Black Flight

Shay of Booker Rising links to an interesting article about black flight from Minneapolis public schools (she, in turn, got the article from Dean Esmay). I'm a Minnesota transplant, not a native, but I still take more than a passive interest on what goes on here. And this story certainly qualifies as interesting.

I remain conflicted on school choice proposals. This article was not particularly helpful in resolving that conflict, because it didn't give me a lot of information that would be important to me in making my decision. For example, though the "open enrollment" plan the Minneapolis metropolitan area has includes suburban public schools, the article itself only focuses on charter schools. Since the suburban public schools here are amongst the most elite in the nation, I'd be curious to see how they play out in this program (Shay thinks that the moment black students start arriving en massse to majority white schools, this program can kiss itself goodbye). The article just asserts that Charter Schools are "accountable", but doesn't say how (and my reading on the subject implies that at least some have been taking parent's for a ride). Also, I think the article shows a more complex story than some of its cheerleaders let on. While Mr. Esmay claims "'black flight' [is] not making the public schools any worse, because everybody admits that after decades of funding increases and 'reforms,' they can't possibly get any worse," not even the article is willing to sign onto that message, admitting that "[s]ince the state doles out funds on a per-pupil basis, the student exodus has hit the district's pocketbook hard. The loss of students has contributed to falling budgets, shuttered classrooms and deep staff cuts, and a district survey suggests more trouble ahead." Contrary to Esmay's Panglossian outlook, this does represent a problem if we, for whatever reason, concede that charter and outside schools can't accommodate the whole district. And that, I think, is a fair assumption--between kids with disabilities to troublemakers to just plain old underperformers, there are plenty of people who for one reason or another will be stuck in the inner city schools. Do we just abandon them?

That being said, Esmay and Shay probably would claim at least a comparative advantage over the status quo, and I'd be hard pressed to argue. I can't in good conscience tell any parent to keep their child in a school system that is failing them that miserably. But this moves me to my second objection (or perhaps, hesitation) to going full-out on school choice. If implemented to its full extent (and assuming that Shay's predicted white backlash doesn't materialize, which is far from certain), I think both Shay and Dean think that school choice represents a long term solution to the problem of schooling poor inner-city youth. I, on the other hand, disagree, and think it represents a short-term patch. Over the long haul, I have serious reservations about a permanent policy of shipping kids here there and everywhere for school.

I made this argument in a previous post regarding school choice, citing Charles Lawrence III (who, for the record, is black and sends his children to D.C. public schools--let there be no claims of hypocrisy here). I'll briefly reprise it for you here:

[Lawrence] thinks that we should view schools as a community issue, rather than just a collection of individuals acting as education consumers. In a school choice model, a community that has (say) 10 school age children might see them all attend different schools (or be home-schooled). This may be somewhat appealing because we like a breadth of choice. But I think we also lose something in such a situation. Education isn't just textbooks and word problems. I do believe it is some way intricately connected in a community of learning, an environment conducive to intellectual and personal development, both inside and outside school walls. When what was a cohesive community splinters of into dozens of fragmented individuals, those bonds are lost, and I think that students will suffer for it.

Lawrence says that instead of individualist solutions, we should look toward collective proposals that will both strengthen the community and rebuild the schools themselves. For example, he proposes that we extend affirmative action benefits to students of any race who attend integrated schools, to discourage white flight (one of the primary causes of inner-city school attrition). Presumably, he would also support endeavors like local tutoring organizations, daycare, and community-based academic resources, to cultivate a healthy academic community rather than focusing on particular persons. I am not hostile to individualism by any stretch, but I think schools are a perfect example of where its better to build bridges rather than break bonds.

School choice has intuitive appeal to me because it lets people who are stuck in failing schools get a real education. But at the end of the day, nothing can substitute for race and class-integrated communities, where people learn not just algebra, but also how to look out for each other. Does this mean I oppose school choice? I can't bring myself to say I do. But I do think it has to be seen as a waypoint, not a destination. The destination is a time where every neighborhood has a school that is not divided along hierarchal lines, where students of every background learn together, play together, work together, and grow together. Utopian? Maybe. But we can still work toward the dream. At the very least, the affirmative action for integrated school alums proposal seems like a promising avenue for reform. So, I once again recommend Professor Lawrence's article to all interested parties (here's the link--warning, PDF), and remind school choice advocates to celebrate, but tread lightly.

The Question of the Christians

In a recent article I penned for The Carleton Progressive, I lauded Kansas Senator and staunch evangelical Sam Brownback for his aggressive stance on Darfur and North Korean human rights, and urged Democrats, on these issues at least, to "Be Like Sam." That article followed up on a prior blog post, in which I wrote that "If being a hard-right Christian Conservative makes you more likely to support a Darfur intervention, then I can't bring myself to indict the whole movement." But of course, on other issues, such as homosexuality, the Christian right is a massive barrier to progress and human decency. So the question is: what to make of the Christian Rights flirtations with progressivism?

In what appears to be a chance coincidence, two of my favorite commentators have written up thoughts on the matter today. First, Alan Stewart Carl argues in the same vein as my own aforementioned pieces. He notes that on some of history's most pressing moral claims (slavery, woman's suffrage, and civil rights, to name some), Christians and other religious actors have been on the front lines for progress. Remember, he's not just Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he's the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. Carl ties this in with the evangelical movements laudable support for Darfur intervention, condemnation of human rights abuses, and focus on the AIDS crisis in Africa. As a result, Carl condemns the reflexive anti-religious sentiment present in some corners of the secular left. And I'm hard pressed to disagree.

Another great recent example of religious faith being used for stellar moral ends (albeit in this case Catholicism, not Evangelicalism) was shown in a recent New York Times editorial on illegal immigration. Congress is thinking of passing a law that would greatly expand the definition of "alien smuggling" to include nearly any humanitarian acts of charity--caring for a neighbors baby, or working in a soup kitchen that serves illegals. In response, the Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony, issued a very simple response. If the bill passes, Catholics should defy it. Good old fashioned civil disobedience to an unjust law. How can we critique this?

On the other hand, Michelle Cottle's article in The New Republic today raises fair points of its own. Every few weeks, it seems, an article comes out in the mainstream press about how the religious right is going to step beyond its traditional focus on sex, sex, and sex, and start aggressively advocating for other Christian priorities as well. You know, those little things like environmental stewardship, caring for the poor, and ending racism. But, while they may genuinely believe in these values as well, their faith without deeds is meaningless. And at the end of the day, there are few to no deeds to go along with the words of mainstream evangelical groups.

Cottle gives the example of the latest evangelical effort to start focusing on global warming. In what seemed like a auspicious start, the Evangelical Climate Initiative quickly received a major grant from the (secular) Hewlett Foundation. The problem is that Hewlett also funds some family planning efforts. Theoretically, this "problem" isn't one, as environmental justice and contraception are clearly severable issues. But alas, the evangelical hard right went up in arms anyway, wondering--in what can only be described as paranoid delusions--if Hewlett's grant wasn't actually just a closet effort to fund more abortions. Aside from the question of how (and why) one would choose a global warming initiative to enact pro-choice policies, if one was to take that--shall we say, indirect?--route toward the end, why would one fund an unabashedly pro-life organization to do it? Alas, such protests fell on deaf ears. When it turned out that an evangelical film by an evangelical company starred a gay actor--same thing. No more focus on the uplifting message of the movie, or how it showed evangelicalism in a good light. All of that is swept aside to the tune of "no-promo-homo." In general, the organizations themselves, even as they pay lip service to other ideals, have and are maintaining a laser-like focus on a few conservative wedge issues.

The net result is that individual conservative Christians can--and, as Brownback shows, do--look past the "sexy" issues to advocate on human rights. But as an organized political entity, any proposal that doesn't relate to abortion, gay marriage, and abstinence is just spinning its wheels. To make one more Catholic analogy, consider efforts by Catholic legal scholars to take a more condemnatory stand on Bush's torture policy. Surely, this is a pretty clear violation of Catholic doctrine? And sure enough, Princeton Professor Robert George (one of most prominent right-wing religious Catholics--he's affiliated with The Family Research Council) announced he was game--if his fellows would group the announcement as part of a general "ringing affirmation of the Church's teachings on torture, capital punishment, abortion, and marriage and sexual morality." To which Eduardo Penalver, another Catholic legal theorist, responded:

I'm all for taking on sacred cows, but I don't understand the inability of many conservatives to simply acknowledge the evil of this administration's policies with respect to torture without bringing up abortion.

Prof. George would surely admit that the multiplication of issues he proposes would needlessly dilute the force of the truth he welcomes speaking to this administration about the evils of its torture policies. So I have a somewhat different invitation, which I offer as a friendly amendment: Why don't we sign a joint statement (now) condemning in the strongest possible terms the torture practiced by this administration (which was, after all, the topic of Michael's post), and when Democrats control ANY branch of the government or have any appreciable influence on national abortion policy, we can sign a joint statement about abortion?

As far as I can tell, the proposal has now stalled out.

So where does that leave us? The net result is that Christian values can, and often are, a source of support for progressive policies and forces around the world. That can't be ignored. Thus, anybody who condemns religion--even the very religious--solely on the basis of it being religious is wrong. Clearly, unambiguously, inarguably wrong. But the recent history of the evangelical and Christian right movement has shown pretty convincingly that they will not, as full political organizations, expand beyond their meat-and-potatoes "sex" issues to join hands with progressives on any major scale. I'm thrilled that many evangelicals support a Darfur intervention. But can you imagine what our nation's policy toward Sudan would be if they put even a quarter of the effort they put into barring all abortions into stopping all genocide? The ideals are there. The institutional will is missing. That's the bottom line.

Threat Construction

Phoebe Maltz's (self-described "Francophilic Zionist") coverage of anti-Semitism in France is precisely what I would have written if I were as intelligent as Phoebe Maltz. From earliest to latest, here, here, and here. The latter is particular appealing to me, as it eloquently lays out how I think Jews are viewed around the world--but I think in Europe and academic circles particularly:

Or, to put it somewhat more clearly: It cannot possibly be that fantastic to be a Jew in France at the moment. Just as, way back when, Jews were seen as rich and thus evil by the poor because they were associated with the aristocracy, and yet were never able to really join the aristocracy because, well, they were Jewish, today's Jews are considered to be at once the enemy of the downtrodden and a part of a Semitic, non-European, anti-Western population invading France. Jews get to be symbols of the West to those such as Halimi's torturers, and of the East to the pork-soup crowd.

In the 19th century, it was well documented that the aristocracy portrayed Jews as rabble-rousing communists, while rabble-rousing communists shouted that Jews were bourgeois. Same thing today: we're simultaneously the privileged Westerners and the barbaric, sub-human Orientals.

Phoebe's post also clarifies a point of contention lodged by Ampersand at Alas, a Blog on my original post on the subject. The Chicago Sun-Times editorial I linked to said that the French government was downplaying the anti-Semitic element to the attack, Amp said that, well hold it, French government folks joined a massive march against the anti-Semitism that motivated the attack. According to Phoebe, the solution to the discrepancy appears to be that universal political attribute: flip-flop. At first, the government minimized the role anti-Semitism played in the assault, but faced with growing outrage in the Jewish community they made an about face. Also, before I forget, nice catch on the issue of Steyn's credibility--though to be fair he's not the only source I've read raising alarm at the rise in anti-Semitism in France.

I will defend Steyn on the point that saying "Israel is the greatest threat to world peace" is an anti-Semitic view to hold. Amp argues that it is plausible to think that "the most likely hotspot to directly or indirectly cause WW3 is the Israeli occupation of the West Bank." Maybe...but I have two objections to that line of argument. First, I don't think most people answer the question in that particular mode, nor do I think that the questioners intend it to come off that way. I could say that America is the greatest threat to world peace simply because we have the most potential to do harm and are the target of a lot of dislike. But to me, that question is more designed to get at "which country is most likely to go out an aggressively start an international conflict," to which I think Iran or North Korea are far and away clearer choices than Israel. That ties in to my second objection, which is that no matter how you cut it, the answer to that question has normative implications for the named country. Let's say that I buy that the West Bank controversy is the conflict most likely to spill over into WW3 (and I'm not sure that I do). That doesn't necessarily make Israel the greatest threat to world peace. To do that, you need to answer two more questions, which I think are progressively more absurd. The first is that the West Bank conflict is unambiguously Israel's fault. If they aren't the blameworthy party, then the peacebreaking effect of the West Bank shouldn't be laid at their feet. Second, I need to agree that the injustice of the occupation is worth sparking an international conflict over. If it isn't, then I should feel more threatened by the radical imams or whomever who are making a particularly stubborn border conflict into the most likely nuclear holocaust scenario.

So really, there are three statements I need to affirm before I can get at that answer, each one a bit harder to plausibly argue than the one before. The first is that the occupation is the most likely hotspot to spark WW3. The second is that this conflict is primarily Israel's fault. The third is that this is an injustice worthy of war. If I answer no to the first statement, then my answer to the survey question shifts to North Korea or something. If I answer yes to the first but no to the second, then my answer becomes Palestine (or, if I feel they're roughly equal at fault, then "Israel and Palestine"). And if I answer yes to one and two, but not three, then my answer becomes "whoever made the crazy decision that the West Bank occupation was worth plunging the world into darkness and despair over," which almost definitely isn't Israel but could easily be Iran or the Arab League. Say what you will about Israel's settlement policy, but the folks who think that Israel harbors global territorial domination ambitions (*cough* Hamas *cough*) have crossed into the realm of paranoia. Put bluntly, even the most anti-Israel interpretation of Israel's interests can't seriously argue that Israel wants the Palestine issue to turn into a global war--and if it does go global, it's going to be some other actor making the push. And since "the Jews [want to] control the world" has a pretty well-developed history as an anti-Semitic myth, I don't feel bad about accusing said paranoids of being anti-Semitic.

Personally, I'm not sure if I buy one, I definitely don't buy two, but to the extent that I do buy one (and assuming arguendo that I buy two, which I don't even think I have to for the purpose of the claim that I have to make), since I don't think that the I/P conflict comes close to justifying another world war (and I do think it's possible to justify one--WWII was a just war, in my view), the "greatest threat to world peace" becomes whatever actor turns said conflict into a global conflagration. The wildly obvious answer to that query is Iran. Which means that, even starting from the premise that "the most likely hotspot to directly or indirectly cause WW3 is the Israeli occupation of the West Bank," the conclusion I'd logically come to is that "therefore, Iran is the greatest threat to world peace."

So to sum up briefly: saying that a country is "the great threat to world peace" is inherently a normative claim. So to say that Israel is said country, you have to believe a) that the West Bank is the hotspot most prone to global escalation b) that Israel is completely or primarily at fault in the region and either c) that those who would push this conflict from local to international are right or d) that Israel is the one making that push. Since this syllogism is illogical bordering on irrational, I think it's fair to question whether or not it's adherents might have adopted some anti-Semitic sentiments from their travels in our lovely (Jewish-controlled) world.

Transcendentally Right

A brief appendix to my Risks and Rewards in Theory post, where I claimed that Cindy Sheehan was "consistently, extremely, and transcendentally wrong on almost every issue." The flip side of her is Barack Obama, who appears to be right on nearly everything. Kind of incredible, actually.

See Kevin Drum for the latest in Obama amazingness. To wit:

The federal government would pay 10 percent of the $6.7 billion in annual health costs for retirees that are weighing down General Motors, Ford and Chrysler if they'll commit to building more fuel-efficient cars, Obama proposed in a speech Tuesday before a panel at the National Governors Association conference. He called it a "win-win proposal for the industry."

Specifically, he wants the auto industry to do the following:

Ramp up new fuel standards that will result in production of 65 billion gallons of alternative fuels per year by 2025.

Mandate that the federal government buy only flex fuel vehicles.

Within ten years, mandate that every car in America is a flex fuel vehicle. Include a $100 tax credit per vehicle to ease the pain.

Put yellow gas caps on all flex fuel vehicles.

Provide a $30,000 tax credit to any gas station that installs E85 pumps (i.e., a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline).

Matt Yglesias is less hot on the idea on a policy level, although he recognizes that it is political gold. He thinks that it may violate WTO rules (though he doesn't explain how, and I don't see the violation on first pass. If having complete national healthcare isn't a WTO violation, then how does partial coverage become one? Explanation appreciated). At the moment, Yglesias hasn't convinced me (though he definitely didn't pour his full argumentative talent into dismantling the plan). So I stand with Carpetbagger Report that this is win-win-win for Democrats, and they should press hard for it.

Just showing, yet again, that Obama is the golden boy.

Realistic Assessment

I'm not much of a Realist when it comes to foreign policy. That's not to say I don't care about protecting America's interests abroad, just that it isn't the overriding concern. The sort of Cold War mentality where we prop up evil dictatorships to keep them out of the Soviet column is abhorrent to me. So, if someone says "we need to intervene in Sudan because their oil resources are a vital strategic interest," I'm skeptical. But if they say "Sudan's in the midst of a genocide--we need to save lives!" I start paying closer attention.

But not everyone is like me. And that's why this New Republic article laying out the Realist case for a Darfur intervention is so important. It's clearly written, compelling, and urgent. Everyone should read it.

The gist of the argument is that we need to check China's influence in Africa. Basically, every time we withhold economic or political support to an African regime because they're hacking the limbs off their citizens (or whatever), China rushes to fill the gap. So when the US delayed giving Nigeria the arms shipment they wanted, they just ran to China, who said "sure thing!" China offers economic, military, and political assistance to all comers, and (and here's the important part), a shield via its security council veto against meaningful international sanction.

This is where Sudan comes in. Sudan is one of China's biggest client states. And, by committing genocide, Sudan is also the biggest human rights violator in the region. If the US doesn't intervene in Darfur, the message is that China's influence can prevent meaningful sanction over literally any governmental policy. And we, for obvious reasons, don't want that: it would give a blank check to any machete-wielding militia with government support, it would make human rights in the region a dead letter, and it would eliminate any hope the US had of competing with China for regional influence (after all, why bother abiding by pesky American rights standards when China will give you the same support for free?).

I buy the analysis. But since I'd be willing to intervene even without that argument, I'm not the important guy here. It's on the rest of you now. Go forth, and read.

Mississippi Irony

Mississippi takes a step to ban all abortions. Boo. But this clause I find intriguing:

Rep. Omeria Scott, D-Laurel, persuaded the House committee to approve an amendment that says the state would provide free education and medical services to any child born in the state, until age 19.

Scott said her proposal could extend beyond the public schools and Medicaid already offered. She said it could make a significant difference for a poor woman who's trying to decide whether to have an abortion.

"Anyone who wants to take this language out of this bill is not for life," Scott said.

This would be a spectacular policy. And I agree with Representative Scott--a clause like this is make-or-break for being truly "pro-life" (as opposed to "pro-birth").

But here's the delicious irony. This clause would have never passed by itself. This sort of universal education and healthcare commitment is definitely not up the GOP's alley, neither in Mississippi nor anywhere else. But Scott convinced them that it kind of went part and parcel with a true pro-life position (and again, she's dead right), so they threw it in.

Now, the next step in the "banning abortion" theater game (assuming the bill gets passed by the full legislature) is where a federal Court immediately enjoins its enforcement. This isn't even a close call--even if the Court thought that abortion should be criminalized, it has to obey higher Court precedent (which is really clear in this case). But, Courts try, whenever possible, to only strike down the unconstitutional aspects of a bill. If they can "sever" the unconstitutional parts from the constitutional parts, they will. The "ban abortion" clause and the "free education and healthcare" clause are clearly separable, that is, you can enforce one without enforcing the other. So the latter will likely be preserved even if the former goes down in flames.

The upshot is that Mississippi's abortion ban will immediately be struck down, but the children's welfare statute will remain on the books, fully enforcable. Which puts MS politicians in the lovely position of either acceding to a massive new liberal program, or having to repeal healthcare for poor children (can you see the ads?).

Sometimes, the straightest path...

(TMVer Justin Gardner with the heads up)

Risks and Rewards in Theory

One of my pet theories is that only actions in which their is a potential for really bad consequences also have the potential for really good consequences. Take judicial power. I am a supporter of judicial interventionism. I recognize that this could potentially lead to catastrophically bad results (e.g., Dred Scott). But I see it as the only way to lead to good/right results. That is to say, a non-interventionist approach, to me, is a guarantee of moderate suckiness. The same discretion that enables wildly unjust results also unlocks the potential for achieving just results. Since I want to preserve the potential for justice in the system, I support judicial power, but keep a careful eye on it to make sure it's being used for good and not evil (I recognize that these are hotly disputed terms, but that's a subject for another post). Similarly, Ian F. Haney Lopez observed that any use of race conscious thinking could theoretically be perverted to racist ends, but if we're serious about ending racism, race conscious thinking is absolutely necessary, so that's a risk we're going to have to take. Focusing solely on when it goes wrong means foreclosing the only options that offer the chance of getting things right.

An interesting example of this is Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democrat most hated by Democrats this side of Zell Miller. I'm kind of ambivalent to old Joe. On one hand, he's been far too willing to defend really bad government policies, serving as a GOP foil to legitimate Democratic attacks on the Bush administration. I think the charges of "Fox News Democrat" are overstated, but not completely drawn from whole cloth either. I'm certainly less of a fan than I was even a few years ago. If The New Republic was revisiting its presidential endorsement issue from 2004, I'd expect and hope that they would not give it to Lieberman (of course, I supported Clark in 2004).

On the other hand, the same maverick streak that places Joe on the side of Bush on issues I'd rather he'd not be, also means that he's been ahead of the curve on a bunch of issues I'd like the Democratic party to push harder on. The Department of Homeland Security? His idea. And in general, Lieberman's constant press for more security funding has been superb. So all in all, I'm willing to overlook, if not forgive, Lieberman's flaws as a politician. I don't support the primary campaign in Connecticut to knock Lieberman out of office (and it's not based off a generic opposition to challenging one's own incumbents--I support Ciro Rodriguez's effort to take back his seat from Henry Cuellar). The attributes that make him sometimes do really dumb things also sometimes make him do really awesome things--I want to preserve that.

I look at Lieberman and see a flawed but ultimately defensible politician. Sure, when he's wrong, he's wrong in a much bigger way than Senator Mainstream Democrat. But on the other hand, he's right bigger too. One can debate about where we should draw the line--but I think it's unfair to cast Lieberman as some sort of uniquely evil man. So when someone makes a Nazi analogy to Joe, calling him "Herr Lieberman", I think that crosses a very serious line. Godwin's Law aside, I blogged specifically on why, in "ordinary political disputes" (which, for better or worse, the anti-Lieberman campaign is), ethnic slurs (by which I mean epithets designed to have particular potency based on the target's race, religion, or background) should be considered out of bounds. See the linked post for the full argument, but implicitly comparing a Jew to a Nazi obviously qualifies--even if one doesn't think that Nazi comparisons are per se wrong, it's qualitatively different when one does it to a Jew because of their unique history. That it was endorsed by one of the more popular liberal blogs on the web is even more distressing, and shows an inability of some persons to divide between political opposition and personal slurs (H/T: The Plank).

Of course, like the proverbial coin that flips tails fifty times in a row, there are those people whose "maverick" streak causes them to be consistently, extremely, and transcendentally wrong on almost every issue. Cindy Sheehan jumps immediately to mind. Even though we both identify as progressives, she still manages to take that value system and morph it into complete idiocy. I probably feel about Sheehan what many people feel about Lieberman (of course, I think I'm right and they're wrong, but whatever), but I'm not going to engage in any sort of "hate speech" against her (calling her a "bitch" or "pseudo-Stalinist pinko" or however one puts down a white female leftist these days). I'll just keep on saying that I think Sheehan is clearly, completely, indisputably wrong about nearly every issue she opens her mouth about. Despite what the right would like, that doesn't make me question progressivism inherently. It just reminds me that any good theory (like progressivism) has the potential to be used for evil. If it doesn't, then it likely isn't flexible enough to actually be a good theory.

So to recap: strong theories will inherently risk being wrong big sometimes (Lieberman) or even all the time (Sheehan). But that isn't, by itself, a reason to reject the theory. It's just a reason to be more vigilant in its application.

Introducing the Kennedy Court

The hyper-partisan Texas redistricting map is coming to the high Court. I think that partisan gerrymandering is one of the great evils of modern American politics, and would love to see the Court take a stand on it. Will it? Tough question.

Again, let's assume that Alito and Roberts vote conservative, giving us our standard 4-4 liberal/conservative split. The wild card, then, is Justice Kennedy. In this TMV post I touched on my sentiment that Kennedy will drift slightly to the left over the next few years and occupy O'Connor's spot as designated swing vote (most people would probably have placed Kennedy slightly to the right of O'Connor previously). I believe that in past cases, Kennedy has signaled severe discomfort with partisan redistricting, but has expressed concern that there is no workable standard for remedying the problem. He's had several years to think of one, and I think he really wants to lay down the law here. I think that Kennedy's normal cautious, centrist mentality can be overcome (and hard) if he's presented with a case that nakedly violates his sense of justice or fairness. That explains how a judge widely considered to be moderate could write such sweeping and uplifting opinions in Lawrence v. Texas, Roper v. Simmons, Lee v. Weisman, and Romer v. Evans (to name a few). This topic, by my reckoning, seems to be elucidating the same sort of visceral reaction in Justice Kennedy that those cases did. Couple that with just how blatant the partisan interest was here, and the Justice Department's political hacks overruling its career appointees, and I think it might push Kennedy over the edge.

Many legal wags named the previous manifestation of the Court "The O'Connor Court," because of her critical role as the pivotal "5th vote" in so many cases. Kennedy seems poised to fill her role. And this case will be highly indicative of what that means for legal doctrine and the nation as a whole.

TNR Takes a Step

Apologizes for the lack of blogging--this week is looking to be a doozy. Hopefully I'll settle in as the week progresses.

Anyway, apparently the next Editor in Chief of The New Republic is going to be Franklin Foer. I'm a fan of the choice--Foer is a gifted and talented writer (as even the churlish folks at DKos admit), and think he will do great things for the magazine. Everyone is marveling at how painless the process is--apparently, TNR leadership battles are normally editorial bloodbaths. Hooray for unity!

Andrew Sullivan and Josh Marshall put in good words, Kevin Drum thinks that TNR's one barrier to greatness is its refusal to say outright that Iraq was a mistake. Maybe so, I don't know. Comments?

Quote of the "Day"

"Day" is in quotations because this was written in an article published in 1979. The topic is an author's futile quest to find objective moral norms:

Nevertheless:
Napalming babies is bad.
Starving the poor is wicked.
Buying and selling each other is depraved.
Those who stood up and died resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, and Pol Pot--and General Custer too--have earned salvation.
Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned.
There is in the world such a thing as evil.
[All together now:] Sez who?
God help us.

From: Arthur Leff, Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law, 1979 Duke L.J. 1229, 1249.

Eyes and Ears

Interesting editorial in the Chicago Sun-Times about the rise in European anti-Semitism, and the concurrent rise in Europe ignoring it. Scary stuff. I don't endorse all the rhetoric about Islamists taking over the world (though I think we do need to remember that is the agenda of the radical wing of the Muslim world, I always think articles like this overstate how prevalent this sentiment is amongst the rank-and-file), but the rising tide of anti-Jewish violence in Europe and elsewhere cannot be ignored--no matter how much France might want to.

It's important to call this what it is--anti-Semitism. That it isn't being covered might partially be about Islamic appeasement, but I reject calling that the whole story--that's as demeaning to the victims as the French police or the British papers who refused to say that their was a Jewish link to the cases. Murder of Jews isn't a political tool you get to trot out to show just how really bad the Islamists are. It's bad because killing Jews is bad, period. And not covering the murder of Jews as Jews is a form of anti-Semitism, irrespective of how it plays into our global conception of what the war on radical Islamism is.

H/T: The VC, see also Captain's Quarters.

Irrational Response

But you know what, it was an irrational idea to begin with.

In Ohio, a bill has been interested by state Republicans to bar homosexuals from adopting children. It's a spectacularly stupid idea--if not outright unconstitutional--and only serves to harm underprivileged children who need a family more than they need to be political playthings.

So, in response, Ohio State Senator Robert Hagen (D) has drafted a counter-bill, to prohibit Republicans from adopting children. Oh the irony. Hagen argues that children in Republican families are at increased risk of "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities." Of course, he admits he has no solid scientific data to back it up--but then, neither do the anti-gay adoption forces, so that washes.

If nothing else, great political theater. Irrational discrimination is irrational discrimination, be it against gays or conservatives.

When Good Men Do Nothing

UNC Law Professor and Japanese Internment expert Eric Muller tells a fascinating and revealing story of the immediate aftermath of WWII. I reprint the relevant part here:

He [a former Nazi party bill collector] asked me whether I had known anybody connected with the West Coast deportation. When I said "no," he asked me what I had done about it. When I said "Nothing," he said, triumphantly, "There. You learned about all these things openly, through your government and your press. We did not learn through ours. As in your case, nothing was required of us--in our case, not even knowledge. You knew about things you thought were wrong -- you did think it was wrong, didn't you, Herr Professor?" "Yes." "So. You did nothing. So it is everywhere." When I protested that the Japanese-descended Americans had not been treated like the Jews, he said, "And if they had been -- what then? Do you not se that the idea of doing something or doing nothing is in either case the same?"

On the one hand, not doing anything in the face of a moderate injustice is not as bad as not doing anything in the face of a serious injustice, which in turn is not as bad as doing nothing during a grave injustice. On the other hand, the rationalizing procedures we use to justify our inaction remain roughly the same throughout. So when we let moderate injustices slide by, it is highly indicative that we would do the same even if the sin committed were far more shocking.

In other words, the average American's indifference toward Japanese Internment is not, morally, equivilant to German indifference toward the Holocaust. But it is strong evidence that, if our policy toward the Japanese was one of extermination rather than internment, we'd have not protested then either.

I'm not even sure I believe that. I think values count for something, and I think that America has a sufficiently strong tradition (at least by 1942) of not sanctioning random killing in its own borders such that such a move would not be tolerated. But yet, counter-examples abound--lynch mobs, genocide of Native Americans, even the fire-bombing of Dresden or the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki all indicate that our respect for the human life of non-combatant "others" was severely deficient.

Food for thought, anyway.

Gay Palestinians, Israel, and "Collaborators"

My TMV co-blogger HollyRob sent me an interesting article in The Forward about Gay Palestinians and their desire to flee to Israel. Anti-gay sentiment is so strong in Palestine (and the Arab world in general) that these people brave tight Israeli border security to try and make it to Tel Aviv. Israel is by far the only state in the Middle East with meaningful tolerance and protection for its homosexual minority.

The article slams Israel for giving virtually no allowance to these asylum seekers. Apparently they were very tough to begin with, and when in 2002 a group of Palestinians used their Israeli identity cards issued under a family re-unification law to assist suicide bombers, the country tightened its laws yet further.

I'm a big advocate for giving bona fide refugees asylum, though I think Israel is a bit of a special case given that it's one of the few countries where "border security" isn't hyperbole but an actual life-and-death matter. I do think that Israel could be doing much more for these people--even they can't keep them in Israel, giving them temporary asylum while negotiating 3rd-country asylum status seems very reasonable (this seems like an issue America could help with immensely). But I think we should keep in mind the context here--the article seems a bit too trigger happy in condemning Israel for not unconditionally granting asylum, and barely even notches a condemnation of Palestine for letting these people be stoned to death if they stay at home.

On that note, I'd like to make a brief aside about something that's bothered me for a long time regarding the I/P issue--calling Palestinians who assist Israel "collaborators." The article used this language in making the argument that Palestinians, knowing how susceptible their gay comrades are to blackmail, assume that they are or are vulnerable to becoming collaborators for fear of exposure. They use it again further:

Several petitions are pending in the Supreme Court in Jerusalem challenging the [asylum] law on constitutional grounds, because there is no exception for those with a well-founded fear of persecution. (There is an exception for people who "identify with the State of Israel and its goals" and who "performed a material act to advance the security" of the state - in other words, collaborators - thus validating the common suspicion among Palestinians.)

I hate this rhetoric. Technically, of course, "collaborator" is value-neutral, it just denotes a person who helps another organization. But in war time, it takes on a very clear connotation of assisting the enemy, of doing wrong. The paradigmatic collaborator is a Nazi collaborator in occupied France. The problem with applying "collaborator" here, then, is that there is almost no way to condemn what these people are doing as "wrong" if one believes (as most people at least profess to) that Palestinian terror operations are evil and should be stopped. Giving intelligence to a body to stop an action that is nominally regarded by both sides as something that needs to be stopped can't rationally be called "collaboration" in the classical sense. The fact that the body is Israel, as opposed to the PA, is completely irrelevant to this analysis--a rational actor could (and almost definitely would) conclude that if he wants his information to actually get in the hands of people who could intervene to stop the violent act, the IDF is far better situated than the PA.

In fact, I think that giving information to the IDF about terrorist attacks is pro-Palestinian, because giving the IDF more specific information let's them tailor their response strategies to particular events, rather than having to depend heavily on general defense strategies that heavily burden the entire populace. In other words, there are two different plausible scenarios here. The first is that the IDF gets little or no information from "collaborators", but still is obviously aware that there is a vibrant terror infrastructure in Palestine, and attacks that are and will continue to come. Without anything in the way of specifics, though, they have to make very general responses--building big walls, really secure checkpoint systems, and invasive sweeps. I'd say that pretty well characterizes the status quo. Alternatively, consider an environment where they get a lot of specific information. Then they can use that information to tailor their responses accordingly. If a town has overall positive views toward Israel and isn't harboring terrorists, it can get much more relaxed security arrangements, while if a city block is a particular terror hotspot, it can get a pinpoint raid without sending troops through the whole town. That's obviously qualitatively better for Palestinians, because it more precisely tailors the burden of Israeli security needs on the people who are actually causing the problem, rather than the population at large.

It may seem counter-intuitive to assert that Palestinians helping the Israeli government aren't in some sense betraying their own people. But that's because we've implicitly come to associate "Palestinian interest" with "terrorism", and I don't think that's fair (one could argue that's closetly racist). Everyone should agree that Palestine would be far better off if it didn't resort to terrorism, just as everyone should agree that Palestine would be better off if it was a free, democratic state. If we agree to these terms, then we should laud Palestinians who are actively stepping up to fight terrorism. That's far more "pro-Palestinian" than anything Hamas has ever done.

The Journalistic Narrative

My latest piece for the Carleton Progressive is online. I reprint it here for your reading pleasure. Some of the references are to Carleton-specific institutions like The Lens, but I think the point of the article comes across just fine.

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Last week, in an editorial written in response to the funding controversy for The Lens, The Carletonian made an interesting set of claims about the role of media in society. Defending their reporting from charges of bias, the Viewpoint Editor Patrick Reis laid out a vision of what their obligations were, as journalists, in service to the Carleton community. By far the most interesting was their assertion that they had no duty to screen the accuracy of quotations attributed to individuals. In fact, Mr. Reis argued, to do so would be "the essence of editorializing, a violation of journalistic ethics." Instead, the only legitimate end of the Carletonian is to find differing perceptions among the student body, and accurately report those perceptions.

This is not a viewpoint limited only to the Carletonian. I'd wager that most mainstream media sources abide by it as well. This vision is one of a mirror, a value-less object that uncritically and dispassionately reflects the world around us. In its faux-neutrality, it represents a seductive vision of non-partisanship and objectivity. But progressives around the country are increasingly discovering how the "objective" newspaper is a myth, and how conservative activists are exploiting these journalistic norms to spread falsehoods and lies.

We live in a world of narrative, a world in which things are told as stories. A story, by definition, is only a partial truth--it is impossible to incorporate every viewpoint or perspective into one's tale. But yet, we know that the inclusion of marginalized voices can drastically change our perception of a story; Hamlet seems far less straight-forward to anyone who has read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. In political narratives, the stakes are even higher; where the addition of one fact can change intuition greatly, the decision to include or exclude that fact, or any other, is extraordinarily significant. Because every perspective is important, and not all perspectives can be included, any narrative (including newspaper stories) is definitionally biased from the start. Narratives also serve to constrain our perceptions of the world around us--unless constantly challenged, they subconsciously shape our assumptions of political and social actors. There are infinite narratives floating around at any given moment, all which exercise real power--even though the world is too complex to be contained within overarching generalizations. Democrats are dovish wimps, Republicans are manly hawks. Republicans hate gays, Democrats hate Christians. Democrats want to spend lots on social programs, Republicans are stern minders of the deficit. The list could go on indefinitely, but it represents a false picture of reality. For example, there are many hawkish Democrats, and there are excellent reasons to argue that Republican "hawkishness" is actually making our country less safe. However, the former function of narrative--selective inclusion/exclusion of facts--acts to reify the latter; all else being equal, the average reader will default to her pre-existing perceptual horizon when interpreting confusing or controversial events. By not challenging these forms, the media is not acting "objectively" but instead acts in the service of deception.

Two examples might serve to illustrate. Jonathan Chait wrote a spectacular article ["The 9/10 President," The New Republic, 3/10/03] detailing how Republicans gained their advantage on the "national security" issue in the wake of 9/11, despite virulently opposing virtually every security initiative put forth by Democrats in the aftermath of the attack. President Bush and congressional Republicans opposed increasing funding for Hazmat security, securing loose nuclear material, port inspections, communication improvements--in fact, Bush, the president who still has yet to veto a bill, threatened to do just that if congress spent more than the original emergency $20 billion dollars passed immediately after the attacks. At the same time, Democrats, led by Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, proposed establishing a Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Bush immediately announced his opposition, only to reverse himself several months later when faced with overwhelming popular support for such a program. But Bush wasn't content to work with Democrats. In a move of astonishing hubris, he then proceeding to accuse the very Democrats who proposed the program in the first place of obstructing it, painting them as opponents of America's national security. The actual point of contention was absurdly superficial and clearly concocted to provoke a fight--Bush wanted to eliminate union protection for future DHS employees, Democrats wanted to preserve it. But the media went dutifully along, reporting Bush's attacks on Democrats while failing to note his previous opposition to the bill or Democrats' vociferous support of it.

Rather than challenge Bush's clearly fictional commitment to national security, the media viewed the matter as one of two competing perceptions in which it could not objectively take sides. But by not taking a side, the media took the Republican side, because it elevated their lies and distortions to the level of Democratic fact. And when neither side's credibility was challenged by the media, Americans simply assumed Republicans were right. Top conservative strategist Grover Norquist explains that the public perception is that "Republicans are tough on crime to the point where they'll take away your civil liberties. Republicans are so tough on foreign policy that they'll flatten cities." The argument, then, that Republicans might actually be weaker than Democrats on these issues was viewed by most Americans as so far-fetched as to be laughable. Indeed, the facade was so successful that Democrats themselves began to adopt it as truth. In the 2004 election, there was a "resume" handed out that listed President Bush's "achievements" during his first term. One such "achievement" sarcastically listed was "the largest increase in federal bureaucracy of all-time, the Department of Homeland Security." I was forced to lecture countless Democratic activists that a) the program was a Democratic initiative, and b) it was actually a good idea.

Alas, the problem gets no better when there are actual "facts" proving one side to be correct. Chait tells the story of then-Governor Bush's promotion of his promised tax cut on the 2000 campaign trail. One of the key Democratic responses was that his cuts were slanted heavily to the wealthy. Vice President Al Gore cited non-partisan analysis using treasury department models which showed that Bush's tax cuts would give 40% of its benefits to the wealthiest 1% of tax payers. Bush responded with his own analysis purporting to show that only 22% would be so directed. But Bush's analysis was done by his own hired flunkies, and, more importantly, reached its figure by omitting the impact of the estate tax and upper-income bracket cuts--the very cuts most likely to slant toward the rich. Under the Carletonian's standard, "objective" media sources should not challenge Bush's assertion in their coverage of the story, despite the fact that he blatantly lied. And sure enough, the media dutifully reported both "sides" of the debate, with The New York Times reporting that "the richest 1 percent of taxpayers would get between 22 percent and 45 percent of the tax benefits, depending on how the calculations are done." Again, with the media refusing to critically challenge the validity of Republican statements, Americans defaulted to their pre-existing narrative structure--one in which Democrats had no credibility on tax issues. And so the tax cut was passed even though most Americans, when informed of the actual properties of the plan, were clear in their opposition.

Does this mean that media sources should just abandon their pretense of objectivity, and openly advocate for favored political views? Not at all. However, it does mean that these sources must be cognizant of the world around them, and how their powerful function in a democratic society serves to shape popular opinions and perceptions. Both challenging a falsehood, and refusing to challenge it, are equal manifestations of bias. Both incorporating a narrative structure, and attempting to dismantle it, are equal manifestations of bias. Given that reality, why not make truth the tie-breaker? Why not try and paint a more accurate picture of the world, rather than blindly follow the voices of the charlatans? If completely apolitical reflection is impossible (and it is), then journalism as a profession needs to find a new raison d'etre. I submit that purpose be to inform and educate the population.

The Carletonian justifies its reliance on "he-said/she-said" journalism by arguing that it "allow[s] the reader to determine validity for him or herself." Presumably, most mainstream media sources who follow the same paradigm would agree. But most people don't have the tools to determine the validity of a political debate any more than they have the tools to determine the validity of a complex mathematical proof. Or more accurately, they view the media as that tool, and thus see an unchallenged quote present in a story as not just any perspective, but a valid perspective that is in some respects "true." In a world where all actors are arguing in good faith, this might work. But we don't live in that world. It is simply impossible to argue that the media's complaisance with lying gives us a fairer, more deliberative, more informed, or more effective democracy. Refusing to challenge deliberate falsehoods isn't objectivity. It's a bias in favor of slander, an abdication of professional and social responsibility, and it hurts progressive causes in America and around the world.

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You can access this and more liberal articles at the Carleton Progressive's website.

Partial Restoration

The Supreme Court has just released a unanimous decision in O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal v. Ashcroft, a religious freedom case under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFLA). I blogged about the case previously, but the analysis I gave in that post was based off a really bad reading of City of Boerne v. Flores on my part, and is thus rather worthless. In any event, the Court ruled that the under the RFRA, the UDV Church could not be prosecuted under federal drug laws for the use of a controlled substance in their sacramental rites.

My TMV co-blogger Andrew Quinn calls the decision "a sloppy way of adjudicating", and thinks the Court needed to make a more "definitive call." Since I think the Court takes too much undeserved flak on it's decisions generally, and on it's religion cases specifically, I'm going to explain why this case was perfectly sensible and adjudicated in precisely the right way.

It's unclear from the post if Andrew has read the decision itself, or just a radio blurb and the brief CNN summary (word to the wise: never undertake to criticize a legal ruling based only on what you hear in the mainstream media. I guarantee you it's been dumbed down to the point where the important legal distinctions have been obliterated), but I think that it might be useful to give a bit of background on the legal context this case operates in. I think that knowing the history would explain why the Court did everything it needed to do, and in fact has answered most of Andrew's objections already.

In the beginning, there was Sherbert v. Verner. Sherbert was a free exercise case, and it basically held that laws which impinge on the free exercise of one's religion have to survive "strict scrutiny." This is the same test that's used in a variety of other fundamental rights contexts, and in a nutshell it says that the law is only valid if it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. So, to use Andrew's example, preventing a religious group from engaging in human sacrifice would clearly pass strict scrutiny, because there is a compelling state interest in not letting people kill each other, and there's no real way to meet that interest other than banning it outright. But, for example, if a state wanted to ban religious solicitation because it bothered local homeowners, this probably would fail strict scrutiny, either because "preventing annoyance" is not a compelling state interest, or because an outright ban isn't the narrowest way to achieve that objective (see Cantwell v. Connecticut).

To me and many other folks, this was a very intelligent and common-sense test. However, in Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith, the Court effectively (if not explicitly) abandoned the Sherbert doctrine, and held that any generally applicable law automatically was not a Free Exercise Clause violation. That is, unless the law explicitly discriminated against a particular religious group, it could not be challenged under the Free Exercise Clause--the government did not have to show a "compelling state interest" or that the law was "narrowly tailored" or anything of the sort. Smith, as it happens, also dealt with sacramental drug use, in this case Native American use of Peyote.

Smith was a tremendously unpopular decision, and Congress quickly passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The goal of this act was simple: re-establish the Sherbert test for determining the validity of a general legislative prohibition as applied to a particular act. So, with Peyote, Congress quickly enacted an exception to it's general drug laws saying they don't apply to Peyote. But even had their been no such exemption, now the Native Americans could argue that the prohibition of their Peyote use was not a "compelling state interest" or that the blanket prohibition was not "narrowly tailored" to serve that end. That is, if the compelling state interest behind a blanket prohibition of Peyote is that its unhealthy, the Native Americans might be able to muster evidence that shows that their carefully supervised and monitored religious use has few to none of the health risks associated with recreational use.

Bringing us back to the case at hand, the Court's decision was a relatively straight-forward application of the RFRA. The question is whether or not the government had a compelling interest in prohibiting this group from using a drug essential to their religious practice. The Court concluded that they didn't, for a variety of good reasons they lay out in the opinion itself. This is not, as Andrew describes it, a "hazy grey area", but the application of a very specific federal statute with years of doctrinal history behind it. And the fact that the use of this drug is generally illegal is not "all we need to know", because federal law creates an exception to general laws when it burdens religious practice (subject, again, to the strict scrutiny test). "Compelling state interest" may be contested in certain cases (that's why we have litigation), but the Court here did exactly what it should: it took the pertinent rule (the Sherbert "strict scrutiny" doctrine), and applied it to the facts of the case at hand. That's not "call 'em like we see 'em." That's how one decides cases. The compelling state interest standard clearly answers Andrew's human sacrifice objection, and for situations that are perhaps a closer call, those cases should be decided when they're litigated, not pre-emptively without factual briefings and oral arguments.

Demeaning God

Now here's a shot across the bow by pro-evolution clergy:

"The intelligent design movement belittles God. It makes God a designer, an engineer," said Vatican Observatory Director George Coyne, an astrophysicist who is also ordained. "The God of religious faith is a god of love. He did not design me."

Oh snap. Oh snap.

Strange Bedfellows

They say politics makes them. And "they" are right. The WE Blog (blog of the Wichita Eagle's editorial staff) says that an "ultra-leftist organization" is urging liberals to be more like Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) when it comes to human rights abuses in North Korea. In fact, the group, Ironweed Films, calls Brownback "the strongest congressional advocate for human rights in North Korea" (they've got a petition you can sign too).

I had a conversation with a friend over the weekend, in which we were talking about "principled conservatives" (such a rare specimen these days!). She said that she could respect some principled conservatives, but there were certain types she thought were just flat wrong, like the "social conservatives." I demurred, saying that while I think social conservatives are really, really bad on a host of important issues, their moral passion can also lead them to really stand out on some critical issues that other politicians (Republican and Democrat) would rather just let slide. Brownback, on both North Korea and Darfur, is a perfect example of this. If being a hard-right Christian Conservative makes you more likely to support a Darfur intervention, then I can't bring myself to indict the whole movement (and lest we forget, the Darfur victims are primarily Muslim, not Christian, so this isn't just sectarianism acting up).

On a moral level, it's appalling to think that Democrats are ceding the human rights issue to folks like Brownback (to be fair, most Senators in both parties are pretty weak on the issue). It's distressing that no Democrats have seemed to come out as hard on this issue as he has. But on a political level, I think this is fertile ground for Democrats to bridge the gap to moderate evangelicals who think our party is hostile to everything they stand for. Because it clearly isn't. Sure, we'll probably never come to an agreement on abortion rights. But not torturing prisoners? Not supporting genocidal regimes? Not letting poor people starve? These are "values" too--and ones that Democrats have a clear advantage on. Use that leverage to crack the GOP base, and we'll be reaching that rare pinnacle of doing what's right and what's popular.

Thanks to Patrick Kowalczyk (via e-mail) for the heads-up.

We're Doomed! DOOMED!

This Dan Drezner post had one of the scarier openings for me that I've seen ("Well, it's time for me to pack it in -- blogs are finished, caput, history."), but the post itself is very interesting (and yes, I'm pretty sure from the post text that the Drez isn't actually quitting). Essentially, its a collection of the latest media articles harbringing the end of the blogosphere. We'll never make a profit, our influence is fleeting, we're too white-male, we'll be co-opted by the hated MSM--oh the horror!

Like Drezner, some of this I agree with, and some of it I don't. I am skeptical that blogging will ever become a profitable activity for more than a few lucky souls. I think we'll continue to have influence, simply because there's a lot of us, because we offer fresh perspectives on the issue, and (perhaps more importantly) we've demonstrated considerable effectiveness at framing issues and (at least at some level) agenda-setting. I'm not particularly worried about corporate co-opting either--even if it does completely subvert the independence of those blogs (and I'm not convinced it will, look at Andrew Sullivan), the low entry costs mean that another 20 will spring up in its place. And while it is difficult to break into the top ranks nowadays, it can be done (both Glenn Greenwald and firedoglake are pretty new, as are PrawfsBlawg, Concurring Opinions, and BlackProf).

The blogosphere (at the top at least) clearly isn't diverse enough. I'm pretty happy with the amount of gender diversity on my blogroll, but I have virtually no racial diversity (Yin Blog, Half the Sins of Mankind, and BlackProf are the only minority-run sites I know of off-hand on my blogroll). To someone as interested in racial issues as I am, this is embarrassing, and I'd appreciate help in rectifying the situation. Booker Rising was the most glaring omission I can think of (since rectified), I won't link to Steve Gilliard after the Michael Steele smear (not that he needs my traffic anyway), and I was thoroughly unimpressed by Afro-Netizen.

But I digress. The point is that the blogosphere may not turn into the superpowered behemoth that (some) predicted it to be. But it still will serve some purposes, have some impact, and have some influence. Though it can be tough and stressful at times, I continue to love this blog, and all the people I've met(/"met") through it. I wouldn't give it up for the world.

It Looked So Good

I was so excited when I read the headline in the New York Times: "Bush Sees Need to Expand Role of NATO in Sudan". And the opening to the story did not disappoint:

President Bush signaled a new American commitment on Friday to addressing the crisis in Darfur, saying he would support an expanded role by NATO to shore up a failing African peacekeeping mission there.

Mr. Bush also said he favored doubling the number of peacekeepers operating in Darfur under United Nations control, as proposed by the Security Council last month. He discussed Darfur, in western Sudan, as an offshoot of a question about the fate of children in war-ravaged northern Uganda.

"I talked to Kofi Annan about this very subject this week," Mr. Bush said, referring to a meeting with the United Nations secretary general. "But it's going to require, I think, a NATO stewardship, planning, facilitating, organizing, probably double the number of peacekeepers that are there now, in order to start bringing some sense of security. There has to be a consequence for people abusing their fellow citizens."

Administration officials said Mr. Bush's comments reflected discussions between the United States and its allies calling for a broader interim role for NATO in Darfur until a larger, United Nations peacekeeping operation can be established.

So far, so good. But alas, it looks like this is yet another false hope. Further in the story:

After President Bush spoke on Friday, a senior State Department official said the United States proposal continued to be "to strengthen the A.U." until United Nations forces arrive late this year.

While Mr. Bush spoke of "a NATO stewardship," the American officials cautioned that NATO would command only logistical operations, not the African Union troops.

They reiterated that Washington would send no American troops. In Congressional testimony this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "We are prepared to talk with our NATO counterparts about what more we can do to support" the African Union forces "until we can get the U.N. forces" into Darfur.
[...]
Over the last year, about 7,000 African Union peacekeepers troops have been stationed in Darfur to monitor and enforce a cease-fire between rebel and government troops. In January, the Security Council began to plan to send peacekeepers to Sudan, which envisions a force of as many as 20,000 operating under a broad mandate.

But United Nations officials have acknowledged that winning commitments from member nations to send that many troops is likely to prove difficult. The United States has stated unequivocally that American combat troops would not be sent there, and other nations have offered similar cautions.

Why do we have this unequivocal stance against sending US troops? I was looking for some leadership, damn it, not a shield by which any half-hearted Western country could duck out of its military obligations to the peacemaking force.

To me, this sounds just like Bush's oil proposal in the 2006 State of the Union. Sounds very dramatic, raises liberal eyebrows, immediately gets interpreted down to meaninglessness by lower aides, fade to black. It's wrong when the subject is our energy policy. It's inexcusable when it comes to genocide.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden (D-DE) and Sam Brownback (R-KS) have introduced a resolution calling for NATO troops to intervene in Darfur, including American troops if necessary. I generally despise Brownback, but his leadership on this issue has been steady, constant, and unwavering. I respect that immensely.

I'm competing in the Minnesota State Debate Tournament this weekend, so I might not be posting this weekend. If that is the case, have a great weekend, and see y'all Monday!