Author Page for Scott Lemieux

Two Words: In. Ept.

While it is well-known that Michael Brown was a hack political appointee utterly lacking in relevant experience, I did not know that he does not even seem to have been able to do his irrelevant former job:

The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.
And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.
The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.
[...]

Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures.

So Bush’s choice to head FEMA was a guy whose job overseeing horse shows ended in a hail of lawsuits? Did I just wake up in a Carl Hiassen novel? Not that you would know this from The New York Times or anything.

Anyway, DeLong is right: impeach Bush. Impeach him now.

…see also Sadly, No.

A Failed Defense

Matt makes good points about Jon Chait’s failed attempt to defend his initial support for the Iraq war. I have a couple whacks of my own. Perhaps the most problematic aspect of Chait’s argument, to me, is his use of the over-inclusiveness of the category of WMDs:

I should probably note at this point that my argument for the Iraq war, unlike that of many liberals, did not hinge upon democratization. I wasn’t sure creating a democracy in Iraq right away was feasible, and I figured that the Bush administration would settle for a stable, less repressive but still illiberal government in Baghdad. My rationale hinged upon Saddam Hussein’s failure to disarm. While the weapons of mass destruction rationale has gotten an even worse rap than the democracy rationale, I still believe the logic made the most sense given what we knew at the time. Let me explain.

The truce terms of the first Gulf war called for Saddam to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction program under the watch of international inspectors. Throughout the 1990s, Saddam played a cat-and-mouse game with the inspectors, alternately extending and withdrawing cooperation, depending mostly on how much diplomatic and military pressure he faced. It reached a crisis point in 1998, when Iraq stopped cooperating altogether. In response, the Clinton administration ordered three days of bombing, but–in part due to the impeachment–essentially let the issue drop. And, yet, even as Clinton left office, the reasons for enforcing the truce terms remained compelling. Iraq under Saddam posed a major regional menace and harbored ambitions to obtain a nuclear weapon. Saddam’s dreams of regional domination and history of irrational aggression suggested that allowing him to obtain such a weapon would be extremely dangerous.

Now, I will concede Chait’s point that it was not knowable at the time that Saddam had no WMDs. I certainly thought he did. The problem is that most of the weapons that are grouped under the WMD rubric are weapons that 1)simply did not pose any significant threat to American citizens, and 2)are no more (and in some case significantly less) powerful than weapons that can be constructed with materials that you can purchase at any Home Depot. Saddam having stockpiles of mustard gas or similar weapons is obviously not an adequate reason to go to war. Chait–like TNR generally–seems to realize this, and therefore throws nuclear weapons into this mix. I agree that if Iraq’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon was imminent, this would be a serious security risk that would justify the war. The problem, though, is that it was abundantly clear that Saddam was nowhere near acquiring a nuclear weapon; this is not just 20-20 hindsight but was obvious at the time. And what’s additionally maddening is that Chait doesn’t really argue otherwise; he relies on the same rhetorical ponzi scheme that has always been used to justify the war. Chait, rather than arguing that Saddam appeared to have a serious nuclear program, instead conflates intentions with capacities–a hallmark of Bush foreign policy that (as was noted in a recent cover story in Chait’s magazine) is an abject disaster. Chait is right that Hussein would have liked to have nuclear weapons. And I would like to have a billion dollars and be dating Scarlett Johansson, something that is about equally likely to happen. And the vague possibility that Saddam might acquire dangerous weapons at some point in the future certainly did not justify an immediate, nearly unilateral war.

Another thing to note is that Chait is, I think, quite right to oppose The Nation‘s quasi-pacifist foreign policy, and is correct in pointing out their blunders. But by tying being a “liberal hawk” to an ongoing defense of a disastrous war against a country that posed no security threat to the United States, he plays into the hands of his bete noires (as well as demonstrating the fundamental uselessness of the “hawk” vs. “dove” distinction.) The difficult task of the Democrats is to develop a foreign policy that allows for necessary interventions while being something different than reflexively supporting every military action of the United States government. Chait’s attempt to argue that the Iraq war was justified in national security terms–something that is not only false in retrospect but was quite clearly wrong at the time–is not a helpful contribution to this project.

Executive Power Matters

Jill mentions a protest at NYU over TA unionization, and I certainly agree that they should be strongly supported. However, it’s important to remember why TAs at NYU do not have the right to collectively bargain now. Eric Alterman:

When I debated Cornel West and Frances Fox Piven before a large audience at NYU, our introductions were preceded by a plea from graduate student union organizers to support their efforts to elicit decent pay and conditions. I tried to point out that those students who supported both Nader and the union might wish to concern themselves with the makeup of the presidentially appointed National Labor Relations Board. Well, in July of this year, the graduate students who stuck with Nader got what they apparently wanted. The Bush-controlled NLRB voted to reverse an earlier decision and deny all American graduate students the right to bargain collectively.

As I’ve mentioned before, it is correct that path dependencies have prevented the GOP from rolling back the core elements of the New Deal and Great Society. However, it cannot be emphasized enough that the modern regulatory state gives a large amount of discretion to the executive. You don’t have to modify or repeal labor or civil rights legislation to make it a great deal less effective, and having Republican appointees at the NLRB makes it much harder for labor to organize without any changes in statutes. Which should again teach the obvious facts that 1)control of the presidency matters a great deal even if it’s hard to pass major progressive legislation, and 2)third party politics at the federal level is remarkably foolish and counterproductive.

Liberal Blogs For Hurricane Relief

Click here.

Beyond Thunderdome

More material for the forthcoming public access special, PFC Pantload Live From the Yakov Smirnoff Theater:

There are four levels of hell inside the refugee city of the Superdome, home to about 15,000 people since Sunday. On the artificial-turf field and in the lower-level seats where Montrel sat sweltering with her family, a form of civilization had taken hold — smelly, messy, dark and dank, but with a structure. Families with cots used their beds as boundaries for personal space and kept their areas orderly, a cooler on one corner, the toys on another, almost as if they had come for fireworks and stayed too long.

The bathrooms, clogged and overflowing since Monday, announced the second level of hell, the walkway ringing the entrance level. In the men’s, the urinal troughs were overflowing. In the women’s, the bowls were to the brim. A slime of excrement and urine made the walkway slick. “You don’t even go there anymore,” said Dee Ford, 37, who was pushed in a wading pool from her flooded house to the shelter. “You just go somewhere in a corner where you can. In the dark, you are going to step in poo anyway.”

Water and electricity both failed Monday, and three pumps to pressurize plumbing have been no match “when the lake just keeps pushing it back at us,” said Maj. Ed Bush, the chief public affairs officer for the Louisiana National Guard.

“With no hand-washing, and all the excrement,” said Sgt. Debra Williams, who was staffing the infirmary in the adjacent sports arena, “you have about four days until dysentery sets in. And it’s been four days today.”

Bottled water was too precious to use for washing; adults get two bottles a day. Food, mostly Meals Ready-to-Eat, is dispensed in a different line. Many refugees told of waiting in line for hours only to be told no food was left.

Damn “refugees,” trying to claim the “sanctity” of “victum status”!

Walking about the perimeter of the Superdome, in brilliant sunshine and blistering heat, [Maj.] Bush could take no more than a few steps before angry and pleading residents clutched at him. An elderly woman could not get her thyroid medicine; another needed dialysis. A 3-week-old baby, clad only in a diaper, lay listless in her young mother’s arm. She had a fever.

“I know this sounds like a stupid question,” began a young woman wearing a “Home Sweet Louisiana” T-shirt, “but how are we supposed to go on as a community? As a people?”

“Be patient,” Maj. Bush answered. “Help is on the way.”

The president and the governor both asserted Wednesday that everyone would be moving to a spiffier football stadium. But although Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco had announced at 11 a.m. a plan to evacuate the Superdome to Houston’s Astrodome, Maj. Bush had received no information through mid-afternoon. By his estimate about 15,000 people remained in the Superdome, and more straggled in through the day, either wading in on foot or dropped off by a helicopter rescue effort that so far has plucked 3,000 people from the roofs of flooded homes.

Communication is spotty throughout New Orleans, which remains without power and swamped with warm, waist-high water in many places. Only one route is passable into the city and authorities have sealed it off to all but emergency vehicles, although a few media people managed to pass the checkpoint. On television, high-level officials said they hoped the evacuation would be complete in 48 hours. Public officials at the Superdome said they thought that was unrealistic. With water so high around the stadium, people can be moved only a few handfuls at a time on large-tired trucks, which will transport them to buses on the interstate.

Well, look, if you didn’t want to be exposed to serious diseases in hellish living conditions while waiting to be moved to another football stadium a few people at a time, you should have had the foresight to have a mother who could arrange for you to get a sinecure with a rapidly-declining conservative magazine…

Class, Race and Katarina

Jack Shafer indirectly destroys the Jonah Goldberg’s argument about “playing the class card”:

To be sure, some reporters sidled up to the race and class issue. I heard them ask the storm’s New Orleans victims why they hadn’t left town when the evacuation call came. Many said they were brokeÂ:”I live from paycheck to paycheck,” explained one woman. Others said they didn’t own a car with which to escape and that they hadn’t understood the importance of evacuation.

But I don’t recall any reporter exploring the class issue directly by getting a paycheck-to-paycheck victim to explain that he couldn’t risk leaving because if he lost his furniture and appliances, his pots and pans, his bedding and clothes, to Katrina or looters, he’d have no way to replace them. No insurance, no stable, large extended family that could lend him cash to get back on his feet, no middle-class job to return to after the storm.

This is the central issue. Nobody, of course, is arguing that anybody who is forced to evacuate–whether from a large mansion or a tiny one-bedroom apartment–is not suffering an awful fate. But there’s still a huge difference between people with insurance and the resources to start a new life, and people who have lost everything, and have no means to get it back. To pretend that there’s no difference between absolute and relative deprivation and that most of the media should continue to ignore the distinction –especially coming from someone as well-connected and priveleged as Goldberg–is morally obscene.

Leadership

I’m certainly no huge fan of Rudy Guliani, but the contrast between Guliani on 9/11 and Bush this week is pretty striking.

…As Thad points out, Echidne pulls a classic quote. Yes, who could possibly ever imagine that eroding levees that the city of New Orleans had been asking for money to repair for many years could be breached after a Category 4 Hurricane? Jeebus.

Jonah Goldberg: Smarter Than Jessica Simpson, Funnier Than Leukemia

As appalling as Jonah Goldberg’s comments about “playing the class card” are, make sure to scroll down for his earlier comments:

I think it’s time to face facts. That place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself now. Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents. While you’re working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when he’s not expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around you and tell the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who agrees to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It’s never too soon to be prepared.

Yep, putting tens of thousands of poor people, many of them about to become homeless, many of them with severe health problems in a extremely humid building with rapidly failing plumbing and dwindling food supplies–pure comedy gold! But there I go playing the class card again–hell, Jonah had to wait three minutes for a cab yesterday, and who’s to say that wasn’t a million times worse? Then there’s his non-apology apology:

Perhaps Professor Bainbridge — of whom I am a fan — thinks something really awful will befall the denizens of the Superdome and therefore making a joke at their expense is wrong. My guess is that it will simply be a really unpleasent time for the remainder of the day, but hardly so unpleasent as to sanctify them with refugee or some other victim status.

He’s as prescient as he is funny! But what’s most disturbing is his assertion that being a “refugee” is just a “victim status” with which one is “sanctified,” as if being homeless is no big deal. This isn’t conservatism in any meaningful sense; this is just reprehensible.

However, I can’t really agree with Ethan’s title for Goldberg, for the reasons stated by Lindsay. Similarly, I don’t think it’s appropriate to call him a “wanker”; wanking, after all, is a source of pleasure, and pleasure is something that is not associated in any way with Goldberg’s writings. Asshole? Same thing; you might take them for granted, but I’m sure you’d miss it if you didn’t have one, which you can’t say for Goldberg’s attempts at humor. Maybe Jonah “Tits on a Bull” Goldberg? Hmmm. For that matter, I should probably revise my title; I think I’m libeling Simpson…

…in fairness, Cornerites are willing to show some compassion: on behalf of the lost home of Jefferson Davis. Yeah, the lost home of somebody who led a movement to commit treason on behalf of slavery is the real tragedy here.

I Will Disappear to Join the Link Parade

I don’t think I’ve done one of these things, er, ever, so why not?

• Julian Sanchez on Volokh’s “conversion” posts.

• Belle Waring replies, devastatingly, to her critics. Would be worth about six “ouches” and four “heh-indeeds” if I did that sort of thing.

• Like CT, I strongly recommend John McGowan on Nussbaum/Butler (1,2).

• Roy on the poor, poor, pitiful Hollywood conservative.

• erobin compiles useful links about Haiti.

• Eric Muller is disgusted by the “shoot the looters” meme. As is Zoe Kentucky.

• Ampersand on disclosure and the ad hominem fallacy w/r to the fetal pain study.

• Pseudo-Adrienne with another example of how anti-feminism denies women moral agency.

• Lyrical Dennis Prager.

Well, She Tried

One of the biggest reasons that the arguments of American “pro-lifers” are such a self-contradictory shambles is the belief of many of them that women should not be subject to any legal sanctions, although if you believe the underlying premises of those who would criminalize abortion this woman is guilty of taking a human life. Obviously, this doesn’t make a shred of sense, and provides clear evidence they really don’t take their own arguments seriously. Dawn Eden–who is willing, horribly but at least consistently, to apply pro-life logic to cases of rape–tries to defend the indefensible in comments:

A woman who has an abortion may not be aware of what she is doing. But the abortionists are, and they’re the ones who should be prosecuted.

This is, of course, an exceptionally bad (and pernicious) argument. The question of whether the fetus is a human life with legal status is a moral and ethical question, not an empirical question. A doctor performing an abortion, of course, has no more access to this moral question than a woman seeking an abortion. Eden’s argument–like the original late 19th century laws that originally banned abortion–is premised on the idea that women are not really moral agents. Eden wants to take us back to a time in which women were not full citizens (or, in some cases, even legal persons) but rather where wards of the state and/or their husbands. It’s framed in the language of compassion, but this is a debased, patriarchal form of “compassion,” premised on the idea that women are not full members of society who share the rights and responsibilities of adult citizens. Given how widespread Eden’s argument is among pro-lifers–up to and including the Republican platform–I think it’s pretty instructive about how the pro-life movement views women.

(Via Jesse.)

Can Snake Oil Cure Cancer? Opinions Differ.

I suppose it’s not as consequential as the horribly botched coverage of Intelligent(sic) Design, but this Times article about snake-oil salesman Kevin Trudeau suffers from similar pathologies. As with the ID articles, if you read far enough into the article you’ll find out that he’s a felonious con man selling crackpot “cures” for cancer and other illnesses, and also pitching a subscription-fee website. But the article suggests that there’s some legitimate disagreement about whether there are many flat-out cures for cancer being suppressed by the Medical Establishment. Really, if you can’t do it right it would be better to just ignore him.

I’m reminded of the fact that both the leading English-language newspaper and leading English language television station used to give column space and free time to JoJo Savard, a Quebecois Miss Cleo. Now, perhaps because of public opinion it’s too much to ask newspapers to print stories pointing out that astrology is a massive fraud. But it’s certainly not too much to ask for them not to promote it. This isn’t just a harmless waste of time; we’re talking about a lot of people, many of them desperate, suffering from serious emotional problems and with little money, running up huge credit card bills to get worthless advice from a con artist who allegedly trustworthy media sources are actually treating seriously. (And, of course, in some cases it’s more about marketing; I doubt that many women would cancel subscriptions if newspapers had noted during the Dove controversy that butt cream doesn’t actually work, but cosmetic advertisers might be upset.) To the extent that various media organs are covering the Kevin Trudeaus and JoJo Savards (and Discovery Institutes) of the world, they should actually tell their readers the facts, and they should certainly not treat them a serious figures.

Dismal Moments in LaRussian Platoon Wankery

It doesn’t get much worse than Mike Hargrove bringing in the occasionally-pitching-like-stylings of Matt Thornton to face Jason Giambi, who in one of the most foreseeable acts in baseball history immediately crushed a 3-run homer.

Even worse, after that Hargrove stormed out of the dugout and started screaming at Thornton. The thing is, Grover, Matt Thornton can’t fucking pitch. Screaming at him for giving up a homerun is like screaming at the Mojave Desert for being dry. It’s your fault for bringing him into a game situation just because he throws with his left hand.

…but, come hell or high water you know the Seattle media will keep holding the team accountable–by writing Peggy Noonanesque peans to Hustling White Guy (TM) Wee Wllie Bloomquist. Sure, he can’t field much or hit at all, but he has the heart of a lion! The guts of Orson Welles! The makeup of Randy Myers! The mascara of Jeff Reardon!