Sotomayor hearings: Most of our judges understand what it’s like to be old

More opening statements (Sessions’ in previous post).

Chuck Grassley: “Judge Sotomayor, I’ll be asking you about your ability to wear that judicial blindfold.” Kinky.

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Lindsey Graham attempted to out-brown her: “No Republican would have chosen you, Judge; that’s just the way it is. We would have picked Miguel Estrada. We would all have voted for him. And I don’t think anybody on that side would have voted for Judge Estrada, who is a Honduran immigrant... So the Hispanic element of this hearing’s important... my Republican colleagues who vote against you I assure you could vote for a Hispanic nominee.” So that’s okay, then.

(Update: By the time I got around to writing the post, I’d forgotten why I selected the quote: No Republican would have chosen Sotomayor? Hey Lindsey, who appointed her to a judgeship the first time?)

A WARNING TO KEEP HER HOT LATIN BLOOD IN CHECK: “Now, unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to get confirmed.”

WHAT BOTHERS LINDSEY: “It just bothers me when somebody wearing a robe takes the robe off and says that their experience makes them better than someone else.” Especially if they’re wearing women’s underwear but they’re not a woman – I’m looking at you, Scalia.

SO THERE: “I think your experience can add a lot to the court, but I don’t think it makes you better than anyone else.”

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Tom Coburn, who brings to the Judiciary Committee, as he told John Roberts, his “medical skills of observation of body language”:

SOMETHING REMARKABLE: “It is truly an honor to have you before us. It is -- says something remarkable about our country that you’re here.” And something remarkable about you that you’re still awake... Ms. Sotomayor?... hello?

“And I assure you, during your time before this committee, you will be treated with the utmost respect and kindness.” ACCUSATION OF RACISM IN 5,4,3...

EVIDENTLY SOMEONE WHO COMES FROM THE HEARTLAND GRASPS AND HOLDS MORE THAN A WISE LATINA DOES: “And I’m worried that our Constitution may be seen to be malleable and evolving when I, as someone who comes from the heartland, seems to grasp and hold and the people that I represent from the state of Oklahoma seem to grasp and hold that there is a foundational document and there are statutes and occasionally treaties that should be the rule, rather than our opinions.” Can we just agree that anyone who’s ever argued that there is more wisdom in one part of the country than another or used the phrase “San Francisco liberal” or “un-American parts of our nation,” can just shut up about the “wise Latina” thing?

“During the campaign, he promised to nominate someone who’s got the heart and the empathy to recognize what it’s like to be a young, teenaged mom. The implication is that our judges today don’t have that. Do you realize how astounding that is? The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, to be African-American or gay or disabled or old. Most of our judges understand what it’s like to be old.”

WHERE EMPATHY COMES FROM (THE STORK?): “We expect a judge to merely call balls and strikes? Maybe so, maybe not. But we certainly don’t expect them to sympathize with one party over the other, and that’s where empathy comes from.”

Sotomayor hearings: Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another

Just as I turned on the Sotomayor hearing, heard Lindsey Graham say “wise Latina woman”; turned off Sotomayor hearing.

But Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (by the way, that is the way he referred to himself before he became “Jeff” to run for the Senate) has helpfully posted his opening remarks online.

LEAHY BROUGHT BROWNIES! “I hope it will be viewed as the best hearing this Committee has ever held.”

SO THEY CAN HEAR YOU CALLED A RACIST OVER AND OVER: “I know your family is proud, and rightfully so. It is a pleasure to have them with us today.”

“I expect this hearing and resulting debate to be characterized by a respectful tone, a discussion of serious issues, and a thoughtful dialogue”. FIRST ACCUSATION OF RACISM IN 5,4,3...


DUDE, YOU JUST BLEW MY MIND: “our legal system is based on a firm belief in an ordered universe and objective truth.”

He warned of “a Brave New World where words have no true meaning...” I mean, “rhubarb” could mean “rutabaga”! It’s a madhouse I tell you, a madhouse!!! “...and judges are free to decide what facts they choose to see.” I was going to make a Fox News joke or something, but in a court, isn’t “deciding what facts they choose to see” actually called “applying the rules of evidence”?

“We have seen federal judges force their own political and social agenda on the nation, dictating that the words ‘under God’ be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance and barring students from even silent prayer in schools.” Putting aside that “under God” was a late addition to the pledge, any court ruling wouldn’t actually govern the content of the pledge, just what can be said in a secular public school. Also, in addition to the metal detectors that schools now have, which they didn’t have in my day, are there also telepaths to ensure that students don’t engage in “even silent prayer”?

“Judges have – contrary to the longstanding rules of war – created a right for terrorists, captured on a foreign battlefield, to sue the United States government in our own courts. Judges have cited foreign laws, world opinion, and a United Nations resolution to determine that a state death penalty law was unconstitutional.” Note that Sessions, in the sentence immediately preceding the one expressing his disgust with foreign laws, world opinion etc being mentioned in an American court of law, suggested that “longstanding rules of war” should have precedence over the United States Constitution.

CALL IT RHUBARB: “Call it empathy, call it prejudice, or call it sympathy, but whatever it is, it is not law.”

CLUELESS: “Could it be that her time as a leader of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund provides a clue as to her decision against the firefighters?”

EMPATHY IS ALWAYS PREJUDICE: “It seems to me that in Ricci, Judge Sotomayor’s empathy for one group of firefighters turned out to be prejudice against the others. That is, of course, the logical flaw in the ‘empathy standard.’ Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another.” And there’s the Republican party’s philosophy encapsulated for you.

BECAUSE HE HATES US, AND WANTS US TO SUFFER: “I hope the American people will follow these hearings closely.”

A SLIGHTLY STONED, MELLOW JUDGE? “And, at the end of the hearing, ask, If I must one day go to court, what kind of judge do I want to hear my case?”

The Sotomayor hearings

I don’t think I’ll be C-SPANning them, because watching them will lack one oddly perverse pleasure of past Judiciary Committee hearings: yelling at Joe Biden to shut up already.

At least the Taliban never pretended not to be misogynist assholes

Afghanistan’s Shia family law, the one that was postponed after an attempt to sneak it through in spring (Karzai claimed he had signed it without reading it), is back in slightly revised form. It contained many objectionable provisions, including permitting girls to be married off immediately after menarche, though the Western press focused almost entirely on the one stating that wives could not refuse their husband’s sexual demands. My googling today shows that many newspapers have shortened an AP story on the new version to two sentences, saying that “The new version no longer requires a woman submit to sex with her husband, only that she do certain housework.” In fact, it also says that husbands may deny food to wives who deny them sex. Guardianship rights over children are given exclusively to men, the payment of blood money is allowed as sufficient punishment for rape of a child. The provision that wives must have their husband’s permission to leave the house seems to be gone. Not sure about child marriage.

A laying on of hands

“You are healed!”
“Why thank you, Mr. Obama.”

Sarah Palin and Plato, together again

You have to sacrifice to win

So Sarah Palin delayed her resignation until the 26th because she had to have a picnic first, or something. Since she was out fishing for salmon yesterday, I assume she also had some vacation days to use up. What other vital business is she finishing off?


She is also sharing some philosophy with her many loyal followers.

Caption contest, ginormous cannon version

Barack Obama is in Russia; Medvedev is showing off his cannon and his two cannon balls. CAPTION CONTEST.

Propaganda vehicles

After keeping her captive a week, Israel finally releases former Congresscritter Cynthia McKinney and 15 other activists who had tried to bring a ship of food and medicine and crayons to Gaza (4 are still being held). Evidently they would have been released earlier if they’d signed a confession. Israel’s UN ambassador had said, “clearly the purpose of that ship was to create a buzz and serve as a propaganda vehicle against Israel.” Well, yes, obviously that was one of the purposes, but you know, there’s a reason why someone bringing food and medicine to Gaza makes you look bad. If people getting the food and medicine they need is, you know, normal, commonplace, then food and medicine can’t be a “propaganda vehicle.”

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Speaking of propaganda vehicles, Zelaya’s attempt to return to Honduras by plane was (literally) blocked. I think he should do it again and again, three times a day. They can get their tanks off the runway and let him land – or lose the use of Tegucigalpa’s international airport.

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Speaking of propaganda vehicles, the BBC’s caption for this picture reads, “Metropolitan Volodymyr of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church blesses motorcycles before a procession to mark the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava, a victory by Russia’s Emperor Peter the Great against Sweden.”

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A diagram (creator unknown) of things to say/not say during sex.

More effective paths

BECAUSE SARAH IS ALWAYS ALL ABOUT THE EFFECTIVE PATHS: Anchorage Daily News: “Palin said she is embarking on a ‘different, more effective path’ than finishing her term. Asked how, she said she didn’t know at this point, other than to campaign for political candidates who represent the values she supports.”

And ABC, one of several news media lined up to interview her as she did whatever one does with dead salmon, notes her comment that all those ethics complaints against her would go away if she just became president: “‘I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we’ve been charged with and automatically throw them out,’ she said. There is no ‘Department of Law’ at the White House.”

(Update: which would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?)

Breaking! There is something about himself that Obama doesn’t like!

Russian tv asked Obama what he doesn’t like about himself. “I don’t like my golf swing.”

The LA Times has an article about a Marine whose recruiters knew he was autistic (he was recruited out of a group home for disturbed youths) and that he was legally barred from signing contracts. It didn’t work out very well.

We cannot dictate

Joe Biden, apparently giving the green light to Israel to bomb Iran: “Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination — if they make a determination — that they’re existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.”

Unless of course that sovereign nation is Iran and it’s made a determination that it is existentially threatened by another country.

(Before anyone jumps into comments: Yes, I know that there is no especially credible evidence that Iran is even trying to build nukes; that’s neither here nor there for my point that we dictate to sovereign nations on these matters all the freaking time.)

False info on the right decision

Yesterday, Joey Chestnut won the Coney Island hot dog-eating championship, downing a record 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Today, Sarah Palin attempts to beat the record for most convolutions in 140 characters.

Thou Shalt Not Park, redux

I should have known better than to try out a new Firefox release the first week. Someone tell me when 3.5 actually works.

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Nice fireworks, which I was able to watch 20 feet from my front door. The cat should be out from under the chair by Labor Day.

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The wife of Sir John Sawer, the guy who’s supposed to take over as head of the British Secret Service (“C”) later this year, made a little security booboo by putting everything about her life on Facebook, including holiday pictures, one of them featuring a blindingly pale Sir John playing frisbee in his swim suit, the location of their London flat, where their children and parents can be found, etc etc. Not that she didn’t have some privacy for her page: only 200 million people had access to it.

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Another weekend of rioting in Jerusalem over a parking lot being opened on the sabbath. Ultra-Orthodox threw stones at traffic and at the police, calling them “Nazis” (the Nazis were well-known for their support of ample parking) (for example they designated the whole of Poland a parking lot) and “ant-semites.” I’m just enjoying the pictures.

If you respect life

The archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, went on tv to tell Zelaya he shouldn’t come back to Honduras. He cited the commandments against lying (the archbishop, by the way, once said that Jews were using the media to exploit the accusations of sexual abuse against priests in order to divert attention from the Israeli-Palestinian issue), stealing and murder. “If you respect life, if you love life. . .please meditate because if not it could be too late.” Archbishops supporting coups; it really is the 1980s all over again.

Curiously, you no longer hear the Honduran coupsters claiming that Zelaya resigned, although the Honduran Congress voted, not to depose Zelaya, but to accept a forged written resignation.

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If you’re looking for something to read about the nature of the United States on this July 4th, you could do worse than Stephen Fry’s recent talk to the Royal Geographical Society. Have some lemonade with it.

Only dead fish go with the flow

An Indian court overturns the ban on gay sex (dating from the Raj, indeed from the Victorian period), although only in New Delhi. Plan your vacations accordingly.

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Sarah Palin has resigned as governor of Alaska (transcript).

First she explained how important Alaska is: “We’re strategic IN the world as the air crossroads OF the world, as a gatekeeper of the continent.” (The odd capitalizations are from her office’s press release.)

WHAT GOD GAVE US: Also, too, “This land, blessed with clean air, water, wildlife, minerals, AND oil and gas. It’s energy! God gave us energy.”

WOULD THAT BE FRIVOLOUS ETHICS OR FRIVOLOUS VIOLATIONS? “Over the past nine months I’ve been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations”

IF – AND IT’S A BIG IF – SHE’S LEARNED ONE THING: “If I have learned one thing: LIFE is about choices!”

SHE CHOOSE TO WORK VERY HARD ON A PATH FOR FRUITFULNESS AND PRODUCTIVITY. BY QUITTING. “I choose to work very hard on a path for fruitfulness and productivity. I choose NOT to tear down and waste precious time; but to build UP this state and our country, and her industrious, generous, patriotic, free people!”

ONLY DEAD FISH. AND MAYBE USED CONDOMS: “Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: ‘Sit down and shut up’, but that’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and ‘go with the flow. Nah, only dead fish ‘go with the flow’.” So by quitting, she’s not taking a quitter’s way out.

“And there is such a need to BUILD up and FIGHT for our state and our country. I choose to FIGHT for it!” By quitting!

WHAT SHE’S NOT PUTTING ALASKA THROUGH: “I thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks... travel around the state, to the Lower 48 (maybe), overseas on international trade - as so many politicians do. And then I thought - that’s what’s wrong - many just accept that lame duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck, and milk it.” Mmm, duck milk. “I’m not putting Alaska through that - I promised efficiencies and effectiveness! ? That’s not how I am wired.” Yeah, it would be so unlike her to take freebies.

PASSING THE BALL – FOR VICTORY! “Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports... basketball. I use it because you’re naïve if you don’t see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I’m doing that - keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities - smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it’s time to pass the ball - for victory.”

“In fact, we will look to swear Sean in - in Fairbanks at the conclusion of our Governor’s picnics.” I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like the timing of her resignation is based on... picnics.

WHAT HER CHILDREN WON’T ALLOW: “I cannot stand here as your Governor and allow millions upon millions of our dollars go to waste just so I can hold the title of Governor. And my children won’t allow it either.” She’s referring to those expensive ethics investigations.

THE HELL YEAH SEALED IT: “this decision comes after much consideration, and finally polling the most important people in my life - my children (where the count was unanimous... well, in response to asking: ‘Want me to make a positive difference and fight for ALL our children’s future from OUTSIDE the Governor’s office?’ It was four ‘yes’s’ and one ‘hell yeah!’ The ‘hell yeah’ sealed it - and someday I’ll talk about the details of that.”

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS MORE OF: “I think much of it had to do with the kids seeing their baby brother Trig mocked by some pretty mean-spirited adults recently.) Um, by the way, sure wish folks could ever, ever understand that we ALL could learn so much from someone like Trig - I know he needs me, but I need him even more... what a child can offer to set priorities RIGHT - that time is precious... the world needs more ‘Trigs’, not fewer.” So everybody go out and give birth to a Down Syndrome baby – do it for the world.

REAL CLIMATE CHANGE: “I don’t want any Alaskan dissuaded from entering politics after seeing this REAL ‘climate change’ that began [when McCain picked her] in August. ... And I will support you because we need YOU and YOU can effect change, and I can too on the outside.”

CALLING AN AUDIBLE (BUT NOT AN INTELLIGIBLE): “We need those who will respect our Constitution where government’s supposed to serve from the BOTTOM UP, not move toward this TOP DOWN big government take-over... but rather, will be protectors of individual rights - who also have enough common sense to acknowledge when conditions have drastically changed and are willing to call an audible and pass the ball when it’s time so the team can win! And that is what I’m doing!”

I CAN SEE IT FROM MY HOUSE: “Remember Alaska... America is now, more than ever, looking North to the Future.”

What a very strange person she is.

(Update: and she concluded with a quote from Douglas MacArthur, which as it happens was not actually a quote from Douglas MacArthur.)

I’m very much afraid that this will leave California the new proud possessor of the stupidest governor in America.

For a limited time

Just like the big boys, for $25,000 to $250,000, I am offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to my cat.

You’re offering what, now?

That’s why he’s a United States senator, and you’re not

Joe Lieberman puts his finger on the problem with a government-run health insurance option: “If we create a public option, the public is going to end up paying for it.” Gosh, I never considered that. I feel so foolish now.

I think that “If we create a public option, the public is going to end up paying for it” is going to go down in history as the new “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

Speaking of chronic diseases

Acting within the law

Honduras’s interim puppet president Roberto Micheletti told the Wall Street Journal that the coup was conducted in order to protect the constitution from Zelaya, and also it wasn’t a coup. “We are acting within the law,” he said. The Journal doesn’t seem to have followed up with a request for the specific statute which specifies a punishment of being dumping in another country in one’s pajamas.

Democratic vocation, redux

At a press conference, Hillary Clinton called “for the full restoration of democratic order in Honduras,” saying that events there had “evolved into a coup.” When asked explicitly whether the US was demanding the return of the elected president, she said no, going only so far as to say that “we think that the arrest and expulsion of a president is certainly cause for concern that has to be addressed.” One could be forgiven for thinking that she doesn’t want to look like supporting a coup, but wouldn’t mind taking advantage of the situation to get rid of Zelaya through some sort of negotiated settlement with the people who seized power.

Later in the day, though, Obama belatedly made the statement he should have made immediately: “We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there.” He has not, however, according to press spokesmodel Robert Gibbs, picked up a phone to offer that support to the democratically elected president, which doesn’t suggest that he plans to offer much in the way of practical help.

What we can’t allow

The man the Honduran coup leaders have installed as interim president, Roberto Micheletti, says, “We can’t allow that this government take us to communism or socialism.”

Henry Kissinger, 1973, about the Chilean coup: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.”

Democratic vocation

Israel claims to be building within the settlements only for "normal life." (Has anyone noticed if American Likudniks have picked up this deeply cynical phrase?) But in fact, it's also building new houses for settlers evicted from unauthorized outposts.

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Statements from Obama and Hillary Clinton on the coup in Honduras more or less condemn it and talk a lot about "democratic norms" and whatnot (I especially like Clinton's call for "all parties in Honduras... to reaffirm their democratic vocation" – I'm sure the military will get right on that), but I have yet to see a clear call for Zelaya to be reinstated.

The NYT's front-page headline today (which has been changed on the website) was "Honduran Army Ousts President Allied to Chavez." Subtle, huh?

Flies are traditional

Today is Christabel and my 1st anniversary. I plan to give her as a present some of her favorite toys by letting in a few flying insects for her to chase. Hours of fun.

I should mention that one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposals is to reduce the time county pounds are required to keep strays before killing them to three days, and it would be nice if some pressure were put on him not to do that.

Also, if someone could adopt that black cat at my local Humane Society who I seriously considered last year but passed on and whose picture still shows up in the Society’s ads in the local paper, making me feel a little guilty each time I see it.

The pleasure of conquest

Silvio Berlusconi has denied paying for sex, saying “I never understood what the satisfaction is when you are missing the pleasure of conquest.” Somehow Silvio makes not paying a prostitute sound more skeezy than paying a prostitute.

Thou shalt not park

Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem have been protesting the opening of a municipal parking lot on Saturdays, which violates the command to rest on the sabbath. They just had a major riot, throwing rocks and bottles at police for hours. On the sabbath. After Friday prayers. Is there some part of “rest on the sabbath” I don’t understand?

They also attacked journalists, because taking pictures of the riot also violates sabbath law.

Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding that school authorities stip-searching a 13-year-old girl for drugs is “unconstitutionally skeezy.” The lone dissenter was of course Clarence Thomas, whose opinion shows him drooling over the thought, not so much of naked 13-year-old bodies, but of power. Raw, unchecked power. Especially power over naked 13-year-old bodies.

Where the other justices considered whether the search violated Savana Redding’s 4th Amendment rights, Thomas suggested that she should have no such protection against school authorities, that we should “return to the common-law doctrine of in loco parentis” (from a time before school attendance was mandatory), under which teachers had absolute authority over pupils and complete “discretion to craft the rules needed to carry out the disciplinary responsibilities delegated to them by parents.” Just as children have no 4th Amendment right against their parents searching their room, so too they would be subject to any search a school wanted to perform upon them. “Preservation of order, discipline, and safety in public schools is simply not the domain of the Constitution.”

Thomas wrote that any search for pills is reasonable and thus permissible so long as it is “limited to the areas where the object of that infraction could be concealed” (i.e., boobies) (of course by his standard cavity searches would also be reasonable). “Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments.”

Thomas suggests that if parents do not intend to delegate their intrusive-searching authority to schools under the in loco parentis doctrine he proposes to restore (which came from a time before school attendance was mandatory), they may (he is quoting his own opinion in the Bong Hits 4 Jesus case (Morse v. Frederick), “seek redress in school boards or legislatures; they can send their children to private schools or home school them; or they can simply move.” No problemo.

Right now I command you to leave!

Haven’t watched it myself, but there’s a video making the internet rounds of some church in Connecticut holding an exorcism to expel the “homosexual demons” from a 16-year-old boy. I thought of running a contest for what a “homosexual demon” might be like – “Everything in Hell is so red, which is awful for me because I’m totally an autumn,” “Queer eye for the straight incubus” etc. But I don’t know, I’d hate to offend my gay and/or demon readers.

You have urinated on my jacket

Headline of the Day (Daily Telegraph): “Monkey Urinates on Zambian President.”

Or wait, is the Headline of the Day “Zambia Leader Hit by ‘Press Leak’” (BBC)? You be the judge.

Breaking!

Mark Sanford to run for prime minister of Italy.

I think there have been times where we’ve made mistakes

Today Obama met Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. A Chilean reporter told a little joke about how there’s never been a coup in the United States because there’s no American embassy here, then asked if Obama would maybe like to apologize for CIA interventions in Chile and elsewhere in Latin America. O: “I’m interested in going forward, not looking backward. I think that the United States has been an enormous force for good in the world. I think there have been times where we’ve made mistakes.” Mistakes? So no apology, but a heart-felt “Whoops, we accidentally conspired to foment a coup in your country and kill your elected president, but in a force-for-good kind of way”?

Obama press conference: 95% cured

Transcript.

Obama opened with a stronger condemnation of the violence in Iran (which the White House helpfully translated into Persian), although, he said, “the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran”. Although, since the election was stolen, the concept sovereignty is a little dicey at the moment. I’m not sure why election theft creates such confusion in language; Obama also said, “If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect those rights and heed the will of its own people.” Of course if it heeded the will of its own people, the guys currently running it wouldn’t be the government anymore. Also, he thinks governments only get the respect of the international community if they respect rights and heed the will of their people – isn’t that just adorable?


He again suggested that it is “up to the Iranian people to decide who their leadership is going to be and the structure of their government” without suggesting how they might do so, given the, you know, stolen election. Not that he should be issuing marching orders, of course, but he’s the one who said that the Iranian people should decide their leadership, when there is no functioning mechanism for them to do so. He did say that “those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.” But very often they also wind up dead.

Still, as Obama keeps saying, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. I think that’s the liberal equivalent of the Laffer Curve.

“This tired strategy of using old tensions to scapegoat other countries won’t work anymore in Iran.” Er, why not?

Asked by CBS’s Chip Reid if his stronger words about Iran were “influenced at all by John McCain and Lindsey Graham accusing you of being timid and weak,” he replied “What do you think?”


A PROBLEM: “I think that when a young woman [Neda Agha-Soltan] gets shot on the street when she gets out of her car, that’s a problem.”

There was a lot about health care, which I won’t get into, except to note that Obama refused to say that inclusion of a public option was non-negotiable.


About his own smoking: “I don’t do it in front of my family.” Insert Bill Clinton joke here. Also, he declared himself “95% cured.”


OPTIMISTIC, OR JUST STUPID? YOU BE THE JUDGE: About the economic depression: “What’s incredible to me is how resilient the American people have been and how they are still more optimistic than -- than the facts alone would justify.”

(UPDATE: The best question was one I only half-heard. After Obama said that he’d seen the Neda video and it was heart-breaking, Helen Thomas – who had not been called upon – interjected to ask why then he was suppressing the Guantanamo photos. Obama, in a rather condescending tone, and to the supportive laughter of the press corpse, told her that was “a different question,” and proceeded to ignore her.)

A very Hope-y Father’s Day

Barack Obama has an article in Parade Magazine about fathers. Evidently, “their job does not end at conception”. Who knew?

He castigated absent fathers: “I would often walk through the streets of Chicago’s South Side and see boys marked by that same absence – boys without supervision or direction or anyone to help them as they struggled to grow into men.” I’m not a single mother, but I think I can respond to that on behalf of all single mothers: Fuck you, Barack.

Insert quarter

This blog notes the passing of John Houghtaling, the inventor of Magic Fingers.

Some daddy figures won’t go away:

It’s the least we can do

Obama was interviewed by CBS. Asked about Iran, he said, “And the world is watching. And we stand behind those who are seeking justice in a peaceful way.” So the world is watching their butts, is what he’s saying.

Wait, wait, it’s gonna be a doggy

At a rally in Tehran today,


Mousavi unveiled his new strategy to defeat Ahmadinejad.


Balloon animals.

Possibly not his best idea.

That kind of movement will cascade through a society

Yesterday George Bush gave a speech to the Manufacturer and Business Association’s annual convention in Pennsylvania.

About the prospect of closing Guantanamo, he said, “I’ll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don’t believe that -- persuasion isn’t going to work. Therapy isn’t going to cause terrorists to change their mind.” Instead of therapy, he recommends waterboarding.

Not funny, but true.

He also explained why on 9/11/01 he failed to leave the My Pet Goat reading: “I realized that we were in crisis, and the first thing I do in any crisis ... is calm. If you’re president, and all of a sudden the whole world is watching you, and you get up and do something precipitously, frighten children, storm out, that kind of movement will cascade through a society.” Yes, that would have been much scarier than that whole planes-flying-into-buildings thing.

I got the sucker

Barack Obama, as you all know because evidently nothing worth reporting is going on in the world, swatted a fly during an interview



A spokesmodel for PETA (and to be fair, it was news organizations who contacted PETA, not the other way around), condemned the action, a spokesmodel saying, “We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals,” adding, “Well, maybe not Joe Biden, gotta draw the line somewhere.”

Here is a PETA member modeling appropriate behaviour:

I wouldn’t know a Twitter from a tweeter

Pakistan is using collective punishment against tribes that harbor members of the Taleban, with economic blockades, mass arrests, etc. Collective punishment is perfectly legal, under a 1901 British colonial law. So that’s okay, then.

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Today Hillary Clinton met her Israeli counterpart, Unholy Avigdor Lieberman.

On the subject of settlements, they called each other liars. Lieberman: “we had some understandings with the previous administration and we tried to keep this direction.” Clinton: “And in looking at the history of the Bush Administration, there were no informal or oral enforceable agreements.” No reporter followed up, for example about that word “enforceable.”


They talked about the Iranian elections, Clinton repeating what Obama said, that “it is for the Iranians to determine how they resolve this internal protest concerning the outcome of the recent election.” For example, they might “resolve” it with massive repression and violence, that’s for them to determine. Lieberman said he didn’t much care, because both sides just want to nuke the Jews. It’s funny cuz it’s true.

Clinton said the Obama admin asked Twitter not to shut down for maintenance during this time of turbulence in Iran because “it is the case that one of the means of expression, the use of Twitter, is a very important one not only to the Iranian people, but now increasingly to people around the world, and most particularly young people. I wouldn’t know a Twitter from a tweeter – but apparently, it is very important.” And that’s why Bill.... oh, you people are way ahead of me and have already thought up your own Monica Lewinsky joke, haven’t you? Perverts.

Obama meets Berlusconi: I took an oath of gratitude towards United States

Headline of the Day, from the Daily Telegraph: “Nicolas Sarkozy Intervenes in Row over Mother-in-Law’s Septic Tank.” (Because the prefect of the département didn’t implement Sarkozy’s promise that his mother-in-law’s town would get a centralized sewage system at no cost to the residents, Sarkozy fired him.)

Speaking of centralized sewage, Italian Primo Buffone Berlusconi met President Obama at the White House today. To make his guest feel at home, Obama used his hands a lot while he was talking.


Asked about the Iranian elections, Obama said “it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be”. Yes, they just did that very thing, Barack. It’s what happened after that that’s the problem.

He didn’t have any advice for the Iranians about how to deal with the stolen election but did say, “I am deeply troubled by the violence that I’ve been seeing on television... I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we’ve seen on the television over the last few days.” Why do we spend all that money on a State Dept and a Central Intelligence Agency, when all our presidents just watch tv anyway?

SO, LIKE, WAVE OR SOMETHING: He had a word of encouragement for the Iranian people: “And they should know that the world is watching.”


HE KNOWS ALL ABOUT DIGNITY: Berlusconi said, “I took an oath of gratitude towards United States, which gave me freedom and which gave my country dignity after World War II.”

ALSO, MY LEGS LOOK GREAT IN THOSE SHORTS: Obama presented his guest with an unusual gift basket: Berlusconi will be going home with three Guantanamo prisoners. Obama also praised Bermuda: “I have to say, by the way, that Bermuda has done us a great service, as well, on that front, and I’m grateful to them.”


PIZZA? “In addition to liking Prime Minister Berlusconi personally, our peoples like each other and recognize that we have shared interests.”


Asked about Netanyahu’s speech, Obama once again said that it was too early to judge it – “it’s important not to immediately assess the situation based on commentary the day after a speech” – but said that “I’m glad that Prime Minister Netanyahu made the speech” and that “there was positive movement in the Prime Minister’s speech. He acknowledged the need for two states. There were a lot of conditions, and obviously working through the conditions on Israel’s side for security, as well as the Palestinian side for sovereignty and territorial integrity and the capacity to have a functioning, prosperous state, that’s exactly what negotiations are supposed to be about.” Funny, I thought Netanyahu’s speech was about listing all the things that are not open to negotiations.

Obama repeated his opposition to “a continuation of settlements that, in past agreements, have been categorized as illegal”. Also under international law. I guess he forgot about international law. Funny, that.

And he told the Palestinians that “whether it’s the Palestinian Authority or other groups like Hamas that claim to speak for the Palestinians” – possibly they claim that because they won elections of the Palestinians – they need to recognize Israel’s right to exist and ensure “that there’s an end to incitement against Israel.” (Every speech about the Middle East now makes this demand for the suppression of Palestinian speech. It would be nice if someone asked him what specific measures he’s calling for – what newspapers should be banned, which people imprisoned, etc.

Then the cameras were turned off and Berlusconi asked if Obama knew any teenage girls he could introduce him to, the end.

The Blessed Virgin Mary gets her tiaras back

The Philippines returns to Imelda Marcos $310 million worth of jewels confiscated from her in 1986, because the government forgot in all that time to do the paperwork to put in a claim for them. Imelda says that much of the jewelry was intended for religious purposes such as “tiaras for the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

What’s really needed here is political courage

Britain’s Channel 4 will be running a documentary today about US airstrikes last August on Azizabad in Afghanistan, which killed 91 civilians. Evidently there were no actual Taliban there, but the raid was based on a false tip from someone involved in a feud between that village and another one. American forces also tortured one Azizabadhoovian to death. If any British readers see this program, please report anything else interesting back to the rest of us in comments.

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The Education Department will spend $350 million to develop national standards. And by national standards, they mean national tests. Because, according to EdSec Arne Duncan, “If we’re going to have world-class international standards, we need to have world-class evaluations behind them.” “50 states doing their own thing doesn’t make sense.” The Obama administration policy is pretty much the same as the Bush admin’s, from the insistence that setting high standards automatically improves education, down to the refusal to admit that improving education might require spending some money on actual teaching rather than test development. Said Duncan, “Resources are important, but resources are actually a small piece of this puzzle. What’s really needed here is political courage.” And... moxie!

Netanyahu speech: flags and national anthems for everyone!

We have a winner: Kim Jong-un is now officially the “Brilliant Comrade.”

Speaking of brilliant comrades, Binyamin Netanyahu gave his anticipated speech today. He accepted Obama’s challenge to accept a two-state solution. “In my vision, there are two free peoples living side by side each with each other, each with its own flag and national anthem.” However, the neutered Palestine he’s willing to accept would have no military, no control over its own airspace, no Hamas, and Israel would have a veto over its foreign relations (no treaties with Iran, for example). But it would have a, you know, national anthem. Sort of a 1.375-state solution, by my calculations. But aside from those piddling details, and a few others, “Let us begin peace negotiations immediately without prior conditions.”


Bibi started by asking an important question: “Friends, with the advantages of peace so clear, so obvious, we must ask ourselves why is peace still so far from us, even though our hands are extended for peace? Why has the conflict going on for over 60 years?” He had the answer: “the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish People to its own state in its historical homeland.” So, if you were wondering why there’s no peace in the Middle East, now you know.

Therefore, the first thing that Palestinians must do is acknowledge that they are at best second-class citizens in Israel. Oh, and they have to do so sincerely: “The fundamental condition for ending the conflict is the public, binding and sincere Palestinian recognition of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish People.”

He said Israel will build no new settlements, but they’ll continue to expand the existing ones to meet what Israel used to call natural growth and is now calling “normal life”: “there is a need to have people live normal lives and let mothers and fathers raise their children like everyone in the world.”

Some people might say that settlements are an obstacle to peace, but not Bibi: “A great many people are telling us that withdrawal is the key to peace with the Palestinians. But the fact is that all our withdrawals were met by huge waves of suicide bombers.”

Anyway, “Israel needs defensible borders”. Palestine doesn’t need defensible borders, since it won’t be allowed even slingshots with which to defend them anyway. Without a totally disarmed and defenseless Palestine, he said, “sooner or later, we will have another Hamastan.”


Also, Israel gets to keep Jerusalem, and won’t allow any Palestinians to return: “For it is clear to all that the demand to settle the Palestinian refugees inside of Israel, contradicts the continued existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish People.” And Palestine must “overcome Hamas.” One would scour the speech in vain for a hint of anything Netanyahu is willing to give up for the sake of peace.

The White House has called the speech an “important step forward.”

To be fair, geese are quite scary

It’s been quite a while since I’ve run personals from the London Review of Books (the complete WIIIAI collection of LRB personals is here.)

If forced to commit, I’d say I feared geese more than ducks. Man, 47. Fears geese more than ducks. Box no. 02/03

I wrote this advert specifically to rebuke my rivals, undermine my critics, and fill the hearts and minds of my true followers with the love they so richly deserve. Kevin, 46, Sunbury Cross. Box no. 03/05

I subvert all the expectations built up in this column like a goat in space subverts gravy. Space-goat-esque gravy-subverting pervert (M, 51). Box no. 05/04

If you’re anything like me, you’ll be a marine biologist, 56, and enjoy secretly juggling crabs when no-one else is in the laboratory. Man, 56, seeks crab-juggling fish nerd. Box no. 05/05

For all you ladies keeping a vigil for my return to this column after an absence of 2 years, God has answered your prayers by forcing the LRB, after much petitioning, to lift almost all of their unreasonable restrictions on the content of my adverts. I am a man. I am 46. Box no. 05/06

Celebrate National Nurses Week with me! Man, 82. Box no. 05/03

Don’t read too much into this.

Short ugly bald bloke (32, Cambridge) seeks Scandinavian Model (F) due to marginal grasp on reality. No timewasters or photos of Volvos. Must not try to feed me broccoli.

No prosperity, no development, no humanitarian crisis

Ha’aretz has an interesting (but long) story about the Gaza blockade, designed, the Israelis say, to ensure “no prosperity, no development, no humanitarian crisis.” Israeli bans the import of “luxury” items, but whether, say, a pumpkin constitutes a luxury changes “from week to week, and sometimes from day to day”, depending, not on Palestinian nutritional needs of course, but on which sectors of the Israeli agricultural industry need propping up. “[S]ince the start of the blockade no list of permitted and prohibited items has been relayed to the Palestinian side. The DCO spokesperson says there is no such list and that the Palestinians ‘know what they’re allowed to bring in.’”

Out of old matzoh and dreidels

A note found in Holocaust Museum shooter-up James von Brunn’s car said, among other things, “Obama was created by Jews.” So that makes him a Kosher, secret-Muslim golem?

Negotiations, the Gitmo way

More info on Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al Hanashi (that’s all one person), the Guantanamo prisoner who the Pentagon says committed suicide but won’t say how (when a prisoner being forcibly fed abruptly dies, we need rather more information before we just accept a claim of suicide). Evidently he was asked by Gitmo’s commanders to represent the prisoners in talks with them. Only he never come back from the first of those talks: they sent him to the psychiatric wing, where he died five months later.

A quixotic quest to right all wrongs and repair all imperfections through the Constitution

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that elected judges must recuse themselves from cases involving their substantial campaign donors. Duh. That duh being said, John Roberts, writing the dissent, had a point that the Court could have set a clearer standard than it did. (It would help if the states passed their own recusal rules, rather than having them be clarified through numerous lawsuits.)

However, Roberts argued that “sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.” The “disease” which he complacently suggests we just live with is judicial corruption. The lawsuits that will arise from this ruling, according to Roberts, “will do far more to erode public confidence in judicial impartiality than an isolated failure to recuse in a particular case.” This is the culture of secrecy; it is the language used by the Bush and, now, the Obama administrations to justify suppressing pictures of prisoner abuse. Roberts, like Obama, is unwilling to expose corruption because it would make the system look bad, and he thinks the exposure is the problem, not the corruption.

Scalia, also dissenting, wrote, “The court today continues its quixotic quest to right all wrongs and repair all imperfections through the Constitution.” Maybe it’s just me, but I’d actually like our courts to engage on a quixotic quest to right all wrongs and repair all imperfections through the Constitution.

I feel pretty, oh so pretty

In Taiwan, a man has been sentenced to 5 months in prison for tearing the toupee off the head of Kuomintang MP Chiu Yi. A court spokesmodel explained: “The judge thought Chiu Yi had the freedom to wear what he wanted, and Chiu felt the wig made him look prettier. The judge thinks that to remove it intentionally was to take away that right.” The right to look prettier shall not be abridged.

Pretty

Totally true

Sarah Palin accidentally plagiarizes the wrong Gingrich speech, asks some woman with cancer for a divorce.

Just a pinch of state-sanctioned murder

The new Ohio death-penalty procedure, which was used Wednesday on one Daniel Wilson, requires that after the prisoner is sedated, the warden make sure he is actually unconscious before proceeding to the lethal-injection stage: “the warden is required to call out the name of the condemned man, shake and pinch his shoulder, and then administer a second dose of sedative if there is a response.” Such as, “Hey, what’s with the pinching?”