Ted

Richard Silverstein at Tikun Olam has a few posts (here and here) about the decision of the State Department to deny a visa to Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan. Ramadan was to begin teaching in the fall at Notre Dame. (See also Chris’s post on the subject.) A spokeswoman for the State Department:

said Mr. Ramadan’s visa was revoked under a legal provision that bans espionage agents, saboteurs and anyone the United States “knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, is engaged in or is likely to engage after entry in any terrorist activity.” She said she could not provide any details about Mr. Ramadan’s case.

I don’t know much about Ramadan, and no scholar is owed a visa. However, I’ve just read Daniel Pipes critical article about why Ramadan should be denied a visa (linked by Silverstein). His evidence alone doesn’t sound like it’s strong enough to keep him out of the country.

It’s maddening. I don’t like second-guessing this sort of decision, and it’s absolutely possible that there is good reason to suspect Ramadan. If that were true, the State Department probably shouldn’t be sharing their suspicions in great detail. But… if there’s real reason to suspect this scholar will engage in felonies while teaching at Notre Dame, why would the State Department invite Ramadan to reapply for another kind of visa?

A point that’s possibly worth reiterating:

The Islamic world has ample reasons for legitimate criticism. Anti-Semitism, sexism, lack of democracy, lack of opportunity, nurturing of terrorism… these are sad realities, not the hallucinations of right-wingers. Anger and criticism are appropriate, but our approach has to start with the assumption that Muslims are not going away. Short of deliberate genocide, there’s no way forward in the long run except for “hearts and minds.”

There is much, much more to say about this. Luckily, an organization called Americans for Informed Democracy is taking a few steps in this direction. They’re putting on a series of thirty events in September and October on the subject of US-Islamic world relations.

The series will finish on October 12 with six “Face to Face” videoconference dialogues between young leaders at six universities in the U.S. and six in the Muslim world, including in Egypt, Indonesia, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, and Turkey.

The series is intended to commemorate the three-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks with a call to action out of the ashes of tragedy. As you know, the recently released report by the 9/11 Commission stressed that the U.S. must “act aggressively to define itself in the Islamic world” and to share America’s “vision of opportunity and hope.” We hope that our efforts can help to build understanding between non-Muslims and Muslims in the U.S. and then to extend that understanding to the relationship between the U.S. and the Muslim world.

No one initiative like this will change history. But what other option is there, really?

Barry Ritholtz, market strategist and blogger, will be guest hosting Squawk Box, Wednesday, August 25. The show is on CNBC, from 7am to 10am. He says that the hosts will be Joe Kernan, Dylan Ratigan and either Maria Bartiroma, or Becky Quick, and Barry. Very exciting.

Congratulations!

George Bush:

“I can’t be more plain about it,” Bush said. “I hope my opponent joins me in condemning these activities of the 527s (political groups that sponsor to ads). I think they’re bad for the system.”

Uggabugga links to a list of 527s and asks, “Why does the Bush campaign object to ads that the Oregon Grocery Association might run? What are they doing that is objectionable?”

Sorry to keep harping on this, but it’s pretty incredible that a serious candidate would talk like this. I doubt that five people in a hundred would agree with Bush’s position if it was presented in a cooler-headed context. The right of people to organize and speak out is right at the heart of the First Amendment.

And yet, this has been Bush’s talking point: ban all the ads from unregulated groups. The Sierra Club. The Club for Growth. The League of Conservation Voters. GOPAC. The National Association of Realtors. They’re all bad for the system, and none of them should be allowed to advertise at all. Bush thinks that the government should have this kind of power; he claims that he thought that he had already banned these groups from speaking.

Incredible.

Eugene Volokh has more on Scott McClellan’s call for an end to “all of this unregulated soft money activity.” Says Eugene:

You can call it “soft money,” but it’s speech, of the sort that political movements such as the antislavery movement, the temperance movement, the civil rights movement, and many other movements (good and bad) have engaged in. Without such speech, who gets to speak effectively, in the large traditional media? The media itself; the parties; and the politicians who have the infrastructure to raise hard money in $2000 chunks; and a few super-rich people (unless they’re shut up, too). People who care deeply about a subject, enough to pool even tens of thousands of their dollars with others who care equally strongly, would be shut out.

UPDATE: Aaron Schwartz emails a link to Bush himself on Larry King Live. McClellan wasn’t off the reservation; Bush is saying (a) I want to get rid of unregulated, independent soft-money political speech, and (b) I didn’t understand the law I signed.

G. BUSH: Well, I say they ought to get rid of all those 527s, independent expenditures that have flooded the airwaves.

There have been millions of dollars spent up until this point in time. I signed a law that I thought would get rid of those, and I called on the senator to — let’s just get anybody who feels like they got to run to not do so.

KING: Do you condemn the statements made about his…

G. BUSH: Well, I haven’t seen the ad, but what I do condemn is these unregulated, soft-money expenditures by very wealthy people, and they’ve said some bad things about me. I guess they’re saying bad things about him. And what I think we ought to do is not have them on the air. I think there ought to be full disclosure. The campaign funding law I signed I thought was going to get rid of that. But evidently the Federal Election Commission had a different view.

UPDATE: Julia has more.

The New York Times has looked into the claims of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

There were a lot of folks on the right who knew better than to lie down with these dogs. They knew that they were promoting a huge pile of horseshit, but they were desperate to believe that there was a pony in there somewhere. What they found is a charge that Kerry misreported being in Cambodia, thirty-six years ago, by as many as five whole weeks. Devastating.

They wanted mainstream media attention for this campaign. I do hope that they enjoy it.

(UPDATE: OK, sometimes comedy is pretty.)

A few highlights below.

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Atrios has a good question:

I really don’t understand why there hasn’t been more attention paid to this, from little Scott McClellan:

We’ve called on Senator Kerry to join us and call for an end to all of this unregulated soft money activity.

What exactly does this mean? Should all expenditures be “regulated?” Regulated how? Should my friends and I not be able to throw some dollars together and buy ads?

I mean, I’m a tepid supporter of various Campaign Finance Reform endeavors, but I didn’t realize that president had such extreme views. Or does he? Can someone pin him down?

The quote isn’t out of context– I’ve got the whole exchange under the fold. McClellan repeatedly says that the President calls for an end to all unregulated soft money activity. Surely he can’t mean that?

McClellan also says “the President thought he got rid of all of this unregulated soft money activity when he signed the bipartisan campaign finance reforms into law.” Incredibly, he seems to be making the argument that Bush doesn’t understand the laws he signs. Even I know that campaign finance reform did nothing of the sort.

But let’s take McClellan seriously for a second. Are we supposed to believe that Bush thought he was signing away the right of Americans to engage in “unregulated soft money activity”? I mean, we Timberites pay money for our bandwidth. We engage in political speech. And we’re completely unregulated.

Did Bush think that he was outlawing this?

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In the brutally competitive, take-no-prisoners world of fantasy sports team managment, sometimes we have to take matters into our own hands. That’s when McSweeney’s guide to heckling might come in handy.

While you’re out and about in your town, try heckling some of the locals to build your confidence and work on your repertoire.

To the Mailman: “Karl Malone would be ashamed.”

To the Paperboy: “Who taught you how to throw? David Cassidy?”

To the Grocer: “This orange blows.”

To the Bank Clerk: “I can buy and sell you at will.”

To the Bus Driver: “Flunk out of chauffeur school?”

To the Ice-Cream-Truck Driver: “Flunk out of bus-driver school?”

To the Town Vampire: “Even I have bigger teeth. And you call yourself a reanimated corpse that has risen from the grave to suck the blood of the living? You suck. In a nonliteral, yet highly amusing, way.”

To the Waiter: “How’s that whole aspiring-to-be-an-actor thing going? Not good? At least you got your degree in …? Oh. I’m truly sorry. Can I get a refill?”

Paul Beard writes to ask what the economists and social scientists at Crooked Timber think of this interview with economist Ray C. Fair. His model that is predicting that Bush will get 57.5% of the 2-party votes.

Well, the economists and social scientists at Crooked Timber are in bed, so I’ll try. Here’s the model and relevant webpage. Fair is a Yale professor who has been tweaking his model, and successfully publishing papers on it, since 1978. I am a lowly uncredentialed blogger who has spent less than an hour looking at said papers. If I were a betting man, I’d have to bet that Fair is right and I’m wrong when I raise a criticism. If I’m lucky, maybe he’ll respond to my email and humiliate me in comments.

Having said that, a few comments:

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1. Dan Aibel at Contrapositive reads the New York Times very carefully, and points out that it would probably be for the best if the city of New York took an interest in the cars that military recruiters regularly park illegally in Times Square.

To put it simply: If there are going to be 3,000 pound metal boxes parked in the middle of Times Square, they ought to be have an awfully good reason to be there. And they should be inspected regularly–whoever happens to own them.

2. Gary Farber discusses the same post from Bjørn Stærk that Belle pointed to below. My favorite part is this exchange at Winds of Change:

SDN: Don’t worry, Gary, when Jews fly planes into skyscrapers I’ll be hunting them too.

Gary: Yes, I know.

Two points possibly worth making:

a. This is one problem that we can’t blame Bush for. For all of his faults, he has consistently urged respect for the Muslim faith and world, and I’m grateful for that.

b. What is the intended end goal of LGF-ish anti-Muslim agitation? I certainly understand that there’s a lot to criticize. But those comments indicate a significant (?) vein of people who seem unwilling to accept that we’re going to continue to co-exist with Muslims. If this is engagement…

3. I don’t like illegal music downloading, but I’ve made my peace with mp3 blogs. This track, “Seeds of Life”, by the 70s Latin funk group Harlem River Drive, makes me want to quit my job and hit a cowbell for a living. Just awesome.

Just before you settle down on the landing pad, you look upon Arlington National Cemetery…its gentle slopes and crosses row on row. I never once made that trip without being reminded how enormously fortunate we all are to be Americans, and what a terrible price thousands have paid so that all of us…and millions more around the world…might live in freedom.

Dick Cheney, August 2000, accepting the nomination for Vice-President at the Republican National Convention

The memorials in rows at Arlington Cemetary are rounded white headstones, not crosses.

Do you know why this unimportant gaffe wasn’t a story? Because no Democratic politician put his credibility on the line to point it out. If Gore had gotten on the stump and harrumphed about it, it would have been picked up and played itself out, like countless other sad little pseudo-scandals on the campaign trail.

Similarly, the kabuki outrage about the John Kerry in Cambodia

My opponent said that he was in Cambodia in 1968. Now

John Kerry said, as recently as 1986, that he spent the Christmas of 1968 on a clandestine mission in Cambodia. In fact, he was there on clandestine missions in January and February of 1969 in Cambodia. His recollection was off by between one and five weeks. As Kevin Drum explains,

Kerry did go to Cambodia — even though that was supposedly impossible, he did take CIA guys in — even though that was supposedly absurd, and he did get a hat from one of them — even though that was supposedly a sign of mental instability. The extent of Kerry’s malfeasance is that instead of doing it in December, he actually did it in January and February.

In 1986, he said that this was “seared” on his memory. Rather like, I’d imagine, the memory of a cemetery you had seen and contemplated well over a hundred times.

Readers are invited to share why I should be outraged at John Kerry.

Liberal Oasis has a good collection of quotes from our sensitive Republican friends.

Julian Sanchez adds,

I swear, stuff like this is almost enough to make me want to become one of those partisan Democratic hacks that Matt refuses to be. It ought to be crystal clear to everyone—it surely is to Cheney—that Kerry meant by a “more sensitive” war on terror exactly what Bush did when he used the same word: It’s a point about more deft diplomacy, not a suggestion that we watch Steel Magnolias with Osama and talk about our feelings.

Via Tapped, who point out the shoddy job that the press has done in pointing out the dishonesty in Cheney’s remarks. The Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times all fail to print Kerry’s entire quote in their articles about Cheney’s attack. With these guys, it doesn’t matter if what they’re saying is true; it only matters if it’s useful. It would be nice if the major media outlets didn’t keep falling for it.

Jeff Jarvis makes a decent point:

Apparently, everyone else in New Jersey media knew McGreevey’s secret. And if that’s so, it raises lots of questions. I’m not saying they should have outed him; I long for the day when a politician’s personal life is just that. But if he indeed hired his lover for a state job for which that reputed lover was in no way qualified… well, that’s a crime. Why didn’t we know?

It’s great that McGreevey came right out and told the world that he was gay without apologizing for it. But if the charges about cronyism for his lover are true, they’re much more serious than Jack Ryan’s trips to sex clubs.

I understand that the specific comparison is meaningless; the individuals who make up the press corps in New Jersey don’t have to answer for the Chicago Tribune, or vice versa. There’s no one to point to, other than the imaginary beast called “the media.” Still, the public right to know is self-evident in the case of McGreevey, and not at all evident in the case of Jack Ryan. This isn’t right.

WASHINGTON- In an unusual joint press conference, President Bush and Senator John Kerry announced the nomination of Rep. Christopher Cox of California to serve as director of the CIA. The joint nomination virtually ensures Cox’s confirmation, at a time when Administration officials have warned the public to expect attacks.

“In this time of uncertainty, we need stability in our intelligence agencies. I promised to reform our intelligence capabilities, and I intend to keep that promise,” said President Bush. “That’s why I’ve been in communication with Senator Kerry on this nomination…”

If you don’t like Christopher Cox, pick someone else. I wouldn’t dream of any President extending this kind of consideration for most appointments, but the CIA director is an unusual case. Porter Goss is a poison pill in a position where we can least afford one. There seems to be some agreement that Porter Goss’s open partisanship makes it almost inevitable that he will be dismissed in the event of a Kerry victory. That’s not good.

Maybe Goss will turn out to be an excellent head of the CIA. But his nomination has more than a whiff of positioning, and he’ll have no traction until November (if Bush wins) or January (if Kerry wins). If we’re sincerely expecting attacks, and we’re sincere about wanting to reform our intelligence, then we’ve got to have CIA leadership that can get to work, regardless of which way the votes fall.

Maybe I’m daydreaming, but it seems like we’ve missed a great opportunity for statesmanship. You may say that I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.