The discussion on this post was still going on as it slipped off the page, so I’ve picked up some thoughts from the comments thread, and from earlier CT posts on this topic. I’ll begin with Eszter’s observation that comments are the democratic component of blogging . For me, comments are an essential part of blogs, and I rarely read blogs that don’t allow them.

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The White House has unambiguously stated that it does not support the “extraordinary rendition” provisions.

The president did not propose and does not support this provision. He has made clear that the United States stands against and will not tolerate torture and that the United States remains committed to complying with its obligations under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Consistent with that treaty, the United States does not expel, return or extradite individuals to countries where the United States believes it is likely that they will be tortured.

ALBERTO R. GONZALES

Counsel to the President
Washington

I’m probably naive- we’ll find out soon enough. But that’s a clear, praiseworthy denunciation of the provisions in question. This leaves Hastert, Hostettler, and other supporters of these provisions without a fig leaf, doesn’t it? The 9/11 commission doesn’t want it, the Justice Department doesn’t want it, and President Bush doesn’t want it. It violates common decency, conservative principle, and 200 years of history. How can they stand up for them?

(I’m really not interested in nailing the White House for a flip-flop. If it’s true that they caved because of political pressure, good for them. Maybe they caved because of principle. Maybe it was a miscommunication. Either way, it’s a blessing, and they deserve praise for it.)

It also gives pro-Bush bloggers a hook to promote this story. President Bush denounces torture! But the provision still needs to be defeated. Pile on, guys!

I missed about half of the VP debate, but Something Awful has some of the best commentary that I’ve seen. Excerpts:

* Cheney lost some credibility by countering Halliburton accusations with, “the nonpartisan website Sexbarn.org has all the information discrediting those rumors.” Actually, Sexbarn.org turned partisan about the same time they added the alpaca gallery and video section.

* Both candidates struggled with Gwen’s question, “if you could be any flavor of ice cream in the whole wide world, what flavor would you be?”

* When told not to mention John Kerry’s name in his response, Edwards mentioned it twice. Legend has it that if you say John Kerry’s name three times, he will appear and kill you with his hook hand. Gwen scolded Edwards for trying to invoke evil spirits.

Compass is a new organisation that has emerged out of what could perhaps best be termed the thoughtful ex-Blairite left. It’s closely connected with the magazine Renewal. Its first national conference is coming up, with speakers like Polly Toynbee, Ruth Lister, Stuart White, Michael Meacher and Gordon Brown. Looks well worth going to, for those of you who don’t live thousands of miles from London.

While everyone else was watching the debate, I was rewriting my lecture on Descartes’ “Second Meditation”. Since you can’t understand it without knowing a bit about Descartes’ physics, I always say a bit about that. My favorite discussion of the subject appears not in any secondary source, however, but in John Barth’s novel, The Sot-Weed Factor:

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Laura’s Family/Work blog conference is well underway, and I recommend going over there. The issues are difficult and fascinating. There’s a lot of food for thought in people’s stories about their own frustrations and joys — it is really interesting (to me, anyway) to see how other people work out the conflicts and tensions.

Few academic institutions put anything concrete in writing when it comes to promotion and tenure review so it seems an informal discussion on a blog about the topic will be as informative as most other opportunities to consider the issues.

I have been pondering the pros and cons of co-authoring articles during one’s junior faculty years. How does a co-authorship count toward promotion and tenure? Obviously the answer is going to depend on a myriad of factors, but a discussion may still be interesting and illuminating. I realize that in some fields co-authorship is more the norm than the exception. In most lab sciences one rarely sees a sole-authored publication. But in the social sciences – the home discipline of several CT authors – it is less common. Since there are tenured faculty around here who have likely participated in promotion and tenure reviews, I would be curious to hear about their experiences. Of course, others are just as welcomed to contribute their thoughts.:)

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Deja vu.

All over again?

For a while now I’ve been wondering about whether it’s a good idea to blog about one’s travels ahead of time. There are clear advantages (the opportunity to meet up with people one otherwise would not contact), but there are potential downsides as well. Ever since my parents’ place was badly burglarized a few years ago, I have been more sensitive about the issue. And now I see Allison wondering whether a blogged trip lead to a break-in at her home. Of course, the chances are pretty small that potential thieves are reading our blogs and they also would not know in most cases whether and to what extent others sharing the household, housesitters or security systems would stand in their way (thieves take note: in my case it is usually two out of three:). Nonetheless, I have been wondering whether it is best to be less open about some of our travel plans. This would be one of those issues with which anonymous bloggers likely don’t have to deal.

So don’t expect up-to-the-minute travel info from me, but I thought I would mention where I am headed in the next month or so in case paths cross with people I did not think to contact (I have a hard time keeping track of who is where). I’ll be giving a talk at Penn soon followed by a quick visit to Princeton and one night in New York City; I’ll be attending a workshop in the Bay area and giving a talk at Yahoo!; I’m going to a conference in Atlanta; and I’ll be giving a talk at my alma mater Smith College. I’ll likely stay put for a while thereafter, which will be necessary to gather energy for an even crazier Spring travel schedule.

“David Brooks”:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/opinion/05brooks.html today:

bq. Every few weeks I hear about a new twist in American strategy or tactics. It always seems promising, but conditions don’t improve. On the other hand, officials in this administration don’t have a thought in their heads about not sticking this out.

I know there’s a word for this. Just give me a minute and it’ll come to me. Alternatively, the CT “time machine”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000423.html can bring us back to last September:

bq. The U.S.’s day-to-day problems in Iraq may end up resembling Northern Ireland rather than Vietnam: car bombings, political assassinations, a general effort by terrorists to violently undermine civil society and resist the occupying power. The cost in terms of soldiers’ lives would be much lower than in Vietnam, but if there’s no viable way to extricate yourself the feeling of the situation may be much the same.

Is the extraordinary rendition provision in the 9-11 Commission bill just a particularly amoral piece of political gamesmanship? Katherine has the update, and Jeanne D’Arc has the commentary.

When I read conservative bloggers, I learn that many of Kerry’s opponents just consider him an inferior candidate to George W. Bush. But some consider him to be a genuinely bad person- unpatriotic, dishonest, with no principles except for the love of power. And yet, there’s a pretty good chance that Kerry’s going to be the next President. If this bill passes, Kerry will appoint a Secretary with the unreviewable power to declare someone a terrorist suspect, and have them deported and tortured.

Surely they don’t trust him to use this power with wisdom and restraint. And yet, they seem more interested in joking about the words “global test.”

Would you trust Janet Reno with the power to torture? I wouldn’t.

Unbelievable.

One of the most-cited gotchas from Thursday was Bush’s assertion that “the A.Q. Khan network has been brought to justice.”

But CNN reports that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, appearing on Late Edition, “said Bush did not misspeak when he said that the network of Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan — the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear program who was caught selling secrets on the global black market — had been ‘brought to justice.’

“Khan is living in a villa and was pardoned this year by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. None of Khan’s co-conspirators have been brought to trial.”

Here’s how Rice explained it, from the Late Edition transcript.

“A.Q. Khan is out of business and he is out of the business that he loved most. And if you don’t think that his national humiliation is justice for what he did, I think it is. He’s nationally humiliated.”

Via Respectful of Otters. Why is it harder for Rice to say “The President misspoke” than “We think selling nuclear secrets is a trifle”? “National humiliation” is an appropriate punishment for choosing to appear on reality television. For selling nuclear secrets, it’s rather inadequate.

Speaking of this, there was another passage from Howard Kurtz’s Media Notes column that caught my eye as a former market researcher. (I actually asked a question about this during the Media Notes Q&A session, but it wasn’t selected.)

Luntz, who is under contract to MSNBC, had already spent $30,000 on recruits for several focus groups…

I worked in market research from 1997 to 2001. By some measures, it wasn’t very long, but it was long enough to get an idea of the costs involved in conducting a market research project.

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From the Washington Post: “Bremer Criticizes Troop Levels“. Maybe we should just start making lists of people who are well-informed about economics, the situation in Iraq, civil liberties, etc. and aren’t shrill. It would save the Shrillblog time.

The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, administrator for the U.S.-led occupation government until the handover of political power on June 28, said he still supports the decision to intervene in Iraq but said a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on.

“We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness,” he said yesterday in a speech at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. “We never had enough troops on the ground.”

Now, though, Karl Rove has his balls in a vise everything is fine: “I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq,” he said in an e-mailed statement. He said all references in recent speeches to troop levels related to the situation when he arrived in Baghdad in May 2003. He added “please don’t hurt my family, Karl” that he “strongly supports” President Bush’s reelection.