Thanks - I wasn’t sure I had it right, thats why I didn’t attribute it.
Must I quote myself? Sigh.
I personally don’t see anything knee-jerk about noticing that Scylla left out Step 1 of a three-step dialogue, consisting of Administration action, the critics’ response, and the Administration’s response (or lack thereof) to the critics, and noting that that omission put a false spin on things while claiming to be ‘even-handed’.
Main thing is, knee-jerk or not, is it accurate? If I’m wrong, argue against me. For if I’m both ‘knee-jerk’ and right, then it says something rather bad about the Administration’s defenders: it suggests that their defenses are so trite and predictable that they can be refuted by ‘knee-jerk’ responses.
Backed, oddly enough, by a cite to a non-lefty critic of the Administration, one who noticed the pattern while he was working in the White House.
If you’re up to it, name three significant Administration initiatives in the past four years that the Administration hasn’t politicized. Prove me wrong. And if we disagree on what’s significant, and what’s some pissant initiative that hardly anyone noticed at the time, or something that the Administration announced with great fanfare and then proceeded to forget about, we’ll let the crowd here decide.
‘More’? I don’t see a comparison being made in the sentence you quote.
Well, let’s put it this way: Scylla described Steps 2 and 3 of a three-step dialogue consisting of Administration action, the critics’ response, and the Administration’s response (or lack thereof) to the critics. Describing Step 1 would in fact focus solely on the Administration, odd as this may seem to you.
Whatever, dude.
Talk about a whopper of a misrepresentation!
Here is Ted Kennedy’s Boston Globe op-ed.
For the first nine paragraphs, Kennedy develops an argument against the Administration’s wiretapping that is sufficient unto itself, and doesn’t require a supporting anecdote.
In paragraphs 10-12, he summarizes the story about the student and Mao’s book from media reports. Those media reports turned out to be wrong, but (a) that wasn’t Kennedy’s fault, and (b) the argument in the first nine paragraphs of the piece is still just as strong as it was; it’s not like the media report was the sole evidence being presented of some larger trend.
I see the wingers at the WSJ and elsewhere are wetting their pants with excitement over finding that the student lied, and somehow interpreting that as a fraud by everyone who ever quoted the article. Meanwhile, other Federal agencies (not the NSA) have been discovered to be spying on Quakers, vegans, gay groups, and the like, but that doesn’t matter to them. Nor does the fact that the NSA in fact did engage in warrantless domestic spying, apparently on a fairly substantial scale.
Gotta wonder about the priorities and judgment of all the people making a big deal about this kid being a liar.
The WSJ is particularly good: they’re upset that the Boston Globe has protected the kid’s name, even though he lied to them as their source. The weird thing is, the lefty blogsphere has been railing for months about the mainstream press’ failure to out Administration officials who lie to them under cover of anonymity, but the WSJ hasn’t jumped on that bandwagon. Guess they expect less of Administration officials than they do of college students.
First of all, Scylla never claimed to be “even-handed.”
Second, are you suggesting that the administration politicizes things by taking action, regardless of their commentary (or lack thereof)? If so, could you please explain that?
Third, Scylla did not refer to the Bush administration, but to the “current administration.” I don’t think it’s unreasonable to read that – as I did – to refer to the administration in office at the time of the politicized statements. Thus, I read it to refer to any Presidential administration, and not just Bush.
Actually, you didn’t provide a link. You just provided a name and an assertion that he supposedly made. But no matter; I generally remember what you’re talking about.
The problem is that DiIulio didn’t say the White House politicizes commentary on issues; he said they decide issues based on political considerations (rather than policy considerations). In other words, he believes the White House chooses policy based on what will get them votes, rather than considering what will work best for the country. I haven’t found a copy of the entire article containing his quotes, but as far as I can tell, he’s not saying anything about the way the White House communicates on the issues.
And your assertion that his critic was not a lefty creates a false impression. DiIulio is a Democrat. And let’s keep in mind that this is a guy who worked in the Bush administration until August 18, 2001, a total of about 6 months. After that much exposure to the Bush admin, he felt confident in proclaiming to the world that the White House was “the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.” However, the vitriole embodied in that screed appears to have been mitigated somewhat by this op-ed:
He also said this:
So he says the Bush EOP spins issues and is in permanent campaign (as have all EOPs since Nixon), but his main point is that compassion agenda has been sidetracked by political considerations. So he’s not saying that the Bush White House politicizes communications any more than other White Houses, but rather he’s saying that the White House decides issues based on what will get them votes.
I never contended that the Bush admin doesn’t politicize issues. It’s a White House. It’s in the business of politics. Everything it does is inherently political. I’m contending that your response to Scylla’s comment was inappropriate.
You didn’t say “more,” but it was clearly implied. If the Bush admin doesn’t politicize issues more than their opponents or their predecessors, then why should Scylla single them out for criticism?
Which fact did I misrepresent?
Arent Freedom vs Security debates exactly what an adversarial system is made for?
Given no absolute line can be drawn theres little other option really. Scyllas fear is that this has become politicised, my take would be that it has to be politicised because we really have no other mechanism to find that line that works for a large population.
Otara.
Otara, that’s an interesting point. And I don’t want to speak for Scylla, but I think the point was that politicizing issues involves insincere criticism for the sake of political gain, rather than the betterment of our country. For example, conservatives portraying critics of the war as unpatriotic; or liberals portraying any attempt to reform Social Security as starving the elderly.
But I totally agree that politics is not only the most appropriate, but the best method of setting the line between security and liberty.
My issue with this debate is that the dangers that conservatives fear have been demonstrated to exist, therefore justification for increased security exists.
The danger liberals fear is theorectical and the justification for avoiding increased security in ideological in nature.
Idealism vs pragmatism.
Gee, and here all this time I thought conservatives liked to wave the bogeyman of the fascist all-seeing all-snooping police state, such as those in China or Cuba or North Korea or whatever.
This nation was founded on the idea that no single aspect of the government should be trusted with unbridled power – hence our system of checks and balances. Us dewey-eyed liberals are merely holding our leaders to the ideals the nation was founded on.
And patting yourselves on the back for your noble defense of your principles while not having to deal with the inconvience of current reality.
The whole thing, bucko.
- While, yes, Kennedy did write about the Little Red Book incident in the article, you fail to mention that the article as a whole wasn’t about that incident; it was a well-reasoned argument for Bush’s having overstepped his bounds with the NSA wiretapping.
- Consequently, when you say “Turns out the student lied; he made the whole thing up. However, Senator Kennedy’s spokesperson said that whether Senator Kennedy’s assertions were true was less important than raising awareness of Bush’s misdeeds,” it sounds as if Kennedy’s claiming his argument’s still valid, despite his supporting evidence having been invalidated.
- This is especially true when you introduce this tale with “One more example of the noise to fact ratio” which wasn’t trying to make the point that only one nonessential anecdote had been found wanting, but the rest of the piece was on solid footing.
In short, your entire description gives a totally misleading impresssion - and point #3 takes care of any notion that it was accidental. There’s also
- Your mention of “Senator Kennedy’s assertions” is your description alone, and is also misleading. The student and the reporter can be said to have made assertions; Kennedy was citing and describing the assertions of others.
But that’s a comparatively minor point.
He’s got a problem with politicization of issues - putting the use of issues to score political points ahead of honest efforts to solve problems. If he’s not at least making a good-faith effort to be evenhanded, how could politicization be a problem for him?
I’m including their words as part of their actions. Yawn.
Which is the Bush Administration.
Fair enough. And that’s the Bush Administration, for both the issues mentioned.
And how’s the weather out there in the Gamma Quadrant?
Good. A cite isn’t always a link. Merriam-Webster: “to bring forward or call to another’s attention especially as an example, proof, or precedent.”
And what you have described is the politicization of policy, shaping policy to score political points rather than solve the problems the policies are supposedly for.
So? Joe Lieberman is a Democrat. Joe Lieberman is not a lefty. Can we agree that while many Democrats are lefties, Dem -/-> lefty?
To me, it’s a reasonable assumption that any Dem that Bush would hire to be part of his White House policy staff isn’t a ‘lefty’, regardless of party affiliation.
Well, yeah.
That neither helps nor hurts you, AFAICT. It’s just off to the side.
Well, yeah. But, for instance, doing a 180° on the Homeland Security Department, while still not actually believing it was a good idea (or even knowing what they were creating, really) was politicization - it was a deliberate choice to make a questionable policy decision because that’s where the votes were. Then throwing in a wedge issue - stripping most of the unionization protections from the DHS workers, in order to get Democrats to vote against DHS, just so Bush could campaign against them on that basis - that’s politicization.
These are things that are not inherent in the political nature of the White House. Politicization goes well beyond that. It’s the use of issues primarily as a club against your adversaries, rather than primarily as a means of solving problems.
And doing it rather poorly, I would say.
BTW, Merriam-Webster’s definition of “politicize” is “to give a political tone or character to.” IMHO, that’s a pretty useless definition, in the context of this debate: every issue on our national political life starts off politicized, in those terms. By that definition, Scylla’s complaint doesn’t have meaning - and his complaint certainly has meaning, so the definition is too weak.
His problem is clearly that people are putting the cart (of scoring political points against the other guy) ahead of the horse (of trying to have an honest political discussion that will work towards finding the best policy solutions). Hence my definition: politicization is having the politics dictate the policy, rather than the political gains being a pleasant side-effect of having made good policy.
For instance, Clinton wanted to institute universal health care because he believed it was a good thing; he also figured that if he was able to make it happen, the political rewards would be there, but the desire to make sure everyone had health care was the driver.
Compare that with Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit. It’s got that wonderful ‘donut’, where Medicare doesn’t pick up any of the costs of drugs, in the middle. It existed only so that Bush could claim the benefit would stay below a certain cost figure, in order to get enough votes to pass it. The donut is idiotic policy, but the politics put it there. (And of course, we later found that Bush had lied about the cost, and his people had threatened to fire the Medicare actuaries if they let anyone know the true costs.)
“Otara, that’s an interesting point. And I don’t want to speak for Scylla, but I think the point was that politicizing issues involves insincere criticism for the sake of political gain, rather than the betterment of our country. For example, conservatives portraying critics of the war as unpatriotic; or liberals portraying any attempt to reform Social Security as starving the elderly.”
The assumption in the idea though is that this is somehow avoidable. The adversarial system is pretty much founded on the entire concept that it isnt really and the only way to resolve it is to let them both give it their best shot and let us decide who ended up being most convincing.
Which therby constrains the amount of variation from the ‘line’ thats really possible - stray too far from what people are really OK with and you give too much political capital to the other side.
The main problem being how much time that can take sometimes.
Otara
[NITPICK] The full Benjamin Franklin quote is: “They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temperary safety deserve niether liberty nor safety.” [/NITPICK]
Why should the government do anything? Surely it should be down to the owners of the plants and their insurers?
Perhaps. But if so, it won’t happen unless the government mandates it. So government action is needed one way or another.
Okay, I’ll go around again. Please define your pragmatism. I would like you to list all of the liberties and protections that you personally are willing to forgoe as a result of the current crisis of security. Please be specific. I think (based on your responses in another thread) that I can start it for you:
I, Evil One, being of pragmatic nature and recognizing that the threat of Terrorism makes it necessary that certain liberties be curtailed for the duration of the current crisis, do hereby willing give up my Constitutional right to the following:
- Protection against unwarranted wiretaps/survelliance.
Umm… if the insurers see increased risk, they’ll put up the insurance. If they’ve taken a look at the situation (on a plant-by-plant basis) and have decided that no increased security is necessary, surely they have a better handle on it than some government fiat? Or maybe they have taken a look and extra security measures are in place? Either way, there’s no need for the government to intervene.
You need someone with police powers and weapons to back them up. I’d rather invest in some anti truck bomb retrofitting of a nuclear plant than live with the consequences of not doing so. I’d rather pay policemen to patrol water plants than let someone poison the water supply. Some of the big chemical and oil concerns could very well provide their own security, but without government mandates the bean counters would never go for it.