perfidy

I don't think that means what you think it means. Everyone raves about the political savvy of Begala, Carville, and all the other ex-Clinton campaign consultants who have recently joined the floundering Kerry team. But think about it - these people never got Clinton as many votes as Gore received in '00, and never even close to a majority. In '92, the man who beat the elder Bush was Perot, who took nearly a fifth of the electorate - mostly by poaching Republican voters. Clinton managed 42%, a bare plurality. Perot's support in '96 was much lower, but still significant and a major drain on Dole's support.

Perhaps Kerry should consider hiring Perot to run for President.

Punk legend Johnny Ramone has died of prostate cancer. Johnny was the third of the original Ramones to die in recent years - Joey Ramone died in 2001, also of cancer; and Dee Dee Ramone died in 2002 of an overdose.

In the wake of the truly horrific terrorist attacks in Russia, it seems that Putin is letting the terrorist win. At least in the sense that he is apparently abandoning many of the more democratic features of Russian soceity in an effort to a) fight terrorism or b) consolidate his personal power.

President Vladimir Putin announced plans Monday for a "radically restructured" political system that would bolster his power by ending the popular election of governors and independent lawmakers, moves he portrayed as a response to this month's deadly seizure of a Russian school.

It seems that merely taking measures to more effectively combat terrorism is not sufficient to meet the crisis:

"Under current conditions, the system of executive power in the country should not just be adapted to operating in crisis situations, but should be radically restructured in order to strengthen the unity of the country and prevent further crises,"

Putin has often in the past raised concerns regarding his commitment to any kind of democratic ideals. His treatment of the press, in particular, has been the subject of much criticism. But it has not been limited to attempts to control the press. When he gained power, he kicked the governors out of the Federation council, and set up a a system of Putin-appointed presidential envoys to control them. Moving to eliminate independent governors and replace them with his appointees entirely would further centralize power in Putin's hands. The fact that the current governors are not making much of fuss suggests that they are think Putin's plans will succeed, and they are hoping to retain their jobs in the new dispensation.

Restricting the state parliament or Duma to only party list delegates would further restrict democracy. Right now, half of the delegates are elected from individual districts and the other half are selected from party lists based on the percentage of the vote that the party receives in the election. Given the cut-off for representation, many parties would fail to have any representation at all in the new system. In a nation like Germany, this is not a terrible arrangement - but in Russia, it means that getting into parliament would require the approval of often corrupt party apparatchiks, again centralizing control. As the article mentions, some parties are very nearly selling slots on their lists.

The newest moves take a vision he calls "managed democracy" to a new level.

"Managed democracy" sounds like a soon-to-be-unpleasant euphemism. Russia has had exactly two periods of democracy in its history. The first lasted only months and ended with the Bolshevik coup and subsequent terror. The current experiment has been longer, but always on a shaky foundation.

Putin seems to be relying on his KGB instincts. However, I don't think that this presages a return to a communist state. Despite the fact that the Communist party still holds many seats in the Duma, Putin's moves seem much more in line with traditional authoritarian government rather than outright totalitarianism. If pro-democracy forces in Russia are unable to contain Putin (and it seems very likely indeed that they will fail to do so) the result will be a more or less typical authoritarian government along the lines of Pinochet in Chili, Chiang Kai Shek in Taiwan, or the regime of Syngmann Rhee in South Korea.

While not a happy thought for the near term, an authoritarian government in Russia does hold out some hope for the future. Authoritarian leaders are not generally concerned with micromanaging the economy for ideological reasons. In each of the three nations listed above, stable representative government eventually emerged as economic progress created a middle class. Which means that Democracy might reappear in a few decades.

I have watched from the sidelines as many members of the blogosphere (or pajamahadeen as some are now calling themselves) have taken aim at the tiffany network, and put shot after shot right through the unwinking eye. Within hours of the broadcast, the nitpicking had begun. By midday Thursday, most of what we know about the memos had already been determined - that there were a wide array of inconsistencies and anachronisms that could be sorted into three broad categories - typological, formatting and character. The story in infinite detail can be found all over, in fact you can hardly swing a cat in the blogosphere without hitting minutely detailed commentary on Rather/Memogate. I’ve been following it mostly at Allah Pundit, Wizbang, Ace of Spades and The Kerry Spot. Here are the highlights:

The first began with the superscript "th" but quickly metastasized. Bloggers focused on the font - Times New Roman, the proportional spacing of the letters, evidence of kerning, and most of this was captured in LGF blogger Charles Johnson's experiment. He typed the text of one of the memos into Microsoft word, using the default settings, and the result was a near perfect match. While I can't personally vouch for the validity of other criticisms of the memos, these analyses are compelling to me. I am a professional technical writer, and I work with this stuff every day. The likelihood that any typewriter in 1973, no matter how capable and advanced, would generate an exact match of the settings of a word processor from three decades in the future is vanishingly slim.

Other bloggers with experience of matters military weighed in on other inconsistencies. Improper formatting of titles, incorrect references to regulations, and improper use of acronyms were among the many factors that led them to independently conclude that the documents were bogus. Finally, both bloggers and non-CBS mainstream media have tracked down witnesses who have something to say about just how improbable it was that Bush's superior officer would have composed (let alone typed and saved) a memo like this. Among the critics were Killian's widow and son, along with several other guard officers.

Over the last week, many newspapers and networks have hired their own document forensics experts, and the consensus is that they are indeed forgeries. Most recently, CBS' own experts have also come forward saying that the memos are bogus. Yet CBS and Dan Rather persist in defending the authenticity of the memos. [Pauses to check a couple blogs –ed.] This in spite of the fact that in just the last few minutes, it has been discovered that the memos were faxed from a Kinko’s in Abilene, Texas. Bill Burkett – a prime suspect in the eyes of many bloggers – lives very near Abilene, and in fact has an account at that very Kinko’s. Will wonders never cease?

This story gets worse for Rather and CBS every five minutes. But what is the final answer? What will come of all of this? Blogger Beldar has taken a hard line on the Rathergate scandal:

CBS, through its affiliates' licenses to use broadcast frequencies that belong to the public, is a repository of the public trust. Its employees, acting within the course and scope of their actual and apparent authority, have deliberately and knowingly abused that trust for the most venal of motives - motives that are antithetical to the function of the press in a free and democratic society.

For all the focus on the minutia of the forged memos, the larger story is really this: a major media network - possibly with foreknowledge and intent - passed a forgery on the public intended to defame a sitting president and influence an election. Dan Rather’s bias is well known, but up until this point I never allowed myself to believe that it would lead him to forego all journalistic integrity just because the story had to be true. CBS’ most recent defense of the story is basically that no matter what issues are raised about the authenticity of the documents, they remain essentially accurate. This is so lame that it almost beggars description. The fact that the story is based on forged documents invalidates the story, period. Just because you really, really believe that the story must be true does not make it so. If that were the case, I would have a billion dollars in my bank account, a light saber hanging on the wall in my office and Ingrid Bergman waiting patiently in bed for me to finish blogging.

This gets us to the interesting bit. Even if the source of the memos is never connected to the Kerry campaign (though there are rumors that Kerry staffers knew about the memos before the original broadcast) this scandal would at minimum totally discredit any further attacks on Bush’s service in the guard. But, in a stunning display of pigheaded stupidity, the Kerry campaign linked itself to the scandal by beginning a series of ads using clips from the CBS story.

It is completely beyond my comprehension why the Kerry campaign insists on lashing itself to the mast of a sinking ship. It has been evident for some time now that focusing on Vietnam was not doing Kerry any good. Besides the fact that most of the voters don’t care about what happened thirty years ago, that focus actually opened Kerry up for massive criticism both on the basis of his service and much more significantly on his actions after returning from the ‘Nam. Compounding that stupidity by trying to convince the electorate that Bush’s service in the guard somehow disqualifies him from getting the job he already has is even more pointless. Attempting that right after some democratic hack attempts a thumbfingered forgery to drive home the point is stark raving insane. Double plus uncunning, in fact.

A broad coalition of the pathetic is vying for the title of least helpful Kerry supporter. The smart money was originally on the unknown forger, who by rendering a whole line of attack on the incumbent politically radioactive through his transparent forgeries seriously hindered the Kerry campaign. But coming up on the backstretch is Dan Rather and CBS, who (at best!) through daydreaming gullibility combined with mulish arrogance first ran the story and then refused to admit that they had been rolled. In so doing, they kept the story front and center for a full week. Combined that with a convenient Karl Rove masterminded media hogging hurricane, John Kerry has barely appeared on the TV at all. This with only weeks left before election. But entering the final turn, several others are leaving the pack and gunning for the lead: the Clintonistas who joined the Kerry campaign and seem to be the driving force behind the foolish ‘fortunate son’ attack campaign, any Kerry staffer who knew about the CBS memos ahead of time and made any record of it, and finally Kerry himself, who can’t seem to focus his campaign no matter how dire the need.

New polls are showing that Bush might have a lead in New Jersey, and that Minnesota and even fricking Illinois are in a statistical dead heat. If Kerry is to have the slightest chance, he can’t have his base moving into the ‘battleground state’ category. And if he wants to prevent that, he’s running out of time to try something else besides running a campaign based in the early 1970s.

It's time once again to head down to the bar and ask for a Marion Barry. Equal parts Coca Cola, Kahlua, Bourbon and Jaegermeister. Invented by Jonah Goldberg, who described it as a drink intended to be, "So black, not even the man can keep it down."

Hizzonner, Mayor-for-life Marion Barry, has been elected to the DC city council for ward 8. It's not every city that regularly elects convicted ex-con crack smokers to high office, but then DC is a special kind of place.

Not to encourage stereotypes, but the interviews with Barry supporters on the news was quite a collection individuals who did not look like they were unfamiliar with drug use. Whod've thunk that crack smoking could bring a community together like this?

Mrs. Buckethead's excellent band, Dead Men's Hollow, has just posted a bunch of new live MP3s on their site. If you like bluegrass and old school country, take a listen here. Or even if you don't.

This:

Combined with this report on what might happen if a category five hurricane hits New Orleans, is not reassuring.

The debris, largely the remains of about 70 camps smashed by the waves of a storm surge more than 7 feet above sea level, showed that Georges, a Category 2 storm that only grazed New Orleans, had pushed waves to within a foot of the top of the levees. A stronger storm on a slightly different course -- such as the path Georges was on just 16 hours before landfall -- could have realized emergency officials' worst-case scenario: hundreds of billions of gallons of lake water pouring over the levees into an area averaging 5 feet below sea level with no natural means of drainage.

That would turn the city and the east bank of Jefferson Parish into a lake as much as 30 feet deep, fouled with chemicals and waste from ruined septic systems, businesses and homes. Such a flood could trap hundreds of thousands of people in buildings and in vehicles. At the same time, high winds and tornadoes would tear at everything left standing. Between 25,000 and 100,000 people would die, said John Clizbe, national vice president for disaster services with the American Red Cross...

Like coastal Bangladesh, where typhoons killed 100,000 and 300,000 villagers, respectively, in two horrific storms in 1970 and 1991, the New Orleans area lies in a low, flat coastal area. Unlike Bangladesh, New Orleans has hurricane levees that create a bowl with the bottom dipping lower than the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain. Though providing protection from weaker storms, the levees also would trap any water that gets inside -- by breach, overtopping or torrential downpour -- in a catastrophic storm.

"Filling the bowl" is the worst potential scenario for a natural disaster in the United States, emergency officials say. The Red Cross' projected death toll dwarfs estimates of 14,000 dead from a major earthquake along the New Madrid, Mo., fault, and 4,500 dead from a similar catastrophic earthquake hitting San Francisco, the next two deadliest disasters on the agency's list.

The projected death and destruction eclipse almost any other natural disaster that people paid to think about catastrophes can dream up. And the risks are significant, especially over the long term. In a given year, for example, the corps says the risk of the lakefront levees being topped is less than 1 in 300. But over the life of a 30-year mortgage, statistically that risk approaches 9 percent.

Like Paul at Wizbang says, pray.

Gregg Easterbrook is a terrible journopundit but a world class sportsblogger, and last year I lamented the unceremonious booting of his weekly football column from espn.com after he said something that someone somewhere may have taken out of context as being less than couth.

Luckily, the NFL has done the sensible thing and given Easterbrook's weekly football column, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, space on its own servers for this football season. TMQ is back! All shall rejoice! All shall rue the blitz!

One year ago this week, the news was all, "Mission Accomplished!" w00t! Iraq: 0WNZ0R3D!!!

And yet. Car bomb at Baghdad police station kills 47. That was one of seven car bombs detonated yesterday in Baghdad, leaving more than 100 dead. The thugs who did this don't seem to be getting the message that we won already like a year ago.

Not that good things don't happen (I say, to forestall a linkalanche of good news tidbits from Buckethead), but holy hell. The lights aren't even on all the time yet in Baghdad, the country's capital where all the infrastructure is, and that was supposed to have been all taken care of last April (which is now seventeen months ago, if you're counting).

Between Afghanistan's slow decline into a Colombia-like conglomerate of warlords in which opium derivates are the legal tender, and the aforementioned ugliness in Iraq, I'm not sure that W ought to be campaigning on his foreign policy record (not that Kerry should either. Is there a third choice I can trust not to confiscate my land, regulate my sex life, or turn road repair duties over to Gomer and his dumptruck?). Perhaps that's why all this focus on typewriters, purple hearts, and how a slow economy actually looks fast if you ignore the prevailing indicators.

Fearmongering headline seen this morning in the Boston Globe: "Influx of assault guns feared as federal ban lapses". (The link goes to the less hysterical but still debatable headline that appeared in the actual paper: "Influx feared as arms ban ends"). The head as written above appeared on the front page of boston.com. Surely a paper perpetually pursuing national noteriety need not stoop to such sensationalistic strategies!

This headline is especially unfunny considering that 2004 is becoming known as the Year of the Brazen Daytime Shootings in and around Boston. The city's murder rate is twice what it was last year at this time, even without so-called "Assault Weapons."