Assassinating Awlaki

Remember when I said the failed cargo-plane bombs would probably be an excuse to justify the assassination of Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American citizen working with Al Qaeda in Yemen? Queue the Wall Street Journal:

"The plot also underscores that the Obama Administration is right to target Awlaki and other al Qaeda leaders in Yemen with Predator drone attacks, rather than merely issuing a criminal arrest warrant. Awlaki is actively plotting to murder Americans, and stopping him is an act of self-defense. The attempt by the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights to thwart these attacks in a lawsuit could get Americans killed."

Making sure that the American government can't arbitrarily order the execution of an American citizen will get Americans killed, basically. For what it's worth, the ACLU and the CCR aren't actually asking that Awlaki's life be spared. They're asking that there be due process:

The groups charge that targeting individuals for execution who are suspected of terrorism but have not been convicted or even charged — without oversight, judicial process, or disclosed standards for placement on kill lists — also poses the risk that the government will erroneously target the wrong people. In recent years, the U.S. government has detained many men as terrorists, only for courts or the government itself to discover later that the evidence was wrong or unreliable.

Al Qaeda is bad. Awlaki may well be a bad guy. But laws and constitutions are the ways civilized people balance the dangers of the world -- including bad guys -- against the liberties and rights of citizens. There is always risk. The government should have to have a high standard for putting one of its citizens on an assassination list.

Rasmussen: The Coming Republican Overreach

We've been told for two years now that Barack Obama and the Democrats were mistaken about the type of mandate that they had when they won the 2006 and 2008 elections. It wasn't that Americans had embraced big government programs like "Obamacare," we were told, but that Republicans had been fired for their own fecklessness. The result? Democratic overreach that alienated voters and turned the tide back to the Republicans.

There's a lot about the theory that's wrong, but as Scott Rasmussen notes, it might be best for Republicans if they don't overinterpret their mandate on Tuesday:

The reality is that voters in 2010 are doing the same thing they did in 2006 and 2008: They are voting against the party in power.

This is the continuation of a trend that began nearly 20 years ago. In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected president and his party had control of Congress. Before he left office, his party lost control. Then, in 2000, George W. Bush came to power, and his party controlled Congress. But like Mr. Clinton before him, Mr. Bush saw his party lose control.

That's never happened before in back-to-back administrations. The Obama administration appears poised to make it three in a row. This reflects a fundamental rejection of both political parties.

In this environment, it would be wise for all Republicans to remember that their team didn't win, the other team lost. Heading into 2012, voters will remain ready to vote against the party in power unless they are given a reason not to do so.

It's possible, of course, that the politics itself is the problem - that everybody who gains power starts to look stale and awful after two to four to six years or so, and everybody out of power starts to look like the Next Great Hope during that time. Under these circumstances, nobody's going to have a mandate - and everybody's going to overreach. We no longer have generational dynasties like the Democrats did during the FDR-to-LBJ era or the Republicans did from McKinley to Hoover. The news cycle can now be measured in minutes; the political cycles as a result can probably be measured in years or months.

The Final Teen Spirit Mashup

So glad my friend Justin Blessinger sent me this:

Michael Smerconish's Confusing Column Against Newspaper Endorsements

I think if one takes Michael Smerconish's call for newspapers to end political endorsements to its logical conclusion, he would lose his job as a columnist for the Inquirer and Daily News:

"When any newspaper lines up alongside Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann, it unnecessarily compromises its status as an objective source of fact at a time when an increasing number of media outlets traffic in ideologically driven, artificial political debates. The vaunted wall separating news coverage and editorializing is sacrificed - apparently based on the assumption that readers are capable of consuming the paper's reportage from the campaign trail but unable to come to their own conclusions as a result of that information."

That's not actually an argument against endorsements, but an argument against the existence of editorials and opinion pieces at all. And it's wrong: The wall between the news coverage and editorializing isn't eliminated because the editorial department does its job. That only happens if the news department starts doing the endorsements -- and that's not what Smerconish is suggesting here.

So it's a confused and confusing column by Smerconish -- who, it should be remembered, endorsed Barack Obama to great fanfare in 2008 ... on his radio show and in his Inky column.

What Smerconish does isn't all that substantively different from Beck or Olbermann -- only he has a newspaper platform in addition to his radio show. I'm not sure how any reading of today's Michael Smerconish newspaper column isn't actually a call for the Inky and Daily News to bring and end to the Michael Smerconish newspaper column.

The Ben and Joel Podcast: Justify Yourself! Part Two | Infinite Monkeys

The Ben and Joel Podcast: Justify Yourself! Part Two | Infinite Monkeys: "In this, the second part of what may or may not become an ongoing series of interrogations, Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis ask Robb Leatherwood (a.k.a. Monkey Robb) what it means to be a libertarian... or an anarcho-libertarian... or an anarcho-capitalist/paleolibertarian. You really need to listen to find out."

Bombs From Yemen Equal More War in Afghanistan

Sure, why not:

"(Heritage analyst James Jay) Carafano said that Mr. Obama failed to use his remarks on Friday to justify the troop escalation in Afghanistan in an effort to keep the country from becoming a haven again for Al Qaeda. “The president missed the opportunity to say, ‘And this is why we’re in Afghanistan,’ ” Mr. Carafano said."

This pie is delicious, which is why I always eat French fries!

Perhaps I'm being somewhat uncharitable, but my point is: Tying down forces in Afghanistan isn't really preventing Al Qaeda and like-minded organizations from reconstituting elsewhere -- like, say, Yemen. The whole point of stateless terrorism is that it's stateless. The emergence of more failed attacks from Yemen argues for more flexibility in our counter-terror approach -- following the terrorists where they go instead of setting up shop in one country and declaring it an Al Qaeda-free zone. The terrorists are smarter than to play by those rules. Maybe we should also be smarter than that.

The UPS/FedEx Bombs and the American Al Qaeda

I need to be clear here: I'm not about to engage in a bit of "truther" conspiracy theorizing. But I do have a concern that the Obama Administration will seize on the Friday's interecepted cargo bombs to make the public case for the assassination of an American citizen, Anwar Al-Awlaki, without bothering with due process.

You see hints of this in the New York Times story today:

Reviewing the evidence, American intelligence officials say they believe that the plot may have been blessed by the highest levels of Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, including Mr. Awlaki.

“We know that Awlaki has taken a very specific interest in plotting against the United States, and we’ve found that he’s usually behind any attempted attack on American targets,” said one official.

Still they cautioned that it was still early to draw any firm conclusions and they did not present proof of Mr. Awlaki’s involvement.

We don't need to go through all the arguments against assassinating Awlaki here. The issue I'm raising, I guess, is more political than legal in nature. And the issue is this: I don't trust the Obama Administration -- any more than I would trust any chief executive -- not to wave the almost-bloody shirt in order to smooth over public concerns about the propriety of an assassination program aimed at an American citizen, no matter how loathesome that citizen might (allegedly) be. This case might demonstrate the need to stop Awlaki; it doesn't necessarily follow that we need to drop due process as a result.

Jonah Goldberg: That's A Nice Wikileaks You Got There. Be a Shame If Something Happened To It.

Jonah Goldberg is protesting that his instantly infamous column calling for the assassination of Wikileaks' Julian Assange doesn't actually call for that assassination. Here's how that column ended:

"Even if the CIA wanted to take him out, they couldn’t without massive controversy.

That’s because assassinating a hipster Australian Web guru as opposed to a Muslim terrorist is the kind of controversy no official dares invite.

That’s fine. And it’s the law. Ultimately, I don’t expect the U.S. government to kill Assange, but I do expect them to try to stop him. Alas, as of now, the plan seems to be to do nothing at all."

Goldberg says: "Any fair reading of my column might find it too glib, but it wouldn’t support the conclusion that I call for the guy’s assassination or his murder — because I don’t. Indeed, there’s nothing in the quote ... to justify the claim I call for his murder."

Maybe. But it seems like any "fair reading" of the column would find that instead of calling for assassination, it laments that Assange can't be killed because of all the complications it would raise. Goldberg might not explicitly call for the assassination, but he's not discouraging the idea either. If we take him at his word, he's merely pussyfooting around the idea without coming clean, pro- or con. Either Goldberg's guilty of morally reprehensible policy ideas, or he's guilty of muddy and unclear writing that advances no idea with any effectiveness. There's no reason both can't be true, but I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect the former.

The Death of a High School Football Player

My old stomping grounds of Northeast Kansas have been a brutal place to play high school football this fall. Last a night Spring Hill High School football player died:

"A woman who says her son plays on the Osawatamie team told KSHB that she saw Nathan Stiles intercept an Osawatamie pass and get hit on the play. Her husband, who was standing on the sidelines, says he saw Nathan walk to the sidelines and collapse."

Earlier in the season, a McLouth High School player lost part of his leg after suffering a compound fracture during a game.

I don't know. Maybe teen boys are so full of testosterone that they'll beat the crap out of each other no matter what. But, as I've noted before: Football is a game of violence. It's disturbing to see it kill and maim our young men. Is there any kind of moral upside to the game?

Barack Obama's 'Dude' Moment

Jonathan Chait:

"On the contrary, I think the office of the president has too much dignity. The president is a citizen who serves the public. It is in the interest of the president to make himself into something exalted, a national father figure and symbol of the government. But the public has no interest in this function, which, indeed, can take on monarchical trappings with an insidious anti-democratic undertone. (It's a little disturbing when people who see the president salute -- a military signal that suggests subordination.)

Obviously, I don't want to see presidents cutting their own rap videos or jumping into the ring with professional wrestlers. But at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, out problem is not too little presidential dignity but too much."

On the other hand, the president isn't a 20-year-old frat boy. But if there's a problem here, it's Jon Stewart's, not Obama's.

Maurice Murphy, 'Star Wars' Trumpeter, RIP

The Guardian:

"Maurice Murphy, who died yesterday, is an essential part of the soundtrack to your musical life – even if you don't realise it. Maurice was principal trumpeter of the London Symphony Orchestra for 30 years, from 1977-2007, and you have sung along to his unmistakable, brilliant sound even if you have never knowingly been to the Barbican to hear the LSO in the flesh. It's his trumpet playing you hear blazing over the soundtracks to all six Star Wars films, and it was his playing for John Williams on the first film – his first gig with the orchestra – that made Williams stick with the LSO for his future movies. But Murphy's playing was always cosmic in its splendour, as anyone will know who heard him with the brass section of the LSO in the countless concerts and recordings they made together."

The Big Business of Illegal Immigration

Slate:

"Over the past several months, NPR scoured campaign finance reports, corporate records and lobbying documents to gauge how deeply the private prison industry was involved in passing Arizona's immigration bill. NPR determined that the industry has been staging 'a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070' under the belief that 'immigrant detention is their next big market.'"

Disgusting. But brilliant journalism by NPR, and a reminder to the rest of us: There are very few laws that get passed simply because of a populist uprising. Somebody, somewhere, almost always stands to make a few bucks. The public and media would do well to always ask that question.

Why Does Obama Hate Business?

Kevin Drum says he doesn't:

"What's remarkable about all this is that Obama is, patently, not anti-business. All of the corporate complaints above, when you dig an inch below the surface, amount to lashing out at phantasms. However, although Obama isn't anti-business, it is fair to say that he's not especially business friendly. And after decades of almost literally getting their every heart's desire from Republican presidents and congresses, this has come as something as a shock to the corporate community. When Obama puts a tax break in the stimulus bill, it's aimed mainly at the middle class, not the rich. When he hires a labor secretary, it's someone who actually thinks labor laws should be enforced. When he says he wants to pass a healthcare reform bill, he actually does it. (Its impact on big business is close to zero, but no matter.) There's no evidence at all that Obama wants to punish big business, but at the same time it's quite plain that he cares much more about the middle class than he does about the rich.

And that's pretty hard for them to take. So they're apoplectic."

Judge: 4-Year-Old Can Be Sued

Oy. This case is a tragedy, but anybody who wants to use it to score points about our overly litigious society -- and the way judges enable our worst legal impulses -- probably won't get much argument from me. The case involves a 4-year-old girl named Juliet who accidentally injured (and killed) an 87-year-old woman while riding her bike with training wheels. Awful, horrible for everybody involved. But the court case makes it all worse.

Mr. Tyrie had also argued that Juliet should not be held liable because her mother was present; Justice Wooten disagreed.

“A parent’s presence alone does not give a reasonable child carte blanche to engage in risky behavior such as running across a street,” the judge wrote. He added that any “reasonably prudent child,” who presumably has been told to look both ways before crossing a street, should know that dashing out without looking is dangerous, with or without a parent there. The crucial factor is whether the parent encourages the risky behavior; if so, the child should not be held accountable.

Again: Oy. How many "reasonably prudent" 4-year-olds do you know? Kids are stupid, and they do stupid things -- even stupid things that they should know better than to do. What an awful case.

Here Is One Way Iraq is Better

I continue to believe the Iraq War a disaster -- but I suppose it's not an unmitigated disaster. Here's something that never would have happened under Saddam Hussein:

"The Iraqi prime minister's political opponents demanded Thursday that parliament hold a special session to investigate claims that prisoners have been tortured by his government.

Lawmakers from the Sunni-backed Iraqiya group have seized on the abuse allegations that surfaced last week in a cache of secret U.S. military documents released by online whistle-blower WikiLeaks as evidence that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is unfit to govern. Al-Maliki, meanwhile, has attacked the WikiLeaks release as an attempt to undermine him as he seeks to clench a second term in office."

I don't think this works as justification for the invasion and a seven-year war. But it's nice to see that if torture is still happening in Iraq, at least there's a political opposition to demand accountability. In fact, it would be nice to see that in the United States!

And End To Philly's 'Blogger Tax'?

Maybe so. Councilman Bill Green has introduced a bill that would put an end to it:

"Although there was no actual city effort to make bloggers pay up, technically anyone generating income is supposed to pay for a business-privilege license - a onetime fee of $300 or $50 annually - as well as any relevant taxes.

Green plans to introduce legislation next week to change that. His bill would exempt from the fee anyone making less than $3,000 annually through activites deemed hobbies under federal law.

'The main purpose of this bill is to require people not to get a business-privilege license for income that is hobbyist or incidental,' Green said."

Speaking as a blogger who, as of this moment, is owed roughly $7 by the Google AdSense program, I applaud Bill Green!

Sarah Palin Never Backs Down

She went ahead and more or less re-endorsed Alaska's Joe Miller for Senate, lauding his military service, even though he's beenrecent, uncontested ethics charges on his record:

"It was the first time Ms. Palin had appeared at a campaign rally with Mr. Miller and it followed a string of damaging developments for the candidate. Personnel records released this week under court order showed that Mr. Miller had been disciplined in 2008 for using government computers for political purposes, and then lying about it, when he worked as a part-time lawyer for the Fairbanks North Star Borough."

Palin's backing of Miller and Christine O'Donnell is just more evidence of her own ill fitness for high office. Which, in turn, is proof that America was right to reject John McCain in 2008. She's his legacy to American politics.

A Little More About Bullying

Ben and I take on the bullies in our Scripps Howard column this week. My take:

Let me tell you about the most important teacher I ever had: Terry Hill.

Hill was a social studies and P.E. teacher at the middle school in the mid-Kansas town where my family moved in the 1980s. Adolescence is never easy, and transitioning to a new school complicates the level of difficulty: I didn't immediately fit in -- and found myself on the wrong end of confrontations with my fellow students. I was miserable. And then Mr. Hill stepped in.

I'm told he had a few words with my classmates; I wasn't there for that. What I do remember is that he called me out of class one day and sat with me in a school stairwell, asking me questions and listening to my pained answers for the better part of an hour. And for the next few years, he gave me encouragement, even handing me books he thought would entertain and enrich me. Middle school didn't become perfect, but it did become bearable.

Can the feds end bullying in our schools? No. They probably can't even make a dent in it. The attitudes and actions of bureaucrats in Washington D.C. will have precious little influence during the precarious school hallway moments that can shape a young person's life. Ben is right: the problem is in our homes and schools and communities, and that's where it must be addressed.

That means cracking down on bullies, yes, but it also means shining a light on adults who enable bullying behavior -- like the Arkansas school official under fire this week for a homophobic Facebook post. And it means following the examples of teachers like Terry Hill who listen to, encourage and empower students in need of a lifeline. Thanks, Mr. Hill, wherever you are.

AIDS and HIV in Philadelphia

Sobering news from a Wednesday hearing at City Hall:

"The commissioner presented a series of statistics to illustrate the epidemic:

New HIV infections are striking Philadelphians at a rate of 114 per 100,000 people, five times the national average.

Individuals between ages 13 and 24 make up 15 percent of the newly infected.

African Americans accounted for 66 percent of new HIV cases in 2009.

A bright spot: Schwarz said that from 2005 to 2009, the city saw a 64.6"

The most frustrating part of the story: The best services for AIDS and HIV treatment and prevention are in Center City. But for the most part, that's not actually where the problem is in Philadelphia.

Why I'm Not Worried About the Awesome Chinese Supercomputer

About halfway into the New York Times' story about how the Chinese now have the world's fastest supercomputer is a paragraph that demonstrates why I'm not worried about it as a long-term problem:

"“What is scary about this is that the U.S. dominance in high-performance computing is at risk,” said Wu-chun Feng, a supercomputing expert and professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. “One could argue that this hits the foundation of our economic future.”"

Now: Maybe there's a supercomputing expert who goes by the name of "Johnny Appleseed" in China. But I doubt it. We're in a, um, xenophobic moment right now in the United States -- but our country seems, even now, far more open to educating, employing (and, most important) making citizens out of the best and brightest people from other countries. Now: That's not a given that will always be the case, and it's not a given that people will always want to come here. (The Great Recession has apparently lowered illegal immigration rates, for example.) But for now, I think it gives the U.S. a long-term edge in keeping our economy and technology dynamic.