November 08, 2005
11/8: (D)-Day?
There are GOV elections in VA and NJ, CA and OH have inits on the ballot, and a handful of other states and cities will go to the polls as well. A substantial section of today's edition has been given over to following the last-minute gossip and maneuvers, but Hotline will have more: Be sure to keep checking Hotline On Call later in the afternoon, into the night, and (fingers crossed) maybe even later for the latest election upates.
Meanwhile, there's all kinds of political debate out there unrelated to today's races. Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has apparently been caught plagiarizing a blogger -- but the blogger doesn't actually mind. After months of lefty pavement-pounding on WMD intel failures, now a handful of conservative blogs are asking pointed questions about ex-Amb. Joe Wilson and, of course, the French. Why did Scooter Libby call up Tim Russert, and what does Laura Bush think of Karl Rove? A few bloggers report what they know. Meanwhile, the French riots are still news, while torture is back as a hot debate topic. And don't miss the return of the Blogger Spotlight.
ELECTION DAY '05: Which Candidates Are Praying Most For A Recount Scenario?
Liberal community blog Daily Kos has an open thread (i.e. a short post with a comment board open for free discussion) devoted to election day. At conservative community blog RedState, there is also an election day open thread.
At The Corner, NRO's John Miller writes, he'll be voting for VA AG Jerry Kilgore (R), but "alas, I suspect that Democrat [LG] Tim Kaine will be holding a victory party tonight. He predicts a GOV victory for Sen. Jon Corzine (D-NJ) over GOP businessman Doug Forrester as well, and defeat for all of Schwarzenegger's inits: "This looks like a day for the Ds."
VIRGINIA GOVERNOR: Virginia Is For Voters
Commonwealth Conservative's Chad Dotson, at RedState, on Kaine's polled lead: "I looked at the crosstabs, and immediately noticed about a dozen screwy numbers, starting with the fact that Democrats were way oversampled. Well, SurveyUSA has now admitted that their poll was screwed up. For all intents and purposes, the race for Governor remains a dead heat." 
Oliver Willis: "I'll note that the Kilgore's campaign tactic in the last two weeks is to scream that Kaine is 'liberal, liberal, liberal'... and Kaine has gone up in the polls."
One Man's Trash predicts a win for "Kilgore by the narrowest of margins... around half a percentage point." Blue Dog Steven Sisson predicts a 52-44 Kilgore victory. Meanwhile, Dotson is hosting a prediction contest.
Early last p.m., Daily Kos posted an MP3 of the GOP robo call (see 11/7 Blogometer), plus transcript. Swing State Project points out that the RGA specifically is behind the calls.
Dem-leaning Raising Kaine: "Yesterday afternoon and evening, even after the Kilgore campaign was fined by the State Board of Elections for its campaign shenanigans, many of us received yet ANOTHER phony Republican robocall aimed at suppressing Democratic turnout today."
While UVA prof Larry Sabato was out fielding reporters calls and offering election commentary, bloggers Rick Sincere, Waldo Jaquith and Norm Leahy took over his campaigns and elections class "to discuss the internet and bloggers and their impact on politics." Sincere has a full rundown, and notes: "We tried to address the future of blogging, and all of us pretty much agreed that it is not possible to say where political bloggers will be in even just a few years."
NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: Whichever Way You Vote, Just Vote For Change
At the official Corzine Connection blog, BOPnews' Matt Stoller writes: "I've been as sickened as anyone about the tone of this race. But three nights ago, I went to a house party on embryonic stem-cell research, and found that despite all the vicious negativity, we cannot afford to think that politics doesn't matter. It does." Liberal BlueJersey posts a Dem release asserting there are GOP "dirty tricks" afoot this a.m.
Conservative Enlighten-New Jersey agrees with a blogger who calls toend "one-party rule in Princeton Township. We second that notion and would extend the thought to include the entire state of New Jersey. It may be an uphill battle to curb government spending and bring meaningful property tax relief to the Garden state, but if you don't vote for change, there isn't any possibility we will get change."
NJ-based centrist Jeff Jarvis: "It's election day in New Jersey. I'm voting for Jon Corzine and I will have the rare chance in my Republican enclave of a town to vote for Democrats for the local board, which has been dominated by the GOP -- and a lot of snippiness -- for years. The problem is that even ... our Republicans, our town fathers and mothers spend like drunken Democrats. Power corrupts. Absolute power gets us parks that are lit like Nascar tracks, road projects that look like Donald Trump's driveway, open-space purchases that are utterly unnecessary, cars bigger and nicer than mine for town bureaucrats, and more ways to waste tax dollars."
Mindles Dreck, at libertarian Asymmetrical Information: "Don't you love a NJ gubernatorial campaign? Forrester and Corzine have been running negative ads for weeks, and the recent lot from Forrester have gone pretty personal, raising a morality charge dressed up as a conflict of interest (well -- okay, it is a conflict of interest, but that's not why it's airing). It reminds me of the good old days when the [Dem ex-Gov. Jim] Florio campaign ran an ad saying [GOP GOV opponent] Jim Courter had 'toxic waste in his backyard.'"
CALIFORNIA CABLE: How Bad Does Arnold Need This For '06?
CA-based Jayson Javitz, at PoliPundit: "I'd be stunned if *all* those measures were to pass. The MediaCrats simply have thrown too much money and muscle against them. Then again, I'd equally be as stunned if *all* those measures failed. We have ballot referendums out here every single election cycle. In almost every instance at least 1-3 conservative measures ... are adopted." Meanwhile, Mystery Pollster explains just how and why polling shows that Schwarzenegger's inits are likely to fail.
Damnum Absque Injuria's voter guide round-up is about twice as long as it was when we 1st wrote about it (see 11/3 Blogometer). Among the notable contributions is one from conservative Professor Bainbridge and DAI proprietor Xrlq himself.
Slate's Mickey Kaus makes up his mind to vote for Prop 77, Schwarzenegger's redistricting init., and explains his decision much the same way he explained his vote for Schwarzenegger in '03 -- in a few hundred list-laden words, plus crucial post-script caveats.
OHIO BALLOT: Or Reform It Later
Getting less attention out-of-state is OH's "Reform Ohio Now" inits. They include redistricting, but where the CA measure is backed by its GOP gov., the measures here are backed by Dems and liberal groups. At Rep. Brown's Grow Ohio, Tim Tagaris asks site readers to e-mail everyone they know with a letter he posts to the site. Meanwhile, a diarist at RedState makes a lengthy argument against the inits.: "The amendment package being sold to Ohio Voters as "Reform Ohio Now" has the potential to tarnish and trash the election procedures in Ohio which have been fair, open, fraud-free, and managed with integrity for most of Ohio's history." Conservative Bizzy Blog has posts on each of the issues being voted on. More at Ohio 2nd and Brewed Fresh Daily.
MIDTERMS '06: The Twelve-Year Itch?
Conservative FlynnFiles asks: "Does an '05 Democrat victory mean bigger things for Democrats in '06? Probably. But they shouldn't count on a reverse repeat of 1994. Between" WH'92 and the '94 midterms, Dems lost a GA SEN runoff, a TX SEN special election to replace Lloyd Bentsen, "scores of officeholders, including two U.S. senators," defected to the GOP, and lost "all of the major regularly scheduled '93 off-year contests. Nothing so dramatic has occurred in the lead-up to 2006's elections."
Lefty David Sirota writes at Huffington Post: "In a breathless, frightening, foaming-at-the-mouth diatribe on the right-wing fringe site" Newsmax, SBVT leader John O'Neill announces he is targeting SEN candidate/Rep. Bernie Sanders (I), in a letter Sirota writes is "filled with wild lies. The truth is, Sanders has been one of the most outspoken advocates for this nation's veterans." O'Neill writes, "with the unique rules of the Senate... where all it takes is one maverick Senator to really gum up the works, Sanders is about to turn into a dangerous liberal wrecking crew. Just like it was critical for us to stop John Kerry, it's now just as important that we stop Bernie Sanders from reaching the Senate." O'Neill asks readers to donate to the campaign of Sanders' GOP opponent, Lt. Col. Greg Parke.
FRENCH RIOTS: What's So Funny 'Bout De La Paix, L'Amour Et De La Sympathie?
A Captain's Quarters reader writes in to point out that "both American and French media sources warned of coordinated Islamist action against France in the weeks before the riot." On 9/27 AFP reported that an Algerian group had "issued a call for action against France"; a 10/19 Washington Post story warned of similar activity. CQ's Ed Morrissey concludes: "The Islamist connection might get ignored by the media now, but when it involved Iraq as a training base ... they had no hesitation in writing about it. One wonders why they have suddenly developed amnesia about it now."
Conservative Incite: "The real effects of the French riots will become apparent later on, and they will have less to do with the actions of the French State than with the actions of the international Islamic terrorist threat. The Islamic terrorists have long seen and understood the potential of using Europe's Muslim population to further their agenda, and have long had a significant presence in France. The scale and coverage of these riots, however, has probably surprised even them, and will encourage them to focus more of their efforts and resources on the promising European front."
Andrew Sullivan: "I'm concerned about Muslim extremism in Europe and fear the worst. But I have to say that the reporting so far from France does not conform very closely to fears of an explicitly Islamist insurrection."
Conservative Don Surber, on the Euro's 2-year low, coincident with the French riots: "I hate to admit this, but I am glad to see this hurting the wallets of Warren Buffett, George Soros and other unpatriotic Americans who bet against the dollar in wartime."
Liberal The Peking Duck writes: "Nothing is more depressing than seeing those on the right jump for joy over the Muslim youths rioting in Paris. They're thrilled because it confirms how dysfunctional and bad France is, and confirms that Muslims are animals. ... It's about poor disaffected youth on the fringes of society, warehoused in project housing with no hope and no future. The rioting may be totally wrong and inexcusable, but at least see it for what it is. It is not a 9/11-like attack, but the result of many years of stigmatization and poverty. First try to understand it, then criticize it. Is that too much to ask?"
In a post titled "Restrain your schadenfreude!" The Radical Centrist disagrees with that sentiment, but concedes: "I have to admit, there is a certain satisfaction oozing from many posts out there. Certainly of the 'I told you so variety.' Even more common are the breathless predictions of worsening, leading to raging conflict across the continent. No one has had the nerve to say it yet, but you know that a thousand hands are eager to type the words 'a quagmire for Chirac.'"
In a lengthy and much-commented upon 11/6 post, Lenin's Tomb calls the reaction of the American right "Islamophobia," and criticizes Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy for inflammatory rhetoric: "I should also point out that Sarkozy has not suddenly come to this rhetoric anew, as if prompted by the riots into an intemperate fury. He has been saying this stuff for months."
PENTAGON: From The Judge's Chambers To The Torture Chambers
In early summer, Amnesty Int'l released a report calling Gitmo a "gulag"; as the 6/2 and 6/3 Blogometers show, it was the subject of much debate between right and left bloggers. At Volokh Conspiracy, the pseudonymous Juan Non-Volokh revisits the question again, on account of the Washington Post's much-discussed report of secret prisons. While he supports the so-called McCain Amendment to protect military detainees/stop prisoner torture, he adds: "I would like to underline my ultimate position: Not every mass murder is comparable to the Holocaust. By the same token, not every secret detention is comparable to the Gulag. In my view, the overuse of such comparisons undermines our ability to recognize the varying magnitudes of various evils." At Crooked Timber, Kieran Healy snarks: "Nice to see a fine legal mind at work on such a hard problem. How difficult is it to enumerate the differences between what the U.S. is doing at the moment and what the Soviets did? Let's see. Millions of people are not being spirited away to labor camps in Siberia. Whole segments of society are not being brutally annihilated. Dick Cheney doesn't even speak Russian! QED, they are not gulags." Healy defends the Amnesty report as tactical, and concludes: "Juan thinks that Amnesty's 'hyperbole deadens the sensitivity to moral distinctions in public discourse.' To the contrary, his priorities on this issue are themselves evidence of a withered moral sensibility." At Balkinization, Marty Lederman responds to Non-Volokh as well, arguing that "there's no need to resort to recycling of ancient complaints about over-heated Amnesty International rhetoric that you already flogged to death five months ago. There are plenty of stories in the press every day now that would benefit from greater exposure." He lists a few such as Cheney and new CoS David Addington defending the use of waterboarding in the U.S. In the original Volokh Conspiracy post linked above, Juan Non-Volokh answers his critics.
Left-leaning Mark Kleiman writes at his recently rechristened blog -- now called The Reality-Based Community -- that while he could possibly, maybe find an exception to his opposition to torture (i.e. to prevent a terrorist attack), but considering "there are not such circumstances, I'm comfortable sticking with the absolute rule. Isn't it extraordinary how it's the people who reject moral relativism and insist on the black-and-white difference between good and evil who argue for making exceptions when it comes to torture?"
Righty radio talker Hugh Hewitt suggests that McCain's amendment will come back to haunt him: "McCain's opposition to Cheney will also be part of the GOP's electorate collective memory in 2008. McCain's problem is that many people view his every action as the product of self-serving calculation, and a need to be seen as being "apart" and "different." Even on the issue of harsh interrogation of detainees, McCain's very public approach based on his long imprisonment and suffering only reinforces his profile as a man who not insists on being heard, but insists on being seen as being heard."
WMD INTEL: Oh, The Theories You'll Hear
Tom Maguire passes along a report from the "interesting, sometimes accurate" World Net Daily, about ret. Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely saying "that Wilson mentioned" wife Valerie Plame's "status as a CIA employee over the course of at least three, possibly five, conversations" in the FNC green room in DC during '02. The Strata-Sphere compared transcripts, and found a half-dozen times between late '02 and early '03 when the 2 were on FNC from DC at close times.
James Lewis writes at right-leaning The American Thinker: "There are an amazing number of French fingerprints all over the Plame-Wilson affair. ... The truth about the French connection came out when [Italian middleman Rocco] Martino confessed in court that the French had given him the forged document to peddle to various intelligence agencies," as a "stink bomb" to blow up in the U.S.'s face and avert the war. That failed, Lewis writes, and so: "Enter our hero, Joseph C. Wilson, from stage left. ... Did French intelligence urge Wilson to make his trip and enlist his wife Valerie to propose him? Without that trip ... Wilson had no special claim to any expertise about Saddam's weapons. It was Valerie Plame who was the CIA WMD expert, but it was Wilson who became the front man." Conservative Macsmind writes, according to the Senate Intel report, "there is no doubt that Wilson went in 1999 (under the guise of investigating a 1998 deal), to broker what I believe were ongoing sales of Uranium from Niger to other rogue nations including Iraq. Of course detractors note that since France controlled the mines, this would be impossible, but the findings of the Oil for Food Scandal are shedding a differing light on COGEMA. In essence, what you had was a "cake" laundering operation, and the "washing machine" was the cache located at Al Tuwaitha. So long as the amount remained the same, no one would ever know." Mark Noonan, at Blogs for Bush: "The deeper you go into this story, the worse it gets for everyone except President Bush and team." Meanwhile, The Left Coaster's eRiposte argues (in a much longer post) that there really was no French connection: "The evidence shows that he was working partly for the French Government but only as a source for them. He wasn't hired by the French to disseminate his materials to other agencies or groups. He was trying to sell them the information. Also, this claim deliberately obscures the fact that the French intelligence was not the source of the CIA's first three Niger intel reports, it was SISMI [the Italian agency]."
AEI scholar Michael Ledeen, himself sometimes insinuated in the forgery scandal by liberal bloggers, writes his own account of these theories for NRO, channeling late CIA counterintel dir. James Jesus Angleton. Matt Yglesias responds to Ledeen: "The fascinating thing about this theory (aside from some basic plausibility problems), to me, is what it implicitly says about the Bush administration. They were not only so gullible, so eager to hear what they wanted to hear, that they could be duped by crude forgeries, but this level of gullibility was so intense that Jacques Chirac and co. could count on it sufficiently to pass them forgeries that were deliberately made crude and unconvincing."
In recent weeks, "Hardball" has focused closely on Rove, Libby and the rest of Plamegate. This week host Chris Matthews is revisiting questions about how the Bush admin. sold the war. Crooks and Liars posts video from a segment on the 11/7 show.
BROWN VS. HACKETT: It Could've Been Worse -- At Least It Wasn't A "Neil Tennant Moment"
Cleveland Plain Dealer's Koff reports this a.m., a letter from Rep. Sherrod Brown was 90% "plagiarized" from a recent post by liberal blogger/labor activist Nathan Newman. Brown spokesperson Joanna Kuebler "said she found Newman's work when researching labor issues. Brown's legislative staff confirmed its accuracy, and Brown then signed the staff-prepared letter. Added Kuebler: "We should have cited it, and we didn't. The Republicans were rushing to confirm Alito, and we wanted to collect as much accurate information as quickly as possible." Quoted in the article, Univ. of Chicago prof/blogger Daniel Drezner compares it to Sen. Joe Biden's (D-DE) borrowings from British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock in his WH'88 bid.
For his part, Newman is angry at the Plain Dealer, not Brown: "So a Sherrod Brown staffer used some lines from one of my blog posts. Who frigging cares? This is a ridiculous story ... If the crime is plagarism, then you think they'd want to talk to the victim before running it. But what about the real victims, the workers denied minimum wage, family leave, or a day in court to challenge racial and gender discrimination because of Alito's decisions?" He adds: "This was hardly a literary blog post using deathless prose for the ages. It was the facts that made this post interesting, not its literary value."
Democracy Guy: "Sherrod wanted a letter on Alito, asked his staff, which like all good entrenched incumbent staffs is lazy, and so used to just trolling around on the blogosphere, they cut and pasted this column, and that was that. Who's gonna know? ... There's a lot about Sherrod's use of the blogosphere that should be disclosed, but isn't."
BLOGS VS. THE MSM: Revving Up Russertgate?
Attempting to answer the question of what Libby had called Russert to complain about back in the summer of '03, Kausfiles "hears, through trustworthy and knowledgeable sources, that in his conversation with Russert Libby gave vent to the archetypal (and wrongheaded) charge that Matthews was animated by anti-Semitism -- presumably because Matthews talked a lot about 'neoconservative' Bush aides and war supporters ... If that was Libby's complaint, it would help explain why NBC wanted to keep quiet about its exact contents. Not only does it potentially bring up a wild, hard-to-refute issue that the network would rather not have to deal with -- but Libby's jag is also something you wouldn't forget, or make up, which would make Russert's testimony extremely convincing at trial." Kaus contacted Matthews, who would confirm nothing, but said: "Scooter thinks anytime anybody uses the word 'neoconservative' it's anti-Semitic. ... I'm sorry. It's an ideological term." TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt calls it an "interesting theory," considers exceptions or problems with the theory, but ultimately lets it stand on its own.
Conservative Hugh Hewitt: "On the day of the indictment, I asked on air how Russert can be allowed to cover a major trial in which he will be a central witness. It is a conflict-of-interest as big as the Titanic, with a Titanic-like result possible for NBC's reputation."
BLOGS VS. THE FEC: Tonering It Down
Last week, FEC commish Michael Toner (R) posted to RedState a message of support for HR 1606, which aimed to head off possible new FEC regs. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) -- another recent RedState contributor (see 11/3 Blogometer) -- was defeated. Now FEC co-commish Scott Thomas (D) has a post up at RedState explaining his opposition to the bill. In the first comment, Skeptic's Eye's Allison Hayward posts a rebuttal.
BLOGGERS VS. BLOGGERS: Bananas In Pajamas?
Accidental Verbosity's Jay explains his decision not to participate in the soon-to-launch Pajamas Media network: "I was excited by the original PJ concept. I grew more skeptical over time, and what it ended up being bore limited resemblance to the plan as presented to me in one of the early NDA invitations. Change isn’t automatically bad, as things sometimes don’t work out as expected or prove viable, but it looked too different, and lost the main incentive it had for many of us: shared revenue and clout for distributed advertising across many small blogs." Picking up on that post, Bogus Gold agrees: "I wish this kind of endeavor much success. But I'd be lying if I said I thought Pajamas Media's specific venture struck me as sound. I'm sure I lack the understanding of those closer to the project, but the product that is emerging strikes me as a guaranteed loser. Best case scenario? Much like the dot-com boom produced a number of well-financed failures which made a lot of people rich despite the implosion of the businesses underlying them, Pajamas Media might squeeze some sizable quick bucks out of some big players before they disappear." Meanwhile, The Classless Society's Scott Ferguson calls attention to PJM founder/LGF blogger Charles Johnson's "obsession" with Islamic violence, linking to a Google search backing up his point. He adds: "To be fair, most of the estimated 133,000 drops are not unique. According to Google (at the time this was posted), only 908 are. Still, it does show a wee bit of tendentiousness in this soon-to-be-major-media-executive's viewpoint regarding a religion with more than 800 million believers." PJM launches next week; among the latest contributor bios posted to their site are those for Michelle Malkin, WSJ's Claudia Rosett and the "Matt Drudge of porn," Luke Ford.
In a post encouraging Bush to fight back against his Dem detractors, Power Line's John Hinderaker wrote: "The Democrats are mounting the most scurrilous political campaign that has been seen in American politics since the Civil War." Right-leaning Andrew Sullivan gave the quote his "MALKIN AWARD NOMINEE (for shrill right-wing hyperbole)." Left-leaning Brendan Nyhan: "So apparently, Democratic criticism of the war in Iraq is more scurrilous than, say, the defenses of segregation offered by Strom Thurmond or George Wallace."
BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: The Bald And The Beautiful
Today the Blogometer talks to conservative Juliette Ochieng, who writes Baldilocks.
What is your full name?
Juliette Akinyi Ochieng
What is your age?
44
Where did you grow up?
Los Angeles, CA
Where do you live now?
Los Angeles, CA
What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?
Retired Air Force (Active Duty and Reserve). No[, no campaign work].
When did you start blogging and why?
July 2003. I had been reading blogs for about a year and had been thinking "I could do that," so I did.
What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?
The bogus AWOL accusation leveled at George W. Bush exposed a mainstream media so ignorant and disdainful of the American military that the media thought it knew military rules and regulations better than the military itself did. It was a pleasure to write those posts and disseminate information from a knowledgeable standpoint.
Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?
I am a very undisciplined blogger, but that's changing. I find that my writing gets better and more enjoyable if I set myself to a schedule (first thing in the morning). Getting caught up in reading the writing of others is the biggest hindrance to that schedule.
One to three posts per day is roughly the usual. I also think that it's mandatory to skip one or two days of posting; a "weekend," though not necessarily falling on the traditional weekend and not necessarily consecutive days.
Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?
Right now, Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom. He's tenacious. And funny. And weird. A great combination.
Non-political blogging? What's that?
Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?
Christopher Hitchens
What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?
"Special Report with Brit Hume"
What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?
New York Times, Washington Post, Yahoo News, Times of London and others.
What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?
Little Green Footballs, Protein Wisdom, Instapundit and others.
How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?
Rarely; only when I'm separated from my computer. It will probably become never when I get a laptop.
How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?
The new media will make the old media more honest and the old will make the new more accurate.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Laura's Theme
Bull Moose Blogger/ex-GOPer/DLCer Marshall Wittmann: "The new CW contends that while Rove was a genius at winning elections, he is abysmal at governing. This wisdom will be advance by the Bush Kennebunkport clan in their Hatfields and McCoy-like feud with the Bush Crawford Clan. ... The Moose has reason to believe (he will do a 'Judy Miller' before he reveals his inside sources) that the First Lady holds this view." More: "Rove created the concept of Bush as a Governor and then as a President. However, the Bushies of K have always viewed him with suspicion. Not only has Karl been disappointing, but the other minder of Junior, Dicky C. has also let down the Kennebunkport bunch. As the President plummets, their views are in the ascendancy."
LEST WE FORGET: Maybe We Shouldn't Tell You There Are Blue Balls Linked In This Post
Trust us, just click here. And make sure the volume is turned up.
Posted by at November 8, 2005 12:43 PM
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