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Monday, May 27 Tapped is going out to enjoy the remainder of our Memorial Day, and won't be posting again until tomorrow morning. Still, there are a number of posts from today to check out below if you haven't seen them yet. Also, tomorrow we will be putting up selected content from the new issue of The American Prospect, including articles by Nicholas Confessore, Harold Meyerson, Gershom Gorenberg, and, last but hardly least, William R. Gates, Sr. and Chuck Collins. So, check back tomorrow! [posted 12:20 pm]
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HE'S BUSHED. This AP report is the only one we've seen to capture some of the gaffes and embarrassing moments on President Bush's European swing. Seems our president is tired and crabby because he's jetlagged. Hey, we're sort of sympathetic to the problem (Tapped travels a lot). But shouldn't it make us all a little nervous that Bush doesn't seem to be able to function if he can't be tucked into bed by 9:30 PM? How many hours of beauty sleep does he need? [posted 10:45 am]
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SURF'S UP. Looks like the Republicans have a new consultant who's planning on using the Internet to launch web based marketing campaigns. It's the very same man -- Larry Purpuro -- who as deputy chief of staff at the RNC moved the GOP way ahead of the Democrats in the use of the Internet for politics. Now it sounds like he's moving into more focused marketing, beyond the "traditional" uses of the web. Tapped hears that a New York Internet guru is working with the DNC to bring them into the 21st century. Wonder what that mystery entrepreneur's plans are? [posted 10:40 am]
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GET TO THE BOTTOM OF IT. David Rosenbaum neatly unpacks the presidential and congressional doublespeak about whether we should establish a independent commission to determine the cause of pre-September 11th intelligence failures (as opposed to allowing Congress to conduct its own investigation). Tapped favors the independent route because we think it will lead to a more thorough examination of the systemic intelligence failures. (Mary McGory cleverly reminds us just how "cover-up" oriented this administration is: "remember the formerly topless, now decently draped aluminum hussy in the Great Hall of the Justice Department?")
Indeed, how much more incentive could we possibly need to get to the bottom of all this than FBI agent Coleen Rowley's memo to bureau head Robert Mueller? If you don't want to take the time to read the full 8-page memo (courageously published by Time), read William Safire's column this morning. He starts with a Q & A:
Why did F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller desperately stamp "classified" on last week's memo to him from the Minneapolis agent and counsel Coleen Rowley?Answer: Because he is protecting the bureau's crats who ignored warnings from the field before Sept. 11, and because he is trying to cover his own posterior for misleading the public and failing to inform the president in the eight months since.
These aren't the times for political gamesmanship. The country's best interests need to be put ahead of the potential for embarrassment for current or past administrations. Period. [posted 10:25 am]
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MONEY TALK. Kevin Phillips, writing in The Washington Post yesterday, presented a stunning and cogent indictment of the modern Gilded Age. He says:
The 30 largest U.S. family and individual fortunes in 1999 were roughly ten times as big as the 30 largest had been in 1982, an increase greater than any comparable peacetime period during the 19th century. In 1999, the single largest U.S. fortune, the $86 billion hoard of Microsoft's Bill Gates, was 1.4 million times greater than the assets of the median U.S. household; that exceeds the ratio attained by John D. Rockefeller, whose early 1900s wealth was 1.25 million times larger than the median household of that time....Which brings us to the politics. The Republican Party, at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, is in one of its intermittent periods of sycophancy to Wall Street, corporations and big contributors. The Republican House Ways and Means Committee has become a virtual arm of the Washington lobbying community, routinely arranging legislative favors that would make a madam blush....
....money will keep talking, the public interest will keep walking. The great battles, in short, are still ahead.
Tapped invites you to join The American Prospect, Campaign for America's Future, the Economic Policy Institute and the AFL-CIO on June 13th to hear Phillips talk about his new book, Wealth and Democracy, at 6:00 PM. The event is being held at the AFL-CIO's offices on 16th Street NW. Look to Tapped for more detailed information as the event approaches. [posted 10:00 am]
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THE REAL KINGS OF POLLUTION. With a little extra time this weekend to cruise around the web, Tapped found this story reporting a very revealing bit of information: Hard-rock mining companies and coal-burning power plants are America's largest toxic polluters. (Hard rock minerals were responsible for some 3.4 billion pounds of toxic pollutants in the year 2000 alone.) The report documenting this information was issued by the EPA -- its annual Toxics Release Inventory. What irony! This is very same EPA that is currently doing everything it can to please the White House's campaign patrons by gutting environmental regulations for both mining companies and power plant owners. [posted 9:50 am]
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GREEN WITH IDIOCY. It looks like the Greens have gone ahead and launched a candidate in the Minnesota Senate race. Yup, that's the very race in which Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone, the outspoken progressive upon whom so much of America depends to speak truth to power, is already fighting for his political life. The hurdles to Wellstone's reelection are enormous -- especially in the fundraising arena. Think soft money, hard money, sham issue ads, 527 committees, and millions and millions of dollars. (Remember, none of the recent campaign finance reforms kick in until after the upcoming November elections.)
The White House has made Minnesota a priority race, and the Greens are playing right into it. (For the record, apparently Ralph Nader's vice-presidential partner -- Winona LaDuke -- begged the Minnesota Greens not to get involved.) Perhaps the ultimate irony is that the Green party candidate -- Ed McGaa -- doesn't believe in much of the Green platform. He's actually pretty conservative. Does he or the Green party know that one percentage point can make a difference here and in the overall balance of the Senate?
And it looks like the Greens may not only have picked a conservative candidate, but a dumb one. Tapped isn't launching a gratuitous attack here; we're just going on what McGaa himself told Ruth Conniff of The Progressive:
"I'm an American Indian. We're not as analytical as you folks are," McGaa says when pressed on the spoiler issue. "We observe and go forth with our life. I come from a different background. We are more sharing and generous. We're less materialistic. We're more culturally oriented. So I have different values to bring to the table."
So let's get this straight. Is the Green party candidate in the most hotly contested Senate race in the country saying that Native Americans lack the analytical powers possessed by Americans of other races? Maybe Minnesota "progressives" should keep McGaa's statement about the "American Indian" intellect in mind when they go to the polls with the U.S. Senate hanging in the balance.[posted 9:40 am]
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THERE ARE ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES. QED. Among religious conservatatives, it's long been a popular claim that there are "no atheists in foxholes." In other words, only those possessed of deep religious beliefs are capable laying down their lives for their country. For an atheist, the logic goes, the fear of death would simply be too overwhelming.
The trouble is, the facts quite obviously belie this argument. Indeed, the atheist Kurt Vonnegut fought in World War II and wrote a famous book about it, Slaughterhouse Five. Those who blithely repeat the "atheists in foxholes" mantra -- like that congressional pariah Rep. James A. Traficant, Jr. -- are really slandering the memory of atheists who fought and died for this nation.
Thank goodness, the U.S. government knows better. This morning Tapped learned that among the "emblems of belief" offered by the Veterans Affairs Department for the gravestones of veterans, there's a symbol for atheists (scroll down). From April 1, 2001 through March 31, 2002, this emblem was requested 18 times, according to figures repeated in a graphic on the Federal Page of today's Washington Post (which doesn't seem to be available online).
Tapped was glad to discover this information this Memorial Day. At a time when we're honoring those who died serving their country in battle, it's heartening to know that our government respects the beliefs -- or the disbelief -- of all of its soldiers. [posted 8:55 am]
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GETTING SERIOUS. The Post's Dana Milbank certainly has a knack for quoting our illustrious president at his absolute worst. Here's what Bush said yesterday about the India-Pakistan situation, according to a dispatch by Milbank from Paris:
Before leaving St. Petersburg, Bush spoke of "the danger of a serious conflict" between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region over which the two countries have already fought two wars. "I think that any time you have countries with nuclear arms, that a tension, serious tension is dangerous. And it's hard for me to measure the degree of tension."
Wait, we thought you said it was serious. [posted 8:10 am]
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ONE PROBLEM THE FBI DOESN'T HAVE. Sure, they may be blind and incompentent. But at least they're not politically correct! Tapped was rather taken aback to learn that the FBI has a "Radical Fundamentalists Unit." Granted, they missed the memo on actual radical fundamentalism in this country, but you've got to hand it to them on the name. No "religion of peace" units at this bureau! [posted 8:00 am]
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Sunday, May 26 (Our apologies. We didn't manage to post anything today. Even liberals have to take a break sometimes! -- Tapped) Saturday, May 25 The Post reports today on the war over water (its latest incarnation being a dispute between Texas and Mexico). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), by 2025 the world's population will have increased by 30 percent and access to safe drinking water will be great reduced. (WHO's got some additional great material on the scope of this problem.) And there's a new wrinkle: Large amounts of this scare resource are being bought up by private owners. One of them -- T Boone Pickens, an oilman -- has estimated that he could make $600 billion from his investments in selling water to big cities in Texas. Think about this for a minute. If water is allocated to the highest bidder, what happens to those who can't afford to pay? [posted 5:05 pm]
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SHINE ON YOU CRAZY PRESIDENT. As we all know by now, the administration wants to keep the public in the dark. And if President Bush's executive order of last November -- one that that eviscerates the Presidential Records Act and FOIA -- doesn't get overturned, that's just where we'll be. Journalists and historians alike have decried the order. As Bill Moyers (who heads the Schumann Foundation, which partially funds The American Prospect) has put it, "It's always a fight, to find out what the government doesn't want us to know. It's a fight we're once again losing ... it's not just historians and journalists he wants locked out; it's Congress ... and it's you, the public and your representatives." Just imagine: No Robert Caro-like book on the Bush II presidency. (No doubt Bush smiles at that same thought.) We agree with the Times. This executive order should not stand. [posted 4:40 pm]
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TAPPED TO THE RESCUE. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has gotten himself into a huge debate with National Review types over teen sex. And he writes, "ALL THIS ON TEEN SEX, and I get not one word of support from TAPPED. I mean, if the Democrats aren't good for defending teen sex, what are they good for?"
Tapped could hardly turn down a challenge like this. So here goes. We basically agree with Reynolds about this topic. We're surprised it's controversial, because A) nobody is going to stop teenagers from having sex; and B) while it's undoubtedly a bad or risky thing for some teenagers, for others the opposite is probably true. Here's the key point, though. Not only can we not abide the culture warrior scolds who make out that teen sex is inherently evil. Such talk is hardly a good way of making sure that teenagers don't have sex until they're ready, or that when they do have sex (as they inevitably will) they do so safely. Reynolds has it just right when he writes, "you won't teach teens to wait until they're ready by launching unaimed broadsides against the assumed evil of teen sex, and by acting as if teen sex is unnatural or aberrant. It's not." [posted 4:20 pm]
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ALL THAT RICHNESS. Tapped is a big fan of Frank Rich, and his column today touches on a number of motifs that we've been emphasizing ourselves. Namely:
1) Bush is playing "Wag the Dog" at least as much as Clinton ever did;2) Dick Cheney has performed appallingly as our vice president over the past week or so; and
3) "remember Argenbright"?
Must read. [posted 12:45 pm]
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Friday, May 24 The always-excellent Atrios connects the dots -- from David Brock to Barbara Ledeen to Amy Holmes to Lloyd Grove. So that explains it! [posted 4:50 pm]
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POSTEST WITH THE MOSTEST. Tapped has long believed that when it comes to reporting American politics, The Washington Post routinely runs circles around the Gray Lady of the North (that Sulzberger rag). For that matter, so does The Los Angeles Times on days when Ron Brownstein is writing.
The latest confirmation of our Postest with the Mostest theory came this morning, when both the Post and the Times (NY) ran stories on the Senate's final passage yesterday of the fast track trade bill. Both papers noted the final vote (it passed 66 to 30), but only the Post broke down that vote by party. And lo and behold, it turns out the Democrats actually opposed final passage, albeit by the narrowest of margins (25 Nos, 24 Ayes).
This, of course, is the only notable aspect of the bill's passage, which has been assured since time immemorial. While House Democrats have routinely opposed free-trade accords by steadily widening margins, Senate Democrats have long been staunch free-traders. For instance, when Congress voted two years ago on permanent normalizing trade relations with China (essentially, paving the way for China's entry into the WTO), House Democrats opposed the bill by a two-to-one margin, while Senate Dems approved it 37-to-7, as visions of business contributions danced in their heads.
This time, though, it's been different. For a whole variety of reasons [spelled out in Harold Meyerson's article "Senatorial Heresy" in the forthcoming Prospect, which will be posted on this site next Tuesday], this time out Senate Democrats have repeatedly supported a considerable number of mitigating amendments to the bill, with somewhere between 40 and 45 Democrats (out of 50) supporting the respective amendments. The Senate was considered to be a slam-dunk for the bill once it got out of the House, but the repositioning of the Upper-House Democrats made it anything but.
As to the votes of the individual Democratic senators, one fact stands out: all of the four potential 2004 presidential candidates (Daschle, Edwards, Kerry, Lieberman) voted yes. This reflects more than the gang-of-four's personal convictions, of course. It also acknowledges one of the grimmer political realities these days: No one can run for president without a huge war chest, and no one can amass such a war chest absent major support from American business. Voting No might mean you'll get money from steel and textiles, not to mention unions, but all the other money (oodles, by actual count) is on the other side. Today, for the first time, the odds that a Democratic Senator is not a free trader may be just under 50-50. But the chances of a Democratic President not being a free-trader is precisely zilch.[posted 4:45 pm]
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WHEW. Tapped thinks this has got to be a new record for us: For the occasion of Memorial Day Weekend, TAP Online just posted three original articles, one about The X-Files and the decline of UFO culture, one a review of the skateboarding documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, and one a piece by the irrepressible Noy Thrupkaew on Celebrity Boxing 2. Check them out. All of this is in addition to three other article postings on our homepage. Six pieces in a day may be a TAP Online record, though it's one that we hope to break in the near future. National Review Online, here we come....
P.S. While we're at it, we should let you know that Tapped plans to be posting over this coming 3 day weekend, though not as frequently as we might during a regular business day. Still, check in with us. You might like what you find. [posted 1:45 pm]
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COMMISSION POSSIBLE? Tapped has compiled a short list of who's coming out in favor of appointing an independent commission to investigate security lapses in the pre 9-11 world. On the team opposing a commission are Bush and Cheney. No surprises there. But they have at least two prominent Senate Democrats on their side: Joe Biden and Dianne Feinstein. (What's with Biden these days? Yesterday he voted in favor of the controversial D. Brooks Smith for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.)
On the side favoring an independent commission are Tom Daschle, John McCain and Joe Lieberman and -- of all people -- George Will. Republican Senators Charles Grassley of Iowa and Fred Thompson of Tennessee also said they would support the commission idea. The Los Angeles Times notes that House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) has declared that an independent commission "will be a boon to Osama bin Laden if the U.S. publicly scrutinizes its intelligence weaknesses." [posted 11:55 am]
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UNPACKING THE CASE. Mike Allen and Dan Morgan give us more details this morning on the Bush Administration's Enron ties from the recent White House document dump. Particularly interesting was the fact that Karen Hughes briefed press secretaries throughout the government on how to handle media calls about the company's collapse. Also, apparently some frantic calls went out to the Council of Economic Advisers, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. You think Global Crossing, a firm tied closely to the Democrats, got similar cover efforts? There's more to come, too. A federal judge, rejecting the administration's attempts to withhold information, cleared the way for discovery in a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club over Dick Cheney's energy task force. The truth will out. And we can't wait. [posted 10:20 am]
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ABRAMSON ON DREW ON MCCAIN. New York Times Washington bureau chief Jill Abramson, no slouch herself when it comes to money and politics reporting, lavishly praises Elizabeth Drew's new book Citizen McCain (on you-know-who's fight to reform the campaign finance laws). Tapped agrees that Drew is the dean of money and politics reporting. Indeed, her first book on the subject, 1983's Politics and Money, is known to have launched at least one career and several organizations in the field of money and politics. (The book is now out of print and Tapped's copy disappeared from the shelf many years ago.) Drew's new book sounds like a must-read if you want to know how Washington works and more about the determination of McCain -- although we note that some critics have thought Drew's exclusive focus on the campaign finance battle gave a less-than-full picture of McCain the politician. Nevertheless, her book is a lot shorter that Robert Caro's latest LBJ opus. Tapped's now at page 624 in that one. Just half way through. [posted 9:35 am]
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PITT STOP. "Now it's up to Harvey to reform the accounting industry." That's the lede in a wishful New York Times column this morning on how the accounting industry has blocked reform in the post-Enron world, leaving it up to the conflicted SEC chairman to sort through it all. This is the Harvey Pitt who, as a lawyer, represented every major accounting firm; the Harvey Pitt about whom liberal columnist Arianna Huffington had this to say:
He spinelessly coddled his old pals in the accounting industry, allowing them to continue to double-dip as highly-paid consultants, took halfhearted sloppy seconds on the New York attorney general's probe of Wall Street stock shenanigans, and raised the red flag on conflicts of interest by holding meetings with former clients currently under investigation by the SEC.
And that's just the beginning of the indictment of Pitt. [posted 9:20 am]
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SPEAKING OF "WAG THE DOG." In the latest pinprick conservative defense of the Bush intelligence failure, Brent Bozell hearkens back to what everyone said when Clinton ordered a cruise-missile strike against Osama bin Laden amidst the Lewinsky imbroglio: That Bill was playing "Wag the Dog." In other words, as Bozell explains, many believed Clinton's move to be "a cynical military ploy to divert attention from all the presidential pawing and parsing." Well, if there's a Bush Administration "Wag the Dog" scenario, it's hard to think of a better example than the hyping of terror threats over the past week. Sure, there was no actual military action. But was it cynical and diversionary? As more and more time passes, and the Homeland Security Advisory System remains set at yellow, it's hard to believe otherwise. [posted 9:05 am]
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Thursday, May 23 Steven Aftergood's "Secrecy News," which Tapped has already singled out once today, is a real gem. The latest installment contains a hilarious item about the "black" intelligence budget. It turns out that Rep. Pete Sessions has gone and blabbed the supposedly classified budget's total increase for the year 2002 in an "unscripted disclosure on the House floor," as Aftergood puts it. For the record, the increase is $ 1.5 billion. Can we please end the farce of keeping this information "secret"? [posted 6:00 pm]
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THROW MONEY, NOT RICE. Tapped recently came across the latest "Vows" column in The New York Times -- and what a doozy. We couldn't believe the status-porn details provided about Lucy Sykes and Euan Rellie's courtship and marriage: the cutesy demand for a ring, the kiss in the back of the BMW, the Vera Wang gown, the references to Mick Jagger and "glamorous fashion people." Tapped hopes that not all "Vows" columns are so vomitously infatuated with money. As for Lucy and Euan: let them eat wedding cake. And gain weight. [posted 5:20 pm]
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THE "OH, REALLY?" FACTOR? That's what the good folks at FAIR are calling their rundown of Bill O'Reilly's numerous, unacknowledged factual errors on the air. Who cares if it's clever? They've got him nailed. [posted 3:55 pm]
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THE "ALERTS" WERE POLITICAL. Here's more: As Atrios notes, during the entire contretemps over warnings -- with Dick Cheney, Robert Mueller, and others issuing ominous new alerts of possible terrorist attacks -- Tom Ridge's alert level has remained unchanged: At yellow. Either Tom Ridge is completely irrelevant (all too possible), or the White House is playing serious hardball. [posted 12:25 pm]
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EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! The New York Post reprints a hilarious email from a Hearst assistant, which got the young lady fired. Tapped remembers being an intern. We feel her pain. [posted 12:05 pm]
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FEELING A LITTLE INSECURE? Steven Aftergood, secrecy watcher at the Federation of American Scientists, says the Bush administration is perpetuating a CIA-inspired fetishism when it comes to the mystical President's Daily Brief (or daily intelligence briefing). Referring to Ari Fleisher's statement that the administration was witholding the brief not because of "anything, per se, about that memo, in and of itself" but because of "the overall principle," Aftergood comments: "this is not security policy, it is fetishism. It places the instrumentality of secrecy above the larger security interests of the nation." [posted 11:50 am]
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WE'RE NOT THE ONLY ONES. To notice Matt Drudge's sleazy David Brock story. Here's Eric Alterman's take. You'll have to scroll down; the tech whizzes at MSNBC.com are even further behind the blog-tech curve than Tapped. What's even better are the crocodile-tear quotes from R. Emmett Tyrrell (Brock's old boss) and Barbara Ledeen in Lloyd Grove's "Reliable Source" column today, in which they imply that Brock is, literally, delusional. This confirms our initial suspicion: Brock's old confreres are trying to discredit the book by painting Brock as nuts. We suppose Anita Hill will derive some satisfaction from this, but still...[posted 11:30 am]
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WASHINGTON AS PLAYGROUND. The estimable Josh Marshall makes an important point: Dick Cheney is trying to bully the Democrats into submission on the pre-9/11 inquiry. (Good news, Josh: Now you can go back to Chandra!) But it wouldn't be the first time. Tapped wrote recently about how easily Tom DeLay and Trent Lott cowed the Democrats into submission when Tom Daschle ventured a couple of mild questions about the war on terrorism. Paul Glastris made the point more broadly and at length in this important piece a few months ago in The Washington Monthly. ("Why Can't the Democrats Get Tough?") It's true: The Democrats back off too easily. They shouldn't this time. (Although Dick Gephardt already has.) They should call Dick Cheney on it: Why is the White House is so afraid to be honest and open on such an important matter? What are they trying to hide? [posted 11:30 am]
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HOW ABOUT THIS? Today the White House released further information about its contacts with Enron, several hours after the Senate Government Affairs committee, chaired by Joe Lieberman, issued subpoenas. Turns out Kenny Boy had a thirty-minute meeting with Dick Cheney, a private meeting with the staff director of Cheney's energy task force, and several conversations with chief economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey.
Let's back up a second. Thirty minutes? You don't get a half-hour with the Veep if you're some kind of piker! Sounds like there's more here than meets the eye. [posted 11:30 am]
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AND IT GETS EVEN WORSE. Tapped always delights in the zany right wing columns hosted on Townhall.com. And you can tell that from our two previous posts. But this morning the righties are really restless, and we can't resist doing one more. Here's Ann Coulter:
Suppose Bush had known 18 Muslim immigrants planned to hijack four planes on Sept. 11. What could he have done? Throw Arabs out of the country? Put them in preventive detention? Order airport security to take an extra little peek at swarthy men boarding planes?Liberals won't let us do that now!
Tapped is shaking its head in despair. Does Coulter have so little understanding of intelligence and law enforcement work that she thinks that the various options she mentions are the only way 9-11 could have been averted? [posted 10:25 am]
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WE REPORT, YOU DECIDE. From a David Limbaugh column today:
Let's be clear. Democrats have every right to disagree with President Bush and criticize him over any policy matter under the sun, including his handling of the war. But Republicans aren't trying to deny them that right.
From Dick Cheney last week (as reported in the Washington Post):
At a fundraising dinner in New York yesterday evening, Vice President Cheney said the United States faces the threat of a new attack even worse than the Sept. 11 assaults. He condemned Democratic Party criticism of the White House's handling of the terror warnings as "thoroughly irresponsible . . . in a time of war."[posted 9:55 am]
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SCREED ALERT. In a column that repeatedly uses the word "Hard-Left" but never "Democrat," Gary Aldrich has this to say:
...the American people support Bush in steady numbers as the repair work continues -- and that's what worries the Hard-Left. They are desperate, and desperate people with poor memories and a propensity for lying do desperate things, like endanger the safety of our nation, simply to get power back.
Tapped doesn't know if we're "Hard-Left" or not. But wait, don't trust that: If we are "Hard-Left," then we might be holding out on you because of our "propensity for lying." But wait, don't trust that either: If we're "Hard-Left" but not admitting it, that may simply mean that we've forgotten our "Hard-Left" identity because we also have a "poor memor[y]." It's all so confusing! Luckily, Aldrich also has an explanation for Tapped's currently befuddlement. You see, according to him, members of the "Hard-Left" are also "exceedingly dumb." Thanks for clearing that up, Gary. [posted 9:40 am]
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CRYING WOLF, PART II. It's becoming increasingly believable that, yes, the Bush Administration really may have sunken to the level of deliberately spooking the the country with the past week's dire terrorism warnings. Why do such a thing? To save their own hides, of course. As Chatterbox puts it, "The likely motivation behind all this fatalistic talk was the need to halt growing criticism (much of it unfair) about the Bush administration's failure to heed warning signs prior to Sept. 11. It worked." The Washington Post editorial page also cautiously swipes at the Bush team: "Maintaining both vigilance and support for the broader war against terrorism will be a daunting task under the best of circumstances. It's not helped by opening the door to suspicions that some warnings may be driven by politics, or by sending the signal that no matter what is done, it won't be enough." As usual, Tapped is bursting with pride and confidence in our nation's leaders. [posted 7:55 am]
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A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY. Tapped spotted this amazing bit of news recently: Jedi Knights can have sex! George Lucas recently quelled rumors of Catholic-style mandatory Jedi celibacy with this imdb.com article. According to Lucas, "Jedi Knights aren't celibate -- the thing that is forbidden is attachments -- and possessive relationships." So in other words: Booty call, yes; love, no. How's that for chivalry? [posted 7:20 am]
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Wednesday, May 22 WE WERE BEGINNING TO DOUBT DAVID BROCK, BUT... Okay, so the Tapped Brain Trust is still out on what to believe and what not to believe in Blinded By The Right. But this is very interesting. Yesterday, Matt Drudge -- who according to Brock's book had a crush on Brock back in the day -- published a nasty, completely anonymous story alleging that Brock checked into a pyschiatric ward right before the publication of Blinded. Not only that, but he was having delusions! Drudge writes: "He had delusions, he thought people were trying to kill him," reveals a source who befriended Brock last July at the hospital. Brock told fellow patients that he did not feel safe -- even inside of the hospital's secure medical setting! "He spent time in the ''The Quiet Room', there was just a mattress on the floor, and he had some books. He was so tired and stressed." One irony of Drudge's "article" is, of course, that it represents exactly the kind of sleazy attack journalism Brock himself excelled at during his previous career as a right-wing hit man (his book on Anita Hill being the prime example). But another is that attacks on the mental health of their opponents has been a broader device of the wingnut right against opponents they have trouble defeating on the merits -- especially Bill Clinton. I.e., Clinton isn't just wrong, he's pathological. Insane. Nutso. Crazy. (For more on attributing mental illness to someone you disagree with, see Spinsanity.) Usually these were attacks of desparation. Now, we don't know who leaked this story to Drudge -- or if, as seems possible, he made it up entirely. But you can bet it was the result of a couple of people -- Lucianne Goldberg & Co., perhaps -- sitting around in a room figuring out how best to discredit Brock's book. (Especially after that whole Crossfire thing didn't work out.) Clearly this was the best they could come up with. And it seems to us that if a nice, thorough review-debunking of Brock's book in The National Review, The Weekly Standard, or even The American Spectator -- we know we know, but we can hope! -- couldn't do it, maybe there's more to Blinded than we thought. (Tim Noah's "Brock Crock Watch" on Slate has knocked a couple of small holes in Blinded, but nothing really big.) Tapped will be watching the wires to see what else they have coming. [posted 4:25 pm] LIBERAL MEDIA CONSPIRACY REVEALED! In Slate's "Diary" this week. Does Bill O'Reilly know about this? [posted 2:50 pm]The breakdown came just months before Brock finalized production of his bestselling book BLINDED BY THE RIGHT -- a book that has been widely challenged on points of accuracy!
And then later down in the piece:But one source familiar with Brock's breakdown questioned: "With all of this, how can he be considered credible?"
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Moon explained his reason for launching the newspaper:"Celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Washington Times has a particularly gratifying meaning for me. The memory is still fresh in my mind how, in May 1982, I made the final decision to publish The Washington Times in response to Heaven's direction. This took place while I was being unjustly tried in a New York federal court, in a prosecution motivated by both racial and religious bigotry."
Communism was sweeping the world, he said, and he wanted a way to protect America. "It was certainly not my intention to set up a newspaper company just to make money. Over the years, more than a billion dollars have been invested in the Washington Times alone, but I have never regretted this nor felt enmity towards anyone. That is because this was a way to practice true love toward Heaven and humankind."
Actually, that's the same reason Tapped blogs. It's our way of practicing true love toward Heaven and humankind. [posted 2:30 pm]
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AMITAI ETZIONI GETS IT (ALMOST) COMPLETELY WRONG. On student tracking, that is. In an op-ed for USA Today, Etzioni claims that the Immigration and Naturalization Service is crazy to think it can curtail the nation's terrorism problem by focusing on college students. His argument? Students only make up two percent of non-immigrant visa holders in the U.S. Once they get here, they're very hard to track. And colleges will resist providing the relevant data -- like when a student registers for classes -- to the INS.
Etzioni is right that the current student tracking system being designed by the INS won't do the trick, but he's wrong about whether we need it and wrong that the task is impossible. Let's take the first problem. Student visas are only a small percentage of all visas. But they're tailor-made for abuse by terrorists. Unlike a tourist visa, student visas are endlessly renewable: As long as you're taking classes (or at least paying for them), you can stay in the country for about as long as you want. That is, they're an excellent cover for terrorists plotting long-term, large-scale conspiracies. For example, let's say you're Mohammed Atta and you want to spend a year traveling around the country, visiting flight schools, casing airport security, and meeting with other terrorists. Having a student visa is the perfect cover -- much better than being a tourist.
Etzioni also says that students are hard to track once they are in the country. Well, sure. But the main challenge is keeping terrorists from getting student visas in the first place, not ferreting out undercover terrorists once they're already here. The way to do that is to subject all student visa applicants to a very thorough -- and very automated -- background check through law enforcement and intelligence databases, which would clear the vast majority of applicants who are legit and flag for human analysis the few who are not. (The original student tracking system would have done just this. The main flaw of the INS's current system is that it will not.) Once they're here, there's no need to track them constantly. Most of what "track" really means is making sure that foreign students have registered and are showing up for classes -- i.e., that they are actually students. This isn't hard. Guess what? We already do this for American students. Every semester, colleges are required to tell the Department of Education whether students who are receiving federal student loans have registered for classes. Why shouldn't we do it for foreign students, too?
Finally, what about schools' lack of cooperation? That one's easy. Throw the uncooperative administrators in jail. Just kidding: If you want to be less draconian about it, tie schools' receipt of federal funds to their diligence in meeting standards required by federal law.
P.S. To his credit, Etzioni is completely right about another policy: National ID cards, which he supports, and for exactly the right reasons. [posted 12:40 pm]
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FAITH NO MORE. The Washington Times, normally a reliable defender of GOP interests, comes out and says what no other paper quite does: Recent vague warnings by Dick Cheney, Robert Mueller, and Don Rumsfeld are politically motivated. (Duh.) "The Bush administration issued a spate of terror alerts in recent days to mute criticism that its national security team sat on intelligence warnings in the weeks before the September 11 attacks," writes reporter Joseph Curl. Did Wes Pruden take the day off? Maureen Dowd covers the same topic in a column that, with its very funny riffs on New York co-op boards, reminds Tapped of Dowd in her prime. [posted 12:40 pm]
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JOE BIDEN, GAL PAL. Normally, we would applaud Senator Joe Biden's efforts to protect a woman's right to choose. (See, we do care about abortion.) The bill that Biden is embracing would do so by preventing radical anti-abortion activists convicted of illegally blockading abortion clinics from declaring bankruptcy -- a tactic they often use so as to avoid penalties handed down by the courts. But the bill to which this provision is attached -- the bankruptcy "reform" bill that credit card companies andbanks have been pushing for some years now -- is unconscionable. This legislation would make it harder for working families to recover from bankruptcy, while preserving the ability of the rich to hang on to theirassets even after they've filed (through a handy $1 million exemption for homesteads). And it would be especially harmful to women: More than one million women will file for Chapter 11 this year, about 300,000 more than the number of men who will do so. According to Harvard Law School's Elizabeth Warren, who wrote recently on this subject in The New York Times, "More than 90 percent of women who file for bankruptcy have been hit by some combination ofunemployment, medical bills and divorce."
Proponents claim the new provisions will cut down on fraud, but the bill's scope is far broader than that. For that reason, it has been stuck in conference for some months. But no more. With great fanfare, Biden has promised his fellow Democrats that he will now vote with theRepublicans -- but only if they include the abortion amendment. What courage! What fortitude! So Biden gets some good P.R. as a protector of women's reproductive rights, while helping to pass legislation that would hurt womenfar more pervasively than any abortion protestor ever could.
A weary sense of duty compels Tapped to inform our readers of the obvious: The credit card and banking industries have been among Biden's most generous contributors -- $103,450 during the last two years alone, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Given his efforts to pass this monstrosity of a bill, we can see why. [posted 12:10 pm]
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THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY. We've started to worry about Peggy Noonan's TV reception. As the following paragraph from a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed article makes clear, some bizarre interference must be distorting her images:
Democrats on talk shows tend not to be shy about boring in, talking over guests, hectoring, murmuring sarcastic asides. They may not be courteous but they pound their points home. Republicans, in part because they represent the tougher views of the tougher party, often try to be reasonable and sweet, or intelligent and clever. They are no match.
Well, she got one thing right: The Democrats are indeed a murmuring opposition. But that aside, and dismissing out of hand the possibility that Ms. Noonan is perpetually stoned, Tapped can only draw one conclusion from this: Peggy! Call the cable guy! [posted 12:00 pm]
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BRAND NEW SHINE. Instapundit, lord of the bloggers and a frequent Tapped sparring partner, has gone and had a redesign. It's pretty. You should check it out. [posted 9:15 am]
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HAS TAPPED GONE NUTS? Maybe. Because for the most part we really enjoyed Jonah Goldberg's latest column about introduced species (and their relation to the horrid upcoming Dreamworks film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron). True, we didn't enjoy the gratuitous swipes at environmentalists. Goldberg is way too optimistic: though mustangs and tumbleweed (his examples) may not have done much environmental damage, and though some introduced species may even be helpful, the example of what Puerto Rican coqui (frogs) are doing to Hawaii right now ought to give us serious pause. Nevertheless, Goldberg is on to something with his argument against the Disneyfied idealization of the pre-colonial, "natural" United States:
I've always thought there was a certain amount of racism inherent to the propagandistic glorification of the American Indian. Environmentalists are enraptured with the idea that Native Americans lived in complete "balance" with the natural world. To make this argument you need to believe Native Americans are somehow different from people in every other human civilization.Well, the latest data has conclusively proven that Indians are human beings too. And human beings affect their environments for good and for ill, depending of course upon how you define good and ill.
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IN OTHER WORDS, DICK CHENEY IS THE SCUM OF THE EARTH. From Senator John McCain, writing in today's Washington Post op-ed section:
It is irresponsible in a time of war, or any time for that matter, to attack or defend unthinkingly or because partisan identification is one's supreme interest. But it is not responsible or right to shrink from offering thoughtful criticism when and to whom it is due, and when the consequences of incompletely understanding failures of governance are potentially catastrophic. On the contrary, such timidity is indefensibly irresponsible especially in times of war, so irresponsible that it verges on the unpatriotic.[posted 7:20 am]
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UP IN THE AIR. Tapped may be on the verge of changing our minds about something. The subject in question is whether airline pilots can possess firearms. We thought th