Rudy Giuliani must be hearing footsteps. With John McCain fading, actor-former Senator Fred Thompson has moved up to second billing in the polls, so Giuliani is doing a little acting of his own.
In California this week, he auditioned for the role of “Godfather,” but was panned by Peggy Noonan, who had tried to turn President Bush I into Clint Eastwood with the line, “Read my lips, no new taxes.”
That fell flat with voters when he raised taxes, and Noonan is now doing her writing for the Wall Street Journal. “Can’t have enough candidates for president who whimsically employ the language of mobsters,” she wrote in reviewing Rudy’s act.
But Giuliani was a smash in Nevada. Asked about all the photographs of America’s Mayor in drag, a Republican county chairwoman said, “If he wants to wear a dress, who cares?”
Southern conservatives may care, but Giuliani is covering that by wrapping himself in the Confederate flag.
As Jimmy Durante used to say, “Everybody wants to get into the act.”
Saturday, April 14, 2007
The Man Who Could End the War
What Congress, commissions and candidates have been unable to do might be done by one American, David Howell Petraeus. He could end the war in Iraq by declaring it unwinnable, and it is possible that he might do just that.
Parsing Petraeus is complicated, but he is clearly not one of Bush’s yes-sir generals. The desperation behind the Surge can be measured by the unusual choice of competence over compliance, of a commander respected for not only his military skills but political understanding.
The irony of that decision is that Petraeus will almost certainly not achieve “victory” but prove that no one can. Listen to the assessment of him by Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post, author of “Fiasco,” a scathing critique of the war:
“Just about the best general in the Army...Both a combat leader and the holder of a PhD from Princeton in which he studied the Vietnam war and its effects on the US military...he had a very successful first tour in Iraq in 2003-2004...
“Petraeus realized very quickly that US military training doctrine didn't really do the job. So he...reached back to his knowledge of Vietnam and counter-insurgency theory and operated very differently...
Mosul was...a real tinderbox. And Petraeus kept the place quiet. He kind of had his own foreign policy even -- he had relations with the government of Syria because he wanted to get energy flowing into Mosul, wanted to get fiber optics up to get communications going. Did a very good job...
“The first time his division had an instance of abuse--a detainee being beaten while in detention--he basically shut down the division. He not only said "What are you guys doing wrong?" but he looked in the mirror and said "What am I doing wrong?"...They got MP's who were used to handling prisoners...
“He invited Iraqi officials--clerics, professors--to come into his detention facility once a week and meet with the prisoners, speak to them in Arabic which the guards couldn't understand, ask how they were treated and also to put down rumors in the general population about what was happening to the detainees. A really smart bunch of moves.”
In the year after the 2003 invasion, Petraeus was asking, “Tell me where this ends.” Now there are signs that, while he tries to pacify Baghdad, he is still looking for the answer.
In his first press conference after assuming command, he said, “There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq...There needs to be a political aspect.”
He has told visiting members of Congress, “I will know by midsummer whether this surge has worked.”
In a long interview with Jim Lehrer for PBS ten days ago, unlike John McCain on his stunt visit to Baghdad, Petraeus sounded like a man trying to do a job not making a pitch for one--like a leader, not a cheerleader.
While stressing the positive, Petraeus has made it clear that, if he finally deems the situation hopeless, he will say so. And if the man on whom Bush has pinned his last hopes and the Senate confirmed without a dissenting vote does that, it will be over.
Not to go all starry-eyed but Petraeus recalls another general, Eisenhower, political to the bone but somehow beyond politics. He may do his country as great a service as Ike did, not by winning a war but getting us out of one by proving it can’t be won.
Parsing Petraeus is complicated, but he is clearly not one of Bush’s yes-sir generals. The desperation behind the Surge can be measured by the unusual choice of competence over compliance, of a commander respected for not only his military skills but political understanding.
The irony of that decision is that Petraeus will almost certainly not achieve “victory” but prove that no one can. Listen to the assessment of him by Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post, author of “Fiasco,” a scathing critique of the war:
“Just about the best general in the Army...Both a combat leader and the holder of a PhD from Princeton in which he studied the Vietnam war and its effects on the US military...he had a very successful first tour in Iraq in 2003-2004...
“Petraeus realized very quickly that US military training doctrine didn't really do the job. So he...reached back to his knowledge of Vietnam and counter-insurgency theory and operated very differently...
Mosul was...a real tinderbox. And Petraeus kept the place quiet. He kind of had his own foreign policy even -- he had relations with the government of Syria because he wanted to get energy flowing into Mosul, wanted to get fiber optics up to get communications going. Did a very good job...
“The first time his division had an instance of abuse--a detainee being beaten while in detention--he basically shut down the division. He not only said "What are you guys doing wrong?" but he looked in the mirror and said "What am I doing wrong?"...They got MP's who were used to handling prisoners...
“He invited Iraqi officials--clerics, professors--to come into his detention facility once a week and meet with the prisoners, speak to them in Arabic which the guards couldn't understand, ask how they were treated and also to put down rumors in the general population about what was happening to the detainees. A really smart bunch of moves.”
In the year after the 2003 invasion, Petraeus was asking, “Tell me where this ends.” Now there are signs that, while he tries to pacify Baghdad, he is still looking for the answer.
In his first press conference after assuming command, he said, “There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq...There needs to be a political aspect.”
He has told visiting members of Congress, “I will know by midsummer whether this surge has worked.”
In a long interview with Jim Lehrer for PBS ten days ago, unlike John McCain on his stunt visit to Baghdad, Petraeus sounded like a man trying to do a job not making a pitch for one--like a leader, not a cheerleader.
While stressing the positive, Petraeus has made it clear that, if he finally deems the situation hopeless, he will say so. And if the man on whom Bush has pinned his last hopes and the Senate confirmed without a dissenting vote does that, it will be over.
Not to go all starry-eyed but Petraeus recalls another general, Eisenhower, political to the bone but somehow beyond politics. He may do his country as great a service as Ike did, not by winning a war but getting us out of one by proving it can’t be won.
Repeat After Me...
Nappy-headed hos. Nappy-headed hos. Nappy-headed hos. Nappy-headed hos.
That's how many times Al Sharpton (three) and Bill Maher (once) said it in their brief, high-minded colloquy about free speech on Maher's HBO show last night.
Now that Imus has been obliterated from sight and sound for saying it once, can we agree--in the name of all that media mouths and racial hustlers hold holy--never to have to hear it again?
Bill Bradley was on the show but declined to discuss The Subject. Bill Bradley, won't you please come back and bore us some more? We never knew how well-off we were when people like you held the public stage.
That's how many times Al Sharpton (three) and Bill Maher (once) said it in their brief, high-minded colloquy about free speech on Maher's HBO show last night.
Now that Imus has been obliterated from sight and sound for saying it once, can we agree--in the name of all that media mouths and racial hustlers hold holy--never to have to hear it again?
Bill Bradley was on the show but declined to discuss The Subject. Bill Bradley, won't you please come back and bore us some more? We never knew how well-off we were when people like you held the public stage.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?
You can’t beat Bush’s culture warriors for optimism. Even as a study shows “Abstinence Classes Don’t Stop Sex,” the director finds a silver lining.
"There is no evidence that the programs increased the rate of sexual abstinence," says a researcher who oversaw the study. "However...we find no evidence that the programs increased the rate of unprotected sex."
It’s good to hear that abstinence courses are not an aphrodisiac. But even if they fail, the Bushies can fall back to Plan B, secondary viriginity.
"There is no evidence that the programs increased the rate of sexual abstinence," says a researcher who oversaw the study. "However...we find no evidence that the programs increased the rate of unprotected sex."
It’s good to hear that abstinence courses are not an aphrodisiac. But even if they fail, the Bushies can fall back to Plan B, secondary viriginity.
The A. J. Liebling Fan Club
Will members of the Inter-Media Division please come to order? Our agenda today is a mild beef by Joe Klein of Time against high-school classmate Keith Olbermann of MSNBC for putting a colleague on “The Worst Person” list.
It’s all too inside-baseball to explain here, but Klein ends up by suggesting that “maybe you should ration The Worst Person in the World--save it for nights when there really is one.”
This recalls the advice of our Beloved Founder (whose name is in the web address of this humble blog) to George Seldes, the pre-WWII gadfly who published In Fact, a weekly newsletter exposing press shortcomings.
Maybe, Liebling suggested, during a slow period, Seldes should just send out postcards saying, “No infamy this week.”
It’s all too inside-baseball to explain here, but Klein ends up by suggesting that “maybe you should ration The Worst Person in the World--save it for nights when there really is one.”
This recalls the advice of our Beloved Founder (whose name is in the web address of this humble blog) to George Seldes, the pre-WWII gadfly who published In Fact, a weekly newsletter exposing press shortcomings.
Maybe, Liebling suggested, during a slow period, Seldes should just send out postcards saying, “No infamy this week.”
Staying on Message
Democrats are contracting Bush-Rove Disease, a condition that causes victims to repeat compulsively the same phrases, no matter how inane, over and over again. (Jon Stewart on the Daily Show keeps showing cases of it.)
Now symptoms are cropping up on the other side of Congress--in Barack Obama, for example, but so far his condition seems relatively benign.
Now symptoms are cropping up on the other side of Congress--in Barack Obama, for example, but so far his condition seems relatively benign.
Liberal Sanity Watch
It never goes away--the political tension between the art of the possible and impossible dreams of what would be ideal.
Ideally we all want to take George Bush by the scruff of the neck and shake some sense into him about Iraq. Politically no amount of Congressional shaking and baking on the troop-funding bill will survive his veto power.
Sen. Carl Levin knows that and says so, but he’s not running for President. Barack Obama says so and the Daily Kos calls it “ridiculous” and accuses him of surrendering to Bush.
That puts ardent liberals in line with Fox News who, according to Crooks and Liars, has pictured Obama with the quote, “wants to play chicken with our troops,” leaving out his first four words, “I think that nobody...”
Someone should explain to John Edwards and his admirers that ignoring political reality gave us George Bush in the first place. They may want to take another look at the 2000 numbers for Ralph Nader.
Another Presidential candidate Bill Richardson is on the right track when he suggests that Democrats concentrate on rescinding the 2002 authorization of the war.
Mouthing off may be cathartic, but it won’t stop the bloodshed in Iraq any more than wishing on a star or praying.
Ideally we all want to take George Bush by the scruff of the neck and shake some sense into him about Iraq. Politically no amount of Congressional shaking and baking on the troop-funding bill will survive his veto power.
Sen. Carl Levin knows that and says so, but he’s not running for President. Barack Obama says so and the Daily Kos calls it “ridiculous” and accuses him of surrendering to Bush.
That puts ardent liberals in line with Fox News who, according to Crooks and Liars, has pictured Obama with the quote, “wants to play chicken with our troops,” leaving out his first four words, “I think that nobody...”
Someone should explain to John Edwards and his admirers that ignoring political reality gave us George Bush in the first place. They may want to take another look at the 2000 numbers for Ralph Nader.
Another Presidential candidate Bill Richardson is on the right track when he suggests that Democrats concentrate on rescinding the 2002 authorization of the war.
Mouthing off may be cathartic, but it won’t stop the bloodshed in Iraq any more than wishing on a star or praying.
"High-Tech Lynching"
Is there “a term describing a period of nonstop, vicious verbal attacks directed at a particular person or group that is communicated through the mass media such as TV, radio, newspapers, periodicals, or the Internet”?
According to Wikipedia, there is. In 1991, it was “coined by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during his...confirmation hearings, referring to the allegedly racist remarks by the Democrats in the Senate.”
Justice Thomas was being opposed for supposed sexual harassment of a young African American employee, Anita Hill, but his defense turned into a vindication by a bipartisan vote.
He claimed “...as far as I'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured...rather than hung from a tree.”
I wonder what he thinks about Don Imus, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
According to Wikipedia, there is. In 1991, it was “coined by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during his...confirmation hearings, referring to the allegedly racist remarks by the Democrats in the Senate.”
Justice Thomas was being opposed for supposed sexual harassment of a young African American employee, Anita Hill, but his defense turned into a vindication by a bipartisan vote.
He claimed “...as far as I'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured...rather than hung from a tree.”
I wonder what he thinks about Don Imus, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Office Romance
Anyone who reads women's magazines (or edits them, as I have) could tell you that love and work are a volatile mixture.
But apparently this folk wisdom is not common knowledge in the rarified worlds of academia and power politics in which Paul Wolfowitz dwells. So now the intellectual father of our failed policy in Iraq, who was rewarded by President Bush with his own presidency of the World Bank, is facing a personal Iraq over his handling of two large salary increases for his "romantic partner" at the Bank.
If and when he is forced out of his current position, Wolfowitz can console himself by re-reading Richard Hofstadter's "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life." Some ideas just don't work out in the real world.
But apparently this folk wisdom is not common knowledge in the rarified worlds of academia and power politics in which Paul Wolfowitz dwells. So now the intellectual father of our failed policy in Iraq, who was rewarded by President Bush with his own presidency of the World Bank, is facing a personal Iraq over his handling of two large salary increases for his "romantic partner" at the Bank.
If and when he is forced out of his current position, Wolfowitz can console himself by re-reading Richard Hofstadter's "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life." Some ideas just don't work out in the real world.
Blair-Imus Axis
After serving most of his time playing a road-company Winston Churchill to George Bush's impersonation of a wartime leader like FDR, Tony Blair now seems determined to go out as a British Don Imus.
In a lecture, he inveighed against political correctness and claimed that a recent wave of knife and gun murders would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it."
As The Guardian pointed out, "Mr Blair's remarks are at odds with those of the Home Office minister Lady Scotland, who told the home affairs select committee last month that the disproportionate number of black youths in the criminal justice system was a function of their disproportionate poverty, and not to do with a distinctive black culture."
When he joins George Bush in retirement, the Prime Minister might want to consider hosting a morning talk show in London.
In a lecture, he inveighed against political correctness and claimed that a recent wave of knife and gun murders would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it."
As The Guardian pointed out, "Mr Blair's remarks are at odds with those of the Home Office minister Lady Scotland, who told the home affairs select committee last month that the disproportionate number of black youths in the criminal justice system was a function of their disproportionate poverty, and not to do with a distinctive black culture."
When he joins George Bush in retirement, the Prime Minister might want to consider hosting a morning talk show in London.
Equal-Opportunity Killers
This morning's news of a suicide attack on the Iraqi parliament, killing eight people, including a Shiite and a Sunni lawmaker, underscores the inadequacy of "civil war" as a description of what is going on in Baghdad.
The situation we are facing there can be more accurately described as a war on civilized behavior, and it is clear that no Surge can eliminate the growing anarchy.
Our military spokesman says that, based on "trends," it may have been an al Qaeada operation, but "al Qaeda" is becoming a meaningless omnibus term for what seems to be a faction-less attack on law and order in Iraq.
Can President Bush enlighten Congress and the rest of us on how we're going to deal with that "enemy"?
The situation we are facing there can be more accurately described as a war on civilized behavior, and it is clear that no Surge can eliminate the growing anarchy.
Our military spokesman says that, based on "trends," it may have been an al Qaeada operation, but "al Qaeda" is becoming a meaningless omnibus term for what seems to be a faction-less attack on law and order in Iraq.
Can President Bush enlighten Congress and the rest of us on how we're going to deal with that "enemy"?
Hos, Hymies and Hitler
Now that morning TV has been freed of Imus in less time than it took to topple Saddam Hussein, we can try to assess what happened.
In the entire cast of this social/political drama, the only figures to emerge with dignity are the Rutgers coach and players, who expressed their hurt and dismay in human terms, without the posturing and pomposity of everyone else who was involved or chose to be involved.
Imus, shaken out of his cowboy certitude, kept falling back on “I’m a good person,” but seemed incapable of fully understanding the depth of his atrocious behavior.
His employers, as always, kept ducking and weaving with the tide of public protest. Last night, in announcing the firing, Steve Capus hid behind NBC’s journalists without owning up to the effect of ratings and advertising on his decision.
In the same hour, Jesse Jackson quoted every slur and alleged slur in the Imus canon (without worrying about the possible effect on children who might be watching) and lectured Keith Olbermann on the lack of African American anchors on his network. Olbermann meekly observed that, when he is on vacation, his replacement is a black woman.
But it was the combination of Bill O’Reilly and Al Sharpton that was most illuminating. O’Reilly, obviously torn between his hatred of MSNBC and his distaste for the Reverend, kept mumbling “fair and balanced” as he brought up Jackson’s characterization of New York as “Hymietown,” which Sharpton dismissed as an off-the-record remark unworthy of being equated with “nappy-headed hos.”
Sharpton’s lecture on hurtful speech recalled his own remarks in 1988 during the Tawana Brawley fake rape race, when he noted that having her interviewed by Attorney General Robert Abrams (obviously Jewish) would be “like asking someone who watched someone killed in the gas chamber to sit down with Mr. Hitler.”
But golden oldies aside, all this has become very “Bonfire of the Vanities.” A magazine like Esquire or Vanity Fair would be well-advised to put Tom Wolfe on the case.
In the entire cast of this social/political drama, the only figures to emerge with dignity are the Rutgers coach and players, who expressed their hurt and dismay in human terms, without the posturing and pomposity of everyone else who was involved or chose to be involved.
Imus, shaken out of his cowboy certitude, kept falling back on “I’m a good person,” but seemed incapable of fully understanding the depth of his atrocious behavior.
His employers, as always, kept ducking and weaving with the tide of public protest. Last night, in announcing the firing, Steve Capus hid behind NBC’s journalists without owning up to the effect of ratings and advertising on his decision.
In the same hour, Jesse Jackson quoted every slur and alleged slur in the Imus canon (without worrying about the possible effect on children who might be watching) and lectured Keith Olbermann on the lack of African American anchors on his network. Olbermann meekly observed that, when he is on vacation, his replacement is a black woman.
But it was the combination of Bill O’Reilly and Al Sharpton that was most illuminating. O’Reilly, obviously torn between his hatred of MSNBC and his distaste for the Reverend, kept mumbling “fair and balanced” as he brought up Jackson’s characterization of New York as “Hymietown,” which Sharpton dismissed as an off-the-record remark unworthy of being equated with “nappy-headed hos.”
Sharpton’s lecture on hurtful speech recalled his own remarks in 1988 during the Tawana Brawley fake rape race, when he noted that having her interviewed by Attorney General Robert Abrams (obviously Jewish) would be “like asking someone who watched someone killed in the gas chamber to sit down with Mr. Hitler.”
But golden oldies aside, all this has become very “Bonfire of the Vanities.” A magazine like Esquire or Vanity Fair would be well-advised to put Tom Wolfe on the case.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Oops!
It's rare that anyone has to apologize to President Bush these days, but...
Unaware that the CEO of Ford is a moron, I was among those who regaled blogees with his story of saving Bush from blowing himself up by plugging the cord into the wrong outlet of a hydrogen-electric hybrid on the White House lawn. Never happened. Not even close, as the video of the incident on Keith Olbermann's Countdown tonight shows (Click "Bush's Hybrid Mishap").
So apologies to the White House, and a note to the Ford PR people, the Detroit News and others who promulgated this self-promotion rescue fantasy: Lee Iococca would have never have stooped to this.
Unaware that the CEO of Ford is a moron, I was among those who regaled blogees with his story of saving Bush from blowing himself up by plugging the cord into the wrong outlet of a hydrogen-electric hybrid on the White House lawn. Never happened. Not even close, as the video of the incident on Keith Olbermann's Countdown tonight shows (Click "Bush's Hybrid Mishap").
So apologies to the White House, and a note to the Ford PR people, the Detroit News and others who promulgated this self-promotion rescue fantasy: Lee Iococca would have never have stooped to this.
Has Anybody Checked Barney Lately?
Last fall Bob Woodward reported George Bush as saying about Iraq, "I will not withdraw even if even Barney and Laura are the only ones supporting me."
We're getting there. Add to the list of defectors that atavar of American capitalism, Lee Ioccoca, in his new book: "I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies."
At ultra-conservative Brigham Young University, students and faculty are protesting the selection of Dick Cheney as commencement speaker. "“It just feels like too much sleaze and not the right values for B.Y.U.,” a Professor of Management is quoted as saying. “We espouse honesty, chastity, integrity, ethics, virtue and morality, and he does not epitomize those values.”
Mrs. Bush is still on board but Barney, Bush's dog, is refusing to comment.
We're getting there. Add to the list of defectors that atavar of American capitalism, Lee Ioccoca, in his new book: "I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies."
At ultra-conservative Brigham Young University, students and faculty are protesting the selection of Dick Cheney as commencement speaker. "“It just feels like too much sleaze and not the right values for B.Y.U.,” a Professor of Management is quoted as saying. “We espouse honesty, chastity, integrity, ethics, virtue and morality, and he does not epitomize those values.”
Mrs. Bush is still on board but Barney, Bush's dog, is refusing to comment.
The Blot on Kay Graham's Legacy
In the 1970s, Katharine Meyer Graham was a hero of American journalism as she took the heat for the Washington Post’s exposure of Watergate until the final downfall of Richard Nixon.
So it comes as a particularly irony that the strongest supporter now of Nixon’s doppelganger, George W. Bush, is the editor of the Post’s editorial page, Fred Hiatt, who has not only justified this outrageous Administration at every turn but savaged the Democratic opposition, the latest a diatribe against Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Syria.
In 1966, I met Mrs. Graham when she was the guest of honor at Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball, and over the years, I would hear about her from Vivian Cadden, my colleague, who was a classmate of hers at Vassar.
A shy woman, Mrs. Graham became publisher after her husband’s suicide and weathered the worst that Nixon’s gang could offer, including a challenge to the Post’s ownership of Florida radio stations and the infamous threat to Woodward and Bernstein by John Mitchell, “Katie Graham’s going to get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that’s published.” It was published.
All of which leads to a question for Donald E. Graham, her son, now chairman of the Post: Who the hell is Fred Hiatt to be tearing down all that?
So it comes as a particularly irony that the strongest supporter now of Nixon’s doppelganger, George W. Bush, is the editor of the Post’s editorial page, Fred Hiatt, who has not only justified this outrageous Administration at every turn but savaged the Democratic opposition, the latest a diatribe against Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Syria.
In 1966, I met Mrs. Graham when she was the guest of honor at Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball, and over the years, I would hear about her from Vivian Cadden, my colleague, who was a classmate of hers at Vassar.
A shy woman, Mrs. Graham became publisher after her husband’s suicide and weathered the worst that Nixon’s gang could offer, including a challenge to the Post’s ownership of Florida radio stations and the infamous threat to Woodward and Bernstein by John Mitchell, “Katie Graham’s going to get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that’s published.” It was published.
All of which leads to a question for Donald E. Graham, her son, now chairman of the Post: Who the hell is Fred Hiatt to be tearing down all that?
Getting the Full Picture
Talk about cheating, today's Washington infamy centers on the State Department's low-balling of the crowds protesting our presence in Iraq with the help of cropped photos.
They didn't invent that. Half a century ago, Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn were publicly nailed for doctoring a picture of Cohn's friend David Schine to make it appear that he and the Secretary of the Army were on intimate terms.
The interchange quoted by Time Magazine has a little fillip--some quaint snickering about a then-forbidden subject, the gayness of McCarthy's gang.
They didn't invent that. Half a century ago, Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn were publicly nailed for doctoring a picture of Cohn's friend David Schine to make it appear that he and the Secretary of the Army were on intimate terms.
The interchange quoted by Time Magazine has a little fillip--some quaint snickering about a then-forbidden subject, the gayness of McCarthy's gang.
Plagiarism, the Sequel
Yesterday it was Saddam Hussein. Today it’s Katie Couric. Will this mania for originality ever end?
After yesterday’s post on plagiarism, today’s news is that a producer for CBS News has been fired for lifting a Wall Street Journal essay by Jeffrey Zazlow about getting his first library card, “Of the Places You’ll Go, Is the Library One of Them?”
CBS is getting off easily. After Condoleeza Rice nailed Saddam for pilfering passages from a UN report, we invaded his country.
Saddam was stealing dry stuff. The CBS producer was appropriating Zazlow’s memories.
Katie owes us an explanation. How did she get her first library card and what was the first book she read? “The Copy Cat in the Hat?”
After yesterday’s post on plagiarism, today’s news is that a producer for CBS News has been fired for lifting a Wall Street Journal essay by Jeffrey Zazlow about getting his first library card, “Of the Places You’ll Go, Is the Library One of Them?”
CBS is getting off easily. After Condoleeza Rice nailed Saddam for pilfering passages from a UN report, we invaded his country.
Saddam was stealing dry stuff. The CBS producer was appropriating Zazlow’s memories.
Katie owes us an explanation. How did she get her first library card and what was the first book she read? “The Copy Cat in the Hat?”
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Time for Older, Wiser Heads
The schoolyard fight over war funding has gone on long enough. It’s time for the sound-biting between the White House and Congress to stop.
In the last two days, older, wiser voices are beginning to be heard. Yesterday Sen. Carl Levin, 72, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said “We are not going to cut off the funding, period,” but added that Democrats will continue to press the President to "pressure Iraqi leaders to negotiate a settlement.”
In today’s Washington Post, the dean of political columnists, David Broder, 76, writes “In the continuing battle...logic is on the Democrats' side, but the crucial political leverage belongs to the president. It behooves the realists in both camps to recognize what the troops and the country have at stake--and negotiate a compromise.”
Later in the day, the President offers a slimy olive branch, with his usual my-way-or-the-highway thorns, inviting Democrats to discuss funding as long as they give him the money without conditions, and Harry Reid responds with the equivalent of “Oh, yeah!”
It’s time for Congressional Democrats to face the fact that fiddling with the funding is a no-win situation. If there is a constitutional way to rescind the 2002 resolution authorizing the war, use it.
Otherwise they should keep rallying public opposition and, as 2008 draws nearer, they will win over enough frightened Republicans facing reelection to pass something with veto-proof bite in it.
In the last two days, older, wiser voices are beginning to be heard. Yesterday Sen. Carl Levin, 72, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said “We are not going to cut off the funding, period,” but added that Democrats will continue to press the President to "pressure Iraqi leaders to negotiate a settlement.”
In today’s Washington Post, the dean of political columnists, David Broder, 76, writes “In the continuing battle...logic is on the Democrats' side, but the crucial political leverage belongs to the president. It behooves the realists in both camps to recognize what the troops and the country have at stake--and negotiate a compromise.”
Later in the day, the President offers a slimy olive branch, with his usual my-way-or-the-highway thorns, inviting Democrats to discuss funding as long as they give him the money without conditions, and Harry Reid responds with the equivalent of “Oh, yeah!”
It’s time for Congressional Democrats to face the fact that fiddling with the funding is a no-win situation. If there is a constitutional way to rescind the 2002 resolution authorizing the war, use it.
Otherwise they should keep rallying public opposition and, as 2008 draws nearer, they will win over enough frightened Republicans facing reelection to pass something with veto-proof bite in it.
Copy Cats
Before the Internet, the definition of plagiarism was simple. Take stuff from a lot of sources, it’s research. Lift from one and it’s illegal.
Now that you can cut and paste on your computer, who knows? According to today’s Christian Science Monitor (note the attribution and link), four students are suing Turnitin, an anti-plagiarism web site for infringing on their rights by storing their homework on a database.
“Top copyright lawyers say both sides have compelling arguments. The Turnitin case highlights the mounting tensions between the social utility and economic value of searchable databases, and the ire they provoke over issues of privacy and profiting from another's work.”
That paragraph was lifted from the Monitor, but putting it in quotes and telling you that absolves me from plagiarism.
This a serious issue not only for students and bloggers
Not only are property rights and integrity involved, but sometimes the stakes are higher. You may not know that, in addition to WMD and ties to Al Qaeda, we went to war with Iraq because Saddam Hussein was a plagiarist.
Here, from an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times by Condoleeza Rice before the invasion, is proof (note the quotes):
“Iraq's declaration even resorted to unabashed plagiarism, with lengthy passages of United Nations reports copied word-for-word (or edited to remove any criticism of Iraq) and presented as original text. Far from informing, the declaration is intended to cloud and confuse the true picture of Iraq's arsenal. It is a reflection of the regime's well-earned reputation for dishonesty and constitutes a material breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, which set up the current inspections program.”
Now that may be the steepest penalty any one ever paid for plagiarism.
Now that you can cut and paste on your computer, who knows? According to today’s Christian Science Monitor (note the attribution and link), four students are suing Turnitin, an anti-plagiarism web site for infringing on their rights by storing their homework on a database.
“Top copyright lawyers say both sides have compelling arguments. The Turnitin case highlights the mounting tensions between the social utility and economic value of searchable databases, and the ire they provoke over issues of privacy and profiting from another's work.”
That paragraph was lifted from the Monitor, but putting it in quotes and telling you that absolves me from plagiarism.
This a serious issue not only for students and bloggers
Not only are property rights and integrity involved, but sometimes the stakes are higher. You may not know that, in addition to WMD and ties to Al Qaeda, we went to war with Iraq because Saddam Hussein was a plagiarist.
Here, from an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times by Condoleeza Rice before the invasion, is proof (note the quotes):
“Iraq's declaration even resorted to unabashed plagiarism, with lengthy passages of United Nations reports copied word-for-word (or edited to remove any criticism of Iraq) and presented as original text. Far from informing, the declaration is intended to cloud and confuse the true picture of Iraq's arsenal. It is a reflection of the regime's well-earned reputation for dishonesty and constitutes a material breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, which set up the current inspections program.”
Now that may be the steepest penalty any one ever paid for plagiarism.
Imus Live from Baghdad
After careful study of the past 24 hours of cable news, herewith an all-in-one solution to the world's most pressing problems:
Send Don Imus to do his show live from the Baghdad market, interviewing Al Sharpton, John McCain, Karl Rove (without immunity) and the freed British sailors (without pay). When the space billionaire gets back, he can drop by and have Martha Stewart cook for them all.
Send Don Imus to do his show live from the Baghdad market, interviewing Al Sharpton, John McCain, Karl Rove (without immunity) and the freed British sailors (without pay). When the space billionaire gets back, he can drop by and have Martha Stewart cook for them all.
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