if the church goes through with its plan...."

Damien Cave of the New York Times, on Gainesville: "... the people of this youthful city in central Florida are taking [Jones'] actions personally, with anger and heartbreak, as one of their neighbors drags their hometown into nearly nonstop news coverage and infamy. Gainesville, after all, is a university town that until a few months ago was best known for producing college football champions, Gatorade and rockers like Tom Petty. Educated and progressive, with a gay mayor and a City Commission made up entirely of Democrats, Gainesville is a sprawling metropolis of 115,000 people."

AP Standards guy Tom Kent sent a memo to staff outlining the Associated Press's policy on coverage of this story. Via Think Progress.

AP policy is not to provide coverage of events that are gratuitously manufactured to provoke and offend. -- Tom Kent, Standards Editor

Follow the Money

CBS News: "Terry Jones ... runs a church that spends most of its money on administrative expenses and operates a furniture business out his church.... The Dove World Church is for sale for 2.9 million." Terry & his wife Sylvia are the principals in several other businesses. And the church also lost a chunk of its local tax-exempt status this year. ...

... Reader Lisa pointed me to this more extensive post in the DailyKos that demonstrates how the church appears to be a front for the Jones' businesses. CW: I wouldn't go nearly as far as the exuberant poster does in her assumptions about the financial co-mingling & con-artist charges, but the raw data she (or he) provides make it pretty clear that the Rev. Terry has cheated on his local taxes & is way busier making money in various shabby enterprises than he is in ministering to his tiny flock.

Meaningless Aside. Matt Lewis of Politics Daily: one of the Rev. Terry's high school classmates (Cape [Girardeau, Missouri- Central High, Class of '69) was Rush Limbaugh. CW: I'm sure Terry & Rush will have lots to chat about at the reunion.

News Coverage of the News Coverage

Brian Stetler of the New York Times signals that it's time for the media to commence its ritual self-analysis. Stetler looks at the media's role in promoting the Koran-burning story & examines how & why the story mushroomed into an international affair into which even the POTUS was drawn. CW: fortunately, the Westboro loonies will give Stetler a chance to write a follow-up piece.

Roy Greenslade of The Guardian takes about the same tack & comes to the same conclusion as does Stetler: it's not our fault.

James Poniewozik of Time is less forgiving. In his view, not only did the media go nuts over the nuts, they allowed Sarah Palin & Co. to promote a false equivalency between burning the Koran & building a religious center: "it's not as if there's an argument that Koran-burning would be more sensitive a few blocks away."

AND the Government Finds a Book to Burn. New York Times: "Defense Department officials are negotiating to buy and destroy all 10,000 copies of the first printing of an Afghan war memoir they say contains intelligence secrets, according to two people familiar with the dispute. The publication of “Operation Dark Heart,” by Anthony A. Shaffer, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer and a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, has divided military security reviewers and highlighted the uncertainty about what information poses a genuine threat to security."

Japanese Model Beats U.S. Rube Goldberg Mock-up

Paul Krugman: "Japan’s performance has been disappointing but not disastrous. And given the policy agenda of America’s right, that’s a performance we may wish we’d managed to match."

What the Japanese didn't have was John Boehner, Mitch McConnell & Jim DeMint. They've never had to look forward to Sen. Rand Paul or possibly even Sen. Sharron Angle.

Surely the main reason our own government did too little in early 2008 was the fault of Republicans. We all remember those closed-door sessions in which, presumably, President Obama tried to explain prudent fiscal policy to Sens. Collins & Snowe. We all remember the Party of No, with the exception of the somewhat confused Ladies of Maine (& then-Republican Sen. Specter), standing firm against sensible economic policy.

Ezra Klein wrote a good post the other day on how much better the stimulus package (& the healthcare bill) would have been if not for the filibuster. He used the apt term "legislating to the lowest common denominator," & there he referred to the Democratic leadership's having to kowtow to ConservaDems' every whim.

As for the handful of House Republicans who voted for the stimulus package, their party's membership rewarded them with threats of primary defeats in 2010.*

I'm surely happy to see that somebody in the Obama Administration figured out Democrats shouldn't be running against Bush, but against Boehner, McConnell, Ryan, Cantor, & the rest of the current crop of economic knuckleheads. Let's hope the Democrats can act like an organized political party for the next two months (okay, fat chance!) & show disengaged American voters the horrors and hardship they will bring down upon themselves if they reward the Party of No -- who brought on, then exascerbated the economic crisis -- with their votes.

* CW: Oops! Exactly zero Republican House members voted for the stimulus bill. It was the eight Republican House votes for a climate bill that engendered the backlash & threats: