Topic: The Post

About Those ‘Likudniks’

Alana Goodman 02.01.2011 - 10:07 AM

The theory that a powerful cabal of Jewish intellectuals pressured President Bush into launching wars on behalf of Israel is one that’s become associated with the anti-Semitic political fringe. But it wasn’t long ago that this idea was being promoted in mainstream publications — for example, the 2003 Washington Post cover story entitled “Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical on Mideast Policy.”

The article was about a so-called group of “Likudniks” — loyalists to the right-wing Israeli government — who allegedly pulled the foreign-policy strings in the Bush administration. According to the report, the faction included Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, and Elliott Abrams.

“Some Middle East hands who disagree with these supporters of Israel refer to them as ‘a cabal,’ in the words of one former official,” reported the Post. “Members of the group do not hide their friendships and connections, or their loyalty to strong positions in support of Israel and Likud.”

“The Likudniks are really in charge now,” the story quoted an anonymous senior U.S. official as saying.

In certain circles, the term Likudnik has been used interchangeably with neoconservative, and both have carried allegations of dual loyalty to Israel.

“What these neoconservatives seek is to conscript American blood to make the world safe for Israel,” wrote Pat Buchanan in the American Conservative. “They want the peace of the sword imposed on Islam and American soldiers to die if necessary to impose it.”

Obviously, these charges were nonsense. And this is illustrated, once again, by the very different positions the Israeli government and neoconservatives have taken on the crisis in Egypt.

As Max has pointed out, Israel has come out in support of the Mubarak regime:

The newspaper said Israel’s foreign ministry told its diplomats to stress that it is in “the interest of the West” and of “the entire Middle East to maintain the stability of the regime in Egypt.”

“We must therefore curb public criticism against President Hosni Mubarak,” the message sent at the end of last week said, according to Haaretz.

The newspaper said the message was sent to Israeli diplomats in at least a dozen embassies in the United States, Canada, China, Russia and several European countries.

And yet the alleged “Likudniks” from the Bush administration haven’t been out disseminating pro-Mubarak propaganda of some sort on Fox News.

Instead, Abrams has come out strongly in support of the Egyptian people. As have Wolfowitz and Feith. In fact, neoconservatives are overwhelmingly in favor of democratic reform in Egypt, just as they were under Bush. And that makes the old allegations of dual loyalty look even more shameless.

Why Not Blame Slipknot?

Abe Greenwald 01.19.2011 - 4:00 PM

If the following gets around, watch how quickly those who blamed the Arizona massacre on Sarah Palin will embrace the schizophrenia explanation:

“Loughner, now 22, would come over several times a week from 2007 to 2008, the Oslers said,” The Associated Press reported. “The boys listened to the heavy metal band Slipknot and progressive rockers The Mars Volta, studied the form of meditative movement called tai chi, and watched and discussed movies.”

Slipknot is known for referring to its band members by numbers instead of names and for wearing what the New York Times has described as “gruesome masks.”

In a Feb. 6, 2000, feature article in its Sunday Arts section, the Washington Post said: “Slipknot’s lyrics articulate isolation and frustration. Mostly, though, they articulate rage. ‘(Expletive) it all! (Expletive) the world! (Expletive) everything that you stand for!’ chants vocalist Number 8 in ‘Surfacing,’ while ‘Eyeless’ asks, ‘How many times have you wanted to kill/ Everything and everyone — say you’ll do it but never will.’”

“But there’s no question,” the Post reported, “that Slipknot is tapping into something very dark in the mixed-up, muddled minds of thousands of angst-ridden young people, fans the band members refer to affectionately as ‘maggots.’”

A ‘Historic Opportunity’ in Tunisia

Max Boot 01.18.2011 - 10:59 AM

The Washington Post has a typically excellent editorial on the situation in Tunisia. The Post, with deputy editorial-page editor Jackson Diehl in the lead, has long been a courageous voice in the wilderness championing the embattled cause of Arab democracy. Now the Post editors write that the Jasmine Revolution presents a “historic opportunity”:

Though the revolution has no clear leaders and organized opposition parties are weak, the country is in other respects ready for a democratic transition. Its population is relatively well educated and its middle class substantial, and its women are emancipated by regional standards; Islamic fundamentalist forces are not as strong as they are in Algeria or Egypt. The constitution calls for fresh presidential elections in 60 days, and the country’s interim president indicated that calendar would be respected. The United States can join with France and the European Union in supporting and even helping to organize truly fair elections and in pushing back against those in Tunisia, and elsewhere in the Arab world, who will seek a quick restoration of autocracy.

Good advice.

The Obama administration came into office disdainful of President Bush’s pursuit of democracy in the Middle East. Now some senior officials may be having a change of heart, as witnessed by Secretary of State Clinton’s recent speech taking Arab states to task for not doing more to reform themselves. We shouldn’t get our hopes up — an awful lot can still go wrong in Tunisia. Certainly in the past we have seen hopes of democracy in the region dashed (Lebanon) or delayed (Iraq). But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying, and Tunisia offers a great opportunity for the United States to show that it will stand with the Arab people, not just with their corrupt, unelected rulers.

SPJ Executive Committee Recommends Renaming Helen Thomas Award

Alana Goodman 01.09.2011 - 3:26 PM

Yesterday, the Society of Professional Journalists’ executive committee voted in favor of renaming the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement. But the decision isn’t yet binding — it still has to be approved by the full board of directors, which will vote on it within the next 10 days:

The recommendation issued Jan. 8 by the national journalists’ group, based on anti-Zionist remarks made by Thomas, will be sent to its board of directors within 10 days. The award will still be given, but without Thomas’ name.

“While we support Helen Thomas’ right to speak her opinion, we condemn her statements in December as offensive and inappropriate,” the executive committee said in making its recommendation.

On Dec. 2, in a speech to an Arab-American group in Dearborn, Mich., Thomas, 90, said that Congress, the White House, Hollywood and Wall Street “are owned by the Zionists.” The remarks raised fresh concerns about the sincerity of an apology for her remarks last summer to a video blogger that Jews “should get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Poland, Germany and the United States.

The executive committee’s decision doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Other institutions have already removed Thomas’s name from awards, so the SPJ can follow suit while avoiding too much controversy. On the other hand, if the organization had voted to keep the name on the award, there’s no way it would have been able to get past this incident quietly. The SPJ executive committee said this pretty unambiguously in its press release:

During robust debate on Saturday, the committee considered positions from those supporting Thomas’ right to free speech and those who considered her remarks unbecoming of an honor given by SPJ. The committee decided while both positions have merit, the best way to return the focus to SPJ’s important work would be to distance itself from the controversy now overshadowing this award.

“Let’s work on what unites us rather than what divides us,” Limor said.

This is an understandable position, and I assume the board of directors will vote in favor of the executive committee’s recommendation.

Of course, Thomas’s new employer doesn’t seem to share the SPJ’s aversion to controversy. The former White House correspondent was recently hired as a columnist by the Falls Church News-Press — an alternative-weekly paper in Northern Virginia — and the editor Nick Benton has vigorously defended his decision. Read More

So Long — Until Tomorrow

Jennifer Rubin 11.30.2010 - 4:30 PM

As most all of you know, today is my last day at COMMENTARY. It has been a joy and a source of great pride to work for the publication that I began reading as a teenager and that remains one of the premiere intellectual institutions in America. My writing career began as a lark and has become a passion, the most satisfying and engrossing occupation I could have imagined. The opportunity to write in COMMENTARY’S pages and on this website — and throw some elbows, take the barbs (from those whom I’m delighted to have enraged), and report what the mainstream media refused to — has allowed me to contribute to the political debate and, along the way, break news. I owe COMMENTARY’s editors, staff, and writers an immense debt of gratitude. I am thankful for the encouragement and fine editorial advice they have provided me, without which I could not have accomplished what I did or have been ready for the next chapter in my career. And as for John’s most generous parting words, I am deeply touched. I hope to be worthy of his praise.

Then there are all of you — the readers. I have received the benefit of my readers’ extraordinary wisdom, occasional corrections and objections, and good humor. (I’ve often thought that many of you should be writing rather than just reading.) And after all, that is what a great magazine is all about — an intellectual community that stimulates, spars, consoles, incites, and makes common cause to promote values and principles that must be defended if they are to survive. I want to thank all of you for the hundreds of e-mails, calls, Facebook entries, and tweets (OK, I finally broke down and got with the 21st century — @JRubinBlogger) cheering me as I move to the Washington Post.

At the Post I will launch a new blog, Right Turn (CONTENTIONS readers can get a sneak preview by clicking on the link), where I will continue to report and opine, just as I have for the past three years. Rest assured that I intend to make the most of this extraordinary opportunity. I want all of you to come along for the ride — to read, comment, and debate with the Post readers (respectfully, of course). Together we can explain who we are and what we believe to a wide and diverse audience. I will continue to make CONTENTIONS an integral part of my daily reading, and I hope you will as well. Its writers’ wealth of knowledge and wit are an indispensible part of the national debate.

And to my loved ones: your unflagging support, patience, and confidence in my abilities have sustained me. Without you, none of this would be possible.

Anti-Israel Website Indirectly Funded by Dutch Government

Alana Goodman 11.28.2010 - 2:48 PM

The next time you come across an Electronic Intifada article alleging some devious Israeli plot to annex Palestinian olive groves, direct your eye-rolls toward The Hague. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Dutch government may have been unwittingly helping to finance the radical anti-Israel website for years.

The Post reported Friday that the Electronic Intifada is funded by the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation, which is apparently being subsidized quite heavily by the Dutch government and the European Union:

The Dutch government has been funding the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation, a Dutch aid organization that finances the Electronic Intifada website that, NGO Monitor told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, is anti-Semitic and frequently compares Israeli policies with those of the Nazi regime.

NGO Monitor’s exposure of Dutch government funding for the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) prompted Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal to say on Thursday, “I will look into the matter personally. If it appears that the government subsidized NGO ICCO does fund Electronic Intifada, it will have a serious problem with me.”

The Post reports that the Dutch government provided €124 million to the ICCO in 2008, which the NGO Monitor says makes up 90 percent of the group’s budget. The European Union reportedly contributed another 6 percent.

The Electronic Intifada is one of the most prominent peddlers of anti-Israel demagoguery on the English-speaking Web. Founded and run by Ali Abunimah, its articles promote a one-state solution, accuse Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” and regularly compare the Jewish state to Nazi Germany. Abunimah has also published the personal information of IDF soldiers, including home addresses.

Anti-Semitism is punishable by law in the Netherlands, and the Dutch foreign ministry said that the public prosecutor will look into whether the ICCO’s financing of the Electronic Intifada constitutes the promotion of anti-Semitism.

Random musing: If even the Dutch government thinks the Electronic Intifada is toxic, what does that say about the New York Times, which has published Abunimah’s columns and quoted him in news articles as an objective expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Karzai’s Words, and His Actions

Max Boot 11.15.2010 - 2:05 PM

Hamid Karzai has caused considerable consternation with his weekend interview with the Washington Post. He told Post editors and reporters: “The time has come to reduce military operations. The time has come to reduce the presence of, you know, boots in Afghanistan . . . to reduce the intrusiveness into the daily Afghan life…. It’s not desirable for the Afghan people either to have 100,000 or more foreign troops going around the country endlessly.” He also criticized “night raids”–Special Operations raids that occur at night–as he has in the past.

The Post reports that General Petraeus expressed “astonishment and disappointment” as his remarks which seem to fly in the face of NATO’s strategy. Today Karzai’s spokesman was rapidly backtracking, stressing that Karzai’s comments about the desirability of a troop pullout were “conditioned on the ability of the Afghan security forces to take responsibility.” The spokesman made clear that Karzai supports NATO’s goal to begin withdrawing in 2014.

This kerfuffle reminds me of many similar statements made over the years by Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq. As I noted in this 2008 Washington Post op-ed, Maliki, too, has had a history of calling for U.S. troop withdrawals:

In May 2006, shortly after becoming prime minister, he claimed, “Our forces are capable of taking over the security in all Iraqi provinces within a year and a half.”

In October 2006, when violence was spinning out of control, Maliki declared that it would be “only a matter of months” before his security forces could “take over the security portfolio entirely and keep some multinational forces only in a supporting role.”

President Bush wisely ignored Maliki. Instead of withdrawing U.S. troops, he sent more. The prime minister wasn’t happy. On Dec. 15, 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported, “Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has flatly told Gen. George Casey, the top American military commander in Iraq, that he doesn’t want more U.S. personnel deployed to the country, according to U.S. military officials.” When the surge went ahead anyway, Maliki gave it an endorsement described in news accounts as “lukewarm.”

I suggested in the op-ed that it was wise to judge Maliki by what he did, not what he said. For all of his public doubts about the U.S. troop presence he generally supported American actions behind-the-scenes–although often only after considerable arm-twisting from Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

Karzai, too, should be judged by his actions, rather than by his occasional expressions of public frustration with the coalition. He has not done anything as dramatic as Maliki, who ordered his security forces to clear Basra and Sadr City of the Sadrist militia, but he has taken some positive steps such as agreeing to the setting up of the Afghan Local Police program to augment the Afghan security forces.

Moreover, some of his criticisms of international forces are on the mark–the U.S. and its allies have done much to fuel corruption in Afghanistan, as he complains, and their employment of local security forces has often been a contributor to instability. Yet at the end of the day Afghanistan would be far more insecure without an America troop presence, and that is something I suspect Karzai, for all his misguided public statements, actually realizes.

Arizona Immigration Law Hearing

Jennifer Rubin 11.02.2010 - 10:52 AM

This account by the Washington Post of the 9th Circuit hearing on the Arizona immigration law is revealing on a number of counts.

Judge John T. Noonan (whose own exacting questioning I experienced in law school some years back) didn’t think much of the Obama administration’s advocacy skills:

“I’ve read your brief, I’ve read the District Court opinion, I’ve heard your interchange with my two colleagues, and I don’t understand your argument,” Noonan told deputy solicitor general Edwin S. Kneedler. “We are dependent as a court on counsel being responsive. … You keep saying the problem is that a state officer is told to do something. That’s not a matter of preemption. … I would think the proper thing to do is to concede that this is a point where you don’t have an argument.”

That doesn’t mean the government doesn’t have other viable arguments in its attempt to overturn the Arizona law or that this issue is going to be settled by the 9th Circuit. (Certainly it’s headed for the Supreme Court.) But it does mean that the Obama Justice Department is doing a poor job of litigating.

Even more telling is this passage from the Post‘s report:

With Noonan, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, so bluntly stating his views, legal experts said the government’s chances of having the injunction upheld may rest with the other two judges on Monday’s panel: Carlos T. Bea and Richard A. Paez.

Bea is also a Republican appointee and tends to vote with the court’s conservative wing, which could help Arizona’s chances. Paez is a Democratic appointee.

But Bea and Paez are Hispanic, and it is Hispanics who are most upset about the Arizona law.

What?! This is the wise Latino school of thought, the suggestion that these justices would vote their ethnicity rather than their conscience. The Post digs up a supposed scholar whom I’ve never heard of to opine: “‘Perhaps this is one area where Bea might not vote as a so-called conservative because he himself is an immigrant,’ said Arthur Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and an expert on the 9th Circuit.” Perhaps Hellman’s students should disregard the chazzerai they are being taught.

Washington Post Confirms More Than a Year of Conservative Reporting

Jennifer Rubin 10.24.2010 - 9:30 AM

Yes, that’s right. On Saturday’s front page, in a well-documented piece, the Washington Post did a very credible job in reporting the details of the New Black Party Panther case and, in large part, vindicating the witnesses and conservative outlets which have reported that: 1) the administration concealed that political appointees influenced the decision to dismiss a blatant case of voter intimidation; 2) the Obama administration does not believe in equal enforcement of civil rights laws; and 3) this single incident is indicative of a much larger problem than one case of voter intimidation.

As to the administration’s mindset:

Civil rights officials from the Bush administration have said that enforcement should be race-neutral. But some officials from the Obama administration, which took office vowing to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement, thought the agency should focus primarily on cases filed on behalf of minorities.

“The Voting Rights Act was passed because people like Bull Connor were hitting people like John Lewis, not the other way around,” said one Justice Department official not authorized to speak publicly, referring to the white Alabama police commissioner who cracked down on civil rights protesters such as Lewis, now a Democratic congressman from Georgia.

Translation: J. Christian Adams and Chris Coates, two former trial attorneys, testified truthfully under oath on this point; civil rights chief Thomas Perez did not.

Likewise, Adams and Coates are vindicated in their version of a case filed against an African American official:

Three Justice Department lawyers, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation from their supervisors, described the same tensions, among career lawyers as well as political appointees. Employees who worked on the [Ike]Brown case were harassed by colleagues, they said, and some department lawyers anonymously went on legal blogs “absolutely tearing apart anybody who was involved in that case,” said one lawyer.

“There are career people who feel strongly that it is not the voting section’s job to protect white voters,” the lawyer said. “The environment is that you better toe the line of traditional civil rights ideas or you better keep quiet about it, because you will not advance, you will not receive awards and you will be ostracized.”

Translation: Wow.

As for the involvement of higher-ups:

Asked at a civil rights commission hearing in May whether any of the department’s political leadership was “involved in” the decision to dismiss the Panthers case, assistant attorney general for civil rights Thomas E. Perez said no.

“This is a case about career people disagreeing with career people,” said Perez, who was not in the department at the time. He also said that political appointees are regularly briefed on civil rights cases and, whenever there is a potentially controversial decision, “we obviously communicate that up the chain.”

Justice Department records turned over in a lawsuit to the conservative group Judicial Watch show a flurry of e-mails between the Civil Rights Division and the office of Associate Attorney General Thomas Perelli, a political appointee who supervises the division.

Translation: Perez did not exactly say the truth under oath.

What about orders not to enforce the law in a race-neutral fashion?

In the months after the case ended, tensions persisted. A new supervisor, Julie Fernandes, arrived to oversee the voting section, and Coates testified that she told attorneys at a September 2009 lunch that the Obama administration was interested in filing cases – under a key voting rights section – only on behalf of minorities.

“Everyone in the room understood exactly what she meant,” Coates said. “No more cases like the Ike Brown or New Black Panther Party cases.”

Fernandes declined to comment through a department spokeswoman.

Translation: Perez and Fernandes will have to go.

The administration must be awfully panicky. Lots of DOJ attorneys assisted in preparing false responses to discovery requests from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The administration repeatedly misrepresented the facts in public. The Justice Department tried to prevent percipient witnesses from testifying pursuant to subpoenas. Perez testified under oath untruthfully. The Obama administration stonewalled both the commission and congressmen trying to uncover the facts which conservative outlets and now the Post have revealed. The DOJ tried to bully attorneys who were prepared to tell the truth. There is a term for that: obstruction of justice.

And what’s more, GOP committee chairmen with subpoena power will take over in January when the new Congress convenes. Expect hearings, some resignations, and maybe a prosecution or two. The “small potatoes” story the mainstream media pooh-poohed will be the first serious scandal of the last two years of Obama’s term. Do I hear that Eric Holder wants to spend “more time with his family”?

Two final notes. Conservatives who caught wind of this story being underway expressed concern that the Post reporters might end up pulling their punches, given this Post editorial from several weeks ago. That fear turned out to be unfounded. This is one instance in which the wall between the editorial and news sections held firm. (It often works the other way, of course. The Post’s opinion editors, for example, were on top of the Chas Freeman story, which its news reporters ignored.) And secondly, sources who spoke to the reporters tells me that the Post was under severe pressure from the DOJ not to run this sort of story. It seems as though the Post‘s reporters find the current crew at the DOJ quite “unprofessional”. One must give credit to those two reporters for withstanding the pressure – and see it as a sign that the administration’s bark isn’t scaring anyone these days.

Does the Administration Mean What It Now Says About Human Rights?

Jennifer Rubin 09.30.2010 - 11:57 AM

Obama and his secretary of state are making some effort to step up — or start, some would say — support for human rights. Obama spoke on the topic at the UN. Albeit too little and too late, the administration is taking action against Iranian human rights abuses:

Citing “mounting evidence” of repression of the Iranian opposition, the Obama administration added more sanctions against Iranian government officials, members of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and others accused by the United States of being responsible for human rights abuses.

The sanctions, announced Wednesday by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, block the assets of, and prohibit U.S. citizens from engaging in any business with, those on the list, which includes the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the country’s prosecutor general, and the ministers of welfare and intelligence.

There’s less here than meets the eye, however. As the Washington Post editors note, “ The high-profile announcement could give important encouragement to Iran’s opposition. But it’s worth noting that the sanctions themselves were recently mandated by Congress.” Oh. And why haven’t we committed ourselves to full support for the Green movement?

The real proof of the Obama administration’s devotion to democracy promotion will come with clear and decisive action. When do we adopt regime change as our official policy? When do we call it quits and pull the financial plug on the UNHRC? These would demonstrate actual, rather than rhetorical, support for human rights.

The Post editors observe that there’s another opportunity to prove the administration’s bona fides on human rights. Why not take action against the repressive Mubarak government, which is in the process of rigging another election?

[A] resolution authored by Sens. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) has won broad and bipartisan support. The resolution urges Mr. Mubarak’s regime “to take all steps necessary to ensure that upcoming elections are free, fair, transparent and credible, including granting independent international and domestic electoral observers unrestricted access.” …

After the president’s last meeting with Mr. Mubarak this month, a White House summary said Mr. Obama had referred to the need for “credible and transparent elections in Egypt.” The question is whether the administration is willing to take action in support of its words. So far, it has offered no indication that Mr. Mubarak’s failure to accept election observers will result in any consequence for a country that receives $1.5 billion annually in American aid. Nor has the White House offered support for the Senate resolution, in public or in private. It could, at least, do that.

Let’s see what the Obama administration does. Frankly, the president’s words don’t carry all that much credibility these days.

A Game of JournoList Chicken

Jennifer Rubin 07.22.2010 - 10:07 AM

Tucker Carlson at the Daily Caller is sitting in the catbird’s seat. He has reams of JournoList e-mails revealing how vicious the blogospheric left is. They wish their opponents dead (Rush Limbaugh). Their contempt for conservatives runneth over. And they plainly are all on the same “team” — plotting, delegating, and coordinating their cheerleading for the Obami, as well as attacks on Obama’s opponents. Moreover, we now have a great mystery, a sort of D.C. parlor game: what else does Carlson have?

“Journalists” — what do we call such people (undercover activists)? — and their editors are waiting for shoes to drop. A case in point: Ben Smith ran a story on the potential involvement of Politico reporters. I then spotted in one of the Daily Caller’s releases the name Laura Rozen, who covers foreign policy for Politico. Her use of a blind quote to relate an accusation of “dual loyalty” against Dennis Ross was widely criticized in a range of Jewish and conservative publications.

A sample via Daily Caller:

Nov. 5

ALYSSA ROSENBERG, GOVERNMENT EXECUTIVE: I’ve gotta be all non-partisan on GovExec, so I hope you’ll all indulge me a minute here. On Monday night in Manassas, the band warming up the crowd before Obama arrived played “I Need You To Survive.” I think the core lyrics are pretty good statement of principles for progressives, especially going forward from a victory like this one:

It is his will, that every need be supplied.
You are important to me, I need you to survive.
You are important to me, I need you to survive.

I pray for you, You pray for me.
I love you, I need you to survive.
I won’t harm you with words from my mouth.
I love you, I need you to survive.

It is his will, that every need be supplied.
You are important to me, I need you to survive.

A lot of horribly ugly stuff got repudiated tonight. But it doesn’t end here. We need to keep making the case to the folks who disagreed with us, the folks who booed McCain during his concession speech tonight.

MATT DUSS, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: [Mccain aide] Randy Scheunemann Fired [last week]

LAURA ROZEN, MOTHER JONES (NOW POLITICO): Can you imagine if these bozos had won?

Nov. 7

LAURA ROZEN: People we no longer have to listen to: would it be unwise to start a thread of people we are grateful we no longer have to listen to? If not, I’ll start off: Michael Rubin.

MICHAEL COHEN, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: Mark Penn and Bob Shrum. Anyone who uses the expression “Real America.” We should send there ass to Gitmo!

JESSE TAYLOR, PANDAGON.NET: Michael Barone? Please?

LAURA ROZEN: Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich (afraid it’s not true), Drill Here Drill Now, And David Addington, John Yoo, we’ll see you in court?

I e-mailed Ben and asked if Rozen didn’t “count” because these comments predated her employment by Politico. He promptly answered that he hadn’t seen this particular e-mail and would have included it and asked his editor about it if he had. He directed me to Jim VanderHei, who asked if I had seen any Rozen JournoList comments after she was hired by Politico. I answered that we were all dealing with what Daily Caller was doling out. He provided this explanation of Politico’s approach to this issue:

We have an unmistakably clear rule that anyone hired here check their ideology at the door. That means no political contributions or activism — and no partisan comments on air, on Twitter, on Facebook, in print, anywhere. We recognize the people we hire are not dull, blank slates — and that everyone has personal opinions. What we demand is that those opinions remain personal (and private) once hired — and that they fully understand we are a nonpartisan media outlet. We have hired some people with partisan backgrounds and had great success in getting them to go through ideological detox and become straight news reporters. The Laura Rozen emails the Daily Caller reported on pre-dated her work here. I have not seen any emails she wrote as a POLITICO employee that trouble me.

This raises at least two issues. First, it seems that the JournoList participants now have a very high standard of objectivity to maintain, especially if they now want to act as real reporters. Are they really checking their ideology at the door, or are they tipping the scales? The problem with baring one’s partisan views — especially ones so personally vindictive — is that it creates a cloud of doubt about everything you write. Second, VandeHei and every other editor with a JournoList participant is now waiting to see if there are any other e-mails that “trouble” them. If more pop up, will heads roll?

I use Rozen as an example, but the problem is far wider. The Washington Post has been mute. What if anything do they do about Ezra Klein? (Maybe if they were aware of his hyper-nasty attacks on the right, the Post editors wouldn’t have taken his recommendation on Dave Weigel.) The JournoList crowd have done a bang-up job of undermining not only their own credibility but also that of their employers. (Even those who are opinion writers are revealed not to be principled purveyors of ideas but meanspirited attack dogs.) How widespread the damage is has yet to be determined.

Obama Tips His Hand: No Reform, Just an Issue

Jennifer Rubin 07.20.2010 - 7:34 AM

The Obama team would rather fuel racial tensions than pass comprehensive immigration reform. That is the upshot of this Washington Post report:

West Wing strategists argue that the president’s call for legislation that acknowledges the role of immigrants and goes beyond punishing undocumented workers will help cement a permanent political relationship between Democrats and Hispanics — much as civil rights and voting rights legislation did for the party and African Americans in the 1960s.

As a result, although the president is unlikely to press for comprehensive immigration reform this year, he has urged his allies to keep up the pressure on Republican lawmakers. [emphasis added]

Because, you see, if he passed a bill, the issue would go away. And then Hispanics wouldn’t be mad at the GOP. It is quite a buried lede. The story here is not as the Post‘s headline reads: “Republican immigration position likely to alienate Latinos, Obama officials say.” It is, instead, “Obama Wants Divisive Racial Issue, Not Immigration Reform.”

Hispanic activists actually wanted the president to work on comprehensive immigration reform. But during a White House meeting, they learned that’s not the game here:

The activists came away from their presidential audience still convinced that he could be doing more to push the issue. But their discussion with Obama — and a lengthier one with adviser Valerie Jarrett after he left the room — made one thing clear to them: The White House plans to use the immigration debate to punish the GOP and aggressively seek the Latino vote in 2012.

“The president fundamentally understands that this is about the longer term,” said Janet Murguia, president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza, who attended the White House meeting. “This issue goes deeper than any list of needs. Your answer on this question will reveal to us whether you do or don’t understand our community.”

“Deeper” than the need to address immigration reform is the need to keep Democrats in power. It seems Obama is not the only one playing a dangerous game of racial politics.

Don’t Give Me the Facts, I’ve Got My Story

Jennifer Rubin 07.17.2010 - 9:00 AM

I’m amazed how Politico can run a story trying to debunk the New Black Panther scandal without interviewing trial team member Christian Adams or any other former or current Justice Department attorney, without relating any of Adams’s testimony, without referencing the voluminous research and evidence unearthed by other news outlets, without contacting the offices of congressmen (Reps. Lamar Smith and Frank Wolf) who have been pressing for answers from the administration, and without even mentioning the allegations that the Justice Department won’t file civil rights cases against minorities. For over a year, Politico — as well as every other mainstream outlet — ignored the story, so the name of the game, I suppose, is to explain that they didn’t miss anything.

It is especially odd that a good reporter like Ben Smith wouldn’t make the effort to interview Adams. Adams is doing extensive interviews and is readily available. He’s not been critiquing the media coverage, but did promptly respond to my request for comment on the Politico story (he really is very easy to reach). He told me that Smith did contact him, and Adams responded saying he was away for the day but inviting Smith to contact him if it was urgent. Adams never heard anything further from Smith. Adams continued:

My area of expertise is the law and the truth about the case. All I can do is provide truthful testimony and information. I know what [trial team leader] Chris Coates would testify to, and I know there are multiple corroborating witnesses both inside and outside the Department. So to me things like Ben Smith are a short lived distraction that in the long run don’t seem to matter given the facts. The idea that I would quit a job to no pay to make something up isn’t resonating beyond a core of sycophantic nuts. If I’m lying or exaggerating, charge me with perjury.

Adams is right that the facts are there — multiple witnesses, documents, and e-mails. They establish that a meritorious case of voter intimidation was dropped by Obama political appointees and that there is an aversion in the Obama administration to filing cases against minorities. That only conservative outlets have bothered to root around and uncover the story tells you more about the mainstream media than it does about the merits of the case.

It’s bad enough to miss an important story; it’s worse to write a belated story which steers clear of the facts you missed. Even when all the legwork is done by others and the story is figuratively handed to them, and even explained to them, some reporters can’t be bothered with the facts.

One final point: it’s not just right wingers who recognize that this is a legitimate and important story. The Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander does a mea culpa for the Post’s delinquency in reporting. Bravo. (Oh, if only Politico were so professional and candid.) I look forward to the Post’s future reporting — there certainly is plenty to investigate.

UPDATE: Jan Crawford, the fine legal reporter previously with ABC and now with CBS, has a comprehensive report here. Stephen Hayes’s excellent summary of the case and of the mainstream media’s disinclination to report on it is here.

Fundamental Rights and the Supreme Court

Jennifer Rubin 06.29.2010 - 10:47 AM

In a revealing op-ed, the Washington Post editors demonstrate that consistency is not a requirement for liberals’ constitutional jurisprudence. The editors correctly get this part right, regarding the ruling in McDonald v. Chicago:

It is correct because the general tendency of the court has been to find that the amendments in the Bill of Rights — guarantees of free speech and freedom of religion, protections against unreasonable search and seizure, prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment — apply to state and local governments through the 14th Amendment’s due process clause. Some scattered and relatively minor provisions in the Bill of Rights — such as requiring a jury trial in civil cases or prohibiting excessive fines — are not deemed to have been “incorporated” by the 14th Amendment, but most are. Having decided that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms, it would have been odd for the court to determine that state governments can infringe on that right.

It’s even odder that the four liberal justices, over whom the editors often fawn, argued the opposite. But then there is this: “Monday’s ruling opens the door wide to an inevitable series of legal challenges that will tempt judges to substitute their judgments about gun control for that of legislators. They should act with proper restraint and respect for the limits of the judicial role.” OK, so the right to bear arms is a specifically enumerated right in the Constitution but the Court should not substitute its judgment for legislators’ policy decisions. Nevertheless, the right to an abortion, which is nowhere in the Constitution (it’s hiding under a penumbra, we were told), is so sacrosanct that virtually all legislative judgments are superseded by those of the Supreme Court.

Conservatives argue that the “right to an abortion” was made up out of whole cloth and that legislators’ judgments should be paramount, provided they don’t violate some other provision of the Constitution (e.g., an abortion ban which, if applied to women of one race, would violate the Equal Protection Clause). Once you acknowledge that something is a fundamental right, the highest level of judicial scrutiny applies — whether it is abortion, free speech, or gun ownership. And yes, that often displaces the judgment of elected leaders. This is precisely why the Court should refrain from expanding fundamental rights beyond those rights that are spelled out in the Constitution. The Post editors implicitly concede that it’s a big deal when we override the policy judgments of elected leaders. The lesson to be learned: don’t make up a bunch of new rights, or we will have much less democracy.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Jennifer Rubin 06.10.2010 - 7:00 AM

Not any doubt where Obama’s priorities lie. And thankfully, not everyone is confused as to who’s responsible for the flotilla incident. “Turkey sends a thugs bunch of Jew-baiting Al-Qaeda friendly street-fighters on a floating lynch party and the one party chided by name is … Israel. Well, those pesky facts aren’t too hard to pin down Mr. President–the folks you’ve pinned your peace hopes on are laughing in your face and rolling you like a duck pin.”

Not a good sign when Iran’s assessment is saner than Obama’s: “Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said resolutions such as the one passed by the U.N. Security Council today ‘have no value … it is like a used handkerchief that should be thrown in the waste bin.’”

Not holding my breath: “The main issues inside the conference still include whether and how to meet the Obama administration’s demand for an exemption from new sanctions for countries that are deemed to be ‘cooperating’ with U.S. efforts. Republican lawmakers worry that the White House will use that to broadly exempt some of Iran closest business partners, such as Russia and China. ‘It is clear the president’s policy has failed. It is now time for the Congress to approve the Iran sanctions bill currently in conference committee, without watering it down or plugging it full of loopholes, and then the president should actually use it,’ said Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-AZ.”

Not even her Washington Post colleagues can stomach Katrina vanden Heuvel’s “Bush is a Nazi” rant: “Mengele and his cohorts performed grotesque operations that left his victims with permanent physical, emotional and psychological scars — if they were lucky enough to survive. Most did not. Sometimes death was the objective; he would at times kill his ‘patients’ so that he could get right to the business of dissecting the body. This is monstrous. This is evil incarnate. This is not what the Bush administration did.” Why would the Post editors allow someone who can’t grasp this to write for them? (Really, a single Nation is one too many. Her role in the persecution of a Soviet dissident was covered by COMMENTARY in June 1988.)

Not a day on which this headline is inapt: “Beinart Gets It Wrong Again.” Hard to believe he knows even less about U.S. politics than he does Israeli politics, isn’t it?

Not every Democrat has lost his moral compass: “A member of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s staff, himself a former major and judge advocate in the U.S. Marines, is calling Blumenthal a liar and disgrace to the Marine Corps for representing himself repeatedly as having served in Vietnam.”

Not a friend in sight: “As Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) pivots from her surprise primary victory on Tuesday night to her general election run against Rep. John Boozman (R-Ark), she finds herself deserted both by traditional allies and outside groups that helped her win the nomination.” ( h/t Ben Smith)

Not going to waste time or money on her: “It’s nice for Blanche Lincoln that she won the runoff in Arkansas last night but I hope that no groups that care about getting Democratic Senators elected spend another dollar in the state this year. That doesn’t have anything to do with her ideology — judging her worthwhileness there is not part of my job as a pollster — but there are just a boatload of races where Democrats have a better chance to win this fall and could use their resources more wisely.”

Not winning support: “Though the vast majority of voters remain confident that Elena Kagan will be confirmed by the Senate to the U.S. Supreme Court, the number who oppose her confirmation has risen to its highest level to date. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows 33% think Kagan should be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. But 41% do not think she should be confirmed.”

Not a class act: “White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday there have been no second thoughts over President Obama’s coarse language directed at oil giant BP earlier in the week. ‘No, I have not heard any regrets about the language,’ Gibbs told reporters in his daily White House briefing.”

Not only Andrew Sullivan is obsessed with Sarah Palin’s breasts.

Not rallying around this character: “Today, South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler asked Alvin Greene to withdraw from the race for US Senate. Greene, a resident of Manning S.C., was the apparent winner of the Democratic Party’s nomination for U.S. Senate in yesterday’s primary. Since the election, the Associated Press has revealed that Greene was recently charged with disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity after showing obscene photos to a University of South Carolina student.”

RE: Showboating Against Wall Street Greed

Jennifer Rubin 04.28.2010 - 11:23 AM

Maybe the Democrats overplayed their hand. The Washington Post editors are grimacing:

The broader implication raised by senators at Tuesday’s hearing — that Goldman somehow rigged the market in subprime mortgages, and that this led to the meltdown — does not strike us as a terribly useful or even accurate analysis of the crisis. Yes, in its capacity as a market-maker, the firm sold complex derivatives to market players who wanted to bet on a rosy view of housing long after Goldman had turned more pessimistic. To that extent, Goldman’s interest in short-term revenue clashed with what, in hindsight, was society’s need for a whistle-blower. For the most part, though, these were large, sophisticated institutional investors who had the opportunity to conduct the same analysis of economic data that Goldman did. They knew that there was someone on the short side of every trade. And Goldman had no legal obligation to trade in the same direction as these clients did. Indeed, if it had, then Goldman could not have started hedging its own bets on housing early, as it did. The firm would have lost billions, and it might have wound up needing an even bigger bailout by U.S. taxpayers than it actually got. It could have ended up like Citigroup, which tried to ride the bubble until it was too late and had to be propped up with hundreds of billions of dollars in federal cash and credit guarantees.

As the editors note, the senators seemed outraged — offended even — by the entire notion of short-selling, although even senators must understand at some level that short-selling is, in essence, the way information is transmitted to the marketplace that the herd is going in the wrong direction. (“Perhaps the housing bubble would have been mitigated if more shorts had piled in earlier.”) But the senators would not be deterred from their attacks, in part because the underlying merits of the actual case against Goldman are looking more suspect.

Others observe:

The SEC claims that Goldman’s Fabrice Tourre misled ACA into thinking Mr. Paulson’s firm would be going long on subprime, just like ACA. It’s not clear that this would have mattered, but Mr. Tourre flatly denied the allegation under oath yesterday.

The SEC also claims Goldman should have disclosed that Mr. Paulson’s firm suggested some of the particular mortgage-backed securities on which the two sides in the transaction would bet. Yet Mr. Tourre testified that the pool referenced in the transaction performed no worse than similar pools of subprime loans not included in the transaction.

In sum, it appeared to be another bad day for the SEC’s specific case against Goldman. But lawmakers seemed intent on finding the firm generally guilty of meeting institutional demand for subprime housing risk.

Well, you can see why the senators would rather talk about greed — or anything other than the merits of what seems to be a flaky case with highly suspicious timing.

Once again, lawmakers are betting the voters are easily bamboozled and can be lured into an anti-business, anti-bank fury. They may be right. But if the Post’s editors are any guide, they may have underestimated the public’s ability to see through their histrionics.

Job Hopping

Jennifer Rubin 04.20.2010 - 9:42 AM

Rahm Emanuel wants to be mayor of Chicago. Robert Gibbs is angling for a broader strategy job, touting his disdain for Israel. (“He did chime in during last month’s escalating tensions with Israel, if only to make sure the president understood the ‘conventional wisdom’ promoted in the media, that Obama’s toughness with Likud hard-liners would potentially erode his domestic Jewish support. ‘For a lot of reasons, he would discount that,’ Gibbs said, referring to the president.) Well, that should help his stock with this crowd.

There is something a bit peculiar about all the public jockeying and self-promotion, the likes of which I am hard-pressed to recall in any prior administration. Moreover, the degree to which the mainstream media is enlisted in the job hunt is a bit startling even for them. Did the Post reporter merely stumble upon a whole slew of current and former White House aides touting Gibbs’s strategic abilities? How does this work — Gibbs picks a helpful reporter, pitches his credentials, finds some quotable allies, and presto — we have a “news story”?

Perhaps if Emanuel and Gibbs spent more time on their current jobs, the country would be better served and they wouldn’t look quite so craven.

Spinning Obama’s Foreign-Policy Flops

Jennifer Rubin 03.31.2010 - 8:45 AM

Earlier this month, Jackson Diehl detailed Obama’s lack of success in forging productive relationships with foreign leaders. Now Obama’s dutiful flacks and media handmaidens take to the front page of Diehl’s paper to explain Obama was merely making use of his “charisma.” Now he is getting around to those relationships. There is this jaw-dropping bit of spin:

The change from a year ago is stark. In his widely broadcast address in Cairo last June, Obama called Israeli settlements in the occupied territories “illegitimate.” By contrast, he met last week at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for two hours, urging him privately to freeze Jewish settlement construction.

What relationship is Obama making use of there? If this is Obama’s idea of a forging bonds with foreign leaders (condemning his country, reading the prime minister the riot act, twice snubbing Netanyahu during his White House visits), our foreign-policy apparatus surely is guilty of gross malfeasance. Then the blind quotes are trotted out to — surprise, surprise — ding George W. Bush and explain how Obama’s newfound personal diplomacy is vastly superior to his predecessor’s:

“Obama is not the sort of guy who looks for a best buddy, and that’s very different than Bush,” said a European diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about perceptions of U.S. leaders abroad. “Sometimes being too personal is not a good thing. You can make mistakes.”

No, Obama is the sort of guy who returns the Winston Churchill bust, gives Gordon Brown and the Queen of England cheap-o gifts, bows to dictators, and slams the elected prime minister of Israel. Completely different. But even the Washington Post must concede that Obama has not forged really any productive relationships with world leaders:

Obama, who was an Illinois state senator just four years before he was elected president, knew few world leaders upon taking office. Since then, he has developed mostly arm’s-length relationships with fellow heads of state, including many from developing countries that previous presidents largely ignored or shunned to protect U.S. relationships with more traditional allies.

Let’s get real — Obama has not really used his charisma to promote anything but himself:

Republican critics say the approach has unsettled the United States’ best friends, and failed more than succeeded in promoting American interests on some of the most far-reaching foreign policy challenges of the day.

Obama’s direct appeal to the people of China and Iran[ Did we miss this? Was he championing democracy at some point?], for example, has produced little change in the attitude of their governments, showing the limits of a bottom-up approach when it comes to dealing with authoritarian countries. Middle East peace talks remain moribund after the administration’s so-far-unsuccessful attempts to end Israeli settlement construction or to persuade Arab governments to make even token diplomatic gestures toward the Jewish state.

As Simon Serfaty of theCenter for Strategic and International Studies notes, “He is beginning to face a crisis of efficacy.” In other words, despite all the reverential treatment by liberal elites, Obama has yet to develop effective ties with allies or used public diplomacy to further American interests. His infatuation with dictatorial regimes, his embrace of multilateralism, and his willingness to kick allies (e.g., Israel, Poland, the Czech Republic, Britain, Honduras) in the shins have left America more isolated and rogue states more emboldened than ever before. An assessment from Der Spiegel put it this way, recalling Obama’s Cairo speech (which the Obami still laud as an achievement of some sort):

The applause for Obama’s Cairo speech died away in the vast expanses of the Arabian Desert long ago. “He says all the right things, but implementation is exactly the way it has always been,” says Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal.

Obama’s failure in the Middle East is but one example of his weakness, though a particularly drastic and vivid one. The president, widely celebrated when he took office, cannot claim to have achieved sweeping successes in any area. When he began his term more than a year ago, he came across as an ambitious developer who had every intention of completing multiple projects at once. But after a year, none of those projects has even progressed beyond the early construction phase. And in some cases, the sites are nothing but deep excavations. … Obama can hardly count on gaining the support of allies, partly because he doesn’t pay much attention to them. The American president doesn’t have a single strong ally among European heads of state

Perhaps less time spent crafting stories for the Post and more time working on a viable foreign policy built on American interests rather than Obama’s ego would be in order.

Racism by Any Other Name

Jennifer Rubin 03.28.2010 - 1:58 PM

The Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander is out to gently chide his employer for not doing better on “diversity.” In the process, he reveals the discriminatory practices and mindset at the heart of seemingly high-minded “diversity” programs.

First comes the revelation that Post managers are being instructed to hire or consider hiring based on race or suffer adverse treatment themselves: “The Post’s top editors were warned in a memo that they needed to expand newsroom diversity ‘or suffer the consequences.’” It is not legally acceptable to say, “Hire more minorities or your job is in jeopardy,” so it is dressed up in diversity- speak, but the mandate is clear. It’s plain that we’re talking about more than simply removing barriers to hiring minorities or expanding the Post’s hiring beyond mostly white, Ivy League graduates. Alexander fesses up, quoting Peter Perl, who oversees newsroom personnel: “Pools of job candidates must include minorities, he said, adding, ‘It’s a mandate, and every manager here knows it.’” It’s the result — the headcount — that matters:

Minorities are 43 percent of The Post’s circulation area, and a large part of the region is edging toward “majority minority” status. For The Post, being “good on diversity” isn’t enough. [Executive Editor Marcus] Brauchli and his leadership team acknowledged the same in a note to the staff last Monday. “We are in danger of losing ground if we do not consistently try to recruit the best minority journalists,” they wrote.

Sorry guys, but that violates federal law, which prohibits hiring on the basis of race — no matter what laudatory goal the proponents think they are pursuing.

And next comes the noxious justification for hiring by race:

“You can’t cover your community unless you look like your community,” said Bobbi Bowman, a former Post reporter and editor who is a diversity consultant for ASNE. (Full disclosure: I sit on its board). “If you have a community of basketball players, it’s difficult for a newsroom of opera lovers to cover them.”

The Washington area has an exploding Spanish-speaking population. Yet Hispanics on The Post’s staff include only eight reporters and four supervising editors. Similarly, African Americans account for about 12 percent of the staff, but the African American percentage of the population in parts of The Post’s core circulation area is more than four times greater.

Imagine saying that only whites can cover certain neighborhoods or particular beats. The lawsuits would be flying, and the pickets would be gathering outside the Post’s offices. The Post seems to argue for re-segregation of the news: African American cover “their” neighborhood and whites their own. (And does the Post management actually imagine that only Hispanics can speak Spanish?) This is the voice of “wise Latina” Sonia Sotomayor, who assumes that ability, skills, intellectual perspective, and empathy are determined by race or ethnicity. (“Predictably, what is ‘news’ risks being seen through a white prism.”)

Alexander, seemingly inured to the perniciousness of what he is writing, sums up:

“You use diversity as an advantage in these economic times to get a leg up on the next guy,” said former Post reporter Richard Prince, who writes “Journal-isms,” an online column about minorities and the media. Or you suffer the consequences.

Welcome to the post-racial world in which race is a weapon to be wielded against competitors and a stick with which to beat hiring managers. No, it’s not remotely legal, and it is nothing short of shameful.

Still Pointing Fingers

Jennifer Rubin 01.20.2010 - 8:27 AM

The Washington Post editors acknowledge the message of the Massachusetts race:

The hard truth for Democrats is that the Massachusetts election resonates with national polling results. Voters, not just in Massachusetts and certainly not just in the Republican Party, are worried about government spending. Budget deficits and the national debt alarm many Americans, and rightly so. Voters also are disappointed that President Obama’s promises of pragmatic, bipartisan cooperation have not been fulfilled. On that score, too, we sympathize.

(By the way, that’s a far cry from the preceding day’s take by Fred Hiatt, which Max pointed out was comically generous, even by grading-on-the-curve standards.) So the editors urge Obama to ignore his liberal base, which “will conclude that he needs to be more combative and ideological.” That’s a start.

But then they can’t pass up the opportunity to bash the other side, the party that has won an impressive string of victories and made that exact case against Obama’s overreach. The editors warn Republicans:

With their scare talk of a “government takeover” of health care, and their demagogic about-face on Medicare savings, they no doubt feel they’ve done well for themselves. But ultimately we don’t believe voters will reward a party that just says no, either; Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell won with a very different promise, of a pragmatic and cooperative conservatism.

Okay that takes some nerve. It was the Post that vilified McDonnell, portraying him as a whacked-out extremist bent on sending women back to the dark ages. But beyond the jaw-dropping hypocrisy, the editors seem a bit disingenuous in this equal-opportunity blame-mongering: don’t the conservatives have a point on health care? Obama is proposing to slash $500 billion from Medicare. And Obama is proposing a new entitlement program with unprecedented powers for the federal government. That explains, after all, why so many voters are freaked out.

So what do the Post editors suggest? They seem reluctant to assign the full measure of blame where it rightly belongs. And it doesn’t belong to poor Martha Coakley or the mean Republicans. No, the president and his party have only themselves to blame. And the sooner they and their spinners stop looking for other targets, the faster they can get on with the business of political recovery.

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