time is not on your side

as with most of the blogosphere, i've been watching over the last two weeks the not-so-slow-motion trainwreck of joe klein's "well beyond stupid" hit piece on the democrats' restore act and time magazine's craven and clownish defense of klein — even after klein stopped defending himself — as doggedly documented by glenn greenwald:

although i've posted nothing to date of my own on the fiasco, i sympathized with those who voiced continued frustration with the democrats' puzzling silence in the face of yet another fact-free and callow smear. such silence only contributes to the ongoing right-wing narrative of left-wing weakness. to date, i can recall only one response from any democratic official, that of rep. rush holt of new jersey, one of the bill's authors: what's really in the restore act.

well it seems that the silence of the democrats was not due to any clichéd lack of spine on their part, as glenn revealed today in yet another revelatory post: time magazine refused to publish responses to klein's false smears:

sen. russ feingold submitted a letter to time protesting the false statements in klein's article. but time refused to publish it. sen. feingold's spokesman said that the letter "was submitted to time very shortly after klein's column ran but the letters department was about as responsive as the column was accurate."

feingold was not the only democrat getting stiff-armed — incredible as it is to believe, every democrat who tried to get a hearing on time's pages was ignored:

rep. rush holt — before he published his response in the huffington post detailing klein's false claims — asked that he be given the opportunity to respond to klein's false column directly on time's swampland, where klein was in the process of making all sorts of statements compounding his errors. but time also denied rep. holt the opportunity to bring his response to the attention of time's readers.

a letter was also sent to time jointly from house judiciary committee chairman john conyers and house intelligence committee chairman silvestre reyes. although they communicated with time in advance and advised them that the letter was coming, time has not published this letter either. [empasis mine]

and while time is free to publish whatever it deems fit on its letters pages,

at least 100 individuals wrote letters to time's editors protesting klein's article and responding to its claims. i know this because that's how many people (at least) cc'd me on their letters, forwarded them to me, and/or copied their letters to the editor in the comment section here. managing editor rick stengel's voice mail and email box overflowed with responses. nonetheless, time — while publishing 15 separate letters on a whole array of topics in its print edition this week — did not see fit to publish a single letter about the klein falsehoods. at every step, they sought to hide from their readers — and continue to hide from their readers — just how outrageous and severe were klein's false statements by suppressing all responses. [empasis mine]

these latests revelations simply boggle the mind. the ever-more-deeping corruption of time magazine is once again laid bare. i would daresay that, without a wholesale change in management, time's reputation is now irrecoverably damaged.

i would urge those who care (a group that does not include myself, since i do not read time) to let time know what you think of their complete surrender to the dark side, but as glenn has demonstrated yet again, it's clear that they don't care either.

greenwald v. klein and time magazine the tone-deaf democrats by joe klein too many of them — in congress and the presidential campaign — still don't get national security. [11/21/07] joe klein: both factually false and stuck in the 1980s the time pundit spouts pro-capitulation advice to democrats that is as obsolete as it is grounded in falsehoods. [11/21/07] time magazine's fisa fiasco shows how beltway reporters mislead the country joe klein passed on outright gop lies about the house democratic fisa bill to 4 million time readers and now obscures what happened. [11/25/07] time magazine lavishly rewards journalistic malpractice the newsweekly's behavior under managing editor rick stengel enthusiastically promotes fact-free journalism. [11/26/07] joe klein digs time's hole deeper still the still-uncorrected errors in the time article are made far worse by klein's ongoing deceit. [11/26/07] demand answers from time magazine the time editors responsible for joe klein's "shameful journalism" arrogantly refuse to account for what they did. [11/27/07] everything that is rancid and corrupt with modern journalism: the nutshell time's "correction" reads like satire. [11/27/07] bad stenographers referring to the role played by our establishment press as stenography is truly an insult to the work of professional stenographers. [11/28/07] time tries again the editors went today and corrected yesterday's correction. they should keep trying. [11/28/07] the chicago tribune vs. time magazine the newspaper clearly and unequivocally states that joe klein's statements were false. update: gop rep. pete hoekstra outs himself as klein's source. [11/29/07] time magazine refused to publish responses to klein's false smears both sen. feingold and rep. holt asked to respond to joe klein's falsehoods. both were blocked from doing so. [12/4/07] update: protecting privacy by sen. russ feingold klein calls the democrats' position on reforming the foreign intelligence surveillance act "well beyond stupid" but without getting his facts straight. [12/3/07] setting the record straight on fisa by rep. john conyers a comprehensive and detailed response to the president's accusations of obstruction, the misinformation in the time magazine column, and the debate over warrantless surveillance. [12/5/07]

alberto piñata

and lo, a new talking point is born ...

(video courtesy of talkingpointsmemo.com)

like writing on toilet paper

it sounds like bush is getting tired of all the carping know-it-alls-without-a-plan:

president bush on saturday challenged lawmakers skeptical of his new iraq plan to propose their own strategy for stopping the violence in baghdad. "to oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible," bush said. — "bush: war skeptics 'proposing nothing'"

but if bush is genuinely interested in seeing other plans, he need only check his inbox.

it's where he'll find, among others, the murtha plan, the kerry-feingold plan, the biden plan, the edwards plan, the levin-reed plan, and not to mention the baker-hamilton plan, otherwise known as the iraq study group plan, which bush already sounds familiar with, since he was recently overheard describing it as "a flaming turd".

and then there are the seemingly daily growing roster of freely-dispensed blogger plans like the johnson plan. it's plainly apparent to none but the willfully blind and deaf that at this late date there are no lack of thoughtful alternatives.

unfortunately (and i do say this with the utmost respect to all those who have been applying the necessary brain-power and wisdom that's been heretofore lacking in this debate) all these plans represent nothing more than idle academic masturbation. they're all quite pointless. and that's why you'll find no trademarked and patented "aarrgghh plan" on this site.

because unless the first step in your grand strategy reads:

my grand strategy for iraq by carping know-it-all 1) remove george bush and dick cheney from office.

... then your plan is nothing but toilet paper.

because unless you're willing to let events continue to spiral for at least another two years, george bush will give your precious plan all the due consideration he gave to the over-anticipated iraq study group report — that is, as steve gilliard remarked, he'll "wipe his ass" with it.

which leaves us with only one plan — the only one that matters — the kagan plan, more fondly known as "the surge".

and what makes this one plan oh-so irresistible to the commander-in-chief?

frederick kagan, 36, is the author of choosing victory, a blueprint for the surge adopted by president george w bush. just as everybody had begun writing off the influence of the neocons at the white house, genial, chubby-faced frederick gave the muscular intellectuals a lease of life. it was at camp david last june that kagan, a military historian and fellow of the american enterprise institute, outlined his plans for pouring more troops into iraq to bush and his war cabinet. donald rumsfeld, the then defence secretary, was unimpressed, but kagan's views got another hearing when bush was searching for ways to ditch the seemingly defeatist recommendations of james baker's iraq study group. "wow, you mean we can still win this war?" a grateful bush reportedly said. — "... bush's final baghdad gamble"

poll pall

virtually overnight the washington post has generated a poll showing twice as many supporters than objectors to bush's illegal nsa spying program, which only yesterday was revealed to have been accumulating records on "tens of millions of americans", contrary to the administration's repeated assurances. bush supporters are of course ecstatic at any news that can be wrung into kool-aid while bush critics seem to be reflexively retreating into their ready disenchantment with the apathetic hordes.

i was planning to post my own analysis of the poll, whose construction raises serious questions regarding the framing of issues, and which completely ignored the central issue of warrants, court orders and oversight, but glenn greenwald's "polling hysteria and the nsa program" nimbly beat me to the punch:

... when the nsa eavesdropping scandal was first disclosed, rasmussen reports quickly issued a blatantly flawed poll purporting to show that "sixty-four percent (64%) of americans believe the national security agency (nsa) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the united states." the question mentioned nothing about warrants. it mentioned nothing about fisa. and it specified that the government would be eavesdropping only on conversations "between terrorism suspects." the only surprise with the results was that only 64% favored that. One would think that virtually everyone would favor eavesdropping on terrorism suspects. nonetheless, since that was the first poll, it was held up by bush followers as proof that the nsa scandal was political suicide for democrats ... as the debate over the nsa scandal became more informed and more americans understood the issues at stake, virtually every poll thereafter showed that a majority or plurality of americans oppose warrantless eavesdropping and/or believe the president broke the law, and some even show that a plurality favors the censure resolution. opinions change when people stand up and explain why what the government is doing is wrong and dangerous, and americans respect politicians who are willing to do that even when — especially when — they are not guaranteed by the consulting class ahead of time that they will win. all other issues aside, there is nothing for bush opponents to lose here by pursuing this issue. nobody who has abandoned george bush is going to again become a supporter of his because he is keeping track of the telephone calls of every single american.... ... meanwhile, in the real world, ever since the nsa scandal was revealed, the president's approval rating has done nothing but plummet. that, of course, does not demonstrate a causal relationship, but it certainly proves that scandals of this type do not remotely help the president in any way. all of those frightened beltway democrats who were anonymously screeching that russ feingold's censure resolution played right into karl rove's omnipotent hands, that it destroyed the grand democratic plan, that it would allow the president to recover by forcing the debate back onto his turf — how wrong were they, as always?

i encourage you to read the entire post.

meanwhile, for a no-nonsense takedown of the poll's questions themselves, be sure to also check out former telephone pollster krazypuppy's "worst poll ever: americans do care" at daily kos.