The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in a case involving the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law, and touching on basic issues of freedom of speech and of the press.
I read about it in the New York Times in an article by Linda Greenhouse, whose credibility as an objective reporter of the Supreme Court’s doings was forever shredded, at least for me, by a speech she gave at Harvard last summer lamenting, among other things, the Right’s “sustained assault on women’s reproductive freedom and the hijacking of public policy by religious fundamentalism.”
Still, even if Greenhouse came out of the ideological closet in a way that makes a mockery of the Times’s posture of political neutrality, as best I can tell she did a creditable job in the basic task of laying out the facts of who said what in the case that was before the Court yesterday. The provision of McCain-Feingold in question, which prohibits certain kinds of advertisements just before an election, had been upheld by the Supremes by a margin of 5 to 4 in a December 2003 decision, which is now being revisited.
The New York Times has a stake in this case. Although the newspaper positions itself as a champion of the First Amendment—and has even intrepidly broken federal laws that crimp its freedom to print whatever it pleases—its editorial page nevertheless avidly supports the restrictions on issue ads contained in McCain-Feingold, insouciantly declaring that the “Constitution permits reasonable limits designed to prevent what the Court has called ‘corruption and the appearance of corruption.’” The law, it says flatly, “does not prohibit any speech.”
But liberals are deeply riven over McCain-Feingold. And the Times is itself sharply at odds with the leading First Amendment lawyer of our era, Floyd Abrams—who also happens to be the attorney to whom the paper has turned for defense in cases ranging from the Judith Miller affair back to the Pentagon Papers in the early 1970’s.
In his exceptionally compelling memoir, Speaking Freely, Abrams recounts a 2003 conversation with Alex Gigante, general counsel of Penguin Group USA, which was poised to publish a new book about Senator John Kerry, then in the midst of a campaign for the presidency:
“Is there anything in the new campaign finance law that could be problematic?” Gigante asked me. “Yes,” I said. “There is one thing: you can’t advertise the book on radio or television at all for the entire month of July leading up to the Democratic convention, for almost all of September, and for every day of October.” That antidemocratic achievement, I said, was directly attributable to McCain-Feingold.
Gigante listened to me in disbelief and then asked the unavoidable question: “Is that law constitutional?”
“Not under my First Amendment,” I told him. “Not under mine.”
Abrams calls the provisions of McCain-Feingold governing political advertising “nothing less than outright suppression of speech of the most odious nature.” Could he have been any clearer?
Next time the Times cites the First Amendment when it publishes a vital national-security secret in violation of the law, let us not forget the hypocrisy of its position on McCain-Feingold. And a health warning: do not hold your breath waiting to read about this internecine dispute in the news columns of Linda Greenhouse. It could cause asphyxia.
In 2006, Bush rescued Hezbollah and aided Iran by co-sponsoring Resolution 1701. What he should have done instead was to encourage Israel to destroy Hezbollah. Israel would have carried out a different sort of war if there had been a strong statement from America.
Today, Bush doesn’t have to worry about elections or world opinion. I can’t imagine why his Secretary of State is talking about a cease fire.
Why have a ceasefire when you’re on the threshhold of the Final Solution?
We can all take a rather large clue about what Condi’s thinking from her just-released statement (not from the State Dept., but from The White House) on the Situation in Gaza.
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009/01/113558.htm
Middle of the third paragraph: “I might note that it was Hamas that rejected the Egyptian and Arab calls for an extension of the Takia that Egypt had negotiated.”
Arabic terms and ideology have become so familiar to her, that she doesn’t even recognize a need to translate that word/concept for Americans. I find that utterly astonishing.
Here’s a very good, in-depth explanation of takia written by a self-described “ex-Muslim Tunisian atheist”. It’s called “Al takia or the Islamist art of fooling the enemy” and you can read it at http://www.islamla.com/topic1767.html#p25221
“We can forget about looking to Washington for answers over the next few weeks. The administration is currently engaged in a durable and sustainable vacation.”
Why should the Bush administration work? After all, didn’t the American people just get through voting for the Messiah, who will prevent the seas from receding and get the people of the world to sing “Kumbaya” just by speaking his utter vagueness?
George,
It was the IDF’s utter incompetence, {and this needs to be mentioned as well, outright cowardice} that led to the utter and supreme debacle of Southern Lebanon, ’06.
Israeli men weren’t willing to close with and annihlate Hezbollah’s redoubts.
Stories of Israeli men unwilling to close with their enemies were COMMONPLACE.
I’ve seen stories of American Marine and Army officers watching IDF tapes and leaving the viewing ashen faced, ASHEN FACED by what they witnessed.
Before the operation, I thought it was going to be ’82 all over again.
The IDF moves rapidly on the Palestinians in Southern Lebanon, luring and and ultimately forcing Syria’s military to get involved, which would give the IDF a grand opportunity of punishing and pounding both.
Instead what we got were IDF “soldiers” cowering before Hezbollah, waiting for armour support, and each night “retiring” away from redoubts still very much in the control of dirtballs.
So sure, Rice, {as usual for her, just par for the course, completely typical for her} was completely out of it.
But the administration was left with little to play with after the IDF went out there and displayed rank and abject cowardice for all the world to see.
And they did see.
I still remember when Israeli leadership would say they’d suffer no terror armies on their borders.
Take a gander at the situation now.
Terror army DOMINATING their Northern border.
Yet Israel is pondering giving away the Golan Heights.
To the South, Hamas is in the process of building up strength like Hezbollah.
And afterwards, which of us thinks that the Palestinians in the West Bank are going to stay on the sidelines, for they’ll want their terror army too, and sure enough, they’ll get it.
Even more than Fatah by the way, think of it as terror army kicked up a notch.
It seems to me the height of hypocrisy for anonymous poster “Dan” to call Israeli soldiers cowards. He can’t even use his own name when he makes the accusation. Wow. I’m speechless.
With all due respect to George and Abe Greenwald: What Dan wrote, only with these embellishments.
Amir Paretz and Dan Halutz came into the White House early in the Lebanon War and boasted that the IAF would be able to suppress Hezboallah’s missile. No serious thought was ever given to the General Staff plan of an amphibious invasion north of Tyre and an envelopment. Instead, it’s as if the entire nation had suffered from dry rot and lack of leadership.
For three weeks, while Olmert dithered and the IDF engaged in a halfhearted war on the Lebanon frontier, Rice covered, mind you, covered for the most incompetent government in Israeli history. She had been assured that the IDF would clean up South Lebanon. She was lied to by a boatload of charlatans in Jerusalem and in Northern Command who had no idea what they were doing. What you people don’t realize is that the WH, including her, saw the same tapes that Dan mentioned, only much earlier, and during the war. It was late in the July war that she understood that Olmert was dithering and hanging her and the United States out to dry. That’s why she went for 1701. And a good thing to. An indecisive Israel is a weak Israel: Olmert pissed all that away.
Rice was never at fault here, unlike what some of the people who write for this magazine think. She came to the proper conclusions: the Israelis lied to her, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and the President, continuously and repeatedly. NO representative of the Olmert Government, including Livni, was ever, and I do mean, ever trusted again. Especially with the waging of war-something that Israelis are supposed to be good at. I am quite sure that the internal Pentagon after-action reports about IDF performance are as scathing as the Winograd Report, if not worse.
Compare the IDF’s fiasco in Lebanon with the performance of American units such as the First Marine (Guadalcanal) Division, the 101st Airborne, the 82nd Airborne, and the 7th Cavalry Regiment at places like al-Fallujah, ar-Ramadi, and in Diyalah, Nineveh, Baghdad, and Mosul. The U.S. units got better with time and training. They have won their war in Iraq and annihilated al-Qaeda’s best units in the process. The Arabs know this.
Have the Israelis? We don’t know. We won’t know unless the Zahal goes into Gaza. This magazine has turned blaming Condi Rice into a cottage industry, when in fact, the fault lay entirely with the galactic incompetence of the Israeli Government and the Israeli Defense Forces!!!
I have no confidence in the State of Israel and the IDF to win the war in Gaza, unless proven otherwise. Neither does Condi Rice or anyone else in any position of responsibility in the U.S. Government. Why should they? They’ve seen the game films.
It’s clear as day: The Israelis are incompetent.
America has been burned before by these clowns. Once burned, twice shy.
BTW, you can tell the IDF isn’t serious by the numbers they are putting in on the ground.
Say you have the 7th Armored, the Golani, maybe the Givati Brigade, the boys from the Sayeret Metkal (they are very good) and other assorted units. That’s still not a full American Division committed to a Hamas defense-in-depth of some 9-12,000 men. They have had years to build up for this gunfight. IDF needs another U.S. Division-sized unit, at least, for this fight. Preferably 35,000 guys. Plus, the Pallies will meld with the population during the day then come out at night to fight with rocket teams. IDF says they have tactics to adjust to this. Let’s hope they do.
Of course, if it’s nothing but showboating-a Thunder Run where the tanks go screaming into Gaza City and then out again (which is what I think Olmert the Unready will do), then no harm, no foul. No victory, either. Hamas survives to blow up pizza parlors another day.
Sorry Sheryl.
But I’m not the issue here.
The events in Southern Lebanon besmirched the honour of the IDF.
And everybody needs to understand that.
We just can’t indulge in sentimental cheerleading.
The men that went to engage in ’06 did not prove themselves the equal say, of those in the Golani sent to take Beaufort Castle in ’82.
From what I understand of the status of the IDF, I wouldn’t trust them in a straight-up against the Syrians.
That’s how bad the situation has gotten.
Didn’t the Winograd Report damn as well the training regiem of the IDF?
It seems that Israelis have somehow acquired the notion that they don’t have existential threats, not at least along their border.
This notion has seeped through their military, eroding their sense of importance and thus of purpose.
Sure the elite units are somewhat insulated from that.
But it appears the only true threat that Israelis give serious thought to is the one posed by Tehran.
Such an attitude leaves them poorly equipped to deal with dirtballs holed up in mountainous redoubts, or for that matter dirtballs holed up in urban settings.
Which is why we’ve been subjected to endless aerial displays by the IAF, ———- but relatively little from those men whose task should be to close with the enemy, and destroy them, man to man, eye to eye.
The whole state of Israel, AND NOT JUST THEIR CORRUPT LEADERSHIP, but the whole state needs to get their act together fast.
For Tehran means business.
And SECTION 9,
part of the reason we see the constant bemoaning of Washington’s micromanagement of Israeli foreign policy and their military measures is that it serves to shield from proper scrutiny the competence, or the incompetence of Israeli leadership.
The skill of the IDF became a comforting myth to Israelis and their sympathizers, and it was a comforting distraction to the often squalid ongoings of their political leadership.
Events in Southern Lebanon were so painful, so shocking, so disgraceful, —————— that for many Israelis, Jews and state of Israel sympathizers, ———— it was all just too much to handle.
On a purely human level one understands where they’re coming from.
But failure to fully grasp the collapse of professionalism within the IDF has to occur before those faults and flaws can be redressed.
And redressed they must be.
Another problem is that many Jews don’t even know of those tapes, don’t even know of the stunned reaction of professional observers, who know what they’re looking at, who know what they’re looking for.
Not to mention to serves as something of a
To Dan;
It is the Israeli politicians, under the pressure of the US , which is restraining the IDF. However, any knowledgeable expert , for example John Keegan, recognized the 2006 war in Lebanon, was the usual Arab defeat when facing the IDF. Who decided the terrorists hiding in $4 BILLION fortifications Iran purchased and built for them won anything. CNN? The Economist? The damage the IDF infliced on Hezbollah-land Southern Lebanon was the equivalent of 50% of it’s GNP. Israel suffered the equivalent of 1% of its GNP. Much was made of Hezbollah’s survival. But surviving a battle in which your opponent doesn’t commit ground forces until 3 days before the end of the conflict is not impressive. What a beating the IDF LOL Their casualty rate was lower than the IDF rate in the Six Day War, in 1967. Strategically, Hezbollah isn’t in any position to attack Israeli border patrols since there is a UN force seperating them from Israel.
Dan;
You don’t have any idea what you are talking about. It was the imbecile Olmert, and his incompetent corrupt Defense Minister who were afraid of casualties. There was no evidence of IDF fear of closing with the enemy and “cowardice” . This is just a fantasy, Israel haters would like to believe. This brief war was the equivalent of Iwo Jima. Hezbollah due to the very foolish unilateral withdrawal from South Lebanon, had 6 years and $4 billion to spend on fortifications. The Japanese also built impressive fortifications. Did that mean they won the battle. The 2 differences between Iwo Jima and 2006 war in Lebanon, were 1. Israel , unlike the US, wasn’t under great pressure to wipe out Hezbollah. 2. Israel instead of costly ,wasteful frontal attacks needed another month to wipe out the terrorists who were rescued by the cease fire.
Dan,
Have you actually seen these tapes? Who filmed them and where are they?
Joe, your passion is commendable but is better utilized elsewhere.
You amassed some interesting financial statistics, ——————- but you forgot to mention one rather salient fact, especially in that whacked out part of the world, and that is at the end of hostilities, Hezbollah maintained themselves in their redoubts.
Hezbollah didn’t move.
In ’82, Sharon drove the dirtballs to and through Beirut.
In ’06, they didn’t go anywhere.
So for the first time in Israel’s history, at the end of an engagement where ground forces were committed, the IDF failed to budge the enemy.
And this was no raid.
This wasn’t like their raid on Green Island for instance.
They tried to drive off Hezbollah and failed.
There is no other conclusion to come to, and the fact that you feel it necessary to array an interesting amount of data to persuade one to believe that Israel succeeded is itself proof that Israel failed, utterly failed in its objectives.
Olmert went into the North to gain the return of three soldiers, didn’t he?
Wasn’t that the stated goal, the return of Israeli soldiers.
Well at the end of it, ———————————– were they returned?
Can you tell me when the state of Israel finally achieved the return of the soldiers that were grabbed along the Northern border that precipitated the conflict?
My point here isn’t one of narrative battles, which is something you seem interested in waging. As if a victory in a blog thread somehow adds up to Israeli victory in ’06.
Would that it were so easy.
Would that putting a compelling brief together was enough to advance Israeli strategic interest.
I’m not interested in any of that; I’m not interested in advancing some brief like some barrister on why Israel did, or did not win the war in Southern Lebanon in ’06.
Olmert made some major blunders, ——————— TO BE SURE.
And he wasn’t alone, as Section 9 indicated, and rest assured, Section 9 was pulling his punches.
But for all of Olmert’s faults, he wasn’t on the frontline.
Now all of us can and should damn and blast Olmert for many a sin, many an idiocy, ———– but he wasn’t the one on the frontline issuing orders, executing orders, or taking or not taking Hezbollah positions.
There’s no military reason that the IDF didn’t punch through Hezbollah’s frontline positions in Southern Lebanon.
None.
Now I agree, as I mentioned earlier I considered it a stunner, that the IDF didn’t seal off the exits to the rear and the East of the Hezbollah dirtballs who were locked into fortified positions. Which the IDF could have done and should have done by enveloping the enemy, via naval and heliborne insertion.
But they chose not to do so, for various reasons.
Once that decision was made, and the IDF was given its orders of moving through Hezbollah, head on, —————————– then the IDF should have complied with their orders and broken through Hezbollah’s position.
Instead what we got were scenes that were as stunning as was the incompetence on display of the Israeli high command.
I’m sorry that I can’t arrange for an airing of those tapes, {there were more than one of them}.
But I’m one who frequents the military blogs. And I’ve been in contact with some men who DID view those tapes.
When I informed you that tapes exist of one or two Hezbollah dirtballs holding up entire companies, ——————————————– that’s a fact.
It was that bad and worse.
Moreover, there was another element involved, which came to light afterwards.
Soon enough mortification set in within the IDF, and fingers started getting pointed.
Tell Aviv figured heavily in the fingering.
Now I’m not going to go beyond that.
But if you guys want to do some internet searching, feel free. Because it’s the type of information that it’s far better if you find it out for yourself, instead of having me clue you in.
Besides, I don’t think you guys would believe me anyway.
Sheryl, the same goes with you, if you do a search on “IDF tapes” and “Lebanon” in ’06, that should serve as portal for you.
Have I seen the tapes?
No.
Who made the tapes?
The IDF themselves. These were Army tapes. Modern troops go into conflict with the ability to film what they’re seeing, and transmit what they’re seeing.
The IDF has such capabilities, and used it in this occasion.
Which is why they were so damning.
These tapes were viewed by American Marine and Army officers, guys who had seen action in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and who were stunned at the paralysis that immediately took hold when Israelis were subjected to fire.
Do I trust those men who related what they learned to me?
Yes.
Were they anti-Israeli types?
No, they’re not anti-Israeli types, quite the contrary actually.
As for the fortifications themselves, they weren’t all they were cracked up to be either. Remember the cave complexes we were all told about prior to our movement on Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11, remember how the cave complexes were all hyped out of all relation to their reality.
Well something similar occured with Hezbollah fortifications.
Yes, Hezbollah was in fortified positions, but even head-on, through direct fire and aggressive movement, those fortifications could have been taken out without sustaining a troublesome casualty rate.
Another thing that was very troublesome, and was revealed in the tapes, without committing substantial forces, Hezbollah maintained themselves in positions in the face of aerial bombardment and ground assault.
Analogies to the island hopping campaign in the Pacific are really off.
Simply because Hezbollah didn’t commit themselves in such numbers.