Month: August 2006

KATRINA: What Really Flooded New Orleans

It Wasn’t George W. Bush. In Fact, It Wasn’t Really Hurricane Katrina, Either.
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We know now that the Hurricane Katrina story is the greatest media failure of our times, dwarfing not only single-issue scandals like “Rathergate” but also broader failures like the media’s coverage of the War on Terror. The media got so many things wrong in such a short time that we will not, in our lifetimes, see the truth widely accepted. Newsday’s Lou Dolinar, for example, has chronicled the extensive, heroic and totally unsung rescue efforts in New Orleans, mainly by the National Guard and the Coast Guard, here and here. Historians will have a field day with all the hoaxes circulated by the likes of Anderson Cooper, Shepard Smith and Oprah Winfrey.
But nobody has been more dogged and diligent in following this story after the tide of headlines receded than Paul of Wizbang! If you missed it Monday, you must read the latest post in his long campaign to demonstrate that the flooding of New Orleans was the result of levee breaches caused by poor construction by the Army Corps of Engineers, rather than levee overtopping caused by a massive hurricane (and, thus, an essentially bureaucratic failure rather than a political one – as portrayed by some – or a simple Act of God). In fact, Paul now argues that the flood could have happened in any big storm, or indeed at any time, given the condition of the levees. Go read it (and watch the video that was kep under wraps by Congress for 10 months), and if you care at all about the truth of this story, spend some time with Wizbang’s Hurricane Katrina archive. I guarantee you will learn something.

Rays of Hope

With BJ Upton and Delmon Young finally in the lineup, the Devil Rays should start getting a look at the building blocks they need for a contending team. Personally, these guys are a big reason why I think they should set a minimum age (say, 28) to be a free agent, rather than incentivize excitement-starved teams like the Rays to keep their green but talented young prospects at AAA to avoid accruing service time.
Fun fact about Upton: his real name is Melvin Emanuel Upton. Upton had a disappointing year with the bat at AAA, though I suspect a lot of that was mental pressure and frustration from being trapped in AAA two seasons after getting an extended big-league cup of coffee. I see nothing wrong with Upton that some maturity and job security can’t fix.
As for Young, he batted .316 with 22 doubles and 22 steals as a 20-year-old at AAA Durham in a half-season’s work, all signs of a great future power-speed guy. But he hit just 8 homers, which means he’s probably not a big HR threat just yet (though you never know what sort of hot streak he might run off in September). His 65/15 K/BB ratio is also not a great sign, but again he’s young.

Cursed Once Again!

Let’s see – David Ortiz out indefinitely with heart trouble, Coco Crisp sidelined with a bum shoulder, Jon Lester may have cancer . . . At this point, it would not surprise me to see a plague of locusts and a river of blood at Fenway. Dr. Manhattan asked recently if a franchise has ever had a worse month, all things considered – the Mets in August 1991 come to mind, the 1899 Spiders the month their stadium burned down, and the White Sox in September 1920 probably take the cake, but this is up there.
But hey, at least Jeff Reardon got off.

Is Requiring Basic Competence by Teachers Racially Discriminatory?

If you are tempted to wonder at why our public schools operate at such a disadvantage, two recent decisions by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit help illustrate the problem. In the first, Gulino v. New York State Education Department (2d Cir. Aug. 17, 2006), the Second Circuit reinstated a race discrimination suit against the New York State Education Department based on the theory that a test of “basic college-level content” that asks applicants to get just two-thirds of the questions right is racially discriminatory because it has a “disparate impact” on African-American and Latino teachers. The test, developed in response to a 1988 task force report on problems with teacher quality, is described at pages 11-13 of the opinion.
There are two immediate things that rub me the wrong way about this notion. First of all, isn’t it racial bigotry to assume that lower pass rates for African-American and Latino teachers are because they are African-American and Latino, and therefore likely to persist indefinitely into the future? This isn’t the 1870s, when it was reasonable and realistic to assume that black people were illiterate sharecroppers. If there are higher fail rates, that presumably is because African-American and Latino applicants are suffering from some intervening problem not caused by skills testing – i.e., bad schools in their own neighborhoods.
And second, why are those schools bad? In part because lawsuits like this one force the state to keep hiring teachers who lack basic competence in their subject matter. And where do you think those incompetent teachers end up teaching? There’s your real disparate impact.
Instead of recognizing and deferring to the common-sense judgment that a test of basic educational competence is related to the job of being a teacher, the Second Circuit (relying, it must be said in the court’s defense, in substantial part on Supreme Court precedents) sets a demanding test of empirical expert evidence before a public school can “validate” a test’s relatedness to job performance. (The validation standard is discussed at pp. 36-48 of the opinion). The ridiculousness of this is exacerbated by the difficulty of finding an objective measure of teacher job performance. Nowhere in this process are schools allowed to excercise common sense in figuring out what makes a good teacher.
The second decision came yesterday in Guiles v. Marineau (2d Cir. Aug. 30, 2006), in which the Second Circuit rejected a school’s effort to prevent a student from wearing a T-shirt with obnoxious political content:

The front of the shirt, at the top, has large print that reads “George W. Bush,” below it is the text, “Chicken-Hawk-In-Chief.” Directly below these words is a large picture of the President’s face, wearing a helmet, superimposed on the body of a chicken. Surrounding the President are images of oil rigs and dollar symbols. To one side of the President, three lines of cocaine and a razor blade appear. In the “chicken wing” of the President nearest the cocaine, there is a straw. In the other “wing” the President is holding a martini glass with an olive in it.
Directly below all these depictions is printed, “1st Chicken Hawk Wing,” and below that is text reading “World Domination Tour.” The back of the T-shirt has similar pictures and language, including the lines of cocaine and the martini glass. The representations on the back of the shirt are surrounded by smaller print accusing the President of being a “Crook,” “Cocaine Addict,” “AWOL, Draft Dodger,” and “Lying Drunk Driver.” The sleeves of the shirt each depict a military patch, one with a man drinking from a bottle, and the other with a chicken flanked by a bottle and three lines of cocaine with a razor.

Slip op. at 3-4. The court, noting the Supreme Court precedents granting free speech rights to public school students in their attire but permitting some limitations on those rights in the case of “plainly offensive” speech, concluded:

While what is plainly offensive is not susceptible to precise definition, we hold that the images depicted on Guiles’s T-shirt are not plainly offensive as a matter of law.

Id. at 16. On the law, this was probably correct, and of course I don’t think this sort of concentrated moonbattery, silly as it is, should be illegal. But I fail to see what interest of society is served by letting school kids wear shirts with any sort of message to school. (I went to schools with uniforms and, in high school, a dress code that had no room for T-shirts). Granted, this particular incident came to a head on a class trip, but why schools should end up being embroiled in these sorts of controversies at all is beyond me.

Instability

They said on the Mets broadcast the other night that the Mets – now with the best record in baseball – have used 47 players this year. I only count 45 but I may have missed someone along the way – 20 non pitchers, 25 pitchers including 13 different starters. The thing is, that much turnover is usually the sign of serious problems – the 1962 Mets, for example, used 45 players, including 14 different starters (the breakdown was 28 position players and 17 pitchers). Somehow, the Mets have instead used all that turnover as a way to keep regenerating on the fly, dumping people like Matsui and Lima and surviving a variety of injuries.
You think the people who booed Carlos Beltran are ashamed of themselves yet?
On another story, a reader recently asked what I thought of the Coors Field humidor. Well, it hasn’t exactly been in evidence in this series, but scoring is down at Coors – it’s played more like a traditional hitters’ park of late rather than a separate planet (608 runs scored in Rockie home games this year vs. 584 on the road, a modest 4.1% increase). Personally, to me, anything that does that is good. From a purist’s perspective, Coors itself (and indeed, any high-altitude baseball) is an abomination that distorts the very movement of the ball. Tampering with the game’s equipment to counteract that and restore the balance of power between batter and pitcher can only be a good thing.

A Fraudulent Deal

You need only review the latest statements from Kofi Annan (here and here) to grasp the fraudulent nature of the cease-fire in Israel’s war with Hezbollah. While I had initially regarded the cease fire as a good idea in theory that was impractical in light of the facts on the ground, it is increasingly clear that it’s not even defensible on paper. Annan is demanding verifiable compliance by Israel, by a date certain, with specific terms regarding the withdrawal of troops and the lifting of a blockade. He makes no similar demands on Hezbollah, but merely expresses his hope that Lebanon will make progress in dealing with Hezbollah:

Mr Annan said that the Lebanese authorities yesterday assured him they were taking measures to stop the flow of weapons from Syria and Iran their ally Hezbollah via sea and air, and that he believed Israel’s security concerns could be addressed.
“In the meantime, I do believe the blockade should be lifted,” Annan said.
He added: “I had serious discussions with the Lebanese leadership and I am really convinced that they are serious about implementing Resolution 1701 in its entir[e]ty.”


The same goes for the Israeli hostages:

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Wednesday morning that he’ll do everything he can to return the captured Israeli soldiers.

Cease-fire agreements are contracts. Contracts require verifiable compliance by both sides. This deal has specific requirements on Israel and nothing but hope and promises to which no one can be held, on the other.
I remain undecided as to whether the cease fire was a wise move by Israel. Supporters of the agreement have argued that sooner or later it will be clear enough that Hezbollah can not and will not comply with even its most minimal terms regarding disarmament and the release of hostages, and that this will enable Israel to reopen hostilities with greater international backing. Either way, however, one can not possibly take this agreement at face value as being worth anything at all.

Off the Market

Yet another big-time pitcher will be staying put, as the Astros lock up Roy Oswalt for 5 years and $73 million. It’s a good deal for Houston – Oswalt’s expensive, and being a pitcher he’s a serious injury risk, but he’s been mostly healthy and you gotta pay somebody to pitch, so he’s as good a bet as you will find.
I’ll get to this another day, but given the current state of the free agent market, and particularly if the White Sox pick up Mark Buehrle’s option, Barry Zito is going to become a very rich man this offseason.

A George Romney Historical Puzzle

I’ve read a couple of sources (see here, here and here) saying that Mitt Romney’s father, onetime Michigan Governor George Romney, was born in a splinter Mormon community in Mexico. Of course, we know that George Romney was a widely-touted but unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1968. My question is this: if George Romney was born in Mexico, to a family that had lived there for more than two decades, how was he “a natural born Citizen” of the US eligible to be president under Art. II Sec. 1 of the Constitution? Am I missing something?
UPDATE: Erick at RedState answers.

Going Down, Down, Down, Down Part V

Resuming, with Part 5, my look at young or still-establishing-themselves players whose stock has fallen dramatically in 2006 and/or 2005 – the NL Central. (Parts I, II, III & IV here, here, here, and here, respectively)
Cardinals
The Cards actually don’t have anyone who fits the bill, as this is a veteran team and the few young players are rookies. Randy Flores, maybe, as he had finally put together a solid big league season last year, but Flores is a 31-year-old middle reliever who never had much of a ceiling anyway.
Astros
Jason Lane: Lane, a free-swinging power threat, got a full shot in 2005 at age 28 and responded by doing what free-swinging power hitters do: 34 doubles, 26 HR, a .499 slugging % but only a .316 OBP. He chipped in 3 HR and 8 RBI in the Astros’ postseason run, including a 4th inning homer in the dramatic 14-inning Game 3 of the World Series. Lane held the right field job entering this season, but ended up getting demoted back to the minors after batting just .207 in 246 at bats, leaving him fighting to reclaim his status as a regular.
Brandon Backe: Backe was nothing spectacular in 2005, but he was a young pitcher making progress, and he pitched some tremendous games in the postseason. This year he managed just 8 starts before hurting his elbow and now may face Tommy John surgery.
Ezequiel Astacio: The wages of postseason failure – Astacio had a solid (for a rookie) 66/25 K/BB ratio in 81 IP last year, giving hope that he could someday be an effective starter, once he cut down on that atrocious HR rate (2.6 per 9 IP). But Astacio, the last man in the Houston bullpen, melted down in the 14th inning of Game 3 of the Series after surrendering Geoff Blum’s home run, and he wasn’t the same pitcher this year in brief action, walking 6 in 5.2 IP. He’s been better at AAA Round Rock, but still with a 4.76 ERA. Astacio is now a ways from contributing again at the major league level.
(By the way, although he’s not a youth, this may be a useful point at which to look at Brad Lidge’s unraveling in 2006 in light of my post last year on closers who blow the big one in the postseason).
Brewers
JJ Hardy: Hardy struggled as much as an everyday player could possibly struggle in the first half in 2005, batting .187/.267/.293, but rebounded 180 degrees to bat .308/.503/.363 in the second half. This year, at age 23, Hardy was on a lot of lists of potential breakouts, as a guy expected to team with Prince Fielder and Rickie Weeks to anchor the Milwaukee infield for years to come, and he hit OK in April (.281/.449/.323). Instead, Hardy struggled badly in May, dropping his season numbers to .242/.398/.295 before going down for the season with ankle surgery.
(Weeks may also belong here – he performed quite well with the bat this season before his own season-ending injury, but his own glovework has been so bad, combined with a career year by Bill Hall, that the Brewers may end up sending Weeks to the outfield, making him much less valuable).
Cubs
Mark Prior: With more than 100 big league starts and an 18-win season three years ago, Prior isn’t exactly a guy trying to make it big, but he is a guy who is 25 and still looking to show some consistency. Until 2006, he had generally been healthy more tha hurt and effective even when ailing, but this year he officially crossed over into “we can only hop” status with a 7.21 ERA in 9 starts. (Kerry Wood is another story, but Wood at age 29 isn’t going to get better – the Cubs are about to bow to the inevitable and convert him permanently to the bullpen).
Ronny Cedeno: Cedeno’s just 23 and batted .300 in a very brief trial last year (80 at bats), and had projected as a guy who might hit enough (Baseball Prospectus projection: .273/.387/.320) to hold a SS job and eventually develop into an offensive contributor. Cedeno’s 2006 has been a total wipeout: .244/.329/.269, a deplorable 81/13 K/BB ratio, caught stealing in half his attempts, and a lower batting average each month (.308, .276, .234, .200, .185). You have to wonder about keeping a guy like that in the lineup.
Jerome Williams: In chaos there is opportunity, and precisely that opportunity presented itself to the onetime Giants prospect, still just 24, as the Cubs’ rotation unraveled and Williams, who posted a 3.91 ERA last year in 106 innings for the Cubs, had the chance to prove himself. Granted, his peripheral numbers weren’t all that impressive (59/45 K/BB ratio), but the chance was there. Instead, a 7.30 ERA and 11 walks in 12.1 IP got him an early ticket to Iowa, where he has been drilled to the tune of 131 hits in 98.1 IP while striking out just 45 minor leaguers.
Reds
Gary Majewski: Yes, this man was on Team USA in the World Baseball Classic after posting a 2.93 ERA in 79 games as a 25-year-old for the Nationals. Of course, the ballpark helped that, but it was still a good start. Majewski struggled with his command back in DC (25 BB in 55.1 IP) and got sent to Cinci in the Felipe Lopez multi-player deal, and then the wheels came off, with a 12.54 ERA in 11 appearances before Majewski admitted that his shoulder had been bothering him since the WBC and the Reds put him on the DL (and, hopefully, told him to get a haircut).
Brandon Claussen: 2005: 121/57 K/BB ratio in 166.2 IP, a 4.21 ERA in 29 starts, and a lot of hope for the future. 2006: A 6.19 ERA and season-ending shoulder surgery.
Pirates
Zach Duke: Duke may yet be a star, but on the way to last year’s 1.81 ERA, he struck out 6.17 men per 9 and allowed just 0.3 HR/9 (the latter being an unsustainable rate for a major league starter in the 21st century). The HR rate has gone to normal (0.7) while the K rate has dropped alarmingly (4.89), and the results have been ugly at times, including 200 hits allowed in just 165.2 IP. Unless Duke can get his strikeout rate up he will never be more than a mediocre pitcher.
Paul Maholm: Maholm is the same story as Duke – great ERA last year, mediocre one this year, and a low K rate that spells a low ceiling. Plus Maholm walks way too many batters.
Chris Duffy: Duffy’s .341 average last year in 126 at bats now looks like a Tike Redman-ish fluke, as he has batted .217/.283/.273 this season in 185 at bats.
Ryan Doumit: Hamstring injuries have limited Doumit to just 57 at bats this year after a respectable rookie campaign; Ronny Paulino took his job while he was away and has hit .312, and Doumit may now face a battle to get playing time.
Nate McLouth: Yet another Buc with the same old story – decent but unspectacular as a 2005 rookie, helpless and hurt in 2006.

Royal Numbers

It’s a good thing for Royals 3B Mark Teahen that he is having such a monster year since returning from the minors in early June, batting .333/.599/.411 and averaging 118 Runs, 112 RBI, 40 2B, 11 3B, 29 HR, 72 BB and 15 Sb per 162 games after struggling mightily since the beginning of 2005, because Royals 3B prospect Alex Gordon is having a tremendous year at AA Witchita in the Texas League, batting .318/.578/.422 and averaging 129 Runs, 108 RBI, 44 2B, 33 HR, 85 BB and 26 SB per 162 games. Which, even if you assume that Gordon still needs a bit of seasoning, puts the Royals in the unusual (for them) position of an embarrassment of riches at one position, and needing to decide which of them moves, and to where, or whether to trade one of them.

Tyranny International

Of all the world’s political prisoners, Amnesty International devotes a lengthy press release to complaining about the treatment of Saddam Hussein. Let’s look at a sampling of Amnesty’s grievances on behalf of poor, oppressed Saddam:

The first trial, which ran from 19 October 2005 to 27 July 2006, considered accusations that Saddam Hussain and seven co-defendants were responsible for the deaths of 148 people from the largely-Shi’a village of al-Dujail in 1982. . . .In the event that Saddam Hussain or any of the other accused are convicted, they are likely to be sentenced to death. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases.

Yes, Germany and Italy would have been much better off in 1947 if Hitler and Mussolini were still issuing press releases to their followers from prison.

After more than 30 years during which the right to a fair trial was routinely abused under Saddam Hussain’s government, the first trial offered a crucial opportunity for those in power in Iraq to turn a page on the past and to entrench new standards for the future, which conform to the requirements which the government of Iraq is bound by international human rights treaties and standards to uphold.

Whose government? Shouldn’t that be “allegedly routinely abused”? Or has Amnesty just done what the Iraqis and any other sane person would do, and recognize that this is not a complex whodunit but a public reckoning for crimes against humanity as to which the head of a police state’s guilt can not possibly be disputed?

The security and safety of all parties involved in the Tribunal were frequently at risk and the problem remains unresolved. Defence lawyer Sa’dun al-Janabi was killed in October 2005, during the first week of the trial, while two other defence lawyers. ‘Adil al-Zubeidi and Khamis al-Ubeidi were killed in November 2005 and June 2006 respectively.

Killed by whom? Likely, by supporters of Saddam. Anyway, justice does not grind to a halt when a nation is beset by violence. An organization purportedly dedicated to improvements in human rights ought to be the first to stand for that principle, especially since the alternative is the Mussolini/Ceaucescu treatment.

A fair trial requires independent and impartial judges. . . . Judge Sayeed al-Hamashi . . . was . . . ruled ineligible through the intervention of the De-Ba’athification Commission established to exclude former members of the Ba’ath Party from public office. The impartiality of Judge Ra’uf Rashid ‘Abdul Rahman, who presided over the subsequent stages of the trial, was questioned by the defendants on the grounds that he had opposed Saddam Hussein’s government and comes from Halabja, where thousands of Iraqi Kurds were killed in a gas attack by Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1988.

Well, given that Saddam had control over the nation for decades, he can hardly complain that people he terrorized now sit in judgment of him. And how is it a violation of a fair trial to remove a former Ba’athist from the bench in a trial of his former boss?

Although Saddam Hussein was arrested in December 2003, he did not have access to his lawyers until 16 December 2004.

Cry me a river.

The tribunal also appears to have failed adequately to investigate allegations of torture and ill-treatment by the defendants. For example, on 13 March 2006 Taha Yassin Ramadhan, former Iraqi vice-president, alleged that he had been beaten and subjected to sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and forced positions during interrogation following his arrest in August 2003, but the tribunal is not known to have ordered an investigation. If there was one, its results have not been made public.

What, nobody cut out his tongue? First of all, bogus claims of maltreatment are classic stall/diversion tactic. Second, unless the prosecution was introducing evidence beaten out of Ramandhan, this has nothing to do with the fairness of the trial. And third, of all people these guys have no standing to complain.

The defence team repeatedly claimed that the Prosecution introduced to the court evidence that had not been provided to the defendants beforehand, thereby preventing them from preparing a proper defence.

Let me repeat: They ran the country. For decades. They knew everything that happened.
Amnesty demands

the independence and impartiality of the court, including by making provision for the participation of international judges and an enhanced role for international advisers and observers from diverse backgrounds who have demonstrated experience and skills in trials of crimes under international law.

No. We saw what happened with Milosevic; the goal is not for Saddam to die of old age at the defense table, in a nice suit surrounded by mouthpieces. He deserves the gallows, and the gallows he will get. The Iraqi people suffered under Saddam, and they deserve to try him.
But wait – there’s more! Because while Amnesty is wasting its tears on poor Saddam, it’s also busy at work accusing Israel of war crimes:

Amnesty International on Wednesday accused Israel of war crimes, saying it broke international law by deliberately destroying Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure during its recent war with Hezbollah guerrillas.
The human rights group said initial evidence, including the pattern and scope of the Israeli attacks, number of civilian casualties, widespread damage and statements by Israeli officials “indicate that such destruction was deliberate and part of a military strategy, rather than ‘collateral damage.”‘

The Ap report notes dryly, “Amnesty International said it would address Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel separately.” I won’t hold my breath. Of course, it should go without saying that you could not begin to address Israel’s tactics without addressing where Hezbollah located its troops and weapons, or – specifically – the fact that incurring civilian casualties was virtually the entirety of Hezbollah’s strategy.

A Conflict of Interest?

Judicial Watch argues that Judge Anna Diggs Taylor had a conflict of interest in the NSA surveillance case because (1) one of the plaintiffs was the ACLU, (2) Judge Taylor is a Trustee of an organization that donated tens of thousands of dollars to the ACLU, and (3) the organization states that its donations are approved by its Trustees, thus indicating that Judge Taylor was personally involved in directing resources to the very advocacy group that came before her.
Clearly, this was an issue that Judge Taylor should have disclosed to the parties (as even a NY Times article quoting liberal legal ethics scholar Stephen Gillers concedes), but Orin Kerr and Patterico are less than impressed by the charge.
This is, I should stress, not a financial conflict – Judge Taylor’s finances are unaffected by this case, as are those of the organization for which she is a trustee. The question is one of impartiality – can the judge be impartial, or would a litigant expect a fair hearing, where the case is advocacy litigation brpught by an advocacy group financially supported by the judge? Now, I tend towards the view that legal ethics standards shouldn’t be unrealistic; judges live in the real world, they have opinions, and they do not come to the bench as a blank slate. The real question is, if you knew nothing else about this judge’s background and hadn’t had any proceedings yet before her, would you want a different judge if you discovered this connection to one of the parties? I think, were I the government, I might have. But much would depend on the facts – if the donation is one of many and not a large proportion of the organization’s budget, it doesn’t necessarily say a lot about the judge’s views, whereas if she is helping steer a major proportion of the group’s funds to promote the ACLU’s mission, that’s rather a different story.
(This is one way in which the whole absurd Vanguard-Alito flap was obviously ridiculous – given the minuscule and attenuated nature of then-Judge Alito’s interest in Vanguard, no reasonable person would have cared unless they already had some other reason to want him off the case. The kerfuffle over Justice Scalia going hunting with Dick Cheney is perhaps a bit closer, but the recusal standards for Supreme Court Justices have to recognize that most of them have ties to major players in DC politics).
Anyway, this is hardly a serious sin, but it’s not a frivolous issue, either. (More serious is Judge Taylor’s record of interference in the Michigan affirmative action cases when her husband was a regent of the University and thus effectively a party to the case).
UPDATE: The New York Times (!) agrees.

Leaks and the Espionage Act

A new decision on the Espionage Act clarifies the government’s ability to prosecute leaks relating to national security, but also places a new limitation on such prosecutions where they are based upon oral disclosures rather than leaked documents – a distinction that does not make a ton of policy sense – and also limits prosecutions for leaks that merely benefit non-hostile governments. Bear with me as I explain why.
I have written extensively before on the Espionage Act (18 U.S.C. 793) here, here, here and here. Basically – and you can get the details in my earlier posts – the statute prohibits anyone (whether or not they have security clearance or other authorization to learn classified information) from (1) willfully disclosing (2) information relating to the national defense (3) to those not authorized to receive it (4) while having reason to believe that the disclosure of such information could be used to injure the United States or aid some foreign power. As I have argued before, the willfulness requirement means that the government, in an Espionage Act prosecution, must prove that the “leaker” knew that he or she was acting unlawfully; the statute is not a strict-liability rule for inadvertent leaks or bad judgment.
The Espionage Act has been much discussed of late for two reasons. Some on the Left have argued that it should have been used against Karl Rove and others if they were involved in disclosing Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA employee; I have argued, and the absence of a indictment on these grounds has borne out my observations, that it was unlikely that there was sufficient evidence to show that Plame’s status was information relating to the national defense that could be expected to harm national security and – most particularly – sufficient evidence to show that anyone involved in disclosing her name thought they were acting unlawfully.
On the Right, the Espionage Act has been argued as a basis for prosecuting those government officials who have leaked the details of secret programs central to the War on Terror (the NSA surveillance program and associated data-mining operations, the existence of supposed “secret CIA prisons”, the program to track international bank transfers) and, possibly, as a basis for prosecuting the New York Times and its reporters for publishing such leaked secrets, knowing they were classified information critical to the war effort and – in some cases – knowing that the Executive Branch was strenuously objecting to publication.
In such circumstances, then, the scope and applicability of the Espionage Act is of great importance. Which is why a recent opinion from the Eastern District of Virginia in United States v. Rosen is interesting. The defendants in Rosen are former AIPAC officials (i.e., lobbyists for pro-Israel positions) who allegedly obtained leaked intelligence of varying types, including draft U.S. policy documents, intelligence about Al Qaeda, and intelligence about potential attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, from Defense Department official Larry Franklin and passed such information on to foreign government officials (apparently from Israel) and members of the media, among others. Franklin has pleaded guilty, but the two remaining defendants, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, challenged the indictment on several grounds, all of which were rejected.

Continue reading Leaks and the Espionage Act

Green to the Mets?

I’m sort of OK but not thrilled with the Mets getting Shawn Green, which is widely reported but not yet confirmed. Obviously, Green is expensive (he’s owed $9.5 million next year plus a $2 million buyout for 2008, and for that kind of money you might as well just suck it up and get someone like Abreu).
Money aside, he’s really no better than Xavier Nady at best at this stage, although he’s a little more patient at the plate. And who knows? By October, Lastings Milledge could be on a tear – he’s that kind of talent. But there’s also a substantial risk that Milledge could be in a .210-with-no-walks type of funk, and when combined with Floyd’s health you can’t risk going into October with nothing but Milledge, Chavez, Tucker and Ledee as your corner OF options. Hopefully, the D-backs are eating a good chunk of Green’s 2007 salary, so this deal doesn’t constrict the Mets’ financial flexibility. If the money’s not a problem, the deal is OK.

Oakland Twins

How’s this for identical pitching lines (except for the walks)?

Pitcher W L PCT G GS SV IP H R ER HR BB K ERA
A 13 8 .619 27 27 0 174.2 166 76 73 22 75 122 3.76
B 12 9 .571 27 27 0 180.1 174 79 76 23 36 142 3.79

A is Barry Zito, and B is his teammate Dan Haren. Zito is defying the usual rule that K/BB/HR rates are the biggest determinant of ERA, but then there’s some reason to believe that his big sweeping curveball may make him more effective on balls in play. The bigger lesson here is that Haren is really on the verge of something big if he can ever cut his HR rate a little.

Even The Taxman Has Limits

In a decision handed down today by the DC Circuit and authored by onetime Reagan Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg (and joined, FWIW, by Judges Janice Rogers Brown and Judith Rogers), the court in Murphy v. IRS concluded that taxation of an award of compensatory damages for emotional distress and loss of reputation is unconstitutional because such restitution, unlike compensation for lost wages (which replaces taxable income), is not “income” within the meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment and thus is beyond the federal government’s enumerated power to tax. (H/T Bashman).
The Sixteenth Amendment, adopted in 1913 after 19th century Supreme Court decisions striking down the income tax, provides:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

The Murphy decision is somewhat limited in scope, given the broad definitions of “income” previously adopted by the Supreme Court in defining the scope of the Sixteenth Amendment:

When it first construed [the term “incomes” in the Sixteenth Amendment] in Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189, 207 (1920), the Supreme Court held the taxing power extended to any “gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined.” Later, after explaining that Eisner was not “meant to provide a touchstone to all future gross income questions,” the Court added that under the [Tax Code] — and, by implication, under the Sixteenth Amendment — the Congress may “tax all gains” or “accessions to wealth.” Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co., 348 U.S. 426, 430-31 (1955).

Slip op. at 10. As the court notes, the exception to that rule is where gains constitute “a restoration of capital.” Id. This decision is, to some extent, merely an application of the exception, although the court does spend a good deal of effort examining the 1913-era understanding of “income” and compensatory damages by examining contemporaneous legislation and court decisions. Slip op. at 18-23. Nonetheless, it is heartening to see a court take seriously the principle of enumerated powers with regard to federal legislation:

At the outset, we reject the Government’s breathtakingly expansive claim of congressional power under the Sixteenth Amendment — upon which it founds the more far-reaching arguments it advances here. The Sixteenth Amendment simply does not authorize the Congress to tax as “incomes” every sort of revenue a taxpayer may receive. As the Supreme Court noted long ago, the “Congress cannot make a thing income which is not so in fact.” Burk-Waggoner Oil Ass’n v. Hopkins, 269 U.S. 110, 114 (1925). Indeed, because the “the power to tax involves the power to destroy,” McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 431 (1819), it would not be consistent with our constitutional government, and the sanctity of property in our system, merely to rely upon the legislature to decide what constitutes income.

Slip op. at 15. Orin Kerr thinks the Supreme Court will end up taking this one if asked to do so.
UPDATE: Marty Lederman asks some interesting questions about whether there was pre-existing authority for this particular tax outside of the 16th Amendment. Not being versed in the pre-1913 caselaw, I couldn’t say; it would appear that neither the government nor the court considered that possibility.

Who’s Your Papi Now?

Well, yesterday afternoon had to be the coup de grace for the Red Sox. The Sox remain pretty close to the top of the AL in runs scored, so despite the failures of Coco Crisp and the injury to Varitek, the offense really can’t take much of the blame here.
Boston started the season with a projected 5-man rotation of Schilling, Beckett, Clement, Wakefield and Wells. Schilling hasn’t quite been the Schilling of old, but given his age and injuries he’s done about as well as could be expected (14-5, 3.84 ERA) and Wakefield was pitching in typical Wake style until he got hurt. And rookie Jon Lester (6-2, 4.72) has pitched some great games, albeit without the consistency of a more experienced pitcher.
The problem has been the rest of the rotation. In 45 starts, Beckett, Clement and Wells have gone a combined 20-16 with a 5.67 ERA, averaging just 5.8 innings per start, 1.67 HR/9 and 1.47 baserunners per inning. Now, the Sox knew going in that Wells was a gamble, but they had reasonably depended on Clement to be halfway decent and Beckett to step up and shine.
The other five starters – Josh Jason Johnson, Lenny DiNardo, Kyle Snyder, David Pauley and Kason Gabbard – are people the Sox never envisioned having to start this season, and they have sealed the team’s doom: 3-11 in 19 starts, just 4.8 IP/start, a 7.00 ERA, and a staggering 1.92 baserunners per inning.
Like the Yankees’ acquisition of Abreu and Lidle, there’s nothing more complicated to Boston’s collapse than that – the starting pitching just isn’t there. The bullpen has been thin all year (Rudy Seanez and Julian Tavarez being unreliable), but with better starters they wouldn’t have had to lean so hard on a couple of guys.

The Difference Maker

Yankees through July 31: 61-41 (.598), scoring 5.59 Runs/Game, allowing 4.80 Runs/Game.
Yankees August 1-20: 13-7 (.650), 6.15 Runs/Game, allowing 4.50 Runs/Game.
The difference: Bobby Abreu, batting .397/.526/.500 and scoring 113 runs per 162 games; Cory Lidle, 3.86 ERA in 3 starts. It really is as simple as that. Abreu, now second in the majors in OBP, batted .529/.706/.652 in this weekend’s demolition of the Red Sox. Apparently Abreu didn’t get the memo about how he wasn’t supposed to be a big-game player.

Un-Aced

I don’t really know what else to say at this point about the dire situation the Mets face in October if they can’t get Pedro and Glavine healthy. Matt Cerrone has the grim outlook. But let’s think about it this way: if the season ended today, the Mets would face the Reds in the NLDS, with the Cardinals facing the Dodgers. If Pedro but not Glavine is available, the matchups would be something like this:
Game 1: Pedro vs. Bronson Arroyo. Significant advantage: Mets.
Game 2: El Duque vs. Aaron Harang. Harang’s been better two years running, but I’d feel OK about this matchup given the Mets’ offense. Glavine vs. Harang would be much better.
Game 3: Trachsel vs. Eric Milton. Tie on your hittin’ shoes, boys, this is gonna be a long night. Advantage Mets solely on the basis of their offense.
Game 4: Maine vs. … Elizardo Ramirez? Kyle Lohse? Anyway, someone I would trust significantly less than John Maine.
Game 5: Pedro/Arroyo again.
How about the other two NL teams? The Cards have Carpenter, whose odds of staying healthy through October are similar to Pedro’s. Beyond him, though, Mulder has been injured and ineffective, Jason Marquis has a 5.70 ERA and Jeff Suppan a 5.03 and Jeff Weaver 6.07 – none of those guys looks much better than Trachsel. Young Anthony Reyes, with less big-league experience than Maine, may be their #2, and their offense has all sorts of cavities.
The Dodgers are another story, with Brad Penny apparently healthy for the moment, Derek Lowe in a second-half groove, and Greg Maddux having righted the ship since arriving in LA, plus a good if likely unsustainable ERA from wild rookie Chad Billingsley (much like Maine and Reyes, Billingsley has all of 12 big-league starts to his name). Even Aaron Sele has, inexplicably, not been awful. I don’t like the Dodgers’ rotation all that much, and a healthy Pedro-Glavine would match the Mets up with them fairly well, but right now they are the only team on the NL playoff slate that really puts the Mets in a hole even if they go with Pedro + grab bag.
Of course, the World Series is another matter.
UPDATE: Of course, Oliver Perez flirting with a no-hitter in AAA is good news, and makes some of his peripheral stats at Norfolk halfway respectable, but I’m not ready yet to trust Perez with a significant assignment. On the other hand, the performance of Dave Williams underscores the wisdom of his acquisition – not that he will ever be better than mediocre, but he’s the kind of guy it helps to have hanging around AAA when you are desperately short of starters and want to avoid Lima Time.

Romney Profile

Interesting Mitt Romney profile from the Boston Globe, focusing on the ways in which Romney’s approach bears the scars of the gaffe that destroyed his father’s presidential aspirations. Of course, there’s a real contrast in the 2008 GOP race between Romney (who is rarely unscripted) and George Allen (who shouldn’t go unscripted) on the one hand, and Rudy, McCain and Newt, all of whom can be at their best when riffing off the top of their heads. It’s gonna be an interesting race, regardless of which mix of potential candidates actually end up running viable campaigns.
Reading this part, one is amazed that Romney isn’t more strongly pro-life:

Mitt was a miracle baby. George and Lenore Romney had two girls and a boy, and the doctors had told Lenore she could not carry another. The couple put in papers to adopt a baby from Switzerland. But while the family was vacationing in the Dakotas, Lenore learned she was pregnant, recalls Jane Romney, who was about 9 years old at the time. “Mother was hospitalized immediately. I remember my father’s face – the worry and concern,” Jane says. “I hadn’t seen that before.” Imagine, then, the rejoicing that took place when Mitt was born and Mother was healthy.

I also didn’t know Romney had a law degree.

The Mustache Did It!

Maxim’s look at 10 great baseball mustaches, at least in the modern era (the 1880s was an earlier golden age for facial hair). A few quick thoughts:
*They probably should have included at least one black and/or Latino player. What, Jose Valentin wasn’t available? Or how about this valiant effort to link mustache and sideburns?
ozzie-smith.jpg
*Doesn’t that picture of Al Hrabosky make him look – otehr than the facial hair – like Will Ferrell?
*Actually, Keith Hernandez did shave the mustache in 1987, leading to him having the “phantom mustache” effect, where it’s gone but you keep thinking it’s there. Keith didn’t stay clean-shaven long enough for this effect to wear off.

The NSA Decision: Judging Without Facts or Law

Today, at the instigation of the ACLU, CAIR, Greenpeace, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and a number of individual plaintiffs (including, most dishearteningly, Christopher Hitchens), Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan – a Jimmy Carter appointee – issued a permanent injunction halting the use of the NSA’s Al Qaeda surveillance program that was disclosed to the public by the New York Times in December. Judge Taylor’s opinion reads like a parody of bad judicial reasoning. The self-appointed legal solons of the Left will have to work long and hard to compose the straight face to dress up this opinion as anything but a travesty of the judicial process. In the meantime, Judge Taylor’s decision unambiguously does two things: it reinforces the importance of appointing good conservative judges, and it demonstrates the damage already done to our security by the Times‘s unauthorized disclosure of the NSA program.
Read on

Continue reading The NSA Decision: Judging Without Facts or Law

Trust But Don’t Dare Verify

From the WaPo on Hezbollah’s latest negotiating strategy:

The makings of a compromise emerged from all-day meetings in Beirut, according to senior officials involved in the negotiations, and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora scheduled a cabinet session Wednesday for what he hoped would be formal approval of the deal. Hezbollah indicated it would be willing to pull back its fighters and weapons in exchange for a promise from the army not to probe too carefully for underground bunkers and weapons caches, the officials said.

I regard the cease-fire as a wonderful arrangement in theory – if we really could get the Lebanese to take control, that would be preferable to having the Israelis do the job and possibly break Lebanon’s democracy and tenuous independence from Syria beyond repair in the process – but utterly impractical in light of the facts on the ground. I don’t buy the optimistic scenario that says that this is all an Israeli plan to resume hostilities on better terms, but, basically, Olmert screwed up and suffered some bad PR, resulting in squandering his foreign diplomatic and domestic political capital in record time. If the UN cease fire breaks down quickly – or, more accurately, if it is widely and publicly recognized as doing so – then Israel may have the wind of a UN resolution at its back to re-start hostilities.
More here (via RCP) and here from pessimists on what Olmert hath wrought (though Glick and Podhoretz disagree on how well Hezbollah comes out of this).

Silly Ned

Governments aren’t businesses. They’re governments.
The Wall Street Journal humors Ned Lamont with some prime op-ed space to make his case to business-minded voters, with unintentionally hilarious results. Here’s his #1 “lesson” he draws from his experience in business:

[E]ntrepreneurs are frugal beasts, because the bottom line means everything. In Connecticut, voters are convinced that Washington has utterly lost touch with fiscal reality. We talked about irresponsible budget policies that have driven the annual federal deficit above $300 billion and the debt ceiling to $9 trillion. Meanwhile, the government is spending $250 million a day on an unprovoked war in Iraq while starving needed social investment at home. I am a fiscal conservative and our people want their government to be sparing and sensible with their tax dollars.

Let’s say you owned a bank, and you noticed that the bank’s security guards were costing money, and weren’t bringing any revenue into the bank. Would you fire them on the theory that “the bottom line means everything”? Maybe Ned Lamont would. But to the rest of us, the bank’s security guards are there to protect the parts of the bank that make the money. This is one reason why the obsession with equating deficits to private businesses or households is so silly – there are reasons, yes, why it is preferable not to run deficits, but the idea that government should be run with an eye to its own bottom line is not one of them. The purpose of government is to protect the rest of society, enabling private citizens to make money and do all the other good things of life. Once you treat government like an enterprise with value and profit motives unto itself, you head down a very dark path.

Ripples of Battle

Over my recent vacation I finally caught up to reading Victor Davis Hanson’s 2003 book Ripples of Battle: How Wars of the Past Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live, and How We Think. Though I was intimately familiar with Hanson’s work from his National Review Online columns, this was my first introduction to his books, of which he has written many, several of them examining his thesis that Western Civilization has a distinctive “Western way of war” whose superiority is not coincidental to but rather determined by the liberal aspects of Western culture – individual freedom and initiative, free thought, free markets – that combine to produce superior technology, superior tactics, and the flexible, fast-adapting soldiers who can use them.
I highly recommend “Ripples of Battle.” What Hanson does in the book – a brisk, page-turning 258 pages in paperback – is to look at three battles of the past – Okinawa, from World War II in the Pacific; the Civil War battle of Shiloh, Tennessee; and Delium, a battle between the ancient Athenians and Boetians (a region led by Thebes) – and examine the many impacts of the battle. What is unique about Hanson’s analysis is that he mainly focuses on effects other than just the battle’s strategic impact on a particular war, although Shiloh in particular was a pivotal battle by that reckoning. Instead, he works through the myriad other marks left by the battle. He starts with the shattering effects of Okinawa on his own family as a result of the death of his father’s cousin and his namesake, Victor Hanson, and expands to examine the death of journalist Ernie Pyle at Okinawa and the loss of the men of an entire town, Thespiae, on the winning side at Delium. This contrasts with the legacy of ordinary infantrymen who survived, most particularly Socrates, who fought at Delium. Left unsaid is how many others who had as much to give humanity as Socrates perished in these and other battles. Hanson contrasts the military and political careers raised up by these battles – Grant, Sherman, and Nathan Bedford Forrest at Shiloh, Alcibiades at Delium – with those who were slain or ruined, like Simon Bolivar Buckner at Okinawa, and Albert Sidney Johnston and Lew Wallace at Shiloh. Hanson shows how the later careers of these men left many marks – on the decline and fall of Athens, the rise of the American popular novel, the growth of the Klu Klux Klan, and the development of modern total war as a two-pronged strategy of attrition of men and destruction of economic infrastructure.
The most relevant parts of the book, to the 21st century reader, are in Hanson’s analysis (written against the backdrop of 9/11, but before the unfolding of the post-conquest insurgency in Iraq) of the kamikaze attacks at Okinawa – how they arose (not always voluntarily, as with today’s suicide bombers), how the Americans fought and defeated them, how weak was their military impact, and yet how strong their long-term impact in two ways: because they were critical to convincing American war planners (along with the general to-the-last-soldier-and-civilian defense of Okinawa) that Japanese fanatacism required the use of the atomic bomb to prevent a staggering bloodbath of an invasion of the mainland, and because they showed weaker or technologically backward forces the world over that suicide attacks could help level the playing field against the superior Western way of war. Hanson makes the persuasive case that Hiroshima and Nagasaki can not possibly be understood without Okinawa, and ties it to his larger theme that suicide attacks tend to make the Western response only more deadly by weakening our moral scruples about unleashing the deadly power of the West to lay waste to its enemies.
Hanson’s writing style is, as always, bracing and eloquent. He tells impossibly exciting stories, such as the superhuman bravery and only-in-Hollywood (you would think) escapes from death of Sherman and Forrest at Shiloh, yet he doesn’t romanticize or glorify war; he sets the tone of the book by mourning the loss of Victor Handon, and along the way savages General Buckner’s battle plan on Okinawa, highlights the blunders of both sides at Shiloh, and argues that Delium was basically an unnecessary and pointless battle. I learned a lot from this book – among others, about the orgins of military tactics, the career of Wallace (who wrote Ben-Hur as part of his campaign to salvage his reputation in the decades after Shiloh), and the coalition politics of Greek armies (in which is contained an implicit lesson about multilateral command structures: Hanson notes that the Thespians perished in such great numbers precisely because their more powerful coalition partners chose for them a particularly vulnerable section of the battle line. Coalition-style forces are also shown to fail in his account of the diffuse command structure of the Confederate Army before and after Shiloh).
The book is not without flaws. The coda, tying the lessons of these battles to the post-September 11 world, will sound familiar to readers of Hanson’s columns, but seems artificially forced and tacked-on. Hanson doesn’t trace all the battles’ ripples explicitly; for example, because of its effects on the careers of Grant, Sherman, Garfield and others, Shiloh can probably be singled out as the moment when the Ohio Republican party became a dominant force in American politics, as it would remain for many decades afterwards. His discussion of Delium’s impact on the career of Socrates spends too much time hammering home the point that Socrates’ career after the battle was the source of his impact on Western civilization (Hanson also argues that his heroism in battle – contrasted to the capture of Plato’s stepfather – may have made Socrates a particularly attractive role model to Plato), but even for all that counterfactual speculation he only glancingly discusses what effect the battle itself may have had on Socrates’ own thinking, which Hanson suggests took a turn from a focus on natural science to moral philosophy after Delium. Also, he mentions that the only account of Socrates written by someone who knew him before Delium is a brutal satire by Aristophanes that was presented a year after the battle – but he misses the obvious point that even that account would likely have been lost to history because Aristophanes is unlikely to have put on a play lampooning a man recently killed in battle defending the city.
Nonetheless, it’s a tremendous read, and one of continuing relevance in a world still feeling the effects of battles as ancient as Delium and as recent as southern Lebanon.

Abuse of Office Claims Yet Another NJ Democrat

Jon Corzine’s Attorney General resigns “after a state investigation found that she had violated her own department’s code of ethics by going to the aid of her live-in companion during a traffic stop.”. This is not to be confused with Bob Torricelli’s shady use of his Senate office, or Jim McGreevey giving his lover a state job for which he was unqualified, or Corzine himself having an affair with the head of a key state employees’ union and paying her off to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars.
“Culture of Corruption,” anyone?

The Ugly Underbelly Of An Emotional Topic

Hello again. This piece below probably won’t seem too controversial in this forum. In fact, I suspect it’ll summarize the opinions of a lot of Crank’s readers. Nonetheless, I put it up on my site early last week after observing an alarming trend on both the left & right extremes of the blogosphere. On my blog I labeled it “We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming,” because I tend to cover things from a humorous/entertaining angle, but I felt I had to do what I had to do. Here it is, in it’s entirety (one or two minor edits for grammar/spelling):

I promised myself a few weeks back I wouldn’t post on the current situation in Israel/Lebanon. And I’m sticking to my guns: too emotional, no resolution, no chance for people to see past their ideology; no opportunity for entertainment.

That said, I want to weigh in briefly on something that’s been more than bugging me: a creeping, metastacizing anti-semitism in otherwise neutral blogs. Mostly from commenters, but from the authors themselves at times. I’m not talking about criticizing Israel’s current policy, and I’m not even talking about writers against Israel in the big picture. I certainly don’t mean commentators who question Israel’s role in US foreign policy, and I don’t overly scrutinize authors who wish to hold Israel to normal levels of accountability.

No. What I’m talking about are folks who need to say “Zionists” or “Jews” in place of “Israelis.” Or people who can’t stop saying “Neo-Con” when they actually mean “Republican” or “The Administration.” Which says nothing about the growing hoards obsessed with the “Jewish make-up” of the “Neo-Cons.” You know what I mean; the writers who need to allude at all times to Wolfowitz or Perle, but seem to conveniently forget that “Quayle,” “Fukuyama,” “Rice” and others fit well within the “Neo-Con” group as defined by the PNAC.

Other symptoms of which I speak: obsession with “AIPAC control” of the US government. The over-representation of Jews in the media, among the roll of US billionaires, in the financial world. The way that Jews will ultimately “support Israel over the US,” or “send American boys” to do Israel’s dirty work in the Middle East. Anyone who frequents the left or right reaches of the blogosphere knows what I’m talking about. For those of you not familiar, let me assure you: while not directly quoting, every phrase I’ve included so far is a faithful paraphrase of multiple posts I’ve read. And these sentiments are anything but rare.

I’ll admit that beyond massive disappointment (and a small dose of fear), I’m mostly surprised at this. And I feel like an idiot for being surprised. I’ve long taken pride in my historical perspective on events, for always viewing events through a skeptical (some would say, cynical) lens. I know as well as any Jew the history of anti-semitism, of it’s roots, its manifestations, its effects.

And, despite all that, I thought that the United States in 2006 was different. I honestly believed that the European left, the European ultra-right nationalists were capable of discussing what I’ve been reading. But I thought that in America, our faults notwithstanding, we’d moved beyond the most base forms of ethnic hatred, of racism. That these ugly phenomena had been “Americanized,” turned into tools of economics, of marketing, of cultural compartmentalization.

Maybe I was right in that regard. Maybe, like so many otherwise well-intentioned people will tell me, I’m just paranoid.

But maybe I’m not. And I firmly believe that the final line from propaganda-to-action is shorter than that initial road from open mindedness-to-fear. Yes, you’re following my point. As said, I harbor a small amount of concern.

Nevertheless, even for those who think that America is just exercizing some well-needed analysis of Israel’s role in US policy, I think they need to admit to themselves that an ugly underbelly has been exposed for the first time in a while. First time in my life, and I’ve been politically/culturally sentient for three decades or so.

Now I know there are those who’ll tell me that this element is always there. They’ve always been there. Just ignore them. They’re the lunatic fringe. I hear you, you’re right, they’ve always been there. But what’s blowing me away lately is how they’ve all crawled out from under their rocks, and have started to speak. To yell. To pontificate.

And not only are they rarely called out onto the carpet for this by the rank-and-file in the cyber-community, but they’re often encouraged. It’s become a rather popular rallying cry among disparate communities of commentators. And it has me stunned.

I’m gonna keep my eyes and ears open. I wish I didn’t have to. But, as I said, I know my history, and any Jew who chooses to pretend he doesn’t at least recognize what he’s seeing is a fool. And any American who chooses to see otherwise is fooling himself as well.