Libertarian Leanings

Vacation has begun

My apologies for the sparseness of the postings over the last few days.  Vacation began Friday night with a trip to the Big Apple.  We spent Friday night and all day Saturday in the city, then set off for the Outer Banks sunday morning.  So here we are.  It's in the 90s, the sun is shining, and the tide is going out.  Life is good!

Roberts - the liberal view

William Kristol's Weekly Standard column, It Takes an Establishment, includes one liberal's take on Supreme Court appointee John G. Roberts.

One of the most interesting comments came from a lawyer in his mid-30s, Brad Joondeph, on the liberal website thinkprogress.org. Joondeph describes his experience as a summer associate at Hogan & Hartson 12 years ago, when John Roberts was his official "mentor." He recalls of Roberts that "he could not have been nicer, more gracious, more encouraging. He offered mentoring advice to a snot-nosed, 24-year-old law student as if it were the most important part of his job." Then Joondeph tells this anecdote:

"After returning to Stanford that fall, I was lucky enough to have my student note published in the Stanford Law Review. It was a rather presumptuous and self-righteous critique of the Supreme Court's decision in Freeman v. Pitts, a school desegregation case from DeKalb County, Georgia. I argued that the Court was pulling the rug out from under Brown v. Board of Education by prematurely ending court-ordered desegregation remedies. As deputy solicitor general in the first Bush administration, Roberts had actually argued the Freeman case as amicus in support of the school district. I therefore (again, fairly presumptuously) sent him my note, in which I contended that, well, Roberts had been all wrong.

"A few weeks later, I received a two-page letter in response. Roberts wrote that the note was well researched and well written. (I was thrilled at the time, but I would now strongly disagree.) But he also offered a thoughtful critique of my analysis that was several paragraphs in length. This was more feedback than I had received from my professors in law school.

"All of that said, my best guess is that he would be a very conservative justice. And because he is so gifted and so decent a human being, he might become incredibly influential on the Court, moving it in ways that justices like Scalia and Thomas have been incapable. In short, he could ultimately be a progressive's worst case scenario."

Joondeph concludes, "So all of this leaves me quite conflicted."

The Washington Post on the other hand is not conflicted. 

An Image A Little Too Carefully Coordinated

By Robin Givhan

Friday, July 22, 2005; Page C02

It has been a long time since so much syrupy nostalgia has been in evidence at the White House. But Tuesday night, when President Bush announced his choice for the next associate justice of the Supreme Court, it was hard not to marvel at the 1950s-style tableau vivant that was John Roberts and his family.

The Post's word picture is meant to imply that we are about to return to a racist past, back to the days before the Civil Rights Act.  Beware of the evil, masked beneath the washed and pressed facade.

It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

Via Power Line and Captain's Quarters.

He's guilty, he's guilty not

The New York Times has more on the Plame Name Game this morning.  Around the time Novak's article mentioned Valerie Plame by name, both Karl Rove and Scooter Libby were working on a response to mounting criticism over the President's mention of Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa in his State of the Union speech.  A Times source said they were not involved in an orchestrated attempt to discredit Wilson or reveal his wife's identity.

People who have been briefed on the case said the White House officials, Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby, were helping prepare what became the administration's primary response to criticism that a flawed phrase about the nuclear materials in Africa had been in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address six months earlier.

They had exchanged e-mail correspondence and drafts of a proposed statement by George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, to explain how the disputed wording had gotten into the address. Mr. Rove, the president's political strategist, and Mr. Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, coordinated their efforts with Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, who was in turn consulting with Mr. Tenet.

At the same time, they were grappling with the fallout from an Op-Ed article on July 6, 2003, in The New York Times by Mr. Wilson, a former diplomat, in which he criticized the way the administration had used intelligence to support the claim in Mr. Bush's speech.

The work done by Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby on the Tenet statement during this intense period has not been previously disclosed. People who have been briefed on the case discussed this critical time period and the events surrounding it to demonstrate that Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby were not involved in an orchestrated scheme to discredit Mr. Wilson or disclose the undercover status of his wife, Valerie Wilson, but were intent on clarifying the use of intelligence in the president's address. Those people who have been briefed requested anonymity because prosecutors have asked them not to discuss matters under investigation.

It little way down in the article there is this.

It is not clear what information Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby might have collected about Ms. Wilson as they worked on the Tenet statement. Mr. Rove has said he learned her name from Mr. Novak. Mr. Libby has declined to discuss the matter.

"Mr. Libby declined to the discuss the matter" with whom, I wonder.  Most likely the press.  Meanwhile Judith Miller sits in jail protecting a source.  The Times knows the identity of that source and they most likely know what the source is a source of.  I won't even speculate who the source might be, except to say that with our gotcha press on a sustained attack against the Bush Administration -- remember Dan Rather and his forgeries, remember Michael Isikoff and his desecrated Koran rumors -- it's not likely she's protecting anybody in the White House.  I suspect it's more likely to be Fifth Amendment considerations on the minds of our honorable press than defense of the First.

So, here I sit with my tin foil hat jammed down firmly over my ears.  I'm sticking with the conspiracy theory.  CIA and compliant press join forces to unseat a sitting president. 

Be sure to visit Tom Maguire who has established himself as Plame Central.

Krauthammer

Required reading.

Post puts dots in close proximity and hopes for a connection

In the ongoing campaign to get something -- anything -- on Karl Rove or the Administration, the Washington Post reports that a CIA memo containing two references to the wife of Joseph C. Wilson means that the identity of Valerie Wilson (nee Plame) was a government secret. 

Plame's Identity Marked As Secret

Memo Central to Probe Of Leak Was Written By State Dept. Analyst

By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei

Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 21, 2005; Page A01

A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.

Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.

Ms. Plame is mentioned in a paragraph in the memo!  The paragraph is marked secret!  Therefore the identity of Valerie Plame was a secret!  Brilliant logic!  How reminiscent of of the Devil's Dictionary! 

LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion — thus:

Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.

Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore —

Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.

This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

Yes, the Post has blessed us, but... In the very next paragraph of the Post's hard hitting report comes the "but..."

Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said.

Nice try anyway.  And finally, to make the article almost entirely meaningless we find:

Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, has testified that he learned Plame's name from Novak a few days before telling another reporter she worked at the CIA and played a role in her husband's mission, according to a lawyer familiar with Rove's account. Rove has also testified that the first time he saw the State Department memo was when "people in the special prosecutor's office" showed it to him, said Robert Luskin, his attorney.

Still, it's nice to know the press is on the job.  Oh, but Walter Pincus collaberated on this article.  Doesn't he already know who leaked the Plame Name?  Why so coy?

Update:  Rick Moran has more on the Post article over at Right Wing Nut House.  He raises a point I've mentioned before.  The indictment, if there's one that comes out of this investigation, is likely to be for a crime other than outing of Valerie Plame.  My bet is on a conspiracy within the CIA to undermine U.S. foreign policy.

Update II (or maybe III):  Tom Maguire thinks Rove's in trouble.  Or not. 

Now, Rove's defenders will note (wait, that's me!) that maybe it is something else in that paragraph that attracted the "S" designation - maybe, for example, the paragraphs described a CIA trip to Niger that, as of June 10, was still classified.  Following the publication of Joe Wilson's Op-Ed, which the CIA approved, that trip was no longer secret.

CIA conspiracy!  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  Besides:  Remember when Ambassador Joe was promoting the latest dance craze called the "Frog March"?  He was promoting it as a Karl Rove performance.  And when asked about it, he went on to say, oh yeah, it's Rove, and he even said he "measured" his words. 

MR. RUSSERT: The White House has denied that Karl Rove, Elliott Abrams, Scooter Libby, had anything to do with this, and they say you have a political agenda. This was on reference, August 21, 2003, a speech you gave in Washington state. Let's play it and come back and talk about it:

(Videotape, August 21, 2003):

AMB. WILSON: I don't think we're going to let this drop. At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs.

And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words.

(End videotape)

Just when I went into deep wonder about how he knew Karl Rove was the leaker, he backed off and said he meant Rove in the figurative sense, not the literal sense.  A likely story!  Another thing to remember is, he seemed to know about those forged documents before they found their way to American hands.

It's a con job.  I'm betting there was a journalist whose job it was to set up Rove, and Ambassador Joe knew what was going down.  When it didn't go as well as everybody hoped he had to back down from his story.  I wonder who Miller is supposed to be protecting.  It's all such fun!

Damn dam

This came via email.  Whether it's true or not, I don't know, but it is funny.

The complaint:

SUBJECT: DEQ File No.97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Montcalm County

Dear Mr. Smith:

It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:

Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond. A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity. A review of the Department's files shows that no permits have been issued.

Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated.

The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free- flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2003.

Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff. Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action. We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter.

Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

D. L. Poindexter.

District Representative Land and Water

Management Division

The reply:

Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Montcalm County.

Dear Mr. Poindexter,

Your certified letter dated 12/17/02 has been handed to me to respond to. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2 D, P, Michigan. A couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood "debris" dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials "debris." I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic. As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity.

My first dam question to you is:

(1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers or

(2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request?

If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994 being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated.

I have several concerns. My first concern is, aren't the beavers entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation, so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer.

The department's dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event causing flooding is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling their dam names. If you want the stream "restored" to a dam free-flow condition please contact the beavers, but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter...they being unable to read English. In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream.

They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers' Dams). So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2003? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them then.

In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality (health) problem in the area. It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step! (The bears are not careful where they dump!) Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office.

- Thank You,

R. Smith & The Dam Beavers

Scotty beams up...

Star Trek star James Doohan passed away at 5:30am at his home in Redmond, Washington.  He was 85.

The Canadian-born Doohan was enjoying a busy career as a character actor when he auditioned for a role as an engineer in a new space adventure on NBC in 1966. A master of dialects from his early years in radio, he tried seven different accents.

“The producers asked me which one I preferred,” Doohan recalled 30 years later. “I believed the Scot voice was the most commanding. So I told them, ‘If this character is going to be an engineer, you’d better make him a Scotsman.”’

The series, which starred William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as the enigmatic Mr. Spock, attracted an enthusiastic following of science fiction fans, especially among teenagers and children, but not enough ratings power. NBC canceled it after three seasons.

When the series ended in 1969, Doohan found himself typecast as Montgomery Scott, the canny engineer with a burr in his voice. In 1973, he complained to his dentist, who advised him: “Jimmy, you’re going to be Scotty long after you’re dead. If I were you, I’d go with the flow.”

“I took his advice,” said Doohan, “and since then everything’s been just lovely.”

He was a Canadian army World War II veteran of the D-Day invasion, surviving six hits from a machine gun, one of which took a finger off his right hand.  Rest in peace, Scotty.

Questions? You have questions?

In a desperate search for something that can be called "extreme", Senator Charles Schumer has proposed a list of questions for Supreme Court Nominee John G. Roberts.

1. First Amendment and Freedom of Expression: What, if any, are the limitations on the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution?
- When can Government regulate public speech by individuals?
- When does speech cross the line between Constitutionally-protected free expression and slander?
- In what ways does the First Amendment protect the spending and raising of money by individuals in politics?
- Can Government regulate hate speech? What about sexually explicit materials?
Specifically:
- Do you agree with the landmark decision in NY Times v. Sullivan (1964), which held that public criticism of public figures is acceptable unless motivated by actual malice? Who do you believe constitutes a public figure under this standard?
- Do you believe the Supreme Court was correct to strike down the Communications Decency Act in Reno v. ACLU (1997) on the grounds that pornography on the Internet is protected by the First Amendment?
- What is your view on the distinction the Supreme Court drew in Republican Party v. White and McConnell v. FEC (2003) between contributions and expenditures in the course of political campaigns? Do you believe that it is legitimate to construe campaign expenditures as protected speech but not donations by individuals?

That's just the first one.  There are sixteen more like it.  On the other hand Jan LaRue, chief counsel at Concerned Women for America, has questions for the honorable Senator.

I propose the following questions for Mr. Schumer to answer in writing, all by himself, before he can ever appear before another TV camera.

1. Are you aware that the First Amendment secures your right to refrain from incessant carping?

2. New York, probably more than any place on the planet, has more shrinks per square foot who treat obsessive-compulsive-media-attention-disorder. May I give you some names and numbers so that you can cease consulting with that mad doctor from Vermont?

3. Have you considered checking a thesaurus for synonyms for “extreme” and “outrageous”?

4. Do you realize that your “outrage” de jour is extremely irksome, as in, “We don’t care”?

5. And, on a serious note, if the federal law you’re accusing Rove of violating is so important to our national security, why did you vote against it when you were a member of the U.S. House of Representatives?

6. Would you refresh my recollection regarding your outrage when Democrat Sandy Berger was caught stuffing classified documents into his pants upon leaving the National Archives?

7. Would you consider introducing a bill that requires U.S. Senators to familiarize themselves with the U.S. Constitution?

8. When judges swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, shouldn’t it be in reference to the one housed at the National Archives?

9. In keeping with concerns for reducing green house gas emissions, would you contemplate taking a vow of silence?

10. Did you not know that when you speak on a cell phone in a public place, surrounded by members of the public, it’s a safe bet the public can hear you?

11. Please use your cell phone to call the White House and ask the receptionist: “Who won the last election?" Would you please enlighten your Democratic brethren and sistern with what must be a distressing and painful revelation?

12. If you have a pocket calculator, please enter 100, subtract 45 and tell us who gets to go to Disneyland?

13. If you have a copy of the actual Constitution, please read Article III, and tell us where “maintaining the balance of the Court” is located?

14. If you can’t find it, will you cease and desist from pretending it’s there and from demanding that the President maintain it?

15. Since your favorite “mainstream” justices shot down your 100 questions during their confirmation hearings, why not compress the questions into ammo for skeet shooters, rather than suffer the rest of us to endure another one of your demands?

16. Where did you get the idea that judge is synonymous with “closet legislator”?

17. Are you aware that the Supremes aren’t back-up singers for the left wing of the Senate?

18. Other than someone who thinks the Constitution is his or her personal Etch-a-Sketch, please explain what makes an acceptable “consensus” nominee?

19. Does your obsession with adhering to stare decisis include Dred Scott v. Sanford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Korematsu v. U.S. and Bowers v. Hardwick, and if not, why should a nominee pledge unqualified allegiance to the doctrine?

20. Have you considered writing a children’s book: The Incredibly Shrinking Donkey Who Kicked Its Own Behind Too Much?

Please, Sen. Schumer, chill out – for your own sake and for the sake of “promoting the general welfare.”

Compare the honorable Senator's prepared inquisition with the grilling to which Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was subjected in her confirmation hearing, as related at RedState.org.

Senator Specter. Let me ask you a question articulated the way we ask jurors, whether you have any conscientious scruple against the imposition of the death penalty?

Judge Ginsburg. My own view on the death penalty I think is not relevant to any question I would be asked to decide as a judge.

This ought to be interesting.

Carnival of the Clueless #6

This week's Carnival of the Clueless is up at Right Wing Nut House.  You don't want to miss it.

Naivete

Christine A. Laverty has written An Open Letter to a Terrorist:

Can you remember being a child of innocence?

Do you recall having dreams for yourself?

No doubt, he does have dreams, but not any you'd want to hear about, Christine.