Wednesday’s Mini-Report

April 11, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* ABC: “The Pentagon will extend the tours of duty for every active-duty soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan…. Forget small extensions and trickles of National Guard troops. Under the plan, deployments for active-duty soldiers will be extended from the current 12 months to 15 months. This will apply to all active-duty soldiers, but not to the National Guard and Reserve. These soldiers have paid the price for this policy for four years. Now they are being given an additional burden to bear, and it will be a cause of concern for the soldiers and even more so for the families,’ said retired Gen. William Nash.”

* The right likes to argue that the U.S. hasn’t faced a terrorist attack since 9/11. That’s incorrect — about a month after 9/11, someone sent weaponized anthrax to two Democratic senators and several news outlets. Five Americans were killed and 17 more suffered serious illnesses. Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) yesterday held an event in his district to call for the FBI to explain the progress of its investigation and why the case has never been solved.

* The Senate is scheduled to vote this evening on a potentially life-saving bill that would expand public funding for stem-cell research and lift Bush’s indefensible restrictions. The key, this year, is to get 67 votes — a veto-proof majority. Head-counters believe there are 66 votes and it might come down to Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.). If you happen to be a Sununu constituent, give him a call — the toll-free Capitol switchboard number is 800-828-0498.

* The right has been apoplectic today about the possibility of Speaker Pelosi making a diplomatic trip to Iran. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) alluded to the possibility yesterday, but the Speaker’s office shot down the possibility this afternoon: “The Speaker has no intention of going to Iran. She has great respect for Mr. Lantos, who is the only Holocaust survivor in the Congress and a staunch supporter of Israel, and who would like to go to begin a dialogue there, as the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended.”

* I know that Rudy Giuliani flubbed a couple of questions yesterday about the price of a gallon of milk, but like Atrios, I’m not terribly impressed with the “gotcha” quality of the question. Politicians need to show that they’re “in touch” with regular American families, but isn’t there a better way to do this?

* Salon’s Mark Benjamin: “Bush administration officials have claimed that they were unaware of problems with veterans’ care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center until a flurry of media reports earlier this year brought the hospital’s shortcomings to their attention. But Salon has obtained written proof — a report prepared for a Department of Veterans Affairs task force — that officials should have been aware of the situation as long ago as August 2004.”

* Good idea from Google: “Search engine Google and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum launched an online mapping project on Tuesday to provide what the museum said was evidence of atrocities committed in Sudan’s western Darfur region.” (thanks to Gridlock for the heads-up)

* For the love of God, the right is still pondering whether CNN’s Michael Ware heckled John McCain in Baghdad a couple of weeks ago? Are you kidding? This was debunked two weeks ago. Time to move on, guys.

* I hope readers don’t mind too much that I’m not offering extensive coverage of the Imus scandal. The guys’ obviously just a bigot — we know it, he knows it, his advertisers know it, his bosses know it, and the clubby media personalities that keep appearing on his show know it. I think James Kirchick summarized the problem nicely: “[T]he question isn’t whether or not Imus’ corporate overlords will fire him. It’s why they didn’t years ago.”

* In case you missed it, MoveOn.org posted extensive coverage (clips and transcripts) from last night’s Virtual Town Hall Meeting on the war in Iraq. For what’s it’s worth, all the major buzz I’ve heard today was about Richardson’s performance, which gained him several new fans.

* Ron Chusid questions Mark Halperin’s standards of accuracy and objectivity. Like shooting fish in a barrel, right Ron?

* I admit that I haven’t been paying a great deal of attention to the flap surrounding the “bloggers code of conduct,” but a good friend of mine, who takes a back seat to no one when it comes to Freedom of Speech, has written a series of posts defending the proposal. As far as I can tell, he’s part of a small minority, but he makes a compelling argument.

* And finally, we all had a lot of fun with the story about Bush nearly plugging an electrical plug into a hydrogen outlet on a hybrid car, which reportedly would have caused a serious explosion. Apparently, the CEO of Ford was joking and didn’t realize reporters had taken him seriously. Now we know.

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

Politicians need to show that they’re “in touch” with regular American families, but isn’t there a better way to do this?

Yes and no. I think, and I have no idea why, that many people are surprised when these multimillionaires are so far removed from the trials and tribulations of average daily life.

Sure, these ‘gotcha’ questions seem cheap, but milk and bread and cheese are basic building blocks of many food assistance programs and someone who wants to run the country should have a general concept of their cost to the average family.

Remember, this is one of the guys who gets to determine how poverty and minimum wage are defined. If he doesn’t understand basic needs like these, then what is his concept of housing costs or child care?

It’s no wonder with people like McCain and Bush on the case that minimum wage doesn’t increase and working three jobs is “uniquely American.” They think it only costs a fraction of what it really does to live.

  • Actually, the US has been the target of terrorist attacks for years. Every attack in Iraq on American troops is an attack on the US. I’m starting to think that the reason for the whole “let’s fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here” bit is that the troops are being used as decoys. As long as they are over in Iraq, it’s easier for terrorists to target Americans there than it would be for them to come over here.

    Of course, nothing the Bush administration has done is actually preventing them from coming over here. The 9/11 terrorists came to this country legally and then overstayed their welcome. You’d think that the administration would then bump the budget at INS so that they could better track aliens but I don’t think Bush has done that. And for those afraid that aliens would cross our borders, you’d think that Bush would bump the budget for the Border patrol but I don’t think he’s done that either. Come to think about it, has Bush really done anything constructive to actually protect this country from terrorists?

  • “Like shooting fish in a barrel, right Ron?”

    Haperin sure has no business questioning bloggers when he is guilty of what he accuses bloggers of. Plus it is much more significant when the former political director of ABC News fails to follow established journalistic standards than when a blogger does. When us bloggers write something, readers know it is based upon promotion of our political beliefs and we are not pretending to be objective journalists. Its a different story when Halperin passes on rumors from Drudge, or quotes GOP talking points as if they are fact.

    As for the code of conduct question,I haven’t read beyond the post linked here yet, but this one only deals with a peripheral issue:

    “What I don’t understand is how anyone can believe that banning anonymous posts or deleting abusive ones curtails their “freedom of speech.” Salon and individual bloggers aren’t agents of the government; if you don’t like our posting policies, you’re free to stop visiting, or even to start your own blog criticizing us.”

    I totally agree with this, in contrast to some of the claims made that the blogosphere is like talking in public. Perhaps the blogosphere as a whole is, but anyone can start a blog or go to one of many sites which allows all views without restriction. Each blogger owns their site and has the right to determine content, including in the comments. I don’t want my comments full of spam linking to porn or selling various meds. Neither would I want the comments to be endlessly filled with items cut and pasted from the right wing talking point mill.

    While I agree with the item linked above, this is only part of the issue. The whole idea of having clealy defined codes of conduct is a lot like herding cats. There is just too much variety among different types of blogs to try to get them all to fit into a handful of codes of conduct. I think the general idea of discussing blogger conduct is a good idea, but some are taking this way too far.

  • I think James Kirchick summarized the problem nicely: “[T]he question isn’t whether or not Imus’ corporate overlords will fire him. It’s why they didn’t years ago.”
    The answer to that question is on the front page of today’s NYT:

    “His program generates in excess of $20 million in annual revenue for CBS Radio, his primary employer [… ] When advertising revenues for affiliates and MSNBC, which simulcasts the program, are included, the figure exceeds $50 million.

    Simple.

  • * I know that Rudy Giuliani flubbed a couple of questions yesterday about the price of a gallon of milk, but like Atrios, I’m not terribly impressed with the “gotcha” quality of the question. Politicians need to show that they’re “in touch” with regular American families, but isn’t there a better way to do this?

    Yeah, it’s silly. I think if you knew the guy personally and had more of a context of what he was like, you could judge him from things like that. Then again, a lot of people who even think they’re good at judging people by their demeanors and responses to questions aren’t good at it. For us to judge based on a story we hear about someome isn’t that good. If it was a series of stories or really off the mark guesses without an explanation- i.e., it wasn’t just that he was really not paying attention or tired- might mean something but one question maybe doesn’t. I don’t remember exaclty what a lot of stuff costs but it’s just because it’s really unimportant to me except for while I’m buying it. I’m sure there are a lot of working class men and women who don’t know the price of some grocery staple or another because they don’t buy it or don’t do the shopping. There are plenty of legitimate things to go after Rudy or Newt for without becoming trifling.

    I hope readers don’t mind too much that I’m not offering extensive coverage of the Imus scandal.

    No.

    The coverage is adequate. You are always picking up the ball, of course, on many important stories that others inexlicably ignore.

  • Talk about a broken Army. 15-month deployments? 3 month extensions coming as these guys are counting down to being “double-digit midgets” on the trip to the Freedom Bird??? Bye-bye morale.

    Before iraq, the US was the big cop on the beat. You might not like him but you could respect him and you had a pretty good idea not to cross him and by and large he kept the neighborhood safe. Now he’s known as the overweight alcoholic who can’t chase you half a block without gasping for breath and falling down, and the bad guys all thumb their noses at him and go on committing their crimes.

    God damn you to hell, George W. Bush. This is your greatest crime.

  • I can’t say off the top of my head the prices of Milk / Bread. But I would honestly answer “I don’t know” rather than be wrong.

  • Re: Giuliani

    It would be great if all our statesmen and politicians made it a point to know about stuff like this, but on the other hand there is a limitless number of factoids that while they may sound like everyone who’s normal should know them, when you think about it, it’s not really fair to expect everyone to know them.

  • a bit from sideshow:

    Don Imus and his pal Bernie came right out and suggested that a bunch of young athletes were just a bunch of colored whores. They might as well have said “nigger whores”. I mean, just exactly how much more elevated is “nappy-headed hoes”? And yet Fineman said:

    Some of the kind of humor you used to do you just can’t do anymore.
    You couldn’t use that kind of humor on the radio pretty much ever. But ever since Clarence Thomas attacked the Senate for allowing Anita Hill to speak (not for believing her – just for letting her speak), and based his entire “defense” against a charge of sexual harassment on the idea that Professor Hill was, well, just another colored whore, this thing has been getting more and more acceptable.
    We owe it to our country to push back against this kind of crap.

  • I actually don’t know what the price of a gallon of milk is. I get whole milk for one child, 1% for another, and I drink whatever is around. But I just grab it off the shelf at the grocery store and don’t bother checking the price.

    There goes my presidential bid. In any event, this is clearly more important than the fact that Giuliani would likely be more authoritarian than Bush/Cheney have been.

    So glad the MSM is asking the tough questions.

  • I’m not as upset by Rudy’s missing the answer as the fact that he was off by so much. It says something about his estimating skill. I want to know that a candidate has good numeracy and some canny estimating skill, so that he can easily evaluate the numbers being thrown around in any discussion of policy. He should be able to judge whether a number is in the right ballpark or not.

  • Does anyone have a list of the senators they figure will vote in favor of stem cell research? Because the last time I saw such brainstorming, it was Casey (D-PA), who has said he’s against it, who was considered the 67th vote. If he still is I want to know; and given Sununu’s current electability problems, it would be better to override the veto without Sununu than with him.

  • Since we returned to it I thought I’d add a little bit more. It doesn’t diminish my support for the code of conduct but I can begin to see why it can be considered “spectacularly stupid”. Take a look at the Slashdot discussion on it and peruse the comments. Most of the commenters oppose it but I think the most compelling reason is that, being completely voluntary, the only ones who would consider it don’t need policing. I think it’s a good point, and it probably will hold up well under my competing theory of social pressure. Take, as evidence the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.

    I don’t know, it could go either way. Either way I still support the effort, for its own sake.

  • Well, I think the price of a loaf of bread is $1-$2 and up, if you want to buy the fancy grainy stuff, and milk is around $2, depending on where you are getting it, and I’m sure those estimates are ok. I know the prices of things I buy over and over again myself- milk isn’t one of them, actually. But I’m thinking of like garbage bags and ziplock bags- I’d guess the price of a big package of garbage bags is seven dollars and change- but what if you buy a really different package of garbage bags than I do? Then my guess might sound bad to you. There are a lot of things we buy all the time that we couldn’t guess the particular price of, because we’re not the ones who always buy them in our households, or we don’t get them every single week.

    The Clintons, Gore- how many of them do you expect know this stuff? If you’re not only really rich, but really busy, and you have an area of expertise that puts you in demand- who’s to blame if you have people hired to buy stuff for you and you’ve been out of touch with what’s the price of bread for years?

  • PS, thanks CB, for posting some good, compelling arguments from the other side. It’s much appreciated.

  • As much as I like “Bush-the-chimp” stories, I sincerely hope that the Ford CEO was joking; if it was really that easy for a person (or chimp) to torch themselves with a hybrid car, this country’s manufacturing prowess has slipped even further than I thought.

  • Mr. Lantos, who is the only Holocaust survivor in the Congress… would like to go to begin a dialogue there…

    Somehow, I don’t think Ahmadinejad would even meet with Lantos. See, if the Holocaust never happened, then Lantos couldn’t have survived it. Ergo, Lantos is not alive, and meeting with him would be a waste of time. Mahmoud’s a college prof; he understands this kind of logic.

  • Multiple newswire reports (CNN, Reuters, NBC, CBC) now have MSNBC dropping the Imus simulcast—not “suspending,” but dropping it completely. Let’s see what CBS does with that—coupled with losing P&G’s big advert-$$$.

    Hey—the little trashmouth could always get a gig with FOX…or he could work for Mr. Go-F-Yourself Cheney….

  • Steve: I think your remark about Imus and Fox may be more accurate then we know. I figure the odds are good. They deserve each other.

  • In the “open thread” vein.. The Dog Ate My Homework Dept:
    http://tinyurl.com/29c5ea

    Waxman ain’t any happier than a teacher would have been, when faced with a similiar excuse.

    re Imus: I still think that the gutting of the Civil Rights section in the DoJ is far more important than Imus’ wretched flub. Which, BTW, is not that far off all the other outrageous statements which had passed through the MSM’s “lips”, with nobody being punished for them.

    Mind you… I don’t listen to the radio any more than I watch TV, so all my “knowledge” is second-hand, from y’all…

  • Sorry to start the day with crappy news but Kurt Vonnegut has died.

    I’d like to think he’ll get 10 times more coverage than ANS. I’d also like to think mankind will become less warlike in my life time.

    So much for what for what I think.

  • The milk question is fair. Entirely fair.

    Why? Because its old now. Maybe it was a gotcha the first or second time it was asked.
    NOW, if you don’t know the answer, you aren’t just out of touch, you aren’t even interested in APPEARING to care what basic staples cost people who may be struggling.

    It’s a stat you memorize if you run for office. It’s like cramming the name of the president of China in your head if you’re a governor of Texas shooting for the oval office, only easier.

    Marie Antoinette might have had some advice for Mr. Giuliani’s campaign manager.

  • The right likes to argue that the U.S. hasn’t faced a terrorist attack since 9/11. That’s incorrect — about a month after 9/11, someone sent weaponized anthrax to two Democratic senators and several news outlets. Five Americans were killed and 17 more suffered serious illnesses. Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) yesterday held an event in his district to call for the FBI to explain the progress of its investigation and why the case has never been solved.

    Of course the case hasn’t been solved. It’s part of the same criminal 9/11 conspiracy and cover-up (aka, The 9/11 Commission). When miltary grade anthrax is used to attack a United States Senator and the “investigation” takes six years and receives next to zero MSM coverage (along with the sneaky accusation being dropped that it was Iraqi anthrax), you have what we like to call fascism. Welcome to The New American Century.

  • The Pentagon will extend the tours of duty for every active-duty soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan…. Forget small extensions and trickles of National Guard troops. Under the plan, deployments for active-duty soldiers will be extended from the current 12 months to 15 months…

    That is a cheap and cowardly way to increase the “surge”. This administration is breaking the Army’s back. Casualties are going to increase because these soldiers are exhausted and their morale will be destroyed. Not to mention the families that are suffering back home. Disgusting…

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