NO POLITICAL PRESSURE ON INTELLIGENCE? That’s what the New York Times is reporting, and Tom Maguire has an observation:

More than 200 witnesses, any of whom would have been given a career-long shoulder ride by the Democrats simply for uttering the magic words, and no one admitted to being pressured to produce cooked intelligence? That will come as a shock to some, and we are sure the Times will want to highlight this information.

Is it just me, or is the “Bush lied” case in the process of collapsing? Via the on-a-roll Greg Djerejian, who notes that the Times isn’t exactly giving the story front page treatment, and observes:

This, er, little piece of news is buried in Graf 5 of this Douglas Jehl NYT piece.

Imagine, God forbid, if it had gone the other way!

Say, for kicks, just one of the two hundred analysts said Doug Feith bullied him to death on his analysis of the intel.

What would the lede be then?

And where would the Times place the story?

Yeah, those are rhetorical Qs.

They sure are.

UPDATE: Check out this editorial cartoon about the NYT from Marty Two Bulls of Indian Country Today.

“WE’VE GOT BETTER HAIR:” I’m not sure that this is a good slogan for the Kerry Campaign, though it’s the most amusing thing I’ve ever heard from Kerry’s lips. And it beats Kaus’s alternative!

Surprisingly, the Edwards pick hasn’t boosted Kerry much in the polls, despite the overwhelmingly positive reaction from the press and punditry.

UPDATE: Reader John Platner emails:

Something tells me that the Bush campaign will use the “we’ve got better hair” Kerry quote as much as they used the “I voted for it and then against it” quote, and very soon.

Yes, the commercial pretty much writes itself.

DARFUR UPDATE: Has France ever met a murderous regime it didn’t like?

France says it does not support US plans for international sanctions on Sudan if violence continues in Darfur.

The UN Security Council is due to discuss a US draft resolution imposing sanctions on militias accused of “ethnic cleansing” against non-Arabs. . . .

“In Darfur, it would be better to help the Sudanese get over the crisis so their country is pacified rather than sanctions which would push them back to their misdeeds of old,” junior Foreign Minister Renaud Muselier told French radio.

But wait — read on and you’ll see the claim that the U.S. intervention is all about OOOIIIILLLL! Where have we heard that before? It’s certainly not what these people are saying.

UPDATE: Reader David Lowe says I’ve got the oil bit wrong:

If you take another look at the BBC article about French opposition to
sanctions in Sudan, I think you’ll find the story is noting French oil
interests there, not American ones.

France led opposition to US moves at the UN over Iraq, and as in Iraq also
has significant oil interests in Sudan.

Certainly the USAID summary of foreign oil and natural gas concessions in
the Sudan shows no US oil/gas interests there, while the French have a
concession in something known as Block 5: to TotalElFina, of course.

Link

It’s nice to see the BBC acknowledge, even in passing, that France has a
financial interest in defending murderers and ethnic cleansers in the Muslim
world.

I looked at the story again and I think the language has changed, as often happens with BBC stories. It’s possible that I misread it originally, but I don’t think so. Either way, I’m certainly glad to make this point clear — the oil interests are French, and the French are once again running interference for mass murder.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Unfortunately, Peter Beinart, unlike the BBC (at least now) appears to be peddling that old, tired line: “Africa is a Bush priority for one reason: oil.” While there certainly is oil diplomacy regarding Africa (especially around Sao Tome, though that’s slipped beneath the radar for the most part), and no doubt TNR would fault Bush if there weren’t, this particular statement is so absurdly reductionist that I wonder if he’s getting that line from the same TNR researcher who told us that Suriname is a majority-Muslim country?

MORE: Reader Randy Beck emails that the Beeb did change the story:

For what it’s worth, the BBC did change their story. I have a copy:

It’s now: “France led opposition to US moves at the UN over Iraq. As was the case in Iraq, it also has significant oil interests in Sudan.”

It was: “France led opposition to US moves at the UN over Iraq, and as in Iraq the US also has significant oil interests in Sudan.”

Yeah, that’s how I remembered it. Thanks! And it wasn’t an accident, as another reader writes:

Just wanted to let you know, and all your readers know, that pressure on the BBC works. I wrote them complaining about the oooiiiilllll reference concerning France’s attitude toward sanctions on Sudan, and they just wrote to tell me they had corrected the story. The reference to the US was ‘accidental.’ So, keep on pointing out that we can make a difference; and if mainstream media want to remain meaningful, they had better clean up their act.

Good work! And — I’m reprinting this just as evidence that nobody can get away with anything anymore — there’s this from reader M. Ajay Chandra in Edinburgh:

You didn’t misread the BBC story earlier. I have a printout of the story after following your link, where the text is: “France led opposition to the US moves at the UN over Iraq, and as in Iraq the US also has significant oil interests in Sudan.” According to my university printer account, I printed the story at 16:02:05 GMT.

Well, there you are.

STILL MORE: Beinart’s remarks generated this comment from Howard Owens:

Given the world economy’s dependence on oil, shouldn’t oil play a significant
part in our foreign policy decisions?

I’m just sayin’ ….

And Daniel Moore emails:

Regarding Peter Beinart saying “Africa is a Bush priority for one
reason: oil” makes me think of this retort –

So let me get this straight : just because there is oil somewhere, does that mean that the U.S. shouldn’t go in there? That makes even less sense than going only to places where we do have oil interests. One has to wonder how Beinart is trying to have it. People in oil laden countries deserve to eat also – and not get killed by militias. Isn’t this a basic (classical) liberal sensibility?

Yes, but sniping from the sidelines is a contemporary one.

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES HAS ISSUED A CORRECTION of its egregious error regarding Paul Bremer’s farewell speech. No apology, however, for the story’s snarky language:

L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian administrator for Iraq, left without even giving a final speech to the country — almost as if he were afraid to look in the eye the people he had ruled for more than a year.

If you’re going to write stuff like that in a major newspaper, you’d better be, you know, right. Otherwise you just look like an idiot. And not a very nice idiot, either. . . .

Will the Washington Post — which made the same error, if a bit less snarkily, in this story — issue a correction?

And people wonder why we trust Iraqi bloggers more than Big Media. Patterico has it right:

I’m pleased that the paper has acknowledged its error. However, it is not an excuse that the speech was “not publicized to the Western news media.” Bremer’s farewell address had been common knowledge among readers of internet blogs since at least June 30, when I wrote about Tim Blair’s criticism of the Washington Post for making the same exact error. Yet the front-page L.A. Times news analysis appeared on July 4 — 4 days later.

Moral: someone at every major paper should be reading blogs. If they did, the papers might learn different points of view. They might pick up stories that are “not publicized to the Western news media.”

And they might make fewer errors on their front pages.

Indeed.

UPDATE: You know, I think that Tim Rutten is right: “If the American news media are lucky, 2004 will be remembered as the year of living dangerously. If not, then this election cycle may be recalled as the point at which journalism’s slide back into partisanship became a kind of free fall.” Too bad some of his LAT colleagues have already shouted “Geronimo!” (More on Rutten here: “Rutten’s column is actually quite dishonest.”)

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Barry Dauphin notes that this reflects poorly on the Los Angeles Times’ newsgathering:

It also means that no one at the LA Times is watching Iraqi TV. Nonetheless the editors of the paper apparently feel smugly certain that they are doing a thorough enough job covering Iraq to allow a “news analysis” piece of such low caliber into the paper.

Indeed. Meanwhile Tim Blair observes: “Still afraid to look anybody in the eye is the Washington Post, which is yet to apologise for its own no-speech claim. ”

MORE: Ken Wheaton emails:

Two things:

1)About Bremer’s speech “not publicized to the Western news media.”

Call me crazy, but isn’t it a REPORTER’S job to publicize these things? Isn’t that what they’re there for? Or is the LA Times basically admitting that it stole the news from elsewhere (namely the Washington Post) but because the NY Times didn’t say any different, how could the LA Times have known?

2) Romenesko seems to have plenty to say about the NY Post fiasco, but still NOTHING on the LA Times bit.

Yeah, go figure.

GREG DJEREJIAN IS CALLING PEOPLE OUT:

Who will be the first prominent commentator on the left to finally step up to bat and say that the Niger/uranium story may have had real legs?

I know it won’t be Paul Krugman or Maureen Dowd, Atrios or Daily Kos, of course.

And TPM is still, it appears, working on a Big Story.

But can’t someone with integrity on the Left at least entertain the fact that there is more to this story than Joe Wilson’s all clear?

We’ll see.

UPDATE: More thoughts from Edward Boyd. I certainly don’t know the whole story here — but it seems pretty clear that what has been peddled as “the whole story” isn’t.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Djerejian is also harshly critical of The New Republic’s “July surprise” story, and that post is worth reading too. “I’m surprised they didn’t instruct Musharraf and Co. to spring UBL the day Kerry picked Edwards! Can anyone seriously, without blushing, buy this stuff?”

They’re not buying. They’re selling.

ARNOLD KLING notes the ongoing productivity boom, and talks about its economic consequences — and why such a dramatic phenomenon is getting so little attention. (“The 17 percent productivity growth from the first quarter of 2000 to the first quarter of 2004 stands head and shoulders above the growth rate for any comparable period. In fact, it is better than any eight-year period since 1976.”)

NEURO-COPS PATROLLING YOUR BRAIN?

The report ends with the following paragraph:

Sixty years ago the United States Supreme Court opined, “Freedom to think is absolute of its own nature; the most tyrannical government is powerless to control the inward workings of the mind.” Jones v. Opelika, 316 U.S. 548, 618 (1942). No Longer. Pharmacotherapy drugs now give the government that power.

Read the whole thing.

MICKEY KAUS: Proud Kerry supporter — and donor! (And coiner of this stirring slogan: “we survived Carter and we’d survive Kerry.”)

KERRY & EDWARDS & FOREIGN POLICY: Some thoughts over at GlennReynolds.com.

SOMEWHAT TO MY SURPRISE, Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne is ready for a try at the X-Prize.

GREG DJEREJIAN says that Josh Marshall and David Ignatius “got fooled.”

UPDATE: Daniel Drezner has comments on Marshall, and links to more.

BLACKFIVE HAS MORE on military ignorance on the part of the media.

STUART BUCK NOTES historical revisionism at The New York Times where welfare reform is concerned.

BUSH LIED TOLD THE TRUTH!

A UK government inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq is expected to conclude that Britain’s spies were correct to say that Saddam Hussein’s regime sought to buy uranium from Niger.

The inquiry by Lord Butler, which was delivered to the printers on Wednesday and is expected to be released on July 14, has examined the intelligence that underpinned the UK government’s claims about the threat from Iraq. . . .

The Financial Times revealed last week that a key part of the UK’s intelligence on the uranium came from a European intelligence service that undertook a three-year surveillance of an alleged clandestine uranium-smuggling operation of which Iraq was a part.

Intelligence officials have now confirmed that the results of this operation formed an important part of the conclusions of British intelligence. The same information was passed to the US but US officials did not incorporate it in their assessment.

Jon Henke writes: “I plan to spend the rest of this evening enjoying the vindication.”

Enjoy it all you want, as it’s unlikely to make the front page of the New York Times tomorrow.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt has more thoughts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: It’s interesting to see how Reuters is spinning the story: “Inquiry Report to Drag Blair Back Into Iraq Mire.” That’s what’ll happen if Reuters has anything to say about it. . . .

LONGER LIVES may have led to civilization:

HUMAN lifespan took a sudden leap about 32,000 years ago, allowing people to grow older and wiser, scientists revealed yesterday.

The five-fold jump in longevity may have been the key factor that shaped modern civilisation. . . .

The American scientists believe there had to be a distinct evolutionary advantage to large numbers of people growing older.

On the one hand, it would have led to more disease and disability. On the other, it would have not only encouraged social relationships and kinship bonds, but also the passing of information from old and experienced individuals to younger generations.

Makes sense to me. You can’t build a civilization out of teenagers.

UPDATE: More here, including this observation: “Of course, ‘older’ in this context means making it to 30. Romanticized notions of prehistory obscure the fact that life back then was nasty, brutish and short.”

THE WSJ POLITICAL DIARY FOLKS are emailing me free versions. They say I can quote it freely, too (which I’m normally loath to do with pay-subscription sites) so long as I provide a link to their main page. Other advertisers are encouraged to send free samples, too. Any Caribbean resort owners out there? Porsche dealers? Guinness distributors?

HUGH HEWITT doesn’t like John Edwards as much as I do.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Charles Paul Freund observes:

Edwards is a smart and skilled politician who enjoys the good will of many independents and swing voters; the question is whether he can apply the attributes that gained him that good will in a campaign where he must play a more negative role, and where he will be the object of far greater scrutiny. Indeed, there were probably more serious questions raised about Edwards in the 24 hours after he became Kerry’s running mate than there were in the course of the winter primaries. Edwards’ media bubble is bursting, and we’re about to see whether that is bad news for him, or good.

Indeed.

HERE’S A YOUNG PERSON who’s striking back against cloying suburban conformity with a radical new website. Fight the power!

I WISH THEM SUCCESS:

As July 8 approaches, Iranians all over the world are preparing to display — as they do each year during this week — their hatred for the mullahs dominating Iran. This year, the annual demonstrations mark the fifth anniversary of the brutal university massacres of 1999. That was the year President Khatami showed his true colors, abandoning both his promised reforms and the people who voted for him. What started out as a reaction to the utter brutality of the fossilized establishment by young Iranian students has turned into a freedom movement the world should acknowledge and encourage. And yet, no Western politico has embraced the annual protest, a sign of a people’s love for freedom, human rights, and democracy, within the confines of a tyrannical, dangerous regime.

Maybe not, but I’m embracing it. I wish them success, until the mullarchy is ended. May it be soon.

A COMBINATION OF IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONS, and insufficient interest by Americans, are threatening American science. according to this report.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

My God.you mean market forces work? What a shock.

I mean, this looks like a great recruiting strategy:

Offer a bunch of intelligent people a career path that requires 10 years of hard work to get the right to land a $30,000/year job with no job security. Oh.and you have to move every two years for an indeterminate time period.

Let them get a good look at a bunch of demoralized 30-somethings who are trying to compete for limited jobs and funds against an entire world’s worth of scientific talent (over 50% of the hiring pool in the US is made up of non-citizens). Make sure that the non-citizens are seriously motivated to work insanely hard, because if they’re not employed in a visa-permitted category, they have to go home.*

(*And why are they here? Usually because there aren’t even any post-doc positions in their home countries.)

Demolish the tenure system to the point that the ability to get multiple grants with an average acceptance rate of 10%) is a requisite for keeping your job, once you do actually manage to find one.

Yeah, sign me up.

Now sure, the truly brilliant people are OK in this system-but there’s no room for what a friend (a Ph.D in chemistry who “defected” into the computer industry) calls the “utility infielders”. And established scientists are amazed that students don’t like those odds?

Unfortunately, research is a hell of a lot of fun, which is why I keep banging my head against a brick wall. But if I knew at 18 what I know now, I wouldn’t be doing this for a living.

Sign me, anonymously please, as

A cynical but still fighting American-born post-doc

Perhaps reports like this one will encourage some rethinking of these incentive structures.

LET AMERICA BE AMERICA: “Guys, you gotta vet the poets you quote.”

Not if you’re reasonably confident the press won’t call you on ’em..

UPDATE: Reader Jared Walczak emails:

The telling part of this whole episode, in my opinion, is that John Kerry is quite familiar with the Marxist leanings of Mr. Hughes. In fact, a new compilation of Langston Hughes poems will be coming off the presses in a little more than a month and features a preface penned by none other than Senator John Kerry.

Sources:

Link

Link

(And a Google News search turns up many more, although most seem to be based on the same AP report.)

Langston Hughes has been vetted, and Kerry likes what he sees. The rest of us are simply left to wonder what it all means.

Someone should ask him. One might admire his poetry on purely artistic grounds, of course, but using an expressly pro-Stalin poet as the source of a campaign theme seems to go beyond mere artistic admiration. At the very least it demonstrates — yet again — that the Kerry campaign still isn’t ready for primetime.

RINGO’S QUESTION, answered. I was sad to hear about Vera, Chuck, and Dave.

ADVICE ON CIVILITY, from George Washington.

And more advice from LT Smash.

IMPORTANT observations on Iran from Patrick Belton.

But now the Mullarchy has reason to tremble.

TAXPROF notes that today is cost of government day.