bloggingheads.tv
It's about what it sounds like -- two talking blogger heads discuss issues of the day from the comfort of their own homes (something the site unfortunately calls a "diavlog") via some kind of videoconferencing hookup . The production values are kind of public access cable endearing -- the phone rings, unknown people walk by in the background, that kind of thing.

But at least in the one I've watched (David Corn and Matthew Yglesias), the discussion was good, and a nice feature is that the two talking heads are flanked on the web site by links to items they're discussing -- in this case, Christopher Hitchens' surprisingly peaceful take on Iran, ex-CIA man Paul Pillar's talk at the Council on Foreign Relations, William Saletan's somewhat impenetrable take on the abortion issue, and more. Another potentially good feature is an "afterthoughts" section where discussants get a second chance to clarify or further muddy what they meant in the first place.

Along with Corn, Robert Wright and Mickey Kaus are frequent fliers at bloggingheads.tv so far, which started last November and puts up what I'll call "dialogues" every three or four days or so. Seems like a good way to gain talk show practice for these guys, and not a bad choice for an iPod download now and then. Between (some of) the participants and the links, you stand a pretty good chance of getting more out of this netcast than many a Sunday morning talkshow. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:22:00 PM -- |    

 
'Without further elaboration'
David Corn attended a March 7 Council on Foreign Relations event featuring former CIA Middle East chief Paul Pillar. In a widely noted Foreign Affairs article, Pillar charged that the relationship between the U.S. intelligence community and the policymaking process was broken:

In the wake of the Iraq war, it has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized.

Corn reports that as in the Foreign Affairs article, Pillar contended in his remarks that the "main motivation" of the Iraq war [was] "to stir up the politics and economics of the Middle East and use regime change in Iraq as a stimulus for regime change and other changes in the region." Corn concluded his piece:

The most poignant exchange of the evening came during the Q&A, when Marvin Kalb, the former network news correspondent who now is a senior fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Cetner on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, asked Pillar why Bush and his aides had not argued for war in real terms and shared with the public that the true reason they wanted to invade Iraq was to jiggle the geopolitics of the region.

'It's a lot harder,' Pillar replied, 'to make a case based on that...than it is to make a case built on fear, based on WMD, mushroom clouds, and dictators getting weapons in the hands of terrorists....That is a debate I wish we had....The American public has a right to know the real reason we go to war.'

Kalb then remarked, 'Then he lied.'

'Your word, not mine,' the career intelligence officer replied--without further elaboration.

Hardly news any more, I suppose; still, it's worth reminding ourselves about from time to time. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:58:00 PM -- |    

 
Time warp
The Washington Post's Jim Hoagland, of all people, walks off with (and even publishes) one of the most damaging quotes I've ever seen out of a White House that's proud of them. On Thursday, Hoagland attributed the following to a White House aide who was "defending U.S. policies on Guantanamo Bay prisoners, secret renditions and warrantless eavesdropping":

'The powers of the presidency have been eroded and usurped to the breaking point. We are engaged in a new kind of war that cannot be fought by old methods. It can only be directed by a strong executive who alone is not subject to the conflicting pressures that legislators or judges face. The public understands and supports that unpleasant reality, whatever the media and intellectuals say.'

Emphases added. 65 years earlier:

Our people do not know, and do not even want to know, what the Führer is planning and how he will gain victory. They simply trust him. He will chose the right way, as he has always done. [...] Our people know that if the nation is loyal, obedient and dutiful, and if each does his job, Germany is unbeatable and victory after victory will accompany our troops.

-- Josef Goebbels, "Our Hitler", 1941

Maybe Goebbels was right. But I think -- I hope -- that White House aide is wrong. Bush's lawlessness should be front and center now up to the elections -- and impeachment should be part of the discussion, for the wiretapping, for torture, and for lying us into a war. There is a clear and present danger to the Constitution in this country, and it resides in the White House.


=====
* NOTE: Goebbels translation by Randall Bytwerk. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:20:00 PM -- |    

 
How DINOs evolve, how they go extinct


In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, as progressive blogosphere favorite Ciro Rodriguez went down to defeat against Henry Cuellar (DINO-TX-28), Chris Bowers at liberal supersite MyDD suddenly recognized a fairly important feature of the Texas Democratic primaries:

I'd like to point out that Texas apparently has an open primary system, where Republicans can actually vote in a Democratic primary, and vice versa. Given this, Ciro almost certainly won the day among registered Democrats, and at the very least would have forced a runoff in a closed primary. As someone who has always been an advocate of clsoed [sic] primaries, I submit this election as Exhibit A. As disgusting as it sounds, if Cuellar wins the Democratic primary without a run-off, it will be because of the Republican vote.

Well, how do you do -- light dawns on Marblehead. Not saying I knew it before tonight,* either, but then I don't make it my business to run a site where Olympian pronouncements about voter registration tallies, poll weighting schemes, and "viability" are delivered unto the unwashed masses on an hourly basis.

But if the open primaries problem really just dawned on the pros at MyDD and elsewhere, then Rodriguez' loss isn't just a defeat, it's a debacle -- firedoglake et al notwithstanding -- more akin to doomed Union regiments storming the stone wall at Fredericksburg than losing a battle worth the fight. Not only were everyday Republicans free to foul the results, it should be remembered this was an internecine fight courtesy of Tom DeLay and the least favorable districts computers could draw. Talk about unfavorable terrain. No wonder "Democrats In Name Only" like Henry Cuellar have climbed out of the political ooze to take their place as DINOs in the swamps of American politics.

If this was a Fredericksburg level debacle, one is forced to contemplate a second explanation for the evolution of DINOs: their opponents may just be too small and too, shall we say, unskilled to defeat them. Not unskilled in policy prescriptions, political rhetoric, or Internet and database savvy, mind you, just in political tactics. Think of not-so-smart opossums attacking a brontosaurus or a T-Rex** -- it makes no sense, they're trampled and killed. Then think of smart opossums eating dinosaur eggs -- that could work. Too late now, though -- there are a lot of trampled opossums down in TX-28.

What should big-time liberal bloggers -- the likes of Atrios, dKos, myDD, firedoglake, Gilliard -- be up to in the first place? It should be dawning on them (and more to the point, their readers) at some point that, at least for now, they're not giant-killers or kingmakers, except under very, very, very rare circumstances.

Instead, they're catalysts for and harbingers of change -- fairly slow, opinion-changing, community-building change. That's a terrifically important, even revolutionary role. But it's more about morale and spirit and direction than about full frontal assault -- more Tom Paine than George Washington. And Tom Paine should be listening to Paul Revere and the rest of the B-list revolutionaries a little more often.

Now, of course if one of them reads this, they might say, "screw you, I'll write about and endorse whoever I want." In fact, well they should. But it's another question whether their readers ought to follow them over every cliff, and ignore every candidate they do.

I've mentioned Chuck Pennacchio before. He's running for the U.S. Senate in the Democratic primaries in Pennsylvania. His chief opponent is Bob Casey, Jr., a guy who will be the American Heritage dictionary illustration of "DINO" if he's ever elected. While the last I heard from MyDD about him was that Pennacchio wasn't "viable," I now see that neither was their favorite son, Ciro Rodriguez. Republicans titrated blogosphere donations with ones of their own, and they showed up in sufficient numbers for Cuellar to put him over the top. So either MyDD should admit "viability" isn't an issue, or that they're not very good judges of it in the first place.

If so, what's left? Same as it ever was: saying what you're for, finding candidates who are as well, and building from there. I'm not saying Ciro Rodriguez wasn't such a candidate -- he was. The point is, so is Pennacchio. The point isn't whether you can guarantee either one will win -- evidently, you can't. But of the two, Pennacchio isn't the one fighting on terrain mapped by an archenemy of the Democratic Party, Pennacchio isn't the one campaigning in a system where essentially Republicans can affect the outcome of a Democratic primary, and Pennacchio isn't the one who already had name recognition (Rodriguez is an ex-Congressman). His battleground is on better terrain than Rodriguez' was, and he needs our help more.

Ironically, MyDD's Chris Bowers rightly took the Pennsylvania Democratic party to task yesterday for not fielding candidates in every congressional district. It's ironic because Bowers, Stoller, et al seem to have forgotten or never fully recognized what the point of that is: it's not merely a way to force Republicans to spend money everywhere, it's a way to contest their ideas everywhere. Likewise, in intramural fights, DINO Democrats need to be opposed everywhere, so they can either vocally and effectively defend where they want the Democratic Party to go -- or go extinct in a fair fight with Democrats like Pennacchio. The Pennacchio campaign is for the sake of the party Atrios et al wish they had, not just for the thrill of shaking things up.

It's high time bloggers and their readers gave Pennacchio a look -- not because he might win, but because he should be heard, and that's what bloggers can help out with. Natalie Davis recently posted a long, informative interview with him; check it out, and fix yourself a nice DINO egg omelette.


=====
* Bowers gets the details a little wrong, but the big picture right. The University of Texas' Texas Politics site explains 'open primary' as follows: No permanent record is kept of which party ballot voters select or have selected in the past and voters are not required to declare a party affiliation. Hence, voters can vote in the primary of their choice. The effect is that people who would choose to register as Republicans in other states are more free to make the tactical choice of spoiling, excuse me, voting in a Democratic primary in Texas.
** In some imaginary Jurassic Park XXXVIII, if not in actual evolutionary history. Bear with me.

NOTE: "Light dawns on Marblehead" line and photo pilfered from The Poor Man Institute.
UPDATES, 3/9: crossposted at MyDD; 3/10: dKos; 3/13: discussed last week by Natalie Davis at blogcritics.org and her own blog "All Facts and Opinions", with plenty of comments at both sites.
SOMEHOW RELATED, 3/16: Lindsay Beyerstein reviews Kos and Armstrong's new book "Crashing the Gate": "...there’s something missing from Crashing the Gate, namely, the gate crashing." posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:09:00 PM -- |    

 
Dancing for Relief
It's over! The Washington Ballet dancers have settled their labor dispute with the company, mentioned here last December ("Nutcracker on ice: dancers locked out"). Sarah Kaufman reports for the Washington Post ("Dancers, Company Agree on Contract"):

With the help of two federal mediators who presided over five days of marathon negotiating sessions, the Washington Ballet reached a tentative agreement with its dancers on a first-ever union contract, both the ballet and the dancers' union announced yesterday. If the deal holds, it will put the company back in business for the first time since the Christmas season and end an often bitter negotiating process that stretched over four months.

While Kaufman writes that neither side would discuss details, an American Rights at Work e-mail reports that "[t]he Washington Ballet plans to implement changes in work conditions and rules immediately, which is great news for the dancers who persevered to gain respect on the job and safe working conditions."

The dancers' union, the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) sounds pretty satisfied, too, offering an olive branch to Washington Ballet president Kay Kendall and artistic director Septime Webre, and thanking the mediators and especially AGMA's own Eleni Kallas for her "steadfast refusal to accept less than what she thought the dancers deserved in their contract."

The dancers had already planned performances to help them offset some of the lost income of the Christmas and spring seasons. The "Dancing for Relief" performances are this Thursday through Sunday at the American Dance Institute (1570 East Jefferson St. Rockville, MD); adult tickets are $35. If you can't make it to one of the performances, you can still donate, I have a hunch they won't mind. Click through below to buy tickets and get more details.

Dancing for Relief:
Union benefit for Washington Ballet dancers

7:30pm Thursday March 9, 2006
7:30pm Friday March 10, 2006
7:30pm Saturday March 11, 2006
2:30pm Sunday March 12, 2006


I'm really inspired by these folks; they've shown Washington, D.C. how it's done when men and women decide to stand up for themselves. And this is certainly a town that can use the lesson. Good for all of you! Way to go! posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |    

 
No such thing
Senate Republicans block investigation into eavesdropping (James Kuhnhenn, Knight Ridder):

Senate Republicans blocked an investigation into President Bush's secret domestic spying program on Tuesday, but agreed to expand congressional oversight of the surveillance system in the future.

The milksop Republican counterproposal is to require the Attorney General to certify to Congressional intelligence subcommittees that seeking court approval would hurt intelligence gathering. Given how easily they caved on investigating prima facie wrongdoing, I find it hard to believe they'd grow a backbone once the issue is out of the limelight.

I've been hard on "Vichy Democrats" before, but Democrats in the Senate Intelligence committee have apparently stood united for a full investigation. Sure, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) got rolled again, but it was coy, essentially gutless "moderate" Republicans like Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) who caved to Cheney, Rove, and even Bill Frist, for crying out loud. Snowe was all pumped up for the Constitution and the rule of law in December:

Revelations that the U.S. government has conducted domestic electronic surveillance without express legal authority indeed warrants Congressional examination. I believe the Congress – as a coequal branch of government – must immediately and expeditiously review the use of this practice.

She co-signed a letter to the Senate stating, in part:

We write to express our profound concern about recent revelations that the United States Government may have engaged in domestic electronic surveillance without appropriate legal authority. These allegations, which the President, at least in part, confirmed this weekend require immediate inquiry and action by the Senate.

We respectfully request that the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on the Judiciary, which share jurisdiction and oversight of this issue, jointly undertake an inquiry into the facts and law surrounding these allegations. The overlapping jurisdiction of these two Committees is particularly critical where civil liberties and the rule of law hang in the balance.
(emphases added)

So much for that, it would seem. Jane Hamsher is right:

Proving once again -- there is no such thing as a moderate Republican.

=====
UPDATE, 3/8: Laura Rozen points out a sadly revealing response by White House spokeswoman Dana Perrino: "We're eager to work with Congress on legislation that would further codify the president's authority." No doubt. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:48:00 AM -- |    

 
I'm concerned
...Are the folks at National Review Online losing their minds? Maybe some kind of environmental pollutant, toxic mold ...aerosolized kuru? Roy Edroso ("alicublog") has been mining the NRO "Crunchy Con" site for comedy gold for a while now, but he's hit the mother lode with an epically silly debate about what kind of conservative Homer Simpson is, e.g.:

Homer Simpson is emblematic of a large swath of America that still practices the conservative virtues Kirk touted as best they can in the midst of a culture and system that inherently handicaps those virtues.

Yeah, that's it. I think when most of us see this sort of thing, we're not Democrats or Republicans any more -- we just know these are our fellow human beings who need help. But Edroso takes the longer, colder, I mean really colder view. You'll see. A commenter adds:

These days, I imagine [William F.] Buckley locking himself in his office every afternoon with a bottle of 25 year old scotch and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 cranked up loud enough to drown out the giggles from outside.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:31:00 AM -- |    

 
Uniformed versus informed politics
Josh Marshall and Jim MacDonald, among others, have laid out many of the facts and legal issues surrounding what appears to be the presence of uniformed U.S. soldiers at a campaign function for Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO). Musgrave is also an otherwise reprehensible Republican pol, best known for banging the homophobic drum for all she's worth as a principal sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment.

American politics has not yet quite descended to the level of a Field Marshal Hindenburg standing for office in his uniform,* but Musgrave's and her Coloradan allies' impulse would be different only in degree. Using uniforms as decoration and justification for partisan purposes equates the institution of the armed services with the institution of a particular party rather than service to the whole country -- it's one more little push farther out onto the slippery slope down the Weimar ski jump. Throw in the casting out of marginal groups, the idolatry of the national flag, the ever more frequent use of a new "Dolchstosslegende" (stab in the back myth),** and you have a constellation of political memes and methods not unlike those across the ocean some eighty years ago.

It's interesting that super-neocon Paul Wolfowitz's signature is on the Defense Department order banning activities like those Musgrave appears to have hosted; you wonder if at some point more of the neocons than just Fukuyama will look around and wonder just who they've let themselves in with.

It's disappointing and more than a bit tiring to have to point out stuff like this. But these things aren't small things, they're big things. Republicans -- ones like Musgrave, at any rate -- sometimes seem to be feverishly tearing down the firewalls between this country and multiple forms of oppression, from politicized religious fundamentalism to out-group demonization to banana republic militarism. It's worth stopping now, before it gets even more out of hand. If that's partisan hackery on my part, so be it.

A point of speculation: as Marshall noticed back in mid February, conservative pundit Robert Novak had foreshadowed the tactic of bringing servicemen and -women to Republican functions:

At the same time, the Bush administration is going directly to the public with its war message. Raul Damas, associate director of political affairs at the White House, has been on the phone directly to Republican county chairmen to arrange local speeches by active duty military personnel to talk about their experiences in Iraq. To some Republican members, this unusual venture connotes a desire to go directly to the people to sell the president's position without having to deal with members of Congress.
(emphasis added)

Could this be a -- to use the shorthand -- chickenhawk counterattack against the phenomenon of so many Democratic veterans appearing in national races ...not just Paul Hackett, but veteran after veteran, from Tammy Duckworth and John Laesch*** in Illinois to Tim Walz in Minnesota to Jay Fawcett in Colorado? Notice the difference, of course: in the one case, it's a partisan platform dressed up with a military uniform. In the other, it's informed ex-military personnel who aren't claiming or implying that the armed services approve of their views.


=====
* The Coming of the Third Reich. Richard Evans. p.82 of paperback.
** Ibid., p. 61: Germany's military leaders Hindenburg and Ludendorff claimed shortly after the war that the army had been the victim of a 'secret, planned, demagogic campaign' which had doomed all its heroic efforts to failure in the end. 'An English general said correctly: the German army was stabbed in the back.' Glenn Reynolds, 3/5/06: The press had better hope we win this war, because if we don't, a lot of people will blame the media.
*** Karen McL of Peripetia writes that Laesch-- who's opposing none other than House Speaker Dennis Hastert -- hopes to get on the Russ Feingold Progressive Patriots list, and needs support to do so. Have a look.

EDIT, 3/8: "a new" for "the."
posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:35:00 PM -- |    

 
Koufax Awards, and blogging generally
Earlier this year, this blog was nominated for a Koufax Award for the left-wing/progressive/liberal/whatever blog "Most Deserving of Wider Recognition," as well as for "Best State and Local" blog. To be honest, I think both are a bit of a stretch. Re the former, just take a look at the rest of the "most deserving" field below; as far as the latter, I generally do just one or two Maryland or DC metro area items a month.

Still, I'm going to use this post to mention that Koufax Award voting for these and other categories (notably "Best Post") is now underway. You can vote by leaving a comment at one of the links above, at the general announcement, or by sending an e-mail to the good folks at "Wampum." This way, when I get blanked, it'll really hurt!

Kidding. I can't deny I appreciate recognition, linkage, and visitor traffic -- currently at the hitherto undreamed-of level of about 100 visits a day ...although half of that is fairly random Googling. But at the end of the day, I'm writing for myself, both as a way of agitating for things I support, as a way of recording interesting things I've found, and as a way of figuring out where I stand and why. And also just because it turns out I like to write like this, and to try to get it right when I do.

As is clear from the list of selected posts at this blog over the years, I've sometimes changed my mind about things, and readers have sometimes dropped away as I've revealed unexpected views, or as they've changed themselves, I suppose. I know how they feel: life is short, the evening's shorter --who needs the aggravation.

That's OK. I like to think that's sifted out a -- let's just face it -- great, discerning group of readers whose interest and comments I truly appreciate. It's a pleasure meeting and coming to know you, and you've changed my thinking about things on more than one occasion. Thank you all very much.

---

Most Deserving of Wider Attention:
1115, 2 Political Junkies, 3 Quarks Daily, The Abstract Factory, Acephalous, Adventures of the Smart Patrol, Adventus, Agiprop, akou, All Spin Zone, Alternate Brain, American Leftist, The American Sector, Angry Bear, Angry Old Broad, Ang's Weird Ideas, Anne Zook, Anne's Anti-Quackery & Science Blog, Apostropher, Archy, Arms and Influence, Arms Control Wonk, Arse Poetica, Axis of Evel Knievel, Bag News Notes, Barely Legal, Bark Bark Woof Woof, Bark/Bite, Bartcop, BattlePanda, Beautiful Horizons, Bilerico, Bill's Big Diamond Blog, Bionic Octopus, Birmingham Blues, Black Prof, Black Feminism, Blah3, Blanton's and Ashton's, Blog Them Out of the Stone Age, Blue Girl in a Red State, Blue Meme, The Blue Republic, Blondesense, Bootstrap Analysis, Bouphonia, Brilliant at Breakfast, Brother Kenya's Paradigm, By Neddie Jingo!, Byzantium's Shores, Capitalist Pig vs. Socialist Swine, The Cassandra Pages, Circle Jerk at the Square Dance, Coalition for Darfur, Coeruleus The Cognoscenti, Colorado Luis, Comments From Left Field, Common Sense, Conservative Truths, Contrary Brin, The Countess, Creek Running North, CT Blue, Curly Tales of War Pigs, Culture of Life News, Dadahead, Daily Dissent, The Daily Howler, The Dark Wraith Forums, David E's Fablog, Decorabilia, The Defeatists, Deltoid, Democratic Veteran, Demagogue, Den of Iniquity, Dependable Renegade, Dictionopolis In Digitopolis, The Disgruntled Chemist, Doctor Biobrain, Dodecahedron, Dohiyi Mir, Donkey O.D., DovBear, Driftglass, Dynamics of Cats, Easter Lemming Liberal News Digest, Eccentric Star, Echidne of the Snakes,* Effect Measure, Elaine Riggs, Electronic Darwinism, Elementropy, Enemy of the State, ePluribus Media, Ethel, the Early-Warning Frog, Everything Between, Expostulation, Facing South, Factesque, Faithful Progressive, The Fat Lady Sings, Five Wells, Flogging the Simian, Frogs and Ravens, From the Rooftops, The Galloping Beaver, The Garlic: All The Cloves Fit To Peel, Geeky Mom, The Green Knight, Grumpy Old Man, Half Changed World, The Happy Feminist, Happy Furry Puppy Story Time, Hoffmania!, I Blame the Patriarchy, I Cite, Iddybud, Idyllopus, Is That Legal, It's Morning Somewhere, Journalists Against Bush's B.S. (JABBS), Jesse's Blog, Just A Bump on the Beltway, Keat's Telescope, The Kentucky Democrat, kid oakland, King of Zembla, Lance Mannion, Laughing Wild, Lawyers, Guns and Money, Lean Left, The Left Coaster, Left I on the News, Legal Fiction, Legally Blonde , Lenin's Tomb, Liberal Avenger, Liberal Street Fighter, Liberal Truths, Liberalism without Cynicism, Liberty Street USA, Limbo, Limited, Inc., Linkmeister, Little Wild Bouquet, Living the Scientific Life, Loaded Mouth, Long Sunday, Looking for Someone to Lie to Me, Low on the Hog, The Low Rent Rat, Mad Kane's Notables, Mahablog, Making conservatives cringe since 1977, Malkin(s)Watch, Mark LeVine, Martini Republic, Media Girl, Meat-Eating Leftist, Merlot Democrats, Metacomments, The Moderate Voice, The Moquol, MoxieGrrrl, Murky Thoughts, Mykeru, My Left Wing, My Very Brain, Naked Under My Lab Coat, Needlenose, Neil Shakespeare, News Corpse, Newshog, Newsrack, The Next Hurrah, Night Bird's Fountain, Nitpicker, No Blood for Hubris, No Capital, No More Apples, No More Mister Nice Blog, No More Mr. Nice Guy, Norwegianity, Nothing New Under the Sun, Nur al-Cubicle, One Woman Wrecking Crew, One Good Move, The Opinion Mill, Opinions You Should Have, Pacific Views, Patridiot Watch, Patriot Daily Blog: thinkings, Pam's House Blend, The People's Republic of Seabrook, Pinko Feminist Hellcat, Political Animals, Political Cortex, Politics in the Zeros, Peace Tree Farm, Past Peak, A Perfectly Cromulent Blog, Phronesisaical, Posthegemony, Prairie Weather, Preemptive Karma, Prometheus6, Progressive Blog Digest, Progressive Gold, The Progressive Trail, PSoTD, The Psychotic Patriot, Pudentilla's Perspective, Pulse, Random Thoughts, The Reaction, Red Grange Run, Redneck Mother, Red State Diaries, Red State Rabble, Republic of T, Resistance, Rhinocrisy, Riley Dog, Rising Hegemon, Road To Surfdom, Saint Nate's Blog, Science And Politics, Scriptoids, Scrutiny Hooligans, Seeing the Forest, Shining Light In Dark Corners, The Sideshow, Simian Brain, Simply Left Behind, Sister Scorpion, SistersTalk, Sisyphus Shrugged, Skimble, Spontaneous Arising, Stayin' Alive, Steven Bates, the Yellow Doggerel Democrat, Stygius, Street Prophets, Stone Bridge, Suburban Ecstasies, Sufficient Scruples, Syria Comment, The Talent Show, Talk To Action, The Tattered Coat, Taylor Marsh, That Colored Fella, Theology&Geometry, Thoughts from Kansas, Thoughts of an Average Woman, Tiny Cat Pants, Tom Watson, To The Audient Void, Total Information Awareness, Unbossed, Under the Same Sun, Upon Further Review, Veiled 4 Allah, The Viscount LaCarte, Xpatriated Texan, xymphora, Waveflux, We Move to Canada, Whatever It Is, I'm Against It, WhirledView, Why Are We Back In Iraq?, Winding Road In Urban Area, Wis[s]e Words, World War 4 Report, World Wide Webers, Yelladog, Yep, another Goddamned blog.



=====
UPDATE, 3/23: Semifinalists have been announced for this category , and are color-coded green above; my own recommendations are in lavender.
* UPDATE, 4/4: Congratulations, Echidne of the Snakes!
posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:15:00 AM -- |    

 
Your information wants to be free
Welcome, Crooks and Liars readers! By way of providing a little added value for visiting, maybe some of you haven't heard of this yet: FOIARequest.org, a project of People for the American Way (PFAW):

Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), anyone has the right to request information from the government. Last strengthened by Congress in response to the Watergate scandal, FOIA gives citizens a way to demand transparency from the Administration -- and take the government to court if necessary.

Many Americans -- especially those with family and friends abroad -- are wondering whether government agents have been listening to their phone conversations or reading their email. If you're worried this has happened to you, you can use this site to help you find out.

We can't guarantee that the Bush administration will disclose all this information in compliance with the law, but we can help you through the process. By filing a FOIA request, you will send a strong signal that American citizens believe in the rule of law and aren't afraid to stand up to the President when he violates the Constitution!

Give the good folks at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Record Information/Dissemination Section (RIDS) something to do! You can use FOIARequest.org's online form to fill out a legally airtight FOIA request about anything the FBI has on you.

If you think other agencies -- from the NSA to the Farm Credit Administration -- might have something about you in their files you want to know about, a second site (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press) gives you a second online form to work with, as well as information about accessing your state government's records. Based on their own recent experience, though, PFAW cautions its visitors not to get their hopes up about seeing NSA records about themselves.

Still, what with one thing (see below) and another, I'm curious what I might learn. Maybe you are, too. Plus it's a way to fight back a bit. posted by Thomas Nephew at 3:22:00 PM -- |    

 
CENTCOM pays a visit
Last Tuesday I posted "The wheels off the bus go round and round," juxtaposing four pieces of rather bad news for, variously, the Bush administration, military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and hopes for stability in those countries. It wasn't exactly my most painstakingly written and researched post ever -- more a sort of combined "serves 'em right," "how about that," and "oh my god" post that I concluded with "Problem is, it's my bus, too."

The first comment was a surprise; one Sergeant Gehlen dropped in from Tampa, Florida's CENTCOM command -- the folks in operational charge of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- to write:

My name is Sgt. Gehlen and I work for the USCENTCOM public affairs office. To find out what is really happening in the CENTCOM area of responsibility, visit our website at:

www.centcom.mil

"CENTCOM's reading my blog?!" I thought. I checked my sitemeter visit log, and sure enough, there was a visit from centcom.mil in Tampa, Florida. Judging by the referring page -- at truthlaidbear.com, a blog ranking site -- I guessed that Sergeant Gehlen had a busy day ahead of him scanning hundreds of other blogs for wrongthink regarding Operation Iraqi Freedom. At any rate, I replied, in part,

Your implication is that one or the other of the last 3 items linked in this post is somehow misrepresenting what's really happening in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Which one? And how?

Although I've waited in vain for an answer from Sgt. Gehlen, my suspicion that my visit was part of a campaign has been confirmed. In a followup comment about the same post, Paul points to a March 2 American Forces Information Service article posted at defenselink.mil, CENTCOM Team Engages 'Bloggers':

Blogs sometimes include information -- accurate and otherwise -- about the U.S. military's global war on terror. U.S. Central Command officials here took notice and created a team to engage these writers and their electronic information forums.

"The main interest is to drive their readers to our site," Army Reserve Maj. Richard J. McNorton said. McNorton is CENTCOM's chief of engagement operations. [...]

The team engages bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information. They extend a friendly invitation to all bloggers to visit the command's Web site.

While I have little problem with the military blog team clearing up misconceptions or falsehoods, the really elastic phrase in the CENTCOM team's mission is "bloggers who are posting incomplete information." After all, that's pretty much everyone, yet I have a hunch CENTCOM doesn't bother to leave "hey, things aren't all that great, find out what's really going on" comments at, say, Roger Simon's or Glenn Reynolds' blogs -- after all, what could they direct them to? Hard-hitting exposes of Bagram or Abu Ghraib torture policy? "Let the chips fall where they may" analyses of pre-war intelligence on Iraq or body armor supply problems?

Having left a comment, the team "engaging" bloggers has one simple rule of further engagement -- don't:

"We don't go in there and get into a debate," he said. And officials here are quick to point out that they are not policing Web sites. They are simply offering bloggers the opportunity to get raw information directly from the source.

And, of course, simply leaving behind the implication that I'm misleading people with my own post.

Paul's comments about this are apt; while public affairs/relations have their place in the military, the "what's really happening" line leaves "here's our information resource" territory and enter[s] the world of advocacy and spin." It invites the question of whether CENTCOM's site actually shows "what's really happening" any more than my particular selections of bad news did. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:04:00 PM -- |