Brendan Nyhan

Duke lacrosse: More timeline issues

This morning, the News and Observer and Herald Sun both have stories providing new details about the confusing, contradictory timeline of the 911 calls on the night of the alleged Duke lacrosse rape.

Here's the N&O:

When police visited a house near Duke University on March 14 to investigate a 911 call about racial slurs, they found the house -- where neighbors had witnessed a rowdy party earlier in the evening -- completely quiet.

The 911 call came about 30 minutes before a second 911 call led police to a woman who told them she had been sexually assaulted at that same residence, at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., during a party held that night by members of the Duke men's lacrosse team. The house had been leased to three of the lacrosse players, and 46 team members have since been ordered to submit to DNA testing. Those test results are expected next week...

Police said they don't know who made the 911 call to report the racial slurs, and the complainant was gone when police arrived at the house. But Durham police spokeswoman Kammie Michael said Thursday that they are convinced the call was not made by the same woman who later said she was raped and sodomized by three men at the party.

Police released new details Thursday on what they found when responding to that first call:

A woman called police at 12:53 the morning of March 14 to report that a white man at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. yelled a racial slur at her and a black friend as they passed the house.

Two officers, who were patrolling in the area, arrived at 12:55 a.m. and spent 11 minutes looking for the woman who called in the complaint, Michael said. The officers knocked on the door of the house, but there was no answer. They looked in the windows and walked through the yard and alley beside the house, Michael said.

They saw cups, beer cans and beer kegs. Officers spoke to a neighbor, who said there had been a party. A check of the neighborhood didn't lead to the woman who called 911, and Michael said the caller's information -- name, phone number or address -- did not appear on the dispatcher's computer when the call came in.

A lawyer representing one of the players raised suspicion about the two 911 calls, saying they were "mighty coincidental."

Durham lawyer James "Butch" Williams said he thinks the woman who initially called 911 to report the use of racial slurs also is involved in the rape investigation. He wouldn't go so far as to call the allegations "false reports," but he said it was suspicious that the caller knew the numbers to the house near where the slurs were shouted, though the house number is not easily seen from the street.

And here's the Herald Sun:

Two Durham police officers were investigating a reported disturbance at a Duke lacrosse party just 16 minutes before the alleged victim of a gang-rape there showed up at a grocery store more than 2 miles away to call for help.

But police found nothing at the scene, a police spokeswoman said...

Police arrived at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. just two minutes after a woman called 911 to report she and her black friend had been verbally accosted by men outside the house yelling a racial slur early on March 14, according to computer dispatch records.

"Officers responded to the call at 610 N. Buchanan within a minute of the dispatch. The complainant was not on the scene and no one seemed to be at the house, according to the officers, so they cleared the scene after checking the area for several minutes," said police spokeswoman Kammie Michael.

The dispatch records show officers were on the scene for more than 11 minutes.

"Where are all these white guys raising hell?" asked an incredulous James D. "Butch" Williams, who represents a lacrosse captain who lived at the house and voluntarily submitted to a DNA test shortly after one of two exotic dancers hired to entertain at the party said she was raped, sodomized and beaten by three white men there. "When the people start digging the least little bit, they're gong to find out things don't make sense."

...Williams questioned the strength of the evidence. He implied Thursday that the 911 calls might have been a scam and that the entire incident was staged.

In her call reporting the racial slur, the unidentified woman offered different versions of the incident. She variously said she had driven by the house, had walked by the house and was sitting in front of the house at the time she was talking to the 911 dispatcher. She initially said one male near the Duke wall hurled the racial epithet, and later said a group of people came out of 610 N. Buchanan yelling at her and her friend. The wall and the house are on opposite sides of a dimly lit street.

"There are a number of discrepancies that point toward a contrived situation -- maybe," said Williams.

The attorney said he didn't know why anyone might perpetrate such a potential hoax.

"I can't speak to speculation," he added. "But once you tell one lie, you've got to tell another and another and another. You're caught up in a web of lies."

According to official police logs obtained by The Herald-Sun, the first 911 call was received at 12:53. a.m. on March 14, and the first officer arrived at 610 N. Buchanan at 12:55 a.m. A second unit responded, and both departed by 1:06 a.m.

The second 911 call, from the Kroger store on Hillsborough Road, initially was dispatched as an intoxicated person but later was changed to a rape case allegedly involving those at the lacrosse party. The call was placed at 1:22 a.m., 27 minutes after the police arrived to investigate the first 911 call and 16 minutes after they left the scene. The Kroger store is 2.3 miles from 610 N. Buchanan.

The second caller later told police that she had found the victim walking on North Buchanan and then drove her to the store to get help.

Williams, who has a private investigator working on the case, noted that the Police Department is closer -- nine-tenths of a mile away -- than the Kroger store and wondered why the victim would have been driven to a grocery store farther away.

Michael, the police spokeswoman, was quoted in a published report saying the woman who drove to the Kroger store was the second exotic dancer hired by the lacrosse players. Earlier Michael told The Herald-Sun the driver was not the second dancer.

Again, these may be the sort of inconsistencies that arise in any investigation based on eyewitness testimony, but why was the house dark and quiet at 12:55? Where was the dancer?

Richard Cohen on "Bush lied"

Today, the Washington Post's Richard Cohen writes:

So common is the statement "Bush lied" that it seems sometimes that I am the only blue-state person who does not think it is true. Then, last week, the indomitable Helen Thomas changed all that with a single question. She asked George Bush why he wanted "to go to war" from the moment he "stepped into the White House," and the president said, "You know, I didn't want war." With that, the last blue-state skeptic folded.

Liberal bloggers are already up in arms about Cohen's delayed conversion. Brad DeLong claims that "The Washington Post will never recover its reputation as long as it continues to employ people in the unreality-based community like Richard Cohen," while Tapped's Ezra Klein writes that "Richard Cohen's admission that he didn't realize that Bush had lied until sometime last week is a bit absurd. If you don't think Bush is a liar, you simply haven't been paying attention. And if you haven't been paying attention, maybe you shouldn't be a Washington Post political columnist."

But as we wrote in All the President's Spin, what's surprising is that Bush rarely tells outright lies. He makes deceptive statements all the time (the book documents countless examples from the 2001-2004 period), but they are almost always half-truths or sins of omission rather than self-evidently false.

To be sure, Cohen has seemed almost comically naive and out of touch in recent years. The Post should replace him as soon as possible. But the "Bush lied" cartoon character is silly.

As ATPS explains, the reason Bush has gotten away with so much is precisely because he rarely gets caught in outright lies. Instead, he uses technically true language to leave a false impression with his audience, a practice that takes advantage of the practices of "objective" journalism. I'm disappointed that our analysis didn't make more of an impression on DeLong and Klein, two bloggers whom I respect.

More Duke lacrosse inconsistencies

Today's Duke Chronicle features an article on the lacrosse rape investigation that raises further questions.

First, the (alleged) victim's claim that the dancers returned to the house and were separated before the assault does not match the account of the second dancer, who says she remained outside. In addition, the second dancer turns out to have been the person who drove the victim to a grocery store after the alleged assault:

Police initiated the investigation after a March 13 party at which three members of the lacrosse team allegedly raped, sodomized and strangled the victim, one of two exotic dancers hired to perform at the party.

The victim claimed the men were getting "excited and aggressive" when she and her companion were dancing. The frightened women left the house but were approached by one member of the team, who urged them to return.

The victim's account, according to the warrant, stated that the two dancers were separated once inside the house.

Nifong, however, said Wednesday that the second woman never re-entered the dwelling, adding that she stayed at her car because partygoers were talking to her while the alleged victim entered the house alone.

Michael said DPD investigators have located and interviewed the other woman but would not release details of her account. Michael said the second dancer was the person who drove the alleged victim to the Kroger grocery store on Hillsborough Road, where a store security guard called 911.

Why do their accounts not match? In addition, why did the second dancer allegedly tell the grocery store security guard that she was driving by the party?

Altmon [the guard] also said the driver of the car told her she didn't go to the party with the alleged victim. The driver said she was driving near the party scene when she saw the alleged victim walking outside. "She said she saw a whole lot of Duke guys hollering at her" and using racial slurs, Altmon said. She said the driver said she stopped to pick up the woman and brought her to the Kroger to call police.

Second, we now know that three lacrosse players voluntarily gave DNA samples before the order compelling 46 people to give samples was issued:

Nifong also said the police contacted lacrosse head coach Mike Pressler and asked if the players would voluntarily submit to DNA testing. A meeting was set, but an attorney subsequently contacted the police to cancel the appointment, Nifong explained.

DPD then obtained an order to mandate the DNA testing of 46 of the 47 members of the team.

Both Nifong and Michael said three members of the lacrosse team-the residents of 610 N. Buchanan Blvd.-voluntarily submitted to police questioning and suspect testing after the first warrant was issued.

Two of the three men questioned and tested were not named by the alleged victim in the warrant.

What happened with the voluntary DNA tests that were initially submitted? Were they negative, and did that prompt the order to test more players?

Duke lacrosse search warrant

Via Deadspin, the Smoking Gun website has posted the search warrant for the infamous Duke lacrosse house at 610 North Buchanan Blvd in Durham.

Questions about Duke lacrosse 911 call

Today's Durham Herald Sun includes a report on apparent inconsistencies in a 911 call to police the night of the alleged Duke lacrosse rape:

A defense attorney is questioning the phone call from an anonymous woman to 911 dispatchers in which she claimed someone yelled racial epithets at her and her friend outside the house where the alleged gang rape by members of the Duke lacrosse team occurred.

The call was placed at 12:53 a.m. on March 14, 29 minutes before the alleged rape itself was reported. In it, the woman says a man yelled "nigger" at her and her friend.

The existence of the call was revealed by Durham police Tuesday afternoon. It prompted Duke President Richard Brodhead to issue a statement Wednesday calling the slur "disgusting."

"I am sorry the woman and her friend were subjected to such abuse," Brodhead said.

But Butch Williams, an attorney representing one of the lacrosse team members -- none of whom has been charged with a crime -- is questioning the validity of the woman's statements in the call.

He said inconsistencies are part of a pattern that lead him to believe "that a lot of these allegations that have been made never happened."

Initially, the woman described the event this way:

"I was driving down near Duke's campus and it's me and my black girlfriend and the guy, there's like a white guy by the Duke wall and he just hollered out nigger to me."

After the dispatcher asked the woman for her location, she described the incident a second time. In the second description, she was walking rather than driving, and more than one person had used the slur:

"It's right in front of 610 Buchanan [Blvd.] and they came -- I saw them all come out like a big frat house and me and my black girlfriend are walking by and they called us niggers."

Williams said another inconsistency lies in the three times the woman on the tape states the address of the house.

"I've been out there," he said, "And [the house number] doesn't show from the street."

A reporter from The Herald-Sun went to the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. on Wednesday and there were no numbers on the house. The faded imprint of the numbers is halfway down the front door of the house, a location obscured by the porch railings.

Williams said he believes that the woman on the first 911 call was more involved with the events of that night than she stated on the tape.

"She's part of the situation," Williams said.

How did she know the number, and why did her story change? Is this just normal eyewitness inconsistency, or a sign of something more serious?

Update 3/31 1:26 PM: A reader points out that the search warrant for the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. states that "[t]he numbers 610 are black and are on the front door of the residence." So was the warrant wrong, or were the numbers removed after the fact?

Duke lacrosse rape case in New York Times

This morning, a front page New York Times story took the Duke lacrosse rape allegations to the national level:

Duke University suspended the season of its nationally ranked men's lacrosse team Tuesday while the authorities investigated allegations that a woman from a nearby college who had agreed to dance at a private party attended by many team members had been sexually assaulted.

The incident on March 13, which occurred at an off-campus house owned by the university, has brought into sharp relief long-simmering tensions between the private university and the city. The woman is black, most of the team members are white and law-enforcement officials say they are investigating allegations that racial epithets were shouted at the woman.

Residents, students and faculty members have staged at least five protests in the last four days, including one Tuesday night outside the building where Duke's president, Richard H. Brodhead, was holding a news conference. They are upset with the silence of team members and the university's handling of the case.

Mr. Brodhead's announcement that the team's season was being suspended came five days after 46 of 47 members of the Blue Devils lacrosse team provided DNA samples to Durham police investigators. The team's roster includes 26 players from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut high schools. Mr. Brodhead said that he met with the team's captains Tuesday morning and that they apologized for the embarrassment they had caused themselves, their families, the athletic department and the university. They also denied the allegations made by the woman, who said she had been assaulted in a bathroom by three team members.

Here's today's report on Brodhead's decision from the student newspaper here. But, more importantly, today's Duke Chronicle also includes this explosive story, which includes new details on alleged physical evidence of rape and another case of lacrosse team members shouting racial epithets:

The Durham Police Department released tapes Tuesday of 911 calls recorded in the early hours of March 14 during and after a party at which members of the men's lacrosse team allegedly gang-raped, sodomized and strangled an exotic dancer.

The captains of the team "unequivocally" denied the sexual assault and rape allegations in a statement-the group's first public statement about the situation.

President Richard Brodhead said at a press conference Tuesday evening that the captains had denied to administrators that sex "of any kind" occurred with the dancer, reportedly a 27-year-old black student at North Carolina Central University.

District Attorney Mike Nifong said Tuesday on MSNBC's The Abrams Report that the circumstances of the case exclude the possibility that there was no sexual activity.

"I am convinced that there was a rape," Nifong said, adding that nurses observed vaginal trauma upon examining the alleged victim.

Teammates who did not commit or observe the alleged assault are potentially liable for charges of aiding and abetting the crime because of teammate relationships, he added.

In the newly released 911 tapes, a female caller who was driving past 610 N. Buchanan Blvd.-a residence leased by three members of the lacrosse team and the scene of the party where the alleged rape occurred-reported that a white man yelled racial slurs at her from in front of the residence.

"He just hollered out n- to me, and I'm just so angry I didn't know who to call," she said to the 911 operator.

The Durham Herald Sun has also filed a report with new details:

Meanwhile, new details of the alleged rape have emerged from the court order used to obtain DNA samples from 46 lacrosse players last week.

According to the Police Department's application for the order, medical records gave credence to the victim's allegations.

The records "revealed the victim had signs, symptoms and injuries consistent with being raped and sexually assaulted vaginally and anally," according to the document.

A forensic sexual assault nurse conducted the evaluation, the document said, and stated that the victim's "injuries and her behavior were consistent with a traumatic experience."

Also, the city released a recording Tuesday of a call an unidentified woman made to 911 dispatchers the night of the alleged rape in which she claimed to have been walking outside the house where the lacrosse party was held. The woman reported that a man standing in front of the wall near 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. called her and a black friend "niggers" as they walked past the residence.

The woman told the dispatcher that she "isn't hurt or anything," but that she simply wanted to report the incident. The dispatcher gave no indication that she would send a police cruiser to the area.

The alleged rape victim is black and told police that the lacrosse players at the party, all of whom were white, also used racial slurs.

Police spokeswoman Kammie Michael did not answer questions about the time between the woman's call and the call reporting the alleged rape, which came from a security guard at the Kroger on Hillsborough Road.

Michael said the alleged rape victim was not the same woman who called about the racial slur. But Michael did not respond to a question asking whether the woman who called about the racial slur was the woman who accompanied the alleged rape victim to the party.

When the Kroger security guard called police, she told the dispatcher that the alleged victim was sitting in a car and was "intoxicated, drunk or something." The guard said the woman wouldn't get out of the car.

The guard told the dispatcher that the owner of the car was standing with her at the customer service station.

Michael did not answer a question asking whether the alleged rape victim was intoxicated.

But in an interview Tuesday night, the guard, Angel Altmon, said that once she went to the car and saw the woman, she no longer thought she was intoxicated. In particular, there was no odor of alcohol, Altmon said.

"Somebody must have slipped her something, because she wasn't drunk," Altmon said. "If she was drunk I would have smelled something."

Altmon said she didn't see any bruises on the woman, although it was dark. She said the woman was wearing just one high-heeled shoe and see-through lingerie.

Altmon also said the driver of the car told her she didn't go to the party with the alleged victim. The driver said she was driving near the party scene when she saw the alleged victim walking outside. "She said she saw a whole lot of Duke guys hollering at her" and using racial slurs, Altmon said. She said the driver said she stopped to pick up the woman and brought her to the Kroger to call police.

At the same time, however, people on campus are so upset that there's a danger of a lynch mob mentality, as this quote illustrates:

Nearly 200 people gathered outside campus administrator offices Monday to express anger and demand action in response to a rape investigation involving the men's lacrosse team.

The incident has sparked outrage on and off campus about sexual violence, classism and racism.

"I am outraged that there's a silence. ... I am outraged that legal rights are used to quiet this issue," said Meenakshi Chivukula, a junior from Medfield, Mass.

PS: Audio clips of the 9/11 calls are available in the online version of a Raleigh News & Observer article.

Update 3/29 12:33 PM: President Brodhead's statement on the team's suspension is here.

The presidential approval externality

Last September, I noted this graphic from Barry Burden at Harvard, which suggests approval of President Bush drives the approval ratings of Congress:

The latest issue of Time includes details from a leaked memo suggesting that Republicans agree:

In an internal Republican Party memo provided to Time, Jan van Lohuizen, a longtime Bush pollster, warns candidates tempted to distance themselves that "President Bush drives our image and will do so until we have real national front-runners for the '08 nomination. If he drops, we all drop." Another Republican strategist describes the problem for g.o.p. candidates this way: "Adding weight to the anchor doesn't help them."

This is what economists call an externality. The president's approval affects the fortunes of the whole party, but his incentives are different than those of members of Congress. So you see these ugly splits where party members want to distance themselves from unpopular presidents like Bush but fear turning the public further against the leader of their party. It's a nasty problem with no good solutions.

Disturbing Duke lacrosse rape case

[Update 2/4/11: This post was written immediately after the allegations emerged and does not reflect my views on the case. I raised questions early about inconsistencies in the accuser's account and became a vocal critic of Mike Nifong's prosecution. The charges were later dropped and Nifong was eventually disbarred for prosecutorial misconduct.]

Here in Durham, the local community and campus are in turmoil as disturbing details emerge of a racially charged incident in which white members of the Duke lacrosse team allegedly gang-raped an African American stripper at an off-campus house:

The woman who says she was raped last week by three members of the Duke University lacrosse team thought she would be dancing for five men at a bachelor party, she said Friday. But when she arrived that night, she found herself surrounded by more than 40.

Just moments after she and another exotic dancer started to perform, she said, men in the house started barking racial slurs. The two women, both black, stopped dancing.

"We started to cry," she said. "We were so scared."

Forty-six members of the men's lacrosse team submitted DNA samples Thursday in the unusual case. As of late Friday, there had been no arrests...

Details of the accusations were made public this week in a warrant authorizing a search of the three-bedroom rental house where the attack is alleged to have taken place...

The accuser had worked for an escort company for two months, doing one-on-one dates about three times a week.

"It wasn't the greatest job," she said, her voice trailing off. But with two children, and a full class load at N.C. Central University, it paid well and fit her schedule.

This was the first time she had been hired to dance provocatively for a group, she said. There was no security to protect her, and as the men became aggressive, the two women started to leave. After some of the men apologized for the behavior, the women went back inside, according to police. That's when the woman was pulled into a bathroom and raped and sodomized, police said...

Jason Bissey, who was on his porch next door during the party, saw the victim that night. He said Friday that he wishes he had called police at the first sign something was wrong.

He saw at least 30 men go into the white three-bedroom house, which Duke officials say is rented by three lacrosse team captains.

Bissey saw two women arrive and, after they were in the house 20 minutes, come out. As they got into a car, men shouted, Bissey said.

"Some of them were saying things like, 'I want my money back,' " Bissey said.

He recalled the racially charged statements at least one man was yelling at the victim.

"When I was outside, one guy yelled at her, '... Thank your grandpa for my cotton shirt,' " Bissey said.

After a few minutes, everything seemed to calm down, he said. One of the women headed back into the house, saying she forgot her shoes.

Days later, Bissey learned one of the young women reported being raped.

I'm disgusted. The lacrosse team has already forfeited two games. I hope they forfeit the rest of the season.

Update 3/26 11:45 AM: This story is about to get a lot bigger -- Drudge has a link up, and I suspect the national media won't be far behind.

Update 3/28 8:30 AM: I want to be absolutely clear that all the players are innocent until proven guilty, as a commenter notes. The DNA results may be back in as little as a week, so we need to sit tight for at least that long before any serious decisions are made.

What is Cass Sunstein talking about?

I respect Cass Sunstein a great deal, but this statement by the Chicago law prof is just objectively wrong:

"The Clinton impeachment was plainly unconstitutional, and a Bush impeachment would be nearly as bad," said Cass R. Sunstein, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago. "There is a very good argument that the president had it wrong on WMD in Iraq but that he was acting in complete good faith."

"[C]omplete good faith?" Anyone want to send him a copy of ATPS? There's about 100 pages of evidence that that isn't a "very good argument."

Update 3/26 8:58 AM: As SomeCallMeTim points out in comments, this statement of Sunstein's is also terrible legal reasoning:

Sunstein argues that Bush's decision to conduct surveillance of Americans without court approval flowed from Congress's vote to allow an armed struggle against al-Qaeda. "If you can kill them, why can't you spy on them?" Sunstein said, adding that this is a minority view.

Conservatives: Media wants US to fail in Iraq

As part of an offensive against media coverage in Iraq, several conservative commentators are claiming that the media is trying to undermine the US war effort, as Media Matters documents:

O'Reilly, in turn, expressed his belief that "there is a segment of the media trying to undermine the policy in Iraq for their own ideological purposes," as Media Matters for America noted.

Beyond O'Reilly, many other Fox News hosts, analysts, and guests similarly attacked the media's coverage of the war:

• Radio host G. Gordon Liddy said that "those in the news media ... would rather the United States lose a war than have history write that George W. Bush was a successful president." [Hannity & Colmes, 3/20/06]

...

• Host Sean Hannity said on his syndicated radio show that "the media is intent on undermining the president in this battle" and claimed there "has been a total and almost complete focus on all the negative aspects of the war"... [ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show, 3/22/06]

This rhetoric goes beyond merely claiming that the media is too negative or liberal, but actively accuses the press of trying to make the US lose the war -- virtually an accusation of treason. It's just not acceptable.

O'Rourke contradicts Domenech

One more Domenech claim goes out the window in today's New York Times:

[Domenech] explained the passage that appeared to be copied from Mr. O'Rourke's book by saying that Mr. O'Rourke gave him permission.

Contacted at his home in New Hampshire, Mr. O'Rourke said that he had never heard of Mr. Domenech and did not recall meeting him.

"I wouldn't want to swear in a court of law that I never met the guy, Mr. O'Rourke said of Mr. Domenech, "but I didn't give him permission to use my words under his byline, no."

(For more on Domenech's plagiarism, see National Review here and here, Salon here, Hotline's Blogometer here, and the William and Mary student newspaper here.)

The end of the Domenech controversy

He's toast:

In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.

An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.

When we hired Domenech, we were not aware of any allegations that he had plagiarized any of his past writings. In any cases where allegations such as these are made, we will continue to investigate those charges thoroughly in order to maintain our journalistic integrity.

Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of. Washingtonpost.com will do everything in its power to verify that its news and opinion content is sourced completely and accurately at all times.

We appreciate the speed and thoroughness with which our readers and media outlets surfaced these allegations. Despite the turn this has taken, we believe this event, among other things, testifies to the positive and powerful role that the Internet can play in the the practice of journalism.

We also remain committed to representing a broad spectrum of ideas and ideologies in our Opinions area.

Jim Brady
Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com

Still no word from the AP...

Howard Kurtz on Domenech controversy

Howard Kurtz covers the Domenech controversy today in the Washington Post:

Late yesterday, the liberal Web sites Daily Kos and Atrios posted examples of what appeared to be instances of plagiarism from Domenech's writing at the William & Mary student paper. Three sentences of a 1999 Domenech review of a Martin Scorsese film were identical to a review in Salon magazine, and several sentences in Domenech's piece on a James Bond movie closely resembled one in the Internet Movie Database. Domenech said he needed to research the examples but that he never used material without attribution and had complained about a college editor improperly adding language to some of his articles.

Domenech is a board member and one of three founders of RedState.com, which bills itself as a "Republican community Weblog." Under his regular pseudonym, Augustine, he questioned President Bush's decision to attend King's funeral because she is a "communist."

"I regret using the term because I think it's been way overblown," Domenech said. But he said King worked with organizations affiliated with communists in the 1950s and 1960s. Brady called it "a silly comment" but said he is satisfied with Domenech's admission of error.

As Augustine, Domenech has engaged in numerous personal attacks, some of which were compiled by the blog Dragonfire. Domenech has called cartoonist Ted Rall a "steaming bag of pus"; said Teresa Heinz Kerry looks like an "oddly shaped egotistical ketchup-colored muppet"; called Pat Robertson a "senile, crazy old fool"; and described Post.com's "White House Briefing" columnist Dan Froomkin as "an embarrassment."

No mention of the supposed 2002 AP article, however. I have a call into AP corporate communications to try to confirm that it is not genuine. I'll report more as soon as I have anything.

Media Matters on Domenech

Media Matters, like Joe Conason, is on the Domenech story, including the phony AP quote:

[W]ith each hour bringing new evidence of Domenech's racially charged rhetoric and homophobic bigotry, the time has come for the Post to end its ill-conceived relationship with Domenech. Examples of Domenech's views include:

• In a February 7 post on RedState, Domenech wrote that he believed people should be "pissed" that President Bush attended "the funeral of a Communist" -- referring to the funeral for Coretta Scott King. As you know, labeling the King family "communists" was a favorite tool of the racists who opposed them.

• In another RedState post, Domenech compared "the Judiciary" unfavorably to the Ku Klux Klan.

• In still another RedState comment, Domenech posted without comment an article stating that "[i]t just happens that killing black babies has the happy result of reducing crime" and that "[w]hite racists have reason to be grateful for what is sometimes still called the civil rights leadership" because black leaders "are overwhelmingly in support" of abortion rights.

• In yet another, Domenech wrote that conservative blogger/journalist Andrew Sullivan, who is gay, "needs a woman to give him some stability."

Domenech has also been caught at least once apparently fabricating a quote. A June 20, 2002, Spinsanity.org entry demonstrated that Domenech made up a quote he attributed to Tim Russert in order to defend President Bush.

Conason on Domenech's phony quote

Salon's Joe Conason has picked up the story of newly-hired WashingtonPost.com bloger Ben Domenech and the false quotation I exposed on Domenech's personal blog back in 2002:

[B]y Thursday bloggers had more than ideological reasons to oppose the Post's move, as Atrios, Daily Kos and other sites uncovered brazen examples of plagiarism by Domenech when he was writing for a student weekly at the College of William and Mary. Ironically, the young right-winger was apparently fond of Salon's arts criticism, at least, because he plagiarized film critic Stephanie Zacharek, and Mary Elizabeth Williams, writing about television.

Neither Domenech nor Post editors replied to requests for comment, and as of this writing, it's not clear whether those plagiarism revelations will be enough to end the right-wing blogger's MSM career. His defenders may say Domenech was only a college student when he made those mistakes. But there's at least one instance in his post-college career when the blogger was accused of another major ethical breach -- a charge that he fabricated a quote by "Meet The Press" host Tim Russert back in June 2002, in an attempt to get his hero, President Bush, out of a political jam.

Back then, the world of Washington journalism was roiled by a debate over whether President Bush had said during the 2000 campaign that despite his commitment to a balanced budget, he might permit federal deficits in time of "war, recession, or national emergency." The president and his spokesmen insisted that he had referred to such a "trifecta" of disaster during a campaign stop in Chicago, but no text or recording existed to prove their point. (That was before the Iraq invasion, when Bush could still hope to maintain his reputation as a "straight shooter.")

As the "trifecta" dispute boiled up on the Sunday-morning talk shows and on blogs, Domenech leapt to Bush's defense on his own blog, the Ben File. In a post dated June 16, 2002, he brashly upbraided two of the president's critics on the deficit issue, Jonathan Chait of the New Republic and Tim Russert, NBC bureau chief and the host of "Meet the Press":

"The bigger issue," wrote Domenech, "is that Russert and Chait both claim the President never made caveats about deficits during times of crisis, that he's creating political cover out of thin air. They're wrong. Indeed, President Bush expressed his deficit views very [word missing] during the first New Hampshire debate on January 7, 2000 -- moderated by none other than Tim Russert: 'This is not only no new taxes, this is tax cuts, so help me God' -- Bush said, brushing away the prospect that national emergencies, such as war, might get in the way. Such developments would be 'extreme hypotheticals,' he said. 'If I ever commit troops, I'm going to do so with one thing in mind, and that's to win,' Bush said. 'And spend what it takes? Even if it means deficits?' asked the moderator, NBC's Tim Russert. 'Absolutely,' Bush replied, 'if we go to war.'" (AP, from Boston Globe)

"Does that refresh your memory, Tim?" he concluded mockingly.

Unfortunately for Domenech, his June 16 post drew the attention of Brendan Nyhan, one of the trio who then ran Spinsanity.org, the (now lamentably defunct) political fact-checking Web site. With a series of simple searches on Nexis and Westlaw, Nyhan learned that the electronic archives contained no such article. There were versions of an AP story that resembled the article cited by Domenech -- but none of them included that crucial question attributed to Russert: "Even if it means deficits?"

Challenged by Nyhan to produce proof that this story had ever been published, Domenech responded with a series of feeble non-answers.

link to "the [Globe] article." He added, "Still, I think that it's an unreliable source." He linked to another page on his site that showed a very peculiar version of what was supposed to be an AP article in the Boston Globe on the New Hampshire debate, dated Jan. 7, 2000.

Among the various problems in this strange saga is that the Globe sent its own reporters, Jill Zuckman and Michael Kranish, to cover that New Hampshire debate. They filed a Jan. 7 story that accurately reflected what Russert had asked. Nexis shows no AP story in the Globe or anywhere else that includes the quote used by Domenech.

Was this an honest mistake? Or did Domenech fabricate a quote in order to attack Russert and other Bush critics? As Nyhan noted the other day, readers can draw their own conclusions.

But the examples of plagiarism that surfaced Thursday certainly add to the reasons to believe the earlier allegation. Even before the plagiarism story emerged, Media Matters was calling on the Post to terminate Domenech, because of the Russert quote-fabrication charge as well as an ugly post on Redstate.com referring to Coretta Scott King as a "communist" and other obnoxious commentary.

The Post may be deaf to complaints about overheated rhetoric and insults to a civil rights hero, but the plagiarism and quote-fabrication charges can't be ignored. It's hard to imagine Domenech will survive this, but whatever happens next, the Post's failure to adequately vet its new hire in its fretful search for "balance" could damage its credibility substantially. For now it looks like the paper hired the love child of Janet Cooke and Donald Segretti.

I had no idea that a number of Domenech's past articles were exposed as plagiarized today. Talk about a lack of due diligence by the Post. Will the newspaper investigate the plagiarism charges and the mysterious AP article? Or will they just fire Domenech and try to salvage what's left of their reputation?

GOP pushes impeachment hype

The Republican Party has apparently signed on to the desperation tactic of claiming Democrats will impeach President Bush if they take back the House in 2006.

This tactic, which I first documented in a column from Paul Weyrich, has gained increasing attention in recent weeks as President Bush's approval ratings decline into the 30s.

Today, Ken Mehlman, the GOP chairman, sent an email to supporters (PDF) claiming the "Democrats' plan for 2006" is to "[t]ake the House and Senate, and impeach the President":

The word is out. Their position is clear. Last week, Sen. Russ Feingold floated a reckless plan to censure the President, and some Democrat leaders have ecstatically jumped on Feingold's bandwagon.

And, if they gain even more power in November, they won't stop there.

Feingold says that censure actually represents "moderation" and calls the terrorist surveillance program an impeachable offense. Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, fails to rule out impeachment if Democrats retake Congress. Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin is talking "high crimes and misdemeanors." And 31 House Democrats are calling for a committee to look into impeachment. Their leader? John Conyers, who would become House Judiciary Committee chairman under Democrat control.

The Democrats' plan for 2006? Take the House and Senate, and impeach the President.

As I've written before, it seems unlikely that Democrats would actually impeach Bush in the last two years of his presidency knowing that the Senate will not remove him from office. But that doesn't stop Mehlman from claiming it as fact based on some highly circumstantial evidence.

Mehlman later suggests that Democrats don't want to aggressively fight the war on terror:

Democrat leaders' talk of censure and impeachment isn't about the law or the President doing anything wrong. It's about the fact that Democrat leaders don't want America to fight the War on Terror with every tool in our arsenal. Your immediate action will send these reckless Democrats a message and help preserve our Republican majorities.

...The world is watching. Using every tool at our disposal to fight terrorists should not be a partisan issue. Democrats should to be focused on winning the War on Terror, not undermining it with political axe-grinding of the ugliest kind.

When I criticize Republicans for suggesting dissent aids terrorists, their apologists frequently reply that Republicans are saying that Democratic opposition has the effect of aiding terrorists, not claiming that Democrats want to aid terrorists.

Note in this case, however, that Mehlman is explicitly suggesting Democrats don't want to fight the war on terror. He writes that "Democrat leaders don't want America to fight the War on Terror with every tool in our arsenal," and he later adds that "Democrats should to be focused on winning the War on Terror, not undermining it with political axe-grinding of the ugliest kind."

Apparently, desperate times call for desperate spin.

Pointless government secrecy in NC

One of my fellow graduate students pointed me to a hilarious/disturbing local story about bizarre NC state government secrecy practices:

Here are some words the N.C. Department of Labor thinks the public shouldn't see: tomatoes, landlord, Mexicans, workers.

The department recently released to News & Observer staff writer Kristin Collins its files on Ag-Mart, the Florida-based tomato grower that last year incurred the N.C. Department of Agriculture's largest-ever fine for breaking pesticide rules.

The Labor Department blacked out so much information that its files were nearly unintelligible.

Included was a copy of a 2003 News & Observer story, written by Collins herself and another reporter, in which words or phrases were blacked out in 67 places.

References to virtually any human being, including public officials, Ag-Mart executives and workers -- even pronouns such as "their" -- were missing. In some cases, random words such as "tomatoes" were hidden.

If you click through, you can see a graphic of the article that's annotated with the blacked-out words -- it's truly bizarre...

GOP hypocrisy on politicizing the military

On Saturday, the Washington Times broke the news that Senate Democrats had distributed a memo suggesting holding town hall meetings on military bases. Such meetings are prohibited.

But as I pointed out, President Bush holds obviously partisan events on military bases all the time. Rather than conceding this point, the Times simply asserted that the issue did not apply to President Bush because "[h]is remarks [at military bases] are generally limited to explaining his war policies and encouraging the troops" -- a claim that I showed to be false.

Today, the Times reports that Congressional Republicans are criticizing Democrats for the memo. In particular, Senator George Allen, the Virginia senator and presidential contender, let the vitriol fly:

Republicans accused Capitol Hill Democrats yesterday of plotting to use military bases as props for political press events to criticize President Bush for his handling of the war in Iraq.

"I think that is deplorable," Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican, said yesterday on Fox News. "It is pitiful. We are at war. This country needs to be unified and realize who the enemy is -- it's not fellow Americans." Mr. Allen and others cited a memo distributed last week by the office of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid that recommended Senate Democrats hold press events at, among other places, military bases.

Notice that Allen is using the same tactic that I have documented over and over again since 9/11 -- suggesting that any criticism of President Bush means that Democrats think the President is "the enemy" rather than terrorists. It's a way to suggest Democrats are soft on terror and vaguely treasonous at the same time.

In addition, as I wrote last week, President Bush has done more to politicize the military than any president in recent memory -- a point that Harry Reid's spokesman made in the article:

Jim Manley, spokesman for the Nevada Democrat, dismissed the accusations and pointed to several examples of Mr. Bush and other Republicans using soldiers in uniform and military equipment for what he said was clear political gain. Among them was Mr. Bush's 2003 fighter-jet landing onto an aircraft carrier adorned with a huge banner that read: "Mission Accomplished."

"President Bush and Republicans have perfected the art of politicizing our military, and they should think twice before they unfairly accuse Democrats of following in their path," Mr. Manley said.

In response, however, Republicans -- like the Washington Times last week -- simply deny that President Bush makes political remarks at military bases:

Republicans say that the direct criticisms of Mr. Bush and Republicans in Congress is precisely why it's wrong to stage the events at military installations, where political events are not allowed. When Mr. Bush makes a speech before the Naval Academy, they say, he does so as commander in chief and is careful to avoid overtly political rhetoric.

However, as I wrote last week, Bush's remarks at military installations are often incendiary. At the Tobyhanna Army Depot in November 2005, he said, "The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will."

Similarly, here's what he said at Elmendorf Air Force Base that same month:

Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war, but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we misled them and the American people. Leaders in my administration and members of the United States Congress from both political parties looked at the same intelligence on Iraq, and reached the same conclusion: Saddam Hussein was a threat.

Let me give you some quotes from three senior Democrat leaders: First, and I quote, "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons." Another senior Democrat leader said, "The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." Here's another quote from a senior Democrat leader: "Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think the President is approaching this in the right fashion."

They spoke the truth then, and they're speaking politics now.

The truth is that investigations of intelligence on Iraq have concluded that only one person manipulated evidence and misled the world -- and that person was Saddam Hussein. In early 2004, when weapons inspector David Kay testified that he had not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he also testified that, "Iraq was in clear material violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441. They maintained programs and activities, and they certainly had the intentions at a point to resume their programs. So there was a lot they wanted to hide because it showed what they were doing that was illegal."

Eight months later, weapons inspector Charles Duelfer issued a report that found, "Saddam Hussein so dominated the Iraqi regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when the sanctions were lifted."

Some of our elected leaders have opposed this war all along. I disagreed with them, but I respect their willingness to take a consistent stand. Yet some Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force are now rewriting the past. They are playing politics with this issue and they are sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy. And that's irresponsible.

As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them into war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory.

How can anyone claim this is not "overtly political rhetoric"?

Bush denies linking Iraq and 9/11

I missed this, but on Monday, President Bush again denied linking Iraq and 9/11:

Mr. President, at the beginning of your talk today you mentioned that you understand why Americans have had their confidence shaken by the events in Iraq. And I'd like to ask you about events that occurred three years ago that might also explain why confidence has been shaken. Before we went to war in Iraq we said there were three main reasons for going to war in Iraq: weapons of mass destruction, the claim that Iraq was sponsoring terrorists who had attacked us on 9/11, and that Iraq had purchased nuclear materials from Niger. All three of those turned out to be false. My question is, how do we restore confidence that Americans may have in their leaders and to be sure that the information they are getting now is correct?

THE PRESIDENT: That's a great question. First, just if I might correct a misperception. I don't think we ever said -- at least I know I didn't say that there was a direct connection between September the 11th and Saddam Hussein. We did say that he was a state sponsor of terror -- by the way, not declared a state sponsor of terror by me, but declared by other administrations. We also did say that Zarqawi, the man who is now wreaking havoc and killing innocent life, was in Iraq. And so the state sponsor of terror was a declaration by a previous administration. But I don't want to be argumentative, but I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America.

Bush was very careful about not saying that Saddam "ordered the attacks," but he and his adminstration constantly linked Iraq and 9/11 in their public statements, helping to create a massive misperception among the American public. Here's a classic example from Bush's October 7, 2002 speech that is featured in the book:

We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.

As we wrote: "The statement bracketed assertions about operational contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda with broad rhetoric suggesting that their shared dislike for the U.S. meant that they were somehow allied. More important, it muddled the blame for September 11, suggesting that the Iraqi government was somehow connected to the attacks because it 'gleefully celebrated' them."

(See All the President's Spin, pages 177-84 and 207-216, for more.)

Ben Domenech blogging at the Post

Ben Domenech is the new "Red America" blogger at WashingtonPost.com. He was apparently hired to balance the allegedly liberal slant of Dan Froomkin.

I have a little history with Domenech. As a reader reminded me by email, I debunked a false quotation he published in a defense of President Bush's false "trifecta" story on Spinsanity back in 2002:

Blogger Ben Domenech claims to have proof that President Bush said he would run deficits in times of war during a debate with other candidates for the Republican nomination, but it's not true -- and even if it was, it doesn't negate the "trifecta" lie Bush has been pushing. Blogger Bill Quick highlights Bush telling Paula Zahn he might run a deficit during a recession, but again it's not close to sufficient.

First, Domenech. Here's his key quotation:

"If I ever commit troops, I'm going to do so with one thing in mind, and that's to win," Bush said.

"And spend what it takes? Even if it means deficits?" asked the moderator, NBC's Tim Russert.

"Absolutely," Bush replied, "if we go to war." (AP, from Boston Globe)

But if you read the full transcript of the debate, you'll see that Russert never asks "Even if it means deficits?" (Jason McCullough beat me to this point.) If you want verification, watch the C-SPAN video or read the Boston Globe account. This question is absolutely fictitious. There is no match for Bush AND Russert AND "even if it means deficits" in the entire Nexis database, and I can't find the AP article in question in a Westlaw search for Bush AND "even if it means deficits" either (though Domenech claims it came from Westlaw)...

Update 6/20 3:40 PM EST: Domenech is pulling back: "I've listened to the online version of the NH debate now, and I don't hear the second part of Russert's question as printed in the AP article. Considering that most accounts of the debate don't include this part of the question either, I'm close to believing that the AP article I have is inaccurate. I've been taken in by faulty reporting before, but never by the AP. Either way, I'll post the article tonight."

Update 6/24 11:09 PM EST: Domenech hasn't produced the alleged AP article despite requests from me by email and via comments on his site. You can read me debating this issue in the comments on Domenech's original post, or in the comments below Quick's post.

Update 7/2 3:09 PM EST: ...I've been alerted that Domenech posted the alleged AP article (apparently slightly before the above update). I'’ve found two AP articles that mirror parts of his in Nexis, but the key passage, including the fictitious question from Russert, does not appear in any articles in Nexis or Westlaw. Domenech has failed to respond to requests for a Westlaw search that can be duplicated proving its existence, and has not engaged in a serious effort to respond to many other questions raised by myself and others. Given the criticism he initially leveled at others based on this alleged source, this is irresponsible, especially from someone who writes professionally.

Draw your own conclusions...

Update 3/21 10:15 PM EST: On the larger issue of what Domenech's hiring means, see Josh Marshall:

So, to 'balance' Froomkin, who may be a commentator with liberal tendencies, the Post goes out and gets a high octane Republican political activist who hits the ground running with a tirade of Red State America revanchism and even journalism itself.

That's balance. That's the Post's balance.

Managing perceptions is the death of good journalism, especially manufactured perceptions, and even more those manufactured for the easily cowed.

I'm embarrassed for the Post. Embarrassed by the Post.

Their explanation doesn't cut it. If they want to make a blogger Crossfire with a firebreather on the left and on the right, they should do it. It might even be interesting. But here they've just been played by bullies and played for fools.

Jump! How high?

I can think of more than a few actual journalists at the Post who must feel a bit embarrassed too.

Our so-called recovery

Over at TNR's The Plank, Noam Scheiber quotes from a Fred Barnes article:

One issue that needs to be developed is the economy, according to Blunt. "People take a strong economy for granted. We have to show that this didn't just happen," but is the result of Republican policies like tax cuts. Republican candidates will argue that if Democratic policies had been followed, a strong economic recovery would not have occurred. And job creation--243,000 in February--would have been weaker.

Scheiber's response is to belittle upper income tax cuts as a costly and inefficient economic stimulus:

Barnes--sorry, Blunt--argues that the job number proves the superiority of an economic policy based almost entirely on cutting taxes. As far as I can tell, though, the only thing it proves is that if you're president and you're determined to goose the economy for a few years, you can probably do it.

But has Bush really goosed the economy? The evidence we have indicates that this is one of the weakest recoveries of the post-World War II era -- here's Edmund Andrews from the New York Times in January:

Consider jobs, the focus of the Treasury chart. A unique aspect is that the job count continued to fall for 18 months after the 2001 recession ended. The number of jobs in November was up 3.4 percent from the job low 30 months earlier.

That measurement, which is the way the Bush administration chose to look at the data, ranks eighth among the 10 postwar recessions, a fraction ahead of the recovery after the 1990-91 recession, and better than the period after the recession that ended in July 1980, when another recession followed a year later.

Were job growth instead to be measured from the end of the recession, this recovery is the slowest ever, with the job count up 2.6 percent in four years. The previous low was a 4 percent gain in the four years after the 1953-54 downturn.

Any analysis of the recovery after the 2001 recession must ask why huge tax cuts that began in 2001 had so little - and so long delayed - effect.

So why is this some great political issue for Republicans?

In addition, Blunt is claiming the recovery would have been worse if Democratic economic policies had been followed, but that's just an assertion. As Andrews documents, it's hard to imagine doing much worse than the current administration. Moreover, the historical evidence indicates that Republican presidents have been less successful at creating jobs than Democrats -- Princeton's Larry Bartels finds that unemployment has been thirty percent lower under Democratic presidents since World War II (PDF).

Scheiber argues credibly that job losses under Bush were largely attributable to structural changes in the US economy. That's fair enough. But why should we give Republicans credit for a lousy recovery?

Rothenberg: Allen on the wane

Stuart Rothenberg explains why he thinks George Allen's presidential prospects are in decline:

[T]he Virginia Senator’s White House prospects have been steadily eroding since my first column on this topic one year ago. The reason: President Bush’s reputation has nosedived.

Allen is perfectly positioned as heir to the Ronald Reagan-George W. Bush legacy. The only problem is that the legacy doesn’t look nearly as valuable now as it did as recently as a year ago — even within the GOP.

....Voters often look for a different type of person to fill the White House than the man who served immediately prior. They turned to John F. Kennedy after Dwight Eisenhower. They opted for Bill Clinton after George H.W. Bush. They opted for George W. Bush after Clinton.

If Republican voters decide that eight years of George W. Bush is enough, they may well look for a different kind of person to carry their party’s banner in 2008. And that’s why Allen is no longer the man to beat for the GOP presidential nomination.

I'm skeptical; primary voters will still turn against McCain, I think, given conservative elite support for other candidates. But if things get ugly enough for Bush, anything can happen...

Revisiting the AP story on Bush's straw men

This weekend, I praised the Associated Press story on how President Bush repeatedly attacks straw men. But yesterday I realized that it raises an important question -- how did the AP handle those straw men attacks in real time?

The answer is not encouraging. Just like newspapers that credulously report or ignore misleading claims that they later debunk in fact-checking stories, the AP appears to have only cast doubt on one of the Bush quotes in question according to a Nexis search.

Here's how the article begins:

"Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day," President Bush said recently.

Another time he said, "Some say that if you're Muslim you can't be free."

"There are some really decent people," the president said earlier this year, "who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care ... for all people."

Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions.

However, the first quote was taken by the AP as a serious acknowledgment of doubts about the war in its original report:

President Bush asserted Sunday night the United States is winning the war in Iraq but acknowledged setbacks and the doubts of some "that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day

...Acknowledging doubts about his strategy, Bush said, "Some look at the challenges in Iraq, and conclude that the war is lost, and not worth another dime or another day.

On the other hand, a featured quote about people in the US not believing in the terrorist threat was properly debunked in a January article:

"Officials here learn information about plotters and planners and people who would do us harm," Bush said, reading from note cards. "Now, I understand there's some in America who say, 'Well, this can't be true there are still people willing to attack.' All I would ask them to do is listen to the words of Osama bin Laden and take him seriously."

However, no one in the political debate over the war on terror or the NSA program has suggested that terrorists no longer want to attack the United States. Rather, Bush's critics have argued that the law requires him to get permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to eavesdrop on communications involving Americans.

Other quotes in the article don't appear to have been reported by the AP, which is problematic. Shouldn't it be news when the President of the United States is shadow-boxing with straw men? Of course, all politicians use the straw man tactic, but President Bush has gone far beyond his predecessors in his use of it. Citizens deserve to know.

Update 3/22 10:42 AM: Media Matters has posted a longer reexamination of how the AP failed to point out straw men arguments in real time.

Krugman: The deficit wasn't caused by domestic spending

In his column today, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman makes an underappreciated point -- conservative moaning about Bush's big spending ways fail to take into account the fact that the deficit is largely driven by tax cuts and defense spending, not discretionary programs:

Well, it's safe for conservatives to criticize Mr. Bush for presiding over runaway growth in domestic spending, because that implies that he betrayed his conservative supporters. There's only one problem with this criticism: it's not true.

It's true that federal spending as a percentage of G.D.P. rose between 2001 and 2005. But the great bulk of this increase was accounted for by increased spending on defense and homeland security, including the costs of the Iraq war, and by rising health care costs.

Conservatives aren't criticizing Mr. Bush for his defense spending. Since the Medicare drug program didn't start until 2006, the Bush administration can't be blamed for the rise in health care costs before then. Whatever other fiscal excesses took place weren't large enough to play more than a marginal role in spending growth.

So where does the notion of Bush the big spender come from? In a direct sense it comes largely from Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, who issued a report last fall alleging that government spending was out of control. Mr. Riedl is very good at his job; his report shifts artfully back and forth among various measures of spending (nominal, real, total, domestic, discretionary, domestic discretionary), managing to convey the false impression that soaring spending on domestic social programs is a major cause of the federal budget deficit without literally lying.

But the reason conservatives fall for the Heritage spin is that it suits their purposes. They need to repudiate George W. Bush, but they can't admit that when Mr. Bush made his key mistakes -- starting an unnecessary war, and using dishonest numbers to justify tax cuts -- they were cheering him on.

Here's the key graphic from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that sums it all up (see source article for more):

AP on Bush's attacks on straw men

The Associated Press has produced one of the best rhetoric-busting stories on President Bush in a long time -- an analysis of his obsession with attacking absurd straw men rather than engaging the arguments of his opponents:

"Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day," President Bush said recently.

Another time he said, "Some say that if you're Muslim you can't be free."

"There are some really decent people," the president said earlier this year, "who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care ... for all people."

Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions.

When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.

He typically then says he "strongly disagrees" — conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making.

...Because the "some" often go unnamed, Bush can argue that his statements are true in an era of blogs and talk radio. Even so, "'some' suggests a number much larger than is actually out there," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

...Bush has caricatured the other side for years, trying to tilt legislative debates in his favor or score election-season points with voters.

Not long after taking office in 2001, Bush pushed for a new education testing law and began portraying skeptics as opposed to holding schools accountable.

The chief opposition, however, had nothing to do with the merits of measuring performance, but rather the cost and intrusiveness of the proposal.

Campaigning for Republican candidates in the 2002 midterm elections, the president sought to use the congressional debate over a new Homeland Security Department against Democrats.

He told at least two audiences that some senators opposing him were "not interested in the security of the American people." In reality, Democrats balked not at creating the department, which Bush himself first opposed, but at letting agency workers go without the usual civil service protections.

Running for re-election against Sen. John Kerry in 2004, Bush frequently used some version of this line to paint his Democratic opponent as weaker in the fight against terrorism: "My opponent and others believe this matter is a matter of intelligence and law enforcement."

The assertion was called a mischaracterization of Kerry's views even by a Republican, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

...Last fall, the rhetorical tool became popular with Bush when the debate heated up over when troops would return from Iraq. "Some say perhaps we ought to just pull out of Iraq," he told GOP supporters in October, echoing similar lines from other speeches. "That is foolhardy policy."

Yet even the speediest plan, as advocated by only a few Democrats, suggested not an immediate drawdown, but one over six months. Most Democrats were not even arguing for a specific troop withdrawal timetable.

Recently defending his decision to allow the National Security Agency to monitor without subpoenas the international communications of Americans suspected of terrorist ties, Bush has suggested that those who question the program underestimate the terrorist threat.

"There's some in America who say, 'Well, this can't be true there are still people willing to attack,'" Bush said during a January visit to the NSA.

The president has relied on straw men, too, on the topics of taxes and trade, issues he hopes will work against Democrats in this fall's congressional elections.

Usually without targeting Democrats specifically, Bush has suggested they are big-spenders who want to raise taxes, because most oppose extending some of his earlier tax cuts, and protectionists who do not want to open global markets to American goods, when most oppose free-trade deals that lack protections for labor and the environment.

"Some people believe the answer to this problem is to wall off our economy from the world," he said this month in India, talking about the migration of U.S. jobs overseas. "I strongly disagree."

This subject deserves far more attention than it receives. The President almost never engages his opponent's actual arguments. It misinforms his listeners and obstructs productive debate. And he won't stop unless he gets called on it by the press. As with so many of Bush's PR tactics, the media's failure to speak up against Bush's straw men arguments threatens to create a precedent that future presidents will follow. That's why it's so important to take a stand now. (For more on this theme, see the conclusion to All the President's Spin.)

Wash. Times: Bush's military speeches aren't political

Time for another entry in the history of the nation's most hacktastic newspaper, the Washington Times, whose inspired brand of "journalism" kept us busy at Spinsanity for years.

Their latest offense comes in an article disclosing a private memo distributed to Senate Democrats, which calls for senators to hold town halls at military bases. As the Times points out, this is prohibited:

Senate Democrats have mapped a political battle plan for the March congressional recess that calls on lawmakers to stage press events with active duty military personnel, veterans and emergency responders to bash President Bush on virtually every one of his national security policies.

The game plan, devised by the office of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, is contained in a six-page memo distributed to Democratic senators on Thursday at a closed-door meeting at the Capitol and provided to The Washington Times by a congressional staffer.

Titled "Real Security," the political document calls for staged town hall events at military bases, weapons factories, National Guard units, fire stations and veterans posts.

... However, the Defense Department prohibits political events on military bases. The rule states, "commanders will not permit the use of installation facilities by any candidate for political campaign or election events, including public assemblies or town hall meetings."

The problem, however, is that President Bush holds explicitly political events at military facilities all the time.

How does the Times get around this? By dissembling about what Bush does in front of the military:

As commander in chief, Mr. Bush has made frequent visits to military bases in the United States and abroad. His remarks are generally limited to explaining his war policies and encouraging the troops.

Generally limited? President Bush has given more divisive speeches in front of military audiences than any president in recent memory. Here's one example, which I wrote about last year. In November 2005, President Bush came under fire from Rep. John Murtha, a hawkish Democrat who reversed his support for the war and called for the US to withdraw from Iraq. President Bush's response, delivered at the Tobyhanna Army Depot in Tobyhanna, PA, was harsh and political:

The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory.

Earlier that month, as I also pointed out, Bush delivered a similar attack on opponents of the war in Iraq to an audience at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska:

Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war, but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we misled them and the American people. Leaders in my administration and members of the United States Congress from both political parties looked at the same intelligence on Iraq, and reached the same conclusion: Saddam Hussein was a threat.

Let me give you some quotes from three senior Democrat leaders: First, and I quote, "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons." Another senior Democrat leader said, "The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." Here's another quote from a senior Democrat leader: "Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think the President is approaching this in the right fashion."

They spoke the truth then, and they're speaking politics now.

The truth is that investigations of intelligence on Iraq have concluded that only one person manipulated evidence and misled the world -- and that person was Saddam Hussein. In early 2004, when weapons inspector David Kay testified that he had not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he also testified that, "Iraq was in clear material violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441. They maintained programs and activities, and they certainly had the intentions at a point to resume their programs. So there was a lot they wanted to hide because it showed what they were doing that was illegal."

Eight months later, weapons inspector Charles Duelfer issued a report that found, "Saddam Hussein so dominated the Iraqi regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when the sanctions were lifted."

Some of our elected leaders have opposed this war all along. I disagreed with them, but I respect their willingness to take a consistent stand. Yet some Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force are now rewriting the past. They are playing politics with this issue and they are sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy. And that's irresponsible.

As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them into war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory.

We all have our ways of "encouraging the troops." Apparently Bush's is to try to silence dissent in the democracy that our soldiers have sworn to defend.

New ideas and the gridlock zone

The estimable Jon Chait has a Los Angeles Times column criticizing the GOP claim that they are the party of ideas and Democrats are the party of the status quo. Here's the key passage:

All this was based on a deep confusion between cause and effect. Republicans were pushing new ideas because they had political power; they didn't have political power because of their ideas. (Anybody who believed last year that Bush won reelection because of his support for privatized Social Security surely has been disabused of that delusion.) When you lack power, the best you can do is prevent bad ideas from being enacted. That's not the same thing as failing to have new ideas.

In truth, Bush's agenda has run aground not because he has no ideas but because he has no power. His approval ratings have plummeted, and Republicans in Congress are running for cover. If Bush could rule by fiat he would have plenty of ideas to implement -- more tax cuts for businesses and upper-income individuals, cutting regulations and poverty programs. He simply lacks the juice to implement them.

So he's left defending the status quo against "new ideas." Remaining in Iraq is status quo; pulling out is a new policy. Keeping the tax cuts is status quo; repealing them and using the resources elsewhere is new. If the situation were reversed, conservatives would be taunting liberals for having no ideas and defending the tired status quo. Turning the taunt around is satisfying, but it doesn't really explain the situation.

Chait is on to something here. This is a layman's version of the pivotal politics theory popularized by Keith Krehbiel, David W. Brady and Craig Volden. Imagine a single left-right dimension of ideology with all the members of Congress and the president represented as points from the most liberal to the most conservative. The gridlock zone represents the ideological range defined by the filibuster and the veto. In the current Congress, it ranges from the 41st most liberal senator (the filibuster pivot) to the 67th most liberal senator and 290th most liberal House member (the veto pivots).

According to pivotal politics, legislative action happens when a policy that is outside the gridlock zone gets mapped into it. For instance, consider a policy that only the 20 most liberal senators support. It is trivial for the chamber to create a super-majority coalition that can't be overriden by a filibuster or veto and to move that policy to a point on the ideological spectrum between the two pivots. However, once the policy is mapped inside the gridlock zone, it's trapped -- any action to change it will be blocked by one of the two pivots, who will prefer the status quo to a change.

Pivotal politics is a powerful explanation for the travails of President Bush (as well as other second-term presidents). In the first term, shifts in the composition of Congress and/or the party of the President often mean that a number of policies are outside the gridlock zone. So Congress and the president can move policies that are outside the gridlock zone inside of it. For Bush before 9/11, this included education, stem cells and the tax cut. 9/11 shifted the political terrain further, allowing more policies to be moved ranging from the Patriot Act to invading Iraq.

But at this point, there are few policies outside the gridlock zone that Bush wants to move. As Chait points out, this doesn't mean the party is out of ideas. The President still has a long wish list, but almost none of it is politically feasible (ie the policies are trapped in the gridlock zone). So he's forced to play defense -- protecting those policies that are threatening to slip out of the gridlock zone and be revisited by an increasingly skeptical Congress. New "ideas" aren't worth much if they're infeasible.

Correction 8/22 12:34 PM: Krehbiel points out that the 41st most liberal senator is the current filibuster pivot, not the 40th. The mistake is corrected above -- apologies for the error.

Dionne suggests no attacks on Feingold's patriotism

E.J. Dionne is clearly not reading this blog. Today, he writes the following:

As one of Feingold's colleagues pointed out, a censure proposal related to any aspect of the president's policies on terrorism would once have unleashed an unrelenting Republican attack on the sponsor's patriotism. Now, Republicans have to content themselves with using calls for censuring or impeaching Bush to rally their own dispirited troops.

I'm not sure it's been "unrelenting," but a number of conservatives have implicitly questioned Feingold's patriotism this week, as I showed:

Frist later attacked Feingold again, stating, "This is a political stunt, a political stunt that is addressed at attacking the president of the United States of America when we're at war." The implication, of course, is that it's illegitimate to criticize the president during wartime - a dangerous and anti-democratic notion.

Other attacks on dissent came from Speaker Dennis Hastert's spokesman, Ron Bonjean, and Vice President Cheney. Bonjean asked the rhetorical question, "Just who is the enemy to the Democrats, the president of the United States or the terrorists working to destroy our way of life?" And Cheney said in a speech that "Some Democrats in Congress have decided the president is the enemy." By this pseudo-logic, which Republicans have used repeatedly since 9/11, criticism of the President means that Democrats aren't serious about fighting the terrorist enemy.

Republican chairman Ken Mehlman also used this approach in an email to supporters (PDF), stating that "Democrat leaders never miss an opportunity to put politics before our nation's security. And now, they would rather censure the President for doing his job than actually fight the War on Terror." Again, the implication is that Democrats are weakening national security and choosing not to fight the war on terror.

...Media Matters reports that "Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, called Sen. Russ Feingold's introduction of a resolution to censure President Bush 'borderline treasonous behavior'" -- yet another anti-democratic attack on dissent.

NYT on conservative impeachment hype

You read it here first.

Back on February 15, I flagged Paul Weyrich's article claiming that "if Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is Speaker of the House come next year George W. Bush will be impeached." Matthew Yglesias picked up the post on Tapped, and the impeachment meme started to go mainstream. Yesterday, as I noted, the Wall Street Journal editorial page claimed that a Democratic House majority would be likely to impeach Bush.

Today, David Kirkpatrick, one of the conservative "beat" reporters for the New York Times, picks up the story starting with Weyrich:

Republicans, worried that their conservative base lacks motivation to turn out for the fall elections, have found a new rallying cry in the dreams of liberals about censuring or impeaching President Bush.

The proposal this week by Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, to censure Mr. Bush over his domestic eavesdropping program cheered the left. But it also dovetailed with conservatives' plans to harness such attacks to their own ends.

With the Republican base demoralized by continued growth in government spending, undiminished violence in Iraq and intramural disputes over immigration, some conservative leaders had already begun rallying their supporters with speculation about a Democratic rebuke to the president even before Mr. Feingold made his proposal.

"Impeachment, coming your way if there are changes in who controls the House eight months from now," Paul Weyrich, a veteran conservative organizer, declared last month in an e-mail newsletter.

The threat of impeachment, Mr. Weyrich suggested, was one of the only factors that could inspire the Republican Party's demoralized base to go to the polls. With "impeachment on the horizon," he wrote, "maybe, just maybe, conservatives would not stay at home after all."

Feingold resolution draws attacks on dissent, straw men

Wisconsin Democratic senator Russ Feingold's introduction of a motion to censure President Bush for his illegal domestic wiretapping program has drawn a number of unfair attacks.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist responded that "the signal that it sends that there is in any way a lack of support for our commander in chief, who is leading us with a bold vision, in a way that we know is making our homeland safer, is wrong. And it sends a perception around the world."

Does Frist really think the world believes Bush is popular? The three recent polls showing a mid-30s approval rating would seem to make it pretty obvious to the world there is "a lack of support" for President Bush.

Frist later attacked Feingold again, stating, "This is a political stunt, a political stunt that is addressed at attacking the president of the United States of America when we're at war." The implication, of course, is that it's illegitimate to criticize the president during wartime - a dangerous and anti-democratic notion.

Other attacks on dissent came from Speaker Dennis Hastert's spokesman, Ron Bonjean, and Vice President Cheney. Bonjean asked the rhetorical question, "Just who is the enemy to the Democrats, the president of the United States or the terrorists working to destroy our way of life?" And Cheney said in a speech that "Some Democrats in Congress have decided the president is the enemy." By this pseudo-logic, which Republicans have used repeatedly since 9/11, criticism of the President means that Democrats aren't serious about fighting the terrorist enemy.

Republican chairman Ken Mehlman also used this approach in an email to supporters (PDF), stating that "Democrat leaders never miss an opportunity to put politics before our nation's security. And now, they would rather censure the President for doing his job than actually fight the War on Terror." Again, the implication is that Democrats are weakening national security and choosing not to fight the war on terror.

Another tactic was to attack absurd straw men. White House spokesperson Scott McClellan said, "I think it does raise the question of how do you fight and win the war on terrorism, and if Democrats want to argue that we shouldn't be listening to al Qaeda communications, that's their right. And we welcome the debate."

This claim, which Republicans have repeated before, bears no resemblance to reality. No major Democrat has said that "we shouldn't be listening to al Qaeda communications," and censuring the President for breaking the law governing wiretaps certainly doesn't indicate opposition to such wiretaps. Yet Cheney claimed that Democrats want to "protect our enemies' ability to communicate," stating, "The outrageous proposition that we ought to protect our enemies' ability to communicate as it plots against America poses a key test of our Democratic leaders."

Finally, the Wall Street Journal editorial page follows the approach of Paul Weyrich, warning Republicans of a secret Democratic impeachment plot:

Republicans are denouncing Senator Russ Feingold's proposal to "censure" President Bush for his warrantless wiretaps on al Qaeda, but we'd like to congratulate the Wisconsin Democrat on his candor. He's had the courage to put on the table what Democrats are all but certain to do if they win either the House or Senate in November.

In fact, our guess is that censure would be the least of it. The real debate in Democratic circles would be whether to pass articles of impeachment. Whether such an inevitable attempt succeeds would depend on Mr. Bush's approval rating, and especially on whether Democrats could use their subpoena power as committee chairs to conjure up something they could flog to a receptive media as an "impeachable" offense. But everyone should understand that censure and impeachment are important--and so far the only--parts of the left's agenda for the next Congress.

...In other words, everything that Mr. Bush has been accused of during the last five years, no matter how Orwellian or thoroughly refuted, will be trotted out again and used as impeachment fodder. And lest you think this could never happen, Judiciary is the House committee through which any formal impeachment resolution would be introduced and proceed. As the country heads toward 2008 and a Democratic nomination fight, John Kerry and Hillary Rodham Clinton would be hard-pressed to avoid going along with Mr. Feingold, Al Gore, and others feeding the bile of the censure/impeach brigades.

Which brings us back to Mr. Feingold's public service in floating his "censure" gambit now. He's doing voters a favor by telling them before November's election just how Democrats intend to treat a wartime President if they take power.

Not only do they want to block his policies, they also plan to rebuke and embarrass him in front of the world and America's enemies. And they want to do so not because there is a smidgen of evidence that he's abused his office or lied under oath, but because they think he's been too energetic in using his powers to defend America. By all means, let's have this impeachment debate before the election, so voters can know what's really at stake.

This is just speculation, of course, and the legal analysis from the editorial is even worse:

As a legal matter, Mr. Feingold's censure proposal is preposterous. The National Security Agency wiretaps were disclosed to Congressional leaders, including Democrats, from the start. The lead FISA court judges were also informed, and the Attorney General and Justice lawyers have monitored the wiretaps all along. Despite a media drumbeat about "illegal domestic eavesdropping," Mr. Bush's spirited defense of the program since news of it leaked has swung public opinion in support.

Disclosing the program to a handful of Democrats and informing "lead FISA court judges" is not the same as following the rules and procedures created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The WSJ presents these actions as if they are somehow exculpatory in a legal sense, hoping that ill-informed readers will believe these steps were sufficient under the law.

As a political matter, Feingold's resolution was a poor tactical choice. Bush is extremely unpopular; dividing Senate Democrats, turning the conversation back to the war on terror, and raising the specter of impeachment does not serve his party well. But the spin barrage that the GOP has unleashed deserves nothing but scorn.

Update 3/15: Media Matters reports that "Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, called Sen. Russ Feingold's introduction of a resolution to censure President Bush 'borderline treasonous behavior'" -- yet another anti-democratic attack on dissent.

Media recognizing that Bush is unpopular?

It's striking that the media narrative is finally shifting to acknowledge the fact that Bush is a very unpopular president. Here's a brutal but accurate excerpt from the Washington Post:

Bush's problems go beyond the fatigue factor [among his staff]. An unpopular foreign war, high energy prices and the nation's worst natural disaster in decades have dragged his poll ratings down to the lowest level of any second-term president, other than Richard M. Nixon, in the last half-century.

And remember, these poll numbers are consistent with the little appreciated fact that Bush's reelection was the narrowest since Woodrow Wilson...

Paul Krugman on John McCain

America's most influential liberal columnist tries to get the anti-McCain backlash going:

It's time for some straight talk about John McCain. He isn't a moderate. He's much less of a maverick than you'd think. And he isn't the straight talker he claims to be.

No more bipartisan love for you!

Toni Morrison pushes Bennett smear

In a fundraising letter for Southern Poverty Law Center (JPEG), Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison pushes the myth that conservative pundit Bill Bennett advocated the abortion of black babies to reduce crime.

She writes:

With former Secretary of Education William Bennett talking about the abortion of black babies to curb crime and with hurricane Katrina exposing extreme racial bias, we must act quickly to confront intolerance and injustice.

As Brad DeLong wrote, however, while "Bill Bennett is a hypocrite, a loathsome fungus on the tree of American politics," he "is not afflicted with genocidal fantasies about ethnically cleansing African-Americans. The claim that he is is completely, totally wrong." The reality is that Bennett was attempting a reductio ad absurdum argument (which, as DeLong notes, is a bad idea on live radio), not advocating ethnic cleansing:

CALLER: I noticed the national media, you know, they talk a lot about the loss of revenue, or the inability of the government to fund Social Security, and I was curious, and I've read articles in recent months here, that the abortions that have happened since Roe v. Wade, the lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30-something years, could fund Social Security as we know it today. And the media just doesn't -- never touches this at all.

BENNETT: Assuming they're all productive citizens?

CALLER: Assuming that they are. Even if only a portion of them were, it would be an enormous amount of revenue.

BENNETT: Maybe, maybe, but we don't know what the costs would be, too. I think as -- abortion disproportionately occur among single women? No.

CALLER: I don't know the exact statistics, but quite a bit are, yeah.

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

Deleted from Google

Anyone know why I would be deleted from Google? All of a sudden, hundreds of posts are no longer indexed. In fact, as far as Google is concerned, this site doesn't exist at all. The only reason I can think of is that they didn't like a slight search hack I had running in the sidebar, but is that enough reason to trash me? It's costing me hundreds of visitors per day.

George W. Bush is not a "Texas rancher"

It's sad how easily the press gets taken in by biographical spin. Time describes President Bush as a "Texas rancher" dispensing homespun wisdom in an article this week:

White House officials contend that Bush quickly realized the ports affair was a fiasco. "I know a prairie fire when I see one," the Texas rancher told an aide.

Bush is not, and was never, a Texas rancher. He bought the property in 1999 when he was running for president, and he does not raise animals on it (the word ranch means "a large farm for raising horses, beef cattle, or sheep" or some other kind of animal). Mostly, he clears brush for the television cameras. (Has Bush ever actually seen a prairie fire?)

To illustrate how ridiculous this is, let me offer a comparison. Ted Turner owns 14 ranches across the United States and actually raises livestock (bison) to sell for commercial use. Yet no one calls Turner a "rancher." He's a media mogul who owns some ranches, just like George W. Bush is a politician who owns a property in Texas.

(Also, note the origins of Bush's alleged statement: a aide provided it to Time. That means it was strategically chosen at a minimum. Less generously, Bush may never have said it. But who cares if it gives you a juicy-sounding insider quote?)

John McCain's straw poll follies

As predicted, John McCain is starting to realize that his party's activist base doesn't like him:

Facing a loss at a 2008 straw poll event this weekend, Senator John McCain of Arizona told his supporters to write in President Bush [?] as a sign of support, leaving many sputtering.

"For the next three years, with our country at war, he's our president and the only one who needs our support," McCain told nearly 2,000 party activists from 26 states gathered in Memphis.

McCain, realizing the national political media had descended on the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, moved to discredit the straw poll by asking delegates to vote for Bush, insiders claim.

Instead of stopping the momentum of Majority Leader Bill Frist - widely anticipated to win the straw poll - the move seemed to expose the McCain camp's insincerity about its position with the base.

One activist said, "McCain voted against all the Bush tax cuts... maybe he should have voted for the president then, instead of waiting for a political stunt to try and distract."

To win a presidential nomination in the modern (primary) era, you need elite activist support. That's why McCain is sucking up to the base so desperately. But despite his popularity with the pundit class, it doesn't seem like the new schtick is working.

My question: when will the futures market adjust? Here's a chart of the price of the Tradesports contract that pays $10 if McCain wins the GOP nomination, which has been tracking upward since September:

CBPP: Tax cuts don't pay for themselves

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has published the definitive case against the claim that tax cuts pay for themselves. Here are the key findings from the report:

-Despite recent statements by the President, Vice President, and certain Congressional leaders that tax cuts pay for themselves by stimulating economic growth, revenues over the past three years were a combined $316 billion below the levels that the Administration projected before enactment of the 2003 tax cuts.

-During the current recovery, both revenues and economic growth have been weaker than in the typical post-World War II recovery. Revenues over the economic recovery so far have fallen at an annual rate of 0.6 percent, after adjusting for inflation and population growth. During the average post-World War II recovery, revenues grew at an annual real per-person rate of 2.7 percent.

-Revenues grew much more quickly in the 1990s, when taxes were raised, than in the 1980s, when taxes were cut. Revenues in the current decade, with its tax cuts, are also expected to grow slowly. Based on the Administration's own projections of revenue growth through the end of the decade, revenues in the current decade will grow at only about one fifth their growth rate in the 1990s.

-Economists from across the political spectrum, including the Administration's own former chief economist, strongly reject the notion that tax cuts pay for themselves.

A brief etymology of "Christianist"

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but Andrew Sullivan seems to be on a crusade (no pun intended) to popularize the term "Christianist." He's used it on his blog more than twenty times over the last three years, especially during the last few months.

The goal, it seems, is to draw an analogy with radical Islam. Indeed, Sullivan made this comparison explicit in a June 1, 2003 post coining the term:

I propose a new term for those on the fringes of the religious right who have used the Gospels to perpetuate their own aspirations for power, control and oppression: Christianists. They are as anathema to true Christians as the Islamists are to true Islam. And they have to be fought just as vigilantly.

I went back and took a quick look at the history of the term in mass media usage. The first major newspaper/magazine usage in the US came from Hendrick Hertzberg in the New Yorker in Sept. 2004, who referred to "what might be called the Christianists." In November of that year, syndicated columnist Ted Rall decried "militant Christianist Republicans."

In April 2005, Hertzberg again referred to Terri Schiavo's "Christianist 'supporters'" in the New Yorker. This time, people started to notice. A National Review Online reader, in a published email to Jay Nordlinger, wrote to inquire out about "the word 'Christianist,' which is not one I've seen used before. Did Hertzberg coin this himself...? The word is clearly formed on the model of 'Islamist,' and is as pretty a piece of moral equivalence as I've ever found." Hertzberg then used the term again in a second column later in the month, calling Tom DeLay a "hard-right Christianist crusader."

In May 2005, Hertzberg's repetitions drew the attention of William Safire in the New York Times Magazine and Ruth Walker on the Christian Science Monitor blog (Safire noted Sullivan's 2003 coinage quoted above).

Since then, Hertzberg has used the term three more times in New Yorker columns and bloggers like Sullivan have also continued to invoke it. Currently, Technorati has 486 hits in a search for the term, while Google Blog Search has more than 300.

The problem, of course, is that the people are using the term "Christianist" to smear the religious right by associating it with the most extreme Muslim fundamentalists. Do extreme Christian fundamentalists exist for whom such comparisons might be appropriate? Yes. But the linguistic function of these labeling terms is to erase the some/all distinction by suggesting that all so-called "Christianists" (basically any socially conservative Christian Republican as Sullivan uses the term) are analogous to radical Islamist fundamentalists. And that's just wrong.

Update 3/11: Ted Rall emails to point out that his June 8, 2004 column used the term "Christianist."

All the President's Spin finalist for Lulu Blooker Prize

Self-promotion alert: All the President's Spin is a finalist for The Lulu Blooker Prize, which is a new award created to honor "blooks" -- ie books based on blogs.

Update 3/11: Our nomination was mentioned in the Philadelphia Inquirer today.

Inspirational leadership: Bush's Oval Office rug story

The hallmark of President Bush's communication style is numbing repetition of the same anecdotes, jokes and misleading spin. So it's not surprising that he's even on message about the (apparently fascinating) Oval Office rug:

For whatever reason, Bush seems fixated on his [Oval Office] rug. Virtually all visitors to the Oval Office find him regaling them about how it was chosen and what it represents. Turns out, he always says, the first decision any president makes is what carpet he wants in his office. As a take-charge leader, he then explains, he of course made a command decision -- he delegated the decision to Laura Bush, who chose a yellow sunbeam design.

..."He loves his rug," said Nicolle Wallace, the White House communications director. "I've heard him describe it countless times."

Sometimes Bush describes it as a metaphor for leadership. Sometimes he relates how Russian President Vladimir Putin admired the carpet. Sometimes he seems most taken by the lighting qualities.

...Not only does the president describe the rug to journalists and foreign leaders, he does so to virtual visitors. During "An Oval Office Tour With President George W. Bush" on the White House site ( http://www.whitehouse.gov ), he wastes no time pointing out the carpet...

Some visitors have the impression that the rug story is revealing. In his new book, "Rebel-in-Chief," Fred Barnes recounts how Bush told him about the carpet...

But if Barnes or other visitors had the idea that Bush was sharing an intimacy just with them, they should listen to his speeches. Bush doesn't need the Oval Office to talk about the Oval Office carpet. Lately he's been taking the story on the road, sharing it with workers at a moving company in Sterling on Jan. 19, then with students at Kansas State University on Jan. 23, and again with supporters at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry on Feb. 1.

Here's a Google search that yields seven versions of the story on the White House website.

PS How sad is it that the President has to use this story to illustrate his leadership style?

Move to impeach the Pirate Captain

Update 4/28/08 8:28 PM: For some reason, this post is currently showing up when you go to www.brendan-nyhan.com. If you're looking for my main page, please click here.

---

Last year I blogged frequently about the innovative protest campaign of the "Pirate Captain" for NC State student body president. Here he is in action during the campaign:

The Captain won a runoff and promptly declared "The Year of the Pirate."

However, Ken Waight of Lying in Ponds alerts us that, as the NC State newspaper puts it, "Pirate Captain ventures into rough water." Here's the lede from their story:

Today in its biweekly meeting, the Student Senate will at last address explicit complaints expressed by several of its members about the actions of Student Body President Whil Piavis when it hears new legislation that calls for his impeachment.

The bill, which is sponsored by 10 senators, cites 21 specific illegal or unethical actions committed by the president over the course of his term.

An ally blames the move on a cultural mismatch between the Captain and the senators:

Director of Executive Management Jason Mo, a senior in business management, said the Senate is trying to "blow the issue out of proportion" and has been looking for mistakes in Piavis' performance since the beginning of the year. Mo said Piavis has done a lot in terms of getting students involved in the SG this year and that the record turnout in student body elections last spring serves as evidence.

"Whil is not someone who fits into their culture," Mo said, pointing to the Senate culture as being dictated by formality.

It's not unlike the Washington establishment's reaction to Bill Clinton, as summarized by David Broder: "He came in here and he trashed the place, and it's not his place."

What is David Brooks talking about?

Writing in yesterday's New York Times, David Brooks claims that "the likely Democratic presidential nominee is Hillary Clinton, who has been barely distinguishable from John McCain on foreign policy matters (aside from her ports pandering)."

Hmm. "Barely distinguishable"? It just so happens that National Journal released their 2005 vote ratings last week. And it turns out that McCain and Clinton disagree quite a bit about matters other than the wisdom of immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

National Journal ranked Clinton as more liberal than 66 percent of senators on foreign policy votes in 2005, whereas McCain was more liberal than 45 percent of senators. And out of the thirteen votes that went into the NJ foreign policy rating, McCain and Clinton voted in opposite directions on seven:

84/S600: Retain the cap on U.S. contributions to U.N. peacekeeping operations. April 6. (40-57) C-3

(McCain: Nay; Clinton: Yea)

129/-: Limit debate on the nomination of John Bolton to be U.S. representative to the United Nations. May 26. (56-42; 60 votes required to invoke cloture. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., voted no so that he could subsequently move to reconsider the vote.) L-3

(McCain: Yea; Clinton: Nay)

170/S1307: Approve the Central American Free Trade Agreement. June 30. (54-45) C-2

(McCain: Yea; Clinton: Nay)

171/HR2419: Prohibit funds for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. July 1. (43-53) C-3

(McCain: Nay; Clinton: Yea)

319/S1042: Deny access to the federal courts for most detainees at Guantanamo. November 10. (49-42) C-3

(McCain: Yea; Clinton: Nay)

322/S1042: Require the president to provide a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq. November 15. (40-58) C-3

(McCain: Nay; Clinton: Yea)

324/S1042: Grant habeas corpus rights to the federal courts for detainees and enemy combatants. November 15. (44-54) C-3

(McCain: Nay; Clinton: Yea)

To be fair, there's a complicated debate about how to measure legislators' preferences. The National Journal vote ratings are an imperfect proxy at best. But they do illustrate that McCain and Clinton are quite easily distinguishable on foreign policy.

I'll have to take this up with Brooks when he comes to Duke next year...

Los Angeles Times: More Bush disapproval

The Los Angeles Times puts Bush approval at 38 percent, confirming the drop reported in a CBS/New York Times poll that has faced hack conservative opposition:

Buffeted by resistance to the port transaction and discontent over the turmoil in Iraq, President Bush's approval rating fell to 38%, the lowest level recorded for him in a Times poll. His disapproval rating rose to 58%.

And, in a trend that could affect turnout in the November midterm elections, Bush confronts what might be called an intensity gap: The percentage of Americans who said they strongly disapproved of his performance on a wide range of issues greatly exceeded the share who strongly approved.

The poll also reveals remarkable across-the-board disapproval of Bush's policies, including the war on terror:

The LAT notes that "44% said they approved of Bush's handling of terrorism, whereas 54% disapproved — the first time a majority has expressed a negative opinion of his handling of that issue in a Times survey." Presumably, the ports deal is the reason. How long until Bush caves? The countdown is on...

Zogby: Troops think Iraq was retaliation for 9/11

At Spinsanity, we wrote on the website and in our book about the ways that President Bush tried to link Iraq with 9/11 and imply Saddam was in league with Al Qaeda.

These tactics worked -- more than 75% of Bush supporters believed (PDF) in October 2004 that Saddam was directly involved in 9/11 (20%) or gave substantial support to Al Qaeda (55%).

Sadly, a new Zogby International poll of soldiers in Iraq (via Brad DeLong by way of Scott Rosenberg) suggests that soldiers in Iraq may be even more misinformed:

The wide-ranging poll also shows that 58% of those serving in country say the U.S. mission in Iraq is clear in their minds, while 42% said it is either somewhat or very unclear to them, that they have no understanding of it at all, or are unsure. While 85% said the U.S. mission is mainly "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks," 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was "to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq."

“Ninety-three percent said that removing weapons of mass destruction is not a reason for U.S. troops being there,” said Pollster John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International. “Instead, that initial rationale went by the wayside and, in the minds of 68% of the troops, the real mission became to remove Saddam Hussein.” Just 24% said that “establishing a democracy that can be a model for the Arab World" was the main or a major reason for the war. Only small percentages see the mission there as securing oil supplies (11%) or to provide long-term bases for US troops in the region (6%).

Here's the text of the key questions from RadioBlogger:

Please rate the statements in questions 8 through 14 as reasons for the Iraq invasion, using the following scale:

1 - Not a reason
2 - Minor reason
3 - Major reason
4 - Main reason
5 - Not sure

8. To remove weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from Iraq
1 2 3 4 5. Not sure

9. To remove Saddam Hussein from power
1 2 3 4 5. Not sure

10. To establish a democracy that can be a model for the Arab world
1 2 3 4 5. Not sure

11. To stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq
1 2 3 4 5. Not sure

12. To retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9/11 attacks
1 2 3 4 5. Not sure

13. To secure Iraqi oil supplies
1 2 3 4 5. Not sure

14. To provide a long-term base for U.S. troops in the Middle East
1 2 3 4 5. Not sure

Note: Polling in Iraq is extremely difficult and Zogby has not disclosed his methodology for security reasons -- see Mystery Pollster's posts here, here, here and here discussing how much faith we should put in the findings.

More wisdom from Conrad Burns

Bob Herbert reviews the wit and wisdom of Conrad Burns on Times Select:

The Abramoff scandal is just the latest issue to raise questions about Senator Burns's fitness to hold high public office. You've heard of accidents waiting to happen? He's an accident that happens again and again and again.

Back in 1994, while campaigning for a second term, Senator Burns dropped by a local newspaper, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle, and told an editor an anecdote about one of his constituents, a rancher who wanted to know what life was like in Washington.

Mr. Burns said the rancher asked him, "Conrad, how can you live back there with all those niggers?"

Senator Burns said he told the rancher it was "a hell of a challenge."

The anecdote was published, and Senator Burns apologized. When he was asked why he hadn't expressed any disapproval when the rancher used the word nigger, the senator said: "I don't know. I never gave it much thought."

Maybe he didn't express any disapproval because he didn't particularly disapprove. On another occasion Senator Burns had to apologize after giving a speech in Billings about America's dependence on foreign sources of oil. In the speech, he referred to Arabs as "ragheads."

"I regret the use of such an inappropriate term," he said. "I hope I did not overshadow the serious substance of my remarks."

Mr. Burns's apologies have always been undermined by the serial nature of his offensive remarks. Last fall he upset a pair of female flight attendants after one of them, a mother with two children, asked him about outsourcing and the economy. She wondered what she would do if she lost her job. The senator reportedly replied that she could stay home and take care of her children.

A third flight attendant, after hearing the story, wrote an angry letter to Mr. Burns, saying, "Before you sit in judgment and make such ignorant statements, you really should stop and remember that we don't all live in a 'Leave It to Beaver' world."

It has always been this way with Conrad Burns. Back in 1991, immediately after a civil rights bill had been passed, he invited a group of lobbyists, some of them white and some of them black, to accompany him to an auction.

When asked what was being auctioned, he replied, "Slaves."

The Washington Post quoted one of the lobbyists as saying: "We were floored. We couldn't believe it." Senator Burns later said he was talking about a charitable auction in which the services of individuals are sold.

Conrad Burns: Not so bright

The Republican senator, who is under fire for his ties to Jack Abramoff, has apparently decided that comparing himself to a bank robber is his best defense:

In an interview, Mr. Burns, a former agricultural auctioneer and broadcaster, dismissed as irrelevant the relative size of the campaign contributions he had received from Mr. Abramoff and his associates, saying some Democrats had taken money from the same sources.

"What's the difference between one dollar and one thousand? Its all dollars," Mr. Burns said. "Just like you rob a bank down here. If you get a thousand you go to jail, and if you get a million you go to jail."

Genius.

Update 3/2: Noam Scheiber of The New Republic comments on the same quote:

Hmmm... If only the architects of our legal system had seen fit to accommodate these subtle distinctions. Oh wait, they did. Turns out you go to jail for a lot longer if you steal a million dollars. Who knew?

Encouraging news about Vermont CFR case

Good. It looks like the Supreme Court gets what's wrong with the Vermont campaign finance law:

The Supreme Court displayed little appetite on Tuesday for making basic changes in its approach to campaign finance law, under which the government may place limits on political contributions but not on a candidate's spending.

Vermont's aggressive effort to drive much private money out of politics, through a law it enacted in 1997 that set tight limits on both contributions and expenditures, appeared unlikely to withstand the court's scrutiny after an argument that included a low-key but withering cross-examination by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. of Vermont's attorney general, William H. Sorrell.

The chief justice challenged the attorney general's assertion that money was a corrupting influence on Vermont's political system, the state's main rationale for its law. "How many prosecutions for political corruption have you brought?" he asked the state official.

"Not any," Mr. Sorrell replied.

"Do you think corruption in Vermont is a serious problem?"

"It is," the attorney general replied, noting that polls showed that most state residents thought corporations and wealthy individuals exerted an undue influence in the state.

The chief justice persisted. "Would you describe your state as clean or corrupt?" he asked.

"We have got a problem in Vermont," Mr. Sorrell repeated.

The chief justice pressed further. If voters think "someone has been bought," he said, "I assume they act accordingly" at the next election and throw the incumbent out.

He also challenged a line from the attorney general's 50-page brief, an assertion that donations from special-interest groups "often determine what positions candidates and officials take on issues." Could the attorney general provide an example of such an issue, Chief Justice Roberts asked. Mr. Sorrell could not, eventually conceding that "influence" would have been a better word than "determine."

By the end of the argument, it appeared clear that Vermont's spending limits would fall, and that its contribution limits, the lowest in the country, were hanging by a thread.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer said he was concerned that the limits, $400 over a two-year election cycle to candidates for statewide office down to $200 for the state's House, were so low as to "give incumbents a tremendous advantage" and "really shut off the possibility of a challenge" by a candidate who had to raise and spend more money to make an impact. Political parties face the same limits on contributions to their own candidates.

On the expenditure side, the limits go from $300,000 over a two-year cycle for a governor's race down to $2,000 for a seat in the House. The law makes no adjustments for candidates who have to run in a primary in addition to the general election. Incumbents are held to 85 percent or 90 percent of what a challenger may spend, depending on the office.

"I'd like to know why the limits are not far too low," Justice Breyer said to Mr. Sorrell.