Shots In The Dark

I'm in the New York Post this morning, in Keith Kelly's media column. Keith writes about the fact that I'm doing a little consulting for a new environmental magazine called Plenty, helping them out with their political coverage....

I like Keith, but he sometimes gets things a little off; his column implies that working for Plenty is a full-time gig, which it isn't. I hope to have some (good) news about Book III soon....

Anyway, check out Plenty. It's a new magazine and a little rough in spots, the way new magazines usually are, but it's got a lot of energy and some very creative stuff inside. I like it.

With all the debate about sourcing these days, I'm surprised that the Times ran this story on Karl Rove the way it did.

The gist of the story is that Rove mentioned that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA agent to Robert Novak, but only in passing and only when Novak called him, thus discrediting the idea that Rove was planting this information with anyone who would print it.

But there's just one source for this: "someone who has been officially briefed on the matter."

The source is later described thusly:
"The person who provided the information about Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Novak declined to be identified, citing requests by Mr. Fitzgerald that no one discuss the case. The person discussed the matter in the belief that Mr. Rove was truthful in saying that he had not disclosed Ms. Wilson's identity."

Sounds a lot like Robert Luskind, Rove's lawyer, to me....but then, that term "official" suggests that it's a White House staffer...perhaps White House counsel Harriet Miers (who?).

Regardless, we know just that there's one source, with a clear agenda, describing the details of this conversation. Is that really enough for the Times to go with it?

I'm not sure at all on this one....

A number of folks have e-mailed me to point out that Larry Summers will be throwing out the first ball at the Yankees-Red Sox game tonight...and that he's been getting pitching tips from the Harvard baseball coach.

Okay, this one is too easy.

And because it is too easy, I am not going to have the obvious fun with it. Because if I were throwing out the first ball at a baseball game, I'd probably throw the damn thing into the crowd on the first-base side.

But does anyone else remember the milk-drinking scene from one of my favorite films, "My Life As a Dog"?

I'm going out tonight, so this makes me particularly glad for my new DVR....

Wrote this for the Huffington Post, but thought I'd transplant it over here as well....

<Kelly Preston's post on the alleged danger of prescribing anti-depressants to children needs to know one very salient fact: Preston is a Scientologist, and Scientology, as we all know by now, doesn't accept the validity of either psychiatry or prescription drugs. In any instance.

Ms. Preston, are there any circumstances under which you could support the prescription of anti-depressants for either children or adults?

But you don't actually need to know Preston's fundamental bias to see the holes in her reasoning.

It would be helpful, for example, to see a copy of her and Kirstie Alley's letter to the FDA regarding anti-depressants, signed by 20 "doctors," including "researchers" and "nutritionists." Without a link to the letter, we can't know what it actually says or who these signatories really are. What are their credentials? (Could they be fellow Scientologists?)

Preston argues that anti-depressants are turning kids into "walking time bombs." That's an irresponsible and alarmist statement. She claims that 8 of the last 13 school-shooters were taking prescription drugs. Even if that's true, it hardly proves cause and effect. It could show only that the drugs didn't work.

Preston quotes her doctors saying, "We can no longer sit back and let the clock tick, waiting for more deaths, suicides or people driven to violent acts by psychotropic drugs."

It's unclear what "deaths" she's talking about, but it's worth pointing out that the FDA advisory she's referring to is based on studies of 4500 kids taking anti-depressant drugs—none of whom committed suicide.

And yet, Preston says, "a 'troop of drugged-out zombies' is frighteningly real." If she really means "troop" and not "troupe," she's talking about something out of The Manchurian Candidate. Look out, President Bush.

One could go on, pointing out that Partnership for a Drug-Free America studies are notoriously biased, and DEA classifications for drugs are notoriously politicized.

Preston's right on one point: The issue of prescribing drugs to children is a serious one, and it's good that the FDA is studying potential risks. But I'm not sure that any practitioner of Scientology—which rejects science and holds that space aliens populated Earth—has anything of value to contribute to the debate. Those interested in finding more objective information should turn to this page.

Preston's hysterical treatise might be amusing if it didn't have a real downside; she could scare parents of troubled kids away from getting help for their children.

"The worst outcome from this complex situation would be failure to treat children with serious depression," Dr. Steven Hyman, former head of the National Institute of Mental Health, told the Dallas Morning News.

And that really could lead to kids committing suicide.

A truck bomb has killed some 27 people in Baghdad, many of whom were children; American soldiers were handing out candy to kids in the neighborhood.

While we can and should criticize the Bush administration for much about the way it has sold and conducted this war, acts like this remind us that, if our president is not completely good, our enemy is completely evil.

How in Allah's name could anyone blow up children?

I'm starting to wonder.

Here he criticizes the Harry Potter novels, saying that they are "are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly."

Jesus.

I guess that since the Church has begun attacking Charles Darwin, trashing J.K. Rowling was the logical next step....

Nooooooooo!

That's my first reaction, anyway, to this report that New York's MTA is considering wiring subways for cell phone use. I love the fact that New York subways are one (perhaps the last) urban space where you can escape constant talkers who a) have absolutely nothing of interest to say, and b) no hesitation about letting you hear that they have absolutely nothing of interest to say.

My reaction is mitigated somewhat by the fact that the impetus for this reconsideration is the London bombing, and the fact that cell phones would be useful in case of a terrorist attack on the subway.

But still...in the subterranean subway world, manners are really important, and the emphasis upon them seems to be waning. Fewer people than in the past stand aside when the doors open to allow passengers to exit; the other day, I couldn't get out of a train because an MTA employee—an MTA employee!—was standing squarely in the middle of the doors, pushing to get in as passengers tried to get out. A couple of nights ago, I saw a man emit two long, discolored strings of saliva on the train floor next to where he sat—and he would have spat a third time if I hadn't told him that he was disgusting.

For the most part, the New York city subway is a marvel of civility in dehumanizing conditions. But permitting cell phones to function in them...that just might be the tipping point.

There's a lot of hubbub in the blogosphere about the news that Oliver Stone is directing a film about 9/11. Mickey Kaus thinks it's a terrible idea because of Stone's loony politics; James Wolcott defends Stone.

I'm with Wolcott on this one. (I'm with him on most things, actually. Smart guy.)

Yes, Oliver Stone's politics are out there. Yes, if you give him a microphone, he'll be sure to say things that shock and awe. But he's a hell of a filmmaker. How many directors could list Salvador, Platoon, Wall Street, JFK, Any Given Sunday (an underappreciated classic), The People vs. Larry Flynt, Nixon, The Doors, and Born on the 4th of July in their credits? That's a pretty impressive list.

More to the point, when have we become so scared of politics in our art? Let's assume that the worst happens and Stone makes the 9/11 equivalent of JFK—a brilliant piece of filmmaking with a loopy political premise. Well, the loopiness will be argued about, debated, dissected. The country will survive. And there'll be more serious conversations about the relationship between art, politics and history than there otherwise would have been....

That's why I'm so pleased that Steven Spielberg is making a movie about the terrorism at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Spielberg has shown that he's capable of dealing with serious issues—the most serious—when he sets his mind to it. Now there's controversy about the fact that he's making this movie. Some of that is political paranoia; we're constantly on the lookout now for people who are soft on terror. But much of it—too much—is because the right wing hates directors who try to think seriously about politics; they don't trust Hollywood, and they don't trust historiography that forces people to ask questions.

Ever notice how conservatives wildly distort liberal views so that they can then attack them? Yup, me too. So I think I'll point that out whenever I see it happening....

Here's one good example, from today's New York Post:

"[Hillary] Clinton and other liberals maintain that it is up to the government to make sure children are properly fed, clothed and educated. The conservatives, on the other hand, argue that children need fathers and mothers, preferably one of each, and not bureaucrats to look after them."

By implication, Democrats don't think that children need mothers and fathers, but want children raised by "bureaucrats"....

We now know, of course, that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source—apparently his only source—for the Valerie Plame leak. It's a safe bet that Rove also spoke to Robert Novak.

But in his original column, Novak said that "senior Administration officials" told him that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA agent. That means at least two. So who's the other one? Or did Novak just add an "s" to make his sourcing look stronger?

Back in March, then-Morgan Stanley CEO Phil Purcell appointed a "co-president" named Stephen S. Crawford to help calm troubled waters. It didn't work, and Purcell was ousted. As a result, Crawford's leaving too. And guess what? Morgan Stanley is paying him a jaw-dropping $32 million severance package. For all of three months work.

The money-management firm has now dropped $150 million in payments to two departing executives, Purcell and Crawford, one of whom was a complete failure, one of whom showed up at work for about 90 days, earning something like $300,000 a day.

Why anyone would invest their money with Morgan Stanley after this, I don't know. Because guess where your fees are going? Into the silk-lined pockets of incompetent and greedy fat-cats.

Morgan Stanley is a public company. Time to sell, baby.

Andrew Sullivan and I have been having a little back-and-forth about the nature of the Huffington Post. You can find his writings on his blog. Here's my first. Below is my second.

<Andrew has graciously answered my earlier post criticizing his blanket description of the HuffPo as a site where nutty lefties advocate negotiating with al Qaeda. Okay, he admits, no one at THP actually called for negotiations with Osama bin Laden.

But he does link to three postings that, he says, give the impression that THP is filled with left-wing wackos: this, from Deepak Chopra; this, from Jann Wenner; and this, from Tom Hayden.

In fairness to Andrew, he's got a point; at least two of these postings imply a moral equivalence between George Bush and the London bombers, or suggest that Bush has some responsibility for the bombing. And that's a dangerous, wrong-headed road for liberals to go down.

Deepak Chopra's ode to peace doesn't bother me. We'd all like to believe that his vision of the world is plausible.

But it is disturbing to read Jann Wenner say this: "If the London bombings are the work of an Al Qaeda offshoot, then you have to fairly say, in the same way we condemn other's terror, this is in part the result of Bush's War on Iraq."

I know what Wenner's saying, but I can't support it: Even if you think that Bush is responsible for the killing of innocent people in Iraq, that doesn't justify others going out and doing the same. Anyway, 9/11 (etc.) happened before the war in Iraq, so al Qaeda clearly doesn't need that particular rationale to commit acts of terror.

Finally, it's infuriating to read this from Tom Hayden: "Imperial fantasies, as shattered as the London transit system. The G-8 leaders feign innocence while the innocents die."

That's not logic. That's warmed-over '60s rhetoric with more punning than thinking. To talk of the G-8 leaders "[feigning] innocence while innocents die" is the worst kind of bogus, lazy moral equivalence.

But as I said to Andrew, such rhetoric from the far left, while unhelpful, doesn't bother me as much as the analogous points of view from the far right, because the far left doesn't actually have any power, and the far right has a hot line to the White House. >>

Posted by: richard / 8:11 AM   

Maybe you and the University of Texas at Austin would be a good match—UT's in the market for a new president. According to the help wanted ad, "an application should include a letter describing relevant experience and interest in the position and a curriculum vitae. Submission of materials as an MS Word attachment is strongly encouraged."

What do you think? Should I apply? Should you apply? Rumor has it that the education system in Texas could use some help....

Today's Times picks up on a theme discussed here several days ago: Given his involvemenent in disclosing Valerie Plame's status as a CIA agent to at least one reporter, how can Karl Rove remain an employee of the White House?

The newspaper adds something that I'd forgotten—that President Bush had, on two occasions, promised to fire anyone involved in the Plame matter.

As the Times nicely puts it, "Nearly two years after stating that any administration official found to have been involved in leaking the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer would be fired, and assuring that Karl Rove and other senior aides to President Bush had nothing to do with the disclosure, the White House refused on Monday to answer any questions about new evidence of Mr. Rove's role in the matter."

Given that Rove has already admitted some involvemement in the matter—though whether he mentioned Plame's name is unclear—Bush has cause to fire him now. So what's the hold-up?

Obviously, it's that Rove is a vital figure in this White House. "In private," the Times' Richard W. Stevenson writes, "several prominent Republicans said they were concerned about the possible effects on Mr. Bush and his agenda, in part because Mr. Rove's stature makes him such a tempting target for Democrats."

Just one question: What agenda?

Or, reasons not to visit the New York Times website for the next few days....

Or, not what you want to see first thing in the morning....

(No offense, Tucker: It's just a little much.)

Headed into the All-Star break, the Yanks trail the BoSox by 2 1/2 games...

It's been a crazy half-season for the Yankees so far, and they could well collapse again after the All-Star game.

But if you'd told me, after some of the losing streaks the Yankees have endured this season, that they'd be 2.5 down at the halfway mark with a four-game series against Boston coming up, I'd take that in a heartbeat.

Over the weekend, I chatted with one of my relatives who's a loyal employee of the Baltimore Orioles. (Thanks for the t-shirt! Your book is on the way.)

One thing he and I could agree on: It's wonderful to have a competitive race in the AL East. Of course, we both hope our teams will win the division, but three good teams within 2 1/2 games of each other...pretty great.

* Named after the Boston Globe columnist who predicted the Red Sox would win the division by a landslide.

Newsweek publishes an e-mail from Matt Cooper to his editor, Michael Duffy, regarding Karl Rove. It begins: "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation ..."

This story only gets more confusing, and the disclosure that Time reporters use "double super secret background" doesn't help.

According to the Newsweek piece, Rove told Cooper to be skeptical about former ambassador Joseph Wilson's claim that his trip to Niger was authorized by CIA director George Tenet. In reality, Rove said, the trip had been authorized by Wilson's wife, who worked at the CIA on weapons of mass destruction.

So Rove apparently did not use Valerie Plame's name or indicate that her work was classified. Whether he knew these facts or not is unclear.

To make the story even more confusing, the circumstances under which Cooper decided to testify before a grand jury now turn out to have been murky at best. Cooper announced that he had decided to testify rather than go to jail because he had received "an express personal release from my source."

Well, now that "personal release" turns out to be a quote from Karl Rove's lawyer in the Wall Street Journal....

This story gets harder and harder to follow, and I'm sure that the vast majority of American't aren't following it.

But I think the main point is this: The drive to start a war in Iraq was based on deceit and dishonesty by the Bush administration, and the consequences of that deceit and dishonesty are still raining down around us like embers from a burning building. The Matt Cooper-Judith Miller-Karl Rove matter is one such ember, and it may fizzle out or re-ignite elsewhere....

But still..."double super secret background"? An unfortunate choice of words. It makes relations between the press and the White House sound like a game, and I guess all too often, that's exactly what they are.....

This week the Ethicist, a.k.a. Randy Cohen, gets a letter from a North Carolina printer who doesn't think much of Republicans.

Susannah Meyers of Asheville, North Carolina, writes: I work for a small print shop where a customer placed an order for bumper stickers that read, ''Defend American Against the Communist/Vote Republican.'' I think his faulty grammar suits his ridiculous message, and I do not want to correct it. I'd rather save my energy for helping those who mean well. What should I do?

The Ethicist's Response: "You should do your job according to the usual professional standards, ensuring that the printing isn't blurry and the ink doesn't run in the rain. You have no obligation to provide extra services -- correcting this customer's solecisms, improving his prose, painting his house. You may, if your boss consents, reject the job altogether...."

The Re-Ethicist Says: Wrong!

First, it would be well within a printer's professional responsibilities to point out glaring errors of grammar, and you do not have to agree with the customer's sentiments to agree. In fact, if Ms. Meyers is indeed as liberal as she proclaims herself, she should want to help educate the customer, or at least teach him that he's making a couple of gramattical mistakes.

Second, while the printer has the legal right to reject a job, she would be ethically wrong to reject this one.

While Cohen does add that the decision not to print something should be used only rarely, as with a racist screed, he does give Meyers license to not print this one, as long as it's okay with her boss. (Spoken like a true Timesman, always deferential to power; whatever you do, check with your boss first.)

Imagine if every printer who didn't like a political sentiment refused to print a customer's request....or every editor who didn't agree with an article's point of view refused to print it. Or every publisher... Or every broadcaster.... Or every billboard owner...

I could go on, but you get the point: This is America, where we not only tolerate dissenting points of view, we encourage them; we think that dissent makes us stronger. We have a responsibility to air opinions we disagree with, in the belief that the exercise of free speech is something fundamentally American that ultimately makes this a stronger nation.

A printer's greatest pride and highest calling is to print something she couldn't disagree with more.....