Category: Media Matters & Reportage

Goodbye, Mr. Pitts

When I lived in the D.C. area and subscribed to The Washington Post, I occasionally read a column by Leonard Pitts Jr. This masochistic practice served two purposes. First, it exercised my cardiovascular system (i.e., raised my heart rate and blood pressure). Second, it helped me to keep up with what passes for wisdom among the race-card-playing set.

Mr. Pitts, who is a syndicated columnist operating out of The Miami Herald, comes by his race-card-playing naturally, as a black and — given his age (about 50) — a likely beneficiary of reverse discrimination (a.k.a. affirmative action). I should note that Pitts plays the race-card game clumsily, probably because his mental warehouse is stocked with gross generalizations and logical fallacies.

I was provoked to write this post by a recent Pitts column, to which I will come, where (in passing) he defends the socialization of medicine because other things also have been socialized. By that logic, Pitts would excuse the murder of his wife because millions of murders already have been committed.

*     *     *

I begin my sampling of Pitts’s pathetic prose with “We’ll go forward from this moment,” of September 12, 2001 (a reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001):

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless.

No, “we” (the citizens of the United States) are most decidedly not a family, not even a feuding one. If there ever was anything like an American “family,” it existed in the years just after Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese forces. The degree of unity and resolve in the America of 1942-45 makes a mockery of the years following September 2001, during which disunity and irresolution became the standard pose of the media, academia, the Democrat Party, more than a few Republican “moderates,” many isolationist paleo-conservatives, and most libertarians.

Americans, now more than ever, are members of millions of separate families, churches, clubs, neighborhoods, work groups, etc. If there is anything shared by a majority of Americans, it is a taste for food in large quantities, vulgar entertainment, and a chance to feed at the public trough at the expense of other Americans.

The most notable schism in American life is one that has arisen since the onset of the Great Depression. It has come to this: Americans are deeply divided (though not evenly divided) about the rightful power of government in foreign and domestic affairs. There are three main camps. The largest favors surrender abroad and statism at home; the smallest favors surrender abroad and anarchy at home; the one to which I belong favors the full exercise of American might in defense of Americans’ legitimate overseas interest, together with a limited government devoted mainly to the protection of Americans from domestic predators and parasite.

It is obvious in what I have just said that Americans today do not even share a tradition of liberty, which has long vanished from the land. Because of this loss of liberty, Americans have become something less than citizens  with a common birthright and something more like hostages in their own land, with little voice and almost no opportunity for exit. Many (perhaps most) Americans like it that way, many others don’t understand what has been lost to them, and some (too few) understand it all too painfully. Pitts and his ilk like it that way because they are in thrall to special-interest politics and cannot see how those politics have abetted our downward spiral into political bondage, social license, and weakness in the face of our foreign and domestic enemies.

*     *     *

Jumping to September 29, 2003, I find “Faithful often give religion a bad name,” in which Pitts proffers this:

People are always pleased to indulge their religiosity when it allows them to stand in judgment of someone else, licenses them to feel superior to someone else, tells them they are more righteous than someone else.

They are less enthusiastic when religiosity demands that they be compassionate to someone else. That they show charity, service and mercy to everyone else.

Consider that last month thousands of people wept on the steps of an Alabama courthouse in support of a rock bearing the Ten Commandments. And watching, you wondered: What hungry person gets fed because of this? What naked person is clothed, what homeless one housed?

It seemed a fresh reminder that religious people are often the poorest advertisement for religious life.

How much more convincing an advertisement, how much more compelling a testimony, if people of faith were more often caught by news cameras demonstrating against healthcare cuts that fill our streets with the homeless mentally ill. Or confronting the slumlord about the vermin-infested holes he offers as places for families to live. Or crusading to make the sweatshop owner pay a living wage to workers who are treated little better than slaves.

From what well of knowledge does Pitts draw his assertions that people are always pleased to indulge their religiosity when they can stand in judgment of others, but are less enthusiastic when compassion is in order? Does Pitts even know, let alone care, that residents of “Red” States — where religious fundamentalism is more prevalent — are much more generous in their charitable giving than residents of “Blue” States — where secular Europeanism is the norm?

And what about those persons who “wept on the steps of an Alabama courthouse in support of a rock bearing the Ten Commandments”? What is wrong with protesting the further distancing of government from morality? I suspect that Pitts doesn’t want public officials to be reminded of the Ten Commandments because one of them says “You shall not steal” — and that is precisely what government does when it taxes and regulates us toward poverty, often in the name of “compassion.”

And why would it be a compelling testimony for religion if “people of faith” were more often seen demonstrating against budget cuts that fill our streets with the homeless mentally ill, or confronting slumlords about vermin-infested holes, or crusading to make sweatshop owners pay a “living wage to workers”? Pitts can offer such advice only because he doesn’t understand or care about the implications of such actions: Higher taxes for hard-working families; more homeless persons, as landlords raise rents to defray the costs of improving their properties; more starving poor, as “sweatshop” owners find new locales in which to recruit willing workers who have less exalted ideas than Pitts about what constitutes a “living wage.”

Pitts reveals himself as an ignoramus or a hypocrite — probably both — who is simply pleased to indulge his moral outrage when it allows him to stand in judgment of others.

*     *     *

Less than a month later (October 20, 2003) Pitts opined that “Race has always benefited whites“; to wit:

As a reader who chose to remain nameless put it, many people wonder if a given black professional “is there because of his/her skills and abilities, or because of affirmative action. Unfortunately, affirmative action policies leave many unanswered questions about a black person’s education and training, as well as skills and abilities. . . . How do we answer these questions?”

I will try my best to answer them with a straight face. It’s going to be difficult.

Because there’s an elephant in this room, isn’t there? It’s huge and noisy and rather smelly, yet none of these good people sees it. The elephant is this simple fact:

White men are the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action this country has ever seen.

That’s not rhetoric or metaphor. It’s only truth.

THE NATION’S CUSTOM

If affirmative action is defined as giving someone an extra boost based on race, it’s hard to see how anyone can argue the point. Slots for academic admission, for employment and promotion, for bank loans and for public office have routinely been set aside for white men. This has always been the nation’s custom. Until the 1960s, it was also the nation’s law. . . .

My correspondents feel they should not be asked to respect the skill or abilities of a black professional who may or may not have benefited from affirmative action. They think such a person should expect to be looked down upon. But black people have spent generations watching white men who were no more talented, and many times downright incompetent, vault to the head of the line based on racial preference.

So, here’s my question:

Would African Americans be justified in looking down on white professionals? In wondering whether they are really smart enough to do the job? In questioning their competence before they had done a thing?

Pitts deploys three shifty debating techniques: He changes the subject; subtly (and inappropriately) redefines a key term; falsely generalizes about a class of persons (white men); and then draws an unsupported conclusion from flawed premises.

The change of subject is obvious. Pitts, instead of addressing the question whether affirmative action leads to the advancement of under-qualified blacks, attacks whites for having been unqualified.

Why were whites unqualified? Because they, too, benefited from something Pitts chooses to call affirmative action, namely, “giving someone an extra boost based on race.” There is a basic problem with Pitts’s shifty redefinition of affirmative action: discrimination against blacks produces different results than discrimination against whites. The real elephant in the room, the one that it is impolite to mention, is that blacks and whites have different skills. And for most jobs, where intelligence matters, there are many more qualified whites than blacks.

It is therefore wrong to paint whites with the same “affirmative action” brush. Despite Pitts’s implication to the contrary, blacks would not have been justified in looking down on white professionals, as a group. But the converse is not true. Certainly, there are and have been superb black doctors and miserably incompetent white ones, but faced with a choice between, say, a white doctor of unknown skill and a black doctor of unknown skill, a person (black or white) would prudently choose the white doctor. The shame, of course, is that in some parts of the United States blacks were not allowed to choose white doctors.

*     *     *

In “Leave education to the principals, teachers, parents” (November 28, 2007), Pitts subscribes to romantic claptrap:

No one becomes a teacher to get rich. You become a teacher because you want to give back, you want to shape future generations, you want to change the world.

Oh spare me! You become a teacher because

  • you enjoy teaching, in general
  • you enjoy teaching a particular subject because you know it well
  • you enjoy the power of being in charge of a classroom (to the extent that you’re mentally and physically capable of being in charge)
  • it’s the best job you can get, given your intelligence and particular skills
  • some or all of the preceding statements apply to you.

Teaching is a job, not a mystical calling.

Pitts is right to say that

much of what ails American schools can be traced to a bureaucracy that: a) doesn’t pay enough; b) does too little to encourage and reward creativity; c) doesn’t give principals authority over who works in their schools; d) makes it nearly impossible to fire bad teachers.

The key word is “bureaucracy.” American schools will not improve until they are privatized, allowed to compete with one another, and allowed to hire teachers who know their subjects as opposed to NEA-approved hacks with “education” degrees. Some schools will be better than others, of course, but that’s true now. What isn’t true — or possible — now is that most schools will improve, or go out of business. (Public schools sometimes are “closed” for conspicuous failure, only to re-open in the same place, and with most of the same students and teachers.)

The problem, for Pitts and other “liberals,” is that it just isn’t “fair” for some children to have access to better schools than others, even though that also is true now, and even though bright children of less-affluent parents undoubtedly would have access to scholarships funded by affluent graduates of better schools. No, in the name of “fairness,” Pitts and his fellow “liberals” would rather hope for a transformation of public schools that will never happen, precisely because public schools are beholden to the NEA, which is nothing more than a union designed to guarantee work for incompetents who cannot master real subjects.

*     *     *

I come now to the column that touched off this post: “The distance between us” (as titled by the Austin American-Statesman) of August 24, 2009. Though the thread of Pitts’s “logic” is tangled, he his main concern seems to be national unity, or the lack thereof.

He rests his point on the fact that not everyone is happy with the election of Barack Obama or his policies, which he traces to racism or out-and-out nuttiness:

Last year, Barack Obama was elected president, the first American of African heritage ever to reach that office. If this was regarded as a new beginning by most Americans, it was regarded apocalyptically by others who promptly proceeded to lose both their minds and any pretense of enlightenment.

These are the people who immediately declared it their fervent hope that the new presidency fail, the ones who cheered when the governor of Texas raised the specter of secession, the ones who went online to rechristen the executive mansion the “Black” House, and to picture it with a watermelon patch out front.

On tax day they were the ones who, having apparently just discovered the grim tidings April 15 brings us all each year, launched angry, unruly protests. In the debate over health-care reform, they are the ones who have disrupted town hall meetings, shouting about the president’s supposed plan for “death panels” to euthanize the elderly.

Now, they are the ones bringing firearms to places the president is speaking.

The Washington Post tells us at least a dozen individuals have arrived openly — and, yes, legally — strapped at events in Arizona and New Hampshire, including at least one who carried a semiautomatic assault rifle. In case the implied threat is not clear, one of them also brought a sign referencing Thomas Jefferson’s quote about the need to water the tree of liberty with “the blood of … tyrants.”

Is Pitts suggesting that most of the 60,000,000 Americans who voted against Barack Obama (46 percent of those casting a vote in last year’s election) immediately hailed Obama’s election as a “new beginning”? To be sure, there was a honeymoon period around inauguration day, when about two-thirds of voters hopefully approved of Obama and his net approval rating hovered between 25 and 30 percent. But the honeymoon was over almost as soon as it had begun, as Americans began to grasp the bankruptcy (pun intended) of Obama’s policies.

But rather than acknowledge the awakening of most Americans to Obama’s threats to liberty and prosperity, Pitts stoops to barely veiled charges of racism and irrationality. To hope that Obama fails is not to wish ill for the nation; to the contrary, it is to hope that Obama’s policies fail of realization because they are seen (rightly) as inimical to liberty and prosperity. To find racism in talk of secession is a ploy by a columnist who is willing to sell his liberty cheap (or give it away), as long as the president’s skin is of the right color.

Then we have the concatenation of

the ones who went online to rechristen the executive mansion the “Black” House, and to picture it with a watermelon patch out front.

On tax day they were the ones who, having apparently just discovered the grim tidings April 15 brings us all each year, launched angry, unruly protests.

In other words, some racists oppose Obama and his policies; therefore, opposition to Obama and his policies is racist. Pitts evidently failed Logic 101, for he could just as well suggest that some racists (i.e., reverse racists) support Obama and his policies; therefore, support of Obama and his policies is racist.

A relative handful of those publicly protesting Obamacare — themselves a relative handful of the millions who oppose or question it — happen to have carried guns (legally) to the forums at which they (or others) voiced protests. Pitts verges on a Soviet-style declaration that those who oppose the regime are, by definition, mentally ill and must be locked up, for their own safety.

As noted earlier, Pitts is unfazed by the fact “that our libraries, schools, police and fire departments are all ‘socialized’.” If one more thing — namely medical care — is socialized, so what? And, given the number of murders committed every year, if one more person is murdered, so what?

All of that aside, Pitts’s real point has do with the kind of country America will become:

These are strange times. They call to mind what historian Henry Adams said in the mid-1800s: “There are grave doubts at the hugeness of the land and whether one government can comprehend the whole.”

Adams spoke in geographical terms of a nation rapidly expanding toward the Pacific. Our challenge is less geographical than spiritual, less a question of the distance between Honolulu and New York than between you and the person right next to you. . . .

We frame the differences in terms of “conservative” and “liberal,” but these are tired old markers that with overuse and misuse have largely lost whatever meaning they used to have and with it, any ability to explain us to us. This isn’t liberal vs. conservative, it is yesterday vs. tomorrow, the stress of profound cultural and demographic changes that will leave none of us as we were. . . .

Round and round we go and where we stop, nobody knows. And it is an open question, as it was for Henry Adams, what kind of country we’ll have when it’s done.

“Can” one government comprehend the whole? It may be harder to answer now than it was then.

The distances that divide us cannot be measured in miles.

Pitts is right about the distances that divide Americans, but those distances have divided Americans for generations. (I repeat: “We” are not a family.) The only way to reconcile those differences is to restore the basic scheme of of the Constitution, which is to

  • establish one nation united in common defense,
  • with open internal borders, and
  • free movement of goods across those borders, for prosperity’s sake, and
  • free movement of people between and within the several sovereign States, so that individuals may associate with those whom they find most congenial.

Such a wise scheme will not do for collectivists like Pitts, who cannot abide the thought of a world other than one made to their specifications. If the Pittses persist in their collectivist zeal, America will proceed from a (cold) civil war to secession, a military coup, or even revolution. And the fault will lie with the Pittses, because they are the true enemies of liberty.

*     *     *

Having reacquainted myself with Mr. Pitts, and having thereby exercised my cardiovascular system, I now bid him adieu — not fondly but forever.

The Media, the Left, and War

Ralph Peters writes:

The phenomenon of Western and world journalists championing the “rights” and causes of blood-drenched butchers who, given the opportunity, would torture and slaughter them, disproves the notion—were any additional proof required—that human beings are rational creatures. Indeed, the passionate belief of so much of the intelligentsia that our civilization is evil and only the savage is noble looks rather like an anemic version of the self-delusions of the terrorists themselves. And, of course, there is a penalty for the intellectual’s dismissal of religion: humans need to believe in something greater than themselves, even if they have a degree from Harvard. Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar. (“Wishful Thinking and Indecisive Wars,” Journal of International Security Affairs, Spring 2009.)

Seems about right to me. As I once said of an American “intellectual,”

He and his ilk cannot satisfy their power-lust in the real world, so they retaliate by imagining a theoretical world of doom. It is as if they walk around under a thought balloon which reads “Take that!”

It is the politics of adolescent rebelliousness:

The Left is in an arrested state of adolescent rebellion: “Daddy” doesn’t want me to smoke, so I’m going to smoke; “Daddy” doesn’t want me to drink, so I’m going to drink; “Daddy” doesn’t want me to have sex, so I’m going to have sex. But, regardless of my behavior, I expect “Daddy” to give me an allowance, and birthday presents, and cell phones, and so on….

Persons of the Left simply are simply unthinking, selfish adolescents who want what they want, regardless of the consequences for others.

And now that they are “in charge,” that’s precisely what they’re doing. Where will it all end? I reflected here on the following passage from an essay by Thomas Sowell:

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

Peters has a similar thought:

Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. [Emphasis added, with glee.] Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom….

He concludes:

The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win. Our victories are ultimately in humanity’s interests, while our failures nourish monsters.

In closing, we must dispose of one last mantra that has been too broadly and uncritically accepted: the nonsense that, if we win by fighting as fiercely as our enemies, we will “become just like them.” To convince Imperial Japan of its defeat, we not only had to fire-bomb Japanese cities, but drop two atomic bombs. Did we then become like the Japanese of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? Did we subsequently invade other lands with the goal of permanent conquest, enslaving their populations? Did our destruction of German cities—also necessary for victory—turn us into Nazis? Of course, you can find a few campus leftists who think so, but they have yet to reveal the location of our death camps….

Of all the enemies we face today and may face tomorrow, the most dangerous is our own wishful thinking.

The wishful thinking is for quick, clean wars, and preferably, no wars at all — because we can avoid wars through “dialogue” and “understanding.” Bosh! As Peters says,

The violent, like the poor, will always be with us, and we must be willing to kill those who would kill others.

Moreover, we must be prepared for long, dirty wars. With whom? It doesn’t much matter, as Peters suggests:

It may not be China that challenges us, after all, but the unexpected rise of a dormant power. The precedent is there: in 1929, Germany had a playground military limited to 100,000 men. Ten years later, a re-armed Germany had embarked on the most destructive campaign of aggression in history, its killing power and savagery exceeding that of the Mongols.

Which nation or stateless power will be the next Germany or Japan? We don’t know and can’t know. All we can do — and must do — is prepare for the inevitable rise of the next butcher state.

The question is whether we can survive a political regime that is hell-bent on bread, circuses, and surrender.

Putting Risks in Perspective

According to the Centers for Disease Control, about eight-tenths of one percent of Americans died in 2005 (the most recent year for which CDC has published death rates). That’s about 800 persons (825.9 to be precise) out of every 100,000.

To put that number in perspective, imagine a dozen dozen eggs (i.e., a gross of eggs, for those who still know the numeric meaning of “gross”). Only about one of those eggs is broken in the span of a year, in spite of all of the hazards to which the eggs are exposed.

Remember that analogy the next time you read or hear about the “threats” posed by heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, motor-vehicle accidents, firearms, etc., etc., etc. The combined effect of all such “threats” is close to nil; more than 99 percent of Americans survive every year, and more than 70 percent of those who don’t survive are old (age 65 and older). But that’s not the kind of “news” of that sells advertising.

(For much more about mortality in the United States, go here.)

Don’t Subscribe to Consumer Reports

A time-wasting experience with a product recommended by Consumer Reports was the last straw. The first straw? It probably landed on my back years ago, but I was too besotted by the idea of an “independent” testing service to pay attention to it.

Over the years, however, I have noticed that CR‘s advice in areas about which I know something (e.g., retirement planning) is pure pablum. That should have been a tip-off. Another tip-off should have been CR‘s embrace of “greenness” and other Left-wing causes. But I kept on subscribing. After all, it costs less than $40 a year to receive CR‘s “wisdom” via print and the web.

Worse, I heeded CR‘s advice from time to time. Thus the second-to-last straw: CR‘s ratings of exterior house paints. I bought, at great expense, the highest-rated paint available in my area. A third of a house later my painting contractor informed me that the “liquid gold” I bought is thin gruel. Thanks to my contractor — and no thanks to CR — I wasted “only” $600 before switching to a different brand of paint. If my contractor hadn’t blown the whistle, I would have wasted about $2,000.

The bottom line: I have canceled my print and web subscriptions to CR. It joins AARP on my long list of phony, worse-than-useless, overrated (pun intended), Left-leaning organizations that enjoy tax-exempt status (at taxpayers’ expense).

CR claims to warn consumers against rip-off schemes. Well, it takes one to know one.

I Object

The follies of Thomas Athans, husband of Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), shouldn’t be an occasion for gloating by right-wing outlets (e.g., Newsmax.com and Michelle Malkin’s eponymous blog). Athans is not a government official. Stabenow, who is an egregious senator in her own right, shouldn’t be judged by or held to account for her husband’s peccadilloes.

Malkin quite rightly points out, however, that Republicans — who in the election campaign of 2006 were accused of fomenting a “culture of corruption” — have no monopoly on corruption. Never did have. Never will have.

Where Left is Right, and Right is Outta Here

Where’s that? At the Austin American-Statesman, which today

welcome[s] the comic strip “Prickly City” by Scott Stantis to our lineup. During a trial run last year, “Prickly City” was a hit with many of our readers, and we’ve had our eye on it ever since. Like “Mallard Fillmore,” which it replaces, “Prickly City” is a conservative social and political strip, but with a little more levity.

I grant that Mallard Fillmore is an un-funny, heavy-handed strip. But it was conservative, that is, against political correctness and Leftism. But I do not grant that Prickly City is a conservative strip (though it is somewhat funnier than Mallard).

Today’s Prickly City exemplifies paranoic Bush Derangement Syndrome, as do several of the recent strips that are currently available on the Prickly City site. Their common theme: Big Brothers Bush and Cheney are spying on all of us, everywhere. Then there’s a strip that buys into “global warming,” and a rather lame series about The Huffington Post, which attacks Arianna Huffington (the person) but not the political lunacy that prevails at HuffPo‘s blog.

This is the Statesman‘s idea of conservative? It just goes to show you how far to the Left the Statesman is these days. But the Statesman‘s editors probably consider themselves “moderate,” just like this guy.

An Immodest Journalistic Proposal

This one is touted by David Hazinski, an associate professor at the University of Georgia’s Grady School of Journalism:

Supporters of “citizen journalism” argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don’t provide. While it has its place, the reality is it really isn’t journalism at all, and it opens up information flow to the strong probability of fraud and abuse. The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend (emphasis added).

The “news industry” (a.k.a. the mainstream media) isn’t already a hotbed of “fraud and abuse”? How about Rather-gate? How about anti-war propaganda that’s thinly disguised as news? How about the daily contributions to global-warming hysteria? How about the MSM’s pervasive anti-Republican, big-government slant? And on, and on.

As Hazinski observes, “without any real standards, anyone has a right to declare himself or herself a journalist.” And “anyone” does just that — every day — on ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, MSNBC; in the pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek; etc., etc., etc.

Hazinski proposes this:

Journalism schools such as mine at the University of Georgia should create mini-courses to certify citizen journalists in proper ethics and procedures, much as volunteer teachers, paramedics and sheriff’s auxiliaries are trained and certified.

How can he say, with a straight face, that J-schools are fit to certify anyone’s “proper ethics”? By that standard, Osama bin Laden would be qualified to certify the borders of Israel.

Hazinski acknowledges the argument that “standards could infringe on freedom of the press and journalism shouldn’t be regulated. But,” he adds, “we have already seen the line between news and entertainment blur enough to destroy significant credibility.” Actually, the line between truth and reality has been blurred — nay, obliterated — by the MSM.

Citizen journalism is precisely what’s needed to push the MSM in the direction of accuracy, honesty, and balance. “Professional journalists” like Hazinski don’t want that. They want to keep feeding us their Left-biased distortions and lies — without fear of contradiction.

UPDATE (12/17/07): There’s a related post at The Future of News.

Culture Watch: Whoopi vs. Sherri

Guest post:

One has to be even-handed in passing out the dunce awards to two wannabe pundits: Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd. The media has, predictably, jumped all over Shepherd’s historical howlers in a debate with Whoopi Goldberg on The View.

It began with Joy Behard referring to the philosophies of pagan Greece. Shepherd felt obliged to point out that Christians predated the ancient Greeks, and even the Hebrews. Earlier this year she admitted that she didn’t know if the world was flat or round (see related story).

I suppose this will “prove” to militant Christian-bashers what idiots believers really are. Actually it proves to me just how unqualified most celebrities are to discuss anything, from foreign policy to ecology. I almost suspect ABC, which hosts the show, of putting up an inept, if well-meaning, dupe to represent the “conservative Christian” perspective. Ann Coulter, she ain’t.

Theologically speaking, the incident confirms what I’ve believed all along—that dumbed-down religion of the Elmer Gantry/tent revival variety is not representative of serious Christian belief. Shepherd’s personal conduct and comportment are as frivolous as her metaphysics.

But we shouldn’t let Shepherd’s sparring partner off the hook either. Just a few weeks earlier on The View, Goldberg made the remarkable observation that America is “not as free as it was when I was a kid” (when segregation was still in effect). Maybe Ms. Goldberg thinks she’s reprising her role as the superhuman Guinan of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But, if you ask me, it’s just the leftwing equivalent of flat-earthism.

Katie Couric: Post-American

What is a post-American? From Mark Krikorian of NRO, via an earlier post:

Let me be clear [as to] what I mean by a post-American. He’s not an enemy of America — not Alger Hiss or Jane Fonda or Louis Farrakhan. He’s not necessarily even a Michael Moore or Ted Kennedy. A post-American may actually still like America, but the emotion resembles the attachment one might feel to, say, suburban New Jersey — it can be a pleasant place to live, but you’re always open to a better offer. The post-American has a casual relationship with his native country, unlike the patriot, “who more than self his country loves,” as Katharine Lee Bates wrote. Put differently, the patriot is married to America; the post-American is just shacking up.

What makes Katie Couric a post-American? This:

“The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying ‘we’ when referring to the United States and, even the ‘shock and awe’ of the initial stages, it was just too jubilant and just a little uncomfortable. And I remember feeling, when I was anchoring the ‘Today’ show, this inevitable march towards war and kind of feeling like, ‘Will anybody put the brakes on this?’ And is this really being properly challenged by the right people? And I think, at the time, anyone who questioned the administration was considered unpatriotic and it was a very difficult position to be in.” (Quotation from Jonah Goldberg of NRO, via many bloggers.)

Katie, Katie, Katie, how could anyone possibly question your patriotism after reading that?

Actually, one cannot fault the patriotism of a person who questions how the administration pursues the enemy, as long as that person offers a reasonable alternative in good faith. But the loony Left and whacky Right simply assert that “we” are the enemy and “we” had it coming to “us,” when they are not peddling the notion that “we” did it to ourselves — as in “inside job.”

But Couric is, by her own admission, unpatriotic. She is more than unpatriotic, however. She is, at best, a dupe for the loony Left and whacky Right. She is, at worst (I think), a witting dupe (to coin an oxymoron).

Related post: Depressing But True (and the links at the end)

The "Jewell Effect" and Larry Craig

UPDATED THRICE, BELOW

Remember Richard Jewell, who died yesterday? Jewell, as The Washington Post‘s headline says, was “wrongly linked to Olympic bombing”:

On July 27, 1996, [Jewell] spotted a crudely made pipe bomb inside a green knapsack near a concert stage [at Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park].

At first, he was praised for his decisive handling of the situation. He hurried people away and called for backup. His actions were credited with reducing casualties; one woman died, and 111 people were injured at the scene.

Within three days, Mr. Jewell’s status as a hero was challenged after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution called him “the focus” of the FBI investigation into the bombing. The FBI neither arrested nor formally charged Mr. Jewell, but the scrutiny that descended on him was invasive and crude….

In October 1996, the FBI cleared Mr. Jewell. In a news conference, he called his 88 days under suspicion a nightmare for him and his mother, with whom he lived near the Olympic park.

“In its rush to show the world how quickly it could get its man, the FBI trampled on my rights as a citizen,” he said. “In its rush for the headline that the hero was the bomber, the media cared nothing for my feelings as a human being. In their mad rush to fulfill their own personal agendas, the FBI and the media almost destroyed me and my mother.”

The matter of Larry Craig may seem different (after all, he pled guilty to something), but the rush to judge and punish Craig for something he didn’t plead guilty to (soliciting a homosexual act) is Jewell-like. Rick Moran, writing at The American Thinker Blog, describes the cynical reaction of Craig’s Senate “colleagues”:

The humiliation of Senator Larry Craig continues as party leaders in the Senate have stripped him of his status as ranking Republican on the Veterans Affairs Committee as well as an Appropriations subcommittee.

In addition, several prominent Senators have called on Craig to resign immediately – a sure sign that the party is nervous about holding on to as many seats as they can after next year’s election….

Senator [Norm] Coleman [R-MN] said that Craig was guilty of “conduct unbecoming a Senator” and should resign. Other Republican Senators have privately expressed deep concern that in an election cycle where they must defend 21 seats, Craig’s Idaho constituency – among the most reliably Republican in the country – might opt for a Democrat if the stain of the scandal can’t be wiped away.

I should note, however, that Moran’s reaction is equally cynical:

GOP Senators should probably do an intervention on Craig’s behalf and lay out the facts for him in umistakable terms. His effort to overturn his guilty plea will not change anyone’s mind about him one iota and only keeps the scandal in front of the voters where both the voters and the party will be constantly reminded of it.

Best he resign and just fade away. [More of the same here: ED.]

Thus effectively conceding a fact that he denies, namely, that he is a homosexual. But who cares about that when there are Senate seats at stake?

UPDATE (08/30/07): The newly released audio tape of Craig’s questioning by the cop who arrested him proves absolutely nothing, except that the cop’s interrogation technique is as subtle as toilet seat. (I couldn’t resist using that rather obscure simile, given the subject.) Either Craig is lying through his teeth (to switch from simile to metaphor in mid-stream) or the cop “saw” what he expected, no, hoped to see: signals of solicitation. The cop was involved in a sting operation, after all.

UPDATE (08/31/07): Relevant commentary here.

UPDATE (09/01/07): Well, Senator Craig has resigned. Here’s my take:

Craig has been plagued for decades by accusations that he is homosexual. He chose to plead to disorderly conduct in the hope that the mens’ room incident would “go away.” It didn’t. Now he has chosen to resign his Senate seat in the hope that the furore about his so-called misconduct will go away. The two choices are consistent with what I have seen of Craig (as a public figure): a principled conservative who is articulate about his principles but not combative.

Thus endeth a distinguished career. Let us hope that Craig’s successor (probably Idaho’s lieutenant governor, Jim Risch, is as conservative as Craig.

Pornography: A Definition and an Example

The proprietor of Imlac’s Journal observes that

the candid news photograph of a person grieving over a tragedy is as pornographic as a blue movie. It is because the individual has become another object of lurid interest to the voyeur, stripped naked physically or emotionally.

Also pornographic, in my view, is the non-sexual movie that appeals to the “lurid interest” of the rabid partisan. A good example of such a movie is what James Pinkerton calls “that new Bush snuff movie,” Death of a President. Pinkerton continues:

Some might say that “snuff movie” is too strong a term — but how else to describe a movie that clearly revels in the prospect of George W. Bush’s being assassinated?

How else, indeed, except to say that it is pornographic?

Conspiracy Theories

Wikipedia offers a thorough discussion of conspiricism and a long, annotated catalog of conspiracy theories that have been popular at one time or another. The final theory in the catalog goes a long way toward explaining the present state of affairs. It also justifies the use of the somewhat controversial term “Islamic fascists.” Here it is:

Islamic–Fascist Axis

Radio talk show host David Emory claims that Nazi leader Martin Bormann never died and has built a global empire involving, among many others, the Bush family, Hassan al Banna, Grover Norquist, Meyer Lansky, and Michael Chertoff. This may have sprung from the factual World War Two alliance between Nazi Germany and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a religious and political leader of the area then known as Palestine.

There’s a conspiracy theory for you: a Nazi, the Bushes, an Arab-Muslim extremist, an anti-tax conservative, a Jewish gangster, and a Jewish lawyer-prosecutor-cabinet secretary.

I can’t wait for the movie.

P.S. On a serious note, check out this piece about the “9/11 “Truth” movement.

P.P.S. In the same vein, there’s this at RightWingNutHouse.

Conspiracy Theorists’ Cousins

The nut-cases who believe that 9/11 was an “inside job” won’t be deterred or converted by facts and logic, but perhaps their paranoia will not spread too far if Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up To The Facts is well publicized. Austin Bay writes about Debunking at TCS Daily:

[It] expands to book-length a collection of articles Popular Mechanics published in March 2005. The book contains new appendices and updated analyses. . . .

[T]he book follows a “Claim” and “Fact” format. Here are excerpts from the section entitled “Melted Steel”:

“Claim: … ‘We have been lied to,’ announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net. ‘The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel.’ The posting is entitled ‘Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC.’ …”

“FACT: … Jet fuel burns at 1,100 to 1,200 degrees Celsius … significantly less than the 1,510 degrees Celsius typically required to melt steel. . . . However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat…”

The “Fact” section includes analysis from structural engineers, a professor of metallurgy and explosives experts.

The 9/11 conspiracy theories have overt and covert promoters. Some are more nuisance than threat. Howard Dean verbally toyed with 9/11 conspiracy theories when he was playing primary election footsie with hard-left constituencies. . . .

[Popular Mechanics editor-in-chief James] Meigs analyzes eight 9/11 conspiracy-spinner techniques. I’ll mention two:

  1. Attempts to “marginalize opposing views.” Meigs says thousands of eyewitness 9/11 accounts and the analyses of numerous universities and professional organizations (including Underwriters Labs and the American Society of Civil Engineers) are dismissed as “the government version.”
  1. Circular reasoning. Meigs writes that ” … among 9/11 theorists, the presence of evidence supporting the mainstream view is also taken as proof of conspiracy.” He concludes: “Like doctrinaire Marxists or certain religious extremists, conspiracists enjoy a world view that is immune to refutation.”

Meigs’ analyses of “demonization” and the “paranoid style” are particularly crisp and compelling.

That should be that, but . . .

Bay’s mention of Howard Dean’s pandering to “hard-left constituencies” leads me to the conspiracy-theorists’ cousins:

  • First, there are the Leftists, who will seize on any excuse to bash a Republican administration. Such Leftists are not true conspiracy-theorists; they would not countenance an “inside job” theory were Al Gore or John Kerry in the White House. They are merely unprincipled, and unhinged in their own way. (See this and this, for example.)
  • Then there are the radical libertarians, who do not subscribe to “inside job” theories. No, their conspiracy theory runs on a parallel track: The undeniably evil state is interested only in power, and it seizes on every opportunity to accrue more power. Thus it overblows the threat of terrorism and takes away our liberties, a slice at a time. (See this, for one example.)

Radical libertarians would be a greater threat to liberty than conspiracy nuts and Leftists, were there more than enough rad-libs to fill a high-school football stadium. Why? Because they seem more plausible than conspiracy nuts and Leftists; that is, they do not foam at the mouth.

Rad-libs are quick to assign evil motives to the state, without examining the evil motives of our enemies or acknowledging the necessity of state action against those enemies (given that we do not live in the stateless nirvana to which rad-libs aspire). Rad-libs are quick to minimize the dangers of terrorism by comparing the risk of being killed by terrorism to such risks as dying in an auto accident or falling off a ladder — as if one could nullify terrorism by driving or climbing ladders more often.

Finally, rad-libs fail to acknowledge the likelihood that the low risk of being killed by terrorism is owed to those very actions that rad-libs assail as inimical to liberty (e.g., NSA surveillance, “sneak and peak” warrants). They prefer death in a pure state of liberty, which is not liberty at all.

Leni Riefenstahl Redux

Mike Wallace does for Iran’s Ahmadinejad what Leni Riefenstahl did for Hitler.

More Takes on the New York Times

Michael Barone asks — and answers — the question “Whose side are they on?“

Ann Coulter opens with this question: “When is the New York Times going to get around to uncovering an al-Qaida secret program?”

The Wages of Publicity

From the Devil’s handmaidens at The New York Times:

Group Tries to Block Program Giving Data to U.S.

By DAN BILEFSKY, International Herald Tribune Published: June 27, 2006

BRUSSELS, June 27 — A human rights group in London said today that it had lodged formal complaints in 32 countries against the Brussels-based banking consortium known as Swift, contending that it violated European and Asian data protection rules by providing the United States with confidential information about international money transfers.

It speaks for itself.

The New York Times: A Hot-Bed of Post-Americanism

Proof, if any were needed, that The New York Times‘s publication of details of classified defense programs is politically motivated:

The New York Times, 9/24/01

by Hugh Hewitt

The New York Times, editorializing a long time ago, when the Trade Center ruins were still burning:

The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also must be closer coordination among America’s law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies….If America is going to wage a new kind of war against terrorism, it must act on all fronts, including the financial one.

(HT: LegalXXX who posted this in June, 2004, and to e-mailer Mary Beth S. who pinged me as to the existence of the editorial, which she found on this FreeRepublic thread.)

Permalink

What has changed since September 24, 2001? Only this: The New York Times has become ever more partisan — so much so that the Times feels compelled to oppose and undermine the war on terror simply because Bush is commander-in-chief. How post-American.

ADDENDUM: From WorldwideStandard.com:

Courtesy of The New York Times

From the International Herald Tribune:

BRUSSELS Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium has asked the Justice Ministry to investigate whether a banking consortium here broke the law when it aided the U.S. government’s anti-terrorism activities by providing it with confidential information about international money transfers.

The group, known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, or Swift, has come under scrutiny following a report last week by The New York Times….

Heather MacDonald and Gabriel Schoenfeld explain the recklessness of the New York Times here and here.

Posted by Daniel McKivergan on June 27, 2006 12:10 PM |

But why worry, if you’re a post-American? The terrorists surely will spare the Times. Hah!

Post-Americans and Their Progeny

What are post-Americans? Mark Krikorian, writing at NRO, explains:

Let me be clear what I mean by a post-American. He’s not an enemy of America — not Alger Hiss or Jane Fonda or Louis Farrakhan. He’s not necessarily even a Michael Moore or Ted Kennedy. A post-American may actually still like America, but the emotion resembles the attachment one might feel to, say, suburban New Jersey — it can be a pleasant place to live, but you’re always open to a better offer. The post-American has a casual relationship with his native country, unlike the patriot, “who more than self his country loves,” as Katharine Lee Bates wrote. Put differently, the patriot is married to America; the post-American is just shacking up.

Now, there are two kinds of post-American. David Frum, in his “Unpatriotic Conservatives” article for NR last year, highlighted what I think is the less important kind: Those who focus on something less than America, whether white nationalists or neo-Confederates, etc. The second, more consequential and problematic kind are those who have moved beyond America, “citizens of the world,” as the cliché goes — in other words citizens (at least in the emotional sense) of nowhere in particular.

What does post-Americanism lead to? Among other things — such as The New York Times‘s deliberate efforts to sabotage the war on terror) — it breeds home-grown al Qaeda wannabes. Consider this, by Jim Wooten (ThinkingRight):

So who’s surprised, then, that we see the emergence of the well-fed, well-clothed, no-worry wannabes, bored and “angry,” willing to join al-Qaida in worldwide revolution? “They were persons who for whatever reason came to view their home country as the enemy,” said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in announcing the seven arrests.

We live in a country where immigrants are invited to have dual loyalties, where a liberal’s “highest form of patriotism” is trashing the President and the nation’s military efforts in Iraq, where being “worldly” is granting no favoritism, nor making any distinction, between dictators and democracies, or considering a room that’s too warm and terrorist butchery to be equally-condemable forms of “torture.” All the recordable anger of the Left is directed inward, not at themselves, but at this country.

That’s because the post-American Left is just waiting for a better offer. But it will never come. We “buried” Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Tojo, Krushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Ulbricht, Jaruzelski, Ceauşescu, Saddam, etc., and we will “bury” Castro, Putin, the Chinese cabal, Kim jong-il, Osama and his supporters — and all the rest of Hitler and Stalin’s spiritual heirs — as long as we do not succumb to post-Americanism.

Related posts:
Getting It Wrong: Civil Libertarians and the War on Terror (A Case Study) (05/18/04)
The Illogic of Knee-Jerk Privacy Adocates (10/06/04)
Treasonous Blogging? (03/05/05)
I Dare Call It Treason (05/31/05)
Shall We All Hang Separately? (08/13/05)
Foxhole Rats (08/14/05)
Treasonous Speech? (08/18/05)
Foxhole Rats, Redux (08/22/05)
The Faces of Appeasement (11/19/05)
We Have Met the Enemy . . . (12/13/05)
More Foxhole Rats (01/24/06)
Calling a Nazi a Nazi (03/12/06)
What If We Lose? (03/22/06)< A Political Compass (03/24/06)
Moussaoui and “White Guilt” (05/03/06)
In Which I Reply to the Executive Editor of The New York Times (06/25/06)

In Which I Reply to the Executive Editor of the New York Times

UPDATED THROUGHOUT, 06/26/06

From The New York Times, Sunday, June 25, 2006. Reproduced in its entirety. My comments in brackets and italic boldface. The underlying story is here.

June 25, 2006

Letter From Bill Keller on The Times’s Banking Records Report

The following is a letter Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, has sent to readers who have written him about The Times’s publication of information about the government’s examination of international banking records:

I don’t always have time to answer my mail as fully as etiquette demands, but our story about the government’s surveillance of international banking records has generated some questions and concerns that I take very seriously. As the editor responsible for the difficult decision to publish that story, I’d like to offer a personal response.

Some of the incoming mail quotes the angry words of conservative bloggers and TV or radio pundits who say that drawing attention to the government’s anti-terror measures is unpatriotic and dangerous. (I could ask, if that’s the case, why they are drawing so much attention to the story themselves by yelling about it on the airwaves and the Internet.) [Because, you idiot, you’ve already let the cat out of the bag. The damage is done.] Some comes from readers who have considered the story in question and wonder whether publishing such material is wise. And some comes from readers who are grateful for the information and think it is valuable to have a public debate about the lengths to which our government has gone in combatting the threat of terror. [A public debate that divulges the details of a classified anti-terror program that has been effective? Anyway, you forgot to mention the Lefties — yourself and your staff included — who simply want to shut down the war on terror because it offends your sensibilities.]

It’s an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press. Who are the editors of The New York Times (or the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and other publications that also ran the banking story) to disregard the wishes of the President and his appointees? And yet the people who invented this country saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy, and an essential ingredient for self-government. They rejected the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish. [But it is neither wise nor patriotic to undermine the government’s lawful efforts to prosecute a war, and that is precisely what the Times and other publications have done.]

The power that has been given us is not something to be taken lightly. [But you have done just that in your zeal to sell newspapers, win Pulitzer prizes, and push your writers’ books.] The responsibility of it weighs most heavily on us when an issue involves national security, and especially national security in times of war. I’ve only participated in a few such cases, but they are among the most agonizing decisions I’ve faced as an editor. [Because your “agonizing” always seems to lead to the same conclusion (publish), I doubt that it’s really agonizing at all.]

The press and the government generally start out from opposite corners in such cases. [Why should that be, unless you place the Times’s interests — don’t give me that baloney about “pubic interest” — above the nation’s.] The government would like us to publish only the official line, and some of our elected leaders tend to view anything else as harmful to the national interest. [Strawman alert!] For example, some members of the Administration have argued over the past three years that when our reporters describe sectarian violence and insurgency in Iraq, we risk demoralizing the nation and giving comfort to the enemy. Editors start from the premise that citizens can be entrusted with unpleasant and complicated news, and that the more they know the better they will be able to make their views known to their elected officials. Our default position — our job — is to publish information if we are convinced it is fair and accurate, and our biggest failures have generally been when we failed to dig deep enough or to report fully enough. After The Times played down its advance knowledge of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President Kennedy reportedly said he wished we had published what we knew and perhaps prevented a fiasco. [Irrelevant. Kennedy was second-guessing his failure of nerve. He was responsible for the Bay of Pigs fiasco.] Some of the reporting in The Times and elsewhere prior to the war in Iraq was criticized for not being skeptical enough of the Administration’s claims about the Iraqi threat. The question we start with as journalists is not “why publish?” but “why would we withhold information of significance?” We have sometimes done so, holding stories or editing out details that could serve those hostile to the U.S. But we need a compelling reason to do so. [This entire paragraph is off the point. What the government might have liked — or not liked — in various cases isn’t in question. What is in question is why the Times and other media outlets have chosen to divulge very real, very secret, and probably very effective measures, such as the surveillance of international communications and the tracking of financial transactions.]

Forgive me, I know this is pretty elementary stuff — but it’s the kind of elementary context that sometimes gets lost in the heat of strong disagreements. [In other words, those who are enraged by the Times’s actions are nothing more than right-wing hotheads.]

Since September 11, 2001, our government has launched broad and secret anti-terror monitoring programs without seeking authorizing legislation and without fully briefing the Congress. [The government has acted in accordance with already existing legislation.] Most Americans seem to support extraordinary measures in defense against this extraordinary threat, but some officials who have been involved in these programs have spoken to the Times about their discomfort over the legality of the government’s actions and over the adequacy of oversight. [So, the Times favors disgruntled leakers over national security. Well we knew that, and the reasons for it, namely, the Times’s zeal to sell newspapers, win Pulitzer prizes, and push its writers’ books.] We believe The Times and others in the press have served the public interest by accurately reporting on these programs so that the public can have an informed view of them. [Actually, your purpose — among others not so lofty — was to discredit a Republican administration by running scare headlines.]

Our decision to publish the story of the Administration’s penetration of the international banking system followed weeks of discussion between Administration officials and The Times, not only the reporters who wrote the story but senior editors, including me. We listened patiently and attentively. We discussed the matter extensively within the paper. We spoke to others — national security experts not serving in the Administration — for their counsel. [Yeah, but you knew all along what you were going to do, didn’t you?] It’s worth mentioning that the reporters and editors responsible for this story live in two places — New York and the Washington area — that are tragically established targets for terrorist violence. The question of preventing terror is not abstract to us. [Oh, play that violin! New York and Washington aren’t the only potential targets, you narcissistic jerk. By your words and actions you have revealed that the question of preventing terror is abstract to you.]

The Administration case for holding the story had two parts, roughly speaking: first that the program is good — that it is legal, that there are safeguards against abuse of privacy, and that it has been valuable in deterring and prosecuting terrorists. And, second, that exposing this program would put its usefulness at risk.

It’s not our job to pass judgment on whether this program is legal or effective, but the story cites strong arguments from proponents that this is the case. While some experts familiar with the program have doubts about its legality, which has never been tested in the courts, and while some bank officials worry that a temporary program has taken on an air of permanence, we cited considerable evidence that the program helps catch and prosecute financers of terror, and we have not identified any serious abuses of privacy so far. A reasonable person, informed about this program, might well decide to applaud it. That said, we hesitate to preempt the role of legislators and courts, and ultimately the electorate, which cannot consider a program if they don’t know about it. [If they don’t know about it, it’s for a very good reason: Loose lips sink ships. Wars aren’t won by discussing battle plans in town meetings.]

We weighed most heavily the Administration’s concern that describing this program would endanger it. The central argument we heard from officials at senior levels was that international bankers would stop cooperating, would resist, if this program saw the light of day. We don’t know what the banking consortium will do, but we found this argument puzzling. First, the bankers provide this information under the authority of a subpoena, which imposes a legal obligation. Second, if, as the Administration says, the program is legal, highly effective, and well protected against invasion of privacy, the bankers should have little trouble defending it. The Bush Administration and America itself may be unpopular in Europe these days, but policing the byways of international terror seems to have pretty strong support everywhere. And while it is too early to tell, the initial signs are that our article is not generating a banker backlash against the program. [No, but it does give the bad guys — and potential bad guys — better information about how to avoid the tracking of their banking transactions.]

By the way, we heard similar arguments against publishing last year’s reporting on the NSA eavesdropping program. We were told then that our article would mean the death of that program. We were told that telecommunications companies would — if the public knew what they were doing — withdraw their cooperation. To the best of my knowledge, that has not happened. While our coverage has led to much public debate and new congressional oversight, to the best of our knowledge the eavesdropping program continues to operate much as it did before. Members of Congress have proposed to amend the law to put the eavesdropping program on a firm legal footing. And the man who presided over it and defended it was handily confirmed for promotion as the head of the CIA. [Off the point again. You fail to mention the bad guys and how your stories helped them avoid detection. Or don’t you care about them?]

A secondary argument against publishing the banking story was that publication would lead terrorists to change tactics. But that argument was made in a half-hearted way. [Who says? Are you into reading body language?] It has been widely reported — indeed, trumpeted by the Treasury Department — that the U.S. makes every effort to track international financing of terror. [But not precisely how.] Terror financiers know this, which is why they have already moved as much as they can to cruder methods. [How do you know that? How can anyone know that? All one can do is track what can be tracked, but you’ve probably told terrorists more than they knew about how their money is tracked.] But they also continue to use the international banking system, because it is immeasurably more efficient than toting suitcases of cash. [Though they may use it less than before, or in more devious ways, thanks to you.]

I can appreciate that other conscientious people could have gone through the process I’ve outlined above and come to a different conclusion. But nobody should think that we made this decision casually, with any animus toward the current Administration, or without fully weighing the issues. [Regardless of your smug justifications, you did come to the conclusion that it was your right and responsibility to endanger American lives by exposing programs that help track terrorists. The First Amendment gives you the right to publish; it doesn’t say that you must publish. Use your head, if you can retrieve it from the orifice at the other end of your torso.]

Thanks for writing.

Regards,
Bill Keller

[P.S. I pay the President to defend the country, not you. If you want the job, run for it. Until you’ve been elected and inaugurated, keep your mitts off the war effort. You’re on a par with a drunk who aspires to direct traffic, and about as qualified for the job.]

ADDENDUM: See this excellent fisking of Keller’s letter by Hugh Hewitt.

ADDENDUM 2: See this “indictment” by Mark Henry Holzer of the Times and the leakers who have been passing classified information to the Times since 9/11.

ADDENDUM 3: Michelle Malkin has a roundup of blogospheric reactions.

ADDENDUM 4: Michael Barone asks (about those gentle folk of the Times) why do they hate us?

ADDENDUM 5: The American Spectator Blog reports that Keller has been caught lying about the amount of contact the NYT had with the White House and the vehemence of the government’s objections to the story.

ADDENDUM 6: Treasury secretary John Snow piles on (in effect repeating some of what I say above).

Hang Her High

UPDATED BELOW

(If she’s guilty, of course.)

CIA Officer Fired for Leaking Classified Info to Media

P.S. to Bush-bashers: A leak is an unauthorized disclosure of information. The head of the executive branch is authorized to authorize disclosures.

P.P.S. (from Wizbang!):

[T]he CIA officer’s name is Mary McCarthy. She worked at the Inspector General’s office and testified in front of the 9/11 Commission.

Intelligence sources tell NBC News the accused officer, Mary McCarthy, worked in the CIA’s inspector general’s office and had worked for the National Security Council under the Clinton and and George W. Bush administrations.

The leak pertained to stories on the CIA’s rumored secret prisons in Eastern Europe, sources told NBC. The information was allegedly provided to Dana Priest of the Washington Post, who wrote about CIA prisons in November and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for her reporting.

Sources said the CIA believes McCarthy had more than a dozen unauthorized contacts with Priest. Information about subjects other than the prisons may have been leaked as well.

Update II: The Jawa Report says that McCarthy gave $2,000 to Kerry’s 2004 campaign [emphasis mine, all mine].

MY UPDATE (04/22, 1:15 PM):

McCarthy may have been a serial leaker, and — hah! — she may have been caught in a sting operation.