On tonight's episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart picked up where he left off in March, utterly destroying any credibility Jim Cramer has as a financial analyst. The video and full transcript follow below the fold.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 2009-07-14, ©2009 Comedy CentralThe Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Lenny Dykstra's Financial Career Daily Show
Full EpisodesPolitical Humor Joke of the Day The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Moment of Zen - Lenny Dykstra's Debts Daily Show
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Jon Stewart: Welcome back. I'm gonna say something right now. We were actually talking about this earlier with the audience: I love baseball. And the team that I love the most in all of baseball — the New York Metropolitans. In fact — [audience cheers] — No! I've written a song about it; it goes a little something like this: [singing badly off-key] Meet the Mets! Meet the Mets! ... But I digress. As you can imagine, 1986, the last time the New York Mets won the World Series, was one of the best years of my life — which, I think, says quite a bit about my life up to that point. It was an amazing year — so many heroes: Mookie! Hojo! And of course Lenny Dykstra, seen here for some reason in a Phillies uniform, eating what appears to be a mouthful of shit. (All right; I don't know why he was doin' that.) But I loved Lenny Dykstra: he was my size, tough as nails, and he had that classic "NAILS" poster. I actually still have that hanging in my office ... and I have one also in my garage ... and my bedroom. I'm not gonna lie to you: I also had it airbrushed onto a denim jacket. I, umm, it's a really good poster.
Anyway, the one thing everybody knew about Lenny Dykstra, back in the day, was how tough he played — and also that he was kind of stupid. That's why this report, on Real Sports from last year, was so surprising.HBO® Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, 2008-03-10, episode 132, story 3, "Nails"
Bernard Goldberg: [voiceover] Lenny Dykstra, financial whiz kid, started after he left baseball. [...] When Lenny Dykstra speaks these days, people actually listen. He flies on luxurious private jets [...] the $18½ million mansion [...] and his shiny German car. Now, the guy who probably couldn't spell "financial guru" in his playing days, has become one.
Wow! Lenny Dykstra is a "financial guru"!Goldberg: You don't read books because they "might hurt your batting eye"?
Dykstra: Yeah. Them little words, plus it makes you think too much, and —
Goldberg: Reading?
Dykstra: — too confusing. I still don't like to read.
Eh, so what?? You don't like reading. You don't like reading — money is a "numbers" game anyway; it's not some stupid "word" thing, full of book-thingie words. Who better to trust your investment portfolio to than a not-so-literate horse-shit-chomping man named Nails? So, maybe, when Real Sports went back for a follow-up piece a year later, this should've come as no surprise.HBO® Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, 2009-06-23, episode 147, segment 3; "Broken Nails"
Goldberg: [voiceover] A year ago, he had millions in the bank. [...] When the stock market tanked, so did Lenny. [...] [to Dykstra] You owe everybody and his brother money – [...] the printers [of the magazine] —
Dykstra: The printers? Fuck the printers. The printers are criminals. [...]
Goldberg: The flight attendant, your assistant —
Dykstra: Fuck that flight attendant. [...] I don't owe anybody anything.
Goldberg: Really?
Dykstra: These cases, they're all bullshit.
"My broker is Lenny Dykstra, and when my broker talks — you cannot air it on national television." In fact, not only has the man known as Nails just declared bankruptcy, he's $31M in debt, and has something like 20 lawsuits filed against him. Apparently, he thought somebody gave him the sign to "steal" [audience laughs] So why am I bringing this up? Settle down, I'm getting to the point. Why am I bringing this up? Because this story encapsulates all that my life is, has been, and will be. I moved to New York in 1986, the Mets won the World Series® that year; Lenny Dykstra was one of my favorite ballplayers, he is now stricken by an economic crisis that is enveloping us all. If only there was one connecting fiber that would make this the greatest story that I have ever seen in my entire lifetime — perhaps someone who stood up for Dykstra, vouching for his financial bona fides, staking his own sterling reputation on the broad shoulders, yet apparently pin-headed back, of Leonard Q. Dykstra. [puppet voice] Roll 212! [normal voice] What was that? I didn't hear that. [puppet voice] Roll 212! [normal voice] Okay....2008-03-10, episode 132, story 3, "Nails," Goldberg interviewing
Jim Cramer: I tell ya, a guy who is applying the same skills to money that he applied to sports, it's brilliant! [...] I think people don't think of Lenny as sophisticated, but I am tellin' you, Bernie, that not only is he sophisticated, but he's one of the great ones in this business. He's one of the great ones.
[audience cheers]
[haltingly, with several silent false starts] I won't! I can't! [pulls out a glass jar and screams into it] Dykstra [inaudible]? Are you fuckin' kidding me? [bleeeeeep] [bleeeeeep] [inaudible]! [closes jar, which then tries repeatedly to jump from his hands] We'll be right back!
Technorati tags: Jon Stewart, Daily Show, Jim Cramer, Lenny Dykstra, transcript
Click below for embedded video and full transcript...
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Jon Stewart v. Jim Cramer, round 2
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
TARP COP on The Daily Show
On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart prefaced his interview with Professor Elizabeth Warren, the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP bailout process, with an exploration of the inside connections that one might suspect had something to do with the record quarterly profits of the just-bailed-out Goldman Sachs, coming right on the heels of record profits for bailout recipient Wells Fargo, contrasted with the yoinking of the safety net right from under Lehman Brothers. Video of the segment about Goldman Sachs follows below the fold, with a summary of the key points raised. Video of both portions of the interview with Elizabeth Warren follow beneath, with a full transcript of the interview.Jon Stewart on Goldman Sachs' Connections
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c Clusterfu#@k to the Poor House - Goldman Sachs' Connections Daily Show
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After taking $10 billion in government money, Goldman Sachs today reported a quarterly profit more than double analysts' projections, $1.5 billion.
Henry "Hank" Paulson went directly from being CEO of Goldman Sachs to being Secretary of the Treasury. The guy whom Hank Paulson picked to run AIG was a former member of Goldman Sachs' board, Edward Liddy. Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, who planned the financial industry deregulation, was Paulson's predecessor as CEO of Goldman Sachs. Lehman Brothers, which the federal government decided to allow to go bankrupt, holds 450,000 lbs. [200,000 kg] of yellow-cake Uranium, an important ingredient in many nuclear terrorism scenarios.Jon Stewart Interview with Elizabeth Warren, head TARP COP
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c Elizabeth Warren Pt. 1 Daily Show
Full EpisodesEconomic Crisis Political Humor The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c Elizabeth Warren Pt. 2 Daily Show
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Jon Stewart: Welcome back. My guest tonight, a Professor of Law at Harvard University — [aside] safety school! — she's also the Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on TARP. Please welcome to the show Elizabeth Warren.
Welcome to the show. You are the head of the Congressional Oversight Panel on this relief effort, on the money that is being funneled to these companies. How much money has been sent to them, and what have these companies done with it?
Elizabeth Warren: Well, we think it's about $590 billion that's gone out —
Stewart: Now, you said, "We think"; do they have Excel? Do they have a spreadsheet that they're keeping track, these companies?
Warren: Actually, the companies are not the ones that are supposed to be keeping track. It's actually supposed to be Treasury keeping track.
Stewart: Are they?
Warren: There's a little dispute about some of the numbers, but we're workin' on it.
Stewart: [puts his face in his hands, then says:] You have a difficult job.
Warren: So, my job is to stand on the outside and basically to say, "I want more transparency. I think we should have more accountability, up and down the line. And I think we need to have more clarity — you know, better articulation of what the government's policies are here and better explanation of what's going on.
Stewart: Maybe, in pursuit of that, the first thing we could do is rename it from TARP to something like MONEYHOSE.
Warren: I think it helps when we give things clear names.
Stewart: [laughter] Is this — with what you've found out so far, are you confident that the right thing to do was to hand over billions of dollars to these companies? Do you believe that this is going to work? Do you think this was the right thing to do? Are we already behind the 8-ball?
Warren: You know, we started this process when [Bush Administration Treasury] Secretary [Hank] Paulson basically said, "Here's $350 billion," to the financial institutions, and he did it on a kind of a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Stewart: Was the money stolen? Is that why he didn't want any of it?
Warren: No. The point — what he [Paulson] said at the beginning is that, in effect, what Americans are gonna do, we're gonna make an investment, and the investment's gonna be that we're gonna put money in, and we're gonna get stock back. And the good news will be, there'll be money in banks, and that'll free up credit, and there'll be plenty of credit, and at the same time, the American Taxpayer won't lose anything — he kept calling it an investment. So our panel sent him a letter, and said, "Now, you're telling us this is a fair deal, the amount of money we're getting?" And he said, "You bet!," in effect.
Stewart: So, we got $700 billion of stock in these companies?
Warren: $350 [billion] — remember, it's the first half.
Stewart: The first half?
Warren: The first half. And that's what he told us. And we could've accepted that and stopped, but instead we said, "We're gonna do some independent investigation on that." So we crunch a bunch of numbers and we get some other academics to help us take a look at it and take a look at these models, and it turns out, after he told us it's even, dollar for dollar, it turned out that for every $100 we put into these companies, we got back stock and warrants that — on the day we got them — were worth $66.
Stewart: Well, that sounds like — wait a minute! So we gave them $100, and for that we got $66 worth of product?
Warren: That's right. And when you do that enough times, it turns out that we gave away $78 billion.
Stewart: Out of the first $350 [billion]?
Warren: Yeah.
Stewart: What's the deal we got on the second $350?
Warren: Well, it's not all gone yet. And some of the money has been committed to the mortgage foreclosure plan, which I think is a really good idea, some of the money is now being committed to P-PIP. [audience laughter]
Stewart: Are you about to curse?
Warren: [shakes her head No]
Stewart: Is that an acronym?
Warren: Yeah.
Stewart: Pee Pit?
Warren: P — P-PIP.
Stewart: I'm not even gonna try on this one. What does Pee Pit stand for?
Warren: I don't remember. [audience laughter and applause] It's the — it's an investment ... thing. Oh! I remember! It's the Public-Private Investment Program. I'm sorry, it took me a minute.
Stewart: Public-Private Investment Program?
Warren: P-PIP.
Stewart: P-PIP?
Warren: P-PIP. And so —
Stewart: Thank God that's what you were investing in, 'cause I was thinking something entirely different. Continue.
Warren: So, the idea is, we're gonna put in some money, and private investors are gonna put in some money — we, the taxpayers, are gonna take a lot of risk if it doesn't work out.
Stewart: But we took the risk originally! We're the ones who lost 40% of our investment — they're giving us $66 on the $100 that we've already invested $100 and gotten $60 back on. So, we're really down ... [scribbles]
Warren: $34.
Stewart: Pee Pit. We're down twice that.
Warren: Well, actually, we're down more than that, because the value of the stock dropped, and the value of that $66 actually shrank after that, so —
Stewart: To what?
Warren: We don't actually have —
Stewart: [face in hands, laughing] Oh, God!
Warren: No —
Stewart: They've told you nothing!
Warren: It's not that, exactly.
Stewart: Can you find — what kind of powers do you have, to crush them? Do you have subpoena power? [shakes her head No] Do you have —
Warren: No, but look: what I can do is, I can talk about this, and that's exactly what I am going to do.
Stewart: Yeah, but on a show that really doesn't have a big audience.
Warren: You know, I like this audience. It's okay with me, because —
Stewart: We're gonna take a commercial break, we're gonna come back. I want to get to the bottom of, what the road ahead — there must be something, there must be a plan within this, that gets us back to a fiscal responsibility, because this is crazy, because you're a Professor of Law at Harvard who knows this inside and out. All you've done is bankruptcy law, all you've done is everything, and they are, uh — you sound like me. So, we're comin' back and [inaudible]. Elizabeth Warren; we'll be right back.
[commercial break]
Stewart: Welcome back! We're here with Elizabeth Warren; you head up the Congressional Oversight Panel on the Toxic Asset Relief Program — did I say that right?
Warren: You did.
Stewart: Thank you. Why are we giving them money and streamlining them along? Everybody keeps saying, this is the Japanese model that turns zombie banks into living zombies, for years, and didn't fix the problem — why not liquidate the banks that truly should be liquidated, and not just keep throwin' good money after bad?
Warren: We wrote a report on this, and we said, that's one of the tools in the toolbox. We could liquidate them, close the ones that are bad; we can reorganize them in place; or we can subsidize them. Those are basically the three choices, right now.
Stewart: Which would you choose?
Warren: Well, it depends on the particular circumstances — and it really does. It's a bank-by-bank thing.
Stewart: Is that what the "stress test" is? They say we're going to "stress test" a bank.
Warren: And find out where they fall, are they —
Stewart: How do you stress test a bank, if you will?
Warren: Well, you basically run it through a bunch of mathematical models, and you figure out whether you think the [bank] is financially healthy or the [bank] is really dead.
Stewart: Do the banks think they've done anything wrong?
Warren: [long pause] You should ask the banks. [audience laughter]
Stewart: I think I know what the banks would say to me. They — so, in your mind, they don't see this as a kind of a "Come to Jesus" moment. You had a very interesting statement: you said that this relief program — sort of, capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell.
Warren: Right.
Stewart: Which actually is Judaism. But [audience laughter], beside the point. So what are the repercussions here for these — why isn't the first thing we do is to say, "No one will be allowed to be 'Too Big to Fail'"? That is a license to commit poor banking practice.
Warren: Okay, so what you're asking is, if we can get this bus pulled out of a ditch, the economy, what does the road look like going forward?
Stewart: Yes!
Warren: Because this really is the big question. Let me start that question in 1792. Okay, young country, George Washington is in his first term, and we have a credit freeze. There's a financial panic. Every 10 to 15 years, there's a financial panic in our history; you just look at it. And there's a big collapse, big trouble, people lose their farms, wiped out. Until we hit the Great Depression. We come out of the Great Depression, we say, You know, we can do better than this. We don't have to go back to this kind of boom-and-bust cycle. We come out of the Great Depression with three regulations:
We go 50 years without a financial panic, without a crisis —
Stewart: A couple of recessions, and then, there are some down times.
Warren: But no crisis. No banks failing. You know, no big crisis like that.
Stewart: S&L, that sort of thing.
Warren: Well, now, wait a minute: I said fifty years, because then what happens is we say, "Regulation? Ahh, it's a pain, it's expensive, we don't need it." So we start pulling the threads out of the regulatory fabric, and what's the first thing we get? We get the S&L crisis. 700 financial institutions failed. Ten years later, what do we get? Long-term capital management, when we learn that when something collapses one place in the world, it collapses everywhere else. Early 2000's, we get Enron, which tells us the books are dirty. And what is our repeated response? We just keep pulling the threads out of the regulatory fabric. So we have two choices. We're gonna make a big decision, probably over about the next 6 months. And the big decision we're gonna make is, it's gonna go one way or the other. We're gonna decide, basically, "Hey, we don't need regulation. You know, it's fine: boom-and-bust, boom-and-bust, boom-and-bust" — and good luck with your 401(k). Or alternatively, we're gonna say, "You know, we're gonna put in some smart regulation that's going to adapt to the fact that we have new products," and what we're gonna have going forward is, we're gonna have some stability and some real prosperity for ordinary folks.
Stewart: And that's socialism? [audience laughter and applause] That, by the way, that is the first time in, probably 6 months to a year, that I felt better. Something — I don't know what it is that you just did right now, but for a second, that was like financial chicken soup for me. [audience cheers] Thank you. That actually put things in a perspective that made a little bit of sense, and I really do appreciate that, and good luck with that — and if they don't give you transparency, you tell me, because I'll keep talking about it, on the same network right after Mind of Mencia. [laughter] Elizabeth Warren.
Technorati tags: TARP, Daily Show, Jon Stewart, Elizabeth Warren, Bank Bailout, Congressional Oversight, Transcript, Goldman Sachs
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It's Been a While....
Yup, I haven't written in this blog in 2½ months. I've been busy with other projects, taking a breather from blogging, watching only 2 or 3 hours of political TV per day.... Tonight, though, I am moved to do another transcript. I'm hoping that Rachel Maddow will get Elizabeth Warren on her show soon, and I'd love to see her on Charlie Rose and Tavis Smiley. I'm backdating this entry a few hours so it will go underneath the big transcript, but it's really a little past 3 a.m. and time for bed....
Read More......Thursday, January 29, 2009
Rush gets schooled by CNBC
There was an item on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann tonight about an interview that Rush Limbaugh did on CNBC, talking about his "bipartisan stimulus plan," as he called it in today's Wall Street Journal. The interviewer — hardly a wild-eyed commie pinko on what is unmistakably the least liberal of the NBC siblings — made clear his contempt for Limbaugh's sudden epiphany of bipartisanship. Oddly, though, the transcript shows up not on CNBC's web site (video) , but on Rush's own site.
My favorite quote, by Mark Haines to Rush Limbaugh:
I hear hypocrisy. You're saying in this — in this piece, you say, uh, you know, "our economy doesn't know the difference...this is about jobs now...leave politics aside," and yet the first thing out of your mouth is politics! About liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat!
Haines began by pressing Limbaugh on his statement earlier this week that he hopes Obama fails, asking him if he now thought it was "a stupid and mean-spirited thing to say"; Limbaugh, in an act of almost Blagojevichian obliviousness, insisted that it was the right attitude to take with a new President in a time of national crisis. Limbaugh, of course, insists that Haines' skepticism must be rooted in "left-wing liberal sites that take me out of context," but Haines says he doesn't read any of them — he's basing his assessment purely on Rush's own words. Haines goes on to press Rush on his idea of splitting the stimulus money 54/46 (roughly the popular vote margin for Obama), "a refreshing breath of air" [sarcastically], in striking contrast to Rush's ideas on bipartisanship when his side was ahead 51/49.
Of course, Rush wants to use his 46% of the stimulus money for tax cuts — tax cuts for the investor class and the large corporations, specifically. As Rachel Maddow summed up on yesterday's program, a dollar spent on food stamps produces $1.73 in economic activity. A dollar spent on infrastructure produces $1.59. A dollar of individual tax cuts, $1.03. A dollar of corporate tax cuts, $0.30 — the pinnacle of corporate welfare, siphoning money not only out of the taxpayers but sucking it right out of the national economy to the detriment of everyone else. George W. Bush looked like he was about to jizz in his pants every time he said the words "tax cut," but this is a case where what's good for the Fortune 500 is quite different from what's good for Joe Sixpack.
So, why are we still talking about including corporate tax cuts as part of a stimulus plan? The very best tax cuts can do in return-on-investment (ROI) terms is $1.29, for a payroll tax holiday — the most direct way to encourage companies to hire more employees. The ROI for cutting the capital gains tax ($0.39) is only marginally better than the corporate tax. Extending unemployment insurance, on the other hand, clocks in at $1.64. It seems that the conservatives should be red-faced with embarrassment for advocating policies that are overtly counterproductive, but instead they continue to insist that the government waste money on tax cuts instead of spending it on genuine stimulus measures — measures that directly preserve jobs and give the neediest a hand in times of hardship are much more effective at growing the economy than giving tax breaks to the economic elites. (The numbers are from the Congressional testimony of Mark Zandi, one of McCain's economic advisors, House Committee on Small Business, Thursday, 2008-07-24, page 5; hat tips to Media Matters and The Rachel Maddow Show.)
In other words, the Republicans, and especially Rush Limbaugh, are fighting to make "the pie" smaller for our children so that we can eat an even bigger piece of it, before it's even baked.
(cross-posted to my DailyKos blog)
Technorati tags: CNBC, Rush Limbaugh, Stimulus Plan, Bipartisanship, Tax Cuts
An executive summary of the interview, with some expanded analysis of Rush's "plan," below the fold.... Read More......
Monday, January 19, 2009
Reason and Instinct
I've been thinking about what tomorrow's inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States means. To be sure, Obama's election is a repudiation of many aspects of the Bush era, and particularly the Iraq War and the economic meltdown, but I also see a shift from George W. Bush's "gut instinct" to Obama's thoughtful, reasoned analysis.
Bush values his instincts above all else. Indeed, many of his minions spoke derisively of the "reality-based" critics, who thought that facts somehow trumped ideology. How silly! In the partisan political arena, for the most part, Bush's instincts served him quite well, particularly with Karl Rove's nurturing guidance. However, his instincts also led him to stifle dissent among his advisors (although he is desperately trying to claim the contrary, in his efforts to polish his "legacy"), and to elevate personal loyalty above basic subject-matter competency. Bush's instincts led him to put Cheney and Rumsfeld in charge of what passed for "planning" for the Iraq invasion and occupation, to put "Brownie" in charge of FEMA, to nominate jaw-droppingly underqualified or mismatched candidates for everything from the Supreme Court to the United Nations to the Attorney General. Bush went out of his way to publicly snub those who displeased him, including restricting lucrative reconstruction contracts in Iraq to countries that had supported the invasion. He took pride in not weighing down his decision-making process with lots of facts.
Bush's instincts also told him to never waver, because any lack of absolute moral certitude would appear as weakness of character. As it turned out, though, his steadfastness proved to be more ignorant pig-headedness than stalwart adherence to principles, and history will not be kind.
Obama presents a striking contrast in this perspective as much as in his disagreements on specific policies. Obama seeks to have as much information as possible, and as many knowledgeable assessments as possible, before making a decision. When circumstances change, the decision can be reassessed and then adjusted or even reversed. Obama brings to the job of President his background as a lawyer and a law professor, in contrast to Bush's background as a lackluster and indifferent student, unbothered by self-reflection, guided more by faith than facts. Obama represents a counter-offensive in what Al Gore aptly termed The Assault on Reason.
Barack Obama's religious faith is no less genuine than George W. Bush's, but Obama understands the crucial distinction that sometimes you have to do your own homework, to do your best to understand the choices you face, rather than putting on a blindfold and trusting that Providence will inerrantly guide your hand. It is one thing to pray for the wisdom to draw the right lessons from the facts before you; it is quite another to pray for a deity to give you all the answers by miracles or magic or mystical mumbo-jumbo. Even if God is your co-pilot, you still need to keep your eyes on the road.
Of course, it's easy to go overboard in fantasizing which irrational government policies might disappear under the Obama Administration. Our federal guidelines on sex education are downright criminal, leading not only to higher pregnancy rates, but higher rates of STDs. Our so-called "War on Drugs" wastes billions of dollars fighting a drug that is not a threat to society (marijuana), thereby starving efforts at combating the real threats (for example, crystal meth). Decades of "tax simplification" have resulted in an ever-increasing thicket of regulations, answered only with meaningless gimmicks like the "flat tax." Our military throws out decorated soldiers because their sexual orientation "threatens morale" even more than the shortage of Arabic and Pashtun translators. More broadly, our government mostly refuses to acknowledge the diversity of family structures today, in many cases deeming an orphanage a better option than a loving home with a same-sex couple. The idea that markets will regulate themselves better than the government can, is plainly false, and yet we find that banks are turning their bailout windfall into new loans with the same problems that led to the financial crisis.
One thing I can guarantee is that not all of those irrational policies will be overturned, but at least we can have the audacity to hope that results will trump ideological purity, and that the reality-based community will put the Bush Administration in its rightful place on the ash heap of history.
Technorati tags: Obama, Bush, Inauguration
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Sunday, January 04, 2009
Earthquake in Afghanistan
[cross-posted from my DailyKos blog]
No, I'm not speaking in metaphor. There was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake tomorrow morning in Afghanistan, near the borders of Pakistan and Tajikistan. It occurred at 3:43 a.m., 2009-01-05, local time, which was 3:43 p.m. Sunday here on the US West Coast. So far, no one is reporting any significant damage or injuries, although some minor damage will doubtless come to light through the day. Still, as any Californian can tell you, a 5.8 is strong enough that you know you've just been in a quake, and in places like Afghanistan, a magnitude 6 will often have fatalities. There is another reason that I took notice of this quake: the specific region of Afghanistan where it happened, Hindu-Kush.
If the name "Hindu-Kush" is familiar to you more than other places in the region, that might be because of the strain of cannabis or the variety of heroin named for this mountain range that sprawls over the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area. The region is also one of the most linguistically complex in the world, with Farsi (Iran), Pashto (most of Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan), Chinese and Hindi (India) joined by about two dozen local languages. It's also a seismically active area: just a few days ago, on Christmas Eve, there was a 4.6 quake in the wee hours of the morning.
I'm glad this quake was a small one, but it's a reminder of just how little most of us know about Afghanistan. Geography trivia: what two countries border both Iran and Afghanistan? [answer 1, answer 2] More than 90% of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan, much of it from these mountains — opium poppies are a larger chunk of the Afghan national economy than everything else combined, with the Taliban skimming off enough to fund their resistance for decades.
I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do, two weeks from Tuesday morning, to mark the end of the Bush Era and the beginning of the Obama Epoch, but most of all I'm glad that there will be someone at the head of our government who will try to make informed, reasoned decisions — somebody who can find Afghanistan on a map, and someone who understands that we need to focus our so-called "War on Drugs" on the point where it intersects with the so-called "War on Terror."
Technorati tags: Afghanistan, Earthquake, Hindu-Kush, War on Drugs, War on Terror
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Sunday, November 02, 2008
The issue of McCain's "natural born" citizenship
I got an e-mail today raising the question of whether John McCain fully meets the requirements posed by Article II, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution: "No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States." Clearly, McCain has attained to the age of 35 years and been 14 years a resident within the United States. The issue is whether, because he was born outside the United States, he is a "natural born citizen."
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First, the basic facts about John McCain's birth:
The reason that people get so hung up on the question of where McCain was born, is that the Fourteenth Amendment has been interpreted to confer "natural-born" citizenship on anyone who is born inside the United States — even if, for example, the parents are illegal aliens or just plain tourists. However, that doesn't mean that anyone born outside the United States is automatically not a natural-born citizen.
Here is an excerpt from U.S. law concerning citizenship, specifically Title 8, Chapter 12, Subchapter III, Part I, Section 1401, paragraph (c):The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: [...]
John McCain and his parents clearly meet those specifications. Therefore, John McCain was "a national and citizen of the United States at birth," which is precisely the obvious ordinary meaning of "natural born citizen." I don't know if that is exactly how the law read in 1936, but given the fact that McCain is a U.S. citizen who has never been "naturalized," that is clearly the way the situation has been interpreted. There are only two categories of citizenship: natural-born or naturalized. (Oddly enough, a high school teacher of mine was born in the Canal Zone, but did go through the naturalization process just to be sure he was legally a citizen.)
(c) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person [...] — 8 USC 1401 (c)
Thus, my firm conclusion is that John McCain is a "natural born citizen," and therefore meets the Constitutional requirements for eligibility to the office of President of the United States. What's next — questioning the "natural-born" citizenship of anyone delivered by Caesarean section? After all, they're not "natural-born" anything, as Macbeth learned to his horror. (Act V, Scene 8) McCain may be a "cream-faced loon" (Act V, Scene 3), but he is eligible to be President.
Incidentally, even if the false rumor that Barack Obama was born in Indonesia rather than Hawaii were true, he would still be a natural-born citizen by my reading of 8 USC 1401 (e).
Technorati tags: John McCain, Election 2008, Natural Born Citizen, Presidential Eligibility, Constitution, Macbeth
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Colbert endorses Obama
On Wednesday's Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert used his "THE WØRD" setgment to officially issue his (tongue-in-cheek, yet serious) endorsement of Barack Obama for President. Embedded video and transcript below the fold....
Comedy Central, The Colbert Report, 2008-10-29, ©2008 Comedy CentralNation, I have no choice but to respond to my fellow prominent conservatives [former Gov. William Weld (R–MA), Susan Eisenhower, Colin Powell, former Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan, former Rumsfeld advisor Ken Adelman] who have the gall to endorse Barack Obama, which brings me to tonight's WØRD: I endorse Barack Obama. I know this is shocking and I can tell you're angry, but it is the only solution to what I see as a crisis. Namely, the crisis that these guys [Weld, Eisenhower, etc.] are getting attention and I'm not. It is time for the media to stop covering these has-beens and start covering this "is-being." [points to himself] I mean, all over the news yesterday, I'm hearing the words "William Weld." I believe the last time that name made news was when Elliot Spitzer used it to check into a hotel. They should be talking about me, because my endorsement of Obama just now took real courage: the courage to cross party lines, from a party that is a staggering mass of flaming agony to the party that looks like it's got a pretty good shot at winning this thing. Wow, I am bold. I'm just gonna take a second here to drink myself in. Jimmy, can we get a long shot of me, please? [camera shifts] That's a good shot of me. So that's what I look like when I'm being bold. Plus, if I endorse Barack Obama and he wins, I will be associated with a winner. And if there's one thing this campaign has taught us, it's that we are defined by our associations. Oh, you'll find out all about Obama's relationship with the chupacabra this weekend. [stage whisper:] He launched his political career in its lagoon! And finally, this is a terrible economy, and we may all be out of work soon. Endorsing Obama means I'll be on his good side when I apply to get a job running the combine at the new national farm collective. And so, it is for all these reasons that I, prominent conservative Stephen Colbert, am hereby endorsing Barack Obama. Of course — [audience cheers] — Of course, folks, I just want to be clear: that does not mean I am voting for him. I am not crazy! All right? There are plenty of things out there that you can endorse but not do anything to support. For instance, in Japan I endorse a very popular energy drink called Pow Young Power Jogging Now Juice, but I would never drink it — it makes you poop Hello Kitties. No! I am voting for John McCain. He may be in an uphill struggle in these final days, but I believe he can still win. He just needs to do something to prove that he has the judgment to lead and knows where this country wants to go. [snaps fingers] You know what? I've got it: Senator McCain, you need to endorse Barack Obama. That will really make you look like a maverick.
Technorati tags: Stephen Colbert, 2008 Election, Endorsement, Barack Obama
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Friday, October 24, 2008
Endorsements: CA propositions
Here are my endorsements for the California state ballot propositions for November 4, 2008:
1A. Yes. High-speed rail bonds
2. No. Standards for confining farm animals
3. No. Children's hospital bonds
4. No. Parental notification for underage abortion
5. Yes. Reform drug crime sentencing, parole, and rehab
6. No. Increase prison terms
7. No. Renewable energy — hopelessly flawed
8. No. Eliminate right of same-sex couples to marry
9. No. Victims' rights, reduces parole
10. No. Alternative fuel vehicles — self-serving
11. No. Redistricting — fatally flawed
12. Yes. Veterans housing bonds
NOTE: the original state "official voter information guide" listed information for Proposition 1, regarding high-speed rail bonds, but Prop 1 was replaced by Prop 1A, which is covered in the supplemental guide.
Prop 1A would build a high-speed rail corridor running most of the length of the state. The alternatives are to add another bazillion lanes to I-5 or build an airport every 3 miles. YES
Prop 2 sets the commendable goal of ensuring humane treatment of farm animals, but the fatal flaw is that it would only shift more egg and meat production to Mexico, where health standards and animal care standards are even more lax than they are now in California. In other words, humans get more salmonella and E. coli, and the animals live in even worse conditions, plus the California economy suffers. It's a classic "lose–lose" situation. No
Prop 3 provides bonds for children's hospital facilities. The problem is that, contrary to proponents' assertions, it will lead to higher taxes or larger spending cuts in other areas — the money has to come from somewhere. Most tellingly, there is still money left over unspent from a similar measure 4 years ago. The hospitals should use the money we've already given them before they ask for more, especially when they lie about where the money comes from. No
Prop 4 is yet another attempt to curtail abortion rights in California by requiring a waiting period and parental notification before a minor can get an abortion. If a girl is getting an abortion without her parents' knowledge, it's a pretty good bet that she has a good reason, and that decision should not be made by politicians. NO on Prop 4!
Prop 5 reduces sentences for non-violent drug offenses and offers rehab as an alternative to prison for some criminals, at the judge's discretion. It also reduces possession of less than one ounce (28.5 grams) of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction, like a traffic ticket. Our jails and prisons are dangerously overcrowded with non-violent offenders. In many areas of California, it's easier to get crystal meth than to get food; prison isn't the solution, treatment is the answer. Yes
Prop 6 is a grab-bag of misguided "tough-on-crime" measures. It requires massive new spending, especially on prisons. We already send far too many people to prison, and the prison guards' union wants more. It is far cheaper in the long run to invest in schools, job training programs, and drug rehab than to invest in prisons. Lastly, making this kind of policy by initiative is utterly insane. NO!!
Prop 7 aims at the commendable goal of increasing the use of renewable energy sources. It's true that it is opposed by PG&E, SoCal Edison, and SDG&E, but it's also opposed by environmental groups, renewable energy groups, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. When you see groups like that lined up against a measure like this, you know it's bad. Prop 7 would actually set back clean energy in California. NO!
Prop 8 seeks to overturn the California Supreme Court's decision earlier this year that required the State to allow people to marry a person of the same sex. The Supreme Court ruled that it was impermissible to discriminate based on sexual orientation in access to one of the most fundamental rights in our society. The proponents of Prop 8 also have been telling bald-faced lies about their amendment. They say that same-sex domestic partnerships already have the same rights as married opposite-sex couples, but that is absolutely untrue. Your spouse has the right to ride in the ambulance with you to the hospital; your domestic partner does not — and there are at least 8 other significant legal differences between the two. The arguments about "teaching homosexual marriage" have been thoroughly debunked by every education group in the state and every major newspaper. The bottom line is that Prop 8 is motivated by Hate and Bigotry and Intolerance, and nothing else. Many Seventh-Day Adventists — hardly the most gay-affirming religious group — have come out against Prop 8 as a matter of religious liberty: Adventists know firsthand what it means to face discrimination based on your personal beliefs, right here in America. Don't take away the rights of real people to protect against a purely hypothetical threat. NO ON PROP 8!!
Prop 9 is another draconian "law and order" measure. Among other things, it would allow crime victims to refuse to cooperate with the defendant's lawyer in preparing for trial. That right there is flat-out unconstitutional. Prop 9 would also reduce early releases from prison, even when the early releases are required due to prison overcrowding. Locking up every criminal and throwing away the key is not the way to protect society, and it's certainly not the most cost-effective way. NO!
Prop 10 is "the other" fatally flawed alternative energy program. It would provide state money to convert vehicles — mostly in commercial fleets — to natural gas or other non-oil-based fuels. Thing is, its main sponsor owns a company that retrofits cars to run on natural gas; does that sound like a conflict of interest to you? How about if I tell you that the same billionaire also financed the "Swift Boat" ads in 2004? The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV), Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and The Sierra Club — all major supporters of the concept of clean energy — oppose the deceptive Prop 10. NO!
Prop 11 is Governor Schwarzenegger's second attempt at redistricting reform, after voters shot down the first one. Sadly, in the intervening years, the Democratic Party has balanced Schwarzenegger's pro-Republican plans with ... diddly squat. The current system is badly in need of being scrapped and rebuilt from scratch, and I'm almost tempted to vote yes on 11 just to take a stand that redistricting is an important issue and then hope that the major problems with Prop 11 will be fixed before the 2020 census, but I can't do that. This redistricting proposal is still all about protecting the interests of the political parties, not the people. Further, it inexplicably exempts Congressional redistricting, leaving it in the legislature. Vote NO on Prop 11, but write a letter to your Assembly member and your state Senator, urging them to push for real redistricting reform. In particular, we should keep Prop 11's goals of creating "geographically compact" districts that preserve "communities of interest," and we should divide each state Senate district into two Assembly districts — we just shouldn't do it with this arcane and bizarre method of selecting the panel to draw the maps. NO
Prop 12 provides bonds to help military veterans buy homes in California. Set aside your feelings about the Iraq War; our veterans have laid their lives on the line to protect our nation, even fighting in misguided and misbegotten wars when ordered by our idiot President. Aside from that, the previous bond measures have been wildly successful, with the veterans themselves repaying the entire cost of the program, including interest and overhead expenses. YES!
Technorati tags: Election 2008, California Propositions
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Endorsements: SF Local 2008
Here are my endorsements for the San Francisco local election on Nov. 4, 2008, including State Assembly, Superior Court, School Board, Community College Board, BART Director, and local propositions:
Assembly, District 13: Tom Ammiano (D)
Superior Court, Judge #12: Gerardo C. Sandoval
School Board: (choose 4) Fewer, Norton, Wicoff, Yee
College Board: (choose 4) Jackson, Marks, Ngo, Wolfe
BART, District 9: Tom Radulovich
Tom Ammiano for Assembly is an easy sell; he has a long record of representing the people of San Francisco. Likewise, Sandoval for Judge is a no-brainer: the incumbent, Thomas Mellon, has a terrible record; it's a wonder that Mellon had the gall to put his name up for re-election. For School Board and Community College Board, my algorithm is usually very simple: I vote for whomever Tom Ammiano recommends. (Ammiano started out as a classroom teacher and served on the School Board before moving to the Board of Supervisors.) This year, though, Ammiano has endorsed only 3 candidates for School Board, but Wicoff (endorsed by SFBG and the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club) seems a safe choice for the 4th slot. Tom Radulovich has been a great BART director, and definitely merits another term.
I didn't list Mark Leno (D) for State Senate, because I got redistricted out of that race; it was a relief not to have to choose between Leno and Carole Migden in the primary. However, if you live in Senate District 3, definitely vote for Leno. He's not as funny as Jay Leno, but I daresay he's a better legislator. Similarly, my district isn't up this year for Supervisor; however, if you live in Sup. District 11, please do not vote for Myrna Lim, not even as 2nd or 3rd choice — Ahsha Safai is a much better choice (endorsed by Toklas but opposed by SFBG) or go with SFBG's list of Avalos – Knox – Ramos, or in any case "anybody but Lim." update: I am told that Ahsha Safai is at best unreliable on the issue of rent control.
Also, I'm no great fan of Supervisor Chris Daly, whose infantile behavior, far more mercurial even than John McCain, has been a frequent embarrassment to the City, but the ads financed by downtown developers, targeting Eric Mar (District 1), David Chiu (3), and John Avalos (11) as "puppets" of Chris Daly, are alone enough reason to give serious consideration to voting for those candidates.San Francisco Propositions
Prop. A is very straightforward: San Francisco cannot afford to allow General Hospital to be condemned for earthquake safety reasons. Prop. B creates an Affordable Housing Fund from property taxes, and SF desperately needs more affordable housing. Prop. C is a good idea, but fatally flawed execution: we should prohibit high-level City employees from serving on boards and commissions, especially if they're job-related, but there's no reason a Muni driver shouldn't serve on the Library Commission. Prop. D is a non-controversial development project for the waterfront about halfway between the Bay Bridge and Candlestick Park.
Prop. E increases the number of signatures required to recall a Supervisor, making it more difficult for special interests to attack Supes who vote with the people. Prop. F would move the Mayoral election and other city elections to even-numbered years when turnout is higher; the counterpoint is that the ballot is also more crowded with higher-profile races, but in general it's a good thing to have our top officials chosen by a larger percentage of eligible voters. Prop. G allows employees who took unpaid parental leave to buy back the retirement credit they lost. It is guaranteed not to cost the City a penny.
Prop. H is not the "blank check" that its opponents argue; there will be extensive public hearings before the City lifts a finger to move towards public power. Public power works well in many other cities across the country, including some in northern California, and Prop. H also commits the City to clean energy. Prop. I creates the Office of Independent Ratepayer Advocate, but Prop. H already does that. Prop. J creates the non-controversial Historic Preservation Commission.
Prop. K has been the focus of much heat and little light. It would stop enforcement of laws against prostitution — but not laws against child prostitution, human trafficking, abusive pimps, and other related crimes. It wouldn't drive hookers out onto our school playgrounds in broad daylight, it would let them operate like normal businesses, mostly behind closed doors, thus reducing the nuisance to the surrounding neighborhood. It would also end the current situation where a sex worker is often afraid to report a crime because he or she is afraid of being treated as a criminal instead of as a victim. I strongly endorse YES on Prop K!
Prop. L says that the City shall fund that which it has already funded; it's completely unnecessary. Prop. M defines certain forms of harassment by landlords (that means you, CitiApartments!) in the City's rent-control law; it doesn't harm good landlords and won't scare (non-abusive) small property owners out of the business. Prop. N increases the real-estate transfer tax on the sale of property worth $5 million or more, with exemptions for affordable housing and credits for solar energy and earthquake retrofits. Prop. O replaces the 911 "Emergency Response Fee" with a 911 "Access Line Tax" at exactly the same rate, to conform to recent court decisions. It also updates the application of the tax to include things like business VoIP.
Prop. P is another power grab by Mayor Newsom, replacing independent oversight with political cronies, and the Legal Counsel for the State Legislature says it violates state law and is invalid. Prop. Q closes an enormous loophole in the City's payroll expense tax that lets multi-million-dollar law firms and other "partnerships" pay far less than their fair share. It also raises the small-business exemption, giving our own local "Joe the Plumbers" a break.
Prop. R would rename the Oceanside Water Treatment Plant, dubbing it the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. There are some who say it's a slap in the face to the people who work there, doing important and under-appreciated work, but I can't think of a more fitting tribute to our 43rd President, especially since it would be the very first public facility named in his "honor." Prop. S establishes the policy that the voters will not support funding set-asides unless they identify the source for the money. The voters are still free to disregard their own policy and vote "yes" on some future ballot measure, but only after being specifically told that's what they're doing.
Prop. T requires the City to provide substance-abuse treatment to fill the urgent need. Even if you have no compassion whatsoever for the addicts, consider the problems and expenses laid upon the rest of us by their petty crimes, obnoxious belligerence, and total lack of personal hygiene. Prop. U is a simple advisory statement that the people of San Francisco oppose continuing the Iraq War and urge our representatives in Congress to push that point-of-view. Prop. V is an advisory statement that the people of San Francisco support reversing the School Board's decision to kick JROTC out of SF public schools. Maybe after the Iraq War and the end of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," but not a moment before.
Technorati tags: Election 2008, Endorsements, San Francisco
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008
International assessment of Iraq war coverage
Al Jazeera English's must-see weekly program Inside Iraq this week focused on an assessment of worldwide media coverage of the Iraq war and occupation. The panel consisted of an American independent journalist, Robert Dreyfuss; an Israeli journalist, Akiva Eldar; and an Egyptian journalist (and former AP reporter), Nadia Abou El-Magd. They pulled no punches in their analysis of both American and Middle Eastern media over the last 6 years. Embedded video and transcript follow below the fold.
Viewing note: This Wednesday, 2008-10-22 at 19:00 GMT (3pm Eastern, noon Pacific), Al Jazeera English is having a special edition of Inside Iraq, featuring top military advisors to US Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, debating the best policy for Iraq, moving forward. The host of Inside Iraq is Jasim Azzawi, who was a translator for the US State Department before joining Al Jazeera English. Definitely a "must-see" program.
Inside Iraq, original air date 2008-10-17, ©2008 Al Jazeera English
Jasim Azzawi: Hello, welcome to Inside Iraq. I'm Jasim Azzawi. For all of 5 years, Iraq has gripped the attention of the world media. Journalists have reported on every aspect of arguably the biggest story of the 21st century. But are we getting an accurate picture of events in Iraq? What role, if any, did the American media play in the run-up to the war? Could the war have been averted with more accurate coverage, and have journalists and editors mixed personal ideology and national interest in covering the story of Iraq?
[correspondent]: The Iraq War has put the role of the media under close scrutiny. The war has highlighted stark differences in media perspectives across the world. What the American public saw on their tv screens was often vastly different from what audiences in the Middle East saw on Arabic satellite tv channels. Critics say the period of time between the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq represents one of the greatest collapses in the history of the American media. They claim that the American media effectively galvanized public opinion that led the US and its allies to go to war.
Robert Wirsing, Georgetown University: There's no question that an intimidating atmosphere, corrosive atmosphere was created — systematically, deliberately created — to help in the job of mobilizing American media behind this effort to persuade the American people that there was a compelling reason, a compelling need, for the United States to invade Iraq.
[correspondent]: Six years into the war, questions are still being asked if the media has provided fair and objective reporting in Iraq. The US has often accused Arabic-language channels of being selective in their news coverage, and whipping up anti-American sentiments. However, similar charges have been leveled against the US media, accused of supporting the American occupation of Iraq by providing half-truths about the violence and chaos in the country.
Wirsing: Most media narratives about the war in Iraq tend to focus on media issues, tactics out of which we fought and so forth. There's very little discussion — there is some, but there is relatively little discussion in the media about deeper questions relating to the role, why the US is in there at all, why American lives are being sacrificed, why huge sums of money that the US is spending should be — it should be on the front burner. It should be a matter of enormous importance in the media and elsewhere, but that's not the case.
[correspondent]: The US media, which stands accused of not doing enough before the war, today seems to be taking a more rigorous editorial position. In a world of satellite tv channels, Internet access, web logs, and citizen journalism, where media technology has facilitated the dissemination of news and information, the focus on Iraq and how it is reported is more intense than ever.
Jasim Azzawi: In this episode, we are looking for three different perspectives. I'm delighted to welcome from Washington, D.C., Robert Dreyfuss, who is an independent journalist, and from Tel Aviv by Akiva Aldar (a.k.a. Akiva Eldar) (עקיבא אלדר), a senior columnist with the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz (הארץ), and from Cairo by Cairo bureau chief of the UAE newspaper The National [read the excellent editorial "No reason to gloat about American woes"], Nadia Abu Almagd (a.k.a. Nadia Abou El-Magd). Welcome to Inside Iraq. Akiva Eldar, as a senior columnist and a reporter on Iraq, when you write, do you look at Iraq through the prism of Israeli national interest? As Akiva Eldar sits and writes, as Akiva, or as an Israeli?
Akiva Eldar: Good question. Uh, both. First of all, of course my readers are interested in Iraq as a neighboring country, as an Arab country, as a potential partner for peace, maybe even an oil supplier — you know, after the war, we were even playing with the idea to reopen the old oil pipeline from Iraq to Haifa — so, naturally, what a newspaper wants to offer its readers is information which is relevant to them, and people, of course, are looking into what's in it for them, once we will be able to establish normal relationship with Iraq. As a political analyst, I see Iraq as a member of the Arab League, which has launched the Arab Peace Initiative after the Saudi peace initiative back in March 2002, and as also a country that will affect the stability in the Middle East, but on the other hand, I'm also asking myself, How can Israel continue by pursuing the peace process with the Palestinians or with the Syrians to help our American friends to put an end to their problems in Iraq, because it's very clear to us Israelis that what's good for America is good for Israel.
Jasim Azzawi: The frankness, as articulated by Akiva, is rather refreshing. That begs the question: Did the American journalists roll over for President Bush on the eve of the war, Robert?
Robert Dreyfuss: There's no question that the media, despite maybe some early suspicions, were completely in the tank — swallowed hook, line and sinker — the President's initial rationalization for why we had to go to Iraq. He claimed — President Bush claimed that Iraq was a mortal threat that had weapons of mass destruction, that was in league with al Qaeda, and of course he implied that Iraq has some relationship to what happened on September 11th. All of this was completely bogus, and you can discuss whether it was a lie or whether it was an error, but in either case the media didn't challenge the facts. Now, personally, I was involved on the side of that. I wrote a number of articles, the first profile of Ahmed Chalabi, for instance, in the American media, and other pieces about the war between the Pentagon and the CIA, over whether it was a good idea to attack Iraq and so forth. The media caved in entirely and became a cheerleader for the war. They succumbed to this patriotic — even jingoistic — march to war that took place, up until the war. Afterwards, as it became clear that the war was bogging down and the weapons of mass destruction didn't show up and so forth, the media began to do its job. Unfortunately, now, today, I would say the American media has almost eliminated Iraq from its pages. Today, the New York Times doesn't have a single story about Iraq.
Jasim Azzawi: I shall come to a decline in the coverage as well as perhaps, ostensibly, the interest of the American public in Iraq. You've been to Iraq several times — I think 6 times — before and after the war. When you look at Iraq, how do you look at it, again? Do you look at it through the eyes of an Arab journalist, or as an independent journalist? How do you look at it?
Nadia Abou El-Magd: What I've always believed in, even in the dark Iraq, that journalists should try as much as possible to be objective, regardless of nationality. I was very interested to see what's in Iraq; I was more, maybe as an Arab in this sense, I was more skeptic[al] about this mass — weapons of mass destruction, and there was amazed how it was taken sort of like for granted by many international media, which is usually more critical in the all of that, but even I was in Iraq during the inspectors were there and stuff, and everybody was sort of like, the question was not whether they have weapons of mass destruction, it was like whether we are going to find them, so I think this has changed, and every time I went to Iraq it was sort of like a different story, and I think we also said we are going to talk about the coverage that — how now, even many journalists who are in Iraq are not actually in the street, and how this has sort of — must be affecting their reporting and for the violence and for the dangers that are in there. But again, to go back to the beginning of your question, I had sort of like mixed feelings about — I had no illusions about who Saddam was and what he did to the Iraqi people, but I was not sure that this was the right way to take him out of power and of the implications —
Jasim Azzawi: So, you separated it from Saddam: Saddam might be a brutal dictator, but he knew in advance that the destruction to Iraq might be far wider than people anticipated. Akiva Eldar, there is some sort of correlation between the American occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Do you relate to that? Do you kind of make a comparison?
Akiva Eldar: I think that the American occupation and specifically the violation of the human rights in Iraq itself or in Guantánamo, makes it in a way consciously or unconsciously easier for the Israelis to live with the occupation and violation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, without even having to mention it. Now it's easier to defend —
Jasim Azzawi: So, if the Americans are doing it, then it is OK for the Israelis to do it, too? Is that it?
Akiva Eldar: Actually, in a way, it makes people feel more comfortable, because, you know, we are looking at America as the icon of the struggle for human rights and democracy in the Middle East, so you don't need to mention it, but it's there. It's up there, and it makes people in Israel make them feel a little better with the occupation, and I think that in a way it makes it more difficult for the Americans to put pressure on Israel and to twist Israeli arms when it comes to violation of human rights, settlements, checkpoints, road blocks — because perhaps they don't like to be faced with questions — who are you to tell us? What you are doing in Iraq is much worse than what we are doing here. So, of course it has a clear effect and it's right there.
Jasim Azzawi: Akiva, thank you for that comment. When we come back, I'm going to ask Robert Dreyfuss what's behind the decline in American interest in the story of Iraq. Stay with us."War fatigue also struck journalists who find it hard to translate the ongoing battles to an American audience caught between an economic downturn and a pending presidential election." — The American Journalism Review
[commercial break]"It's not the war in Iraq that's revolutionising the Middle East — it's the media." — Marc Lynch, Author and Expert on Media and the Middle East
Jasim Azzawi: Welcome back to Inside Iraq. We are talking about media perspective, how journalists and media organizations bring different perspective during the coverage of Iraq, with Nadia Abu Magd, Akiva Eldar, and Robert Dreyfuss. Robert Dreyfuss, what lies behind the ostensible recent decline in American interest of the Iraq story? Did the Americans walk away from the story, or the press walked away from Iraq?
Robert Dreyfuss: Well, I think largely the press is following the public interest here, and Americans, I'm sad to say, have stopped caring about Iraq because the level of violence is down, in particular the number of Americans killed every month has declined sharply, so Americans have stopped thinking about Iraq. It's almost as if they don't care over here how many Iraqis are killed, the fact that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died, that the state has been reduced to rubble, that the economy and the institutions were dismantled and destroyed. The fact that Americans aren't dying has caused the public to shift its attention away from the war. The fact that the Iraqi government is now in the hands, largely, of people who are agents of Iran or at least allies of Iran next door, the precise paradoxical opposite of what President Bush tried to accomplish, allegedly, in going into Iraq, doesn't register here at all, and so Americans have focused on the decline in violence and of course I think we know now that masks the fact that Iraq is still poised to explode, not just over Kirkuk, which could blow up at any time, but also over the coming assault against the Sons of Iraq, the Awakening or Sawa movement, which, again, is poised to explode — there's a lot of problems in Iraq, and Americans aren't paying attention at all. It's just faded away from the front pages. I mean, I think most Americans have turned the page. They initially were big supporters of the war and now they've decided it wasn't worth fighting.
Jasim Azzawi: Nadia, Robert has been brutally frank in his assessment about how the American media is looking at Iraq. As an Egyptian journalist, when you look at it, do you also look on the positive side of Iraq, now that Iraq, everybody tells us, is a democracy, [political] parties abound, newspapers are thriving, and Iraqis can express themselves. Do you look at that with skepticism, or do you give the Iraqi government, as well as the American enterprise in Iraq, the benefit of the doubt, that there is a negative side, but at the same time there's a positive aspect to it?
Nadia Abou El-Magd: I think it's very difficult to talk about positive when you talk about Iraq, or see what's happening still in Iraq. Very, very difficult, indeed. The fact that Saddam has disappeared from the picture doesn't mean that what is existing now is democracy, and even if it was democracy, which it isn't, I mean, how can you justify all of this violence and the ethnic cleansing and the killing and the whole state. It's not a state any more. So, it's very difficult to talk about positive when you have such a very negative picture, all aspects.
Jasim Azzawi: Before I go to Akiva, Robert, argue for me the point why Iraq, in your opinion, is not a democracy, as we are told day in and day out by the Bush Administration.
Robert Dreyfuss: Well, you know, the political parties in Iraq are basically mafias, they're not really political parties. Almost none of them have any deep roots in the country. The main political party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, is a militia-based party that doesn't have real popular support. The Al Dawa Party is a party of intellectuals that has no real base in the population. The Sunnis, the Iraqi Islamic Party, was elected with 2% of the Sunnis voting in that last election, and represents almost no one, so they're gonna be swept away in the provincial elections coming up. The people in local provinces are mostly reliant on local militias and armed groups to protect them. Teh same is true in the north where the Kurds are anything but a democracy. The two Kurdish parties, again, are like two mafias that run that part of the country. So, it's a complete and utter mess. It's built around violence.
Jasim Azzawi: Point well taken, Robert. Akiva, when I invited you for this show, you told me that the Israelis are not interested in Iraq any more, absolutely whatsoever. Is it because Iraq is no longer a threat to Israel? We remember back in 1991 when Saddam lobbed several missiles onto Israel. Is it because the threat from the east is gone, or is it because of domestic Israeli policy, they are not interested in this American quagmire in Iraq?
Akiva Eldar: I think both. Actually the Israelis are looking further southeast to Iran right now, and, as you know, President Ahmadinejad was addressing the UN and made some very naughty remarks towards Israel, and the Israelis, of course, are very concerned about the nuclear program, and they also look at this threat of the Shi'ite Crescent going all the way, as you mentioned before, from Iran through Iraq to Syria and Lebanon with Hezbollah and Hamas and this is the way the Israelis are seeing Iraq. They see Iraq as part of the Iranian Shi'ite threat, since I think the Israeli media doesn't believe that the Americans will be able to get out with Iraq, leaving behind them a democratic state. So, we are concerned about the risk and the possibility that Iraq will be part of this Iranian huge front that Israel will have to face, so it's not Iraq proper, it's Iraq as part of a very troubling puzzle, if you like, in the Middle East.
Jasim Azzawi: Before I finish this program with Robert Dreyfuss, let me just go to Nadia. Nadia, how [are] the Egyptian newspapers in general — especially the big ones like Al Ahram [English edition, édition française], El Akhbar, and Al Shaab — covering Iraq right now? Are the Egyptians giving the benefit of the doubt to the new regime in Iraq, or do they look at it askance with a negative, negative coverage?
Nadia Abou El-Magd: No, I don't think there is any, they're not giving any benefit of the doubt to the new government. It's almost like what it has been, there's many "I told you so," that many Egyptians were opposed to this war in Iraq, and for them every day proved that they were right. I mean, it's reported about all of these explosions and all of these Iraqis dying and stuff, but they're not happy with the new government or with how things are in Iraq, which is very difficult for anybody to be happy [about]. And the other thing is, there is also a lot of sensitivity to Shi'ites and stuff, so the fact that the government, as Robert said, it's run by allies to Iran and stuff, making Egyptians nervous about that.
Jasim Azzawi: Robert, I am going to close this show with you. I'll take you back to the eve of the war. Explain to me, how is it possible that the American media, world renowned for investigative journalism and asking hard questions — need I remind our viewers that Woodward and Bernstein, they brought the Nixon Administration down — this question of WMD's and the mushroom cloud, nuclear capabilities of Iraq — how did it escape the American media, or did they have an axe to grind?
Robert Dreyfuss: No, what happened was very, very simple. We had just been attacked on September 11th. The country was traumatized. Millions of Americans could only think about revenge, and basically that meant going after anybody who looked like he was anti-American and had a mustache, and as you know, Saddam had a mustache. And so, when President Bush, who had the political power of King Kong at that point, said, "We're gonna go after Iraq," the public overwhelmingly fell in line, and the media, unfortunately, was simply unable to stand up to that avalanche. There were a few brave souls that tried, but especially on television it was overwhelming, the owners of the television channels put tremendous pressure on reporters not to investigate because it was hurting their ratings, because Americans were so revved up for war that they were turning off channels that presented criticism of the war. So, Bush used that momentum to go to war and it's a shameful blot on American journalistic history that more reporters, except for the lonely few, weren't able to stand up to that.
Jasim Azzawi: Independent journalist Robert Dreyfuss; Akiva Eldar, senior columnist with Ha'aretz; Nadia Abou El-Magd, Cairo bureau chief of the UAE newspaper The National — thank you for being guests on Inside Iraq. To access the show and send us your comments, please go to aljazeera.net/english. Join me next week when we take another look Inside Iraq; until then, good bye.
Technorati tags: Inside Iraq, Al Jazeera English, Media, Iraq War, Robert Dreyfuss, Akiva Eldar, Nadia Abou El-Magd
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