US politics – Page 69

A “balanced” survey

Published on May 12, 2005

Of course, there never were any Dean bloggers paid to act as spokespeople for the campaign. Yet this survey is perpetuating the lie that we were. And on a survey distributed amongst other journalists, no less. Several reporters who got this instantly recognized who the questioned refered to and passed it on to me.

Jerome Armstrong and I asked Ross to correct the question and issue a retraction, and Ross has refused. It’s telling that every single reporter we’ve had to contact to correct the record has done so immediately, and with full apologies. Professor Ross, mister blog ethicists himself, is the first to refuse. That’s the first irony. The second is that it was his college — the Columbia Journalism Review’s Campaign Desk, that gave me and Jerome the first mainstream defense in response to the WSJ hit piece. They awarded it the first ever Lipstick on a Pig” award for spectacular hackery.

But really, it’s telling that while most working journalists have been more than willing to correct the record, it’s the campus ethicists that run most afoul of those ethics they claim to uphold.

Update: Oh, and I forgot to mention. Why did Ross call us out? From an email to me:

I had a bunch of examples that seemed anti-business and anti-Republican so I wanted something different.
So the GOP and WSJ efforts to find moral equivalency on the Left to the Armstrong Williams and other such scandals worked. That’s why Jerome and I fought the original WSJ story so hard. Once it’s in print, it’s impossible to kill. It’s like playing whack-a-mole.

Fact is, the examples of unethical behavior are all on the Right, and so he threw us into his little survey for “balance”, even if such balance doesn’t come close to existing.

This is the best example I’ve seen so far of how this need for “balance” leads journalists astray. Because it’s somehow become unfair to single out one side, even if this is no more than the simple truth, they make shit up. If Ann Coulter is a rabid nutcase, Michael Moore has to become one to. Bush is a coward? Then clearly we need to mention the allegations against Kerry, true or not.

Defence lawyer at Guantanamo

Published on May 11, 2005

The Talking Dog has an interview with Joshua Dratel, defence lawyer for David Hicks, an Australian citizen held at Guantanamo Bay. The interview had some interesting nuggets in it:

Talking Dog: Any reason why Mr. Lindh was charged with a crime, whereas, for example, Yasir Hamdi, also a citizen, or Hicks, were denoted “enemy combatants” and not charged, while Zaccarias Moussaoui WAS charged? Has any of this ever been explained?

Joshua Dratel: It seems that the only “overt distinction” is that by original design, citizens are not eligible for the military commissions. Of course, they never made a distinction there in the case of Moussaoui– his case seemed to be the product of a debate betweeh the Departments of Justice and Defense as to which should prosecute him, and at that time, the criminal justice people prevailed. They have not, apparently, prevailed since.

In addition to Jose Padilla, as citizen unlawful combatants, a man named Al-Mari is still being detained in a brig in South Carolina; he’s represented by Larry Lusberg of the Gibbons firm in New Jersey. That case is completely off the radar.

[…]

Talking Dog: Can you briefly summarize what you in particular find unfair about the military commission process at Guantanimo?

Joshua Dratel: Basically, there are no rules. The Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs court-martials — that’s been thrown out. No standards at all. Total arbitrariness. No efforts at anything resembling fairness. Let’s start with evidence and proof. People don’t know this, of course. The government’s “proof” consists entirely of interrogators reading from reports of their interrogations– without any basis to challenge the underlying accounts of witnesses, such as the witnesses themselves (who have frequently been shipped out of Guantanamo) or their interpreters, or the conditions under which the statements were taken, which were frequently, to put it politely, “coercive.” Just statements from the detainees themselves– regardless of whether obtained from abuse, or coercion, even rising to torture. In the commissions, you simply can’t challenge them– you don’t have access to the witnesses.

About that new Huffington Post and blog

Published on May 11, 2005

New (Since 9 May 2005!), cool and filled with Hollywood magic ™ as it may be, the
Huffington Post blog reminds me of nothing so much as NRO’s the Corner, or any of the other given rightwing gasbag “blog”. It has the same blank faces and dull posts from people you are supposed to know from somewhere, the same corporate blandness of presentation and layout and the same uninspired, almost randomly balanced blogroll.

The blogroll is especiallyrevealing, recent controversy notwithstanding. Let me look at your blogroll and I’ll have a good idea what your site is about, what you think is interesting, who you think are good people to link to and whether or not I’ll find your site interesting.

Most of the Huff’s blogroll is blandly centrist, with the usual media friendly “celebrity” blogs (Adam Curry, ’nuff said) or the soft inoffensive left (Ezra Klein e.g.) but to have Little Green Fascists or Powerline on the rolls? Szeesh. Wasn’t this supposed to be some sort of vaguely progressive site?

Bush tries to silence unions on anti-worker policies

Published on May 10, 2005

Says Nathan Newman:

And of course, all retirees have an interest in preserving income from social security, but by Bush administration arguments about the state of pension law, union administrators should ignore the interests of those retirees and stay on the political sidelines — even as corporations use their capital to mobilize to stomp on political rights.

The problem in politics is not just that those with money get a disproportionately large voice. Even when workers have money to speak, the corporate right seeks to silence them through legal assault.