Obsidian Wings

First You Toss A Grenade Into The Pottery Barn, Then You Cut And Run

by hilzoy

From Newsweek:

"The Bush administration insists Iraq is a long way from civil war, but the contingency planning has already begun inside the White House and the Pentagon. President Bush will move U.S. troops out of Iraq if the country descends into civil war, according to one senior Bush aide who declined to be named while talking about internal strategy. "If there's a full-blown civil war, the president isn't going to allow our forces to be caught in the crossfire," the aide said. "But institutionally, the government of Iraq isn't breaking down. It's still a unity government." (...) But the senior Bush aide said the White House would need no prompting from Congress to get troops out "if the Iraqi government broke down completely along sectarian lines."

In fact, the U.S. military in Iraq has completed several elements of contingency planning in case of civil war, based on lessons learned from Bosnia and Kosovo. The military's approach revolves around three principles. The first is to stop massacres by physically separating communities, moving minorities out of harm's way if necessary. The second is to stop the flow of paramilitary gangs across the country. And the third is to halt any incitement to violence on Iraqi TV and radio. Baghdad would pose the biggest problem, [note from hilzoy: Hahahahahahaha! Newsweek: master of understatement. Who knew?] requiring a strict curfew and a ban on road traffic. The security measures would include widespread checkpoints and a ban on carrying firearms or explosives.

The administration hasn't made its definition of full-blown civil war explicit. But in March, when Iraq's former prime minister Ayad Allawi said the country was already fighting a civil war, Bush disagreed, noting the existence of Iraq's nonsectarian Army and government. If the country did someday meet the definition of civil war and the U.S. pulled out, military officials warn, the consequences would be disastrous. "All the neighboring powers would be drawn in," said one senior military official who has examined the scenarios and is not authorized to speak on the record. "It would become a regional war.""

I think I am one of the few liberal bloggers who has not yet called for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. This is because I think that all our options are horrible. Since it's pretty obvious that my views will have no impact whatsoever on our policy, I don't feel compelled to decide which option is least horrible. I still accept the basic outline of our interests and the situation that I outlined a year ago in this post: namely, that without our troops' presence things would probably be even worse, but that if they remain, their numbers should be drastically scaled back, and their mission limited. And don't say that things could not get any worse: they could. A lot worse. There could, after all, actually be a regional war.

If there were, it would be a complete catastrophe for the people of the region, and also for our interests. We would confront it with limits on our options that I find breathtaking. -- One way to see just how destructive to our interests this administration's policies have been is to consider the ways in which it has sacrificed our freedom of action as a nation. Our army is fully occupied in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is badly stretched. Moreover, they are pinned down right next to Iran, which could cause them a lot more trouble than it has to date. We have wasted six years during which we might have reduced our dependence on oil imports, and as a result any disruption of the world's oil supplies would hit us harder than it needs to. We have made ourselves reliant on Asian, and especially Chinese, funding for our trade and government deficits. We have allowed North Korea to become a nuclear power, and Iran to take steps in that direction, even though Iran offered to negotiate, with all issues on the table, back in 2003. (And isn't Cheney's statement that "we don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it" looking clever now.) We can see the results of our Iran policy in the current crisis in Lebanon: the more pressure we put on them to rein in Hezbollah, the less we have to use to persuade them not to go nuclear. We have alienated our allies, and created anti-Americanism throughout the Middle East. We have, as a result, much less room to maneuver than we would have had otherwise. And that is very bad news.

Personally, I will never forgive this administration for doing something so important with such breathtaking negligence. And I will have a hard time forgiving those Democrats who voted for the war. It was not that hard to look at Afghanistan and see just how seriously this administration took the task of reconstructing a country. And it was not that hard to consider the history of the Middle East and realize that the costs of screwing up Iraq would be absolutely enormous. Costs to the Iraqis, to our troops, to the world, and to our interests, all incurred because, in a moment of national hysteria, we decided to trust someone who had never once given the slightest evidence that he was trustworthy; and to do so when the stakes were huge.

Ewwwwww

by hilzoy

This LATimes profile of Joe Francis, the guy who makes the 'Girls Gone Wild' videos, is really worth reading, though in a way that made me want to take a shower afterwards. -- I started out trying to explain exactly why I found this story so disturbing, but failed miserably. So just a few short points:

* Francis is, in my unprofessional opinion, not just a sleazeball, but unhinged and possibly sociopathic. And there's something about both really, really bad people and really, really crazy people that spooks me. With him, we get a twofer.

* The story begins with Francis inexplicably assaulting the reporter. Later, his responses to the reporter's plans to print this and another episode from the same night, which we'll get to, start with verbal abuse:

"He seems to lose control, repeatedly referring to me by a crude word for female genitalia. "If you print that, I will [expletive] sue the [expletive] out of you. If you print that, baby, you just put the nail in your own coffin," he tells me. "You are a [expletive expletive]. You decided to blast me . . . You are a [expletive] bitch . . . I will get my last laugh on you. I will get you." He then refers me to Burke, his lawyer."

He then proceeds through various other tactics: lawyers, lies, calls to her editor saying that she wrote the story she did because she had a crush on him and became "aggressively romantic" and then "jealous and angry".

But on the night of the actual episode, he did this:

"Instead, the moment I saw Francis most clearly—his charm, his rage, his cunning and even his regret—came later, when no one was looking. I was waiting, still shaken, outside the club for a cab to take me back to my hotel. Francis, who had disappeared inside the bus, returned.

Ignoring the two policemen who hovered a few yards away, he tiptoed past them to stand over me. He rubbed my shoulder. His gestures were oddly gentle—even fond. I felt sick.

"I'm sorry," he said, reaching over to tousle my hair. "We love our little reporter. Don't we guys? We love our little reporter."

I stared down at the dirt as he whispered in my ear, "I'm sorry, baby, give me a kiss. Give me a kiss.""

This gives me flashbacks to working at the battered women's shelter. I used to mentally divide the batterers into two groups: the thugs, who just didn't understand that violence is not a normal part of human relationships, and the abusers proper, who were much more complicated. One of the things they always did was to apologize in ways that sounded just like this in several ways. First, the apparent belief that if you are really horrible for, say, an hour, there is some possible degree of niceness such that if you are that nice for another hour, it will cancel out what you did before. As if genuinely despicable conduct were like a negative number: just add a large enough positive number and it goes away! (Break your wife's arm? Set fire to the cat? Kill your in-laws? Don't worry: if you're really, really, REALLY nice, it will be just as though nothing ever happened!)

Second, the completely inappropriate sexualization of an apology. Here it's inappropriate partly because they don't have that kind of relationship, but also, and importantly, because the time to start one is not right after you have just made someone seriously afraid that you'll break her arm. (Which is part of what Francis did to the reporter.) Similarly, I have talked to a lot of women whose husbands wanted to reassure themselves that everything was OK by, say, having sex right after beating their wives up, often when their wives had, for instance, broken ribs or swollen, bleeding faces. Third, it's just one more way in which abusers say, essentially: your views and your emotions have no weight whatsoever. No one who has just been beaten wants to kiss, let alone have sex with, the person who has just beaten her. She may do it, if she's scared enough, but she will not want to. Tough, says the abuser: what matters is to reassure me. And to me, Francis' 'give me a kiss' schtick carries exactly the same message.

Consider this passage in that light:

"But the women are changing, Francis tells me, and that makes him sad. In the beginning, when "Girls Gone Wild" cameramen first popped up in clubs, the women who revealed themselves seemed innocent—surprised, even, by their own spontaneity. Now that the brand is so pervasive, the women who participate increasingly appear to be calculating exhibitionists, hoping that an appearance on a video might catapult them to Paris Hilton-like fame."

Here I agree with Amanda Marcotte:

"To rephrase this bluntly, Francis doesn’t like working with women who are getting something out of it. (...) The fantasy is not just regular girls getting naked, which is something I have exactly zero problem with. It’s a little more complex than that. The idea is to bend a usually unwilling woman to your will and enjoy the submission. Women who march up to the camera and say they want to be filmed in sexual situations are not bending to anyone’s will and that takes the fun out of it. Very, very telling."

If seeing women get naked were the point, it wouldn't matter so much whether they were 'calculating exhibitionists'. But if talking a woman into doing something she would never normally do -- getting her to do something way out of character through his persuasive powers, his sheer sexual magnetism, or whatever, is the point, then the fact that Francis has started encountering a lot of women who don't need to be talked into anything would be a problem.

* And then there's the fact that he apparently rapes an 18 year old.

About which all I have to say is: if someone is flattered by the attentions of someone famous who singles her out, and lets him get her pretty seriously drunk, and is then willing to go to his bus for what she assumes will be him filming her flashing her breasts, she should then be able to wake up the next morning and simply think: gosh, that was embarrassing, as opposed to: oh my God, I was raped.

Also, the current frontrunner in my "year's most callous thing to say" contest is now this:

"When she says she's a virgin, he responds: "Great. You won't be after my cameraman gets done with you.""

***

I found that story via Ezra. His comments contain a link to another story of complete human awfulness involving videos:

"Of all the things Rufus Hannah regrets — discovering alcohol at age 14, living homeless for 12 years — it is his notoriety that haunts him. Every time someone recognizes him, he told me recently, he feels “so ashamed.” Hannah, known to his fans as Rufus the Stunt Bum, is one of the inadvertent stars of a DVD series called “Bumfights.” Filmed on the streets of suburban San Diego and Las Vegas, the videos portray homeless people fighting one another, being pushed down hills in shopping carts and jumping off buildings into Dumpsters. What unfolds looks like a cross between “Jackass,” MTV’s stunt-based show, and a cinéma vérité portrait of the homeless as addicted, crazy and desperate enough to, for a little cash, light their hair on fire, pull out a tooth with pliers and have “Bumfights” tattooed on their bodies.

Hannah, who is 51 and an Army veteran, became involved with Bumfights more than five years ago, when Ryan McPherson, a high-school student and aspiring filmmaker, offered him $5 to run headfirst into milk crates stacked in the parking lot of a grocery store in El Cajon, Calif. “He told me he was doing a video for his economics class on what it was like when you don’t have a job,” Hannah said. “I just wanted some money to get drunk, so I did what he told me to. I never had any idea the stuff he was filming would become what it did.”

What it became, according to the film’s producers, was the “fastest-selling independent video series.” Released in 2002, the first “Bumfights” sold for $19.95, mainly through the Bumfights Web site. Soon after, McPherson and his fellow filmmakers sold the rights for $1.5 million to two Las Vegas producers, who have since churned out sequels. Sales, initially modest but steady, exploded after Howard Stern featured the video on air. Within six months, revenues neared $600,000. (...)

Many homeless people in the video seem drunk, stoned or mentally ill. Hannah said he was never sober during filming and participated for the money (at most $10 per stunt). In one recurring segment called “Bum Hunter,” a young man in safari clothes sneaks up on sleeping homeless people. He binds and gags them, then “marks” them by writing a number on their foreheads. (...)

Hannah, who says he has been sober for three years and is employed and no longer homeless, recently settled a lawsuit with the filmmakers. They agreed to an undisclosed amount in damages and to not use his image in future videos. He is also working with the homeless coalition toward legislation that would make violence against the homeless a hate crime. Meanwhile, the current “Bumfights” producers have just released “Bumfights 4.”"

***

Who are the people who watch these things?

I have an overwhelming urge to do two things right now: first, take a shower; second, do something genuinely good, however tiny and insignificant, since I hate to leave evil unanswered. And I will absolutely be really, really nice to the next homeless person I see, not to mention the next woman I see running away from a bus in tears.

"I Thought The Iraqis Were Muslims!"

by hilzoy

From Raw Story, via Billmon:

"Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq, RAW STORY has learned. (...)

A year after his “Axis of Evil” speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites.

Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”"

Remember: there must have been people in the Republican Party who knew how clueless Bush was, and with what a breathtaking lack of responsibility he would approach being President, during the period before the 2000 election when he was raising the money that would cement his aura of inevitability and win him the primary. None of them lifted a finger to try to prevent him from becoming President. They cared more about winning than about their country.

Likewise, there must have been people in the media who had enough access to him to know this, but who were too busy claiming that Al Gore had told lies he never told to let the country in on what they knew.

And altogether too many ordinary citizens cared more about whether he'd be a good person to have a beer with than whether he'd be a competent President.

I only pray that we all learn something from this. Bush certainly won't.

Cashout

by von

WELL, WELL, WELL, WELL:

TALKING TO SYRIA....There are still plenty of nay-sayers, but the chorus calling for Syrian involvement in crafting a Lebanon ceasefire solution now includes Richard Armitage, Warren Christopher, and Mr. Flat World himself, Tom Friedman.

Let me be the first to say that any drunk fool coulda seen this one coming:  Unless Israel smashes Hizbollah -- the chances of which were (and are) slim to none -- the logical role of peacemaker will go to ... Yes, Syria.  Indeed, such was predicted by this drunk fool:

But Israel's war in Southern Lebanon is turning into something altogether different.  Yes, Israel was fully justified in its attack on Hizbollah.  Yes, it cannot yet disengage (and the US has done right by its ally in holding its criticisms thus far).  But do not mistake this support for the best of a bad lot (again) as support for Israel's chosen policy.  The damage now being done in Lebanon and throughout the region is incalculable.  The Cedar Revolution is all but dead.  There is now a high likelihood that Syria will be asked to use its influence to ensure stability in Lebanon -- for what other option will there be, if Hizbollah is to be restrained and an as-yet-unformed international force inserted? 

It will escape many in the blogosphere:  That this action -- even though morally justified, even though against an evil foe -- was stupid.  That it has caused more harm than good.  When the necessity for Syrian involvement becomes clear -- and it will -- the usual suspects will cry appeasement and refer us to the example of Chamberlain.  I cannot save such folks from their foolishness.  Nor can I make them realize that they themselves bear part of the blame for the disaster.

Indeed, who else to restrain Hizbollah but Assad-the-Younger's Alawite clan?  Secular Arabs following a minority strain of Islam, Syria's leaders are not natural bedfellows with either the Persian Shi'ites of Iran or fanatical Shi'ites of Hizbollah. They are bedfellows of convenience.  When the Syrian Mukhabarat reinfilitrates Lebanon (I suspect that it never left), the death of the Cedar Revolution will be complete.  Let the handwringing and accusations of appeasement and betrayal begin!

What a supremely stupid little war.

Yet, maybe there is hope.  With the right combination of bribes, perhaps we will be able to pry Syria from Iran.  Payment to Syria in exchange for the restraint Iran's power in the Levant is not a good deal.  But it may be the best deal remaining on the table.

The problem is that the deal cannot be made unless Israel fights on, and we support them. Iran must not be allowed to exploit the opening that we've left it, and the pounding of Lebanon must be sufficient to strengthen Syria's hand over Hizbollah.  Megan McArdle, guestblogging at Instapundit, suggests that the war-not-to-lose will be bloody.  Its casualties will include Israeli and Lebanese civilians, of course, and also more ephemeral things, like a young Arab democracy. But, with luck and pluck, maybe we can achieve the second-to-worst outcome. 

What a supremely stupid little war.

How Does US Health Care Stack Up? Some Data

by hilzoy

One of the nice things about the debate over universal health insurance is that we're not talking about some bold new policy initiative that would go where no nation has gone before, but about an approach that has been adopted, in different ways, by most other industrialized countries. Thus, rather than having to rely on a priori arguments, we can use actual information about how our health care system stacks up to those of other countries. In what follows, I'll try to provide some basic data. I've tried to rely on well accepted and unbiased sources from either organizations like OECD or the peer-reviewed literature.

I've put some of the charts in clickable form, since testing revealed that they did not translate well when resized. Also, a lot of the links to studies require subscriptions.

We Get Mail

by von

How do you know that you've arrived?  You get mail like this:

Thank you for your perceptive comment! I accept on behalf of the entire ObWi crew:  each and every one of us "fags, fag sympathizers, and/or feminazis" thanks you for your contribution.  Indeed, the care that you put into your short note, the way that you phrased your threat as a statement of mere "belie[f]" -- well, it really shows a knack for this kind of thing.  You've done this before, haven't you? 

Still, the decision to use your real name -- your very-Googlable name -- was probably a mistake. And your note does show a definite lack of vision.  For instance, what of us who are both fag sympathizers and want to privatize Social Security?  I realize that, living where you live, the vargaries of US domestic politics may not be of much personal interest. Still, it doesn't take much to toss in a "heartless fag sympathizer" for the von-man.  And surely you can find something more to say about Charles:  he has an entire website dedicated to hating him (Hating On Charles Bird, doncha know).  Can't you give him a shout-out too?

Different Ways Of Looking At It

by hilzoy

"As we work to resolve this current crisis, we must recognize that Lebanon is the latest flashpoint in a broader struggle between freedom and terror that is unfolding across the region. For decades, American policy sought to achieve peace in the Middle East by promoting stability in the Middle East, yet these policies gave us neither. The lack of freedom in that region created conditions where anger and resentment grew, radicalism thrived, and terrorists found willing recruits. We saw the consequences on September the 11th, 2001, when terrorists brought death and destruction to our country, killing nearly 3,000 innocent Americans. (...)

So we have launched a forward strategy for freedom in the broader Middle East, and that strategy has set in motion a transformation that is changing millions of lives for the better. (...)

This moment of conflict in the Middle East is painful and tragic. Yet it is also a moment of opportunity for broader change in the region. Transforming countries that have suffered decades of tyranny and violence is difficult, and it will take time to achieve. But the consequences will be profound -- for our country and the world. When the Middle East grows in liberty and democracy, it will also grow in peace, and that will make America and all free nations more secure."

--George W. Bush, Radio Address, July 29 2006

***

"Walid Jumblatt, leader of the most powerful clan in Lebanon’s Druze community, said on Tuesday the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas had dealt a fatal blow to Lebanese hopes of a strong independent state, free of Iranian and Syrian influence. (...)

“After the 12 July, Lebanon is now unfortunately being entrenched solidly into the Syrian-Iranian axis,” he said. “The hopes of a stable, prosperous Lebanon where we could attract investments is over for now. It is a fatal blow for confidence.”

Mr Jumblatt has shrewdly navigated the ups and downs of Lebanon’s treacherous politics, gaining influence beyond the weight of his Druze community, a breakaway sect from Shia Islam that makes up around 10 per cent of the population.

As a militia leader during Lebanon’s civil war he accommodated Syria’s expansionary aims. But last year he emerged as one of the Syrian regime’s fiercest opponents in an alliance of groups that came together following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and led a coalition government following elections.

At that time, Mr Jumblatt held out hope that a new wave of democratic activism was sweeping the Arab world.

But on Tuesday he offered a bleak and outspoken assessment of the prospects for Lebanon.

He said among Syrian-backed politicians there was already talk of forming an emergency government to replace Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s coalition. He said he feared that an “organised mob” might be used to force the government’s resignation. (...)

There was also little prospect that Hizbollah, having emerged as a champion in the Arab and Muslim world, would be willing now to incorporate its armed wing under the Lebanese state apparatus – the issue at the centre of international diplomatic efforts to end the conflict with Israel.

“We will be just a weak state next to a very strong militia. Our government will be like the government of Abu Mazen (Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas) next to Hamas or maybe worse like the government of [Nouri al] Maliki in Iraq.”

“All American policy in the Middle East is at stake,” he continued, “because their failure in Palestine, their failure in Iraq and now this failure in Lebanon will lead to a new Arab world where the so called radical Arabs will profit.

“This is the new Middle East. Not the new Middle East of Ms [US secretary of state Condoleezza] Rice. Darkness everywhere.”

Financial Times (h/t Laura Rozen)

***

"Is this the price we pay for aspiring to build our democratic institutions? Is this the message to send to the country of diversity, freedom and tolerance?

"Only last year, the Lebanese filled the streets with hope and with red, green and white banners shouting out: Lebanon deserves life!

"What kind of life is being offered to us now?

"I will tell you what kind: a life of destruction, despair, displacement, dispossession, and death.

"What kind of future can stem from the rubble?

"A future of fear, frustration, despair, financial ruin and fanaticism."

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora

***

"In rare public criticism of the United States, [Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal] also slammed U.S. plans for a "new Middle East" that Washington says is aimed at promoting peace and democracy in the region.

"We would like to return to the old Middle East as we did not see anything in the new (Middle East) apart from more problems," he said. "The Middle East is not an uninhabited area, it has people, governments and our destiny is determined after God's will by its people.""

Washington Post

***

And so the democratsunami washes back out to sea, leaving behind a ruined world.

Universal Health Care

by Andrew

[In which I throw out ideas guaranteed to bring down the wrath of the ObWi comment horde down upon me.]

Health care is a growing problem in the United States. Ironically, the problem is a result of health care's great successes of the 20th century. Life expectancy and quality of life shot upwards in the 20th century as many common illnesses and other medical problems were either defeated or made at least controllable. But, since we've all got to die of something, that meant people started falling prey to other diseases attributable to longer life. Medicine has developed great ways to address many of these problems, but the cures are not cheap and the combination of increased life expectancy and a massive growth in the population of the United States has combined to send health care costs through the roof. Massive use of health insurance has helped to push the costs of health care up, as the costs are hidden behind 'insurance' plans. Conversely, health care costs are highly inelastic to begin with, as anyone with a serious illness will not care about cost if the alternative is death. All this leaves us with many upward pressures on medical costs with little corresponding downward pressure. In light of this, the demand for universal health care will continue to grow as people have greater difficulty getting the care they want or need. Indeed, I fully expect to see government-provided health care for everyone before I die. Still, I remain unconvinced universal coverage is a wise goal.

There is a limited supply of medicine available in the United States. That supply is sufficiently smaller than the available demand that the price of medicine is greater than what a lot of people can afford. So, the argument goes, we have the government take over the health care system and the problem is solved. Except that isn't quite so. Government taking over the system may change who gets access to health care, but it won't address the underlying problem that demand still outstrips supply. Indeed, demand will go up if we turn health care over to the government, since people will then see it as a basic right. And when demand goes up, so do prices.

But the government will keep prices down by negotiating directly with hospitals and drug companies and the like, so we don't have to worry about increased demand causing upward pressure on prices. That may be the case in terms of the dollar amounts expended to provide a particular drug or service, but prices are found beyond the sticker. If the government forces drug companies to sell their products for prices too low to cover the costs of research, the drug pipelines will dry up. If the government forces doctors to perform treatment for less than the cost of that treatment, the doctors will go into other lines of work or will simply refuse to treat patients who are covered by the government's health care program. We see this already with doctors who are refusing to serve Medicare patients, because what the government pays for a Medicare procedure doesn't cover their costs.

Ah, but the government can force the doctors to work for the lower prices. After all, the government has a monopoly on the use of force, so we'll just make it a law that everyone has to use the government program, so people won't be able to go outside it. Well, Canada tried that, and their court said it was a no-go. Further, even assuming the government will be able to enforce that kind of law (what's to stop people from slipping doctors cash for better treatment?), then we're back to watching the available pool of doctors drying up. Why would you do a job that you were losing money on, after all? And how many people are comfortable with using force against doctors to prevent them from using their skills to make money?

Well, maybe we can't fix that, but we'll fix the drug problem by pouring more money into research, right? That may work for you, but for me the idea that we'll fix a problem caused by government interference by...adding more government interference, well, that doesn't seem like the wisest course of action. Government research dollars are spent just like most government dollars: on areas where Congress thinks it will help get them reelected. There is no mechanism to make sure that government research is effective or efficient, because the only feedback mechanism is electoral. So big-name diseases get funding while less-well known problems are ignored or minimized. Drug companies have their own problems, I'm aware, as they're unlikely to research solutions to rare problems because they won't get their money back, but they do have feedback mechanisms that drive them to try to find solutions to big problems, as opposed to merely popular ones. The government's success at finding solutions to any problem is not nearly good enough for me to want to rely on government dollars to be the primary source of the many new drugs that will be required to continue our progress in finding better solutions to health problems.

Worst of all, if the government does put a universal health care plan in place, we'll never go back. If universal health care has problems, Congress won't kill it, they'll just 'fix' it, doubtless with the same degree of effectiveness they've had in addressing the looming entitlements crisis or in crafting Medicare's Plan D. Once we cross the Rubicon of universal health care, it won't matter if it works, we'll never get rid of it. Given that fact, and government's past record of stellar accomplishment, I'm very reluctant to allow the government to cross that Rubicon.

Exceptionally Meritorious Service

by hilzoy

From the NYT:

"Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who commanded detention operations at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and helped organize the interrogation process at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, retired from the military on Monday, Pentagon officials said. (...)

At his retirement ceremony Monday, General Miller received the Distinguished Service Medal, which is awarded for exceptionally commendable service in a position of great responsibility, Army officials said."

From the Code of Federal Regulations:

"The Distinguished Service Medal, established by Act of Congress on July 9, 1918, is awarded to any person who, while serving in any capacity with the Army of the United States, shall have distinguished himself or herself by exceptionally meritorious service to the Government in a duty of great responsibility (Fig. 1). The performance must be such as to merit recognition for service which is clearly exceptional. Superior performance of normal duty will not alone justify an award of this decoration."

From Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, on the corruption of the principle of monarchy, which is honour:

Signing Statements: The Last Word (I Think)

by hilzoy

Just a quick note to say that if you haven't read the post on signing statements written by eight lawyers who used to work in the Office of Legal Counsel, you should. The basic argument is: there is no reason to think that a President should always (as opposed to: almost always) enforce laws whose constitutionality he doubts; there is no reason to think that he must veto any such bill (because of huge omnibus bills that might contain only a tiny bit of constitutionally questionable stuff which can be tested in court); and the problem with the Bush administration is not that they are issuing signing statements announcing that they will not enforce certain provisions of laws, it's how they're doing it, and how often. I found it quite convincing, though since I am not a lawyer, I am ready to be persuaded otherwise.

I've linked to the Georgetown Law version, as opposed to the TPMCafe version, both because it loads faster and because its comments contain this wonderful quote from Jefferson, about the Sedition Act:

"I discharged every person under punishment or prosecution under the sedition law, because I considered, and now consider, that law to be a nullity, as absolute and as palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image; and that it was as much my duty to arrest its execution in every stage, as it would have been to have rescued from the fiery furnace those who should have been cast into it for refusing to worship the image."

I really wish politicians could still write that well.