One small step to putting civilians back in charge at Defense

NYT reports that Lloyd J. Austin III, a retired Army general, is under consideration to lead the Department of Defense under Joe Biden. I'd prefer not -- not because of anything necessarily wrong about Austin (I know literally nothing about him) but because Trump tried to blur the whole distinction between civilian and military control of the military, which has been a pretty important principle of our democracy. That's how former General James Mattis became Trump's first secretary of defense, even though he required a waiver to do so. There are civilian Democrats with expertise in national security. Pick one of them.

Humans and Vulcans

There's a lot of talk about "Federation values" in the Star Trek universe, but humans and Vulcans are pretty much always jerks to each other, except when they learn the lesson not to be at the end of the episode.

No, journalism is not 'morally indefensible'

Also from Ryu Spaeth's takedown of Ben Smith:

However, every journalist, very much including Smith, at some point will have to face the morally indefensible way we go about our business: namely, using other people to tell a story about the world. Not everyone dupes their subjects into trusting them, but absolutely everyone robs other people of their stories to tell their own.

Oh, bullshit.

At its best, journalism provides journalists a platform not to rob other people of their stories, but to amplify the stories of people who might not otherwise be heard widely. This is especially true of journalists at local papers, who go to church and shop in the same stores and send their kids to the same schools as the people they both serve and cover. It's an imperfect, messily human process, and journalists don't always get it right. I haven't always gotten it right. But to characterize this process, of listening and then passing on what you have heard, as a robbery -- instead of the necessarily flawed process of communication that it is -- is morally obtuse.

Question about the assassination of Iran's top nuclear scientist

I get that hawks are hawks, and they're going to want to go to war. But why do hawks in Israel and the U.S. seem to want a war with Iran so badly? What am I missing?

Have I been using em-dashes incorrectly?

 From TNR's critique of media columnist Ben Smith:

Wait. I often use em-dashes like Smith does, basically as a replacement for a colon. I also use them, paired, basically as parentheses within a sentence.

Have I been doing it wrong the whole time?

Presidential transitions are bad

 If we can’t shorten transitions after a presidential election, perhaps we could at least make them less-prone to mishchief? A president should serve out the full length of the term, of course. But maybe rule making should cease between election and inauguration, when a new president is arriving in office. If you didn’t get it done in the four years before now, well, you had your chance. 

Donald Trump demands proof of a negative

 

Needless to say, we don’t require people in America to prove their innocence. It’s up to Trump to prove fraud happened in the election. So far, he has made a lot of allegations. Proof? Not so much. But it is worrisome to suggest the White House is Biden’s only if Biden can prove he didn’t do the stuff that Trump is making up about him. He may be a bad authoritarian, but this is still authoritarian behavior.