Sunday
Feb242013
The Commentariat -- Feb. 25, 2013
At today's White House press briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is giving a great rundown of how House Republicans are making the U.S. less safe. "No amount of planning can mitigate the effects of sequestration." ...
... David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Monday that her agency would be forced to furlough 5,000 border control agents under mandatory spending cuts, likely allowing more illegal immigrants into the country and potentially compromising national security. Napolitano said ... the sequester, would disrupt the Department of Homeland Security's ability to conduct customs inspections at ports, leading to increased waiting times for travelers and cargo shipments. Disaster relief funding would be reduced by $1 billion, she added...."
Jonathan Weisman & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "With Congress unlikely to stop deep automatic spending cuts that will strike hard at the military, the fiscal stalemate is highlighting a significant shift in the Republican Party: lawmakers most keenly dedicated to shrinking the size of government are now more dominant than the bloc committed foremost to a robust national defense, particularly in the House. That reality also underscores what Republicans, and some Democrats, say was a major miscalculation on the part of President Obama. He agreed to set up the automatic cuts 18 months ago because he believed the threat of sharp reductions in military spending would be enough to force Republicans to agree to a deficit reduction plan that included the tax increases he favored." ...
... Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog: "As I see it, the [GOP's] intraparty dispute is between a crop of old-school posturers who think it's effective to demand lots of military spending all the time, in order to draw a contrast with evil peacenik Democrats ... and a new crop, who are focusing on cutting government spending (including military spending) right now, but who are also likely to attack Democrats as anti-military later, if and when these cuts take effect."
... Zachary Goldfarb & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "The White House on Sunday detailed how the deep spending cuts set to begin this week would affect programs in every state and the District, as President Obama launched a last-ditch effort to pressure congressional Republicans to compromise on a way to stop the across-the-board cuts. But while Republicans and Democrats were set to introduce dueling legislative proposals this week to avert the Friday start of the spending cuts, known as the sequester, neither side expected the measures to get enough support to pass Congress. Lawmakers instead were planning for a lengthy round of political jostling ahead of another budget showdown in late March that could determine whether the $85 billion in cuts to domestic and defense spending this fiscal year stick."
How Do You Say "I Told You So" in Italian? Paul Krugman: "... even if the nightmare of a Berlusconi return to power fails to materialize, a strong showing by [the comical Silvio] Berlusconi, [actual comedian Beppe] Grillo, or both would destabilize not just Italy but Europe as a whole. But remember, Italy isn't unique: disreputable politicians are on the rise all across Southern Europe. And the reason this is happening is that respectable Europeans won't admit that the policies they have imposed on debtors are a disastrous failure. If that doesn't change, the Italian election will be just a foretaste of the dangerous radicalization to come."
George Stephanopoulos of ABC News: "House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said it was 'beyond a shadow of a doubt' that the Chinese government and military is behind growing cyber attacks against the United States, saying 'we are losing' the war to prevent the attacks."
Jindal Thinks Discrimination Against Gays Is Still a Winner for the Party. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) -- a possible Republican candidate for president in 2016 -- rejected former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman's argument that conservatives must embrace marriage equality for gays and lesbians if they want to survive as a party and reiterated his support for 'traditional marriage.'" CW: Apparently discrimination against women, minorities & non-Christians are winners, too. I wonder if Jindal is aware that some people would think he belonged to a racial minority. ...
... Igor Volsky: Jindal also "is suggesting that President Obama delay health care services to millions of middle and lower-income Americans to offset the automatic across-the-board budget cuts that will go into effect on March 1 if Congress does not reach a spending deal." ...
Annie-Rose Strasser of Think Progress: "Jindal (R) ... on Sunday became the latest Republican to come out in favor of universal background checks on all gun sales." ...
... Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs: Jindal "might as well have ended his spiel with 'nudge nudge, wink wink,' because he's not fooling anyone."
... "Here's what [Alex Pareene] learned this morning on 'the Sunday shows,' the three network news panel programs that define the parameters of the national debate for elite Washington: No one wants the sequester to happen, if the sequester happens it will be because Barack Obama failed to show leadership, what we need is a 'balanced approach' to deficit reduction, the sequester should happen but in a smarter way, video games may not cause violence but they are gross, and 'Zero Dark Thirty' is the best film of the year in part because John McCain disliked it."
Ezra Klein: "I don’t agree with my colleague Bob Woodward, who says the Obama administration is 'moving the goalposts' when they insist on a sequester replacement that includes revenues. I remember talking to both members of the Obama administration and the Republican leadership in 2011, and everyone was perfectly clear that Democrats were going to pursue tax increases in any sequester replacement, and Republicans were going to oppose tax increases in any sequester replacement. ... It's worth remembering that the goalposts in American politics aren't set in backroom deals between politicians. They're set in elections. And in the 2012 election, the American people were very clear on where they wanted the goalposts moved to." ...
... Dave Weigel of Slate: Woodward's op-ed disagrees with Woodward's book. ...
... Kevin Drum: "I'm perplexed by Woodward these days. He really seems to have some kind of weird jones against the Obama White House." CW: maybe Woodward has a Boehner boner. I mean, who wouldn't? ...
... CW: Charles Pierce agrees with contributor Kate M., as do I: "Having done its Watergate thing, the Post slipped comfortably back into its place in the respectable D.C. power structure. Woodward went with it, producing periodically weighty doorstops filled with establishment stenography. He's no more a liberal than he is a member of Motley Crue. He's a courtier to all the right people, the scribe to powerful." CW: my recollection is that Woodward self-IDed as a Republican way back in Watergate days, but I might be wrong.
Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker has an extra-long piece about Eric Cantor. CW: I haven't read it, probably won't do more than skim it, but Lizza is a very good political writer. Right at the top I learned Cantor's wife Diana is a liberal Democrat. How can she abide him?
Jane Mayer of the New Yorker: Sen. Ted Cruz (RTP-Texas) defends his claim that Harvard Law was overrun by commie professors when he was a student there. ...
... There Will Be No Reboot. Steve Kornacki of Salon: "Cruz has treated all of the negative attention as noise generated by Democrats, the liberal media and impure Republicans who are uncomfortable with a conservative true-believer rocking the boat in Washington.... The thorough beating [Republicans] took at the polls last fall perhaps should have prompted rethinking on the right. But conservatives' appetite for Cruz shows that the GOP base’s animating spirit still hasn't changed: Loud, aggressive and reflexive hostility to President Obama, the Democratic Party and any Republican who would dare contemplate compromise is still how 'conservatism' is defined."
ABC News: "Two lawmakers are waging a little-noticed campaign to abolish the Selective Service System, the independent federal agency that manages draft registration. They say the millions of dollars the agency spends each year preparing for the possibility of a military draft is a waste of money. Reps. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., say the Pentagon has no interest in returning to conscription due to the success of the all-volunteer force."
Sexcapades of the Red Beanie Boys, Ctd. Severin Carrell & Sam Jones of the Guardian: "Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the UK's most senior Roman Catholic cleric, has resigned with immediate effect after being accused of 'inappropriate acts' towards fellow priests. News that Pope Benedict had accepted the cardinal's resignation as archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh came after the Observer disclosed a series of allegations by three priests and one former priest. O'Brien has denied the allegations and had been expected to continue in his post as head of the Scottish Catholic church until mid-March, when he was due to retire at age 75.... His unexpectedly early resignation means the cardinal will not now take part in the election for a successor to Pope Benedict." ...
... Catherine Deveney of the Guardian's "Observer" has the backstory. This part is the kicker: "O'Brien ... has been an outspoken opponent of gay rights, condemning homosexuality as immoral, opposing gay adoption, and most recently arguing that same-sex marriages would be 'harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of those involved'. Last year he was named 'bigot of the year' by the gay rights charity Stonewall."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Italian voters delivered a rousing anti-austerity message and a strong rebuke to the existing political order in national elections on Monday, plunging the country into political paralysis after results failed to produce a clear winner."
ABC News: "The National Rifle Association is using a Justice Department memo it obtained to argue in ads that the Obama administration believes its gun control plans won't work unless the government seizes firearms and requires national gun registration -- ideas the White House has not proposed and does not support. CW : how to write a lead when one party is lying. The writer is not named. S/he should be instructing the rest of the MSM on how to tell the truth.
AP: "Nearly three years after a deadly rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico triggered the nation's worst offshore oil spill, a federal judge in New Orleans is set to preside over a high-stakes trial for the raft of litigation spawned by the disaster."
Swedish Horseballs. AP: "Swedish furniture giant Ikea was drawn into Europe's widening food labeling scandal Monday as authorities said they had detected horse meat in frozen meatballs labeled as beef and pork and sold in 13 countries."
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Reader Comments (15)
The Alex Pareene/Salon piece is priceless. A must read.
Don't know why everyone is perplexed by the conservative corporatist, Bob Woodward. He has been so since forever--even when he was a young investigative journalist bringing down Nixon et al. In my Washington days, the liberal journalists scorned him, because his goal was to be a rich insider, unlike his radical colleague, Carl Bernstein, who was more interested in drugs and sex. Bobbo has long since realized his dream. And,in the process, he has sold his soul for "access"--if ever he had one.
I recall watching Woodward on "Jeopardy" a few years back, one of those where Washington celebrities donate winnings to their charities. With few exceptions, such celebrity players don't match the knowledge levels of "regular" players, so you make allowances. But Woodward's ignorance was remarkable, he would not have qualified for the local (DC area) high school quiz show "It's Academic." I was truly surprised not only at what he didn't know, but at the wrong answers he offered. I recall wondering how such an ignoramus made a great living "writing about stuff," and concluded he must be a good notetaker. Because he clearly was not well informed or smart.
Re: Rick Scott and Medicare/Medicaid. I guess he's like Willie Sutton, who kerpt robbing banks even though he kept getting caught. When asked why "That's where the money is." Rick just can't help himself; all that money is just too tempting. However, Rick has yet to do time.
@Patrick: I was intrigued by your recollection of Woodward's being a dope on "Jeopardy!" especially because at least one of our regular commenters could wipe the floor with Woodward (and with me!) in any "Jeopardy!" matchup. The show was in 2004, & I couldn't find any video, but I found some commentary including a piece from the WashPo -- employer of Bob -- who blamed Woodward's loss on slow reflexes:
"Actually, it was the reflexes, not the brain, that stymied Woodward on occasion. There were two answers that directly related to him: 'Deep Throat' and 'All the President's Men' (the movie in which Robert Redford stars as Woodward), and both times he was beaten to the buzzer. This annoyed [Al] Franken, who was watching from the greenroom and was hoping for a revelation.
"'Why did Peggy buzz in?' Franken said. 'She ruined it! I thought he might slip up and buzz in and say, "Who is Alexander Haig?" I am very disappointed.'"
And there was this, from the Weekly Standard, of all places:
"THE SCRAPBOOK's personal favorite episode was the one featuring our old friend and WEEKLY STANDARD colleague Tucker Carlson, who was matched up against Washington Post eminence Bob Woodward and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, now a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Ms. Noonan was at her pixieish, subversive best -- either that or she was on some especially powerful cold medication, we can't be sure. At one point Noonan shouted out an (incorrect) answer without buzzing. At another, asked to name a 1960 gladiator movie starring Kirk Douglas, Noonan yelped, 'Baryshnikov!'
"Similarly peculiar was the trajectory of Carlson's performance. He couldn't do anything right at first. But then the questions -- or 'answers,' in Jeopardy-speak -- turned to ballet, at which point Tucker's fortunes skyrocketed. Not that there's anything wrong with that....
"Each player had designated a charity to which his prospective winnings would be donated.... Which brings us to the third member of the Carlson-Noonan-Woodward trio. Woodward, despite his reputation for being extremely well-informed, was bested by Tucker Carlson, though his choice of charity certainly stood out....
"Woodward told Alex Trebek, he'd decided to sign over his Jeopardy prize to a needy 'little school' in 'Washington, D.C.,' called 'Sidwell Friends.' ... Now a whole new generation of needy children will be guaranteed access to the same Sidwell Friends education that needy children like Chelsea Clinton and Albert Gore III once received. Needy children like Bob Woodward's own daughter, who now attends Sidwell's elementary school."
According to Harper's, Woodward's "charity" is even fishier than the Weekly Standard lets on.
Marie
Here we are nearing the end of the sequester countdown. Krugman looks at the performance of Europe's economies and wonders why no one on the Right is paying attention to their austerity experiment. There can be no confusion; the results are pretty much in. How is insanity defined? Repeating the same negative behavior in the face of contrary evidence? A successful campaign, energetically pursued, to ignore reality? Except for the canny, greedy few at the top who benefit immensely from austerity measures, one has to conclude the majority of the Right is either nuts or stupid. Or both.
Those at the top of the food chain who preach austerity know better but are simply protecting their "hard money" interests; why would billionaire bondholders wish to see their debt holdings diminish in value, particularly when their current return in interest is so low? otherwise. As for the Erskines and Bowles mouthpieces? We know their names because they are the performing bears in the for-hire austerity circus.
Too many in the majority confuse economics with morality. They associate sound economic policy with responsibility and hard work and therefore mistakenly apply the same tight (shall we say?) lipped code to national behavior, finding fault with countries that spend more than they earn. Such loose living, they believe, is bound to end in disaster.
That national and household finance are not the same does not occur to them. They know printing money with credit cards won't work forever, so they think government shouldn't overuse its credit card either. For them, that one situation is only distantly akin to the other just does not penetrate, and the scamps in category one above take full advantage of their confusion.
Austerity may be a sure path to the poorhouse, but it's oh, so virtuous! While we may be eating the one percent's table scraps, we can still feel superior while we gag them down.
In short, austerians either depend on dupes or are dupes themselves.
Re: Package chex; checking the news muse...Republicans still asswipes;... droning on;... US military leaving Afghanistan headed home;check that, North Africa;... Roman Catholic Church continues to pursue deviants for a good time...Ah, here it is;
Swedish Horseballs. Could there be a better two word headline?
Marie, if you dished up that tasty treat; thanks, you made my day. If Ikea's horseballs are anything like their furniture, consumers should hug the toilet, the horseballs will turn to shit in about ten minutes.
Hey, how come they only come two to a serving?
Off to work with a smile on my face.
Re: Sidwell Friends. Decent secular school. My first wife taught there for nearly three decades. My grandson graduated from there (and, against all odds, seems respectably educated). But it is a school overrun with the politically connected.
Oh, what I'd give to see a video of that Jeopardy show NOW, though I most likely had the opportunity when it originally aired—probably decided there were better things to do with my time. What a trifecta! Noonan, Tucker of the Bow-Ties, and Woodward. @CW thanks for finding out some of the Q&A details. Hilarious! Rerun, please.
Also more from Charles Pierce: "Ezra Klein was particularly firm-but-fair, pointing out that his "good friend" apparently slept through the 2012 election. But more fascinating to me was the chortling over on the conservative Twitch-O-Sphere to the effect that Bob Woodward, Liberal Hero, had turned on our socialist president, and nyah-nyah, where's your Moses now?"
Read the rest: The Woodward Myth http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Woodward_Myth#ixzz2Lw5oqfip
With a few exceptions this map looks a lot like this map. Looks like the Tea Party are going to get a dose of their own medicine if the sequester goes through. November 2014 will be interesting.
In the wasteland of TV game shows Jeopardy stands out as one of the few not beset by morons needing their 15 seconds of fame, by pure dumb luck, or by standards that most 4th graders could easily meet, so it doesn't surprise me (although it should) that so many of those whose job it is to tell the rest of us what to think actually know so little. Even regarding things about which they claim to be experts!!
Case in point, another Celebrity Jeopardy featuring the ever so self-regarding Thomas Friedman, a legend in his own mind and the guy who routinely tells us all about manufacturing and computing advancements that flatten the earth and elasticize the longitudes and sansabelt the latitudes. Or something.
So here are just a few of the many questions Mr. Big Brain NY Times FingerWagger missed when he had a chance to show how smart he was without Wikipedia.
He was given an answer about a "poisonous" kind of debt incurred by certain bonds during the recent financial difficulties. The ones he's always telling us how to solve. The question was what are "Toxic" bonds.
BigBrain's response? What are Sub Prime bonds. Buzzzzzzzzzz Wrong!
Okay, another try to show how smart he is. This in the category he claims special knowledge about, new forms of communications. The answer was a "tiny" name for someone who writes short posts.
BB's response? "Tweeter" Buzzzzzzzzzzz . Wrong again.
What is a micro-blogger was the correct question.
The Final Jeopardy category was Inventors, a category that many might suspect BB would ace, given the tens of thousands of words he generates about inventors and inventions that change the world.
The answer involved someone from the Inventor's Hall of Fame whose invention made a lot of money for some Southerners but who was out of business shortly after his invention was released.
BB didn't even venture a clue.
The inventor, as I'm sure you've all guessed by now, was Eli Whitney.
Now I happened to be watching this show and I have to say that Whitney was the only inventor I know that could have fit that description and I expected everyone to get it easily (the clues on Celeb Jeopardy being much simpler).
They all blew it.
The other two guests, Anderson Cooper and Kelly O'Donnell each got it wrong too. At least O'Donnell ventured the name "Carver" which, while not a bad answer for a low information type, should not have been the first answer of someone who works for a major network and is in the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame. (G.W. Carver was a polymath who was never out of work.)
I seriously doubt that Bob Woodward would have done any better.
So no, it doesn't surprise me in the least that so many of the people who claim to know it all
don't
know
a
fucking
thing.
Disappointing how we have, as a nation, collectively devolved on indignations of environmental catastrophe. Toxic nuclear waste has been dripping in Washington and our government doesn't figure it a pressing enough issue to act upon
"The energy department said a week ago that declining liquid levels in one tank at Hanford showed it was leaking at a rate of 150 to 300 gallons (568 to 1,146 litres) per year."
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/02/2013223223927460308.html
Fracking poisons drinking water and leaves toxic sludge in its wake for decades to come...meh.
Leaking toxic nuclear waste contaminating the local area for decades to come.....meh.
All this due to the political scientist's phenomenon NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). Furthering the solidarity/individualism divide.
The neighbors are complaining of drinking natural gas in their tap water? My water seems ok.
Toxic nuclear waste spilling into the ground soil 50 miles North? I can't smell it.
Local government: the last battleground between tribalism and civilization.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/25/5215803/ny-assemblyman-stands-by-blackface.html
CW you are correct about Woodward identifying himself as a repub during Watergate. I always figured it was Bradlee's idea to give the WaPo bipartisan cover.
When I read Margaret Sullivan's (NYT Public Editor) column "A Mind of Their Own, and the Freedom to Speak It", published on Saturday Feb 23, 2014, I had to comment. At that time (approximately 5:00 pm) there were two comments published. No additional comments were posted until 9:10 am today. My comment is below but I will note that Marie Burns also had a comment posted at the same time. MB's comment is far superior to my own (IMHO)! I'll note that many of the 45 comments addressed Mr Brook's playing fast and loose with facts in his recent column.
Published under "ogjerry from Baltimore":
"While I agree that your "Opinion" columnist are entitled to their opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts. David Brooks' Feb. 21, 2013 column "The D.C. Dubstep" played fast and loose with known facts. Doesn't the NY Times recognize that they have a responsibility to editorial fact check their employees?"
I don't expect to receive a response from the Public Editor~