Click a Day:
Mon, June 17 |Tues, June 18 | Wed, June 19 | Thurs, June 20 | Fri, June 21 |Sat, June 22 | Sun, June 23
(For more info on "Tapped," our permanent link, or to e-mail us, click here.)
Friday, June 21 "Economists estimated that about $1.49 billion could be lost in productivity on Friday." See here for the full extent of English fan grief. Granted, these fans have something to grieve about -- their team crumbled against Brazil. For U.S. fans, on the other hand, even though we lost (barely) to Germany, Tapped imagines most are pretty satisfied that the team played amazingly well, and even deserved a victory. Those Germans were running scared. Wait until 2006. [posted 2:40 pm]
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KUTTNER VS. BROOKS. TAP's co-editor is participating in an online dialogue with The Weekly Standard's David Brooks over at PBS's Frontline. The topic is why the Enron-Andersen scandal isn't creating a bigger fallout. And the first round is here. We'll let you know when the next one is up. [posted 1:45 pm]
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GO WEST, TURN RIGHT. Months ago, in this space, we took Cornel West to task for his recent spat with Larry Summers over scholarly output and other matters at Fair Hahvard. So we feel it's only fair to point out this story. It's Sam Tanenhaus's take on the decision by Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb, John Patrick Diggins, and Hilton Kramer to boycott an event with West at which they were all supposed to discuss the life and work of political philosopher Sidney Hook. Why is this so ridiculous? Because the main rap against West has been his putative dillentantism -- that he had departed from the field of serious intellectual inquiry to record a spoken-word CD, campaign for Al Sharpton, and so forth. So it's odd for West's critics to object to West's presence at what is, by any measure, a serious intellectual discussion that pertains directly to the West's real, actual academic expertise. This is what we all said we wanted him to be doing! [posted 1:10 pm]
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OF HACKS, FLAKS, AND NEWSMEN. The always-canny Michael Kinsley takes on the controversy over the appointment of George Stephanopoulos as ABC's This Week anchor, concluding that "it would not be so terrible if Stephanopoulos and This Week were overtly biased, or the other TV news anchorhoods as well. The TV news anchor I find myself watching most is Brit Hume of Fox News. He brims with bias, and it's a bias I don't share. But his freedom to be biased is also freedom to be intelligent. You get the news as filtered through an interesting mind." More along these lines? The Washington Times has announced that Tony Blankley, former Newt Gingrich aide, has been named the new editorial page editor. [posted 12:50 pm]
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FOX/HENHOUSE DEPT. Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA) has been put in charge of the conference committee on the energy bill. This is the congressman who wants to allow drilling on some 19 million acres of the Alaska wildlife refuge, and for whom there is no position advanced by the energy industry that he doesn't like. There are some 50 areas of difference between the House and Senate versions of the bill, on matters such as fuel efficiency standards, the role for ethanol-blended gasoline, and nearly $34 billion in tax breaks and subsidies to oil, nuclear and coal companies. Lawmakers hope to have a bill on Bush's desk before Congress adjourns in the fall. With the lineup for the conference committee -- and the heavy industry lobbying guns trained on it -- Tapped hopes they miss their deadline. [posted 12:45 pm]
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FEC-KLESS. All week long, as they hemmed and hawed over the new regulations on soft money, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has been advancing the interests of its real constituency -- the major political parties -- and not of the public. As a week end sum up, believe Tapped when we tell you that they've done plenty of damage (see also here) to the intent of the McCain-Feingold law. The commission has created loopholes that are stunningly reminiscent of the ones they created in 1979. Larry Noble, director of the Center for Responsive Politics, told us that "FEC did in two days what took 20 years to evolve."
As a result of this week's actions, federal candidates can once again raise soft money for state political parties, and soft money can be used for get-out-the-vote and voter ID efforts, to name just two avenues from the past through which soft money flowed. We understand that a joint research project conducted by money and politics research groups will reveal next week that there is at least as much soft money already collected at the state level as at the federal level.
Where should the fight go now? There are a few options. One: Sue the FEC over whether the rules are contrary to the law. Two: Use an obscure law that allows members of Congress to take the rules back to Congress for an up-or-down vote. Three: Take direct action against the Commission itself (Tapped would love to see some activists chain themselves to the commissioners' chairs). And then there's four, which is perhaps best of all: Unleash John McCain. [posted 12:40 pm]
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THE OTHER REASON WE HAVEN'T POSTED SO MUCH. Is that we've been preparing a slew of Friday articles, including John Prados on the recent National Security Agency revelations (click here); Natasha Hunter on the environmental dangers of the Bush plan to undermine New Source Review (click here); James Parker on the film The Believer (click here); and, last but not least, Noy Thrupkaew on Steven Spielberg's Minority Report (click here). We hope you enjoy it all! And we hope that, unlike yesterday, TNR hasn't done any of the same articles.... [posted 11:55 am]
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WE'VE BEEN TAPPING OUR TOES. No, not in time to the music, but impatiently waiting for our soccer fan Tappers to get into the office so we can begin our day's blogging. One of the things that we've noticed over the years is that the right never stops arguing their case. Some of them started their day today by 7 AM and some began their postings even earlier. Of course, even we usually get started earlier than this!.... [posted 11:40 am]
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Thursday, June 20 The New York Times has just taken notice of Denmark's harsh new anti-immigration legislation that was passed at the end of May, noting that the new law "makes it clear that immigrants are no longer welcome in a country once proud of its openness." But in fact, anti-immigrant sentiment and fear among refugees and asylum-seekers have been commonplace for quite some time in Denmark, going at least as far back as the November 20 election that put a center-right government in power, propped up by the anti-immigration, anti-European Union Danish People's Party. TAP's Sasha Polakow-Suransky was in Denmark in January, and detailed the rise of the Danish People's Party and the growing backlash against immigrants last month. You can read that article here.
In the meantime, Denmark is poised to take over the EU presidency on July 1st and claims that a common asylum policy is high on its agenda. Given the current hostility towards immigrants in parliament and in the streets, Danish leadership on this issue does not bode well for Europe. [posted 1:45 pm]
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BREATHTAKING. The Los Angeles Times reports today on a new study that presents heaps of bad news for smokers (as if there wasn't already enough). Some of the findings include estimates that more 1.2 billion people worldwide smoke, and that at least half of them will be killed prematurely by smoking-related diseases, including cancer, heart disease and emphysema. More: The new study finds that the risks for bladder and kidney tumors among smokers is five or six times higher, and not three to four times as previously thought. Smoking was also found to double the risk of cervical, liver and stomach cancers and increase the risk of prostate, breast or endometrial cancers. The team also looked the impact of exposure to second hand smoke and found the first definitive evidence that it causes lung cancer, increasing the risk to those people exposed by about 20 percent. This research involved looking at 3,000 studies involving millions of smokers. According to the Times, parts of the report will be published here today. [posted 1:30 pm]
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THAT'S NOT REPRESENTATIVE. Maybe we should be hardened to this by now, but Tapped is always stunned around this time of year when the financial disclosure information comes rolling out and we get to learn just how rich our representatives really are. Even with Roll Call's conservative estimates, about half of the Senate is filthy rich. Among the top 10 richest Senators were: John Kerry (D-Mass.) with at least $139 million; Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) with $113 million; Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) with $94 million (thoough Roll Call estimates his total is probably closer to $400 million); Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) with at least $82 million; Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) with $54 million; Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) with $38 million; and Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.), a former investment banker, with more than $25 million in assets. Finally, to quote Roll Call: "Rounding out the top 10 were Sens. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a former heart surgeon with a net worth of at least $17 million; John McCain (R-Ariz.), who married into money and is worth at least $14 million; and John Edwards (D-N.C.), a former trial attorney who wisely invested his court winnings and is now worth at least $13.6 million." So we guess the only question is, which one of these guys do we want for our next millionaire president? [posted 1:00 pm]
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IN WHAT OTHER SPORT WOULD THIS HAPPEN? South Korean soccer hero Ahn Jung-hwan may have pleased 3 million of his countrymen by scoring the winning overtime goal to eliminate Italy recently, but apparently the owner of his professional team in Perugia, Italy is not so psyched. Indeed, AC Perugia owner Luciano Gaucci told the Italian press recently, "Enough! That guy will never again set foot in Perugia. I am not going to pay the salary of a guy who has been the ruin of Italian soccer."
Yikes. Should the guy apologize for scoring a goal? South Korea's Dutch coach Guus Hiddink called the Italians' behavior "Very childish. What should I have told Ahn, play but don't score a goal against the Italians?" Meanwhile, the Italian press remains up in arms about the alleged bad calls of Ecuadorean referee. Certainly there were some borderline calls in the final minutes, but kicking a guy off a team for scoring the winning goal is hardly the right way to protest.
FIFA says it can't intervene, but the British Trade Union GMB, which represents players in Scotland and Northern Ireland, has called on the European Union and the UEFA (the organization governing European soccer) to do so. Meanwhile, the Indian national newspaper, The Hindu, reports that the Asian Football Association has called for a boycott of AC Perugia. And that's why Tapped loves soccer. [posted 12:45 pm]
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HERE IT IS! Our Howard Dean profile by Robert Dreyfuss. Enjoy. And then write a 2,500 word essay comparing and contrasting the treatment of Dean by Dreyfuss and Cohn, with an emphasis on organization, political analysis, and prose style..... [posted 11:50 am]
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AND WHILE WE'RE UNCANNILY DUPLICATING TNR.... The New Republic has just put on its website a lengthy profile of dark horse Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean by Jonathan Cohn. And you may perhaps have noticed that our next issue contains ... a lengthy profile of dark horse Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean -- this time, by Robert Dreyfuss. Great minds think alike!!! Our Dean piece will be available online momentarily and we'll post the link here in Tapped. Congrats to TNR for getting theirs up first, but we hope you'll read both of them.... [posted 11:10 am]
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BASHING SOCCER BASHING. For a good run-through of some of the obnoxious arguments used by the latest crop of soccer haters, check out this article by Franklin Foer and this one by our own Sasha Polakow-Suransky. Foer focuses more on peevish sports writers while Polakow-Suransky focuses more on ideological conservatives -- but the ridiculousness shines through in both cases. Hey, it's fine with us if people don't like soccer, but why do they always seem to feel like they have to spoil it for everyone else? [posted 10:55 am]
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HERE'S THE OUTRAGE. By the time you read this, the party will be over -- that is, the Republican fundraiser last night that raised some $30 million in soft money. The hypocrisy is stunning, isn't it? Allow us to connect the dots: First, President Bush signs the new campaign finance law while holding his nose. Next, his party succeeds in undermining the rulemaking to implement it. Then, Bush further mocks the new law by holding these mega-fundraising dinners. And here are a few more dots to connect: This week the GOP unveiled its wolf-in-sheep's-clothing drug pricing plan in Congress and began moving it forward. Last night, drug companies were among some of the 20 biggest donors, contributing a quarter of a million dollars. [posted 10:40 am]
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71 AND COUNTING. The Associated Press tallied all the suicide bombings from September of 2000 through Tuesday of this week, and concluded there had been 70. Meanwhile, the Post editorial page this morning says 71, bringing us up to date. Tapped has nothing further to say about this, except that, like the experience of watching the Daniel Pearl murder commercial, it's highly instructive when it comes to contemplating just what it is that we're all up against. [posted 10:25 am]
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POOR RUMMY. Seems like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was all bent out of shape about having to file his financial disclosure forms. He complained about how much it cost him to get someone to fill out the forms -- at the same time that he reported having sold somewhere between $20 and $90 million worth of stock when he entered government. Boy do we ever feel his pain. [posted 10:15 am]
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WHY TAPPED CAN PRAISE DAVID GERGEN AND STILL SLEEP AT NIGHT. Hey there Mickey and Eric. We just can't win with you two! Tapped tries to call it as we see it, and sometimes, that means we are going to give some kudos to ... horrors ... Republicans! No, we don't like everything David Gergen's ever written, and we wouldn't want to read it all either. But we stand by our praise for Gergen's recent op-ed in The New York Times. Such praise doesn't make us any less liberal -- we know where we stand. The fact is that, as is his wont, Gergen told it like it is, and we admire folks who do that -- Chuck Hagel is another example -- even when we don't agree with their entire political agenda. We certainly will do our best to be consistent about praising anyone who takes on the president, especially on outrageous policies like his tax cut. As for Gergen, maybe Cambridge, Mass. is getting to him. It sure got to us! [posted 9:35 am]
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UM, COME AGAIN? From today's Post:
Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64 of the Sahih Bukhari edition of the Hadith says, "The Prophet married [Aisha] when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old." But Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said many Islamic scholars interpret that passage to mean Aisha was 16 when she was betrothed to Muhammad and 19 when they wed.
This comes from an article about the tempest that has been created by fundamentalist preacher Jerry Vines's reference to Muhammad as a "demon-possessed pedophile," and bears directly on the pedophile charge. It's also an example of startlingly poor journalism. You can't just report that "many Islamic scholars" claim that six equals 16 -- and nine equals 19 -- without giving some explanation of why it is that they get to do such funky math. Tapped is highly suspicious, to say the least. [posted 9:25 am]
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Wednesday, June 19 Well, this one sure trashes the best title award we suggested this morning: "Assistant principal demoted for thong check." The story itself is also hilarious. [posted 5:30 pm]
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WHERE HAS TAPPED BEEN TODAY? We thought you might be wondering, and the answer is, in meetings. And on jury duty. We apologize for the light postings, and hope to be much better tomorrow. [posted 4:00 pm]
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SINS OF OMISSION. The New York Times offers an editorial today on women's rights and Turkey. And while the Times correctly argues that the country has a long way to go in order to eradicate sexism, the editorial is a case study in the way journalists can dramatically alter readers' impression of places or countries through the omission -- or inclusion -- of just one or two relevant facts. This is particularly true when the subject matter is something readers know very little about. And most Americans, even readers of The New York Times, don't know an awful lot about Turkey. (Not even that they're in the round of 8 at the World Cup along with the U.S.!)
In this case, the Times leads with the phenomenon of virginity tests that have been imposed on girls in Turkish schools. The practice is, obviously, awful, and readers will likely be left with an impression of Turkey as barbaric with respect to women's rights -- probably based on that one image alone. But nowhere in the editorial does the Times bother to mention that from 1993 to 1996, Turkey had a female prime minister. Tansu Ciller may not have been a very well-liked prime minister, or a very successful one. But in a national politics renowned for its stubbornly ambitious (male) personalities, she managed to seize the stage for herself, as a leader and later as power broker, during much of the decade. Indeed, the Middle East Review of International Affairs in 1999 called her the "woman who has dominated Turkish politics since 1990." That's something most readers of the Times this morning probably won't be aware of.
None of this changes or mitigates the sexism that exists in Turkey. Many a misogynistic society has been led by a woman (think Queen Elizabeth I of England or Catherine the Great of Russia). And to the Times' credit, the paper does point out that Turkey is progressive by the standards of Muslim nations. But in an article that promises an assessment of women's rights in a country whose politics most Americans know nothing about, shouldn't Ciller's stint as prime minister at least merit a mention? [posted 9:00 am]
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BROWNBACK GOES DOWN. It seems like it's now more or less official that the draconian (and Bush-backed) therapeutic cloning ban being pushed in the Senate by Sam Brownback and Mary Landrieu has died, at least for the time being. This despite the fact that last summer, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly for the same measure. For an explanation of how this happened, we encourage you to look out for the upcoming print issue of The American Prospect, which we've just sent to press. The current issue is now available online, incidentally. Finally, if you want to make sure not to miss any of our articles in the future, we encourage you to subscribe online here. [posted 8:45 am]
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HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL. It seems that as a "compromise" on the issue of whether or not we should arm pilots, a proposal is now being advanced "that would allow 250 airline pilots to carry guns during a two-year experimental program." The article continues: "During that time, the government would further study the risk of misfiring a gun aboard an airplane." So let's get this straight -- as long as no planes get downed by misfires, the "experiment" will have been a success? We're not sure what we ultimately think about the issue of pilots and guns -- we can see the pro-gun argument -- but surely it shouldn't be framed like this. [posted 8:25 am]
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BEST TITLE AWARD. From page A6 of today's Washington Post (it's an after-the-break title for this story so unfortunately you can't see it online): "Poll Shows Some Hope For Church." [posted 7:50 am]
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Tuesday, June 18 Conservatives are getting angry at President Bush. Whether it's his signing campaign finance reform legislation, his support for the pork laden farm bill, or his compromises on education policy, they claim that he's stealing ideas from the Democrats and alienating the base (which is getting restless). Whoa there ... Tapped thought the Democrats were stealing Republican ideas, and that's why they are so conservative. But even if we're wrong and the Republicans are stealing the Democrats' ideas, where does that leave liberals in the war of ideas? You guessed it. Pretty much nowhere. Hey, our base is getting restless too! [posted 2:45 pm]
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VENTURA'S OUT. Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura announced today that he's not going to run for re-election in November, or seemingly ever again. He says his heart isn't in it any more.
What does this mean for Minnesota politics, particularly in the Wellstone-Coleman Senate race (already a mess because the Greens are running a candidate)? The conventional wisdom is that it's bad for Wellstone because Ventura (along with whoever runs on the Independence Party ticket for the Senate) would draw away socially liberal but Republican-leaning voters from Coleman. The Independence Party candidate for Senate in 1996, Dean Barkley, got 7 percent of the vote, a sobering number in very tight race.
Tapped is sort of sorry to see Ventura go. His victory demonstrated the shakiness of the two party system, how powerful grassroots politics can be, and how clueless the media is when it comes to what every day people want in their politicians. But sadly, Ventura never went beyond the politics of personality to build a lasting political legacy in Minnesota. [posted 1:40 pm]
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WE SHOULD HAVE REMEMBERED. Yesterday, referring to President Bush's call to the US Soccer Team before their match against Mexico, we observed, "Has another recent U.S. president taken such interest in international soccer? If so, Tapped can't remember it." Well, reader E.G. does. During the 1999 Women's World Cup, he points out, President Clinton attended a match against Germany and the final against China. Our bad. [posted 12:45 pm]
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SOCCER AND THE TERRITORIES UPDATE. An attentive reader of Tapped points out the following in response to our Friday post about whether Washington, D.C. should be able to compete in the World Cup: Why shouldn't Native Americans with tribal status also get their own teams? A very, very good question..... [posted 12:10 pm]
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BUSH COMMENCEMENT MYTHS? Brendan Nyhan of Spinsanity says that a number of liberal/left wing web outlets -- Buzzflash, Media Whores Online (MWO), and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting -- have been taken in by exaggerated reports of actively suppressed protests at Bush's Ohio State University commencement address. (Granted, protesters were warned in advance not to protest, which may have had a chilling effect -- but the issue here is with the treatment of actual protesters who turned out.) Nyhan actually followed up a previous lead from Media Whores for TAP Online, so this clearly isn't a case of MWO-bashing of the sort that we at Tapped have ourselves treated skeptically. Still, we guess we can't say any longer that "no one...[has] poked factual holes in anything MWO has posted." Nyhan's account seems plausible -- this commencement speech is just the type of event where rumors tend to outpace actual happenings. [posted 11:55 am]
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MINORITY RETORT. Writing in Reason Online, frequent TAP Online contributor Jeremy Lott compares the notion of pre-emptive justice depicted in the latest Steven Spielberg film Minority Report and the Bush administration's detention of Jose Padilla. To wit:
Padilla is currently being detained by the U.S. government, not for crimes committed -- at least not crimes that the government is willing to publicly charge him for -- but because of crimes that certain officials think he might have been likely to commit in the future. This Phildickean move to a pre-emptive posture may very well be effective, but it raises real concerns that what Spielberg supports as "our way of living" will be altered. That is the issue that the release of Minority Report should draw into a tight, and perhaps uncomfortable, focus.
Lott says the film comes at precisely the right political moment, much as Wag the Dog did (for better or worse), and that it ought to make the Bush administration uncomfortable. [posted 11:45 am]
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ENRON'S TAX FREE BONUSES. Even though the administration and the Congress wish this story would go away, every day there are new revelations that command attention. The latest is the possibility that Enron gave tax free bonsuses to its senior executives through offshore accounts. The Senate Finance Committee is trying to get to the bottom of the company's bonus system. Enron reported yesterday that it paid 140 senior executives more than $744 million in cash and stock in the year before it collapsed. [posted 11:15 am]
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REMEMBER CALIFORNIA. The General Accounting Office is going to issue a blanket condemnation later this week of energy regulators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). According to The New York Times, "The study ... says the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is hobbled by antiquated procedures, legislation and perhaps a mind-set more suited to the old days when energy producers were regulated monopolies." The primary fault seems to be that it lacks strong enforcement power, but FERC is also criticized for not using the powers that it does have. Apparently the report paints the portrait of an outmoded, completely adrift agency. You wouldn't have to tell that to Senator Dianne Feinstein, who has blamed FERC's unwillingness to regulate the California energy markets for the severe crisis in her state. Feinstein is drafting comprehensive legislation, even while FERC spokespeople are saying that many of the problems have already been fixed. [posted 11:00 am]
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CHILLING. We admit to a Cold War shudder when we think about the missile launch silos that are being developed in Alaska as part of President Bush's national missile defense system. But it does give one Tapper the chance plug a favorite, John Lennon-esque "peace fantasy" movie: Amazing Grace and Chuck. In the film, Chuck, a little league baseball player, is so frightened by seeing a nuclear missile up close that he stages a protest against all nuclear weapons by suspending his pitching. His story is picked up by the media and a big a star of the Boston Celtics joins him. Soon the protest spreads to Major League Baseball players and other athletes in both Russia and the United States. Eventually, when the boycotting players threaten to disrupt professional sports, Chuck gets an audience with the president -- which, naturally, leads to a summit hearing and a commitment from Russia and the U.S. to total nuclear disarmament (and to Chuck's return to little league playing). What strange movies they made during the Cold War, huh? Yes, we know it's completely sappy. On the other hand, this just might be the right summer for it. [posted 9:55 am]
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KILL THAT AMENDMENT. The Times this morning reports on an outrageous amendment being advanced in Congress by the securities industry that would prevent states from pursuing firms that violate securities laws. Apparently the amendment surfaced after the aggressive Attorney General for the state of New York, Eliot Spitzer, began an investigation into analyst practices about a year ago. We hope the story detailing the amendment will also derail it. In fact, that's why we linked. [posted 9:45 am]
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BUSH MADE COMPREHENSIBLE. Ever wonder why George W. Bush betrays conservative principles so frequently? (I.e., steel tarriffs, farm bill, etc.?) This story in USA Today by Susan Page seems to us to present the key to the mystery: Bush is courting the states he needs for re-election. When he's president of the nation, he's for environmental rollback. When he's visiting Florida, he's against offshore drilling. Makes sense, non? [posted 9:30 am]
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YOU MUST UNLEARN WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED. Alexander Graham Bell was the inventor of the telephone. Or at least, that's what your high school history book told you. In Italy, it is a different story. The Italians claim that Bell stole the patent and the subsequent riches from a poor Italian inventor, Antonio Meucci. Now, the U.S. House of Representatives agrees, and has voted to recongize Meucci as the creator of the technology that launched the communication age. Maybe Meucci's descendants can great free lifetime phone service as back pay. The rest of us have some unlearning to do. [posted 9:10 am]
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Monday, June 17 Tapped has been a David Gergen fan for a long time and today's op-ed reminds us why. Gergen urges the president to roll back the tax cuts and instead invest in improving the lives of children. He calls Bush's bluff, saying "If the war is about securing their safety, after all, why should we not be equally concerned about securing their health and education? Why not seize this moment to make the war about something positive, instead of allowing it to be focused exclusively on how we ward off the negative?" [posted 3:20 pm]
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GETTING A LITTLE TOO REALISTIC. Tapped had dismissed as a fabrication the Hollywood suspense-o-matic twist in the film Windtalkers -- i.e., that U.S. Marines assigned to protect Navajo codetalkers had orders to kill the Native Americans if they fell into enemy hands. But we received an unpleasant surprise with breakfast yesterday. According to an article in Sunday's Washington Post, this is actually true, and has even been written into the legislation awarding Congressional Gold Medals to the original 29 codetalkers. According to the legislation: "Some Code Talkers were guarded by fellow Marines, whose role was to kill them in case of imminent capture by the enemy." [posted 3:10 pm]
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FIRST STRIKE...YOU'RE OUT. As the administration moves forward to formalize its controversial first-strike military policy, former Clinton Administration official William Galston writes that application of this to Iraq could be an unmitigated disaster. Galston argues that our friends in the international community, whose support we need for such an action, staunchly oppose such a move. He adds that a regime change in Iraq would likely require some 200,000 U.S, troops, and that a post-victory commitment would be measured in years. But Galston's fundamental point is this: "A global strategy based on the new Bush doctrine means the end of the system of international institutions, laws and norms that the United States has worked for more than half a century to build." [posted 12:50 pm]
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OUR LATEST ARTICLES. Meanwhile, TAP Online has been busy posting new articles. Today Robert Kuttner explores the joys of cleaning out one's files and reflects on the cyclical nature of progressive causes, and John Judis examines the future of the third way with the rise of the far right in Europe. We hope you'll check them out. [posted 12:40 pm]
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OUR WEB STATS AND SUBSCRIBERS. Today we at The American Prospect find ourselves criticized both over our reported numbers of print magazine subscribers and our reported numbers of unique website users. Let us set the record straight:
SUBSCRIPTIONS. A Boston Business Journal article by Donna L. Goodison erroneously reported that our "circulation stands at 500,000 now, according to [co-editor Robert] Kuttner, who noted little advertising is received." The correct number is 50,000. Goodison also reported that the magazine set out to garner 800,000 subscriptions after our redesign, rather than 80,000. The reporter admitted to her error and the story has now been corrected at its original link.[posted 12:30 pm]WEB STATISTICS. Concerned by questioning of our web statistics, we have begun investigating the numbers. We still haven't concluded with the process, but we can provide some information now.
The numbers we originally reported came from our current web server statistics program, Wusage. The numbers that it generated are the numbers we disclosed. Nevertheless, we are taking the challenges to them seriously. Why? They came from version 7.0 of Wusage, an older version. We have since upgraded to version 8.0 and are tracking numbers that do look different. Thomas Boutell, who runs Wusage, explained the discrepancy to us in an e-mail as follows: "Old versions of Wusage, and most other software, took any new user-identifying cookie in the log file to represent a legitimate new visit. Wusage 8.0 is able to identify 'single-use' cookies, which appear in very large numbers due to the fact that recent web server releases log cookies even on the initial set, not just when they come back from the client. Wusage 8.0 sets these aside, then uses the average accesses for each 'real' visit that did allow cookie tracking to compute a far more accurate scaled figure for visits not allowing cookie tracking. This does reduce the visit count quite a bit, but it is a much better representation of reality."
As for our revised numbers: Given our aforementioned problem with Wusage, we would prefer to run them through at least one other program before issuing new figures. We are currently moving ahead with this process. As soon as we have a solid month's count, we will make it public.
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DIRTIER SKIES. There's a strong editorial this morning from The New York Times on the EPA's announcement last week regarding the rollback of the Clean Air Act rules. The paper mocks administrator Christie Todd Whitman's claim of broad support for the new regs and urges Congress and the public to get involved in the fight against the big polluters and their allies in the Administration.
Clear the Air, a consortium of the Clean Air Task Force, National Environmental Trust, and the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, just produced a report that reviewed the 500 plants that would be most affected by these rollbacks, and contained these starting findings:
* Pollution from the plants that are the targets of enforcement actions shortens the lives of between 5,500 and 9,000 people each year;[posted 12:00 pm]* Requiring these plants to meet modern pollution standards would avoid 4,300 to 7,000 of these deaths;
* Each year, pollution from these plants triggers 107,000 and 170,000 asthma attacks;
* At least 80,000 and as many as 120,000 of these asthma attacks would be avoided if the EPA required the plants to meet modern pollution standards.
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AND SPEAKING OF MONEY IN POLITICS (AS WE SO OFTEN DO...) Tapped was transported back 30 years by all the Watergate folklore this weekend (see here and here and here). We still remember -- and kind of miss -- that summer when investigative reporting ruled, Capitol Hill was abuzz with thorough hearings, and the nation was outraged by the buying and selling of the White House. If you think we're feeling a little nostalgic, you would be right. [posted 11:10 am]
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TALIBANIC? A few months ago -- had we existed as a blog at that point, anyway -- Tapped would have been the first to say that it was unfair to compare the Christian right in this country to the Taliban. But now, it turns out that our own conservative Christians are joining sides with hard-line Muslim nations, including Iran, to lobby the United Nations to "halt the expansion of sexual and political protections and rights for gays, women and children." Hey, if it quacks like a theocrat.... [posted 11:00 am]
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WE'RE SHOCKED, SHOCKED (PART II). So the latest on campaign finance reform is that the DNC is fighting to weaken the new rules that the Federal Election Commission is writing -- and Common Cause is horrified. Did Common Cause really think that the DNC really wanted to ban soft money, the only pot of big cash they raise in near parity with the Republicans? Tapped thought everyone had learned from William Greider when he described how Washington works in his book Who Will Tell the People. The special interests never give up: If they lose a battle in Congress, they rejoin it later, when the regulations are developed, or in the next Congress. The DNC's position at the FEC actually looks pretty consistent over the years. It's surprising to us that it took reformers so long to figure it out. [posted 10:50 am]
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THEY WISH. Looks like the administration is hoping that, with the swift punishment of Arthur Andersen, the whole Enron scandal is going to go away. The Republicans believe, according to Steve Labaton of the Times, that all they need now is "a few modest legislative and regulatory proposals, like one last week requiring chief executives to personally certify financial statements ... To Republicans, there's no need for stringent proposals to limit the consulting activities of accounting firms, sharper restrictions on stock options issued to executives, broad conflict-of-interest rules for stock analysts or greater access to the courts for stockholders." If the Democrats let them get away with this, Tapped gives up.
Labaton's thorough story had the additional benefit of reminding us that many of the regulatory agencies that currently govern corporate behavior -- the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission -- already have plans in the works to reduce the burden on business. At the FCC, chairman Michael Powell has argued to eliminate some of the rules that have been on the books for decades. FTC Chairman Timothy Murris has been blocking Democratic moves for new consumer privacy legislation. SEC chairman Harvey Pitt has resisted almost all new legislative efforts, such as restrictions on stock options and new conflict of interest laws for analysts and consultants at accounting firms. They claim they'll do a better job of enforcing the laws on the books. But Tapped isn't buying it. [posted 10:35 am]
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FEDER: FOR THE BIRDS. Don Feder's latest column is over-the-top, offensive, and Coulterish. No surprise there. Nevertheless, Tapped thinks Feder is actually correct to criticize Hollywood's cowardice in depicting Neo-Nazis -- rather than Islamic fundmentalists -- as the nuclear bad guys in the film The Sum of All Fears (reviewed here by TAP's Noy Thrupkaew). The only trouble is, our minor agreement with Feder on this matter happens to disprove his column's larger point. We are, of course, liberals. So how is it that Feder can write, "Whether it's Islamic fundamentalism or genocidal Stalinism, liberals are loath to confront evil that hasn't been moldering in the grave for half a century"? Time for some new enemies, Don -- or at least, some existent ones. [posted 10:10 am]
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A GOOD SHOW BY BUSH. It seems he called up coach Bruce Arena and Team USA to wish them luck in their round-of-16 match against Mexico today. Has another recent U.S. president taken such interest in international soccer? If so, Tapped can't remember it. And what will the soccer-bashing right have to say about their president's betrayal? Bush's attention may have been a behind-the-scenes factor firing the team up for the match, which they amazingly won 2-0 with two shots heard round the world.
One or two remarks about the game itself. Tapped's nemesis, Jeff Agoos, was out and the defense was immeasurably stronger because of it, especially in the air. Meanwhile, we'd like to suggest that Brad Friedel may be the best goalie in the World Cup. He sure looked invincible. And though we've long been down on Cobi Jones, he certainly showed some mettle -- and some heart -- taking foul after foul in the final ten minutes. Go USA! [posted 10:00 am]
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BLOGGING DOWN UNDER. Tapped's Chris Mooney is quoted in this story about blogging in Australia's The Age. For our money, the most interesting part of the piece -- besides the Mooney quote of course -- is the way the author weighs the development of blogging against Cass Sunstein's predictions of Internet balkanization in his recent book Republic.com. Because of their inclination to cite different points of view, Sunstein should love blogs: "Bloggers are just as likely to link to an article they disagree with as to one whose views they share. And the tendency of bloggers to reference each other means that it's easy to find yourself clicking around to new destinations." Indeed, Tapped finds something very university-like about the world of blogging. We see it as no coincidence that two of the finest bloggers, Glenn Reynolds and Eugene Volokh, are law professors who obviously revel in the seminar-like aspects of the endeavor. These guys have sent us off to do homework more than once! [posted 10:00 am]
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