Other People Have Interesting Thoughts

by hilzoy

I tried to hold out against TimesSelect. It annoys me, especially since there are only a few commentators I actually want to read, and yet if I sign up, I have to pay for the whole lot of them. (David Brooks? You must be kidding. The thought that it will be impossible for me to read him has always seemed to me one of the few upsides of TimesSelect.)

Nonetheless, a little over two weeks ago I signed up for their two week free trial. I cleverly marked down exactly when I had signed up, and in a moment of uncharacteristic organization, I actually cancelled it after about 45 minutes shy of two weeks. And yet I can still access their pages. This seems ominous to me. Are they going to try to pretend that I didn't cancel after all? Having resisted the temptation to annoy myself by reading David Brooks for two weeks, am I not at least going to regain my cherished inability to read him? I don't like the looks of this at all.

It did allow me to read Krugman today, though. It's a good column, and it raises a good question. So that you can all benefit from my misfortune, excerpts below the fold.

Krugman asks:

"How sure are we that large-scale federal aid for post-Katrina reconstruction will really materialize? (...)

First, Mr. Bush already has a record of trying to renege on pledges to a stricken city. After 9/11 he made big promises to New York. But as soon as his bullhorn moment was past, officials began trying to wriggle out of his pledge. By early 2002 his budget director was accusing New York's elected representatives, who wanted to know what had happened to the promised aid, of engaging in a "money-grubbing game." It's not clear how much federal help the city has actually received.

With that precedent in mind, consider this: Congress has just gone on recess. By the time it returns, seven weeks will have passed since the levees broke. And the administration has spent much of that time blocking efforts to aid Katrina's victims.

I'm not sure why the news media haven't made more of the White House role in stalling a bipartisan bill that would have extended Medicaid coverage to all low-income hurricane victims - some of whom, according to surveys, can't afford needed medicine. The White House has also insisted that disaster loans to local governments, many of which no longer have a tax base, be made with the cruel and unusual provision that these loans cannot be forgiven.

Since the administration is already nickel-and-diming Katrina's victims, it's a good bet that it will do the same with reconstruction - that is, if reconstruction ever gets started.

Nobody thinks that reconstruction should already be under way. But what's striking to me is that there are no visible signs that the administration has even begun developing a plan. No reconstruction czar has been appointed; no commission has been named. There have been no public hearings. And as far as we can tell, nobody is in charge.

Last month The New York Times reported that Karl Rove had been placed in charge of post-Katrina reconstruction. But last week Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, denied that Mr. Rove - who has become a lot less visible lately, as speculation swirls about possible indictments in the Plame case - was ever running reconstruction. So who is in charge? "The president," said Mr. McClellan.

Finally, if we assume that Mr. Bush remains hostile to domestic spending that might threaten his tax cuts - and there's no reason to assume otherwise - foot-dragging on post-Katrina reconstruction is a natural political strategy. (...)

Right now, the public strongly supports a major reconstruction effort, so that's what Mr. Bush had to promise. But as the TV cameras focus on other places and other issues, will the administration pay a heavy political price for a reconstruction that starts slowly and gradually peters out? The New York experience suggests that it won't.

Of course, I may be overanalyzing. Maybe the administration isn't deliberately dragging its feet on reconstruction. Maybe its lack of movement, like its immobility in the days after Katrina struck, reflects nothing more than out-of-touch leadership and a lack of competent people."

Like a lot of people, I have been struck by some of the nickel-and-diming, and by the fact that after years and years during which I and other Democrats have been howling in pain about the deficit while Bush and the Congress spend like drunken sailors, now that money might actually be spent not on invading other countries, granting tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, building bridges to nowhere, and the like, but on making the lives of people who have lost everything a little more bearable, suddenly Republicans in Congress have become concerned about the deficit. I have also been amazed by the administration's apparent desire to recapitulate all the mistakes made in the reconstruction of Iraq. But until I read this, it hadn't occurred to me to wonder whether Bush will actually bother to try to rebuild the Gulf at all.

***

While I'm linking to other people's interesting thoughts, Mark Kleiman has a great summary of what I suppose we should call the firedoglake/emptywheel theory of the Valerie Plame case. Kleiman doesn't take a position on whether the theory is "a brilliant and plausible inference that accurately ties together disparate facts" or "one of the best pieces of legal fiction ever penned", and there are updates with caveats and additional considerations and the like. But his summary is the clearest version I've seen. Here's the essential part:

"1. The revelation of Plame's identity to Cooper and Novak (among others) was part of an attack on Joseph Wilson's credibility that started before, and not after, his NYT op-ed of July 6, 2003. (...)

2. Miller planned to write a story about Wilson, prompted by Libby and members of the W.H.I.G.; those plans were pre-empted by his op-ed. (...)

3. Libby had told the grand jury about his conversations with Miller in July, but not about conversations in June relating to the story that Miller planned to write but never wrote. Those conversations would have been hard to reconcile with the story Libby and his friends were trying to peddle: that their attacks on Wilson were purely defensive responses to his op-ed.

4. Unbeknownst to Libby and Miller, Fitzgerald had learned of those June conversations, either from Wilson or from someone at the Times.

5. As Fitzgerald expected, Miller in her testimony did not mention the June conversations with Libby. (...) Fitzgerald asked her leading questions which, without tipping her off about how much Fitzgerald knew, put her in the position of having to testify falsely in order to avoid mentioning those conversations.

6. Once Miller's testimony was over, Fitzgerald called her lawyer and said, "Why didn't your client mention the June conversations when she was asked about them?" It was that phone call that triggered Miller's sudden discovery of the June notes.

7. Having caught Miller committing perjury, Fitzgerald is now in a position to, in effect, renege on his agreement to ask her only about her conversations with Libby. Under the terms of that agreement, Fitzgerald can't compel her to testify about conversations with other people, but she can of course do so voluntarily. And Fitzgerald can tell her lawyer that if she fails to volunteer, she may be looking at substantially more than 85 days behind bars on charges of perjury, conspiracy to obstruct justice, being an accessory to Libby's violations of the Espionage Act, or being a co-conspirator with him and others in those violations."

What do you think?

Comments

[liberal japonicus]

Well, since you ask, I think you shouldn't have mixed up two perfectly blogworthy together. The first should have everyone howling in disgust at the way the administration (yet again) comports itself, the second, we have the altogether too rare pleasure (at least in the past handful of years) of possibly sitting back and watching just desserts dished out. I just wish I had a comprehensive list of all those conservatives who said that if the admin did out a CIA asset, they would never support it again.

Firedoglake's take is in a new post here, with lots of interesting links

I have to admit, going to the emptywheel post was a bit depressing, because that one is updated to explain (quite plausibly, but then again, I'm pretty easy to convince on this) who leaked the fact that Judy found her old notes and what they contained.

In short, the easiest, obstruction of justice-free way he could tell Libby and Rove and Hadley and Cheney and Bolton and Bush and so on and so on that they should get to high ground is to leak the news that Judy had submitted a second set of notes.

Update 2: Yeah, I'm betting it was Bennett. Check out the way Reuters describes the note release:

A New York Times reporter has given investigators notes from a
conversation she had with a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney weeks earlier than was previously known, suggesting White House involvement started well before the outing of a CIA operative, legal sources said.

Times reporter Judith Miller discovered the notes -- about a June 2003 conversation she had with Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- after her testimony before the grand jury last week, the sources said on Friday. She turned the notes over to federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and is expected to meet him again next Tuesday, the sources said.

Miller's notes could help Fitzgerald establish that Libby had started talking to reporters about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, weeks before Wilson publicly criticized the administration's Iraq policy in a Times opinion piece, the sources said. [emphasis mine]

This passage tells the Neocon thugs precisely what is in those notes. This not only tells them to run like hell for higher ground. But it gives them survival advice in case they make it to higher ground.

They are going to get out of this scot-free, I just know it. God help us.

Kleiman has also updated with some reader given speculation about why Fitz wasn't really going back to Judy with the Sword of Damocles (the perjury version) hung over her head. *sigh*, the depression of having to pay attention to plausible explanations makes me consider becoming a conservative supporting this admin.

[rilkefan]

Re Katrina reconstruction, the New York Times should be boiled in oil. I got so furious while reading this that I had to stop before I could see if they even mentioned Allbaugh. No good deed deed by a Democrat goes unpunished.

There goes my good mood about the great baseball today.

[liberal japonicus]

Actually, as the article goes on, it seems to describe why Witt was so good at what he does.

His years at FEMA contrast sharply with stumbles by the Bush Administration, which replaced its chief disaster official just days after Hurricane Katrina hit. Mr. Witt won wide praise from both Republicans and Democrats for FEMA's response to disasters like the Oklahoma City bombing and the devastating earthquake in the Northridge section of Los Angeles, as well as the 1993 Midwest floods. After years of slogging through mud and debris, Mr. Witt's reputation among local disaster officials is unparalleled.

He rode a Greyhound bus through the night, sitting next to the bathroom, to get to the Midwest floods when no plane was available; another time, he stopped long enough to marry two evacuees from Hurricane Marilyn. Even President Bush singled Mr. Witt out for praise in the 2000 presidential debates.

"A lot of people in our own office of emergency preparedness started mentioning his name," Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana said in an interview. "People would say, 'If you can get James Lee Witt, get him.' "

Mr. Witt became the governor's primary consultant for dealing with FEMA, advising Ms. Blanco on what programs and opportunities were available and how the state should respond.

A very schizophrenic article, and thinking about hilzoy's post and the Pinch and Judy show, I have to wonder if we are just looking at a news organization in disarray.

[Jesurgislac]

But until I read this, it hadn't occurred to me to wonder whether Bush will actually bother to try to rebuild the Gulf at all.

We know he plans to rebuild Trent Lott's house.

The whole Katrina thing has been a weird kind of deja-vu, hasn't it? A replay of Iraq in minature, only this time fewer conservatives are defending Bush even though his behavior is exactly the same. I wonder what the Gulf equivalent of the flypaper theory will be?

[John Thullen]

Conservative Republican pressure has delivered the New York Times exactly to their desired transformation: from a very fine news organization with some identifiable, but not important, liberal bias, to a useless rag, little better than talk radio.

Congrats. Another institution down the you know what.

The charred remains of Ann Coulter's hijacked airplane did more damage than
than anyone is willing to admit. Who says metaphor and rhetoric aren't as effective as the real thing?

[Charles Bird]

Krugman, the most partisan pundit in the land, is predictable, not interesting. All the more reason not to send a penny to the NYT. Jay Rosen is right, the Washington Post has surpassed Pinch's paper.

[Anarch]

That index would mean more if the current Administration weren't so woefully inept, inadequate and generally craptacular, Charles, and if Krugman hadn't been ahead of the curve in realizing it. I know you're enamored of simple counting arguments but please realize that they aren't the conversation-stopper you seem to think they are unless they're refined well beyond any that I've seen you reference.

[Barry]

Charles, as a guy on the Daily Show once said, "the facts are biased".

I think that you know that, deep inside. That's why you accused him of being partisan rather than wrong. Thats why others so often accuse him of being shrill, rather than wrong. Because discussions of partisanship or shrillness are much better than discussions of truth and falsehood.

[Gromit]

But everyone knows that true balance means praising and criticizing everyone equally, regardless of their merits. Right Charles?

[Bernard Yomtov]

I agree with Anarch that the index Charles cites is worthless.

It seems to take the bizarre view that the Bush Administration is perfectly balanced between good and bad, and that any pundit whose columns are not also perfectly balanced is thus a "partisan," and should be ignored, no matter how sound the points raised.

It further seems to weight all references the same, without regard for the accuracy of the comment or the importance of the matter discussed.

The "index" is completely idiotic.

[ral]

From the "Methods" section of Charles' link:

Each correctly-tagged Democratic or Republican reference is evaluated as positive, negative or neutral. Both the immediate context of the reference and the overall tone of the column is considered. If a column is a partisan screed, nearly every reference to the despised party is usually evaluated as negative. If a column is more nuanced, close calls are usually evaluated to be neutral.

This does not sound very objective to me. It would be easy for bias to creep in in the evaluators' analysis.

What's wrong with partisanship per se, anyway? Partisanship does not imply, for example, dishonesty as far as I am concerned. Evaluating dishonesty is independent of evaluating partisanship. The same holds for patriotism, incompetence, corruption, whatever.

[Tim]

I'm sure that the Republicans intend to rebuild New Orleans. Some small details might have to be changed, however. Like, it would be much easier to work on it if it was located just outside of Dallas.

[Catsy]

Yet more shoot-the-messenger from Charles. Care to address the substance of the article, or are you just here to crusade against the evils of liberal bias?

[Yukoner]

Hilzoy:
suddenly Republicans in Congress have become concerned about the deficit.

The tendency of so-called deficit/debt hawks on the political right to reveal that the deficit/debt is largely or only a vehicle to get to the real and deeper goal of cutting social spending and cutting taxes is very common in places outside the USA as well.

Through out the early and mid 1990s, when the fever over Canada's public deficit/debt was at its height, the business press and political right were in hysterics about our imminent descent into Third World status. But somehow it was even more important to, for example, imcrease spending on the military and to cut taxes as well. Curious.

My favourite example of the mindset came when Alberta was lauded to the skys as the first province to return to a balanced budget (even the Wall Street Journal joined in as I recall). Curiously though, it was simply not true that Alberta, with its Conservative government slashing social spending with vim and vigour, was the first. Saskatchewan had done so the previous year to no adulation what so ever. That province you see, was governed by those dastardly pinkos the NDP who had combined more modest spending cuts with tax increases to bring its budget into balance.

[John Thullen]

Just curious. When did the world begin requiring punditry on an editorial page be objective, non-partisan, or even factual?

I mean, I realize that, say, in Marcos' Philippines during post-martial law times, the Filipino press achieved perfection in these areas, until Imelda, her shoes, and Michelle Malkin moved to my country.

[Carleton Wu]

There's another problem with the index Charles cited: someone on the very far right- or left-wing will probably evaluate as more moderate than someone in the mainstream of their wing. At least, anyone like Michael Moore or Pat Buchannon who frequently ciritizes the moderates in their own party will come out as more moderate. (Or: is Ann C really more moderate than Maureen Dowd?)
In fairness, anyone with a high partisan score probably is a partisan in reality, but low paritsan scores don't necessarily mean moderation.
I wonder how the fact that Repoublicans control all three branches of government affects these ratings.

Im also puzzled as to why this would, in and of itself, mark someone as uninteresting. Most of our elected officials would score as very partisan, but their comments are still very interesting to me.
What is uninteresting is a reporter who doesn't have an opinion & therefore has nothing to add to the conversation.

Wu