OBLIGATORY CALIFORNIA RECALL POST: I don’t have very strong feelings about it, which is why I haven’t blogged on it all that much. I think that anybody is probably better than Davis, except maybe Bustamante. [Even Arianna Huffington? — Ed. Sadly, yes.]

The too-cleverly-contrarian pundit point is that this is like running for captain of the Titanic, and that an Arnold victory will be bad for the Republicans. Though too-clever, it may actually be true. Will Arnold, if he wins, be able to cut spending enough to balance the budget? I don’t know, but I kind of doubt it. (The really-too-clever contrarian pundit in me wants to predict that the recall will fail, just because that would be the most perverse outcome of all, and that seems, somehow, entirely fitting with the proceedings to date.)

If Arnold does wind up as Governor, he could do worse than look at Tennessee’s Democratic Governor, Phil Bredesen, who took over in a fiscal crisis that — while nowhere near California’s magnitude — was pretty serious. Bredesen has won respect from pretty nearly everyone by being honest, and doing what he said he’d do. Hey, it’s worth a try in California!

Internet Ronin has more thoughts, as well as a list of things to watch. And the Indepundit reminds us why Gray Davis is in this fix.

Meanwhile, Mickey Kaus, PrestoPundit, Calblog, and Daniel Weintraub are blogging up a storm, so I don’t have to!

I’ll close with this, my favorite photo from the recall.

UPDATE: The L.A. Weekly provides stunning evidence of the L.A. Times’ partisan hackery. This is yet another reason why campaign finance “reform” is a joke — this is effectively a huge secret campaign donation that just happens to be exempt from the law.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Robert Tagorda will be offering continuous coverage, too.

I’VE MADE FUN OF THE NEW YORK TIMES for taking eight years to correct an error involving me. But this is more dramatic:

An article in The Times Magazine on Sept. 22, 1974, about the movie actor Charles Bronson, who died on Aug. 30 this year, misstated his military record. Publicity material asserting that Mr. Bronson had been a B-29 gunner in World War II, called into doubt by the article, was indeed correct.

Better late than never, I guess, but sheesh.

Thanks to reader Joshua Kreitzer for the pointer.

UPDATE: Reader John Tuttle emails:

It’s pretty bad when Hollywood flackery is more accurate than NY Times hackery. . . . “Publicity material asserting that Mr. Bronson had been a B-29 gunner in World War II, called into doubt by the article, was indeed correct.”

I’m a Watergate baby, being in High School and watching the hearings. Today, politicians like Bush and Blair are MORE trustworthy than the media. I would never have believed that I would feel this way.

Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.

ANTITERRORISM DROPPED BALL: If this story pans out, it’s a major screwup by someone. Will it? Beats me. These stories keep popping up, but never seem to get traction.

ANOTHER BLOGGERCON FOLLOWUP POST: Hey, I couldn’t blog then, so I’ll have to put these up as time permits.

Jeff Jarvis and I talked about someone saying that bloggers should disclose their prejudices — my comment was that a blog is one long disclosure of prejudices. I was being sort of cute, but it’s true. Everybody has blind spots and biases. Bloggers seldom pretend otherwise (though of course we all have some biases of which we’re entirely unaware). But when you read a blog for a while, you know a lot about the blogger. And it’s easy to get the other side by visiting other blogs, written by other people with different biases and blind spots, especially with the help of cool tools like Technorati, etc. That’s different from a monopoly newspaper, or a semimonopoly broadcast outlet, where there aren’t that many alternatives (though even there things are improving, thanks to the Internet and new TV alternatives). Dave Winer said that he thinks the blogosphere as a whole is the relevant unit, not the individual blog. I think that’s about right.

PLANS FOR A FRENCH NEWS NETWORK to compete with CNN and Fox have produced various suggestions for logos and set design over at Fark.

JUST BECAUSE THE PRESS IS, ahem, overly negative on Iraq doesn’t mean that everything there is rosy. It just means that it’s hard to tell how things are going, and one of my fears has been that press negativity might actually cause the White House to start ignoring actual bad news. That doesn’t seem to be the case, as this story reports that Bush is unhappy with progress in Iraq and Afghanistan and has tasked Condi Rice with fixing things.

The good news is that the White House is responding with a change in approach. As Jonathan Rauch notes:

The fact that the Bush administration keeps adjusting its course, often contravening its own plans or preferences, is a hopeful sign. . . .

Only trial and error, otherwise known as muddling through, can work in Iraq. There is no other way. Muddling through is not pretty, but never underestimate America’s genius for it. Abraham Lincoln and George Washington never enjoyed the luxury of planning, but they were two of the finest muddlers-through the world has ever known, and they did all right.

As Rauch also says, the 2004 election is perfectly timed for the American people to judge how things are going in Iraq. I think that Bush’s presidency will, and should, depend largely on that answer. Sounds like Bush feels the same way.

The big question: Does this make a Condi Rice VP slot more, or less, likely? That probably depends on how things go, too.

HERE’S A BLOG OFFER that you can’t refuse. Well, maybe you can. I think that I see Pejman’s influence in this. Er, good luck, and I hope it pays off for you!

SO MUCH FOR THE CLAIM that U.S. corporations control Iraqi rebuilding contracts:

Iraq’s U.S.-led government awarded licenses Monday for firms to set up mobile phone networks, rebuffing calls by some American lawmakers to use U.S.-backed technology to restore shattered communications.

Iraqi Communications Minister Haidar al-Ebadi said Iraq’s three regional networks would use the GSM system, already adopted across the Middle East. U.S.-backed technology is based on the CDMA system.

The licenses are among the most potentially lucrative and high-profile contracts to be offered in postwar Iraq.

In a way this makes sense — GSM is more common around the world, and particularly in neighboring countries. Unfortunately, it’s an inferior technology, according to Steven Den Beste, a knowledgeable if not entirely disinterested commentator. Oh, well.

PAT ROBERTSON WAS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL IDIOTARIANS. Here’s proof that he belonged there:

“He started off playing a chauffeur in ‘Driving Miss Daisy,’ and then they elevated him to head of the CIA, and then they elevated him to president and in his last role they made him God. I just wonder, isn’t Rush Limbaugh right to question the fact, is he that good an actor or not?”

— Pat Robertson on his “700 Club” television show, using the example of black actor Morgan Freeman to defend Limbaugh’s jab at Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.

Note to Robertson: Freeman’s a better actor than you are a, well, whatever it is that you are.

UPDATE: Reader Bill Long emails: “Robertson is a lot better idiot than Freeman is.”

Everyone has to be good at something. Reader Bill McCabe emails:

Robertson needs to get his dates straight. He was President (Deep Impact, 1998) before he was head of the CIA (Sum of All Fears, 2002). As for his acting credentials, I challenge Robertson to name one movie in which Morgan Freeman has turned in a bad performance; even in absolute garbage like “Dreamcatcher”, he imbues his characters with a credibility and believability that Robertson can’t match on “The 700 Club”.

Well, Robertson is certainly flunking with the important “readers named Bill” demographic!

IT WAS MY UNDERSTANDING that there would be no math.

KHOMEINI CALLS FOR a U.S. invasion of Iran. No, really.

I don’t think it’s going to happen, but I suppose I could be wrong.

HOW TO GET AN ACADEMIC TO BLOG: Sounds about right to me.

ERNIE THE ATTORNEY wonders:

Does Novak know who the person who leaked the information is? He’s not saying, claiming the need to protect his source. I don’t have a problem with him protecting his source. I’m all for the press needing their internal sources so that they can ferret out corruption and political misdeed.

But this isn’t Watergate, and the press isn’t ferreting out political misdeed; it is –from what I can tell– willingly participating in pure political retribution. And, if that’s the case (and I’m not saying it is because I don’t know), I wonder why the press should have special protection? Just exactly what sort of behavior are we trying to reward by giving them protection in cases like this?

I’d say it’s more a case of bowing to the press’s political power than rewarding useful behavior. This is the equivalent of textile tariffs or pork-barrel spending: an industry extracting special treatment based on its ability to reward friends and punish enemies.

A USEFUL CAUTIONARY NOTE from James Bovard, regarding the D.C. sniper case:

The feds and local police, instead of using common sense and analyzing excellent leads, brought in Pentagon spy planes to canvas the entire Washington area. The use of the RC-7 planes may have been a breach of the Posse Comitatus Act (which prohibits using the military for domestic law enforcement) but all that mattered was assuring frightened people the government cared and was taking action. The planes provided no information that aided the apprehension of the suspects.

Federal agents and Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose sought to keep a tight grip on key information regarding the case. But it was a cable television leak regarding the license plate and car description that directly led to the apprehension of the suspects.

The bungling response to the snipers is a reminder that nothing happened on September 11, 2001, to make the government more competent. Neither of the two sniper suspects would have qualified for admission to med school to become brain surgeons. Far more damage could have done by a clique of savvy, well-trained foreigner snipers.

True enough. Here’s a related piece that I wrote last year.

THE WILSON SCANDAL just jumped the shark. Or maybe it ran into Emily Litella.

A FIRESTORM OVER JOURNALISTIC SECRECY? I predict one, over at GlennReynolds.com, and judging from Romenesko’s front page this morning, I may be right.

UPDATE: Reader Ric Manhard emails:

If I could have one question answered, it would be this:

Why does “The People’s Right To Know” stop at the newsroom door?

That’s the question bloggers keep asking, isn’t it?

MY GOODNESS, a fight between a man who buys ink by the barrel, and a man who buys pixels by the bushel. Who’ll win this one? Besides the phone company, I mean.

TIM BLAIR WRITES THAT Michael Moore is “practically swimming in evil Saudi cash!”

MORE ON JOURNALISTIC ETHICS: Jeff Jarvis has some concerns.

DAVID KAY ON MEDIA COVERAGE:

October 6, 2003 — The head of the weapons hunt in Iraq yesterday said his teams are hot on the trail of anthrax and Scud missiles, and he’s “amazed” that anyone could think the search so far is a failure.

David Kay also said, “We’re going to find remarkable things” about Iraq’s weapons program.

His teams have already found a vial of botulinum toxin – “one of the most toxic elements known” – in the refrigerator of an Iraqi scientist who’d hidden it since 1993. . . .

Kay, a former U.N. inspector, added that, “I’m surprised no one has paid attention to” his revelation last week that the Iraqis also violated U.N. sanctions by working on new toxins like Congo-Crimea and hemorrhagic fever.

Funny that this gets so little attention.

UPDATE: The story above says “botulinum toxin.” This story says it was botulism bacteria, which would be a somewhat lesser deal. Which is true? Beats me.

ANOTHER UPDATE: It seems that the Post report is right. Here’s what Kay actually said:

Well, that’s one of the most fascinating stories. An Iraqi scientist in 1993 hid in his own refrigerator reference strains for — active strains, actually would’ve — were still active when we found them — Botulinum toxin, one of the most toxic elements known.

Wonder why the Times/AP story reports it differently? Or is something left out in this transcript, like “the germ that makes Botulinum toxin, one of the most toxic elements known”?

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Okay, got back from my committee meeting (miraculously, still awake!) and looked at the actual Kay statement, a link to which was forwarded by helpful reader Tom Brosz. Here’s the key bit:

A very large body of information has been developed through debriefings, site visits, and exploitation of captured Iraqi documents that confirms that Iraq concealed equipment and materials from UN inspectors when they returned in 2002. One noteworthy example is a collection of reference strains that ought to have been declared to the UN. Among them was a vial of live C. botulinum Okra B. from which a biological agent can be produced. This discovery – hidden in the home of a BW scientist – illustrates the point I made earlier about the difficulty of locating small stocks of material that can be used to covertly surge production of deadly weapons. The scientist who concealed the vials containing this agent has identified a large cache of agents that he was asked, but refused, to conceal. ISG is actively searching for this second cache.

As several readers point out, the toxin is far more deadly than the bacterium — but the bacteria can be used to produce lots of toxin rather quickly (that’s the “surge production” point), whereas the toxin itself is an end product: bacteria can make toxin, toxin can’t make more toxin. So from a weapons-production standpoint the bacteria are worse. I don’t know why the transcript is wrong — either Kay misspoke, or the transcriptionist missed something.

Meanwhile, here’s a bit more from the transcript linked above:

KAY: Tony, it’s important to stress the word “yet.” We have not only Secretary Powell, we have Iraqi generals telling us that they had them. Unfortunately, they’re not able to tell us where they are now. And that’s why we’re looking so hard.

Stay tuned. Meanwhile, there’s more information on botulism here, and here.

And a couple of readers wonder what happened to the tons and tons of anthrax and botulinum that U.N. inspectors identified before 1998. Well, that’s the big question, isn’t it? Either Saddam destroyed it and then pretended not to have done so (which seems unlikely) or it’s still somewhere. But where? Or were the U.N. inspectors lying? That seems unlikely, too, doesn’t it?

BILL HOBBS LOOKS at the Society of Professional Journalists’ ethical code and observes:

Concealing the name of a source who may have compromised national security would seem not to fit within those ethical guidelines. In fact, it would seem unethical to do so – and concealing the leaker’s identity while calling on the White House to reveal it is a serious conflict of interest. Revealing the name of the leaker would, on the other hand, fit the ethical guideline of focusing on the public’s right to know, and would hold the leaker, presumably a person of some powerful position, accountable for their actions. It also fits well within the SPJ Code of Ethics’ view of anonymous sources, which is that reporters should strive to use named sources as much as possible, and to not promise anonymity to sources whose motives may be suspect.

Read the whole thing.

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: Niger is only part of Africa, which is, like, an entire continent. What this means is that “Niger” is not, in fact, a synonym for “Africa.”

Just, you know, pointing that out.

ANOTHER PERSON RETURNS FROM IRAQ and says that the media portrayal is distorted:

Lewis Lucke had heard from his wife, Joy, and their friends in Texas that the news media’s view of events in Iraq was bleak.

But the 52-year-old foreign service officer, who is directing the multibillion-dollar reconstruction of Iraq, wasn’t really prepared for just how bleak when he returned home to Austin this week for a five-day visit, his first since May.

“There’s just an incredible amount of productive stuff going on over there, with a lot of Iraqi participation,” he said. “To come here and see it portrayed as a failure in the making — it’s very superficial and inaccurate.”

Read the whole thing. We just keep getting these reports, from all sorts of observers. I think it’s a major blow to media credibility.

THIS IS WEIRD: A reader somehow interprets this post from Saturday, about the need to subpoena reporters to get at the truth of the Plame affair, as advice to the White House on how to cover the story up.

Actually, the press — at least the members who were leaked to, and those with whom they’ve spoken — knows the answer to this story already. It’s possible that the White House (or at least George Bush) doesn’t. I’m trying to get the story out, not keep it in. If there’s a coverup here, it’s the press that’s conducting it.

It’s true, of course, that this approach might discourage such leaks in the future. But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? From what we’re hearing — especially from critics of the Administration — this wasn’t one of those leaks that does good. It’s a major threat to national security, we’re told, and it was done purely for spite. If that’s true, discouraging similar leaks in the future would seem to be a benefit, not a drawback. This isn’t a “whistleblower” leak, where somebody exposes government misconduct on condition of anonymity. Here, it’s the leak itself that’s the misconduct, and it’s the anonymity that let it happen, and that is keeping the leaker from being punished for conduct that everyone seems to regard as wrong.

Interestingly, I caught a bit of “Reliable Sources” at the airport yesterday, and Joe Conason was saying two things that I agreed with. First, that if, as we’re hearing, the six reporters are gossiping about the identity of the leaker, that’s very bad: if it’s really a “confidential source,” you don’t tell anyone except your editor and maybe your lawyer. Certainly if journalists are willing to “leak” the identity of the leaker, their claim that they shouldn’t be forced to expose it publicly, when they’re sharing it with friends and hangers-on, becomes awfully weak. Whatever happened to “the public’s right to know?”

Conason also suggested that President Bush publicly release the reporters from any duty of confidentiality, on behalf of the Administration. I kind of doubt that this would fly — I imagine that reporters view confidentiality as something they owe the source personally, and not something that can be waived by the source’s boss — but it’s worth a try, I suppose. At any rate, it’s nice to see that Conason and I are in agreement about the importance of getting beyond claims of confidentiality, and finding out the truth. I wish I’d seen the rest of the show, but I had to board my flight, so I don’t know how his comments were received by the other guests.

UPDATE: Reader Mike Hancock sends this suggestion:

There is something Bush could do that would be more effective than Bush himself denouncing any confidentiality agreement with anyone in his administration concerning Ms. Plame. He could–and should–order all his White House staff to execute a letter releasing any reporter from any confidentiality agreement with any such employee. Failure to execute such a letter would result in dismissal.

Yeah. Though I still wonder if reporters would care.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s more from John Rosenberg, who disagrees with me (somewhat) in the update at the bottom.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Chris Evans agrees with Rosenberg, more or less, and thinks that I’ve got this wrong:

Why wouldn’t this be a whistleblower’s leak? If the leaker thought that Wilson was sent to Niger because his CIA wife recommended him, wouldn’t revealing that fact be damaging to Wilson’s credibility and to the CIA?

It makes no sense to try and damage Wilson by outing his wife. It DOES make sense to leak an example of corruption in the CIA, which led to the Wrong Guy going to Niger. I’m pretty sure the CIA recommendation was accepted without further investigation because it came from the CIA; they’re the ones who are supposed to know this and make these recommendations. In theory, the administration shouldn’t have to recheck the CIA on these things.

The CIA made a bad recommendation, (perhaps) based on nepotism, and someone leaked this to the press. Or Novak asked someone “why was this guy sent to Niger” and got an earful. Apparantly, the administration missed the media’s shift from “CIA=EVIL” to “CIA=Not quite as EVIL as BUSH”.

Hmm. For this to be true, the press would have to be so blinded by anti-Bush feeling that it’s missed the real story.

[NOTE: The Rosenberg link was broken — I had a typo I didn’t notice — but it’s fixed now. Sorry. I try to check those, but I’ve been busy today.]

JAY ROSEN has an interesting post regarding bloggers and the New York Times, and it reminds me of something I wanted to say at the conference, but never got a chance to say. Bloggers bash the Times’ reporting all the time. (Though as the Times’ Allen Siegal notes, it’s not all bad: “We’re not happy that blogs became the forum for our dirty linen, but somebody had to wash it and it got washed.”)

But we pick on the Times not least because we have a vision of it that’s perhaps more optimistic than that of anyone who actually works there. And, in fact, the Times is the best overall newspaper on the Web: its coverage is more comprehensive, its website is well-designed, easy to navigate, and reliable, and though the reporting is often shaded with stealth punditry in some areas, the reporting in other areas is the best around — in the area of nanotechnology, for example, the Times has everybody else beat, except for specialty publications like Smalltimes. That’s why we link to it so much, and why we talk about it so much.