Month: September 2004

The Bush National Guard Document Forgeries: A Lone Typist or a Massive Conspiracy?

Conspiracy theorists like to say something like this about JFK’s murder: “How could a loony left-winger like Lee Harvey Oswald have pulled off the murder of the century by himself? He must have had outside help. It was really a right-wing plot, and Oswald was just the patsy.”

Well, conspiracy theorists will be trotting out a similar line if it turns out that the perpetrator of the Bush National Guard document forgeries was one Bill Burkett. Today’s Washington Post reports this:

Documents allegedly written by a deceased officer that raised questions about President Bush’s service with the Texas Air National Guard bore markings showing they had been faxed to CBS News from a Kinko’s copy shop in Abilene, Tex., according to another former Guard officer who was shown the records by the network.

The markings provide one piece of evidence suggesting a source for the documents, whose authenticity has been hotly disputed since CBS aired them in a “60 Minutes” broadcast Sept. 8. The network has declined to name the person who provided them, saying the source was confidential, or to explain how the documents came to light after more than three decades.

There is only one Kinko’s in Abilene, and it is 21 miles from the Baird, Tex., home of retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, who has been named by several news outlets as a possible source for the documents….

Who is Bill Burkett? Kevin Drum, writing way back on February 15 of this year, offers a sympathetic view:

Former Lt. Colonel Bill Burkett says that members of George Bush’s staff, along with senior officers at Texas National Guard Headquarters, purged Bush’s National Guard files of potentially embarrassing material back in 1997. Is his story true?…

To judge the truth of Burkett’s story, then, all we can do is ask certain questions: Is Burkett’s story internally consistent? Has it stayed consistent over time? Do other people corroborate it? Does Burkett have a track record of telling the truth? Does he have any axes to grind?….

….as far as I can tell it’s internally consistent. No part of his story seems to be directly contradicted by any other part….

Has his story stayed consistent over time?

Mostly yes, although the story here is mixed….

Do other people corroborate Burkett’s story? Other evidence?

Generally yes….

Does Burkett have a track record of telling the truth?

In 1997 Burkett discovered that there were “ghost soldiers” in the Texas Guard, soldiers who were still carried on the rolls even though they never showed up for drill and weren’t being paid. He tried unsuccessfully to blow the whistle on this and stop the practice.

In late 2001, Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard of USA Today finished a lengthy investigation into the problem of ghost soldiers nationwide and published a 3-part story about it. Moniz told me that everything Burkett had told him had checked out and that several other people with no axe to grind find Burkett to be believable as well.

In addition to Moniz, Jim Moore, a longtime Texas reporter who has interviewed Burkett extensively for a forthcoming book, emailed me that he found Burkett “immensely credible.”

Does Burkett have an axe to grind?

This is the weakest link in Burkett’s story: he has a huge axe to grind, and so do the people who have corroborated his story.

Here’s what seems to have happened. Burkett uncovered the “ghost soldiers” problem in 1997 and tried unsuccessfully to get anyone to take it seriously. Then, in January 1998, after a trip to Panama for the Army, he collapsed in the Abilene airport and became seriously ill. For several months he was denied medical attention by the military and he blames this on retaliation from Bush aides who thought he was a troublemaker for pushing the ghost soldiers investigation.

All three people who have corroborated Burkett’s story are also people who got involved in trying to get him medical care, and all three were eventually either court martialed or otherwise removed from the Guard — possibly because of their parts in this. So they potentially have axes to grind as well.

And it gets worse. Burkett’s illness seemed life threatening at the time and he was apparently panicked by it. In an effort to get the medical attention he wanted, he says he called Bush’s office and talked to Dan Bartlett. During that conversation he came very close to threatening extortion over Bush’s file cleansing unless he got the medical help he needed. Burkett says now, “I was probably out of line in a way and yet I will tell you now that I was begging for what I at that point considered life saving help.”

According to Burkett, Conn was part of this as well. He was removed from the Guard in 1998 after officials discovered he had sent an email to Burkett advising him that in order to get medical help he might have to “play the card at the governor’s office.” In other words, threaten to go public with the file cleansing charges.

Needless to say, this provides plenty of evidence that Burkett might simply be a disgruntled guy who didn’t get some medical attention he thought he deserved and blamed it on retaliation from Bush. And it doesn’t help that he’s virtually admitted to extorting Dan Bartlett over this.

Conclusion

In summary, Burkett’s story is consistent; it has mostly stayed consistent over time; it’s been corroborated by his witnesses; it’s been corroborated by outside sources; his previous story about “ghost soldiers” has been found to be true; and he’s apparently considered pretty reliable by several people not associated with him.

On the other hand, he also has a big axe to grind. But whistleblowers often do, and while it’s important to keep motives in mind it’s more important to consider the actual evidence at hand. In this case, it supports his story….

Postscript

At the same time, it’s not clear to me that this story is going anywhere. Even if it’s true, Burkett is the only person making the charge. The others are merely corroborating that he told them about it back in 1997. They didn’t see it themselves.

Unless other actual eyewitnesses come forward to confirm Burkett’s account, it’s just his word against everyone else….

Kevin Drum is bending over backward to put Burkett in a favorable light, but even Drum has to admit some crucial facts: Burkett has a huge axe to grind. Burkett’s story isn’t corroborated by anyone else — merely his storytelling is corroborated. And those who corroborate his storytelling also have an axe to grind.

Now, what Drum doesn’t say in the piece I’ve quoted from is that Burkett also happens to be a rather extreme lefty. The axe he’s grinding isn’t just personal, it’s also political. Let’s turn now to Michael Friedman, writing on February 17:

As Kevin Drum explains in an exhaustively researched post, Burkett has a major axe to grind – he blames Bush for the military denying him medical care during an illness in 1998.

However, there is another reason to be skeptical about Burkett. Burkett has strongly held loony left political views. He has written numerous articles espousing his positions and clearly wishes to sway the electorate. This gives him another obvious motive to lie about Bush’s National Guard files….[Excerpts and links follow — truly loony, Michael Moor-ish stuff, and worse: ED]

The issue here is not that Bill Burkett is a liberal. It isn’t even that he is left wing. The issue is that he is loony left. We are in “precious bodily fluids” territory. I’m not calling Burkett a Democrat because I think he is too far left to be a Democrat. This is the left wing version of the John Birch Society.

Not only are Bill Burkett’s politics loony left but he is trying to be a political player, writing editorials and trying to sway the American people against George Bush and the Republican Party….

If Burkett is involved in the forgeries, did he create them himself or did he have help? Who saw to it that the forgeries got into the hands of CBS News? Burkett or other parties? There may well more people behind this than Burkett or someone like him. On the other hand, Dan Rather seems desperate to defeat George Bush. In his desperation he might have latched onto Burkett, in spite of Burkett’s notoriety as a loony Bush-hater — or perhaps because of that.

Dan Rather, having done all he could to push the story, now seems ready to abandon it, according to a story in today’s Washington Post:

CBS anchor Dan Rather acknowledged for the first time yesterday that there are serious questions about the authenticity of the documents he used to question President Bush’s National Guard record last week on “60 Minutes.”

“If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I’d like to break that story,” Rather said in an interview last night. “Any time I’m wrong, I want to be right out front and say, ‘Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.’ “…

Well, Dan, you’re too late. Hundreds of people were ahead of you — and it all started in the blogosphere. Hang ’em up, Dan.

Memo to CBS News: Quit While You’re Behind

CBS News’s latest attempt to cover up its big boo-boo on Bush’s National Guard records (see previous post) has driven up the price on Bush’s re-election at TradeSports.com.

A Bulletin from CBS News

From Drudge:

Statement by the President of CBS News, Andrew Heyward:

“We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal of coroborating [sic] evidence from people in a position to know. Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that’s what we are doing.”

What exactly is it you’re doing? Finding more “experts”? Trying to get some “experts” to retract the damaging things they’ve said? Forging — oops, finding — more corroborating [non-sic] evidence? Asking the slick operator who sold you those forgeries to step forward and say that he’s really on Karl Rove’s payroll? Trying to get Dan Rather to admit the forgeries himself, then retire immediately? We can hardly wait to read the next installment of this thrilling serial mystery.

But wait, there’s more from Drudge:

TRANSCRIPT EVENING NEWS:

RATHER INTRO: CBS News .. “60 Minutes” .. and this reporter .. drew new fire today .. over our reports that raised questions about President Bush’s military service record .. including whether he fulfilled his obligations to the national guard.

CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports on the latest attack on the “60 Minutes” story .. and the CBS News response.

ANDREWS: Congressional republicans turned the high heat on CBS News, charging that last week’s revelations about Lt George Bush, which aired on “60 Minutes” were based on fake documents and demanding that 60 Minutes and Dan Rather retract the story.

Sot Bennet

Its very clear the documents were forged. They were laid on him and this time he bit.

ANDREWS: 40 members of the House signed a letter accusing the network of deception–in a letter asking CBS if the documents are authentic, why wont the network say how it got them .

Roy Blunt (R-Missouri)

I think at the very least CBS should characterize the source. I think it’s amazing that they haven’t already done that.

ANDREW:

The dispute surrounds memoranda 60 Minutes says came from the personal file of Lt. Bush’s Air National Guard Commander, Lt Col Jerry Killian. …. Memos that accuse Mr Bush of disobeying an order and of using connections to have Killian “sugarcoat” Mr Bush’s record. (out)

However some experts doubt the authenticity of the memos. Killian’s secretary–in an interview for tonight’s 60 Minutes tells Dan Rather she too believes the memos are fake –but– accurately reflect KIllian’s view of Lt. Bush.

Sot MARIAN KNOX:

I know that I didn’t type them however, the information in those is correct.

ANDREWS

Marian Knox says Col Killian liked Mr Bush but not his attitude.

Sot MARIAN KNOX

First of all Killian was very friendly with Bush they had fun together. And I think it upset him very much that he was being defied.

ANDREWS

CBS News officials say the memos came from a confidential source- and that they remain certain the content of the story is true.

ANDREW HEYWARD:

we would not have put the report on the air if we did not believe in every aspect of it.

Narr

However, News President Andrew Heyward also says the network will try to resolve what he calls the unresolved issues.

Sot ANDREW HEYWARD:

..enough questions have been raised that we are going redouble our efforts to answer those questions.

ANDREWS:

Some at this network believe the backlash against the 60 Minutes report is pure politcics. But that’s the critics’ point as well–that fake, or real, the fact that 60 Minutes got these documents during an election year was no accident. Wyatt Andrews CBS News Washington.

So, let’s see what we have here:

People who are questioning CBS’s story — in fact, have proved that it’s based on forgeries — are “attacking” CBS. And guess what, some of them are Republicans. Gee whillikers, imagine that!

Lt. Col. Killian’s secretary admits she didn’t type the forged memos. That’s an easy one, we all knew she didn’t type them, unless she typed them recently using Microsoft Word with Times New Roman.

Lt. Col. Killian’s secretary says the information in the memos is “correct.” Every last detail? Ah, the convenient, uncorroborated memory of an antiquated Bush-hater. CBS will just say that those who question her story are viciously attacking an old lady.

CBS News “believed” in the report. That is, CBS New ran a report consistent with what it wanted to believe.

Some at CBS believe the “backlash” is “pure politics”. Right, blame it on “politics” instead of your own shoddy, blatantly biased journalism.

It’s old hat: slippery logic, aggressive defense, and trying to shift the blame. It’s lame and it won’t work.

The Origin of Rights and the Essence of Modern Libertarianism

REVISED AND RE-DATED

I’ll begin with a standard definition of libertarianism, from Wikipedia:

Libertarianism…advocates individual rights and a limited government. Libertarians believe that individuals should be free to do anything they want, so long as they do not infringe upon what they believe to be the equal rights of others…For libertarians, there are no “positive rights” (such as to food or shelter or health care), only “negative rights” (such as to not be assaulted, abused, robbed or censored), including the right to personal property. Libertarians further believe that the only legitimate use of force, whether public or private, is to protect these rights.

I must add that the creation of positive rights amounts to a violation of negative rights, because the enforcement of positive rights involves taking from some persons in order to give to others.

Whence negative rights? Negative rights arise from experience and are the distilled lessons of that experience. Experience teaches those who seek to learn from it that the preservation of personal and economic freedoms serves the general good.

In particular, as John Stuart Mill understood, personal freedoms should be preserved because through them we become more knowledgeable, more self-reliant, and more productive. Friedrich A. Hayek elaborated on Mill’s insight by making the case that the personal and the economic are inseparable: We engage in economic activity to serve personal values and our personal values are reflected in our economic activity.

Moreover, as Hayek also tried to tell us, the state cannot make personal and economic decisions more effectively than individuals operating freely within an ever-evolving societal network. When the state intervenes in our lives it damages that network, to our detriment.

Thus, the general good — the increase of our knowledge, abilities, and wealth — is served best when the state recognizes our negative rights and acts to defend us and those rights from predators — without and within — and nothing more.

And that is the essence of modern libertarianism.

(This post is based on three earlier ones: here, here, and here. I should also acknowledge the foreshadowing of libertarianism in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations:

As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it. [Source: Wikipedia.]

Smith was describing the kind of learning from experience that is distilled in the tenets of libertarianism. Smith’s “invisible hand” is really the following mechanism at work: As long as A is left alone to discover how to make a good living (without harming, stealing from, or deceiving anyone), A will discover what he is capable of producing that is most desired by B. B will be made happier for being able to buy it from A, and A will be happier because B pays him a good price for it.

The visible and heavy hand of the state can never replicate the degree of happiness that results when free markets — operating through the invisible hand of self-interest — integrate the ever-changing knowledge, desires, and abilities of hundreds of millions of As and Bs.)

Validated by the Wall Street Journal

REVISED AND RE-DATED

A few days ago, in this post, I wrote:

The real problem with Democrats is that they think they’re still supposed to be in the White House and in charge of Congress….

[I]t seems that Democrats are suffering from a bizarre form of near-term memory loss. They remember 1933-1969, when they held the White House for all but Ike’s two terms. (And what kind of Republican was Ike, anyway?) They mistakenly thought their White House hegemony had been restored with Clinton’s ascendancy, but Clinton was really an accidental president. Democrats vividly remember having controlled both houses of Congress for most of the 62 years from 1933 to 1995, and they keep deluding themselves that they will retake Congress in the “next” election….

Today’s OpinionJournal carries an article by Brendan Miniter, “D Is for Descendancy,” with the subhead, “The Democrats are no longer the majority party. Is this the year they’ll finally admit it?” As Miniter puts it:

Democrats still seem to believe they can win back the White House without making any significant modification to their party’s policies — that they are the natural majority party just waiting to be given back control.

They’re wrong, but they don’t want to admit it. That’s why — as I said in my earlier post — they cry ” ‘nasty’ and ‘unfair’ whenever they lose to Republicans. It’s childish behavior. Get over it!”

More Old Presidents

REVISED (ADDITIONAL PHOTOS)

Several days ago I posted some photographs of Abraham Lincoln, including an early daguerreotype (taken when he was 31 or 32 years old) that looks entirely unlike the image of Lincoln we carry in our minds. That led me to remember the collection of presidents’ images at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. (The Portrait Gallery is closed for major renovations but much of the collection is available for viewing online.) Here are two priceless photographs from the Portrait Gallery’s Hall of Presidents:

Daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams (1767-1848, president 1825-29), made in 1843 when Adams was 76 years old.

Daguerreotype of Martin Van Buren (1782-1862, president 1837-41), made ca. 1856 when Van Buren was about 74 years old.

Daguerreotype of Zachary Taylor (1784-1850, president 1849-50), with his aide and future son-in-law William S. Bliss, made ca. 1847 when Taylor was about 63 years old.

There’s a lot more from Presidential Hall here.

Intellectuals, Academia, and the "Common" Person

Terry Eagleton, writing at New Statesman, reviews Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone? by Frank Furedi. Eagleton’s review is rife with trenchant observations. Here’s a sampling:

…We inherit the idea of the intellectual from the 18th-century Enlightenment, which valued truth, universality and objectivity – all highly suspect notions in a postmodern age. As Furedi points out, these ideas used to be savaged by the political right, as they undercut appeals to prejudice, hierarchy and custom. Nowadays, in a choice historical irony, they are under assault from the cultural left.

In the age of Sontag, Said, Williams and Chomsky, whole sectors of the left behave as though these men and women were no longer possible. Soon, no doubt, they will take to imitating the nervous tic by which the right ritually inserts the expression “so-called” before the word “intellectual”. Right-wingers do this because they imagine that “intellectual” means “frightfully clever”, a compliment they are naturally reluctant to pay to their opponents. In fact, there are dim-witted intellectuals just as there are incompetent chefs. The word “intellectual” is a job description, not a commendation….

[A] snap definition of an intellectual would be “more or less the opposite of an academic”….Literary academics are more likely than insurance brokers to be left-wingers….

University academics are discouraged from fostering adversarial debate, in case it should hurt someone’s feelings….In what one American sociologist has termed the McDonaldisation of the universities, students are redefined as consumers of services rather than junior partners in a public service….

[T]he politics of inclusion…in [Furedi’s] view belittles the capacities of the very people it purports to serve. It implies in its pessimistic way that excellence and popular participation are bound to be opposites….[H]e rejects cultural pessimism, decries the idea of a golden age, and applauds the advances that contemporary culture has made. It is just that he objects to slighting people’s potential for self-transformation under cover of flattering their current identities.

Here’s What a Real Nazi Does

For the benefit of those who glibly call Bush a Nazi, here’s what a real Nazi does:

Hitler Signs an Order Authorizing Involuntary Euthanasia in Germany, October 1939

Germany had been the site of an increasing number of measures taken in the name of “racial purity” since the Nazis assumed power in 1933, including forced sterilization of those with physical and/or mental handicaps, and the murder of infants with similar handicaps (in both cases, the primary targets were not Jews, but so-called “Aryans,” or non-Jewish Germans). Now in 1939, under the cover of war, the program was to be expanded to include murdering handicapped adults. Since Hitler would issue no law legalizing such forced “euthanasia,” and since physicians would hesitate or refuse to take part in the killing unless they had written protection from later prosecution, Hitler was persuaded to sign this document on his personal stationery (German-language version also available) instructing his assistants Philipp Bouhler and Dr. Karl Brandt to initiate the program. The document was signed in October 1939, but backdated to 1 September, the date of the beginning of World War II. For further information, see Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), p. 67.

ADOLF HITLER

Berlin, 1 September 1939

Reichsleiter Bouhler and
Dr. med. Brandt

are instructed to broaden the powers of physicians designated by name, who will decide whether those who have – as far as can be humanly determined – incurable illnesses can, after the most careful evaluation, be granted a mercy death.

/signed/ Adolf Hitler

That’s Nazism for you.

(Thanks to my son for the link.)

As I Was Saying….

UPDATED BELOW

…three days ago:

…[A] good sign that Rather’s story has absolutely no credibility — except as a rallying point for rabid Bush-haters — is Howard Kurtz’s column in today’s WaPo. Two paragraphs of professional courtesy toward Rather precede 20 paragraphs that mostly damn Rather’s story with straightforward observations about the flimsiness of it….

Kurtz’s objectivity about the matter signals other serious journalists that they can dump on old Dan, at will.

Well, there’s been plenty of dumping on Dan by the mainstream media since then, but this article in today’s WaPo is a sledge-hammer blow to the gut:

Expert Cited by CBS Says He Didn’t Authenticate Papers

By Michael Dobbs and Howard Kurtz

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, September 14, 2004; Page A08

The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from President Bush’s former squadron commander in the National Guard said yesterday that he examined only the late officer’s signature and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves.

“There’s no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them,” Marcel Matley said in a telephone interview from San Francisco. The main reason, he said, is that they are “copies” that are “far removed” from the originals.

Matley’s comments came amid growing evidence challenging the authenticity of the documents aired Wednesday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”…

And it goes on from there to detail a lot of what the blogosphere has been saying for days — without crediting the leaders of the blogospheric charge.

The last paragraph of the story says a lot about the Post:

Prominent conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh are insisting the documents are forged. New York Times columnist William Safire said yesterday that CBS should agree to an independent investigation. Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, called on the network to apologize, saying: “The CBS story is a hoax and a fraud, and a cheap and sloppy one at that. It boggles the mind that Dan Rather and CBS continue to defend it.”

It’s obvious from the rest of the article that the Post endorses Limbaugh, Safire, and Bozell in this matter, so it gives them the last word. It is a “news” story, after all.

UPDATE:

From ABC News:

BUSH IN THE NATIONAL GUARD

ABC’s Brian Ross interviewed the two experts who CBS hired to validate the National Guard documents and reports they ignored concerns they raised prior to the CBS News broadcast. “I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply,” Emily Will told Ross. “I did not authenticate anything and I don’t want it to be misunderstood that I did,” Linda James told Ross. Ross reports 2 experts told ABC News today that even the most advanced typewriter available in 1972 could not have produced the documents. Ross also reported that Lt. Col. Jerry Killian’s secretary says she believes the documents are fake but that they express thoughts Killian believed….

Well, Lt. Col. Killian’s secretary believes the documents are fake because she knows she knows she didn’t type them. As for Lt. Col. Killian’s “thoughts”…well fact and fancy are two different things, except at CBS News.

(Thanks to Captain Ed for the pointer.)

Why Sovereignty?

The Chronicle carries an article by Carlin Romano with this provocative title: “Violating ‘Sovereignty’: Questioning a Concept’s Long Reign.” It begins badly:

Everywhere the S-word wreaks havoc. Iraqi terrorists kill hundreds of Americans and Iraqis to protest infringement of sovereignty by the Great Satan.

Those terrorists (at least he got that part right) aren’t protesting the infringement of Iraqi sovereignty by the U.S., they’re trying to make life miserable for non-Saddamites and also to fuel antiwar feelings in the U.S. It gets worse:

As an explosive real-world political idea, sovereignty propels international armies and costs untold lives.

Sovereignty doesn’t propel armies; avarice and power-madness and self-defense do those things. Romano sort of gets on the right track with this reference to some writings by the late Alan Cranston:

[S]overeignty as a defense against outside intervention to stop extraordinarily unacceptable behavior by a government against its people is always, in Cranston’s view, heinous and unjustified. International covenants on genocide and human rights similarly demonstrate the world community’s declining appetite for claims of such absolute state sovereignty.

But notice how he subtly changes the subject from sovereignty to “claims of absolute state sovereignty.” Hell, we’ve know the value of such claims at least since American troops invaded Sicily and France, then rolled into Germany to end the war in Europe.

Romano alludes to the value of sovereignty when he says:

Not every political scientist, it should be noted, opposes sovereignty’s influence in public policy. In The Case for Sovereignty (AEI Press), a recent study, Cornell government professor Jeremy Rabkin contends that a “post-sovereign” world would encourage terrorism, erode national loyalties, and spur even greater international conflict.

But Romano doesn’t pursue the thought. So I will.

The sovereignty of the United States is inseparable from the benefits afforded Americans by the U.S. Constitution, most notably the enjoyment of civil liberties, the blessings of more-or-less free markets and free trade, and the protections of a common defense. To cede sovereignty is to risk the loss of those benefits. That is why we must always be cautious in our commitments to international organizations and laws.

American sovereignty is a golden shield. Mindless internationalism is a corrosive acid that eats away at the shield.

Paul Krugman, an Inspiration to Us All

Paul Krugman, NYT columnist and alleged economist, keeps trying to practice political punditry. Well, he needs a lot more practice. Here are some bits (in italics) from today’s column, interspersed with my comments:

Yet many voters still believe that Mr. Bush is doing a good job protecting America.

Well, so far, he is. I guess that fact is too obvious for Krugman to grasp.

…Dick Cheney is saying vote Bush or die….

Actually, Cheney said something to this effect: You’re more likely to die if Kerry is elected. It wasn’t a threat, it was a prediction. And not a bad one.

Can Mr. Kerry, who voted to authorize the Iraq war, criticize it? Yes, by pointing out that he voted only to give Mr. Bush a big stick.

Oh, was there an asterisk attached to Kerry’s vote? I didn’t see it in the Congressional Record.

Mr. Kerry can argue that he wouldn’t have overruled the commanders who had wanted to keep the pressure on Al Qaeda, or dismissed warnings from former Gen. Eric Shinseki, then the Army’s chief of staff, that peacekeeping would require a large force. He wouldn’t have ignored General Conway’s warnings about the dangers of storming into Falluja, or overruled his protests about calling off that assault halfway through.

He could argue those things, but he would be seen as nothing better than a Monday-morning quarterback. In any event, Krugman is studiously ignoring economic principles and bureaucratic facts of life: He doesn’t address the opportunity costs associated with the actions he implicitly endorses, nor does he acknowledge the very likely fact that Bush (and Rumsfeld) acted on military and diplomatic advice in taking their decisions.

And why is Krugman doing offering advice about how to win a war he didn’t want in the first place? What does he know about it, anyway? When I want to fight a war, I ask a general for advice. When I want to solve a problem in economics, I ask a real economist for advice. Where does that leave Krugman? Well, when I want to write a snarky post, I read Krugman for source material.

More Wisdom from Lileks

James Lileks has an inexhaustible supply of wisdom. His latest pearl invokes Pat Tillman, the NFL football player whose patriotism led him to the army and to Afghanistan, where he was killed in action:

[T]hose who think we’re living in some incipient Fascist state should note the absence of Tillmanism in the culture today – no songs in his name, no movies played on 2000 screens at the state’s request, no statues, no grade-school drills where the kids are taught to recite his Exploits, no posters of the Fallen Hero in the bus shelters, no mentions in every other speech. Hitler would have gone to town with Pat Tillman. And renamed it Tillmansberg.

Rather’s Last Stand — Shot to Pieces

Holy cow, look at all those bloggers!

Dan Rather, surrounded by the facts, still refuses to surrender to them. CBS News (presumably with Rather’s blessing) has posted this story on its site:

Questions Linger Over Bush Memos

NEW YORK, Sept. 13, 2004

(CBS/AP) Amid challenges from other news organizations and partisans [i.e., bloggers: ED], CBS News continued to defend itself over criticism stemming from documents it obtained that questioned President Bush’s service in the Air National Guard.

On “The CBS Evening News” Monday night, Dan Rather said his original report on “60 Minutes” used several different techniques to make sure the memos were genuine, including talking to handwriting and document analysts and other experts who strongly insist that the documents could have been created in the 1970s – as opposed to a word-processing software program, as some have charged.

“Everything that’s in those documents, that people are saying can’t be done, as you said, 32 years ago, is just totally false. Not true. Proportional spacing was available. Superscripts were available as a custom feature. Proportional spacing between lines was available. You can order that any way you’d like,” said document expert Bill Glennon.

Richard Katz, a software designer, found some other indications in the documents. He noted that the letter “L” is used in those documents, instead of the numeral “one.” That would be difficult to reproduce on a computer today….

I won’t go any further, because the blogosphere has put it to rest — in spades. I just want to comment on the third and fourth paragraphs.

Document “expert” Bill Glennon is certainly right that proportional letter spacing, superscripts, and proportional line spacing were available 32 years ago. But that ducks the fact that Microsoft Word and the version of Times New Roman used by Microsoft Word weren’t available 32 years ago. I think it’s been shown conclusively that the so-called documents can be replicated exactly — and only — using Microsoft Word and its Times New Roman font.

Now, what about the numeral “one” that looks like a lower-case “L”? Guess what? The numeral “one” in Microsoft Word’s Times New Roman resembles a lower-case “L”. In fact, it looks exactly like the numeral “one” as it appears at the top of the forgery at this link. Moreover, the lower-case “L”s sprinkled through the text of the forgery look exactly like the lower-case “L”s in Microsoft Word’s Times New Roman. You can check this at home and send me an e-mail if you disagree.

What’s next, Dan? I think it’s time for you to say that you were brainwashed when you served in Korea. But you can’t can you, because you didn’t serve in Korea. Hmmm…I though you said somewhere that you did. Am I making up stuff about you? Why not? You make up stuff all the time.

A Story That Makes Me See Red (Ink)

From AP via Yahoo! News:

US Airways Gets OK to Use Taxpayer Funds

By MATTHEW BARAKAT, AP Business Writer

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A bankruptcy judge gave US Airways Group Inc. permission Monday to tap a government loan to fund daily operations — a move expected to allow the airline to continue its normal flight schedule while it searches for additional financing….

The headline has it right. A “loan fund” is funded by taxpayers. I guess airlines have become as indispensible as farms. Why can’t we just let them disappear gracefully instead of prolonging their death throes? Too little faith in the power of America’s economic engine; too much clout in Washington.

Message to Democrats: Get Over It

Democrats keep saying things like this: “Republicans are nasty.” “Republicans don’t fight fair.” Well, there’s plenty of that going around in all political camps. The real problem with Democrats is that they think they’re still supposed to be in the White House and in charge of Congress.

Well, the fact is that we’re in a Republican era that began as long ago as 1968, when Nixon beat Humphrey, even though Wallace took a lot of votes that probably would have gone to Nixon. (Don’t start on that racist crap, again, there’s a lot more to the South than race — and always has been.) Republicans have held the White House ever since, except for Carter’s term, which he owed to Nixon’s disgrace, and Clinton’s two terms, which he owed to Perot’s candidacy. Moreover, Republicans began to claw their way back into congressional power in the 1980s, when they held the Senate for several years. They regained full control of Congress in the election of 1994 — ten whole years ago.

So, it seems that Democrats are suffering from a bizarre form of near-term memory loss. They remember 1933-1969, when they held the White House for all but Ike’s two terms. (And what kind of Republican was Ike, anyway?) They mistakenly thought their White House hegemony had been restored with Clinton’s ascendancy, but Clinton was really an accidental president. Democrats vividly remember having controlled both houses of Congress for most of the 62 years from 1933 to 1995, and they keep deluding themselves that they will retake Congress in the “next” election.

Now Democrats are clinging to their old memories and crying “nasty” and “unfair” whenever they lose to Republicans. It’s childish behavior. Get over it!

How to Fight Crime

According to an article in today’s NYTimes.com, “Most Crimes of Violence and Property Hover at 30-Year Lows.” Three important things happened after 1995 — the year in which the rate of violent crime began to drop markedly. First, the incarceration rate continued to rise: Persistence pays off. Second, the percentage of the population that is male and 20-24 years old continued to drop, in keeping with the general aging of the population. (Age usually brings with it a greater degree of maturity, stability, and aversion to committing criminal acts.) At the same time, spending on criminal justice functions (police, corrections, and courts) continued to rise, especially spending on police.

I’m sure there are other causal factors, but those are probably the big ones. The first and third of those factors — incarceration and spending on the criminal justice system — go hand in hand. And they are the public-policy weapons of choice in a society that values individual responsibility.

The Politics of Gun Control in Action

Reuters — yes, Reuters — tells us:

More Smoke Than Fire as U.S. Assault Gun Ban Ends
By Michael Conlon

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A 10-year-old ban on assault weapons expired across the United States on Monday with a political firefight but no apparent rush to rearm by gun fanciers….[Fancy that! I’ll bet he thought every “gun fancier” would buy a dozen semi-automatic rifles and start shooting people from tall buildings.]

In Tennessee, at Nashville’s Gun City USA, firearms instructor Robert Schlafly said there had been no upsurge in orders or interest, adding it may be too early to tell what will happen.

In the long run, he predicted the end of the ban will drive down prices since new inventories will appear on the market.

“To me the ban was just a way for (former President Bill) Clinton to get more votes,” Schlafly said. “It’s all politics. It didn’t hurt the firearms industry but people were mad.”…[Darn tootin’. They thought there was a Second Amendment lying around here somewhere.]

In Washington, Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry accused President Bush of choosing “powerful and well-connected friends” [like the average citizen?] over police officers and families by secretly backing the gun lobby in its opposition to a renewal of the law.

Now, he said, “when a killer walks into a gun shop, when a terrorist goes to a gun show somewhere in America, when they want to purchase an AK-47 [still illegal, try again: ED] or some other military assault weapon, they’re going to hear one word: ‘sure.”‘ [And when a homeowner who wants to defend himself from criminals and terrorists goes to a gun show or gun store somewhere in America, he’s going to hear one word: “Sold.”]

Bush spokesman Scott McClellan called Kerry’s remarks “another false attack” and said the best way to stop gun violence is to vigorously prosecute gun crime. [How true! A law has yet to deter a weapon.]

A Bit of Sense and a Lot of Nonsense from Austin

Here’s economist James K. Galbraith — who professes at The University of Texas at Austin — writing in today’s Austin American-Statesman about his profession:

…Economics suffers today from high formalism, rigid orthodoxy and tribal exclusiveness in professional journals; real-world scholarship is not prized and not easily published. But fortunately, with the Internet the costs of publication are falling. New journals are springing up that can peer-review effectively at low cost, and this will one day cause the breakdown of our ossified system.

In a world of virtual journals and electronic working papers, scholarly engagement has a better chance. Let’s hope that quality will still be distinguishable from junk…

Oops — can’t trust the uninitiated to sort it out for themselves, can we? Well economists can’t agree about much, so why does it matter what the uninitiated make of what economists write? Back to Galbraith:

Finally, for the engaged scholar, there is always the tricky issue of the role of values and politics. Some scholarship is intrinsically apolitical, but social scholarship can’t be. The policies I support grow from my ethical and political beliefs, to which my expertise (such as it is) merely adds an element of engineering.

In other words, he doesn’t know how to separate scholarship from values. Hmmm…

And yet, of course, a professor is not a missionary. A profound obligation is to respect the ideas and views of students who come in with different values.

My approach to that is to declare my own politics frankly — I’m a liberal Keynesian Democrat, in case you didn’t know.

Why is it necessary to declare one’s politics frankly, in the classroom, and how is doing it consistent with what he says next?

But I try to preserve my classroom as a space for respectful discourse with all points of view.

And, sometimes, you pull it off.

Some years ago, a student wrote these words on my confidential end-of-semester evaluation: “It pains me to say this, but you are the best professor I’ve had here — even though you are a communist.”…

Yeah, sometimes his non-liberal, non-Keynesian, non-Democrat students aren’t cowed by his frankly declared politics. How often? Once? At least that student saw him for what he is. (No, I’m not calling Galbraith names. He’s a liberal, so he mustn’t mind being called a communist; he’s open-minded.)

Now for Galbraith’s op-ed page companion, the re-doubtable Molly Ivins — an Austin-based, syndicated columnist (as the American-Statesman likes to remind us) — whose “good old gal” shtick has become more of a shrill whine. Molly is inveighing against the “old boy” network of rich Texans that undoubtedly arranged for GWB to do his Vietnam time in the Texas Air National Guard. Here’s the (unintentionally) funny part:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear: There was then no nasty partisan politics in Texas except inside the Democratic Party. The Republicans were upper-class establishment types, and the tradition of Texas Republicans and Texas Democrats working and playing well together continued, actually, until the Republicans took over, when it ended with a bang.

What Ivins is trying to imply is that a bunch of rich Republicans invaded Texas, took it over, and started playing nasty. What happened, of course, was that a lot of Texas Democrats got sick and tired of the national party’s positions on issues (abortion, defense, welfare, government in general) and became Republicans. And so it went — in Texas as across most of the South. Then, new voters followed mostly in their parents’ footsteps and allied with the Republican Party. Their numbers have been reinforced by a steady in-migration of disenfranchised Republicans and Reagan Democrats who have fled the “liberal” North for the warmth and more companionable politics of the South. An invasion? No, just a good, old-fashioned combination of political conversion and American mobility. The upshot of which has been to make Texas a solidly Republican State.

Ivins, of course, is sick — just sick — because all those converts and new Texas voters have lined up with the “upper-class establishment types” instead of flocking to her Willie Nelson worldview. And when the Republican majority insists on acting like a majority, that’s “playing nasty” in Ivins’s view. Talk about sore losers.

Catastrophe Theory at Work

Mike Rappaport at The Right Coast calls it “Rathergate as Agincourt,” but his description of recent events offers a good illustration of catastrophe theory:

…Had the blogosphere not kept the Swiftboat case alive, it is not clear CBS would have been desparate [sic] enough to go with these fraudulent documents. Thus, the CBS story may be the result of main stream media’s frustration at not controlling the news previously….

Think of the Titanic. Think of the blogosphere as the iceberg that the Titanic’s captain refused to heed in his headlong rush to cross the Atlantic in record time.

Me, Too

Arnold Kling of EconLog, quoting from his forthcoming book, says this about the incomprehensibility of what most economists write:

I believe that some of the fault lies with the top graduate schools in economics, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I obtained my Ph.D. The focus on mathematical training in these programs is so intense that they tend to produce a sort of idiot-savant, competent only to publish in academic journals. It pains me to see economists for whom expounding economic principles and speaking in plain English are mutually exclusive activities.

Precisely. I began Ph.D. work in economics at M.I.T. in the early ’60s. I quit, fairly promptly, because I found the program depressingly, deadeningly sterile. I’m sure it only got worse.