I Hate What You Just Said

NY Times:

Citing their free speech rights, three tour guides in Philadelphia filed a lawsuit this week challenging an ordinance that will require them to pass a history test and get a license. Mayor Michael Nutter signed the measure into law in April amid concern that some guides were perpetuating gross inaccuracies, including the false claims that Benjamin Franklin had 69 illegitimate children and that Betsy Ross, a three-time widow, killed her husbands. But the three guides, Ann Boulais, Michael Tait and Josh Silver, backed by a public-interest law firm, argue that the city has gone too far. The tests will be required beginning in October.

Lee Greenwood is famous for his 4th of July masterpiece, “God Bless the U.S.A.” One thing has always bothered me about it. It’s this line:

And I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.

What the hell does this mean? Does Lee Greenwood actually live on another American citizen? Or has Lee so confused the land he loves with himself that they are cognitively inseparable for him?

If so, hats off, Lee Greenwood — your patriotism runneth over.

[Updated Below]

I believe it was Emerson who wrote that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

Yesterday, our nation’s media showed why they think Emerson is full of shit.

The truth, according to the Washington Press Corps(e), is that politicians show that they are big-minded and serious by never, EVER, changing their views–no matter what.

In a press conference Barack Obama stated that he would continue to “refine” his policy about Iraq as he traveled to the embattled country and met with our commanders on the ground.

How is a reporter supposed to respond when a politician uses a word like “refine” in a sentence? By doing the only thing you know how to do, of course: manufacture fake controversies.

Take the AP story, for instance, which was titled “Obama opens door to altering his Iraq policy”:

Democrat Barack Obama opened the door Thursday to altering his plan to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq in 16 months based on what he hears from military commanders during his upcoming trip there.

The Washington Post’s headline was “Obama Softens on Iraq Withdrawal Timeline”

And Mike Allen, of The Politico:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Thursday backed off his firm promise to withdraw combat forces from Iraq immediately and instead said he could “refine” his plan after his trip to Baghdad later this month.

Earlier, a top Obama adviser had said that the senator is not “wedded” to a specific timeline.

Obama told reporters in Fargo, N.D., that he is “going to do a thorough assessment.”

“When I go to Iraq and I have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies,” he said, according to CBS News. “I have been consistent, throughout this process, that I believe the war in Iraq was a mistake.”

Obama later said at a second news conference he still intends to stick to the timeline.

Nice work, Mike, you hack. Really going out of your way to construct a “flip-flopper” narrative.

Refining something, to our nation’s media, apparently means something akin to “reject,” “alter,” or “change.” But not according to the dictionary. There I find that “refine” can mean the following:

verb
1 : to free (as metal, sugar, or oil) from impurities or unwanted material

2 : to free from moral imperfection : elevate

3 : to improve or perfect by pruning or polishing <refine a poetic style>

4 : to reduce in vigor or intensity

5 : to free from what is coarse, vulgar, or uncouth

intransitive verb

1 : to become pure or perfected

2 : to make improvement by introducing subtleties or distinctions

Two points about all this.

First, I think that this dust-up is absurd solely on the basis of the language Obama used. To “refine” something does not mean to fundamentally “alter” or “change” it. If anything, refining something suggests a process whereby something becomes more concentrated, more itself — free from impurities or mistakes. Essentially, Obama is saying that he wants to end the war better.

Secondly, this event is evidence of the pathetic “gotcha” school of journalism where the objective is to expose a candidate as a “flip-flopper.”  God knows there is plenty of self-serving equivocation, waffling, and politically expedient reversal going on in Washington. And these things should be exposed for what they are. But we must also acknowledge that a “change of mind” based on the consultation of authorities and the study of new evidence is actually an indication of a sane, healthy intellect–not a suggestion of duplicity or dishonesty.

To our journalists and the preposterous commentator clowns who construct our media narratives, only a “flip-flopper” would state that they intend to thoughtfully consider evidence and take great care when making decisions about things like war and the lives of soldiers. And a “flip-flopper” is incapable of being a good president.

I suppose this means that the platonic ideal of the American president is someone like George Bush who gets an idea in his head and stubbornly refuses to alter course regardless of facts, evidence, objective data, polls, and the opinions of learned professionals. That kind of consistency takes character. And integrity. Better to be ruled by your “gut” than by your mind.

Way to go, media elites!

UPDATE I:

Not to be outdone, NPR issues this ingenious statement:

Democrat Barack Obama says he is not shifting his policy on troop withdrawals from Iraq, just hours after he said he was open to “refining” his policy.

Oh, snap! NPR, you just busted Obama wearing five pairs of flip-flops! Previously, Obama said he was committed to ending the war, but now he’s completely “refined” his policy and will probably keep our soldiers there for 100 years. McCain wins!

Let’s dissect the statement “open to ‘refining’ his policy.” Clearly, in NPR-speak, “refining” means “change.” Yet, in truth, this statement is like saying that Barack Obama is “open to perfecting his policy” on Iraq. Shock! Gasp!

One of the more popular statements on this issue (judged by Google) was penned by this budding philologist:

Does Barack Obama’s “Refine” Mean the Same Thing As Evolving, or Flip Flopping?

Refine, evolve, changes his mind…..they all mean the same thing…..Flip Flopping.

Can’t you just hear the rustle of the Cheetos bag?

UPDATE II:

This MSNBC write-up is pretty fair.

In a genius political move, John McCain is spending July 4th . . . in Mexico.

Watch the clip of Wes Clark’s statements on John McCain. Then compare it to the media response: a self-feeding loop of evidence-free outrage and effrontery that boggle the mind.

Watching televised news literally makes you stupid.

Some completely unbelievable news from today’s New York Times. The entire harsh interrogation torture regime used at Guantanamo Bay was plagiarized from Red Scare-era documents detailing Communist Chinese interrogation techniques:

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency. [. . .]

The 1957 article from which the chart was copied was entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War” and written by Alfred D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003. Mr. Biderman had interviewed American prisoners returning from North Korea, some of whom had been filmed by their Chinese interrogators confessing to germ warfare and other atrocities.

The article further explains that the “only change made in the chart presented at Guantánamo was to drop its original title: ‘Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.’”

American Torture.™  Made in China.

As the article is quick to reveal, the position of the US at the time was that the described Chinese practices were torture. Further, it was also clear at the time that such practices do not produce actionable intelligence; rather, they elicit promiscuous confession. In the end, torture does nothing but create an endless, self-justifying loop of hysteria and paranoia.

Perhaps it is time for someone to tell this president “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Those Irish punks have ruined everything, now Poland :

In a newspaper interview published Tuesday, Mr. Kaczynski said it would “pointless” to sign the Lisbon Treaty in light of the Irish rejection.

Damn, that’s the height of amazing nerve.  I’ll bet Sarko’s not happy.

“The European idea is in danger if we don’t protect Europeans,” Mr. Sarkozy said Monday.

What’s the “European idea” you ask? Is it a more moderate, sensible version of the American dream? A collective light bulb hovering over Belgium?  What kind of fuel economy does it get?  Does it include peeing standing up?

In a surprisingly frank admission, the French foreign minister, Bernard Koucher said the no vote in Ireland illustrated how the European Union had alienated its citizens by conducting politics in a manner they find incomprehensible.

“They understand nothing,” Mr. Kouchner said in comments to journalists in Paris “The institutions interest no one.”

He argued that, in contrast, voters did appreciate that Europe “was not able to respond to the rise in the price of petrol.” As for the jargon in which business in Brussels is conducted, Mr. Kouchner said, “no one understands — including me.”

New York Times

Conducting politics in a manner they find incomprehensible.  Good thing we don’t have that problem here in the greatest and best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth.

While the White House refuses to open official emails from the EPA containing policy recommendations they don’t like, the Pentagon is busy refusing orders from the EPA to clean up toxic chemical spills on several military bases.

The Washington Post reports that chemicals posing “imminent and substantial” dangers to the health of the public and the environment are present in the soil and groundwater at several military installations. The EPA has ordered to Pentagon to add the sites to the Superfund list and begin a clean-up of the affected areas.

Apparently, cleaning up is with the terrorists:

The Pentagon has . . . declined to sign agreements required by law that cover 12 other military sites on the Superfund list of the most polluted places in the country. The contracts would spell out a remediation plan, set schedules, and allow the EPA to oversee the work and assess penalties if milestones are missed.

Experts in the field of environmental law say that this move is extraordinary:

“This is stunning,” said Rena Steinzor, who helped write the Superfund laws as a congressional staffer and now teaches at the University of Maryland Law School and is president of the nonprofit Center for Progressive Reform. “The idea that they would refuse to sign a final order — that is the height of amazing nerve.”

Yes, the “height of amazing nerve.” Pretty much sums up the past 7 years.

Given how corrupt and ineffectual the federal government has been lately, adding yet another government office hardly seems like the solution to our problems.

But this isn’t a bad idea. From Geoffrey R. Stone, in the NYT:

Presidents have a wide range of official advisers. There is a secretary of defense, a secretary of labor, a national security adviser, to name just a few. The next president should create a new executive branch position: a civil liberties adviser. Within the highest councils of every administration there should be a respected public official whose charge it is to defend our civil liberties against all comers.

Ideally, people like the members of congress, the attorney general, and the president should make it their business to protect our civil liberties. You know, because it is sort of their job. But in warrantless-wiretapping, Patriot-Act America, having an official solely dedicated to protecting our constitutional rights might help. After nearly 8 years of the Bush assault on civil liberties, we need all of the help we can get. And let’s just hope that if we do get an official civil liberties adviser position, the appointment will be made by this guy.

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“I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.”

-Simone de Beauvoir