Bowling vs. the Fourth Amendment

April 6, 2008

Glenn makes an observation that warrants repeating, far and wide.

In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to “domestic military operations” within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.

Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:

“Yoo and torture” – 102
“Mukasey and 9/11” — 73
“Yoo and Fourth Amendment” — 16
“Obama and bowling” — 1,043
“Obama and Wright” — More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)
“Obama and patriotism” – 1,607
“Clinton and Lewinsky” — 1,079

I don’t have anything insightful to add to this; I just wanted to mention it.

How about McCain getting Iraq facts wrong again?

  • “domestic military operations” within the U.S

    The Posse Comitatus Act is such a pesky law.

  • CB, the title of your previous post says it all: “A referee that only calls fouls on one team.”

  • Obama refuse “gay press”: 11 (google) last 24 hours.

    From the WaPo today:

    In 2003…John Yoo tackled a question not often asked by American policymakers: Could the president, if he desired, have a prisoner’s eyes poled out? Or for that matter, could he have “scalding water, corrosive acid or caustic substance” thrown on a prisoner? How about slitting an ear, nose or lip, or disabling a tongue or limb?

    Later: But none of that matters in a time of war, Yoo also said, because federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes by military interrogators are trumped by the president’s ultimate authority as Comander in Chief.

    For this we stayed in Korea for 57 years?

  • You know, if I had to sum up who best epitomizes this in the media, it would be Chris Matthews. This guy is the worst thing to happen to cable news ever, (because I don’t consider Fox Noise to be actual news, they don’t factor in here), because of something the CB said a few weeks ago: he doesn’t know what’s going on outside his little cable news bubble. He’s one of those guy’s that always reffers to John McCain as a “maverick” or “straight-talker”, and he plays into every conceivable sterotype about the media, pundits, and older-well-off white guys who don’t understand the world outside their country clubs. I try and give Matthews a chance, and I still watch Hardball from time to time, like when he had Obama on last week, but he manages to ask Obama stupid questions about things Obama has already answered about on length, mostly about Rev. Wright and such (now, imagine if you had Keith Olbermann conduct that Obama inverview). Now, what’s sad is that for the next few weeks, or months, we’ll be hearing the same questions Matthews asked Obama asked by every other MSM journalist, while those same journalists will later interview McCain and introduce him as “the Maverick-war-hero-straight-talking-Senator John McCain”, then not ask him to clarify his “100 in Iraq” comments at any time. The Founding Fathers would be proud.

  • I have something to say about it and it isn’t very nice. Our MSM–bought and paid for. I have over 700 freaking words to say about it.

    Too bad there isn’t an entire swath of our population willing to do the same in OpEd’s, letters to the editors and on and on..

  • @Danp

    Maybe because he was just at a fundraiser with the Gay association last week, and the person in charge of that peper is a hillary contributor, gave a grand to her campaign

  • Glenn’s conclusion is also worth flagging [for those who didn’t click through].

    Think about it this way: if you were a high government official and watched as — all in a couple of weeks time — it is revealed, right out in the open, that you suspended the Fourth Amendment, authorized torture, proclaimed yourself empowered to break the law, and sent the nation’s top law enforcement officer to lie blatantly about how and why the 9/11 attacks happened so that you could acquire still more unchecked spying power and get rid of lawsuits that would expose what you did, and the political press in this country basically ignored all of that and blathered on about Obama’s bowling score and how he eats chocolate, wouldn’t you also conclude that you could do anything you want, without limits, and know there will be no consequences?

    What would be the incentive to stop doing all of that?

  • How come Bill Clinton’s activities during the Serbia/Bosnia war weren’t given immunities? The GOP spent millions of tax payer dollars investigating his freaking Christmas card list and travelgate and blowjobgate, none of which injured any American soldier, save those who didn’t get a holiday greeting.

  • steve has now written three posts about Obama’s lousy bowling and now is shocked that its getting so many nexis hits.
    This blog has become a joke totally unable to see its ineptitude while continously putting on a holier than thou air.

  • Thank god Brittney didn’t get her panties in a bunch or your average American might not know who John Yoo is, right, more people know Obama’s bowling score then John Yoo.

  • axt113 (9): Thanks. I had read that in your earlier comments. I was just trying to save Mary the trouble.

  • I’m not disputing Glenzilla’s point, but since the Yoo Memo came out in full this week, and Wright broke a month ago, it’s probably stacking the deck to search back 30 days.

  • On another point though, it probably would have helped if either Hillary or Obama had made a big deal of the Yoo Memo instead of snarking at each other about bowling…most of that is the MSM’s fault, but still.

    next time I’ll wait to post until I complete my thought sorry….

  • Obama sucks at bowling!! How dare he suggest his qualifications to lead this country!
    Actually, I don’t see how this sort of fluff reportage hurts him. If he’s that bad at bowling, while being as smart as he appears, he goes into ‘guy you want to have beer with’ territory.

    But as reporting goes? As Atrios would say – Teh Stupid, it burns.

  • Hey, it’s America. The soon-to-be third world nation which receives all its info from TeeVee and practices more astrology and superstition than they did in the Middle Ages. Bread and circuses, bowling and blowjobs … what’s the difference? Well, I guess there’s at least one: if the government in ancient Rome threatened to cut down on the bread (actually, free grain) there were riots. Our TeeVee-stoned vegetables just sit there and take it and put on lapel pins.

    Have you noticed that very few trolls ever manage to stumble beyond the first post of the day?

  • Talking about Yoo, Mukasey and the suspension of the 4th Amendment is, I’m sure, an unpatriotic thing to do. Almost as unpatriotic as *not* talking about Obama’s lack of — Chinese made, non-union and full of lead — flag pin. Besides…Would it be safe to talk about Yoo? We don’t know who’s watching and who’s installing the next tap on our phone… Better talk about Obama’s bowling score; a perfectly innocuous subject.

    And, Scottw714, @13,
    Any week that Brittney *doesn’t* get her knickers in a twist is, apparently, a good one for rehashing Clinton/Lewinski BJ. Starlets come and go but that story is as fresh as it had been 10 yrs ago.

    I really don’t know what I’d have done had it not been for my ‘puter and high-speed access…

  • I think the problem is that we already know that this administration is guilty of just about anything you want to accuse them of, and nothing happens to them.
    It’s so frustrating we don’t want our noses shoved into it anymore.

  • Libra said
    Any week that Brittney *doesn’t* get her knickers in a twist is, apparently, a good one for rehashing Clinton/Lewinski BJ. Starlets come and go but that story is as fresh as it had been 10 yrs ago.

    🙂 What does she get in a twist if she’s not wearing panties?

    The human interest stories like bowling flow over into the general interest stuff so there are a bunch of mentions of it. The inhuman interest stuff like John Yoo, somehow doesn’t capture the popular imagination. The political press isn’t doing its job and the other safety mechanisms like public protest are ineffective from overuse. The Dem congress should be leading a revolt but they’re just as co-opted as everyone else. Uh oh, now my tighty whities are in a twist.

  • There’s a fairly simple explanation. The fact that Obama can’t bowl is marginal news; I didn’t know that before. It’s not particularly important, but it’s a piece of information I didn’t have. On the other hand, the fact that the Bush administration has no regard for the rule of law and no respect for the Constitution, country, or citizenry is most emphatically not news.

  • Talking about Yoo, Mukasey and the suspension of the 4th Amendment is, I’m sure, an unpatriotic thing to do.

    Yes, you’re absolutely right! In fact, ‘talking’ about this is MORE unpatriotic than actually suspending the 4th Amendment. Ain’t it great to be in AmeriKa under the 4th Reich.

  • In the 3/31/08 issue of The New Yorker, Eric Alterman laments the decline of newspapers and points an accusing finger at the unworthy blogosphere. Eric’s heart may be in the right place but his desire to shift blame from the dead tree surrender monkey press to the upstart seat of the pants blogosphere is confused and clouded by nostalgia.

    The News Business
    Out of Print
    The death and life of the American newspaper.
    by Eric Alterman March 31, 2008

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/31/080331fa_fact_alterman

    A quote: “And so even if one agrees with all of Huffington’s jabs at the Times, and Edsall’s critique of the Washington Post, it is impossible not to wonder what will become of not just news but democracy itself, in a world in which we can no longer depend on newspapers to invest their unmatched resources and professional pride in helping the rest of us to learn, however imperfectly, what we need to know.”

    After reading Glenn’s breakdown of what stories are being focused on, my sympathy for Eric’s sentimentality gets pretty thin. Their “unmatched resources and professional pride” aren’t doing jack to explain or expose the steaming dreck that has been sitting on their doorsteps the last 7+ years. If they are going down, they’ve got no one but themselves to blame.

  • I know I haven’t been making hay over it because everyone I talk to is too upset to even talk about it. Add that to the fact that we knew about this memo in 2003 means that it feels of ‘old news’.

    They’ve taken away our tools to deal with it, and exhausted our outrage. I’m not sure the Republicans could have planned it better.

  • The DeBushification of America will in all likelihood take at least 20 years. Dubya—meet your “legacy”—and if they ever hang you for your crimes, I’ve got first dibs on the beer concession. I know a who-ooole lot of people who will gladly raise a “brewski” to you on that day (and maybe it’ll put a dent in the Bu$h debt that we’ve all inherited)….

  • OT, the NYT just reported that Mark Penn has stepped down from his position as campaign strategist for Hillary Clinton. I guess that lobbying junket cost him from both sides, since the Colombians dumped his firm after it hit the news. Good riddance, say I.

  • Adios Mark Penn, as they say in Colombia and Hillaryland. Is a Saturday event even less newsworthy than a Friday one?

  • Dale: Adios Mark Penn, as they say in Colombia and Hillaryland.

    LOL. Hasta la vista…
    But actually… I believe the Clintonbots were defending Mr. Penn….
    Up until about seven minutes ago.

    How ya’ll feeling now?

    Either he was wrong and you were stupid…
    Or he was stupid and you were wrong…
    Or else: You are all both stupid and you are both wrong.
    Freaks! Pick A, B, or C….

    I said it before and I will say it again:
    Until Hillary Clinton came along I thought George Bush was the bottom of the barrel.

    One more thing to the trolls out there:
    When are you all going to be LIBERALS and PROGRESSIVES again and forget that Hillary Clinton bullshit? You’ve been duped. And you are looking mighty dumb….

  • Headline: “Bush and everyone he’s ever hired spits on the Constitution.”

    CB. the first part of the word “newspaper” is NEWS.
    Generally, they’re expected to tell us something we don’t know or didn’t expect.

  • I’m a little concerned what Bush and the GOP will do if McSame loses and the dems look likely to take control of both congress and the white house with a large congressional majority, his powers have been expanded thanks to people like Yoo, many of the laws that have been passed in the last seven years and the fact that the congress has shown itself to be a group of cowards.

    Perhaps i’m just indulging the paranoid/conspiracy theorist side of myself but there is a small part of me that is concerned

  • I think the Willard that Bush is channeling is not Willard and His Bowling Trophies, but the Willard who was king of the rats.

  • I believe the Clintonbots were defending Mr. Penn….
    Up until about seven minutes ago. — Rotlf etc, @31

    Nope. They hunkered down and cogitated 🙂 It may have seemed like ages before any action was taken, but that’s only because time in the e-space is accelerated and the density of news is thicker than in the MSM-land. A”normal person” watches one-to programs on one TV station and reads one newspaper (if that much). We get relevant snippets from a whole spectrum of TV stations, radio programs and newspapers.

    So, we heard about Penn’s meeting with the Colombian ambassador from one paper — blown up on the lefty blogs immediately.Then we heard about his semi-apology “bad judgment” — again magnified by several blogs. Then the unions started calling for Clinton to ax him. Then the Colombian govt did ax him. Then, today, his “stepping down” was announced. It was a big deal for us and it seemed like a prolonged circus. But, in real time, it took what? 48hrs? We don’t get NYT over the weekend and my husband watches only one TV station for the news. I’m not sure he even knows who Penn *is*, even though he’s pro-Clinton. He may find out tomorrow. Or perhaps not even then, since, by then, the whole storm will have blown over.

  • Dusty @8:

    The words “You cocksuckers” repeated over 350 times (for a total of over 700) doesn’t really qualify as an essay on the subject, accurate though the sentiment may be. 😉

    That said, I did enjoy your essay, and am embedding a link to your blog in mine.

    It does upset me that blogs like yours and mine and our very own CB sometimes seem to be no more than a self-licking ice cream cone. The general public isn’t going to read and discuss intelligently, and the general public are the ones being spoon-fed garbage by the MSM. Whereas folks who already think critically and ask the hard questions will do with or without progressive blogs.

  • I’ve seen this list or one similar to it on many blogs.
    I think it misses a key angle:

    While it’s true that Yoo’s memo was *released* this week, we’ve had knowledge of its existence and its content for years. It’s not some new earth-shattering revelation, regardless of the insanity and war crime it represents. It is, as others have said, ‘old news’.

    My point being, simply, that running a nexis search on the last four weeks is meaningless for a story that’s been around for years.

  • The “liberal media” is the biggest lie in modern politics. – Yep, there is NO SUCH THING as “liberal media”!!! The media loves Prezident Butch so much, they should marry him!! Would that be a same-sex marriage? If only the media had the guts to do its job, and be “liberal”… Bill had Monica, George has all them media’r…

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