Steve King Isn't Racist, Just Ignorant

Steve King is getting some heat for referring to then-Senator Obama as a "very, very urban senator" on the floor of the House today, in reference to a farm bill Obama introduced that would correct discrimination against black farmers. Bloggers saw racism in the "very, very urban" comment, but King defends himself in National Review:

For his part, King is flabbergasted. “I had hard time figuring out what they meant,” he tells National Review Online. “If you’re determined to be offended, I can guess you are determined to find offense in anything.”

What did he really mean? “If Barack Obama had been a rural senator, within a state that had a significant amount of black farmers, he would have introduced this bill,” King explains. “But it’s pretty obvious to me that he didn’t have a legislative interest in this that could have been rooted in his Illinois constituency."

Ever been to Illinois? Get outside of Chicago and its suburbs, and it is thousands of square miles of the flattest farmland you have ever seen. It's boring. It makes Nebraska look charming. It's an agricultural state -- and ag interests were thus part of Obama's portfolio when he went to the Senate. There is no senator from just Chicago, after all.

Steve King is from neighboring Iowa. He surely knows all of this. His defense is that he's not racist, but that he's completely ignorant of his own region. That doesn't seem like a good defense.

I wouldn't bother with this. Fights over ambiguous references to race aren't usually fruitful. But man, Steve King's defense just is so insulting to the intelligence. I couldn't let it go.

The Legal Case Against Wikileaks

Kevin Drum: "In any case, I doubt the United States has any legal recourse against Assange or WikiLeaks. Assange is an Australian national not living in the U.S. and WikiLeaks is a distributed site not dependent on any single country's goodwill. What's more, despite some huffing and puffing to the contrary, I find it extremely unlikely that Assange has actually broken any existing laws. Perhaps new laws could be written, but it's hard for me to conceive of a law prohibiting actions like this that was both (a) effective and (b) not so broad that even Bill Kristol would oppose it. The United States has considerable control over actions by its own citizens on its own territory, but not over noncitizens who reside overseas and work primarily in cyberspace."

Wikileaks and the Toughness Meme

I keep seeing comments like this: "Assange is a rank coward.  If he really wanted to show his bravery, he should expose the secrets of Russia, or China.  There’s plenty of dirt there from the trafficking of the organs from imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners to the murder of Russian investigative journalists.  But no, he targets the US, because he knows that if he went after Russia or China, her would be dead in two days.  Instead he attacks the US, a country that respects the rule of law and will not come after him until we can make a reasonable legal case against him. "

Even granting the premise, the correct answer to this is: so what? The United States is the biggest power in the world, with troops in more than 100 countries and the power to influence (if not steer) the destinies of many more. What our government does, then, is of interest -- not just to taxpaying citizens, but to the entire world. The United States might not be quite as willing to assassinate Julian Assange for digging into its secrets, but that fact doesn't make our secrets any less relevant to many people around the world. Julian Assange isn't tough enough to go after the Russians? Really, who cares?

Let The Public Have Its Say

This Inky editorial is dripping with the right amount of sarcasm.

Elmer Smith and Wikileaks

I don't get this point from Elmer Smith about Julian Assange:

"But if this is an act of civil disobedience, he should be willing to face the consequences, the way Freedom Riders did when they willingly went to jail for defying unjust Jim Crow laws. Assange, on the other hand, seems willing to let Pfc. Bradley Manning rot in jail. Manning is being held in military detention for allegedly passing the cache of documents off to him while Assange seeks asylum in a place without an extradition treaty with the U.S."

I don't know. Civil disobedience is an act of defying the authorities. Getting arrested by them proves that they have the authority, but if you see your actions in terms of power and resistance, I'm not sure why it would be noble to defy the authorities and then submit yourself to them for punishment. Why be a martyr if you can keep on fighting?

UPDATE: A friend comments: "Yeah, that Rosa Parks totally had the wrong idea."

Er... let me clarify. What Rosa Parks did was noble and, ultimately, empowering. It was also probably the right strategy for the time and place: Submitting to arrests worked, ultimately, to shame the authorities who were acting oppressively. But while that's the most prominent example of civil disobedience in our society, it's not the only model. And if you grant that Assange sees himself in this mode, as Smith does, I'm not sure why you'd advocate that it's the right model for him -- aside, of course, from the fact that Smith merely wants to see Assange behind bars.

Quote of the Day!

Philadelphia Daily News:

"'Brian didn't receive oral sex from calves; he only lawfully possessed firearms,' Nappen said."

Philly Police Crime Watch

Tyrone Wiggins goes on trial today:

"Wiggins, a former Marine and volunteer youth-karate instructor, retired from the police force Nov. 18, 2009, one day before he was arrested after a two-year investigation by the department's Internal Affairs Bureau.

The investigation was launched when the woman told authorities how Wiggins had befriended her family when she was 10 and she began taking karate lessons from him at the Olney Recreation Center.

She told of how - when she was 12 - Wiggins allegedly began raping her regularly at the recreation center, at her home, at his house on Chew Avenue near Front Street, in hotels and in his van in Fairmount Park.

She told of how - when she was 18 - he allegedly began to beat her, even causing an eye to swell shut."

There's an amazing, maybe uplifting element to this story: The woman Wiggins is accused of raping all those years? She's a cop now.

Philly's War on German Christmas

I think I know what the letters to the editor are going to be about for the next few days...:

"It's that season again, which means that for the third year in a row, the German Christmas Village has set up a cozy collection of wooden booths and tree vendors in Dilworth Plaza on the west side of City Hall.

But a few shoppers noticed something amiss yesterday on the tall metal archways signaling the entrances to the shops. The archways had just one word on top - 'Village.'

Sounds festive, eh?

It turns out that the letters spelling 'Christmas' were removed yesterday afternoon from the archways on the north and west sides of the plaza, at the request of Managing Director Richard Negrin. They will be replaced with the word 'Holiday.'

City spokesman Mark McDonald said Negrin asked for the change after the city received complaints from workers and residents."

Meh. I can't bring myself to get as worked up as the talk radio hosts are surely going to get today, but then again I think it's important for city government not to favor one religion over another -- and I'd rather it tred carefully, even a bit stupidly, in being faithful to that precept. Rather than make them change the name, though, the city could've done two things: make the German Christmas villagers go elsewhere next year, or make sure that every religious group gets a chance to publicly celebrate its major holidays at Dilworth Plaza. The city's action -- after hosting the village for two years already -- seems designed to elicit the maximum anger possible.

Would You Buy Your Kid A Michael Vick Jersey?

Vick is having a great season for the Eagles, but not so good that Dom Giordano has forgotten why Vick went to federal prison: "The Vick jersey has a way to go before it reaches the status of an acceptable jersey for kids to wear. I think his rehabilitation should go through three stages, and he's only just coming out of stage two."

This isn't a problem for me. We don't really watch football. And we really don't watch the Eagles. If my son ends up an Eagles fan, much less a Vick fan, it will be an act of rebellion.

Netflix Queue: Casino

Three thoughts about "Casino"...



* This seems like a Martin Scorcese movie that he decided to direct in the style of Martin Scorcese. Gangster voiceovers? Check? Montages? Check. "Gimme Shelter?" Check. Joe Pesci throwing a tantrum and dying horribly? Check. It verges on self-parody.

* This movie is so montage- and voiceover-driven, in fact, that it seems that music and exposition really substitute for character development and storytelling. As a result, "Casino" doesn't feel like a movie so much as it feels like pieces of a movie that were pasted together.

* That said, the movie looks great. It's fun to watch De Niro and Pesci play off each other. It's fun to remember that Sharon Stone was once a bona fide movie star. It's fun to see Don Rickles play it straight. And minor Scorcese is generally better-crafted than 95 percent of the crap that's out there. What else was I gonna watch? "Human Centipede?"

Philly Police Corruption Watch

Philly.com: "A Philadelphia police officer was arrested this weekend for domestic assault on his girlfriend, making him the 17th cop arrested in the department in little more than a year."

Bill Keller on Wikileaks

The New York Times editor explains himself:

We get to decide (to cover the documents) because America is cursed with a free press. I’m the first to admit that news organizations, including this one, sometimes get things wrong. We can be overly credulous (as in some of the reporting about Iraq’s purported Weapons of Mass Destruction) or overly cynical about official claims and motives. We may err on the side of keeping secrets (President Kennedy wished, after the fact, that The Times had published what it knew about the planned Bay of Pigs invasion) or on the side of exposing them. We make the best judgments we can. When we get things wrong, we try to correct the record. A free press in a democracy can be messy.

But the alternative is to give the government a veto over what its citizens are allowed to know. Anyone who has worked in countries where the news diet is controlled by the government can sympathize with Thomas Jefferson’s oft-quoted remark that he would rather have newspapers without government than government without newspapers. And Jefferson had plenty of quarrels with the press of his day.

As for why we directed our journalistic attention to these cables, we hope that will be clear from the articles we have written. They contribute to our understanding of how American foreign policy is made, how well it is working, what kind of relationships we have with allies and adversaries. The first day’s articles offered the richest account we have yet seen of America’s attempts to muster a regional and global alliance against Iran; and disclosed that the State Department has increasingly put its diplomats in the uncomfortable position of gathering intelligence on diplomatic counterparts. There is much more to come. We sincerely believe that readers who take an interest in America’s conduct in the world will find this material illuminating.

Regarding Wikileaks, Max Boot Gets Silly

He's usually more serious and less silly than this: "Reading the New York Times’s “Note to Readers” explaining why it has decided once again to act as a journalistic enabler of WikiLeaks, I wondered why, if the Times believes that openness is so important to the operations of the U.S. government, that same logic doesn’t apply to the newspaper itself. The Times, after all, is still, despite its loss of influence in the Internet age, the leading newspaper in the U.S. and indeed the world. It still shakes governments, shapes opinions, and moves markets, even if it doesn’t do so as often or as much as it used to."

I don't debate that the Times is an important institution in our public life. Nonetheless, the Times is also not the government. Differing standards are ok, because the Times and the government have different roles to play. That said, if Max Boot wants to publish internal Times correspondence about matters of public concern, I invite him to do so.

Bad Idea: Apple Pulls 'Anti-Gay' App

I can't say I'm thrilled with this:

"After some controversy and complaints, Apple has reportedly pulled an application from the iTunes App Store after claims it was anti-gay. Highlighted by The Huffington Post and others last week due to its reportedly objectionable content, the Manhattan Declaration iPhone application has been quietly removed sometime in the last few days."

Now, I don't really agree with anything that's in the Manhattan Declaration. But it strikes me as a relatively thoughtful statement of mainstream evangelical Christianity's beliefs regarding abortion and marriage. It doesn't call for violence or cast slurs against people who disagree, but it doesn't pussyfoot around its own point of view, either.

I'm fine if such beliefs, regarding gay marriage particularly, are pushed to the fringe. I'm not comfortable trying to silence them entirely. It's Apple's sandbox, so they get to decide who plays in it. But I'd rather be part of a movement that responds to the Manhattan Declaration with forceful -- but respectful -- counterarguments. Hell, I'd rather be part of a movement that ignores the Manhattan Declaration entirely and lets the people behind it do their own thing. I don't want to be part of a movement that tries to erase conservative evangelicals from the digital universe.

And for what it's worth, it's also tactically problematic. Part of the reason for evangelicals' resistance to state-sanctioned gay marriage is because they believe it might infringe on their ability to practice their religion as they believe it. Getting the Manhattan Declaration booted from the App Store confirms that point-of-view, and probably gets conservative Christians to dig their heels in against the otherwise-secular decisions of the state.

Wikileaks: Victor Davis Hanson Makes Stuff Up

VDH writes at The Corner: "Under Bush, press discussion of leaks focused on their embarrassing contents (after all, it was supposedly a higher calling that made brave whistle-blowers release confidential communications emanating from the Bush-Cheney right-wing nexus). In contrast, the press now seems more interested in responses of “How dare they” to the WikiLeaks methodology — as in, how could one be allowed to break laws and leak things from the Obamian State Department, if doing so might harm liberal diplomats, human-rights activists, etc., and embarrass a progressive government?"

Except this is demonstrably not true. Here's the Times' "complete coverage" of the latest round of Wikileaks revelations. Where's the "how dare they?" story? There is none. It's entirely focused on the (ahem) contents of the cables. Here's a roundup of the Washington Post's coverage. Same story. Here's the Guardian's coverage. Same story.

In fact, the main umbrage at the release seems to be coming from Hanson and Max Boot and Jonah Goldberg and ... other people on the right. There's no problem with that. But it would be nice if Hanson didn't make stuff up and offer no supporting evidence whatsoever.

Simon Jenkins on Wikileaks

At The Guardian: "Clearly, it is for governments, not journalists, to protect public secrets. Were there some overriding national jeopardy in revealing them, greater restraint might be in order. There is no such overriding jeopardy, except from the policies themselves as revealed. Where it is doing the right thing, a great power should be robust against embarrassment."

'Empire' Director Irvin Kershner: RIP

Cinema Blend: "Irvin Kershner, director of the almost universally best-loved Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back, has died at age 87, according to The Associated Press. Taking over for George Lucas to make the sequel to the mega-hit Star Wars, Kershner crafted a film that felt far more grown-up and fully realized than its predecessor, setting a standard for sci-fi and adventure films that carries on to this day."

Wikileaks and Max Boot

Max Boot at Commentary: "One can understand if the editors of the New York Times, Guardian, and Der Spiegel have no respect for the secrecy needed to wage war successfully — especially unpopular wars like those in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are, after all, the sorts of people who, over a few drinks, would no doubt tell you that diplomacy is far preferable to war-making. But it seems that they have no respect for the secrecy that must accompany successful diplomacy either. That, at least, is the only conclusion I can draw from their decision to once again collaborate with an accused rapist to publicize a giant batch of stolen State Department cables gathered by his disreputable organization, WikiLeaks."

Boot goes on to commit what Glenn Greenwald has pretty accurately described as mode of operation of Wikileaks critics: He says there's nothing important to be seen here while at the same time warning of terrible consequences for the release of this supposedly inconsequential information.

For me, what's interesting is that Boot wants the New York Times, in particular, to become a much more ideological newsgathering operation than it is. Think about it: The Wikileaks information is out in the public domain. It was going to be whether or not the Times participated in the embargo or not. (And in fact, Wikileaks tried to exclude the Times this time.) What Boot is suggesting then is that the Times refrain on reporting on information that's clearly in the public interest because the potential impact is undesirable. In any other context, he'd rightfully sneer at Times' efforts to keep information from its reading public. In any case, the Times has tried to balance its obligations to citizenship and public-interest reporting by redacting and omitting names from documents it has seen. But just because the government declares something secret doesn't mean it should be. Boot's view of all this is, to use a conservative term that's recently been in vogue, rather statist.

Wikileaks, Valerie Plame and Jonah Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg: "Honest question: Is there any prominent person or editorial board (outside of the administration) on the left who made a huge stink about Valerie Plame’s outing who is remotely as horrified by the ongoing Wikileaks travesty?"

I'm not remotely as horrified. Plame's outing, you'll recall, was committed by government officials as vengeance for her husband's truth-telling about the Bush Administration's (er...) missteps getting us into war with Iraq. It was done, in other words, to discourage people from telling the American public what there government was up to. The Wikileaks disclosures are telling the American people what their government is up to. I think one can be horrified by the Plame outing, not horrified by the Wikileaks disclosures, and still be perfectly consistent.

TSA Backlash Watch: Roger Cohen

The Real Threat to America:

"I don’t doubt the patriotism of the Americans involved in keeping the country safe, nor do I discount the threat, but I am sure of this: The unfettered growth of the Department of Homeland Security and the T.S.A. represent a greater long-term threat to the prosperity, character and wellbeing of the United States than a few madmen in the valleys of Waziristan or the voids of Yemen.

America is a nation of openness, boldness and risk-taking. Close this nation, cow it, constrict it and you unravel its magic."