Being Obama

If Barack Obama does win the Democratic nomination, we are undoubtedly going to be treated to a tiresome parade of complaints about imagined racial slights. Here's one: Saturday Night Live had Fred Armisen (who?) play Barack Obama in a recent skit. Ann Althouse links to this Washington Post piece about the ensuing outrage.



Why the outrage? According to the WaPo article, Armison is of white and Asian heritage. Oh gosh, can't have that, can we? Well, the sort of people likely to take umbrage at this sort of thng have taken umbrage:

Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune put the question bluntly: "Call me crazy, but shouldn't 'Saturday Night Live's' fictional Sen. Barack Obama be played by an African-American?" Ryan went on to conclude: "I find 'SNL's' choice inexplicable. Obama's candidacy gives us solid proof of the progress that African-Americans have made in this country. I guess 'SNL' still has further to go on that front."

You're crazy Maureen. But you aren't the only one. My favorite comment comes from Todd Boyd, a "Professor of Critical Studies" at USC:

Todd Boyd, a professor of critical studies at the University of Southern California, says viewers might have a different reaction if the roles were reversed. What if, he says, "SNL" had cast a black woman to portray Hillary Clinton? "Do you think there's ever going to be a day when we start casting Queen Latifah to portray Princess Diana?" he asks. "We just don't have the same representations going in other direction.

You know, if I were a professor in a politically-driven pseudo-discipline, I would avoid being quoted in the newspaper, if only to avoid having people ask what a "Professor of Critical Studies" actually you know, studies. I suppose, though, that if you're going to pretend that being a community organizer is a real job, you might as well pretend that a Professor of Critical Studies is a real Professor. (Unlike Barack Obama, who is not, contrary to some claims, a Professor of Constitutional Law.)

But I digress. This gripe is so stupid on so many levels that it's hard to know where to start.

Well, start with the obvious: as the WaPo and Professor Althouse both observe, SNL has a long history of having blacks play whites, and vice versa. Eddie Murphy played white characters, and Billy Crystal played Sammy Davis, Jr. Heck, SNL did some skits where men impesonated women: Dan Akroyd as Julia Child, and Will Ferrell as Janet Reno.

As Professor Althouse says, the question for Saturday Night Live isn't whether a particular actor is the same race or gender as the person he or she is impersonating -- the question is whether the impersonation is funny. And you know, by the standards of modern-day SNL, I think that Armison's impersonation really is kind of funny. Not Dan-Akroyd-as-Julia-Child funny, but SNL hasn't been that funny in a long time.

But in Obama's case it is particularly dumb. As Paddy O, one of Professor Althouse's commenters put it: "How is Obama any more black than white? Is there some kind of one drop rule in effect?" Sure, Obama may choose to identify himself as "black," and he may have joined an Afrocentric church, but none of this alters the fact that his mom was white. In terms of pure ethnic background, it's no more inappropriate to have a white guy impersonate him than to have a "pure" black Obama imitator. If you are insisting on racial verisimilitude, why not go all the way and demand he be impersonated by a man of mixed race whose dad was Kenyan and mom was a white chick from the midwest? Fred Armisen is of mixed race, if not quite the same mix as Obama. In that sense, he is more appropriate than either an all-black or all-white actor.

Look, if somebody of importance actually says something racist about Obama, I'll jump on them with both feet. But this crap is just nonsense.

Apple Threatens Nine-Year-Old

One of Fortune's 101 Dumbest Moments in business last year was what seems like a bonehead move by Apple Computer:

Nine-year-old Shea O'Gorman sends a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggesting ideas for improving her beloved iPod Nano, including adding onscreen lyrics so people can sing along. She gets back a letter from Apple's legal counsel stating that the company doesn't accept unsolicited ideas and telling her not to send in any more suggestions.

Might I suggest that, while this may have made her feel badly, there's a simple reason why Apple sent her the letter: Next year, after Apple introduces, say, the sing-along iPod, it doesn't want everybody to be reading the story of how it stole the idea from now-ten-year-old Shea O'Gorman and she's suing them.

Seriously, in our litigious society, does Apple have any choice about not accepting unsolicited ideas from people?

You Know You're in Trouble When . . .

Whoopi Goldberg is the intellectual giant in a group.



(Credit to Yglesias.)

Fox & Friends: Apparently Still Dumb

Instapundit links to this amusing tirade by Instapunk regarding the stupidity of the Fox News morning show, Fox & Friends. Apparently he actually watched the show for an hour and a half, and he emerged from the resulting vegetative state to report that Fox & Friends failed to cover the most important story of the day and instead covered fluff. Next he will be telling us that there's gambling in Las Vegas.

Seriously, I've known Fox & Friends was idiotic for years, and I don't think I could survive more than an hour of it. I salute Instapnuk's stamina, if nothing else, and he has earned the right to pepper the Fox & Friends on-air "talent" with gratuitous insults, if so inclined. Which he is. He roundly insults all of the anchors at Fox & Friends, and in most cases his comments are both amusing and on-target.

Still, he crosses the line when he refers to "ballooning midlife insanity of Wellesleyite Page Hopkins, who would like somebody to notice and perhaps have sex with her." Granted, Page Hopkins does bear a startling resemblance to the Joker, but I am still pretty sure she can get a man to have sex with her, when she is in the mood.

UPDATE: Edited for clarity.

Note To MSM: Stop Lying

I recently blogged about CNN's decision to label Democratic-Party activists "undecided voters." Now, via Instapundit, this little tidbit, claiming that the San Francisco Chronicle's online edition has a feature which allows moderators to delete comments in a particularly sneaky way. Lots of sites allow comment deletion -- blogger lets me delete comments, although I seldom do so, and certainly would never do so simply because somebody disagrees with me. (In fact, the only comments I have ever deleted thus far have been comment spam.)

But the Chronicle feature deletes the comment for everybody except the person who originally posted it. The person who made the original comment gets a cookie which identifies them, and they still see their own comment. (Of course the person can purge the cookie, or go to a different computer, in which case it won't be visible.) Apparently, the idea is to prevent people from getting up-in-arms about having their comments deleted.

If they want to delete comments, it's their site. There are no "equal time" rules requiring newspapers to allow comments. But if you delete comments, don't lie to the people who made them and pretend the comment has not been deleted.

Might I suggest that this willingness to lie is part of the reason why the "MSM" is in such trouble these days? Hint: if you want to get your credibility back, then, at a minimum, stop lying.

Lispin' Rudy

Ann Althouse links to this YouTube video of Mo Rocca making fun of Rudy's lisp, and James Taranto's comments in response.



Taranto says that Rocco is being homophobic. Professor Althouse is underwhelmed by Taranto's argument:

I guess he sort of has a point. But it seems to me Mo Rocca is mostly making fun of himself. Also he says nothing about homosexuality, and other political figure with a lisp he refers to is Winston Churchill — who, like Giuliani, is quite macho.

Um, Ann, given Rudy's propensity to flounce around in women's clothes, are we sure he's "quite macho"? Maybe the "macho Rudy" thing is an act? Could he be compensating for something?

Logically, neither Rudy's speech patterns nor his propensity to run around in women's clothing ought to affect his candidacy. Still, if his "macho" attitude is perceived as an attempt to cover up a somewhat less-macho reality, it will surely hurt Giulianni's candidacy. Al Gore may have won his debates against Bush on purely intellectual grounds, but his more effeminate mannerisms (including, according to some, a slight lisp) undoubtedly hurt his campaign, particularly among men. If Rudy is perceived as effeminate, he's toast.

"Undecided Voters" = Left Wing Activisits

Fresh off the Clinton-campaign mini-scandal regarding her planted questions, CNN decided to up the ante: via Glenn Reynolds, this link to a Hot Air video demonstrating that nearly every "undecided voter" asking a question at the recent Democratic debate was a left-wing activist of some sort.



Seriously, if CNN thinks that anti-war activists, union organizers, and other sundry Democratic Party agitators will ask better questions that randomly-selected average questions, fine. In fact, I rather dislike the whole "Town Hall" concept myself. But characterizing these people as mere "undecided voters" is so misleading as to be tantamount to a lie. Sure, they may well be undecided in the sense they've not yet formally endorsed a particular Democratic candidate, but they're not undecided in the ordinary sense of the term. They're activists!

Let them ask questions if you like, but identify their affiliation. I mean, all I want is the truth. Is it that hard?

By the way, while I don't like Obama, I do admire the fact that he didn't pretend that he didn't know the lady whose question was directed toward him. It was a softball, but he didn't try to pretend she was a stranger to him.

Live From VRWC Central

Always on the lookout for his readers, the intrepid Cheerful Iconoclast penetrated the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy last night, attending a black-tie dinner at a convention of the dreaded Federalist Society. The dinner, which celebrated this secret cabal's 25th anniversary, featured speeches from quite a few notables, including three Supreme Court Justices and President George W. Bush. It got covered by the AP and Washington Post, and undoubtedly by other outlets as well.

I loved this bit from the AP:

Inside the historic Union Station, crowd gave Bush a standing ovation complete with cheers and hollering. Supreme Court justices and members of the nation's judiciary and legal communities sipped wine and ate beef and veal medallions. Outside, a small group of protesters shouted "War criminal Bush" and "Stop waterboarding." The latter was a reference to a controversial interrogation technique that simulates drowning.

This is a great example of writing that's factually accurate but utterly misleading. It makes it sound as if the convention featured a sybaritic feast worthy of an Iron Chef. In fact, if the audience "sipped" its wine, because drinking it normally would have meant tasting it. The wine was a step or two above Thunderbird, but nothing I would buy myself. The Viognier tasted like Kool-Aid, and the Cab harsh and tannic. You can get better wines at the $5.00 bin at your local grocery store (if you live in a state that allows local grocery stores to sell wine, that is). As for the veal and beef medallions, it was difficult to tell whether the minute portion size was a blessing or a curse. Yes, they were described as gourmet tidbits in the printed menu, but they might as well have been mystery meat: overcooked nuggets of meat smothered in sauce. As it was, upon returning home, the Main Squeeze and I shed our formalwear and warmed up some leftover pasta, which I assure you far surpassed the night's repast.

It was banquet food. Better than your old school lunch, but certainly in the same genre. And not enough of it!

As for President Bush's welcome, members of the Federalist Society are nothing if not polite to their guests. It is certainly true that a poll taken in that room would probably make President Bush seem more popular than a poll of, say, the American People. But you would expect him to be more popular among self-identified conservatives. It is hardly news that a group of conservative lawyers gave a sitting Republican President a warm welcome.

However, Federalist Society members can and do differ among themselves about President Bush's policies. In particular, any number of libertarian-leaning Federalist Society members are harshly critical of some aspects of the Bush administration. Of course, in order to find that out, the reporters would have had to, you know, actually talk to people, rather than listening to the President's speech and dashing from the room when he finished. If one had approached me, I would even have been happy to express my candid views. I might even have shared a bite of beef medallion, and a sip of wine.

All Hail the Darwinian State

Richard Dawkins gave an interview with a German newspaper in which he said, well, something about a "Darwinian state." I don't speak German, but the folks over at Panda's Thumb translate as follows:

Q. In “the Ancestor’s Tale” you mention the Welfare State as a challenge to Darwinism. How can one justify this challenge”

Dawkins: No self respecting person would want to live in a Society that operates according to Darwinian laws. I am an passionate Darwinist, when it involves explaining the development of life. However, I am a passionate anti-Darwinist when it involves the kind of society in which we want to live. A Darwinian State would be a Fascist state.

This quotation got picked up by First Things, and it made its way over to Dembski's blog, where contributor Barry A tries to make rhetorical hay out of it. After quoting a passage from one of his books where Dawkins appers to be saying that we all dance to the music of our genes, Barry claims that Dawkins contradicts himself:

In the last sentence Dawkins asserts that Darwinian determinism is absolute. It is, therefore, incoherent for him to suggest that we can “rise above” our biological nature. For if he is correct then we are nothing but material objects dancing to DNA’s tune, and it makes no sense to suggest that an object can rise above itself.

It is just here that O’Leary’s work in “The Spiritual Brain” comes into play. I can rise above my material body ONLY if an immaterial ”me” exists that is separate from, and superior to, my body.

I think I know what Dawkins meant to say: that belief in Darwinian evolution doesn't entail a belief in some form of crude social darwinism.

But still, he could have chosen his words a lot more carefully. I mean, what the heck is a "Darwinian State" anyway? A state where children face each other in gladiatorial games where the winners are allowed to reproduce? One where everybody gets IQ tests and the low scorers are culled? Nazi Germany? I don't know what a "Darwinian State" entails, and I don't know of anybody who wants one. I don't think it's a coherent or well-specified concept. Tell me what it is, and I will tell you if I like the idea.

Dawkins seems to be saying that belief in evolution is wholly compatible with the sort of European-style Social Democratic welfare state that, as a good left-leaning European intellectual he tends to favor. Which of course is true. But believing in evolution, or being an atheist who also believes in evolution, doesn't necessarily lead to any particular political agenda or economic theory. It is quite possible for somebody to be an atheist, and to believe in evolution, and be a Marxist, or a libertarian, or a Burkean conservative, or even a monarchist. Being an atheist is certainly incompatible with certain political positions -- Sharia law, Christian Reconstructionism, pretty much any other form of theocracy. But it is wholly compatible with a wide range of mutually-incompatible political belief systems.

Like it or not, Richard Dawkins is a big "name" atheist -- probably the most widely-known advocate of atheism on the stage today. He is also a science writer who has written a lot of popular stuff about evolution, and he's a big foil for the creationists. Given that position of notoriety, it is probably a mistake for him to make statements that the creationists can twist into some sort of concession. He can express whatever political views he wants, but he should probably avoid terms like "Darwinian state."

"My Bad"

I'm now in the midst of my first Instalanche, due to this post, to which Glenn Reynolds linked this morning. Obviously I am delighted, and the traffic is way up.

But in that post, I made a mistake. A minor mistake, not a big deal, but a mistake nonetheless: I misspelled Glenn Reynolds' name. I spelled it "Glen" with one "n," rather than "Glenn," with two, as he spells it. Now, obviously he cannot have been too badly offended, since he gave me the link, but if I were him I would be annoyed. Even worse, I did it twice, and when an anonymous commenter pointed out my error, I only corrected it one one place. I had to be nudged to correct the mistake in the first line of the post.

Do I feel stupid? Sure. A bit embarrassed? Yep. But I made a mistake; I've admitted it, and it's been fixed. It ain't the end of the world.

My readers now know that I can be a little careless, that I missed a detail -- one "n" or two -- and that proofreading isn't my strong suit. I try, really, but anybody who reads this blog regularly knows I make more typos and such than I would like. I sometimes get excited and say things that are maybe a bit more strongly worded than I would like, in retrospect. I am, in short, human. I think that most people can understand that.

But how stupid would I look if I wrote a post explaining that a lot of people spell Glen with one "n," and that, really! "Glen" is the right spelling. So Glenn Reynolds really ought to spell it Glen, not Glenn. He's the one who's wrong! Or if I blithely insisted that I hadn't spelled it with one n in the first place -- no mistake had been made at all.

I'd look like a complete jerk. Or, for those of you who already think I am a jerk, even more of a jerk. Everybody's heard the expression "when you are in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging." And they've also heard, "it's not the crime, it's the coverup." Both variants on a simple concept: when you make a mistake, stop making the mistake, admit it, and fix it.

I have been thinking about that this morning, because by a weird coincidence, Glen -- just joking, uh Glenn -- has been blogging up a storm about the whole Scott Thomas Beauchamp/Franklin Foer/New Republic mess. And here's the thing: The New Republic screwed up. They published reports that were, uh, embellished. Not what you want to do, and a pretty serious mistake -- more serious than misspelling "Glenn." But a mistake.

And instead of admitting their error, they stonewalled, delayed, obfuscated, and generally made asses of themselves. So you have Glenn linking to this Washington Post Article, This Pajamas Media Roundup, and you have this post with more links than I care to copy, and this one too, and I am sure I could find find more if I weren't too lazy.

Has it ever occurred to the guys at The New Republic that if they were to just admit the mistake that maybe there wouldn't be so much continuing attention to what idiots they are?

Gosh, What a Surprise

Glenn Reynolds links to this Christian Science Monitor article by Craig Franklin about the Jena 6 case. Franklin is a local journalist who has covered the case for the local paper, and his article is a damning indictment of the media's coverage:

The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice.

In fact, Franklin contends that nearly every aspect of the popular narrative is wrong. He goes through it one-by-one. The whites-only tree wasn't really whites only. The nooses hung on the tree were aimed not at black students but instead at members of the school's rodeo team. The District Attorney never threatened black students. Robert Bailey was punched in the face, not hit with a beer bottle, as he subesequently claimed. (True to form, Newsweek embelished this to his being pelted with beer bottles.) Bailey and his friends did indeed jump a white guy at a convenience store and steal his shotgun. And, finally, Mychall Bell really did hit Justin Barker from behind, and he really was stomped upon by a mob of black students.

Gosh, who could have predicted that the media narrative would turn out to be a bit overstated? Me, maybe? In fact, my first post on the topic, back on September 7, was a call for skepticism about the media narrative. I hate to say "I told you so, but . . ." OK, who am I kidding. I LOVE to say I told you so.

I told you so.

UPDATE: Thanks for the link, Glenn. A hearty welcome to all my new readers. Feel free to check out all my posts on the Jena 6 matter, or look around and see what I have to say about torture, or George W. Bush, or even read some of my restaurant reviews.

UPDATE 2: Minor error fixed.

Mark Kleiman On Intellectual Honesty

General Ricardo Sanchez is making a few waves, having decided to let loose on the Bush Administration. Mark Kleiman seems happy to have General Sanchez on the "right" side. Returning to his prior theme of the "hack gap," Kleiman has advice for how Iraq war opponents ought to treat Sanchez:

I'm not one who regrets the "hack gap." I'd rather be on the side with the edge in intellectual honesty rather than the side with the edge in the tactical capacity to misrepresent the truth. But in politics, words are weapons, and if for the moment Gen. Sanchez has chosen, at some personal risk, to take our side, we ought to do what we can to reward that behavior rather than punishing it.

Whatever honestly can be said in Gen. Sanchez's praise ought to be said now, and criticism of him ought to be suspended, if only as a matter of incentives management.

Right. Kleiman is arguing (again) that folks on "the side" he's on (however defined) have the edge in intellectual honesty. And he is simultaneously urging members of that side to avoid criticizing General Sanchez, not because such criticisms would be false, but rather because they wouldn't further his political objectives.

Can you say self-refuting argument?

Graeme Frost and the Oprahfication of American Political Discourse

There's been quite the kerfluffle about young Graeme Frost, and his family's financial situation. A couple of weeks ago, the Democrats had Graeme Frost -- age 12 -- deliver their response to President Bush's radio address. Not surprisingly, the folks at Thing Progress are delighted with this little stunt -- the Democrats, you see, are "daring to put a human face on the SCHIP program at a time when Bush was proposing a 'diminishment of the number of children covered.'”

How daring of them.

Apparently the folks at Thing Progress think our politics aren't emotional enough. If there is one thing we are not short on, it's human faces. If anything, we need fewer human faces, and more cold, hard analytical reasoning. Putting a twelve-year-old on the radio like one of Jerry's Kids is emotional and manipulative, a way of bypassing reasoned debate and argument. It's all part of the Oprahfication of American political discourse, and it is, in general, a Bad Thing.

I'm old enough to remember when people were discerning enough to ridicule Jimmy Carter for seeking his daughter Amy's advice on arms control. We really ought to ridicule the Democrats for sending twelve-year-olds to respond to the President. And it's incredibly hypocritical for the Democrats to become outraged when people decided to check the anecdote they were using and began questioning whether the Frost family is needy enough that it "deserves" government aid. Here's a hint for our friends on the left: if you don't want people to check your anecdotal claims about the necessity of government programs, then stop using anecdotes. But if you put the poster kid in the wheelchair up on stage, don't act all outraged if somebody decides to check if the kid can walk. (I'm using that in a metaphorical way, since Graeme does seem to be ambulatory.)

As Mark Steyn put it:

Over the weekend, I posted a couple of things re Graeme Frost, the Democratic Party's 12-year old healthcare spokesman. Michelle Malkin reports that the blogospheric lefties are all steamed about the wingnuts' Swiftboating of sick kids, etc.

Sorry, no sale. The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man's job, then the boy is fair game. As it is, the Dems do enough cynical and opportunist hiding behind biography and identity, and it's incredibly tedious. And anytime I send my seven-year-old out to argue policy you're welcome to clobber him, too. The alternative is a world in which genuine debate is ended and, as happened with Master Frost, politics dwindles down to professional staffers writing scripts to be mouthed by Equity moppets.

Now, all that said, I do think that hilzoy over at Obsidian Wings has a point: get the facts right. As it turns out, Graeme's family owns a nice house, but they bought it years ago when it was dirt cheap because it was in a bad neighborhood. Graeme attends a pricey private school, but he does so on a scholarship. From what I can tell he does seem to be the sort of lower-middle-class kid for whom the program appears to be intended. But there's no reason, in principle, why people shouldn't check the telling anecdotes used to advance certain policies.

Jena 6: Somebody Else Finally Gets It

Via Steve Sailer, this article by Vanderbilt law professor Carol Swain. Professor Swain seems to think that the Jena 6 may have been the victims of disparate treatment, but for very personal reasons, she understands that a group beat-down can have terrible consequences:

Much sport has been made of the deadly sneaker that the district attorney introduced as a weapon. What is missed is the fact that sneakers and fists can become lethal weapons under the right circumstances.

Almost a year ago, my 41-year-old brother, Kevin Henderson, died from injuries he sustained on his job after he was attacked by a group of teenage boys.

According to a neighbor who witnessed the attack, five teens knocked my brother to the ground, kicking and stomping him until the neighbor intervened. Kevin staggered home, collapsed into a coma and was declared brain-dead within hours of the attack.

My heart goes out to her -- her brother is dead, beaten to death by a gang of cowardly thugs. Since Professor Swain is black herself, her brother is most likely black as well. So here we have an innocent black man, stomped to death by a gang. Where is Jesse Jackson? Where is Al Sharpton? Where are the demonstrators? Where, for that matter, is CNN?

As Professor Swain puts it:

Black crime is a serious problem that stereotypes all black youth. And it must be dealt with by a united black community that stands up and says enough is enough. Unfortunately, too many of our media-appointed leaders have failed to vigorously condemn the attack of the six against the one. This is unfortunate.

Indeed it is. But if they condemn the attack, they have to recognize that maybe, just maybe, the thugs who attacked Justin Barker deserve punishment. And we can't have that, can we?

Jena 6: The Prosecutor Speaks

Via Ann Althouse, this New York Times op-ed by the much-maligned Jena 6 prosecutor, Reed Walters. All-in-all, he gives a pretty good account of himself, emphasizing some points that have been getting lost. Most importantly, he makes short work of something I've taken issue with myself: the characterization of the case as being about a "schoolyard fight."

Conjure the image of schoolboys fighting: they exchange words, clench fists, throw punches, wrestle in the dirt until classmates or teachers pull them apart. Of course that would not be aggravated second-degree battery, which is what the attackers are now charged with. (Five of the defendants were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder.) But that’s not what happened at Jena High School.

The victim in this crime, who has been all but forgotten amid the focus on the defendants, was a young man named Justin Barker, who was not involved in the nooses incident three months earlier. According to all the credible evidence I am aware of, after lunch, he walked to his next class. As he passed through the gymnasium door to the outside, he was blindsided and knocked unconscious by a vicious blow to the head thrown by Mychal Bell. While lying on the ground unaware of what was happening to him, he was brutally kicked by at least six people.

Imagine you were walking down a city street, and someone leapt from behind a tree and hit you so hard that you fell to the sidewalk unconscious. Would you later describe that as a fight?

Only the intervention of an uninvolved student protected Mr. Barker from severe injury or death. There was serious bodily harm inflicted with a dangerous weapon — the definition of aggravated second-degree battery. Mr. Bell’s conviction on that charge as an adult has been overturned, but I considered adult status appropriate because of his role as the instigator of the attack, the seriousness of the charge and his prior criminal record.

Precisely. The defenders of the Jena 6 keep using that term because of the image it creates: two young men engaged in equal combat. I'm actually probably a bit more indulgent of the classic schoolyard fight than most school officials these days. But youthful fisticuffs used to be governed by a code of honor, and the Jena 6 attackers don't know the meaning of the word.

Jena 6: The Facts Do Matter

You know, I'd be a lot more inclined to share the outrage in the Jena 6 case if the outraged people were a bit more careful about the facts. Case-in-point: Amina Luqman's Friday Washington Post column. This is Luqman's summary of the facts:

The basic points are these: In the predominantly white town of Jena, La., white students hung three nooses last September after black students sat under a schoolyard tree where white students normally congregated. The white students were suspended for three days. After black students protested peacefully, the LaSalle Parish district attorney threatened them, saying: "I can make your life go away with a stroke of a pen." Eventually there was a schoolyard fight in which a white student was beaten; he was treated for a concussion and multiple bruises. Although the student was well enough to attend a school function the same evening, six black boys between the ages of 15 and 17 were arrested, five of whom were charged as adults with attempted murder and conspiracy.

Where to start? Luqman ignores the beating took place several months after the noose incident. Ignores the fact that the District Attorney's comment was made after there had been several racially-tinged fights on campus, and that there is a factual dispute as to whether the "stroke of a pen" statement was directed toward just the black students or the entire student body.

Likewise, the characterization of the attack on Justin Barker as a "schoolyard fight," while not uncommon, is so misleading as to be tantamount to a lie. The word "fight" implies some degree of mutual combat. Justin Barker appears to have been coldcocked and stomped on by a group of attackers. Mychal Bell, had multiple prior convictions. The "school function" that he attended that night was a once-in-a-lifetime ceremony at a small-town school. This would have taken, what, ten minutes of googling? Or the two minutes it took to read my summary of the facts.

So why didn't Luqman bother? Because actually sitting down and thinking about the facts introduces ambiguity, uncertainty, shades of grey. Because you might not be so sure where you stand after a while. But Luqman prefers righteous indignation:

This language presumes a legitimacy to both sides, a fair fight. Yet there is nothing balanced or fair about what is happening to these boys. Black Americans crave the same outrage the media rained down on Michael Vick for his unjustified abuse of dogs. For mainstream America, Vick's actions were beyond debate. "How could he be so cruel?" we lamented. Whatever the reason, mainstream America said clearly that what Vick did was wrong. Shouldn't America be at least as appalled by how Jena has treated these six black teens?

Maybe America should be more appalled by what these six black teens are accused of doing. And by the fact that many of their defenders don't seem to care.

Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?

In the past, I have been critical of President George W. Bush, but I do try to be fair. For example, just this morning I went after some people who criticized President Bush in a particularly stupid way. But this latest report is deeply weird, and even a bit creepy. Creepy in the "Oh my God, this man controls nuclear weapons," way.

It's based on something in the book Dead Certain, which I own but have yet to read. According to Hilzoy at Obisidian Wings, Sid Blumenthal's review in Salon takes note a very odd practice: Josh Bolton, White House Chief of Staff, greets President Bush with the phrase "Thank you for the privilege of serving today." Every. Morning.

I honestly have trouble believing this. It has to be another plastic turkey, doesn't it? I am willing to believe that this is a bizarre hoax, or that Draper just made it up. Or even that Blumenthal read it wrong -- maybe he said it once, and that got transmuted into saying it every day. I would suggest it was some kind of ironic inside joke, but somehow I get the feeling that Bush doesn't do irony.

Because the alternative is even worse. The alternative is believing that Bolton really does this every day, and that Bush lets him do it. Likes it, even.

Now if Josh Bolton were really poor, and he had to engage in this kind of obsequious display in order to feed his kids, I would understand. But I'm pretty sure he could find lucrative private sector employment. So, what kind of man is willing to do this sort of belly-crawling on a daily basis? Possibly even thinking it is appropriate to do so. Is that the kind of person we want as one of the President's principal advisors?

That's a rhetorical question, by the way. The answer is "no."

Letting somebody do this us really bad management. One problem in Washington D.C. is that "you are wrong" is not a phrase that powerful people are accustomed to hearing. But, from time to time, it's a phrase they need to hear. One of the worst choices that any political leader can make it to hire flatterers and yes-men. Anybody who greets his boss like that deserves to have his face in the dictionary under the word brown-noser. If I were President (stop laughing) and my Chief of Staff said that to me, I'd bust out laughing and tell him to get a hold of himself. If he did it for three days in a row, I would tell him that the pressure of the job was just too much, and he ought to spend some more time with his family.

Worse: what kind of man accepts that sort of obsequious display on a daily basis? As Hilzoy says:

Stop and think for a moment: if your assistant greeted you every morning with the words "Thank you for the privilege of serving today", how would you respond? I think I'd make light of it the first day, but if it continued, I'd say: I appreciate the compliment, but it's really not necessary. If, God forbid, my assistant went on saying it, I would at some point have to sit him or her down and explain that it made me uncomfortable. The one thing I really can't imagine is letting someone go on saying that day after day. It's just too crazy.

No shit.

The fact -- if it really is a fact -- that President Bush accepts this degrading ritual is most disturbing. What kind of man allows that? Even likes it? It sounds like something a meglomaniac would demand, or a Third World dictator. Not the President of the United States.

This is just psychotic.

UPDATE: Rising Hegemon says something I thought but didn't quite have the guts put into words: "You can literally see Bolten already in the next room masturbating." As one of his commenters says, "Eeeeeeewwwwww."

Jena 6 -- More Fact, More Thoughts

The Jena 6 have hit the big-time, now, with several A-List bloggers chiming in. Instapundit, Megan McArdle, and Orin Kerr over at Volokh have all weighed in, now. I think that all of them share Professor Kerr's sense that it's hard to get a sense of what the real facts are. One of the -- many -- things about the pro Jena 6 activists that rubs me wrong is their absolute certitude about what the facts are, when there is a great deal murk to the whole thing.

As I noted earlier, this case is a situation in which everybody has to be on the lookout for "confirmation bias" -- the natural human tendency to view the facts in the light most favorable to preexisting beliefs. It's quite possible that I myself fell for that, to some degree, when I wrote my Cowardly Thugs post. At the time I wrote that post, I was not aware that some claims of factual innocence had been made. Since then, my position has evolved somewhat. I read one report that, if true, would raise serious questions as to the procedural fairness of Bell's trial.

While I still suspect these are the guys who did the deed, if I were writing my Cowardly Thugs post today, I would clarify that Barker's attackers are cowardly thugs, whoever they might turn out to be. That is, I would admit to at least some uncertainty as to their guilt. I still think that a one-against-many beatdown is cowardly, but I admit of some uncertainty as to whether these guys are the cowards in question.

Since my prior posts on this matter, a couple of interesting factual tidbits have come my way. First, this local article, which I found courtesy of Kevin at Megan McArdle's, as well as this informative writeup bit by a local minister, via Steve Sailer.

The local news article helps to flesh out some of the facts, and also exposes a perspective I've tried to highlight here: that of the victim:

All you hear is, 'Justice for the Jena Six,'" David Barker said of his son's case. "I wouldn't mind justice for the one. It doesn't matter the race -- what matters is what happened to our son."

Absolutely right. The victim is getting lost in all this -- lost or even attacked. While claims of racism need to be addressed, too many people are losing sight of the fact that there was a real-live victim here. Even worse, some people are going so far as to claim that he deserved it. For example, one of my own commenters said, Caps Lock and all, "SOMETHING TELL ME JUSTIN WILL THINK TWICE BEFOR HE GOES CALLIN BLACK PEOPLE NIGGERS. " One of Megan's commenters was equally vile in his sentiments, if more literate: "First, the kid who was beaten was taunting the students. If you taunt someone and you get your ass kicked - it's your own fault."

These constant attempts to claim that Barker wasn't really hurt all that badly, or that he deserved it, or that a tennis shoe isn't a deadly weapon -- as if his attackers took off their shoes and slapped him with them, rather than stomping on him on the ground -- really rub me the wrong way. And it is 100% clear that if the races were reversed in this case -- if a group of white football players stomped on a black kid -- the folks who are trying to minimize the victim's injuries would be howling for blood.

Eddie Thompson, a local minister, has penned a very informative essay about the controversy, which I commend to my readers in full. Interestingly, Thompson admits that Jena has problems with racism and bigotry, and he seems to think that the Jena 6 were overcharged, which is probably reasonable. But he also provides a firsthand perspective not always reflected in media and blogger accounts.

Granted, some of his points are a bit, uh, trivial. For example, he says that there were two nooses, not three, in the infamous tree. Well, OK -- the point is that there were nooses. The exact number isn't critical.

But other factual claims are certainly interesting, if in fact they are true. For example, as I noted in my synopsis of the background facts, it has been widely reported that the students who put up the nooses were given a short in-school suspension. Thompson claims this isn't true, or at least it's not complete:

The actions of the three white students who hung the nooses demonstrate prejudice and bigotry. However, they were not just given “two days suspension” as reported by national news agencies. After first being expelled, then upon appeal, being allowed to re-enter the school system, they were sent to an alternative school, off-campus, for an extended period of time. They underwent investigations by Federal and Sate authorities. They were given psychological evaluations. Even when they were eventually allowed back on campus they were not allowed to be a part of the general population for weeks.

If true, this suggests that the original noose-hangers were not given just given a slap-on-the-wrist. And he adds some disturbing details about the fight itself and its aftermath:

There was no “fight” on December 4, 2006 at Jena High School, as the national media continues to characterize the event in question. Six students attacked a single student who was immediately knocked unconscious. According to sworn testimony, they stomped him, as he lay “lifeless” upon the ground.

Justin Barker, the white student attacked, was not the first white student targeted by these black students. Others had been informed they were going to be beaten, but stayed away from school and out of sight until they felt safe.

CNN reported that there were “obviously no witnesses to the fight.” In fact, over thirty eyewitnesses, students and teachers, were questioned immediately following the attack, all of who implicated one or more of the black students arrested in the case. In fact, some of the accused black students did not stop stomping Barker until they were pulled away from him by some of the teachers, according to testimony given in the trial of Mychal Bell.

The media continues to make the point that Justin Barker “attended a party” later that evening, insinuating that his injuries were not very severe. The Barkers, by no means a wealthy family, face medical bills already over $12,000 from the emergency room visit. Imagine what an overnight visit would have cost. Justin Barker was advised to remain hospitalized but decided he would not let the event keep him from participating in the once-in-a-lifetime, traditional Ring Ceremony at First Baptist Church in Jena, where class rings are presented to the upcoming senior class.

[Formatting altered somewhat because I'm too much of a klutz to duplicate his exact format on Blogger.] All of this, I think, points to the brutality of the attack, and the unfairness of using the fact that Barker attended a ceremony that night against him. Particularly disturbing is the allegation that the attack wasn't some spontaneous outburst brought on by Barker's taunting, but was instead premeditated.

And he supports what those of us night blinkered by our ideology have already figured out. These kids are not a bunch of angels, but are instead a bunch of juvenile delinquents who have been coddled because they're football players:

The “Jena Six” have repeatedly been held up as heroes by much of the race-based community and called “innocent students” by the national media. Some of these students have reputations in Jena for intimidating and sometimes beating other students. They have vandalized and destroyed both school property and community property. Some of the Jena Six have been involved in crimes not only in LaSalle Parish but also in surrounding parishes. For the most part, coaches and other adults have prevented them from being held accountable for the reign of terror they have presided over in Jena. Despite intervention by adults wanting to give them chances due their athletic potential, most of the Jena Six have extensive juvenile records. Yet their parents keep insisting that their children have never been in trouble before. These boys did not receive prejudicial treatment but received preferential treatment until things got out of hand.

This article says it all. Mychal Bell was on probation until his 18th birthday for a battery which occurred on Christmas Day, 2005. In early September of 2006 -- just a few months before the Jena 6 attack -- Bell was "adjudicated" for battery and criminal damage to property. A few days later, he rushed for 108 yards and three touchdowns.

Another Stupid Attack On George W. Bush

I am a frequent and harsh critic of President George W. Bush -- I think he's screwed up in so many ways I won't even try to name them all. Nor is he particularly eloquent.

But Ann Althouse is right -- "you have to will yourself into idiocy not to understand what he means here." The folks at Think Progress are hacking away to George W. Bush for supposedly asserting that Saddam Hussein killed Nelson Mendela, when in fact Mandela remains very much alive.

For the literal-minded, let me explain it. He's saying that people who might play a role in Iraq similar to the role Mandela played in South Africa are dead, because Saddam Hussein killed them. Not Mandela himself, but Iraqis like Mandela. This is what is known as a "metaphor." The tipoff, maybe, was when he "Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas" referring to more than one possible Mandela. If you don't understand he's being metaphorical, the statement makes no sense at all. Unless, that is, you imagine that George W. Bush thinks that South Africa has a clone army of Mandelas, which Saddam Hussein wiped out.

There are all sorts of really good things to criticize George W. Bush about. Why do people waste their time on idiocy like this?

UPDATE: Opinionjournal links to this Reuters article which makes the same dumbass mistake.

No Enemies To The Left

Ann Althouse links to this "scary, weird" Jane Hamsher post over at Firedoglake. Hamsher is mad because Elizabeth Edwards criticized MoveOn.org over the Petraus/Betrayus advertisement. I mean, Hamsher is really, really, mad. And she lays down the law:

So here’s the rule. You never repeat right wing talking points to attack your own, ever. You never enter that echo chamber as a participant. Ever. You never give them a hammer to beat the left with. Just. Don’t. Do. It.

I can't even begin to catalogue the things that are wrong and creepy, and really off-putting about this statement. And it's not an isolated theme on Hamsher's part -- she links to two of her own prior statements taking the same view. Here's what she said a year ago:

First of all — I don't care if John Kerry was eating live babies on TV, one week out from an election you do not repeat GOP talking points. Ever.

And lest anybody think she didn't mean it, in her most recent post, Hamsher linked to this prior statement and quoted herself at length -- including the "eating babies" part.

Note one thing Hamsher doesn't say -- or at least if she did, I sure missed it. She didn't say to avoid Republican talking points which are wrong, or misguided, or unfair, or stupid. She seems to be saying one shouldn't concede points even if they are true. Granted, the part about "eating babies" is probably exaggeration for rhetorical effect, but we all agree (I think) that baby-eating is a bad thing, worthy of condemnation. The non-exaggerated version of the principle she seems to be articulating is "don't criticize the left, even when they're wrong."

To her, it's not about finding truth or getting the right answer. It's all about tactics, about rhetoric, about PR and fighting the partisan war of words. But mostly it's about getting power, power for its own sake.

I don't want to sound like I'm red-baiting, but isn't this a return to the old communist notion of the "party line"? The idea being that you don't express public disagreement with the party, even if you think the party line is wrong? I seldom see such strident demands for group loyalty among conservatives and libertarians.

Ultimately, this is the collectivist, totalitarian impulse: the desire to crush dissent and stifle debate. The demand for "unity" and group loyalty. It's this sort of Leninist approach to politics that resulted in the deaths of tens, if not hundreds of millions of innocent people in the 20th Century. If the "progressive" movement hopes to form any kind of humane, post-communist left, it is thinking like this that they have to abandon.