September 09, 2005

9/9: Katrina, Katrina

Hurricane Katrina shows no sign of diminishing as the most contentious issue in the blogosphere. This may change some when the SCOTUS hearings for John Roberts begin next week, but don't expect the recriminations and ruminations re: the destruction of New Orleans and a big part of the Gulf coast to go anywhere soon.

Thanks to a Time investigation into the truth behind FEMA dir. Michael Brown's resume, he ends the week about where he began: reviled by the left and hung out to dry by the right. Regardless of whether Pres. Bush sticks by him, his reputation is destroyed. Plus, this a.m. brings a possible development in the Rove-Plame-Miller investigation and some embarrassing news for '06 and '08 candidates alike. Plus, the blogs most responsible for promoting the CBS Memogate scandal mark its 1-year anniv.

Plus, last weekend we attended part of the 3-day EschaCon convention in Philly for liberal bloggers and commenters to the popular lefty blog Eschaton. Our report is below; to go there directly, click here.

FEMA: The Unsinkable Mikey Brown?

Where the blog swarm is headed, who's taking part, and what they're saying:

• In an online-only report, Time reveals that Brown's resume is not what it appeared to be. He claimed a professorship, but at best he only served as an adjunct instructor while still a student. He claimed to have experience "overseeing" emergency services, but the job was more like that of an "intern." Brown also claimed a directorship at an OK nursing home that the management strenuously denies, and he apparently exaggerated his legal experience.
  
  

  >> From the left Public policy prof Mark A.R. Kleiman suggests that Brown may have "committed a felony" by tampering with his resume, a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1001, making him "eligible for up to five years of free room and board at the taxpayers' expense." L.A.-based lefty Marc Cooper: "George W. Bush's FEMA looks with every passing moment more and more like Fahrenheit 451's "Fire Department." It's specialty seems to be creating disasters, rather than managing them. "Oliver Willis writes, Bush turned "FEMA into nothing more than an extension of the campaign war chest handing out our tax dollars to his crony pals -- never giving a damn that they should actually be qualified for their positions. Now, people are dead." Josh Marshall: "You can't make this stuff up. Or, I guess, maybe that's not the best line in this case." Steve Gilliard points out a "devastating expose" in The New Republic, where UC-Boulder law prof Paul Campos determines "'exactly what, given Brown's real biography, he is qualified to do.' The answer, not surprisingly, is very little." Atrios posts a photo of Gareth from BBC's "The Office," comparing Brown to the character, with the caption: "Assistant TO the manager."
  

  >> From the right (and center-right) Conservative Betsy Newmark: "I think that K Lo's prediction that he was going to resign on Friday saying that he had become more and more of a distraction from relief efforts is looking more and more likely. ... The only thing that seems to be protecting him now is that to fire him would be to give in to Bush's critics, something he is usually loath to do. So, ironically, criticism from people like [House Min. Leader Nancy] Pelosi is helping Brown." L.A.-based righty Matt Szabo writes, although "failure to do one's job -- especially when it contributes to the deaths of thousands -- should be reason enough to be fired," now Bush "finally has the face-saving excuse he needs to dump" Brown. Reason's Matt Welch: "I think I can speak for most college dropouts when I say that there are few flavors of schadenfreude more tasty than watching some Type A kiss-ass get caught with a padded resume."

NRO's Eric Pfeiffer uncovers the official "FEMA for Kidz Rap."

RESPONSE: N.O. Diggity

• There is no consensus re: a New York Times story this a.m. evaluating the political considerations involved in the WH and LA gov't responses to Katrina in the early going.
  

  >> Liberal Arch Pundit: "I'm pretty sure you could drive some trucks over the Crescent City Connector, take the first exit and drop off food and water. Or if you really didn't think that was an option, drop it off the damn bridge. I'm very aware the Louisiana National Guard could have done the same thing -- but the Feds could have too..." Daily Kos' Armando, on the WH's reticence to take away Dem Gov. Kathleen Blanco's authority: "This was not a novel legal issue. This was settled. What is was about was politics. 'Political implications.' That drove them. States rights again. Who gives a shit about political implications when people are dying? The Bush Administration, that's who. ... Politics first. Always for BushCo. It's all they know."
  

  >> Noting that Blanco said "Nobody told me that I had to request" soldiers from the U.S. gov't, conservative PrestoPundit suggests she "should be impeached," as she "now admits herself that she doesn't know the high school basics of the American Federal system." At Wizbang, Kevin Aylward asks readers to "unleash your inner moonbat" and do the best imitation of a left-wing blog post blaming the Bush admin: "For the sake of your post assume that Bush did invoke the Insurrection Act and seized control of the Louisiana National Guard. Your assignment is to describe that historic takeover in the style of either Kos or Atrios."
  

  >> Mickey Kaus, who has been arguing the federalism angle already (see 9/7 Blogometer) But why should the Bushies even have the federalist excuse? Why should there be any doubt that the President can take command of a relief effort within our own country? Other countries, I suspect, don't have this hangup. Nor does private industry. Again, does UPS need to meet a special legal standard in court before it can take control of one of its branch offices?"

A number of right-leaning bloggers are upset by reports (courtesy the New York Times) that N.O. officials are seeking to seize residents' firearms, but private security contractors could keep theirs. NRA radio talker/blogger Cam Edwards: "Talk about class warfare." UCLA law prof Eugene Volokh: "Is there some implicit emergency exception to the right to bear arms here? On the other hand, doesn't the emergency make the right especially valuable to the rightsholders?" The Spoons Experience: "Some of these people are no doubt alive today at least in part because they had those guns. And some of these people are... cranky."

Yesterday we noted that FNC's Major Garrett did a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt in which he reported that LA DHS turned away Red Cross aid the afternoon after Katrina passed. On last p.m.'s "Special Report," Garrett followed up with a full report. An LA official appears to defend their decision; their thinking was that bringing in supplies would induce people to stay when the goal was to evacuate them. The Political Teen hosts video. UK-based libertarian Samizdata: "The job of aid agencies is to supply aid. It is not to tell people what to do. It is not to kidnap people from their homes. It is not to violate their Second Amendment rights and steal their property. It is not to prevent people from creating spontaneous order. It is not to prevent those who attempt to evacuate themselves from doing so." On the other side of the aisle, liberal Corrente asks: "Did we not know that they were prevented from delivering them by a combination of the intensity of the on-going damage in New Orleans, which extended into the second day after Katrina had moved on, and the lack of a mode to deliver supplies to those trapped in a city largely underwater? So, what has Major Garrett added to this narrative. Presumably, it's the fingering of the state government of LA as the ones responsible for all the went wrong in New Orleans by the Red Cross itself."

Harvard's Juliette Kayyem points out at TPM Cafe that Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) discussed evacuation plans at Brown's confirmation hearing to become dep. dir. of FEMA, and that Brown said state and local gov'ts are "looking to us for leadership. They are looking to FEMA to tell them where are the holes in response plans?"

A few conservative bloggers point readers toward a photo-illustration identifying unused buses that could have been used to evacuate, clear roads despite flooding elsewhere in the city, and areas with available food that could have been delivered to the Superdome. A caption at the top exclaims: "There was a massive State and Local failure!" Ramblings' Journal: "The Crescent City Connection is the tall bridge over the Mississippi River. The bridge and the access ramps to the bridge have remained accessible from downtown New Orleans. That is how the rescue vehicles accessed New Orleans once they arrived. This overhead shot shows buses that were NOT underwater, yet were not used to evacuate people in the Superdome or in the Convention Center. The magic question: why!?"

Liberal Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte calls attention to a header at The Conservative Voice asking: "Are Blacks to Blame for New Orleans Disaster?" Marcotte: "You can imagine what the answer is." TCV's post quotes black conservative Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson saying: "Black people died not because of President Bush or racism, they died because of their unhealthy dependence on the government and the incompetence" of Blanco and N.O. Mayor Ray Nagin (D).

PoliPundit's Jayson Javitz, on a DSCC fundraising appeal inspired by Bush's handling of Katrina: "Again, folks, modern-day leftism is not a political ideology. It's a mental disorder."

KATRINA: Caught In The Gulf Stream

Liberal Joystory declares: "New Orleans must stop pumping now!" "Scientists are warning that if they follow through with the plan to pump the water out of the city and back into Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi, there will be a massive contamination of the lake, river, delta and Gulf ecosystem that could have untold repercussions on the entire food chain of the Gulf region. ... How much mayhem will these toxins do before cause and effect is even acknowledged let alone laws and regulations invoked to prevent further contamination, if by then it is even possible short of abandonment of the entire infected ecosystem for human habitation and food cultivation?"

Re: the New York Times' claim that Geraldo Rivera elbowed aside, of authorities to save an elderly woman, Johnny Dollar's Place hosts what it calls "all relevant footage of Geraldo's rescues from the home for retired nuns" and asks readers to make up their own mind.

Black conservative La Shawn Barber recalls a column she wrote about Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), who "wanted whoever was in charge of naming hurricanes to consider 'black' names like Keisha, Jamal and Deshawn. Self-esteem issues. Since the majority of refugees devastated by Hurricane Katrina are black, and Lee and her fellow [CBC] cronies believe the slow federal response was because they were black, I wonder if she's changed her mind?

Echidne of the Snakes comments on Bush's signing of an exec. order allowing contractors to pay below the "prevailing wage" in reconstruction contracts: "It's the contractors who will benefit if they can find people desperate enough to work for very little money. And what did Bush sign to curtail the contractors' profits from the hurricane? As far as I know, nothing at all."

Andrew Sullivan publishes a reader e-mail without comment: "[F]rankly, I'm stunned that not a single prominent Democrat has called for Bush's resignation. Apparently, the Democrats are just too cowed by their electoral losses, but it's still stunning. Not that Bush would actually resign, of course, but calling for his resignation would force Republicans up and down the line into the unenviable position of defending this indefensible incompetence. How long do you suppose the GOP would have waited to call for President Kerry's resignation?"

NRO's The Buzz attended MoveOn's Katrina-related protest outside the WH, posting photos, and reporting that there were "about 200 protesters on hand" with just 2 Katrina survivors in attendance, and "they kept their criticism somewhat muted when compared to the other protesters."

WHITE HOUSE '08: Gee, Rudy

Josh Marshall gives ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani a sarcastic "way to go" for "endors[ing]" Cincy mayoral candidate Charlie Winburn, "who says only born-again Christians should be elected to public office."

ROVE-PLAME-MILLER: Will Judy Crack?

Arianna Huffington writes at her Post: "This just in: Judy Miller's principled, absolute stand is crumbling." Huffington asked Miller atty Floyd Abrams about whether Miller was looking to cut a deal. Abrams' reply: "If there are any discussions, they would be private." Although Abrams also told her that Miller was "resolute" about not testifying, Huffington asks rhetorically: "If she is so 'resolute' why get all cutesy about it? Why not just say, 'No, she's not talking. And that's final'?" Because a "source with inside knowledge" tells her that the Times has received "additional legal advice very different" from Abrams', and that "there are definitely negotiations under way."

ANNIVERSARY: They'd Rather Be Exposing Forged Documents

Last p.m. Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs reminded readers: "One year ago tonight the Rathergate scandal broke, as CBS News and Dan Rather used obviously faked documents to try to influence the course of a presidential election -- and got caught red-handed." He re-posts his original animated GIF superimposing CBS's memo with the same text typed out on MS Word -- which early on helped persuade many that the memos were forgeries -- plus a link to LGF's CBS Killian Document Index.

Power Line's John Hinderaker dates the anniv. to this a.m.: "It was at 7:51 on the morning of Sept. 9, 2004, that Scott [Johnson] hit the 'save' button on the original version of 'The Sixty-First Minute,' that discussed the '60 Minutes' program on President Bush's National Guard service that had aired the previous evening ... now the most famous post in the young history of the blogosphere ... Have things changed in the ensuing year? Well, sure. I think the MSM are more careful about documents now, and perhaps about other claims that can readily be fact-checked. My own impression, though, is that, far from having ameliorated since last year, the liberal bias of the MSM has, if anything, worsened. I think the fact that alternative media now exist has prompted some reporters and editors to abandon even the pretense of objectivity."

ROBERTS: They're Moving On Roberts

Univ. of WI-Madison law prof Ann Althouse caught the USA Today report yesterday that MoveOn was going to go after CJ nominee John Roberts with an ad featuring Katrina-caused carnage, compares it to MoveOn's '04 objection to Bush using 9/11-related imagery in his campaign ads, and adds: "I'm lawyer enough to know how to make the argument that that is not rank hypocrisy, but, man, that is rank hypocrisy!" Later noting MoveOn's later statement that they had no such plans to do so, adds: "So what do you think? Never planned to do it or saw the criticism and changed?"

THE REPLACEMENTS: Al B. Sure

RedState's Erick Erickson, a GOP consultant who hears his share of whispering: "[W]hat I'm told is a reaffirmation of earlier reports -- [AG Alberto] Gonzales is not going to be the pick. The caveat as always is that 'POTUS is POTUS.' He will do as he wants. ... I'm told not to pin hopes or fears on Gonzales or [Edith] Clement or even Janice Rogers Brown. But, I have also been told not to write off [Michael] Luttig. [Edith] Jones is a possibility, but not a probability right now."

MISCELLANY: This Would Be News, But, You Know ...

• Radio Equalizer's Brian Maloney reports that while Air America "refuses to respond to Michelle Malkin and myself directly" -- the 2 have led investigative efforts -- "they're talking to others who publish follow-ups and news summaries. Their key tactic: outright issue deflection." As Al Franken is a possible future MN SEN candidate, he makes a note of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's treatment of the story, which he deems inadequate: "The story ignores our primary point: Franken claimed on the air in August he'd heard about the Gloria Wise payments just a week earlier. We have the transcript. But he signed the document last November which discusses the Gloria Wise 'loan.'"
• Fired Up! America reports on some interesting connections and possible misdeeds involving Rep. Tom DeLay, House Maj. Whip Roy Blunt, disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and associates involved in their leadership PACs.
• Power Line: "Will we ever find out what was going on with [ex-NSA Sandy] Berger's stealing documents from the National Archives? Does anyone care? Don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to get to the bottom of it."
• Pro-GOP Blogging for Bryant points out, TN SEN candidate/Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D) "has now put out 12 Hurricane Katrina-related press releases since last Wednesday 8/31," but "didn't bother to show up and vote" on major appropriation bills on 9/2 and 9/7, although he did issue more releases. More: "Maybe Ford should stop focusing so much on getting his name in the paper and start doing the job he was elected to do."
• Hit and Run's Ron Bailey, on Georgetown prof Edmund Pellegrino, Bush's new Bioethics Council chair: "The bottom line: Pellegrino's appointment as chairman of the President's Bioethics Council will, if anything, increase that body's opposition to a lot [of] biotechnological progress."
• MyDD's Chris Bowers builds on his report about left- vs. right-blogosphere traffic: "Two years ago, Instapundit had an audience three times larger than Daily Kos. Now, Daily Kos is the equal of nearly the entire conservative blogosphere."
• Pejman Yousefzadeh, at RedState, on the aftermath of the Volcker Report on Oil-for-Food: Kofi Annan is "trying to get ahead of any attempt to oust him by posing as a champion of U.N. reform. This, needless to say, simply won't do--especially given the less-than-frank manner in which the Secretary-General has dealt with the Volcker Commission (cf. Annan's reluctance to mention the role his son has had in the oil-for-food program). ... Annan can save himself by being a genuine reformer and putting his money where his mouth is. Let's see if he is willing to do so. If not -- and I suspect he won't -- let's have him leave."

DEMOCRATS: Among The Atriots

PHILADELPHIA -- This past weekend, the Blogometer traveled a few hours north to Philly -- home of Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa, Jonathan Franzen's Passafaro family, and Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack -- for the first annual EschaCon 2005, a gathering of liberal bloggers and blog readers known amongst themselves "Atriots" or "Eschatonians." Indeed, it's a fitting location for a convention of e-pamphleteering left-wing underdogs. More than that, the city is something of a Mecca for the left-blogosphere. Many gather on a regular basis for the popular happy hour Drinking Liberally, which has become a place to be seen for local Dem pols. Plus, 10 of the top 50 most-popular liberal blogs are based there. Number one among them is Eschaton, the long-running weblog of Duncan "Atrios" Black.

Unlike other community blogs -- we're thinking here of Daily Kos, MyDD and the conservative RedState -- Eschaton is a relatively simple website. The blogs just mentioned all use Scoop, a type of blogging software written specifically for community-oriented blogs; it is these sites that have enabled what bloggers call "diaries." By contrast, Black is still using the same Blogger account he started with in early 2002. Little has changed at the website in that time; he still uses the long-obsolete original template. The website's community aspect derives from the comment feature at the bottom of each post. Black's comments are powered by HaloScan, which in its free version -- which Black uses -- will not hold comments after a certain period, about a week on his blog. The comments on Atrios (Black's handle often substitutes for Eschaton as the name of the site) are ephemeral; the community exists with the participants.

The convention ran from a cocktail party on Friday evening to a softball game on Sunday afternoon, but we only attended the discussion panels on Saturday: the morning session featured bloggers talking strategy; the afternoon brought Dem pols and the campaign cmtes to meet with the attendees.

The morning panel comprised NTodd, a VT instructor who writes Dohiyi Mir and seemed a bit like a non-obnoxious Tom Green; Dem activist and early Sheehan-promoter Bob Fertik from Democrats.com; self-described "recovering economist" Black; ex-journalist/Suburban Guerrilla Susie Madrak, and Spin Dentist of All Spin Zone. The panel was moderated by Thersites from Metacomments, a NY-based English professor (also Donnelly's husband).

The original topic had been "Potential for Progressive Blogging," but just as with everything else last week, the horrors unfolding in New Orleans immediately took precedence. Anyone who has read the discussion boards at Eschaton would recognize the subject matter of the discussion that unfolded over the next 2 hours. But the tone was different. While the same calls came to "Impeach Bush!" (as were Fertik's well-received first words) they came without the same profanity, and without the same bitter edge. And despite the elevated status of the panelists up front -- Atrios included -- the audience was oftentimes more vocal than the panel.

Typically, the liberal blogosphere is no more complimentary of the MSM than conservatives are -- for different reasons -- but this weekend they were surprised to have some nice things to say, particularly about FNC's Shepard Smith. Madrak saw comparisons to the 90's when the elite media reached a point with then-Pres. Clinton where they had a "visceral disdain" for him; now Bush is in the same boat, saying: "I don't think this is going to go away." Media training for bloggers was an idea that made sense to the Eschatonians assembled. But what are bloggers, one asked: "para-journalists"? Madrak expressed her preference for the term "news concierge."

NTodd and others called attention to the Bush admin's "bending of time" and the use of different tenses when speaking to the media. Bush may say help is "on the way," but what about the help that wasn't there for days and days? An audience member added to the list of the WH's deceptive maneuvers the use of passive tense, such as when Bush says "the results are unacceptable" -- without actually saying whose results, or unacceptable to whom.

Black defended "politicizing" the hurricane. Calling for impeachment might not be the best course of action, but if blaming Bush helps, do it: "Politics is about trying to get things done." He argued, "We can make being a little shrill okay, make people used to the idea that Dems can be hardasses." Black also observed: "Democrats could win the House back easily if it became the Lou Dobbs party" -- anti-immigrant economic populists, as he described -- "But I don't want to be in that party."

As is the case with many progressive-left strategy discussions, the conversation fell to a Lakoffian framing-of-the-message debate. Fertik suggested a set of "Contract With America"-type promises to the voter summed up as "Fix America First." The concept went over well, except for a woman who stood up and admonished the crowd: "Fix America First is... horrible. I think it should be inherent in the phrase ... but it's too isolationist. We can't close down. And that would be broadcast all over the world."

Also present was New York Times columnist Paul Krugman -- affectionately known to Atriots as The Shrill One -- as an observer in the audience. Now that's the new media for you. Krugman had showed up unannounced, but when mentioned by a panelist, he stood, offered some thoughts, and joked that as a member of the media he was there strictly "out of non-partisan interests, of course." Krugman said that "bloggers can do stuff we [employees of the MSM] can't," i.e. calling attention to controversial stories the media has downplayed: "I'm enormously grateful and I couldn't do what I do without it."

The afternoon panel brought Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), who has worked to court the netroots as much as any member of Congress. Along with Sherrod Brown (D-OH) she is one of a few who have hired ex-Dean bloggers to coordinate their Internet efforts (see our 7/14 report on Slaughter's anti-Karl Rove BlogAds). Slaughter spoke as if at a particularly friendly, albeit dissatisfied, constituent meeting. While she and the Atriots had plenty of common ground -- Slaughter received copious clapter when she announced how she'd like to "slap Bush silly" -- she also had to explain why a walkout of House Dems wouldn't be a constructive move.

The most-popular candidate attending was Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war vet from the Philly burbs, a Paul Hackett-type self-proclaimed progressive. Murphy has had recent fundraising success, and was among the more interesting speakers, drawing acclaim for saying: "The president was fiddling his guitar while people were lying dead in the water. That's not leadership." And: "Leadership is leading from the front, where our president should be." Other Dems present were state Rep. Mark Cohen and PA SEN candidates Chuck Pennacchio and the lesser-known Alan Sandals. The 2 are challenging Treas. Bob Casey Jr. (D) for the nod; Casey is the only Dem SEN candidate to have not met with Philly progressives at Drinking Liberally.

Also in attendance were DNC's Jesse Berney and DCCC's Ali Wade -- both of whom gamely explained the Beltway approach to '06 before a somewhat unsympathetic crowd.

To the contrary of many who'd think the blogosphere is dominated by the young, the average age here was about 40, with many of them over the age 50. Of course the turnout here might reflect those with the means to come -- but then there didn't seem to be anyone below 30. Overall the Atriots are not much different from regular, middle-class Dem activists, albeit on the geeky side. And one happens to be a Benedictine monk. For participants' photos, see: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

As of late p.m. on 9/9, this version of the report should be considered the "Complete & Uncut" edition.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Outplay, Outwit, Outlast

Lefty Max Sawicky suggests "any funding failure as far as flood control goes is a decades-long, bipartisan, dare I say systemic thing. As in two-party democratic-capitalism (sic) systemic. [Ex-Pres.] Clinton's pissant $100 million program wouldn't have made any difference. It was more of his Administration's teaspoon liberalism, when what was needed was industrial-strength social democracy, something the public would not have accepted. That leaves the efficiency of evacuation and the rescue effort as the key issues. State and local government failed at evacuation, and the Feds failed to backstop evacuation. The Feds failed at rescue. Looking forward, I see the blossoming of survivalism."

LEST WE FORGET: Were We Laughing About 9/11 By Week Two?

Huffington Post's anti-Huffington Post contributor Greg Gutfeld concocts a "HUFFPO EMERGENCY BUSH BASH BLOG APPLICATION FOR THE VICTIMS OF ALL DISASTERS EVERYWHERE!" Questions include:

Do you always try to relate large-scale tragedies to your own life? Do you say things like,
_"Wow, I was just in New Orleans."
_"I had a connecting flight there."
_"I bought some beads in terminal 2."
_"I rented the Big Easy once. It was good."

Friday Bonus "Lest We Forget"!: Don't miss "Fafblog Presents: The Do-It-Yourself Emergency Management Guide!" Projects include: "Do-It-Yourself National Guard! First get some old socks. Sew on some buttons for the eyes. Use yarn for the hair but keep it trimmed short on accounta discipline!"

Posted by at September 9, 2005 12:39 PM