SATURDAY,  FEBRUARY 23,  2008

The McCain Mutiny

What's remarkable about the assault on John McCain, which now includes The Washington Post and its sibling-in-crime, Newsweek, is how little there is, and how earnest the journalists are who report this little bit. 

You'd think they'd discovered that McCain is a serial killer.  He isn't.

In monitoring the cable shows last night, I learned, and learned, and learned again, that this was simply routine journalism for a presidential election year, and that we 'd soon see scrutiny of Barack Obama, if he becomes the nominee.  Oh yeah?  I'll believe it when I see it, and I'll also wonder whether the word "scrutiny" may have to be redefined.  Please remember that "investigative journalism" can also report that the target of the inquiry is innocent, is a noble person, and able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. 

And if we're going to see some probing of Obama, why wait?  He's about to win the Democratic race for a presidential nomination.  Don't you think, Mr. Editor, that we should know more?  Plenty of bloggers and a few brave, salaried reporters have raised questions, but, gosh darn, I guess the flood of news is so overwhelming that The New York Times hasn't got room for any silly Obama doubts. 

John McCain - king of corruption!!

The latest attack, in today's Washington Post, challenges McCain's version of events that took place close to a decade ago.  McCain may have made some minor errors, but the story hardly warrants the kind of prominence it receives.  The issue, as presented, is whether the senator met personally with a broadcaster, or whether it was his staff who handled the broadcaster's complaint.

That, of course, is not the key question.  The key question is whether McCain used improper influence to do anything on behalf of the broadcaster.  The answer is no.  He never asked any government agency to make a particular decision, which is the classic definition of improper influence.  He merely asked that a long-delayed decision be made, hardly a vast act of corruption.  McCain's lawyer, Bob Bennett, gets it right:

McCain attorney Robert S. Bennett played down the contradiction between the campaign's written answer and Paxson's recollection.

"We understood that he [McCain] did not speak directly with him [Paxson]. Now it appears he did speak to him. What is the difference?" Bennett said. "McCain has never denied that Paxson asked for assistance from his office. It doesn't seem relevant whether the request got to him through Paxson or the staff. His letters to the FCC concerning the matter urged the commission to make up its mind. He did not ask the FCC to approve or deny the application. It's not that big a deal."

What's remarkable about these McCain stories is that they often contain the seeds, to use chic Marxist language, of their own destruction.  McCain's letter to the FCC on behalf of the broadcaster contained this language:

"The sole purpose of this request is to secure final action on a matter that has now been pending over two years," McCain wrote. "I emphasize that my purpose is not to suggest in any way how you should vote -- merely that you vote."

Why is it that I don't see the walls of government collapsing around me?

The Post also reports this, discussing the broadcaster, Lowell Paxson:

He said they turned to McCain often when they ran into interference at the FCC, but Paxson added that McCain did not always agree with him. In three other major issues, Paxson said, McCain took the opposing viewpoint.

Yeah, really corrupt.  Yawn.

The problem with newspapers is readers!

Meanwhile, The New York Times is trying to defend its breaking the McCain story.  Frankly, the most interesting thing about this affair is seeing pictures of the new Times building on TV.  I hadn't seen good close-ups before.

But The New York Daily News has a biting piece on The Timesmen diving into the bunker.  The problem, it seems, is with Times readers, who just don't understand.  You know, I sympathize.  It's so hard to get good readers today.  You ask them to do a little work, and they leave.  The quote:

WASHINGTON - The embattled executive editor of the New York Times defended its John McCain story Friday with a novel explanation for the flood of critical e-mails the newspaper received: slow-witted readers.

"Personally, I was surprised by the volume of the reaction," Bill Keller wrote in a Times Web site Q&A forum. Readers posted 2,000 comments and sent in 3,700 questions.

"I was surprised by how lopsided the opinion was against our decision, with readers who described themselves as independents and Democrats joining Republicans in defending Mr. McCain from what they saw as a cheap shot," Keller added.

The problem, Keller went on, is that readers didn't get it.

"Frankly, I was a little surprised by how few readers saw what was, to us, the larger point of the story."

That point, he said, was that McCain, "this man who prizes his honor above all things and who appreciates the importance of appearances, also has a history of being sometimes careless about the appearance of impropriety, about his reputation."

While some press watchers defended the Times, others said the problem wasn't dense readers.

"I don't want to fault the journalists," said Columbia University journalism Prof. Todd Gitlin. "But the article as it ran was a mess and not the highest point of journalism."

Damned skeptical readers.  They're destroying the First Amendment.

Hitting back - with authority

Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia shows how it's done.  He's calling Barack Obama's bluff.  During Thursday night's debate with Hillary Clinton, Obama claimed that he'd spoken with an Army captain who'd reported equipment shortages.  Okay, Warner says, produce the evidence:

To establish accountability within the military chain of command, Mr. Warner is asking Mr. Obama to provide more facts about the incident cited in the debate -– the dates, the unit involved and the name of the captain and other military personnel who provided the information to Mr. Obama.

“As you well know, we in Congress, under our Constitution, have explicit duties to provide for the welfare of the men and women in our armed forces and members of their families,’ said Mr. Warner. “We have no higher calling.”

Let's see where this goes.  Substance is not Obama's thing.  And since he said the captain commanded a platoon, when in fact captains don't command platoons, he's not off to a roaring start.

The real news - not encouraging

Almost lost in the trivia is the real news.  The UN "watchdog" (toy poodle) agency that keeps us safe from atom bombs has issued its latest report on Iran.  Even the guys with the Che T-shirts at Reuters conceded that there are problems here:

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday it confronted Iran for the first time with Western intelligence reports showing work linked to making atomic bombs and that Tehran had failed to provide satisfactory answers.

The United States passed the intelligence, which came mainly from a laptop spirited out of Iran, to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2005 but out of fear for its spies only authorized the IAEA to present it last month, diplomats said.

I don't know what we'll do about these people who traffic in the politics of fear.  It's so troubling.  There's really nothing to worry about.  The Iranians are just protecting their Persian rugs.

Wisdom

Sir Martin Gilbert is the official historian of Sir Winston Churchill, and is one of the great biographers of our age.  He was interviewed recently on the lessons of the 1930s, and how they might apply today.  It's not a new subject, but Gilbert brings the expertise of someone thoroughly immersed in the period.  Consider:

"A grave mistake was made in the 1930s in finding all sorts of reasons for not regarding the Nazi threat as being a serious threat. Therefore, when you're working out your thoughts on the current situation, about fundamentalism, just remember that it is very easy for highly competent, educated, civilized, sophisticated people to find excuses and benign explanations for everything that happens," he says. 

I'm glad he emphasized "highly competent, educated, civilized, sophisticated people."  They're often the worst in these situations because they consider themselves superior, free of mob passions, and discerning.  Not.

Sir Martin goes on:

"The main argument towards the [Nazi] threat was: 'It must modify; these are extremes which surely will modify.' Of course, many German Jews took the same view as the British government on this... But when the dangers actually worsened, the people who had argued 'it will surely modify,' didn't say, 'Wait a minute. My premise is now destroyed.' Instead, they said, 'This can't really be that grave a threat. This can't be truly an evil force,' and, 'Well, it's not really what it seems."

And...

The ostensibly "alarmist" Churchill (who was to take over as prime minister in May 1940) had been warning all through this period that by the time the apologists woke up and belatedly recognized the need to "take a stand," the means to mount an effective fightback would be much reduced. And so it proved: When the bitter truth of Nazi ambition could no longer be apologized away, with the invasion of Poland in 1939, says Gilbert, "you'd lost your allies, you'd lost territory, you'd lost raw materials. You were in the weakest possible position."

Sir Martin is troubled by the fact that major nations today aren't united on the threat from Iran.  Russia and China are pursuing their own agendas. 

He gives us a warning from history.  And please recall Douglas MacArthur's warning that all military disasters begin with two words:  "Too late."

The clock is ticking, and the centrifuges in Iran are spinning.

Now the real worry

I knew it.  Iran isn't the worry.  It's something else, something reported grimly by a space magazine:

The future looks bright for the Earth – but not in the way we’d hoped. The slim chance our planet will survive when the Sun begins its death throes has been ruled out.

In a few billion years, the Sun will fuse the last of its hydrogen into helium, turn into a red giant and expand to 250 times its current size. At first, the Sun’s loss of mass will loosen its gravitational pull on Earth, which will allow the planet to migrate to a wider orbit about 7.6 billion years from now.

This process has led some to speculate that the Earth might escape destruction – but survival now seems impossible, says Peter Schröder of the University of Guanajuato in Mexico and Robert Smith of the University of Sussex in the UK.

Do you have any idea of the impact this will have on the insurance industry?  Can you imagine how premiums will rise?

I'd start planning.  Forget that Saturday night out.  Get busy.

I'll be working on my family planning kit, but will be back later.

Posted on February 23, 2008.