The Commentariat -- Sept. 11, 2013
... The New York Times has the transcript of the speech. ...
... Short Version. Erin McClam (a new McDonald's sandwich??) of NBC News recaps the President's speech & related news. ...
... Over there on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell has nothing but bad stuff to say about President Obama & any deal that might be reached with Syria. Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Chris Matthews. Ed Schultz & Al Sharpton contradicted her -- but mostly not till Mitchell moved on to spread her shit on NBC News. ...
... Maureen Dowd makes Andrea Mitchell sound like an Obama groupie, by comparison. Dowd trashes Obama, Kerry & any other Democrats (Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid) who come to mind. ...
... George Packer of the New Yorker is tough, too, but in a more measured & thoughtful way: "... the Administration has had the good fortune to stumble into diplomacy, randomly sprung from the trap it set for itself. I'd say the chances of missile strikes are now less than one in ten. The sudden turn of events has already led the Syrian government to reverse its longstanding policy of denying that it possesses chemical weapons, a situation that would have Monty Python-like possibilities if not for the daily horrors. That move suggests the better possibilities of diplomacy." ...
... John Dickerson of Slate is critical but fair: "The best new argument the president has for his Syria policy is that the threat appears to be working. The outlines of the Syrian offer to give up chemical weapons will become clear soon enough and we'll all learn whether this pause was a bluff or a genuine breakthrough. If it's the latter, then what looked like a confusing speech in the middle of a fishtailing policy will mark the moment when Obama's hard line started to pay off. If it's just a bluff, then the president will again need that Congressional vote, and his remarks from tonight will be long in the distance." ...
... Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "The United States will begin working with its allies at the United Nations to explore the viability of a Russian plan to avert military action against Syria by having the international community take control of the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile, a senior White House official said on Tuesday. The decision to work through the United Nations came after President Obama spoke Tuesday morning with President François Hollande of France and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, the White House official said." ...
... Stacy Meichtry, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: "A nearly immediate impasse over a United Nations resolution on removing Syria's chemical weapons sent American, British and French diplomats into a huddle on Tuesday, as they sought to craft a version stern enough to ensure Syrian compliance without spurring a Russian veto. Russia rejected France's initial demand for muscular wording aimed at forcing Syria to hand over the weapons on a deadline and under the threat of force. Moscow canceled a meeting it had called at the Security Council and set the stage for a possible diplomatic standoff." ...
... RT: "Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Syria's chemical arms handover will only work if the US and its allies renounce the use of force against Damascus.... Putin confirmed that he and President Barack Obama had 'indeed discussed' such a possibility on the sidelines of the G20 summit in St. Petersburg last week. It was agreed, Putin said, 'to instruct Secretary of State [John Kerry] and Foreign Minister [Sergey Lavrov] to work together and see if they can achieve some progress in this regard.'" ...
I had some conversations about this [Russian proposal] with my counterpart from Russia last week. President Putin raised the issue with President Obama at St. Petersburg. President Obama directed us to try to continue to talk and see if it is possible. So it is not something that -- you know, suddenly emerged, though it did publicly. But it cannot be allowed to be a delay.... I didn't misspeak. I was asked about it. I responded because I was asked. -- Secretary of State John Kerry, at a House Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday ...
... Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed on how the administration changed its story about Kerry's remark on Monday re: the Russian proposal. CW: I think if you can read diplomatese, you'll see that the statements about the statement (see, I can even write it!) are not inconsistent. ...
... The Times has a liveblog of events surrounding the Syrian crisis. The Washington Post's liveblog is here. ...
... Ezra Klein: "The White House may really be about to win on Syria.... If Assad is willing to sign the [chemical weapons convention] treaty and stop using chemical weapons [as the AP has tweeted], they should declare victory. It's a better outcome than they could have hoped for. And they might get it without firing a single shot." ...
... Charles Pierce on Senators' reactions to a visit from President Obama. He writes a special tribute to Li'l Randy: "Nothing about the swift turn of events was stranger, though, than hearing Senator Aqua Buddha's enthusiastic support of the U.N., an organization that his pappy, Crazy Uncle Liberty (!), has looked upon as a Trojan Horse of UnFreedom for 30 years. 'There's also a valid argument to be made in some of us who were working very hard to delay the bombing, we've had a chance to get to diplomacy,' said Rand Paul of Kentucky." ...
... Here's the Post's most recent update on where members of Congress stand on the vote to authorize the use of force against Syria.
** A Gilded Age of Our Own. Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "An updated study by the prominent economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty shows that the top 1 percent of earners took more than one-fifth of the country's total income in 2012, one of the highest levels recorded in the century that the government has collected the relevant data. The top 10 percent of earners took more than half of all income. That is the highest recorded level ever. The figures underscore that even after the recession the country remains in a kind of new Gilded Age, with income as concentrated as it was in the years that preceded the Great Depression, if not more so."
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "National Security Agency personnel regularly searched call tracking data using thousands of numbers that had not been vetted in accordance with court-ordered procedures, according to previously secret legal filings and court opinions released by the Obama administration Tuesday. The agency also falsely certified to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that analysts and technicians were complying with the court's insistence that searches only be done with numbers that had a 'reasonable, articulable suspicion' of terrorism, according to a senior intelligence official who briefed reporters prior to release of the documents." ...
... The Guardian story, by Spencer Ackerman, is here. "... documents, mostly from 2009 and declassified Tuesday, describe what Walton said were 'thousands' of American phone numbers improperly accessed by government counterterrorism analysts.... They also indicate that US government officials, including NSA director Keith Alexander, gave misleading statements to the court about how they carried out that surveillance." ...
... Scott Shane of the New York Times: "The agency uses orders from the intelligence court to compel phone companies to turn over records of numbers called and the time and duration of each call.... Since [Edward] Snowden disclosed the program, the agency has said that ... it makes only a few hundred queries in the database each year, when it has 'reasonable, articulable suspicion' that a telephone number is connected to terrorism. But the new documents show that the agency also compares each day's phone call data as it arrives with an 'alert list' of thousands of domestic and foreign phone numbers that it has identified as possibly linked to terrorism. The agency told the court that all the numbers on the alert list had met the legal standard of suspicion, but that was false. In fact, only about 10 percent of 17,800 phone numbers on the alert list in 2009 had met that test, a senior intelligence official said." ...
... CW: It's worth emphasizing that these documents were not voluntarily released as a result of President Obama's enlightened "transparency" standards. As Ackerman reports, "The documents ... came after the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation successfully sued the FBI for more disclosure about the phone records collection through the Freedom of Information Act. A federal court in August ordered an initial round of disclosure to occur Tuesday." Not only does the public have a need to know when a government agency breaks the law, the agency itself will not function within the law if its lawbreaking is never subjected to public scrutiny.
Local News
David Halbfinger & David Chen of the New York Times: "Bill de Blasio, whose campaign for mayor of New York tapped into a city's deepening unease with income inequality and aggressive police practices, captured far more votes than any of his rivals in the Democratic primary on Tuesday. But as Mr. de Blasio, an activist-turned-operative and now the city's public advocate, celebrated a remarkable come-from-behind surge, it was not clear if he had won the 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff election on Oct. 1 with William C. Thompson Jr., who finished second. At night's end, he had won just over 40 percent of the ballots counted; thousands of paper ballots had yet to be tallied, which could take days.... The winner of the unusually spirited Republican contest was Joseph J. Lhota, a no-nonsense former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He defeated John A. Catsimatidis, a voluble billionaire who ran an often whimsical campaign." ...
... Mara Gay of the Daily News adds a bizarre coda to election night in her report on Sydney Leathers -- Anthony Weiner's ex-sexting partner -- who attempted to crash Weiner's "victory" party. Article includes multiple mammograms; if she ever grows up, Leathers will be tremendously embarrassed by her youthful indiscretion. ...
... Kate Taylor of the New York Times: "Eliot Spitzer lost a bid for political redemption on Tuesday as he was defeated in the Democratic primary for New York City comptroller by the current Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer. With 97 percent of the precincts reporting early Wednesday, Mr. Stringer was ahead 52.1 percent to 47.9 percent." ...
... Jonathan Chait of New York on "the dashed dreams of President Bloomberg.... Bloombergism is the sort of thing the Constitution was designed to prevent." A highly readable critique of Bloomberg's arrogance & how he decided to translate it into public policy, the public itself be damned.
** Lynn Bartels, et al., of the Denver Post: "An epic national debate over gun rights in Colorado on Tuesday saw two Democratic state senators ousted for their support for stricter laws, a 'ready, aim, fired' message intended to stop other politicians for pushing for firearms restrictions. Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron will be replaced in office with Republican candidates who petitioned onto the recall ballot."
John Eligon of the New York Times: "As a Democrat facing a State Legislature with veto-proof Republican majorities, Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri has not claimed big victories lately. So when he began stumping the state against a deep Republican tax cut that he had vetoed, he might have seemed to be on a political fool's errand. But over the summer, Mr. Nixon has turned the debate away from the Republican argument that lower taxes bring jobs and recast the tax cut as one that would hurt education and mental health services. The state's school boards have rallied to his side. More than 100 of them have passed resolutions supporting the veto. And with a veto session set to begin on Wednesday, it is the supporters of the tax cut who are now pessimistic."
Stupid News
Julian Pecquet of the Hill: "Thousands of demonstrators are expected to descend on the Capitol on Wednesday to mark the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans." CW: I can't figure out who these thousands are demonstrators are. Guess I should watch Fox "News."
Matt Gutman & Colleen Curry of ABC News: Mark O'Mara, the lawyer who represented George Zimmerman in his murder trial, says he will not represent him in future matters "even as police say that Zimmerman or his wife could face charges over Monday's domestic dispute.... O'Mara appeared to struggle with his anger at his client during Monday's incident in which he went to Zimmerman's house while police were still there. During a press conference later, O'Mara was asked if he had any advice for Zimmerman, and he answered, 'Pay me.' ... During the 911 call, [Shellie] Zimmerman reported that George Zimmerman had a gun on him, a claim that police later debunked, saying there was no gun found at the scene and that no one, including Shellie Zimmerman, said they had seen a weapon during the argument." ...
... Cord Jefferson of Gawker: "O'Mara isn't severing all of his ties with his reviled client, of course, because there's still some money to be squeezed from the circus show that is George Zimmerman's life. The lawyer, who now moonlights as a CNN legal analyst, will still serve as Zimmerman's counsel in a defamation suit against NBC." ...
... Karoli of Crooks & Liars is not convinced that George Zimmerman didn't have a gun.
News Ledes
AP: " Sept. 11 victims' loved ones will gather at ground zero to commemorate the attacks' anniversary with the reading of names, moments of silence and serene music that have become tradition."
AFP: "A powerful blast caused serious damage to a foreign ministry building in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Wednesday, witnesses said. The explosion comes on the first anniversary of an attack by militants on the United States consulate in Benghazi, which killed four Americans, including the ambassador."
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Reader Comments (11)
Jeebus, I'm with you Marie. Mitchell could hardly contain her hate on the President. Maddow normally idolizes her. I can only think that has to do with Mitchell being an early and successful female in the business. I have to say, I was most impressed with Sharpton's take on things. He had a point with the story about mom telling him go get a switch vs. merely verbally threatening as asswhippin'.
In the blog-sphere today, I have noticed several snarky suggestions to not mistake Putin and Assad's actions as a result of Obama "playing 11th dimension chess" (including our friend Benen). I'm not sure what that's about, but it rubs me the wrong way. How is it so unbelievable that a person as intelligent as Obama couldn't facilitate a pathway through this mess. I sincerely hope that he uses his skills to make this happen. The speech tonight was a rigorous argument for intervention (no, I don't favor engagement) and he gave Assad no purchase. I can see the importance of keeping the pressure on Russia and Syria and exploiting an advantage. The tone was almost more important than the content. In my view, he struck the right balance in order to maximize the outcome of a diplomatic solution, while appearing strong yet willing to listen to alternatives.
There is a difficult pathway ahead to secure those chemical weapons, but we have definitely moved forward. I sincerely hope that Kerry can follow directions.
Re Andrea Mitchell- one of my unfavorites. (The list is growing.)
Remember, she is married to Alan Greenspan and is a "princess." They are friends with Netanyahu and are big AIPAC supporters. She is very smart and savvy, but her agenda is oh so obvious--just like old Joey Lieberman's.
For more on Andrea Mitchell, read Mark Leibovch's "This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral."
Andrea, David Gregory, Brooks, Friedman, etc. are why I turned off the tv years ago. Asking vacuous questions has let them live the good life while hastening the decomposition of American democracy.
Watching the "live" re-run of 9-11 this morning, I could not help but think about how much different this world would be if GW and the neo-cons would have been unable to lie this country into a protracted war in Iraq and would have focused on Afganistan with an end to that occupation much sooner. GW's may have had a shred of positive legacy if he'd been brave enough to just say NO! Perhaps with a focus on more positive economic aid to the mid-eastern community, instead of sending in the military and hired gun mercenaries, that entire composite of countries would be more peaceful at the moment.
I hope that President Obama allows time for the notion that this country does not need to run headlong into another military intervention - however minor - and that our President does try to give the effort at diplomatic non-intervention a chance.
Thank you to all who expressed a "no" vote to their Senators and Representatives in Congress or to any poll that happened to call you.
The level of vitriol, hatred, and outright lunacy on the right concerning anything Obama just keeps on keepin' on.
And I'm not just talking about the knuckledraggers at the bottom of the food chain, or the addlepated, the prevaricators, the delusional, and the brain dead that take their Red State, Breitbart, Beck and Limbaugh through hourly IV injections. This is the Wall Street Journal.
Okay, okay, I know the Journal has been sucking down the Koolaid hard for years, but it's still a little jarring to see in a publication so (formerly) prestigious, or at least notable, hacks like Norman Podhoretz spouting off about how the president's goal is to weaken America.
I mentioned yesterday that it wouldn't take long for the keepers of the coal and oil powered dirty flame that lights the way of the right deeper into the rabbit hole to begin reviling any apparent achievement of this president in the Syrian situation as simply the result of a hopeless bumbler who lucks out.
Podorhetz goes even further. But he wants it both ways. First, Obama is a feckless, amateurish incompetent. But he's also a highly efficient, evil, and devious mastermind behind the liberal effort to destroy America. So which is it Norm? Mastermind or loser? Podorhetz makes sure to let his readers know blah, blah, left-wing radical, Bill Ayer, Weathermen, Jeremiah Wright, hates America, socialism, blah, blah, blah.
When this level of degraded and deranged discourse from one of the most read sources in the country, no wonder the mouthbreathers feel free to refer to the president as a child molesting baby killer from Kenya whose goal is to ravage de white womens and teach children to be communist agents and socialist atheists who will kill their parents in their sleep.
The Journal also goes on to denounce Obamacare for the billions in cost overruns that have already hampered right-wing efforts to create an efficient health care system.
Yeah....Okay.
My fervent, if misplaced hope, is that Obama, when this is all over, writes a book in which he rips these fuckers a new one. But it will never happen. He's not that kind of guy.
That's what he has us for.
I have zero respect for any woman who would marry Alan Greenspan.
Plus, whenever Mitchell is on the teevee, she sets my teeth on edge and I turn off the sound. I yell at the teevee "You don't pay this idiot do you?!"
Unfortunately, they do pay her--a lot.
A moment of silence for the commemoration of one of the worst acts of presidential stupidity, timidity, and perfidy in American history.
On this day 12 years ago, President Deer in the Headlights, sat in an elementary school classroom with a dazed look on his face, reading The Pet Goat for nearly seven minutes after being told that the nation was under attack. Under-fucking-attack. An attack he could have prevented if he wasn't such a criminally negligent douchebag.
The worst terrorist attack in history, which, if you believe the Bushies, never really took place. Didn't both Dana Perino and Darth Cheney claim that no terrorist attacks ever took place on their watch?
History, the Republican way.
A few more years and conservatives will blame Obama for the attacks, if they aren't already.
Barbarossa,
That marriage was likely the outcome of irrational exuberance on Andrea Mitchell's part. Greenspan must have found a way to dramatically increase her interest rate. Either that or she fell for his stimulus plan.
@Akhilleus and Barbarossa-
Andrea's marriage to Alan is pleasantly uncomplicated. She joined the A-list by marrying him. And he gives her expensive jewelry. (I would imagine, as well, he makes few to no sexual demands and does not mess up her make-up. That, of course, is speculation on my part.)
The good news is that the whining and puling about 9/11/01 is drawing to a close. It’s called War, mate. War. We, and our Western gang members started it a time ago, so get used to it. If the brown heathen of the Middle East created a monument for every time their peace and tranquility had been assaulted by the West, Mesopotamia would be wall-to-wall concrete… no place to plant so much as a date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) except in half a wine barrel from Home Depot ($7.99, potting mix extra).
The curious news is that the new models of the iPhone (faster, sleeker, more colorful than ever) are generating more ink than new Chevy models did in 1937 or prayers in Lower Manhattan do today. I’m in awe.
Some days I’m glad I’m 81 and on the cusp of a sour dream; today is one of them. If the tequila holds out. If it doesn’t, I’ll have a sad.
I skipped all the bloviators last night and watched "American Masters" featuring Billie Jean King whose rise, slip and rise forever story is so soul lifting. I had forgotten about that tense match she had with Bobbie Riggs (a true misogynist) beat the pants off him and made us females proud as peacocks.
As far as Andrea Mitchell: I cannot bear to listen to her–-her speech does not flow, she speaks staccato. Her husband on the other hand spoke a language many thought they understood, but few realized it was Ayn Randian disguised as fancy Chaucerian and in the end he put the screws to us big time:
Alan's Illumination: "Twas brilling, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mone raths outgrabe fifty basis points."
Maureen Dowd's column today made me want to take a cold shower and spit nails. Such hogwash! Well, at least we know she'll never be invited to move among the well heeled at those White House get togethers. A shame really––since it seems that would be something she's dying to do, but hasn't been asked.
A Local tidbit: We entertained a consortium from Mongolia in our library today. They are here on a visit to observe our town's democratic system of government. Tomorrow they go to Yale and then on to New York where if they are lucky will not be stopped and frisked. Good luck to these people who look to us as models.