Dear Jonathan Chait:

You don't get to proclaim, in your desperate attempt to attack those Iraq "doves" who were right about the war, that they're fighting "the last war".

Why?

The war isn't over yet!

You especially don't get the benefit of the doubt when you babble about that while, at the same time, babbling about how the opponents of this war were all opposed to the previous Iraq war, and the invasion of Afghanistan. There aren't actually all that many of those; most opponents of the current war supported Afghanistan as necessary, and would remind the Iraq war supporters that it is the resources sucked up by their war of choice that is handing Afghanistan back to the Taliban. In that and in so many other ways, the damage you war cheerleaders did by being wrong far, far exceeds any damage that those doves could have done.

Invoking the spectre of a "criminally negligent administration" doesn't get you off the hook either. Criminally negligent administrations require a criminally negligent media corps. Thus, it's still on your head, as much as you'd prefer otherwise.

Sorry, but you guys deserve everything you get. Just be happy you aren't Republicans.

Warmest Wishes,

Demosthenes

bit of editing for spelling and whatnot.

Yes, the Time Award Makes Sense

Ok, this is that post that I'd been talking about. And, yes, I meant what I said in the title.

Before I begin, though, I'll ask you to take a look at a few sites.

First, this page. Notice the basic characteristics- title at the top, text shot through the middle, links on the side.

Now, look at this page, from a more prominent blogger,Atrios. Pretty much the same thing. It's got more ads, more links, and stuff on both sides, but it's still pretty much the same thing.

No matter how complicated and crazy they get, all blogs pretty much consistently follow this template- links and other folderol surrounding a central column of linked commentary, usually with comments following if you view single stories. (Case in point: this piece on Obama running. Even simple blogs often follow this pattern, though- go look at individual entries on Jason Cherniak's blog; they're functionally identical to Kos, in that comments follow individual articles.)

Now, look at this one: it belongs to writer James Wolcott. It follows the same pattern as all the sites above. Thing is, whereas I'm just an anonymous blogger--albeit a long-lived one by the standards of the form--James is a well respected commentator, reviewer, and author. Lots of them have blogs now.

Now, look at this Globe and Mail piece. It's an Associated Press article on Obama. Notice something? It looks pretty much the same as all the others. Title at top, column of text, links to the side, trailing comments.

Finally, look at this. It's an opinion piece on Canadian PM Stephen Harper by noted columnist Jeffrey Simpson. It's also hidden behind a subscriber wall, but if you use the dodge that most people use to get past that wall, it's identical to all the other entries, too.

So, to paraphrase an old line, are "we all bloggers now"? No. Bloggers aren't reporters. Most don't even pay attention to politics, but just write about what interests them. That obscures the truth:

We are all columnists now.

Remove the paper version and the useless subscription wall, and there is no real, functional difference between, say, Digby and Jeffrey Simpson. None. Both write 500-600 word articles about the issues of the day, as a column down the middle of the screen, with links and whatnot on the sides, and comments following. The only difference is the title, and an editor, neither of which matters to readers. That doesn't mean bloggers are reporters, as most don't go out there and seek out stories, and when they do there is no pretension of objectivity whatsoever. They state their minds, and opine on what they've discovered. They're columnists, just like Jeffrey.

(They're also not "fact checkers", as the denizens of the right seem to fantasize. That's just an artifact of their inability to demonstrate any worth as commentators, so they obsess over things like typeface.)

That's why people like George Will were so vehement in opposng the Time award. The greatest problem facing the United States is "acceptable opinion". It is that "acceptable opinion" that got the United States into Iraq, that leads to bad law and worse policy, that gave the President carte blanche to do what he pleased. While people don't vote based on opinion journalism, they DO vote based on the prevailing perceptions of issues, and those filter down from the elite discourse, in which opinion journalists are key participants and loud voices. People listen to them.

Thing is, they listen because of the relative scarcity and worth of their position. Not anybody can get into the pages of the New York Times, or the Washington Post. You open up that paper, and see those names there, and there's respect involved in that. They got there, in turn, by playing the game, saying the right things, knowing the right people. It didn't matter whether you were right or not on the facts, or in your predictions. You just had to be a player of the game.

Now, though, people are getting their news and opinions online. To someone online, everything looks the same, reads the same, and is worth the same consideration. Thomas Friedman et al aren't such fantastic writers that they can win this on merit, either; the Iraq war was proof positive of that. They know it, too; George Will is no great shakes as a writer when compared to any number of other Internet-specific writers, which might explain his vehement opposition. None of these internet "blogger" types paid their dues, and went to the right parties, and said the right things, and met the right people. They just write, and write, and write some more. How DARE they presume so? How DARE people pretend that they're in any way equivalent?

Of course, the columnist had one refuge where the lowly blogger couldn't go: Television, the great de-equalizer. Unfortunately, as we've seen with the gaming thing, even that's out the window. In a world where anybody can have a roundtable discussion using cheap recording equipment, why only pay attention to the ones that end up on Sunday mornings talk shows? What's the difference between one talking head and another on Youtube? Why pay attention to George Will instead of, say, Markos Moulitsas?

Sure, reporters are still necessary, especially the investigative variety. Bloggers, Vloggers, whatever; they probably aren't going to do that. That's not where the threat is. The threat is to the opinion writers. They're just not valuable any more.

(The same thing is happening outside the political arena, by the way- a good Myspace profile is worth a dozen Rolling Stone writeups.)

That's why I think the Time award makes sense. It isn't about those cute little videos on Youtube, or about journalism, but about this levelling and homogenizing effect. It's about people, especially young people, not even really noticing a difference between a random blogger and an "opinion-maker", because it looks pretty much the same at the end of the day. It's about how it's totally inconsequential whether or not you play the game, and what Washington thinks of you. It's about how even TV is no longer a refuge for the "Right Thinkers", thanks to the democratization of video. To a certain extent, it's even about Marshall McLuhan, because he would have predicted that the carefully built up status of opinion writers would start eroding when brought to a new and very different medium.

Most importantly, though, it's about how people like George Will aren't worth as much as they used to: less and less each day. And a world, perhaps not too far away, where people like him don't get to pick and choose what's an "acceptable" opinion.

A Brief Aside Before the Time Thing...

That sound at the edge of your hearing? It's is a dozen cell phone company CEOs simultaneously losing bowel control, as they look into the void that is their future marketshare.

If the iPhone is even half as good as it looks, Steve Jobs just conquered the entire portable communications and media market. Instantly.

The Future of Gaming, and of Punditry.

I just saw something absolutely fascinating, although in a way I wasn't quite expecting. It's about gaming, theoretically, but there's something quite "meta" about it as well, getting back to the battle raging over the validity of the 2006 Person of the year award.

First, check out this trailer. It's for a movie called "Moral Kombat", about violence in video games.



Done? Good. Now, you've probably noticed that it's looking like your typical "oh, won't somebody PLEEEEASE think of the children" lines. The same exact arguments have been made about movies, about comics, about pretty much every new and/or non-mainstream medium. Makes sense; for one, movies are hideously involving and realistic to someone used to reading.

The arguments presented are nonsense, of course. That whole line from Lieberman about "set up ratings or we'll do it for you" neglects to mention that the ESRB ratings have been around for a while and, if anything, are more restrictive than their film counterparts. There's precious little evidence that the argument presented about kids going on rampages has anything to do with reality; trying to tie it together with 9/11 was just sick. Violent crime has gone DOWN with the introduction of the Playstation, and continues to do so. It's likely a spurious connection, but like with the pornography-and-rape statistics issue, it's VERY hard to try to maintain that there's a direct connection when the stats at least imply the opposite.

(Personally, I stopped believing that video games desensitize people to violence the second I saw the faces of some game-sodden teenagers hearing the news about the WTC. The second. The plural of anecdote isn't data, but I saw what I saw.)

I haven't seen the full film; I may well like it more, or I may take an entertaining month breaking down all its ludicrous assumptions. Here's the thing, though- somebody already has done that for the trailer. Check out this response:



See THAT? Good. It blew me away. Not the presentation, of course, which was kind of amateurish, and more ad hominem than anything else. I'm more about what it represents. The kind of instant link-and-response that bloggers take for granted does exist in regards to video; that's what Crooks and Liars is all about. Same with Media Matters. What the Youtube "revolution" does, though, is make it possible for responders on the Internet to engage video and film at its own level; to create responses using roughly the same tools that the documentarists use, and then post it up on the Internet for anybody to see, watch, and embed. It levels the playing field in ALL media, not just text.

It's that last part that's most important, actually. It's why Youtube is successful and may become essential. Yes, Atrios and Co. have been playing their fun "dueling 80's videos" games, but they sort of miss the point, which is that you can easily post up exactly what you're responding to. If I had simply linked to the two videos above, it would be far, far less likely that anybody would have actually seen them. Embeds mean that with nothing more than a click, one can see them, and that little play button there makes it ever-so-inviting.

This exacerbates that level-playing-field effect. All these two embedded videos are, above, are two embedded videos. Yes, one is far better produced than the other. They're still the same little squares with the big play button. The responses can also easily include little snippets from what they're quoting, as that would be paradigmatic fair use, but even if they don't, simply pairing them off like this would ease comparison and response. It's all video.

It raises a question. Yes, progressive bloggers have a tough time getting on TV. That's probably not going to change. When "TV" is just another bit of embedded video, though, why not just do it your own damned self? People already are, of course, but what this suggests is that political "vlogging" may become as ubiquitous as textblogging is now. There are simply too many possibilities and too great an opportunity.

(And this leads into my take on that whole 2006 person of the year bit. That'll be next.)

(Edited for a few spelling mistakes.)

The Irrelevance of the Right-Wing Blogosphere

I hadn't been tracking this story much, so I was pleasantly surprised when I finally came across Glenn Greenwald's comprehensive breakdown of the "Jamil Hussein" situation.

Who is Jamil Hussein, you ask? Well, that was the question. The Associated Press named him as an Iraqi police officer, and a souce for many of their stories in Iraq. Problem was, others questioned the claim, most prominently the various right-wing bloggers out there. So what happened? Well, check it out:

Packs of right-wing bloggers spent the last several weeks trying to destroy the credibility of Associated Press's war reporting by claiming that one of its sources, an Iraqi policeman named Jamil Hussein, does not exist, that AP simply invented him. As it turns out -- and as AP itself had the great pleasure of reporting (and then rubbing in the face of its irresponsible, taunting accusers) -- the Iraqi Government, which previously denied it, now acknowledges that Jamil Hussein does exist and he is a police officer in Iraq, just as AP reported accurately.

Eric Boehlert has written extensively about the right-wing blogosphere's attempt to destroy the credibility of AP's war reporting by insisting that their source was non-existent (and, needless to say, then became the immediate target of a campaign of personal attacks, assaults on his integrity, and childish name-calling).

And within the last twelve hours, multiple people have written comprehensively about the profound and long overdue humiliation which these right-wing bloggers just suffered. Greg Sargent re-caps how this incident exposes - yet again - the complete lack of credibility of the reckless, truth-free lynch mobs that compose the "right-wing blogosphere" and which hilariously see themselves as watchdogs over the media even though they traffic in the most reckless innuendo, gossip, and rank, error-plagued speculation that exists.

Here, Dave Neiwert documents but a fraction of the false accusations they made against AP, and during the controversy itself, he made the excellent point that this whole "controversy" was based on denials by the "Iraqi Government" and the U.S. military of Jamil Hussein's authenticity -- military and government denials which they mindlessly ingested and accepted as True like the good little authoritarians that they are.

To this superb commentary I want to add but one point -- there is nothing new, unique or surprising about this incident. Exactly this has happened repeatedly, time and again. This is what the right-wing blogosphere does. It is who they are and how they function. The only difference here is that they were so shrill and relentless in their attacks on AP, having prattled on about it for weeks without pause, that they actually pushed their accusations against AP into the national media.

And, to their great credit, AP -- which continues to aggressively defend its imprisoned-without- charges Iraqi photojournalist Bilal Hussein (whom right-wing bloggers repeatedly accused of being a Terrorist) -- fought back against these accusations. And now the right-wing blogosphere stands revealed as what they are -- a pack of gossip-mongering hysterics who routinely attack any press reports that reflect poorly on their Leader or his policies, with rank innuendo, Internet gossip, base speculation, and wholesale error as their most frequent tools of the trade.

He goes on, at some length, about the lack of credibility that the right-wing bloggers have. He's right in pointing out that this was inevitable- they're so intent on finding bias or errors in the "MSM" that they are relentlessly prone to jumping the gun with accusations that, as it turns out, have no merit.

Here's the thing, though- they don't have much else. I've mentioned before that the striking difference between the American left bloggers and right bloggers is that the former seems to have ideas, credibility, and some sway in the party, whereas the latter just haul out the same old talking points, accusations, and paens of devotion to The President. Not the actual man, mind you, but the ideal of "President Dubya" that they seem to have built up in their heads that the real guy falls tragically short of.

(Sort of "Dubya as Platonic Form", if you will.)

With this gotcha stuff now completely discredited--these guys are going to get hammered from now on everytime they try to play this game--what's left, exactly? They have no ability to derail their leftie counterparts, these accusations make them too much of an embarrassment to play a role with the MSM even if they were interesting commentators (which they aren't), and most aren't actually knowledgeable enough to get into the think-tank game. Sure, they can maybe show up on Fox, but Fox ain't doing so well nowadays, either.

It's striking. As frustrated with the exclusion as people like Markos Moulitsas are, they're far bigger players than their counterparts. I wouldn't have expected this- it shows how much things change. And, for once, they've changed for the better.

Minimum Wage

Interestingly enough, the conflict over the minimum wage increases that are one hallmark of the Hundred Hour Agenda is spilling over the US-Canadian border, thanks to an ultra-controversial post by Canadian Liberal Jason Cherniak.

Unfortunately, for such a generally talented writer, Jason is almost completely wrongheaded on the issue; he posits a direct connection between inflation, unemployment and the minimum wage that had been rendered obsolete by Card and Krueger ages ago, and tried to justify it by claiming that people can get by on Can$200 a month after rent, showing to his (many) critics on this issue that has either forgotten what life is like in poverty, or never really had to experience it in the first place.

What concerns me, though, is that this is a self-described liberal saying this, who is almost certainly doing this as a way of attacking the social democratic "NDP" party, a direct competitor for left-liberal votes.I'm all for partisan advocacy, but the same old rule applies: attacking the left to burnish your "centrist" cred is only going to embolden the conservatives, and they already control the Canadian government.

Considering the Liberals are clearly trying to move somewhat leftward with their choice of leader, and considering that Jason is such a fervent supporter of said leader, why is a leading Canadian liberal blogger doing this?

I've asked him; I've yet to discover an answer.

(Fortunately, it looks like it's full speed ahead in the Congress for the minimum wage hike.)

"Sacrifice"

Olbermann has a special comment, on the McCain Doctrine and the “Sacrifice” of more troops.

Go watch it and/or read the transcript over at Crooks and Liars, but I wanted to highlight one section:

And the war's second accomplishment — your second accomplishment, sir - is to have taken money out of the pockets of every American, even out of the pockets of the dead soldiers on the battlefield, and their families, and to have given that money to the war profiteers.

Because if you sell the Army a thousand Humvees, you can't sell them any more, until the first thousand have been destroyed.

The service men and women are ancillary to the equation.

This is about the planned obsolescence of ordnance, isn't, Mr. Bush? And the building of detention centers? And the design of a 125-million dollar courtroom complex at Gitmo complete with restaurants.

At least the war profiteers have made their money, sir.

Wow. Looks like The Motivation That Dare Not Speak It's Name (big bucks for the war machine) is now hitting the airwaves. Most of the rest of what he spoke on was sadly familiar but aside from cutesy, toothless pieces on whether or not Halliburton was making too much money the war profiteer aspect has been quite clearly overlooked.

No longer, apparently.

(Of course, the Washington Corps are still going to ignore it, but judging by this weak, watery emission from Newt Gingrich about supposed "hate speech", apparently at least one prospective presidential candidate is a little worried by Olbermann. They should be; even Gingrich admits that the "poor ratings" line doesn't work anymore, and Olbermann's notoriety is a bonanza of publicity and eyeballs for MSNBC. Compared with Fox's tired recitation of Republican talking points and CNN's lack of even Fox's stable of political commentators (with the exception of Glenn Beck on Headline News), MSNBC has a damned good weapon in The Countdown.)

Partisanship

Big discussion going on about partisanship, and all the nonsense the press is hauling out about how the Dems need to end partisanship. Digby led it off with some trademarked snark, of course.

The rancor in Washington really has gotten out of hand and people are sick of it --- especially, it would appear, the Republicans who just can't take another minute of this horrible lack of collegiality. (Those nasty Dems must be the problem, because I don't recall all this handwringing punditude over Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert.)

The real meat of it, though, came from Avedon Carol, with a simple observation: "Every time a pundit says something like this, a little bell should go off in your head that says, 'I must ask this person immediately how Pelosi is supposed to stop the Republicans from being so viscously partisan.'" Well put.

Both raise the question, though, of why the Dems get hit with this stuff. The easy answer is "biased media!" and while it's a good one, I don't think that's all of it. In an odd way, I think the media has an expectation that because liberalism is such a "touchy-feeling" ideology, especially compared to the fire-and-wrath exclusionist fury of movement conservatives and their theocratic allies, that the MSM simply expects that liberals are going to play nice with their ideological opponents.

Now, of course, there's two problems with that: liberals aren't (always) that stupid about what they have to deal with, and liberalism ain't always that touchy-feelie, especially about those who flout its focus on rights and tolerance. One really doesn't have to be that tolerant of the irrational and intolerant, and you have no right to harm the rights of others. The modern Republican party is the embodiment of everything that modern liberals stand against- there is every reason to treat them like it.

Avedon approvingly links to a piece by Paul Waldman entitled "Democrats, Don't Wimp Out":

All over Washington, the sage barons of the establishment media are warning Democrats not to get cocky. Don’t move too fast, they say. Don’t push a bunch of wacky, left-wing ideas. Seek compromise, give ground, hew to the center, for only there lies the greatest prize of all: the praise of David Broder and Joe Klein, the nodding approval of the Washington Post editorial page, the admiration the Beltway cognoscenti reserve for those who know their place and know whose rings they should be kissing.

Bull. What Democrats need to do is spend the next two years crushing their opponents like bugs. It’s not about mercy, it’s not about manners, it’s about three fundamental goals: limiting the damage the Bush administration can do, passing whatever legislation they can in the short term to help the American public and laying the foundation for future progressive victories.

Democrats finally have the upper hand, and now’s the time to use it. Here are a few things they can do to get started.

What are these things? Pretty minor, by Republican standards.

-Investigate, but in order to discover truth, not lay siege to the White House (like their counterparts did in the 1990s).

-Pick some fights, where the administration is placing itself "above the law", so as to highlight this tendency in this White House.

-Attack conservatism as a failed ideology, rejected by the American people. Point out that the Republicans got to enact a lot of what they wanted, and the results were not only disastrous from an objective standpoint, but were clearly rejected by the American people.

-Boycott Fox, and leave Ailes and his friends out in the cold. Say (in his words)

Want to spread GOP propaganda all day? Be our guest. After all, it’s a free country. But don’t expect any Democratic newsmakers to legitimize you with their presence. We’ll go on every other network, be interviewed by every legitimate news organization. But we don’t consider ourselves under any obligation to pretend that buffoons like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson are news professionals who deserve a moment of our time. We’re not going to try to fight you; we’ll just act like you don’t exist.

To me, this is perhaps the most important element. Face it: for the next year, at least, conservatives won't have much in the way of bully pulpits. Fox is their best one, and if the Dems cozy up to it, all they'll be doing is giving the Republicans a venue to take shots at them. The old line about "telling your side of the story" should give nobody pause- we all know that Fox will simply use whatever you say to turn it against you. Go somewhere better; once they figure out what happened, they'll not only treat you fairly, but recognize that you've got teeth as well.

Democrats have a great opportunity. It was almost accidental that they won it, but now that they have it, they shouldn't let the chattering classes rob them of the ability to use it.

Good for Them

According to the Washington Post, "Democrats To Start Without GOP Input". They're putting away the "civility" stuff, so that they can get those key "first 100 hours" done.

But some are handwringing:

Democratic leaders say they are torn between giving Republicans a say in legislation and shutting them out to prevent them from derailing Democratic bills.

"There is a going to be a tension there," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "My sense is there's going to be a testing period to gauge to what extent the Republicans want to join us in a constructive effort or whether they intend to be disruptive. It's going to be a work in progress."

Fortunately for them, things are supposed to be more genteel down the road:

Daly said Democrats are still committed to sharing power with the minority down the line. "The test is not the first 100 hours," he said. "The test is the first six months or the first year. We will do what we promised to do."

Heck, if you're going to break a promise, why not break this one? Trying to "play fair" isn't going to win any support. Even if the other legislators are your friends (hint: they aren't), they rely for support on people who truly hate you. Those people are more important to the Republicans than you'll ever be, and your "friends" will ignore your attempts at bipartisanship as soon as it's politically convenient for them.

(And, no, it probably won't bring around the swing voters, either. They want results, not platitudes.)

Yes, this sort of thing is meat and drink to the Washington set. They (well, at least the "centrists") want everybody to play fair and have lots of lovely cocktail parties and hate the idea of having to alienate their Republican friends.

At the end of the day, though, they don't vote for you, and all their blather is becoming quickly obsolete. (Thanks to the Time "you" award stuff, which I haven't got to, but will.) I know it sounds weird, but you really can safely ignore people like Friedman, Broder, Cohen, and all the others. They've lost their relevance, and they're the only ones who care about this stuff.

Go ahead. Kick some ass. If the Republicans don't like it, they can filibuster for a change.

Best of 2006

First, happy new years. And, for that matter, a belated happy christmas, merry hanukkah, all that.

No, I'm not giving you my own "best and worst" list. Instead I'll simply hand it over to Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast, who has a really good "Best 20" list. Here's a taste, go over there for the real thing:

5. Howard Dean. It shouldn't surprise anyone that after the Democratic victories in November's election, the publicity hogs Rahm Emanuel and Charles Schumer would be the first ones in front of the cameras taking credit. These are guys invested in the old strategy of funnelling the party's money to Washington-based consultants who get paid not for results, but for how much money they can spend. Both fought Howard Dean's 50 state strategy tooth and nail, but when the dust cleared, it was the 50 state strategy, which sought to build Democratic organizations and field candidates in every state, in every district, which brought the results. Without Howard Dean's 50 state strategy, Jim Webb doesn't win in Virginia, Jon Tester doesn't win in Montana, and Claire McCaskill doesn't win in Missouri. "People-Powered Howard" really did return the process to the people, and the results are obvious. Meanwhile, Rahm Emanuel is left to wonder why his candidates like Tammy Duckworth, his "sure-win" candidate in the 6th District of Illinois couldn't pull it off despite losing both legs in Iraq. Perhaps I can tell him: All politics is local, not national. Howard Dean understood this.

The list was initially highlighted by Digby, naturally. Crooks and Liars has the list of lists, for those interested.

Saddam: Vengeance and Justice

Excellent piece by Juan Cole on the execution of the late Iraqi dictator. A lot of things stick out as ham-handed, but the worst is the religious symbolism of the whole thing.

The tribunal also had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam's hanging. It was a slap in the face to Sunni Arabs. This weekend marks Eid al-Adha, the Holy Day of Sacrifice, on which Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son for God. Shiites celebrate it Sunday. Sunnis celebrate it Saturday –- and Iraqi law forbids executing the condemned on a major holiday. Hanging Saddam on Saturday was perceived by Sunni Arabs as the act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar.

The timing also allowed Saddam, in his farewell address to Iraq, to pose as a “sacrifice” for his nation, an explicit reference to Eid al-Adha. The tribunal had given the old secular nationalist the chance to use religious language to play on the sympathies of the whole Iraqi public.

I'm no fan of the death penalty to begin with- Saddam's death will mean that the truth will probably not be brought to light on his other crimes: the one for which he was convicted, while certainly terrible, was far from the worst he has committed. Worse, because it was in reprisal for an assassination attempt by the same Dawa fundamentalists that eventually came to rule Iraq in all but name, it looks like vengeance against vengeance, rather than justice.

It is this religious element that's truly worrisome, though. All that's keeping Iraq from turning into the next Rwanda, given the similarities of the minority vs. majority conflicts and the growing civil war, is the idea that the majority will not impose its beliefs to any unnecessary degree. Religious holidays are a serious issue in Iraq- the message this sends is that Sunni religious beliefs are at best ignored by the Shiite majority.

(If not actively disdained.)

Saddam exploited this, but this would have been an issue even if Saddam had not breathed a word. It's a message, one saying "we hold you in contempt, and (by extension) are only waiting for the opportunity to rid ourselves of you entirely."

New Years' Bombings in Bangkok

Not much more to say than that, except that the celebrations were cancelled. It's possible that this was connected to the insurgency in southern Thailand, although as far as I know there isn't any confirmation and the police chief said it was doubtful. It's more likely to be connected to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a non-violent coup earlier in 2006- the NYT said that "the junta has warned of a continuing threat of instability from his backers."

Personally, I had been surprised that the whole thing seemed to be so peaceful. I suppose that in Thailand, like in so many other situations, instability is a long term proposition.

Is Billmon Gone?

Considering that his most recent entry was a loony toon still and a "that's all folks", seeing nothing but a "Site Temporarily Unavailable" on Billmon's site is worrisome. I can understand why he'd stop, but Whiskey Bar was too good a site, and Billmon too good a writer, for it to simply disappear.

Saddam is dead

...and, tomorrow, nothing will be different. There will still be strife, there will still be IEDs, there will still be civil war.

If anything, only one thing will be different; the end of the theory that if only the tyrants were dead, the people would be free. Unfortunately, things aren't that simple; it's not a juvenile conflict between tyrants and the "freedom fighters", but something more than that.

Not that it'll affect Bush's war much, as that theory is at its core. With any luck, though, future presidents and future pundits will actually learn the lesson. Here's hoping.

Nice Summary

I had mentioned Atrios and his (well-founded) attitude towards the "Wise Men" in Washington. A lot of that has to do with their ill-advised concept of "surge", which is a nicer sounding version of "escalation".

He also gives a great summary of Bush's reaction to "surge".

Leaving is losing. "Stay the course" is no longer a possibility. So, that leaves... more troops!

Everything I've read about the "surge" suggests that it's nothing more than Vietnam-style escalation, driven by Vietnam-style thinking and Vietnam-style obstinance. It's the logic of the gambler, selling his car and house in the belief that just one a little more cash will solve all his problems. Avoiding it is the very reason why the Powell Doctrine was invented.

And, now, it's the logic of Dubya's last stand.

God help us all.

Rahm's Out, and His Successor's a LIEberal

Saying this is a bit of a surprise is an understatement. One would think that such a lionized figure would be followed by a similar "centrist". Not so:

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rahm Emanuel, the corporate-friendly centrist who actively worked against a number of anti-war progressives in 2006 Democratic primaries for US House seats and then refused to support at least some of those candidates in November, is handing his DCCC leadership position off to Chris Van Hollen, a congressman who has a dramatically better track record on foreign and domestic policy issues.

Emanuel, the former Clinton administration "fixer" who organized support for the North American Free Trade Agreement and other Wall Street-favored policies and who then went to Congress as a pro-corporate, pro-war Democrat, has tried to spin his management of the DCCC during the 2006 election cycle as a success. In fact, many of the Democrats who prevailed on November 7 did so despite the Illinois congressman's efforts, not because of them.

In primaries from California to New Hampshire, Democratic voters rejected Emanuel's hand-picked candidates and nominated progressives who went on to win in November. Indeed, while candidates such as Illinois centrist Tammy Duckworth, who had Emanuel's full support, were going down to defeat, the list of breakthrough winners included contenders such as New Hampshire anti-war candidate Carol Shea-Porter, who never got any support from Emanuel or his DCCC team.

Now, everything said here (by The Nation's John Nichols) is true. Emanuel's attempts to parachute in candidates approved by Washington's Wise Old Men (that Atrios has been railing against for being about as wise as a lemming) was a failure, by and large. Other progressive candidates that were selected against his wishes were quite successful. Yes, some of his candidates won and some of the other candidates lost, but he doesn't deserve all, or even most, of the credit.

Here's the thing, though- he was getting it anyway. Head over to MyDD, and go read this piece by Chris Bowers about how Progressives lost the post-election narrative to those repeating the "blue dog victory!" nonsense. Rahm should have been invulnerable, thanks to the triumph of that narrative and, supposedly, of the "centrist" (read: conservative) dems he was backing.

That he is being followed by a far more progressive chairman suggests something different; that while it may be the dominant belief in Washington and in the media that the conservatives won, the story is remarkably different out in the "wilds". Out there, progressives are starting to get what they want, including a more progressive party leadership. They aren't necessarily agreeing with the Washington consensus; the election of Howard Dean to the chairmanship, and the horrified reaction of Democratic party stalwarts like James Carvile to the subversion of a "rigged deal" by party members who, for a change, decided they wanted to choose their own leadership. The progressives have a voice, and you avoid listening to them at your peril.

Good for them. (Shades of what happened just a few weeks ago in Canada, come to think of it.)

The GQ article that line was taken from called him "the new kingmaker". Apparently not. Yes, he's becoming Caucus Chairman after his attempts to become majority whip were torpedoed by the Black Congressional Caucus. He had to get something, and in Washington people often fail upwards. Still, it looks like the DCCC is changing. It looks like the progressives are slowly taking over, one position at a time.

What a hero

I really, really can't believe that Rep. Virgil Goode is keeping up his bullshit crusade against a fellow (Muslim) Rep. swearing in on the Quran.

A congressman said Thursday that he will not retract a letter warning that unless immigration is tightened, "many more Muslims will be elected" and use the Quran to take the oath of office.

Republican Rep. Virgil Goode triggered angry responses from a civil rights group and some colleagues with a letter this month to constituents concerned about a decision by Rep.-elect Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the first Muslim elected to Congress, to use the Quran when he is sworn in.

"I will not be putting my hand on the Quran," Goode said at a news conference Thursday at the Franklin County Courthouse.

Well, no, you don't have to. Just like he shouldn't have to swear on the New Testament, even though most Muslims and Islam itself tend to treat Christianity with a hell of a lot more respect than you're demonstrating.

It reinforces the idea that the true conflict in the world right now, if such a thing exists, is between secular, moderate tolerance and intolerant theocrats. No "Islam" or "Judaism" or "Buddhism" or "Shinto" or whatever; theocracy knows no single faith. The problem isn't just theocrats themselves, though; I doubt this guy is even that faithful. It's those who exploit it to their own political ends that are the most dangerous, because they'll overcompensate and be more extreme than the true believers ever would.

Nothing new in that, of course, but it's worth remembering.

Best Damned Thing on the Internet Right Now...

Go read Goodbye to Comics by Occasional Superheroine, a female comics writer who is "theoretically" telling the story of how and why she decided to leave the industry, what it had done to her, and the kind of people she had to deal with. I'm working through it now; even aside from the subject matter, it's powerful stuff.

(It came out about a month ago; I only came across it now. If you have read it, great; if you're like me and had missed it, I'd highly recommend it.)

Funny!

Quoted from Captain Eponymous:

How nice! Norman "Norm" Spector suggests that I am a "cancer" on Canadian politics and journalism. I would have preferred being called a bitch, but Norm's used that one already.

A terrible attack, if true.

But, um...

here's the Spector piece in its entirety:

THE COLUMN I’M GLAD I DIDN’T WRITE

--The cancer in Canadian journalism (and politics)

The viral Campaign Against Stephane Dion (Kinsella)

That's what viral campaigns are conceived to do, and what the anti-Dion campaign did well. It smeared a man who, truly, did not deserve it….

Whatever side of the argument you favoured -- and this writer remains decidedly in the corner of Dion, Turner and the rest -- on one point we can all agree: the anti-Dion viral campaigners did their job well….

The Stephane Dion dual citizenship story first appeared immediately after the conclusion of the Liberal leadership convention. My friend Ezra Levant, a long-time conservative (and Conservative) activist, revealed the "news.”

--Here's Lawrence Martin on Dion, the column I wish I'd written.

Notice something? The "cancer" comment doesn't appear to have had anything to do with Kinsella! It was a comment on the subject matter of Kinsella's piece, agreeing with him!

Like I said, funny.

Speaking of said Kinsella article about viral campaigning, the man seems to have a huge beef with Youtube and Wikipedia for their role in 2006. Odd, considering that they helped the Dems regain congress (something he supports) and they're pretty intimately tied with blogging nowadays. He also seems to have a lot of "friends" who are, well, dicks. Yes, your "friend" Ezra was acting the crackpot and Pierre Bourque was aiding and abetting- why were you taking oblique shots at Youtube and marketers and not nailing your "friends'" asses to the wall?

Why? Because they're friends, and you don't act badly towards friends! Ah, the punditry. One great, big, happy family.

(Except maybe for Spector and Kinsella.)

Canadian and American pundits: BFF?

With the liberal leadership race done (more on that in a future post), I'm probably going to be writing less on Canada. One point of interesting correspondence between the two neighbours, though, is the "literati".

Look at this piece by Paul Wells.

(Enormous fan of this here blog that he is.)

But why is it that, on the very existential questions that cut closest to the distinctive hearts of Quebecers, Quebec's homegrown pundit class is so consistently wildly wrong about the reactions of ordinary Quebecers?

And is there not a stitch of introspection about this state of affairs?

Well, I'd answer, but instead I'd just point him over here, one of a series of pieces where Digby rips into the pundit class. The same thing that Wells is noticing in Quebec on unity issues, where the pundits' pronouncements are both forthright and totally unconnected to reality, is the case in the United States on Iraq. Both feature a body of writers that are as sure of their conclusions as they are, inexoriably, wrong.

Which raises a point. The worst part of the American situation is that even if you are wrong, if you're wrong the "right way", you'll be fine. You're allowed to say that Iraq is wrong now, but only if you were for the war back then, because you still aren't allowed to question the assumptions that got the pundits to where they are. Anybody who questioned things back when it mattered, noting that (for instance) the Americans' predominance in the intelligence community and intelligence-sharing agreements made that whole "everybody agreed on WMDs" argument worthless, is still considered beyond the pale.

Will the Canadians end up the same way? Even if the nation issue doesn't resonate, are Quebecois pundits (whatever that means) going to keep pretending that it is? Are the Canadian pundits still going to laud Stephen Harper's transcendent brilliance for passing that motion? Are they going to keep pretending something was true, so that they don't embarrass their fellows, no matter the cost?

If this trend keeps up? I'd say it's pretty damned likely.

Edit: Oh cripes, and here comes the Pundit's Refrain from Well's site, attacking Stephane Dion.

"Why do all those nasty liberals have to be so mean to the conservatives? It's so wretchedly partisan! They should get along and make government work!

"Oh, yes, those are my Bill O'Reilly books. I love him, sticking it to the godless LIEberals all the time. what of it?"

Wells was just quoting a letter writer, of course, but didn't exactly strenuously disagree. Guess what? He should. It's bullshit, and he knows better. It wasn't a liberal who said that bipartisanship was "date rape".

Ok, I think I see the problem

Over on Media Matters, they're looking at a typically braindead O'Reilly comment:

On the December 13 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly dismissed scientific research on same-sex parenting to assert that "[n]ature dictates that a dad and a mom is the optimum" form of child-rearing. O'Reilly asked "why," if children suffer no psychosocial deficit from being raised by same-sex parents, "wouldn't nature then make it that anybody could get pregnant by eating a cupcake?" O'Reilly declared that by arguing in favor of same-sex couples' right to raise children, "you're taking Mother Nature and you're throwing it right out the window, and I just think it's crazy." In fact, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted (here, here, here, and here), studies have consistently found that children raised by gay or lesbian parents suffer no adverse effects in their psychosocial development.

Now, clearly this doesn't make any sense. Normally, anyway.

However, it DOES make sense if you stop and think "why 'mother nature'"? There's no such person, of course, and if he were trying to say that need a mother and father because of evolution, he'd invite a request asking for ANY proof of this supposition. After all, just because something has been done doesn't mean it MUST be done. It's silly, and I'm sure O'Reilly knows it.

Thing is, if you attribute this to some supernatural being, you're fine. So, yeah, O'Reilly said "mother nature", but you and I both know he was really using a code word for "God". Just like with Bush's cryptic comments during the debates, it's a way of making an argument on the sly that you could never make in public, as he'd be rightly and quickly called out for saying "God sez so" in any serious debate.

Which is kind of too bad. If he were honest, it might actually be a reasonable discussion, if a very different one. Instead, he just sounds like an idiot: a complete and utter tool.

Not that I'm going to lose any sleep over O'Reilly's reputation, but it'd be nice if Fox 'n Co. made an honest point for a change.

Paging Ice-T, Paging Ice-T...

Bodycount, bodycount!

Bodycount, bodycount!

Yep, the Bush administration is resurrecting the old Vietnam canard of hauling out enemy bodycounts in order to prove, somehow, that Iraq is winnable/being won/has been won/whatever.

Fortunately, as the Think Progress link points out, the White House press corps are keenly aware that relative bodycounts are pretty damned meaningless. When deaths can spur fresh violence and there are a whole heck of a lot more of "them" than there are of "us".

Snow's whinge about how "the insurgents haven't won a single battle" isn't much better. Insurgents don't win setpiece battles. The point is to avoid them, and to disappear as soon as the textbook scenario comes to pass. You don't win an insurgency war battle by battle, but by a slow inexorable erosion.

(Kind of like Bush's popularity.)

More on Johnson

Apparently he IS ill, having congenital arteriovenous malformation. He had surgery and is apparently recovering, but the recovery may be a slow process.

Tim Johnson in hospital

Democratic Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota has been hospitalized, quite probably because of a stroke. Aside from the personal tragedy it would be if anything happened to the senator, the governor of the state is a Republican, making it likely that were a new senator to be appointed, the balance of power in the Senate would return to the Republicans.

Whee.

Meanwhile, the Kool Kidz are at it again- saying "jokes" about Barack Obama's background and dress that will turn into accepted (yet idiotic) truisms for his opponents soon enough. Digby raises the important question: why, exactly, are supposed "serious" reporters seem so eager to mock Dems when the same treatment of a Republican would be roundly condemned as unconscionable?

Edit: looks like Johnson's ok. Good to hear.

Bolton's out

Well, Looks like Chafee is going out like a mensch:

``To confirm Mr. Bolton to the position of UN ambassador would fly in the face of the clear consensus of the country that a new direction is called for'' on foreign policy, Senator Lincoln Chafee, a Rhode Island Republican, said two days after losing to a Democrat in the election.

Bolton couldn't win the support of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee without Chafee's vote, and Republican leaders signaled Bolton didn't have enough support to get his nomination to the whole Senate for a vote.

Bye bye, John. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Called It

..and have been calling it (that is, Stephane Dion winning the Canadian Liberal leadership race) for a little while now. (My biggest mistake, I have to admit, was thinking that everything would be sorted out before the convention. It happened on the floor.)

I still believe now what I did then: that Canadians (like Americans) rejected Ignatieff becaused they "want a candidate who represents progressive, non-Americanized foreign policy- Ignatieff's other policies simply don't differ enough from his counterparts to explain it." Dion could not have won if Ignatieff hadn't had weaknesses... and Ignatieff's weaknesses were all about his foreign policy. Dion's focus on green issues was a nice touch and probably helped vault him over Rae, but it wasn't Dion who had Harper shake his hand over Afghanistan.

It's funny that the coverage is largely about Quebec issues and the environment, considering the salience of foreign policy, but c'est la vie, as the new leader would probably say.

As for the campaign, I'll actually throw it over to Warren, who seems pretty happy about the whole thing, and also called it for Dion:

That all said, Dion clearly knows how to catch his opponents off guard: After all, he has just beaten the entire Liberal party establishment on a shoestring budget, and with a tiny band of fearless advisors.

He may be wrongheaded about pseudonymity-newcomer pundits to these here Internets often are-but he's nailed this as a rebuke to the "backroom boys" backing the Ignatieff and Rae camps. There are a lot of smoke-filled rooms with a lot of worried faces right now. They'll have to rethink a few things.

Maybe that's the "renewal" that the Liberals keep talking about?

Dear Josh:

A significant part of the DC press corps will do whatever Bush wants, because they're terrified of losing viewers in the poorly-understood "heartland".

This is largely because they spend all their time with people who are deliberately trying to convince them that they're evil liberals, and that liberals are evil in the first place. Liberals would do the same thing, but they're not big enough assholes to get away with it.

So when they start railing about how America's enemies are heartened by the Democratic victory and people who didn't vote for Bush are cowardly, just remember that these poor bastards are massaged like Kobe beef. At this point, they don't know which way is up, let alone that yelling "clap harder!" doesn't work when everybody's already left the theatre in disgust.

Hugs and Kisses,

Demosthenes.

(And, naturally, Digby.)

Dean, the Dems, and the Liberal "netroots"

Just got done reading Howard Dean's address to the Canadian Liberal party. I wasn't expecting the guy to switch into French.

Very nice speech, too, focusing on that key thing that the Dems seem to be finally acknowledging (if grudgingly) and the Liberals are having trouble with: the importants of grassroots participation in government. Ideology aside, the Liberals have demonstrated consistently that they really need to work harder to build up grassroots support. (Hell, the unpopularity of the "nation" motion demonstrates THAT.)

Then again, I think the progressive blogospheres in the two countries demonstrate it, too. The American progressive/liberal movement online has developed an impressive sense of self- Kos, Atrios, et al have built up a "netroots" that not only helps to represent a point of view, but a consistent community. It's not about supporting individual candidates or even ideologies- it's about the party as a whole, and ensuring the health of the party.

Sadly, I haven't seen much of that north of the border. By and large, Canadian liberal bloggers have been apologists for various leadership candidates, both overtly and covertly. What positions they take, what beliefs they espouse, what they see as forgiveable or beyond the pale... all is dependent on who they're backing, and there seems to be little sense of community beyond that. You're either with Iggy, or with Rae, or with Dion, or with Kennedy. Even though that will end after Saturday, what bothers me is the possibility (if not likelihood) that all they'll do is just turn into apologists for the leader.

That's not what a progressive movement is supposed to be about. Conservatives, sure: until he self-destructed Bush was fawned over this way, and every self-described conservative in Canada with a weblog fawns over Stephen Harper.

Not progressives, though. Not when there's such a better, more vital model out there, one that gets things done and makes things work. (And raises a little money, too.)

Here's hoping that Saturday serves as an end to the factional BS, and the real northern netroots start growing.

SotH was still a good book...

But yeesh, what the hell is OSC trying to pull with this silliness? A fantasy about rock-ribbed Republicans blowing up evil power-tripping LIEberals?

What, was he getting jealous of the Tom Clancy oeuvre?

(Then again, were I to start this thing nowadays, I probably would have leaned towards "The Forever War".

(Once again, this here little blog claims absolutely no affinity to OSC or his work. Go here to find out the story of why I'm who I am and why this place is what it is. Funny how times change, huh?)

Even Defter?

I have to admit, I'm starting to waver on the implications of that motion that Canadian PM Stephen Harper made to recognize the Quebecois as a nation. While some of the arguments in favor of it have been strong, others against it have been equally so; especially over that issue of what the resolution means in French vs. English. (I had, when I wrote that earlier piece, forgotten that Canada must publish everything in both official languages. That can lead to difficulty. It certainly does here.)

Still, there was pretty much a consensus that the motion was going to pass; even ardent federalists like Liberal leadership candidate Stephane Dion were backing it, and defending it. (Dion wrote a smart letter to the Toronto Star defending it, saying that such resolutions could be written for any of the many nationalities that make up Canada. Fair enough, although most of them don't want to leave.

Thing is, it didn't really matter, because clearly there was a consensus backing Harper's motion. Now, though, that consensus is gone, as fellow Liberal leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy has come out in opposition of the motion.

Kennedy believes the motion raises expectations of eventual constitutional entrenchment of Quebec nationhood without defining what is meant by the word nation. Moreover, he is worried that the motion will deepen divisions in the country, the source said.

Kennedy, a former Ontario education minister, does not have a seat in the Commons but is issuing his statement in advance of the vote on Harper's motion, expected late Monday.

Kennedy's decision could give him a boost at this week's leadership convention among Liberals who are adamantly opposed to recognizing Quebec nationhood but have no other outlet for their concern.

This is smart, smart politics; Kennedy has now placed himself in the position of the "outsider speaking truth to power", echoing the beliefs of a lot of Liberals and the majority of Canadians outside Quebec.

Everybody and his dog knows that the motivation for all of this has been strictly political: Harper wants to regain Quebec support, Ignatieff wanted to reorient Quebec opinion of his leadership away from his disastrous foreign policy, Dion was (until the Harper resolution) using the nation issue as a bludgeon to beat Ignatieff, and Rae was happy to let everybody do it, so long as he didn't get sucked in. Some of these strategies were working (Dion) and some weren't (Ignatieff), but things had gone badly enough that when Harper brought out his cute little dodge, everybody hung on, policy and consequences be damned.

Except, now, for Kennedy. That's why it's smart politics for him. His profile is instantly raised, and nobody had been paying attention to him previously. He knows that his support in Quebec is weak, but (assuming the deal with Dion is in place) will scoop up Dion's supporters if Dion bails out anyway. The harder of the Quebec nationalists will be with Ignatieff, and they'd be impossible for Kennedy to gain, thanks to his weak french and weaker Quebec operation. Where his operation IS strong, (Toronto and the Canadian West) he's likely to get a good reaction from the delegates, as the latter group opposes giving Quebec special status, and the former group lives in a region of so many nationalities that recognizing one would be, well, silly.

People concerned about the Harper proposal may end up shifting to Kennedy from Ignatieff and Dion; if the deal is in place, that would put Kennedy comfortably ahead of Dion, allowing him to absorb Dion's votes and get crucial momentum. If it ends up with him ahead of Rae, and Ignatieff doesn't have his 50%, it's probably over and Kennedy walks away with the prize. If he's behind Rae, he gets Rae to come out against the motion (or at least raise questions), hands his votes to Rae, and Kennedy walks away the kingmaker and THE man to beat after Rae.

Plus, he's now going to be the absolute darling of the growing number of pundits who are opposed to the motion; not the least of which whatzisname, who had no time for Kennedy before and now is praising him to the high heavens. He'll get that badly needed press.

(Not only pundits; every conservative who hates Harper's move to placate Quebecois nationalism is going to take a good hard look at Kennedy. SOMEBODY is going to think "Sure, he might raise taxes, but at least he believes in one nation.")

(That said, there are bunches of people commenting that this will be a disaster. Here, for example, where the prevailing belief is that this will make him a pariah. Perhaps. I don't think so, though. There are simply too many anti-nation Liberals out there for the movers-and-shakers to visibly marginalize them. We'll see, I guess.)

For the Record:

If you want to know about global warming, just go here.

(Especially if you don't understand the difference between blackbody albedo and the albedo of the ball we're all sitting on.)

They know their stuff, and are very good at breaking down the apologists' claims.

The Kiddy Porn Angle

Maybe this is what whatzisname over at the Post meant when he was blathering on about shutting down the Internet:

Canada's biggest Internet service providers have agreed to block hundreds of offending websites in an effort to stamp out child pornography.

Telecom companies such as Bell Canada, Rogers, Shaw, SaskTel, Telus, Videotron and MTS Allstream are partnering with Cybertip.ca to launch "Project Cleanfeed Canada" that will block between 500 and 800 offending websites.

Cybertip.ca, a national child sexual exploitation hotline, will provide the names of sites to be blocked. The hotline relies mostly on tips from the public.


The list of websites will be updated daily and will prevent both intentional and accidental viewing of the sites, according to Lianna McDonald, executive director of Cybertip.ca.

Details of how the automated technical system will work and help filter the sites can't be described for security reasons.

This bothers me. Not the "anti-kiddy porn" aspect, which I imagine most non-NAMBLA types would support, but the underlying philosophy. Canada has had, in its past, some rather draconian laws about erotica; booksellers in Toronto who specialize in the gay market still complain about their shipments being interdicted at the border by over-enthusiastic Moral Guardians. The Internet has been a welcome countering influence to that kind of nonsense, yet I can definitely see it being the next direction that such things go in.

(Not that the US is that much different, as this comparative piece shows, although the US focuses more on prosecution.)

My real concern, though, is that this could extend beyond the boundaries of sexuality. Take the infamous fight between McDonalds and protestors, as seen in this excerpt from No Logo. McDonalds attempted to shut down protestors using libel claims, and the whole thing wound up in court. In that particular case, the courts sided with the protesters, but as we've seen numerous times in the past, the courts can make utterly wrongheaded decisions that end up being reversed shortly thereafter by a saner court. The problem, of course, is that trying to shut down free speech like this is difficult-at-best on the Internet, for all those reasons that I'm not going to belabour. That's a strength, not a weakness.

This ruling provides a new avenue for shutting down free speech, by blocking people at the ISP level. Previously ISPs wouldn't really do this; they wanted to be seen as "common carriers", not responsible for what they carry. (Hosting is different, but we're not talking about hosting here). Now, of course, that's pretty much out the window, and ISPs have implicitly claimed responsibility for what they carry and the ability to block it.

Of course, it's unlikely that protester sites would be blocked right now. A clear path from point "A" to point "B" can be laid out, though. It starts with kiddy porn. It then moves to other objectionable kinds of porn- that disturbing "Max Hardcore" degradation stuff, which is (as far as I know) technically illegal in Canada. Having established that blocking has little to do with kiddy porn but the illicit nature of the material, the next target is everybody's favorite whipping boy: the pirates, as the Canadian equivalents of the RIAA and MPAA rush to have all those nasty torrent sites blocked.

(Since you can't block bittorrent traffic nowadays, thanks to the legitimate users, you have to target the sites.)

After that, the "illicit information" angle is clear, and the blocking extends to both "hate sites" (a favorite target of censor-happy folks, thanks to their odiousness), and then, as night follows day, unacceptably radical political speech, just as soon as the lawsuit hits the air.

Not that any of this is new, of course. This is the reason WHY ISPs want common carrier status, and why it's important for them to have it. The thing is, since child pornography is so terrible, it's easy to lose sight of that in the rush to protect, and soon enough the race is on to block Greenpeace from Canadian ISPs.

The problem, though, is that doing something like this isn't going to prevent child pornography. There's simply no way to block all those sites, and no way to block other channels (like, say, Freenet) which are legally and technically designed to evade such blocking. The only possible way that this can work is exactly what I mentioned earlier- a "whitelist" of sites that you CAN go to, with everything else blocked.

That would be disastrous.

I was right, and still am right, about the pointlessness of a group like the CRTC or FCC (or, for that matter, the cable companies) trying to regulate and filter the Internet as a whole. It's going to screw with fundamental freedoms while only slightly inconveniencing the real bad guys, who should be pursued with tools (like criminal investigation and prosecution of big child porn producers and distributors) far more effective and appropriate to the task.

Apparently, though, that's not going to stop them from trying.

Deftness

I must say, my lowering interest in Canadian politics (now that the Liberal leadership race appears to have about as much to do with the future of modern liberalism as Nancy Pelosi's choice of breakfast muffin) has somewhat rekindled over the marvelously deft move that the current Canadian PM, Stephen Harper, made over the issue of whether the province of Quebec is a "nation".

To forestall further embarrassment, and quite possibly save Michael Ignatieff's hide, he put forward a motion stating that Canada recognizes "the Quebecois as a nation within a united Canada."

VERY deft. Why? First, look at the word in question: it says "Quebecois", not either "Quebeckers" or "Quebec" itself. That's important- in English, a distinction is drawn between the sociological group "Quebecois" and those who simply live in the province of Quebec. Certainly the French speaking (and predominantly Roman Catholic) group known as the Quebecois count as a nation- they've got rather a lot of history and cultural distinctiveness to support that. Thing is, that doesn't make them different or special, as there are other nations within the province of Quebec that fit that bill too, including many native nations whose claim to the land predates even the oldest "Quebecois" settlers. Of course, in French Quebecois is more akin to the english "Quebeckers", implying simply those who live in Quebec, but the resolution is in english, and the term "nation" tends to mean "sociological nation" in French anyway, and even the most ardent seperatist isn't going to claim that, say, the Cree Indians are part of the sociological group "Quebecois".

It also doesn't provide much room for grounding seperation, thanks to that "united Canada" line. It reiterates that the Quebecois are a part of Canada, not something seperate from it. I imagine most federalist Quebecois would accept that definition, even if the seperatists loathe it.

It still would have been better had this sideshow not reared its ugly head, and Ignatieff is still likely to be punished for doing so. Still, I will admit that Harper managed to thread that needle rather well.

If only he were anywhere near as competent at, say, foreign policy.

Edit to forestall an objection: Paul Wells complained that Harper's preference for "in Caanda" is meaningless- a nation is a nation no matter where it is. Well, yes, and were the Quebecois willing to seperate without the lands held by the Cree and without Montreal, there might be something to that. As it is, though, any attempt to use this to justify seperation can be easily responded to with a simple "what about the nations that don't want to leave?"

Recognizing one nation does not preclude the existence of others. Indeed, considering the natives are referred to as "first nations" in Canada, there's already an implicit recognition there.

Seriously Odd

I've gone on about the guy before, but even more than his inability to create permalinks, this really does cement Warren Kinsella as the oddest blogger I've come across.

Yes, odder than Steven Den Beste, with his apocalyptic visions of cultural warfare. Read on.

This piece is about the CRTC- the Canadian Radio and Television Commission. Roughly similar to the FCC. It's on his National Post blog, instead of his regular one, so I can be reasonably sure the permalink will work. Here's what he said:

This writer, who still regards himself as a liberal if not a federal Liberal, intensely dislikes the CRTC. With the Internet awash in child pornography and hate propaganda – with the Internet facilitating the daily doings of stalkers, perverts, and the likes of al-Qaeda – this writer and other naïve liberals had clung to the primitive notion that the CRTC (which has the mandate to regulate Canadian telecommunications services) would have regulated, um, the Internet (a telecommunications service found here and there in Canada).

In May 1999, the CRTC declined to do so, claiming that “Canadian laws, industry self-regulation, content filtering software, and increased media awareness” would do the trick. Ask any Canadian parent, teacher or librarian how that one worked out.

The rest is a complaint about regulation of VoIP- I'll save you, and just get to the last bit.

For those of us with an historical antipathy to the CRTC, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of guys and gals. Could the private sector do better in limiting access to child pornography, hate propaganda and other such filth? It certainly could not do worse than the CRTC has done, in recent years.

Catch the problem? Yeah, me too. It can be summed up in one simple sentence:

How in the name of GOD is the CRTC supposed to regulate and police the INTERNET?

No, really, how? China can't do it, and they're a communist dictatorship. Is the CRTC supposed to erect some kind of firewall around all of Canada, and keep out all the nasty pornography and hate propaganda and Islamists and whatnot? Should they just run a "whitelist" of sites that Canadians are allowed to visit?

This is manifestly impossible and everybody knows it. Except Warren, for some bizarre reason, who missed all that folderol from the 1990s about how the Internet "interprets censorship as damage and reroutes around it." Sure, it never quite worked that way, but it's a good rule of thumb. Ought Implies Can, which is why anybody saying that the CRTC or FCC or whoever ought to censor the nasty stuff on the Internet is usually laughed out of the room.

(Maybe he was too busy being all punk to read an issue of Wired back in the day.)

Hell, I'll do you folks one better. Notice that Kinsella seemed to think that Al Qaeda being on the Internet is one of the reasons it should be censored. Yet the facilitation of the "daily doings of... the likes of Al-Qaeda" would happen even if Canada had some sort of Chinese-style "Golden Shield" surrounding it. They don't operate in Canada, or at least not solely in Canada. What, exactly, is the CRTC supposed to do about THAT? Are they supposed to reach out their mighty Canadian arm and swat Al Qaeda from the whole international Internet? Apparently so.

Admittedly, he could just believe that Canadians shouldn't be permitted to see and hear anything Al Qaeda says or writes. Honestly, I think I prefer the "long arm of the Mounties" theory, though. It's just bizarre, instead of terrifying.

Like I said, seriously odd.

(Then again, considering his ignorance of the tradition of pseudonymity on the Internet, maybe it's not surprising that he still doesn't understand the medium too well. I'd love to introduce him to a Cyperpunk sometime. After five minutes with someone who takes Internet privacy really seriously, I expect his head would explode.)

"I'm Not Saying They're Traitors"...

Governments may come, and governments may go...



...but wingnuts' eliminationist attempts to call liberals treasonous for disagreeing with them?

That's forever.

A Word of Advice to Dems

As always, don't listen to conservatives proffering advice, as people like Brooks had absolutely nothing to do with your victory.

And, honestly, what's sadder than a conservative babbling about how this is all "a win for the centrists", in a desperate attempt to try to save the ideology that is his bread and butter?

Yes, some conservative Dems won. No, it wasn't all conservatives, and some were pretty damned liberal. Yes, Lieberman won. No, Lieberman's victory wasn't a victory against Kos. it was an embrace of the Republican party without the "R" to bring him down.

Hell, Brooks (along with many other pundits) doesn't even get that Kos doesn't care about ideology, and never has. He just dislikes Lieberman because he takes shots at his own party to get ahead. It works for Joe, but harms the party, and thus can't be held up as an example to Dems pretty much by definition.

I'm quite aware that this whole thing is just a way of setting the groundwork for battering Democrats as "out of the mainstream" again when the actually try to get something done. It was inevitable, and all things considered, it's pretty weak.

I just hope Nancy and Harry know it as well.

Who Gets Credit, Rahm Or Netroots? Neither.

Over at TPMCafe, they're doing a roundup of "who won: Rahm Emmanuel or the netroots"? Leaving aside nonsense about Lieberman winning (he won because of Republicans due to a weak Republican candidate, nothing more)...

...neither won. Howard Dean won the election.

Why? Well, two reasons, really. One I already mentioned earlier: Dean's "fifty state strategy" ensured that there was already at least the beginnings of Democratic organizations in states that the Powers That Be had pretty much given up on. While that wasn't intrinsic to the success in many of the races, it was successful in bleeding Republican cash away from tight races so that they could defend safe seats, especially in situations like this one where "safe" is a relative term at best. This election shows that you have to at least make an effort to compete everywhere, because every race you leave uncontested is a race that they don't have to spend a dime to win, and incumbents tend to spend disproportionately.

The second reason is more ephemeral, but more important. Dean was anti-war. That isn't to say that an anti-war stance would have won in 2004--it wasn't tried--but what it did do is cement a connection between an anti-war position and at least part of the Democratic party. That matters, because if the Dems had had absolutely no anti-war candidates in the primary, we would have almost certainly seen alienation between the party and those who disliked the war. I'm not sure if they would have fled to, say, the Green party, but they may well have sat 2004 out, and been too disconnected from the triangulating Dems to really bother with 2006.

That they did find a candidate in Dean, though, means that they were forced to develop all those nice "netroots" tools that helped so much in 2006. The meetups, the online fundraising, the network of mutually supportive and resolutely partisan blogs that went beyond conservative-style repetition of talking points, the willingness to blend on-the-net and on-the-ground activism... all these things that the "netroots" contributed in 2006 were developed in 2004.

Without Dean, none of that would have happened. Without Dean, the Dems would probably just be happy right now with having reduced the Republican majority. Without Dean, there would probably be a divided left right now in the United States, just as there is in so many other countries. Without Dean, people would still think that Instapundit actually speaks for the blogger community.

So sorry, folks, but this is Howard Dean's party, and we're all just living in it. To our great good luck.

A Netroots Victory?

Very good piece on the media's misinterpretation of the Democratic victory by your hero and mine, digby.

Imagine my surprise this morning, twelve years later, as Democrats come back into the majority in the House with a huge, decisive victory and the Senate is poised to tip as well and the press seems to be interpreting this election as a .... repudiation of the soft and squishy hated liberals. (Again, they are taking their cues from Rush Limbaugh who is also spinning the election as a loss for liberals.) The narrative is suspended in amber.

It's wrong, of course, just as the earlier one was. This election proves that the Democrats are the mainstream political party. We just elected a socialist from Vermont and a former Reagan official from Virginia to the US Senate. We elected a number of Red State conservatives, true, but we are also going to have a Speaker of the House from San Francisco. We cover a broad swathe, ranging from sea to shining sea with only the most conservative old south remaining firmly in the hands of the Republican party. The idea that this is some sort of affirmation of conservatism is laughable. It's an affirmation of mainstream American values and a rejection of the Republican radicalism this country has been in the grips of for the last 12 years.

And I'm sorry to have to inform all the kewl kidz and insiders, but this is largely due to the re-emergence of an active, vital, progressive base. Despite the fact that we aren't goosestepping around shouting about our Victory For The Homeland the way the Gingrich Jugend did in 1994, a revolution --- not of ideology, but necessity --- is underway.

He then extensively quotes Rick Perlstein at TNR, who points out that while the hand-picked DCCC candidates were defeated as often as not, the "netroots" was pretty thoroughly successful, and the successful candidates were often hardly the "Conservative Democrats" that the media seems to pretend they are. Best example is right here:

It was a pattern repeated across the country. New Hampshire's 1st District delivered Carol Shea-Porter, a former social worker who got kicked out of a 2005 Presidential appearance for wearing a T-shirt that said turn your back on bush. That might have been her fifteen minutes of fame--if, last night, she hadn't defeated two-term Republican incumbent Jeb Bradley. For the chance to face him, however, she had to win a primary against the DCCC's preferred candidate, Jim Craig--whom Rahm Emanuel liked so much he made the unusual move of contributing $5000 to his primary campaign. Shea-Porter dominated Craig by 20 points--and then was shut out by the DCCC for general election funds.

Digby's basic point is absolutely valid- that this shouldn't be considered a victory for the "New Democrats", or "Centrist Democrats" or whatever label they're trying to haul out. To be blunt, they didn't do a damned thing.

It was, first and foremost, a loss by the Republicans. The Dems kind of backed into this victory, which was handed to them by a party so absolutely unable to govern properly that even a deathgrip on the public discourse, a huge cash advantage, and well-worn talking points couldn't support them. The Republicans lost, and nobody can forget that for a second, because they're going to be much more effective now that their weakness at governance isn't an issue.

(Paradoxical, but true.)

It was also victory for Howard Dean and the netroots. Yes, Holy Joe won; incumbency and massive Republican support gave him the edge. The netroots still helped get people elected, though, by funnelling money and support to candidates that needed it, who had a shot, and didn't have the imprimitur of the Powers That Be. Howard Dean, on the other hand, provided the 50 state initiative, which ensured that the Dems had the support to compete in states that they would have been completely helpless in only a year ago. If anything this election was a vindication of Dean's strategy. If anything, this is his victory.

It's going to take more than one election victory, however, to get the media to change its tune. This was just a first step. Welcome though it is, there's a lot more to do.

RUMSFELD'S OUT! (and Bush is dying on the vine)

It's on CNN. Bush is employing his best turd-polishing skills in a speech to that effect right now.

Hoo Nelly, what a bodyblow to the neocons. Wolfowitz is over at the World Bank, Rumsfeld is out on his ear, Iraq is synonymous with disaster, the Republicans got walloped in the election...

...and it's all thanks to the "let's go kick some ass so Americans will feel nifty about themselves" crew. They're punching bags for the next two years, at least.

Kinda like with Saddam, couldn't have happened to nicer guys.

Edit: Bush's press conference is going about as well as the war he's defending. He's not just a lame duck, he's a duck with a thousand knives poised to carve him up and serve him out. He knows it too.

On some abstract level, I think I should feel sorry for him. I don't. I probably never will.

Dems Win, to Varying Degrees

From worst to first:

Worst: Connecticut, where Lieberman did indeed pull it out. Over on Kos it was attributed to a simple problem:

Despite all the blogosphere opinion, Nutmeggers saw this race as between two Democrats, and Lamont's inability to change that perception and counter Lieberman's bipartisan sales pitch was why he lost. He could not compete in the suburban areas that gave him the primary win.

I don't like this, obviously, but it's the logical analysis. Iraq was front-and-center in this election, but Lieberman couldn't really get swept up in the anti-Republican wave thanks to his insulating "D", so the moderate Democratic support and fairly enthusiastic Republican support got him the seat.

It may be academic: the Dems haven't won the Senate. Or they have. We're not sure yet, thanks to Virginia and Montana, where Webb and Tester are leading their Republican counterparts by razor-thin margins and where both seats are necessary for the Dems to pull off the 50 seats they need.

(No, I'm not lumping Lieberman in there, "caucus with Dems" or otherwise. His time as a Democrat is over.)

So they may not have the Senate. Of course, at 50-50 they don't necessarily need it- all they need to do is sway one Republican for important votes and they're set, and every Republican in the Senate knows which way the wind is blowing. I've heard speculation about party switching; although I find that unlikely, bringing people over for votes will prove far easier.

The good news, though? The house is won. The Dems (leaving aside recounts and the like) have 231 seats and Pelosi will be speaker. This is great, great news, both for the country and for progressivism. Hell, it's good news for the Democratic process itself- around a year ago nobody was expecting the Dems to retake the House until, what, 2010? Maybe? With the Republicans' history and the incumbency protection that the House enjoys, it's quite likely that it'll remain in Democratic hands at least until then, if not longer.

Most importantly, the Dems now have a chance to uproot the Mighty Wurlitzer of the conservative echo chamber, and start getting a progressive voice heard. While the DLC types might take solace from Lieberman, the fact remains that the issue that they cringed from and avoided, Iraq, was the one that handed the Democrats the House and quite possibly the Senate. "It's the Economy Stupid" and all that triangulation nonsense about foreign policy is dead.

In any case, congratulations and good luck, Democratic Party of America.

Vote Early, Vote Often: 2006

Welp, here we are again. Election day in the U.S.A. I'm sure every blog even remotely concerned with American politics is saying "go vote", so I won't worry about it.

What I will say is that it's a very different election than the last bunch. For the first time in a long while, it looks like the Democrats are poised to kick some ass and take the House at the very least. It's quite possible that they'll take the Senate as well, depending on how things shake out.

And yet. I can't help but feel a little unease about all of this. I feel like the Dems aren't in the great position that they think they're in.

The first and most easily apparent reason is Holy Joe, the quasi-Dem. To be blunt, he should have dropped out after the primary, even though I was pretty certain he wouldn't. He's putting his party in an impossible position if he wins. If he doesn't hold the balance of power, then no big deal; the Dems can caucus with him or not as they wish. Sucks, but they can always say "sorry, but you aren't actually a Dem."

It's quite possible that he will hold the balance of power, though, and that raises the question: where do the Democrats draw the line? I'm not talking about Joe's foreign policy positions, naive and untenable as they are. I'm talking about the impact on the party itself when it is made obvious that they can't say "boo" to Joe without handing votes to Cheney to tie-break. Joe will become incredibly powerful, and everybody will know it, and the Dems will be at the mercy of a man who has been about as loyal to his party as Guy Fawkes was to his country.

(To use a relatively topical non-American reference for this time of year.)

If they play ball with the man and let him play Democrat, it'll be a message to everybody in the party that says "we don't care about what you think, or who you pick. Primaries are a fiction, and you might as well not bother." The party is supposed to choose its own representatives, and the whole point of primaries is that you choose your own representatives directly. Letting Joe run the show will be a big neon sign to everybody watching saying that the Democrats are exactly as weak and unprincipled as everybody believes they are.

Yet, the other alternative is a Republican Senate propped up by the New Zell. That's also untenable. That's why Lieberman should have quit. Even if he hasn't, though, it's the reason why Lieberman can't have the "D" beside his name, and why the Dems need to make it clear that they're in the driver's seat, not Joe.

The other issue that bothers me is the reason why the Dems are poised to make these gains. To be blunt, they haven't been that inspiring. No, really, they haven't. Their campaigning has been competent, but the Republicans have demonstrated through both fair means and foul that they're still the better campaigners and still have the national discourse by the jugular. The only reason why the Republicans are slated to lose is because of their incompetence at governance and because of the perfect storm of the Foley scandal. The Dems haven't really sorted through their issues; the brewing storm between the "Democratic wing" and the "New Democrats" hasn't gone anywhere.

Even if they win, those divisions are going to loom large, especially with the large number of somewhat conservative newbie Dems likely to join the House. They'll be acutely aware that Iraq and Foley will not get them reelected. They'll also know that the gerrymandering and discourse control that kept the Republicans in power is going to work against them. They could easily do what Dems so often do, and freeze, hoping that the bad Republicans will just go away if they act really quiet and still, just like a little mouse.

Case in point: the investigation issue. Already the Republicans are setting the groundwork for loud exhortations for Democrats to leave the past alone, and that any attempt to investigate the Republicans' many and sundry sins of governance would be partisan witchhunts. The Democrats' first instinct is naturally to deny that any such thing will take place; that is also exactly the wrong thing to do. Far from being politically unwise, congressional investigations are the best tool the Dems have to hammer home just how bad the Republicans have been, why "bipartisanship" with such a crowd is a quixotic goal, and why they shouldn't be given the tiller again for a good long time.

Yes, the usual suspects will shout and rave, but they're not the ones that need to be convinced. Hell, they shouldn't even be listened to. No Democrat should ever base their decisionmaking on what people like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Ledeen, and Robert Novak think, no matter how big or influential an audience they seem to command.

What's important is that Americans will finally start hearing some truth, and the truth is the last thing the Republicans or their mouthpieces want to get out.

The Democrats have been lucky, and have known enough to exploit that. There's been little indication that they've grown that spine. If they haven't, if they don't, this will be a short-lived victory at best. We'll see, I suppose.

Saddam Will Hang

Unsurprising. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, but I still think (like most of the western world) that the death penalty is a throwback and best discarded as such. Somewhere in Iran, a mullah is telling a scientist to redouble his efforts.

As for the fallout in Iraq... well, I'd say that there's a danger the country could fall into chaos, but Bush 'n co seem to have done a bang-up job on that without any help from Saddam.

North Korea Back to Table

Not really a big surprise; China's clearly been putting on pressure, and North Korea really exists on China's sufference. The DPRK probably knows that they're in a better negotiation position than they were before, too- promises of a "hard line" by the U.S. and Japan will run right into the reality that North Korea has a lot more chips than they used to, chips that the Koreans will almost certainly used to gain concessions.

Still, I think at this point that there's only one concession that really means anything to Kim Jong-Il- the assurance of non-hostility and security by the United States. This whole mess started because (among other reasons) the United States has waffled back and forth between killing time until the DPRK falls and threatening to do the job itself. I'm sure that Kim is looking for some proof that his regime is safe; everything else, including the economic concessions, is secondary.

For its part, though, the U.S. may not be willing to offer this pledge. After all, if Kim cheats, the United States could see North Korea end up with nuclear-tipped ICBMs, and clearly they don't want that and will preempt it if they can. Yet it's that fondness for preemption that helped create this mess in the first place, and they can't simply set aside Kim's concerns.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes.