A Reply to Chad on Brown v. Board

My friend Chad at CCK  has a post in reply to one of mine on the Kentucky desegregation cases.  He begins by fabricating a quotation.

"Brown vs. Board of Education was poorly decided and desegregation was just a bad idea."

Without the quotation marks, the words would be merely a false statement of what I have said and what I believe.  With the quotation marks, they amount to a lie on Chad's part. 

Here is what I did say,  in a prior post that I linked to in the one Chad uses. 

Almost no one doubts that the Court was right [in Brown] in its central finding: that racial segregation as practiced in the South and elsewhere at the time violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.  I certainly think the Court was right.

So I did not say nor do I think that the case was "poorly decided," a phrase which has no meaning that I can discern.  I think it was rightly decided, but poorly argued.  I think it is wrong to tell a child or her parents that she cannot attend a school of their choice, and instead must be spend hours each school day on a bus, merely because she is the wrong color for the school's racial balance. Chad has every right to disagree.  It would be interesting to know his reasons, but none are offered. 

He also goes on to criticize another of my posts.  The topic is whether incoming Congressman Keith Ellison should be free to use the Koran (rather than the Bible) when he is sworn in.  Dennis Prager argues no. Chad says this about my post:

Oh ... and I see he thinks comparing the Koran to Mein Kampf is a logical comparison..

In fact, I say this about  Prager's argument:

Prager has an argument but it is pitifully weak on its own merits, and ridiculously weak given the political capital that it consumes.

I clearly side with Eugene Volokh on the question, and I make it clear that I think Keith Ellison should be free to use the Koran when he is sworn in. 

But to say that Prager's argument is wrong, and pitifully weak, is not to say that it is illogical.  It was in fact an example of a reductio ad absurdum, which is perfectly logical.  It goes like this: if we let an incoming House member choose any book he wishes to be sworn in by  (for example, the Koran instead of the Bible), then he could chose Mein Kampf.  That looks to me like a perfectly logical "if . . .then" statement.  No comparison is involved.  What is wrong with this argument is not that it is illogical, but that it is bad.  I made it clear why I disagreed with it in my post. 

James Bond

Saw the new 007 movie this afternoon and it is very good.  It more or less breaks the mold of the last 20 years.  There are precious few gadgets and, more remarkable, not a trace of goofiness.  There isn't even an orbiting ray gun for Bond to shoot down in the end.  The movie is much more raw and edgy.  Bond is a killer.  He happens to be on our side, and he is probably incorruptible.  But he has a license to kill, and that is what he does. 

The new bond actor, Daniel Craig, is excellent in the role.  But the acting is generally better all the way around. 

History Carnival

The latest edition of the History Carnival is up at Barista.

BREAKING NEWS: Daschle Will Not Seek Presidency

KELOLAND is reporting that former Senator Tom Daschle has announced he will not be running for President of the United States:

He served as a senator representing South Dakotans in Washington for more than 25 years and has invested more than a year laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign.

Tom Daschle was expected to make a decision about running for president by the end of the year, and Saturday, he told KELOLAND News he has decided not to seek the United States' highest office in 2008.

“I've made a decision that I will not seek the presidency of the United States,” Daschle said.

He's spent decades representing South Dakota as a leader in the U.S. Senate. But after visits to key presidential primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire, Daschle says he won't seek a run for the White House.

“I've had a lot of encouragement and I've been very gratified to have the encouragement from within the state and around the country,” Daschle said.

Daschle's decision comes just days after another democratic hopeful declared he will run for president. Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack announced his candidacy on Thursday.

“Well I think Tom, Tom Vilsack has shown himself to be an incredibly good governor, very successful in doing a number of things, working with both sides of the aisle,” Daschle said.

But while Daschle says Vilsack has a good chance as a candidate, he also adds a note of caution.

“It's an uphill battle for somebody from the Midwest but clearly he's got what it takes and I think he's going to do well,” he said.

Daschle's former campaign manager says there were a number of factors that played into his decision, including the daunting task of raising the estimated $50 million needed for a presidential race.

Word on the street is that Daschle also wasn't happy his people were leaving him for Senator Obama. 

UPDATE:  Daschle announced his decision tonight while speaking at a program honoring retiring SDSU president Peggy Miller. 

Senator Thune to Question Gates at Hearing

Excerpt from the Rapid City Journal:

South Dakota Sen. John Thune will have the opportunity to question Secretary of Defense nominee Robert Gates during hearings on Capitol Hill this week. Gates will testify before the Senate Armed Service Committee, of which Thune is a member, beginning Tuesday. Gates is expected to face aggressive questioning on his positions on the Iraq war.

Thune, a Republican, said the former CIA director's career background makes him a qualified nominee to head the Pentagon. Thune said he's confident Gates will lead the department "with fresh perspective and a new energy."

"In a critical time for American soldiers, the fight against terrorism, and the peace and stability of Iraq and the Middle East, the need is stronger than ever for capable, decisive, and innovative leadership," Thune said.

In Defense Of Moderation

Moderation is taking a beating these days.  See this piece in the Manchester Union Leader.  A snippet:

Moderation is a virtue in many things like eating and drinking, but it's a sin in politics and public policy. The surest way to make the next two years a waste of everyone's time is to pretend that the lesson of the last election is that policy advocates of every philosophical stripe should abandon all principle in search of some sort of weak-kneed, Milquetoast fiction called the moderate position.

Or this post from a few weeks ago at Dakota Voice uses the same food and drink analogy:

Moderation when using alcohol is a good thing; moderation in pursuit of justice is a cop-out.

I must strongly dissent, while understanding the frustrations of these two authors.  But moderation is one of the great classical virtues, and its goods bear fruit in the moral life and the political life.  Indeed, one of Prof. Blanchard's teachers, Harry Jaffa, devotes a significant portion of his classic Crisis of the House Divided explaining how Lincoln was a great practitioner of political moderation. 

If moderation is simply a middle point between two extremes, then these authors are correct that it is not much a virtue.  But this is not what moderation means.  Moderation is having everything in is proper amount.  See this list.  While courage is a good thing, it is possible to have both too little of it (cowardice) or too much (foolhardiness).  And courage is not precisely in the middle.  It may lean more in one direction or another, and its dictates may vary based on the situation and one's responsibilities.  In politics there are various competing goods.  For we moderns they might include: equality, liberty, democracy, protection of rights, stability, fairness, security, patriotism, wealth creation, technological/scientific progress.  To take any one of these things and make it the entirety of political virtue (as perhaps some libertarians do with liberty) or to have an excess amount of it is to take a political virtue and make it into a vice.  Much as "too much" courage leads to foolhardiness, "too much" patriotism turns into nationalism. 

The art of the statesman is to try to help the political community attain each of the good things in the proper amount.  This is difficult because, as I hinted, these things are often in competition.  For example, that which creates the good of wealth (open, free and fluid markets) is sometimes at war with certain notions of equality and stability.  The political art has two key virtues: moderation, having each thing in its proper amount, and prudence, having the practical wisdom as to how to attain that end. 

Extremism in defense of liberty is a vice.  There is such thing as too much liberty; we call it licentiousness or irresponsibility.  Even extremism in defense of justice is no virtue.  One thing  history, or, if one is so inclined, Christian teaching (say, in Augustine's City of God) will teach us is that perfect justice is not attainable in this world.  The 20th Century taught us that attempts to achieve perfect justice often (usually?) end up in totalitarianism.  In Lincoln's time, extremism in defense of justice was typified by the abolitionists.  The abolitionist mentality eventually led some to shout "no Union with slaveholders," and to welcome the Civil War.  Some denounced the US Constitution as a "pact with the devil" because of its accommodations of slavery.  Some, such as John Brown, took it into their own hands to fight violently for justice, with bloody results.  This is why anti-slavery Lincoln was no abolitionist.  Slavery was a an evil, but so was lawlessness and disunion.  Thus we not only needed to get rid of slavery, we needed to get rid of it in the proper way, namely one that showed respect for our laws and the reasonable claims of all citizens.  We are lucky to have had, at the most dire moment in our history, a politician, nay, a statesman who understood the true meaning of moderation. 

Forget Paris

This piece by Kay Hymowitz on Paris Hilton is one of the most devastating character studies I have read.  Hymowitz attempts to answer one simple questions: Why do we hate Paris Hilton?  It is a fun and thoughtful piece, which then draws a devastating conclusion about the human soul from which we can all learn.

Surprise In Aberdeen

Last night I attended "Northern Night," a fund-raiser for the local college.  The event was held at the Ramkota Hotel.  In the middle of the live auction, who walks in by Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire and his coaching staff.  It turns out they are pheasant hunting in the region and one of his staff, bench coach Steve Liddle, is friends with an NSU coach.  They said "Hi" and left, but it was a pleasant surprise.

Black and White and Bused All Over

The U.S. Supreme Court now has to confront fifty years of its own ineptitude.  From MSNBC:

Dec. 1, 2006 - Crystal Meredith had a simple wish: she wanted her son, Joshua, to attend an elementary school near their home in Louisville, Ky. But when Meredith went to enroll him in kindergarten in 2002, she bumped up against the schools’ voluntary integration policy. Designed to maintain racial balance in the once-segregated Louisville schools, the plan lets parents choose among schools in various clusters across the city. But the institutions all strive to keep the number of African-American students somewhere between 15 and 50 percent of the school population. If the number drops too low or grows too high, students of any race can be shunted to other schools.

Consider carefully four words in that quote: "students of any race."  The ideal of "racial balance" was the fruit of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case I discussed in this post.  That case began when a Black man attempted to enroll his daughter in a local, segregated school.  She was denied admission because she was the wrong color.  Just now in Kentucky, a Black man may be unable to enroll his daughter in a local school because that school already has its quota of Black kids.  His daughter can't get in because she is the wrong skin tone.  That, after a half century of social engineering, is what the Supreme Court has achieved. 

Prager and Volokh put their Hands on the Koran

Should incoming Congressman Keith Ellison be allowed to use the Koran when he is sworn in?  Of course.  Dennis Prager and Eugene Volokh have it out on CNN.  You can watch it here.  Prager has an argument but it is pitifully weak on its own merits, and ridiculously weak given the political capital that it consumes. 

When all elected officials take their oaths of office with their hands on the very same book, they all affirm that some unifying value system underlies American civilization. If Keith Ellison is allowed to change that, he will be doing more damage to the unity of America and to the value system that has formed this country than the terrorists of 9-11. It is hard to believe that this is the legacy most Muslim Americans want to bequeath to America. But if it is, it is not only Europe that is in trouble.

That's clever, in so far as it can be stated without even mentioning the book, as if that didn't really matter.  But it risks splitting the Bible into two things: a religious text, and a cultural icon.  Does Prager really want to do that?

Volokh responds in The National Review by citing the religious test clause in the Constitution.

the Constitution itself expressly recognizes the oath as a religious act that some may have religious compunctions about performing. The religious-test clause is actually part of a longer sentence: “The Senators and Representatives ... [and other state and federal officials] shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required ....”  The option of giving an affirmation rather than oath reflects the judgment — an early multiculturalist judgment — in favor of accommodating members of some denominations (such as Quakers) who read the Bible as generally prohibiting the swearing of oaths.

The affirmation option was thus one tool to make sure that the law didn’t exclude people of certain religious groups from office, but rather let them retain their religious culture while participating in American civic life. The religious-test clause was another tool. The Constitution itself — a pretty important part of the “value system underl[ying] American civilization” — expressly makes clear that elected officials need not take oaths of office with their hands on any book.

Now as Volokh admits, this only proves that Ellison cannot be required to use the Bible, not for allowing him to use the Koran.  But since we do allow the Bible to be so employed, I cannot think of any acceptable grounds for excluding the Koran. 

Prager does have one argument that deserves to be taken seriously. 

Devotees of multiculturalism and political correctness who do not see how damaging to the fabric of American civilization it is to allow Ellison to choose his own book need only imagine a racist elected to Congress. Would they allow him to choose Hitler's "Mein Kampf," the Nazis' bible, for his oath? And if not, why not? On what grounds will those defending Ellison's right to choose his favorite book deny that same right to a racist who is elected to public office?

That's a good question.  Would Congress allow such a thing?  The answer is we should probably not make this a Constitutional question, as Volokh does.  Should a Congressman wish to swear in on Mein Kampf, or something equally appalling, let him. Then that House can invoke Article I, Section 5, Clause 2 of the Constitution.  From EPublius!

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Each house is given enough room to deal with such cases, without interference from any other body including the Courts. 

Thune Announces New Mission for Ellsworth AFB

From the Associated Press:

The U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command will consolidate two air traffic control centers in the Dakotas onto Ellsworth Air Force Base, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Friday.

The centers are currently operated at Ellsworth in Rapid City and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. The target consolidation date is April 2008.

Thune said the mission is another that elevates Ellsworth's national profile and anchors the base for the future.

"Everything has been attrition going back to the 1980s and now finally, for the first time, we're seeing some good forward momentum," Thune said.

Thune said he expects the center to add about 15 to 20 jobs to the base.

Here is Senator Thune's press release.  Once again Senator Thune has pulled off a great achievement for the state.  He worked hard to make this happen so, whether you love him or hate him, give him thanks for this.

SDSU v. USD

Argus Leader:

If it receives approval from the state's Board of Regents later this month, the University of South Dakota and South Dakota State will share a common athletic classification: NCAA Division I.

As for when the rivals, who haven't played in football or basketball since 2003-04, will share a field?

Well, neither USD athletic director Joel Nielsen nor his SDSU counterpart Fred Oien committed to anything Thursday. But they did refer liberally to bylaws and level grounds, so in a sense, the games already have begun.

"I will say that when Dr. Oien and I have talked in the past, financial consideration comes up, but obviously the location comes up soon thereafter," said Nielsen, whose school is starting the Division I transition four years after SDSU. "The number of hurdles that need to be jumped to make games like this happen, those would be two of them. But they would be two significant ones."

Tackling football first, both Jackrabbits coach John Stiegelmeier and Coyotes coach Ed Meierkort have said they would like the 105-game series to resume. Making that happen will be another matter.

Although a contracted Sept. 15 home game against Montana is up in the air, SDSU's football schedule is full for 2007, while the Coyotes have only a Sept. 29 opening. The Jacks are members of the Division I-AA Great West Football Conference and because that league is looking to expand, the two could meet as conference opponents as early as 2008, but that would require USD gaining admission from that league and SDSU being excluded from another. The Gateway Football Conference has requested information from the Jacks, and conference commissioner Patty Viverito said they could potentially begin play in that league in 2008.

Tribal Politics

Rapid City Journal:

Both sides in the dispute about the Nov. 7 Oglala Sioux Tribe elections headed closer Thursday to a possible showdown, with one group setting dates for new elections, and the other group making plans to be sworn in next Tuesday.

A new tribal election board, voted in by the tribal council Nov. 21, set a primary election for Feb. 13 and the general election for March 20, according to a news release Thursday from tribal President Alex White Plume.

Citing various discrepancies, White Plume on Nov. 21 declared the Nov. 7 election null and void and called for a new election. He said he was acting after a vote by the tribal council's executive board. The former elections board had removed White Plume's name from the Nov. 7 ballot, citing his misdemeanor assault conviction in federal court in the 1980s. The board rejected his appeal to be reinstated to the ballot.

Also see also Bill Harlan's previous post on the "political and institutional chaos" on Pine Ridge.

Happy Birthday Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill stands as the greatest statesman of the Twentieth Century.  By way of comparison, I would give the title for the Nineteenth Century to Abraham Lincoln.  Churchill strove heroically to rally his nation against the Nazis while there was still time to prevent the greatest tragedy of his century.  He failed.  But he managed by force of will alone to hold his country together against the Nazi onslaught long enough for the Americans to enter and decide the outcome.  Those are no small potatoes. 

My teacher, Harry Jaffa, was a fervent admirer of Churchill.  Almost all of students, myself included, had a complete set of Churchill's books.  Churchill was a brilliant comic, when it moved him to be one.  When Lady Astor said to him: "If you were my husband, I'd poison your coffee," he replied without pause: "if you were my wife, I'd drink it."  When leaving a party in good spirits, he was accosted by a woman.  "Mr. Churchill, you're drunk!"  He narrowed his eyes and said: "Madam, you are ugly.  In the morning, I shall be sober."  There are lots more.  I leave you with this one.  Churchill did not like children.  When, late in his life, one of his young relatives managed to sneak into his rooms, the boy asked a question.  "Sir.  My mom says you are the greatest man alive.  Is that true?"  Churchill eyed the young man over his London Times and said: "Yes it is.  Now bugger off." 

The boy's mum was right.  Happy 132nd birthday, Winston.  And with that, we will bugger off. 

Muddle-headed in Seattle

George Will's recent column on the Seattle High School "desegregation" case illustrates the great tragedy inherent in one of the U.S. Supreme Court's most famous cases: Brown v. Board of Education (1954).  Almost no one doubts that the Court was right in its central finding: that racial segregation as practiced in the South and elsewhere at the time violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.  I certainly think the Court was right. 

Unfortunately, the Court chose not to ground its finding on anything in the letter or logic of the Constitution, which it could easily have done.  Instead, it based the result on the most insubstantial social science.  Here is the Court's sole reason for overturning segregation:

To separate [Negro children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.

Now that principle may or may not be true (there is in fact no evidence for it), but it goes way beyond the Court's expertise.  Worse, it prevented the Court from declaring the one true Constitutional principle that might have come out of the case: that no child could be barred from any school solely on the basis of his or her race or color.  Instead, it virtually required school districts to assign students on the basis of race, in order to achieve some kind of racial balance that was presumed to prevent "feelings of inferiority."  The Court never managed to define what that racial balance consisted in, but it inaugurated a national policy of racial gerrymandering in education that is still going on a  half century later. 

This is what Seattle has made of the Court's logic, according to Will:

Students can seek admission to any of Seattle's high schools. But the Seattle School District decided to engineer a precise racial balance in its most popular - because much better - high schools, which are chosen by more students than they can accommodate. The district wanted each oversubscribed school to reflect the entire system's ratio of 40 percent whites and 60 percent nonwhites.

This requires, of course, admitting students on a racial basis, and telling some students that they cannot attend good schools a stone's throw from their own neighborhoods merely because those students are the wrong "skin tone."  The results are grim for some young people. 

This city's school district decided in 2000 that because the son of Jill Kurfirst and the daughter of Winnie Bachwitz are white, they should be assigned to an inferior and distant high school. If they had not left the Seattle school system, this would have required them to rise at 5 a.m. in order to leave home by 5:30 a.m., alone and in the dark, to take the first of three buses, returning home between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., with almost no time left for homework, family activities and adequate sleep.

The Kurfirsts and Bachwitzs could apparently afford to send their kids to private schools.  Imagine the single mother of three who must pack her kids off for that trip every day. 

But that does not exhaust the wonders of Seattle progressives.  The school district website contained a very revealing account of "racism," according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as 'other,' different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers," the definition said.

It's hard to argue against most of this, except of ground of bad writing.  And it's just as hard to know who, if anyone, is making these racist claims.  But is it really "White" for a high school student to plan for the future?  Is it really racist to prefer individual rights to communism?  Apparently Seattle thinks so, or did until it yanked this absurd language from its website. 

In fact the genius of the Founding Fathers, the genius that was given expression in the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Movement, was grounded precisely in individual freedom.  Had the Court taken that genius for its guidance in 1954, instead of endorsing a muddle-headed social engineering, it would have been a shining moment in Supreme Court history.  Instead it gave us fifty years (so far) of anguish, busing, and deplorable English. 

Iran Arming Iraqi Militias

ABC News:

U.S. officials say they have found smoking-gun evidence of Iranian support for terrorists in Iraq: brand-new weapons fresh from Iranian factories. According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.

Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq's growing Shia militias from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.

Some thoughts over at Power Line.

UPDATE:  More thoughts from Ed Morrissey.

Losing the Enlightenment

Historian Victor Davis Hanson writing in the W$J Opinion Journal:

Our current crisis is not yet a catastrophe, but a real loss of confidence of the spirit. The hard-won effort of the Western Enlightenment of some 2,500 years that, along with Judeo-Christian benevolence, is the foundation of our material progress, common decency, and scientific excellence, is at risk in this new millennium.

But our newest foes of Reason are not the enraged Athenian democrats who tried and executed Socrates. And they are not the Christian zealots of the medieval church who persecuted philosophers of heliocentricity. Nor are they Nazis who burned books and turned Western science against its own to murder millions en masse.

No, the culprits are now more often us. In the most affluent, and leisured age in the history of Western civilization--never more powerful in its military reach, never more prosperous in our material bounty--we have become complacent, and then scared of the most recent face of barbarism from the primordial extremists of the Middle East.

Read the whole piece.

Johnson Expects to Run for Re-Election

Tim Johnson has announced he expects to run for re-election in 2008:

He says it's not an official announcement, but Democratic Senator Tim Johnson says he expects to run for re-election in 2008. He's serving his second term in the Senate.

Speaking on South Dakota Public Radio, Johnson says politicians need to end their partisanship in Washington and govern from the middle because he says most Americans are not on the far left or the far right.

Vilsack Announces Presidential Run

Iowa governor Tom Vilsack has declared he will run for president in 2008:

The Democratic governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack, has announced he will run for the US presidency in 2008, promising to make the US "a beacon of hope".

He said he wanted "to replace the America of today with the hope of tomorrow and guarantee every American their birthright - opportunity".

The governor is regarded as a centrist and is little known outside his state.

Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama are among the other Democrats many expect will contend the party's nomination.

Mr Vilsack, 56, announced his plans to run for the presidency in Mount Pleasant, Iowa - the small town where he began his political career as mayor in 1987.

He went on to become a senator in the Iowa state senate before being elected as the state's governor in 1998.

Daschle To Make '08 Announcement Soon

Asked about a possible 2008 presidential run on MSNBC's Hardball, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said, "I'll be making an announcement sometime in the course of the next couple of months. No later than that."

Truth In Advertising

Bad reporting from the Middle East has become too common to ignore.  Jason has noted the Associated Press reliance on a bogus source in Iraq (see here and here). The LA Times seems to have been duped into running a phony story about civilian deaths (see here).  You might remember the doctored and staged photos from the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon earlier this year.  These faked photos of supposed Israeli atrocities were run in newspapers all over the world.  The pattern here is that media outlets are relying on local stringers for their news, and many of these stringers have ties to terrorist groups.  I don't think revelations of bad reporting  should change anyone's mind about what is occurring in the Middle East in general or Iraq in particular, but it should disturb us all that our enemies find it so easy to place their propaganda in American newspapers.  There is little doubt that Americans have received a view of the Middle East that has serious deviations from the truth.

You Stay Classy San Diego!

San Diego is considering banning Wal-Mart.  Read the story here.  The arguments in favor of Wal-Mart have been noted on this site (here, for example), so no reason to go through them again.  I just want to note one statement from a member of the San Diego city council:

Councilman Tony Young, who joined the 5-3 majority, countered, "I have a vision for San Diego and that vision is about walkable, livable communities, not big, mega-structures that inhibit people's lives."

Perhaps Mr. Young should see if other San Diegans (or whatever Ron Burgundy calls them) agree with him by letting them vote with their pocket books.

Sibby

Sibby is making connections in his post "Pelosi, Herseth, and Max Sandlin."

In War, Truth is the First Casualty

So said Aeschylus.  Eric of Classical Values confronts this maxim in "The moral equivalency of fake phonies and phony fakes."  At issue here is whether or not a source the Associated Press has been relying on, a man by the name of Jamil Hussein who claims to be an Iraqi police captain, even exists.  Jeff Goldstein explains the dynamics well:

Whether this narrative is the product of willful distortion or merely the laziness that comes with being fed stories that match your preconceptions is, in effect, beside the point--though the former is clearly more despicable, and, should it prove to be the case, has the practical effect of undermining a representative democracy that can only work properly if citizens are being given accurate accountings of events by those purporting to do so.

Indeed.  Be sure to read the story.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

The University of South Dakota has announced it will be moving to Division 1 athletics. 

Sioux Falls Featured on 20/20 Tonight

Argus Leader:

Sioux Falls will be featured tonight in a  “20/20” segment about giving.

To illustrate what distinguishes those who give from those who don’t, “20/20” went to two parts of the county that have two very different populations: Sioux Falls and San Francisco.

The ABC news program asked the Salvation Army to set up buckets at its busiest locations in both cities — Macy’s in San Francisco and Wal-Mart in Sioux Falls.

The show, which airs at 9 p.m., will reveal which bucket got  more money.

UPDATE:  The Sioux Falls Salvation Army bucket in front of Walmart got a lot more than the one in front of Macys in San Francisco.

The New Media and Political Influence

As SDWC reported, The Hill examines the influence blogs are having on politics.  Excerpt:

Former Sen. John Edwards’s favorite books include “The Trial of Socrates,” “God’s Politics” and “Into Thin Air.” His favorite musician is Bruce Springsteen. His heroes are his wife, Elizabeth, and the American people.

How did this information about a likely 2008 presidential candidate become public? Through MySpace.com, a networking website where Edwards (D-N.C.), like former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D), has set up pages to tell people about himself. Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) has 6,000 friends on his page at Facebook.com. Visitors to those pages can join the candidates’ “networks” and candidates can use the sites to communicate with narrow groups of likely voters.

Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark (D) has focused his efforts on podcasting, creating an audio message that his supporters can listen to at his website or download from Apple’s iTunes. Clark has the second most listened-to podcast among likely 2008 contenders, after Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), as measured by iTunes.

Seemingly overnight, the Internet has changed politics and the course of campaigns. The 30-second television advertisement has been a staple of campaigning for decades. But last summer, Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) made YouTube a must-use campaign website. The site allows users to post and circulate video instantly, and Allen was caught on videotape calling S.R. Sidarth, a volunteer of Indian descent for Sen.-elect Jim Webb (D-Va.), “macaca,” which was said to be a racial insult.

Candidates face a serious challenge from the new ways people gather information and news. Fewer people are watching network television or reading major newspapers, turning instead to the Internet. This trend has left candidates hustling to figure out how technology can help them communicate with a fragmented audience.

Living History Museum

A South Dakota man wants to build a living history museum near Pierre that would rival colonial Williamsburg:

Mel Thorne's voice breaks and his eyes mist.

"Can you imagine what we could accomplish with this?" he asks. "Why, it could change the country," reorienting our moral compass away from sex and violence and back toward hard work, helping your neighbor - the values of the prairie.

And on a more practical level, "It could double the $800 million a year we get from tourism. Overnight."

"This" is Thorne's dream of a lifetime - the Dakota Territory Living History Museum, a sweeping, thousand-acre, hands-on celebration of South Dakota's heritage in Fort Pierre.

Think Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, only with a focus on Native Americans, Western pioneers and buffalo.

Thorne either is a pie-in-the-sky dreamer or a visionary. Truthfully, the line between the two usually isn't known until an idea fails or succeeds. So far, the jury is out on Thorne. But it's just such a darned intriguing idea, nobody wants to reject it out of hand.

"He's worked so hard on it that he's tugged everybody's heartstrings," said state Sen. Ed Olson of Mitchell, a board member of the nonprofit corporation formed to promote and build the attraction. "I told him that the chances of it being successful are not very good."

Rob Regier Retiring

A reader sends along this note about Rob Regier announcing he is moving on in his career after nine years in South Dakota politics:

Dear friends, it is with sadness that I announce I will be stepping down as executive director of the South Dakota Family Policy Council. I certainly will miss interacting with the thousands of South Dakotans who support the Family Policy Council, but I believe God has a different plan for me, as well as for the organization. After nearly nine years between my time at Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. and here at the Family Policy Council, it's time for a change for my own family.

Argus Calls for Bed Checks for Pages

The Argus Leader is calling for bed checks for legislative pages:

At the very least, we should know where legislative pages live while they serve each year at the Capitol in Pierre.

And that's just the start.

A panel of legislative leaders recommended this week that a system of random checks should be installed to make sure the pages - high school students who run errands and answer phones for lawmakers - are living where they say they are.

That comes in the wake of allegations that a state senator groped a page in a Pierre hotel room.

To some, it may seem like unnecessary meddling in the affairs of families - presumably these high school students' parents are involved in these living arrangements - but the state has a responsibility as well.

Just knowing where pages are living, and double checking to make sure it's true, seems like a small first step, given the recent allegations.

...

The state has a responsibility to oversee the pages to at least a minimum level while they are serving the Legislature. That doesn't mean watching over every action they take; we don't become their parents. But we need to do more than we are.

Tony Dean

Writing in the Argus Leader, Tony Dean, the host of the regional "Tony Dean Outdoors" television show, criticizes outdoor writing:

The truth is, most outdoor magazines these days aren't worth buying or reading - other than perhaps Field & Stream, the only national outdoor publication that features good, meaningful writing. Sports Afield has turned into a caricature of what was once a good outdoor magazine, and Outdoor Life has been a joke for years.

AP: Judge Bars Newspaper Consolidation

From the Associated Press:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Suspicious about possible alliance among competitors, a federal judge barred The San Francisco Chronicle from consolidating some of its business operations with newspapers owned by MediaNews Group Inc.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued the temporary restraining order Tuesday, upon seeing a previously undisclosed memo saying that the Chronicle's parent company, Hearst Corp., intended to collaborate with the newspaper's rivals on Bay Area distribution and national advertising sales.

The judge ruled the deal would possibly violate antitrust laws.

Conservatives Are More Charitable

Who gives more to charity, bleeding heart liberals, or those "cold as a banker's heart" conservatives?  Well, the data has been gathered.  From The Chronicle of Philanthropy: 

It's been a tough month for conservatives, with the Republican Party losing control of both houses of Congress, but a new book being released this week may help brighten their spirits.

In Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (Basic Books), Arthur C. Brooks finds that religious conservatives are far more charitable than secular liberals, and that those who support the idea that government should redistribute income are among the least likely to dig into their own wallets to help others.

Interesting finding, that.  These despicable conservatives actually give more out of their own pockets to the needy!  Caring liberals are, shall we say it, more stingy?  As it turns out, yes. 

Mr. Brooks, now a full professor and director of nonprofit studies at Syracuse's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, wanted to move beyond the financial incentives and deterrents to giving, and instead examine the values that underlie philanthropy.

His initial research for Who Really Cares revealed that religion played a far more significant role in giving than he had previously believed. In 2000, religious people gave about three and a half times as much as secular people — $2,210 versus $642. And even when religious giving is excluded from the numbers, Mr. Brooks found, religious people still give $88 more per year to nonreligious charities.

He writes that religious people are more likely than the nonreligious to volunteer for secular charitable activities, give blood, and return money when they are accidentally given too much change.

"There is not one measurably significant way I have ever found in which religious people are not more charitable than nonreligious people," Mr. Brooks says. "The fact is, if it weren't for religious people in your community, the PTA would shut down."

Byron R. Johnson, a sociology professor and co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, says he recently gathered data that show similar results — such as high levels of civic engagement among religious people — while assembling a report on faith in America that was released in September.

"It was not surprising to me that the lil ol' farmer in South Dakota outgave people in San Francisco," Mr. Johnson says. "But I think to the everyday citizen, this might strike them as counterintuitive."

The lil ol' farmer in South Dakota, you say?  Maybe we here in this neck of the woods are not so inferior a people after all. 

Globalization & Protectionism

It would be cheap to say that Democrats are a threat to free trade, on account of the fact that sentiment for protection has been steadily building among Republicans as well.  In fact it's getting harder and harder to find anyone who doesn't think foreigners are stealing our jobs.  Lou Dobbs, who is mad as Hell and not taking it any more, is making a fortune with this argument.  The only thing wrong with it, as far as I can see, is that it is obviously false. 

You can see that simply by reflecting that the animous against free trade is nearly universal among trade unions and indigenous people's organizations around the world.  Globalization can't be stealing everyone's jobs, can it?  Or else where are the jobs going?  Mars?

Economist Robert Samuelson (Real Clear Politics) makes these points:

We may be about to shoot ourselves in the foot -- or maybe the chest -- on trade. In the name of "fair trade,'' we may punish our own exporters. In 2005, worldwide exports exceeded $10 trillion. Since 1980, they've more than tripled while the overall global economy doubled. Like it or not, massive international flows of goods and services (aka "globalization'') underpin all modern economies.  . . .

American trade deficits haven't destroyed U.S. job creation by sending work abroad. Consider. From 1980 to 2006, the trade deficit jumped from $19 billion to an estimated $786 billion, or from less than 1 percent of gross domestic product to about 6 percent. Still, employment in the same period rose from 99 million to 145 million. Job creation defies the trade deficits, whose causes lie largely beyond our control and have little to do with "unfair'' trade practices.

I think it unlikely that the next Congress or any other will move to put new and serious restrictions on trade.  Far too many Americans are dependent on export-related jobs, and the damages of a real trade war between nations would be immediately apparent.  On the other hand, progress toward freer trade is likely to crawl to a stop.  Unlike the American economy or the Indian economy, the world economy has no in-group bias to defend it.  There is no interplanetary Lou Dobbs to defend Earth jobs against those low wage Martians. 

Hildebrand Working for Obama in Iowa

The Des Moines Register is reporting the following: "Acting as a key contact for Obama in Iowa is Steve Hildebrand, a longtime aide to former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle. Hildebrand ran Al Gore's campaign for the 2000 Iowa caucuses."

Lawmakers Meet with Lawyer in Sutton Investigation

Rapid City Journal:

A South Dakota legislative committee met privately Tuesday with the lawyer handling the investigation into allegations that a state senator engaged in sexual misconduct with a high school student who served as a page in the 2006 legislative session. Members of the Legislature's Executive Board, which handles management issues for the Legislature, said they could not discuss details of what was said at the meeting.

Sen. Ed Olson, R-Mitchell, the panel's chairman, said Sioux Falls lawyer Jim McMahon told the committee what he has learned from investigation records that were subpoenaed from the attorney general's office. The panel also discussed what direction the probe will take, Olson said.

The Senate is looking into allegations that Sen. Dan Sutton, D-Flandreau, groped an 18-year-old male page during the 2006 session. Sutton has not spoken publicly about the issue, but his lawyer has said Sutton has done nothing wrong.

The Senate had scheduled a special session this week to look into the allegations against Sutton, but it was canceled when Sutton resigned Nov. 14 from his current term.

Alcee Hastings, aka, My Lord And Savior

Nancy Pelosi has decided not to select Alcee Hastings as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee.  NRO has Hastings's statement, and it is quite the whopper.  Here it is in full:

"I have been informed by the Speaker-elect that I will not serve as the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the 110th Congress. I am obviously disappointed with this decision. As we learn in Ecclesiastes, however, for everything there is a season.

"I have been honored to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives for the past 14 years and look forward to having this privilege for many, many more years to come.

"I appreciate the support that I received for my potential chairmanship from numerous colleagues here in Congress, from supporters across the country and, indeed, spanning the globe. Their words to me and on my behalf are something for which I am truly grateful.

"This institution is organic. Many opportunities are ever-present and changing.

"Now I must, and will seek other ways to better serve the citizens of Florida's 23rd Congressional District and our great Nation.

"As has been the case over the past seven years of my service on the Intelligence Committee, the next Chair of the Committee will have my full support to do everything we can to protect the national security of the United States and our allies.

"Our nation's national security is far more important than my professional security.

"Best of all, I will be seeking better and bigger opportunities in a Democratic Congress. There is much to be accomplished and little time to re-set this nation's economic and spiritual compass. I look forward to working with our new Speaker of the House and all of my colleagues to see that we do this at once.

Sorry, haters, God is not finished with me yet."

1. This actually isn't a bad statement until the last two sections, although it is not clear what he means by his "professional security" other than being distinct from "national security."
2. Since when is it the job of Congress to "re-set" the nation's "spiritual compass"?  I thought Democrats were against religion in politics, and yet here is a guy who wants to use government to tinker with my "spiritual compass."  Let me also opine that the best thing Congress can do regarding our "economic compass" is leave it alone. 
3. Is Alcee Hastings aware that there might be reasons for opposing a corrupt impeached federal judge as Intelligence Chair other than hate?  This smacks of self-righteousness in extremis, all the way down to the "God is not finished with me yet," which, if said by a Republican, would have many Democrats screaming "Theocracy!"  How dare we keep Alcee Hastings from his God appointed job as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Another victory for hate! 

One isn't sure which is worse; if Hastings believes this drivel or if he doesn't. 
         

FCC to Investigate the Concentration of Media Ownership

The FCC has announced plans to investigation the concentration of ownership in the media industry.  South Dakota-born commissioner Jonathan Adelstein (son of state Senator Stan Adelstein) wants more scrutiny:

As part of its current review of media ownership rules with an eye toward loosening them -- which already has sparked heated controversy -- the FCC announced plans to conduct 10 economic studies on the issue.

But the agency's two Democratic commissioners immediately attacked the plans as inadequate and secretive.

Studies will focus on individual topics such as the impact of ownership on programming; the relationship between cross-ownership and news reporting; and the status of minority ownership.

Announcement, issued Wednesday, identified study authors, who will include academics, FCC officials and the Nielsen organization. All studies will be peer-reviewed, the agency said.

"Today's announcement of the commission's new media ownership studies, unfortunately, raises more questions in the public's mind than it answers," commissioner Michael J. Copps said in a statement. "How were the (authors) selected for the outside projects? How much money is being spent on each project -- and on the projects collectively? What kind of peer-review process is envisioned?"

Jonathan S. Adelstein, Copps' Democratic colleague, said the announcement "ultimately undermines the public's confidence" because "the legitimacy of the studies is directly correlated to the transparency of the process undertaken to develop the studies and select the authors. The descriptions of the studies are scant, lacking any sense of the commission's expectations for scope, proposed methodology and data sources."

FCC chairman Kevin J. Martin has stated the ownership rules are outdated and that limitations or restrictions should be eased to reflect the contemporary media environment. When the commission last voted to ease ownership rules in 2003 along strict party lines, a federal court blocked the attempt, saying it was unjustified.

Nicolay

Argus Leader editor Patrick Lalley suggests naming the new school in Sioux Falls after the woman who spearheaded the effort to allow abortions in South Dakota, Jan Nicolay:

There are several deserving women, including Sylvia Henkin, who's been a pioneer in many ways for this community; Loila Hunking, the first woman to serve on the City Commission and who rehabbed our street system; or even Jan Nicolay, who was an administrator in the district for many years and served in the Legislature and in the administration of Gov. Bill Janklow.

More Daschle Staffers Supporting Obama

From today's edition of Roll Call:

Job Application?

Looks like Todd Webster, the former communications director for then-Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), has a man crush on Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Either that or two other possibilities: He's a true believer who wants Obama to be president, or he's looking for a job.

Webster sent out a blast e-mail last week announcing that, as a fan and admirer of The Alternative to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), he has created a help draft Obama Web site, at www.runobama.com.

The site allows citizens to sign a petition of support for an Obama candidacy, Webster said. There is also a blog devoted to chronicling Mr. Obama, which is linked through the Web site.

War, Then and Now

Historian Victor Davis Hanson:

Western exhaustion, guilt, and appeasement are nothing new. Much of the British aristocracy saw not much wrong with Hitler, even after the invasion of Poland. It was Churchill alone who put an end to their peace feelers to fellow travelers in Germany, still creeping out when his new British government chopped them off after the fall of France.

No need to talk about French politics in the 1930s, or the conditions in Austria before the Anschluss. Reread what Joe Kennedy or Charles Lindberg said about appeasement before December 1941, and it gives a frightening glimpse into the mind of a great segment of the population that thought it could ride out the European war, deal with a Hitlerized Europe, and live with Imperial Japan.

All that said, the West is encountering something novel, as it fights its first politically-correct war, in which all the postmodern chickens of the 1980s and 1990s have come home to roost. Thus multiculturalism makes it hard to fight non-Europeans from the former third world, inasmuch as it argued there was not just little distinctively good about the West, but rather the once recognized universal sins of mankind—racism, sexism, class oppression, inequality, patriarchy—were to be seen as exclusively Western.

Read the whole thing.

Bogus Iraq Stories

Gateway Pundit has more reports of bogus Iraq stories from the Associated Press.  Glenn Reynolds comments: "Kind of makes you wonder about the reporting from Iraq. Okay, it's more like 'confirms your suspicions' than 'makes you wonder,' really."

Jerstad/Earley Recount

Argus Leader:

A recount of votes in the state’s closest legislative race tightened the margin by one vote but left Democrat Sandy Jerstad of Sioux Falls as the winner, auditors said today.

Jerstad held a 20-vote margin over incumbent Republican Sen. Bill Earley of Sioux Falls after the official canvass of votes from the Nov. 7 election. Earley sought a recount, which was finished today.

He closed the gap by four votes in Minnehaha County but lost three votes in Lincoln County, auditors said. In Minnehaha County, the recount showed Earley with 3,096 votes and Jerstad with 3,492 votes, Auditor Sue Roust said. That’s one fewer vote than Earley had in the canvass but it’s five fewer for Jerstad.

In Lincoln County, Earley finished the recount with 2,055 votes, three less than the canvass, Auditor Paula Fecht said. Jerstad’s canvass number of 1,678 remained unchanged after the recount.

The combined two-county totals were 5,170 votes for Jerstad and 5,151 for Earley. The numbers must be certified to the secretary of state’s office, which issues certificates of election.

Todd Epp, however, thinks the Argus Leader is wrong. 

Cowboy Diplomacy

Well, here we go again.  Rumblings from the loonies who think that Iranian President Ahmadinajad is a crazed war monger who must be removed from power. Haven't we heard this before?  Weapons of mass destruction!  Evil leader!  We can't afford to let that leader get his hands on nuclear weapons! We can't negotiate with these people!.   Will the Bush Administration ever learn?  Oops. This time it's Ellie Wiesel, who no doubt advocates regime change in Iran in order to enrich all his friends in the oil industry, while the Bush Administration, through its new Secretary of Appeasement Jim Baker, advocates negotiation and concessions to Iran. 

Thune YouTube Video

Um, what?!  This is just weird.

HT to Plains Politics.

Financial Underpinning of the Iraq Insurgency

Ed Morrissey: "Guess Who Financed the Insurgencies?"

How Expatriots Celebrate Thanksgiving

Here is a curious note on behalf of two former residents of these United States (David and Ms. Drucker) who, in 2004, put their passports where their mouths were and got the Hell out of Dodge.  From the LATimes:

I'm sure a lot of other dyed-in-the-organic-wool liberals muttered something similar that dark morning in 2004, but unlike most of them, we meant it. Plan A: John Kerry wins, we build that dream ski house in Vermont. Plan B: Move to Vancouver, Canada.

So, Plan B it was. We'd had enough of Bush, the direction the United States was going, and this was the last straw. Never mind that we lived in Cambridge, Mass., arguably the most liberal city in the bluest of the blue states. We were packing our bulk granola into our diesel Beetle and heading out.

Now I have nothing against Canada (other than North Dakota).  Some of my best friends are Canadian.  And I am sure there are lots of good reasons to move to Canada, though just right now I can't think of any.  To be sure, Mr. Drucker is right about those "dyed-in-the-organic-wool liberals".  A lot of them promised to leave the country after Bush was re-elected, but to judge by recent election returns, most of them were all travel brochure and no plane tickets. 

But one cheer is all I can muster for Mr. Drucker.  Leaving the country just because your side lost an election is perilously close to agreeing to a coin toss and then backing out after you make a bad call.  That might be justified if you thought that the other side was acting in bad faith, and would cancel the next election if there were any danger they might be thrown out of power.  But 2006 proves that the Republicans can lose an election, and will leave office because they have to.  So what keeps the Druckers among the cold Canadian pines?

It turns out that Canadian conservatism can look awfully liberal. So far, Harper — derided as "Bush lite" — has, for instance, introduced a partial tax credit for monthly transit passes. The Conservatives have proposed a Clean Air Act for Canada, and although it's not ideal, it's still something. Harper said that these new laws would "institute a holistic approach that doesn't treat the related issues of pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions in isolation." When was the last time you heard any U.S. politician utter the word "holistic"?  Did I mention universal healthcare? Even Harper seems committed to keeping that.

We've come to the conclusion that the United States has drifted so far to the right that any self-respecting Canadian Conservative would be considered a raving liberal in Washington. Stephen Harper is no George W. Bush. We may not agree with him, but we don't feel ashamed every time he opens his mouth. We might yawn, though.

The Druckers do not wish to live in a country where anyone disagrees with them on anything they consider important.  It is not conservatives in power, or insufficiently liberal policies, that annoy them; they cannot abide the mere existence of genuine conservatives.  They refuse to live among folks who do not use the right kind of vocabulary.

I am as content with the Druckers's decision as they are.  If their testimony is reliable, their immigration has made the United States a little more of what it already was: a place where genuine diversity of thought is real and respected.  That is not the sort of place that the Druckers want to live in.  They are wealthy, privileged people, who can afford to chose between a "dream ski house in Vermont" and Vancouver, Canada.  They suppose they are entitled to a environment where they need never confront anything out of their comfort zone.  The U.S. is not a good place for someone who feels so special.