DAVE KOPEL LOOKS AT RED-BAITING AND THE BABY GAP, over at GlennReynolds.com.

AM I ONE OF THE TOP LEGAL THINKERS IN AMERICA? Legal Affairs has a poll, and I’m a nominee. This time it really is an honor just to be nominated.

MAX BOOT:

Imagine if U.S. troops were accused of sexually exploiting children in impoverished nations. Imagine if a U.S. Cabinet secretary were accused of groping a female subordinate, whose complaint was then swatted aside by the president. Imagine if the head of a U.S. government agency and the president’s own offspring stood accused of complicity in the biggest embezzlement racket in history.

Those would be pretty big stories, no? Above-the-fold, top-of-the-newscast stories. Yet the United Nations has been mired in all these scandals and until just recently hardly anybody outside the right-wing blogosphere has noticed. . . .

The U.N.’s friends are doing their favorite international institution no favors with this knee-jerk defense. Until it cleans up its act, the U.N. can never be as influential as its boosters would like. Even Annan recognizes this.

Indeed. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Er, it’ll be easier to read the whole thing now that I’ve fixed the link, which was wrong before. Sorry.

ZELL MILLER IS JOINING A LAW FIRM, because apparently his alma mater, where he had been scheduled to teach post-retirement, decided it didn’t want him.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh points out that the story mentions only one hostile faculty member, and correctly observes that it’s hardly fair to attribute one faculty member’s statements to the college as a whole. I got the impression from the story that there was more to it than that, but the story doesn’t actually say so.

EXCELLENT NEWS: The commercial space launch bill has passed, and is awaiting the President’s signature. Rand Simberg has a roundup, and don’t miss this piece by Alan Boyle, who has covered this story better than anyone else in Big Media.

WOW, I’ve won a 2004 Weblog Award! But the real honor was in being nominated . . . Er, maybe.

IPOD UPDATE: Boy, if you want a lot of email, forget writing about the war — ask people about iPods! My earlier post asking for advice produced more email than, I think, any other post I’ve made. And there were a lot of arguments for everything from the 4GB iPod mini to the 60 GB iPod Photo.

On reflection, though I think I’m most persuaded by the advice of Todd Steed:

I’m O/C about such gadgets so I went ahead and got the 40G I-pod. Six months later it’s not full. I’m up to about 23. Based on that- and the fact I’ve downloaded stuff on it all time- I’d say get the 20.

I sometimes store things on it, files, etc.- and use it as an alarm clock on the road. I love it.

I think sometimes I enjoy downloading things on it more than actually listening to some of the things I’ve put on. For example, I have about six books on there. When will I listen?

By the time I get to 40G, yet ANOTHER model will be out- so don’t get the 40g. Don’t get the mini, it slips out of your hands.

I’ve got big hands, so that’s a point. Anyhow, I think I’m going to order the 20GB iPod after all, in light of this advice and its appealing price point — only $50 more than the mini. And I’ll probably buy some better headphones, though these, which somebody recommended, are probably overkill. Next question: Is there a reason to prefer the Apple version over the HP version? Er, besides the fact that if I want one before Christmas I’ll probably have to buy the HP?

AN OPEN LETTER TO A DESERTER: From LT Smash.

WHAT PERCENTAGE OF RAPE ACCUSATIONS ARE FALSE? Over at the CrimProf blog, Prof. Jack Chin notes that although many numbers are floating around, there’s not much research to support any of them.

MICKEY KAUS says it’s time to have a “real debate” on immigration.

My own sense is that immigration is a good thing, so long as immigrants want to buy into the American Dream. Assimilation is good.

I’d also like to keep out the terrorists, while not treating decent people like trash.

More nuanced discussion to follow.

UPDATE: Reader Evelyn Palmieri emails:

“My own sense is that immigration is a good thing, so long as immigrants want to buy into the American Dream. Assimilation is good.”

Glenn, Couldn’t agree more. If Bush makes that statement the centerpiece of the debate on immigration, he’ll get lots of support. Legal vs. illegal isn’t as important as why immigrants want to come here.

If people want to become just plain ordinary Americans, come on over. If they want to be hyphenated Americans and make little enclaves of where they came from, stay home.

Diversity is in the melting pot. Lots of good ingredients blending together make a mighty fine stew. I still get a kick out of the juxtaposition of different ethnicities like a local Mexican/Italian restaurant. In time the differences melt away and a pizza with taco toppings is just another type of pizza. It’s wonderful.

Let’s see what stance the White House takes.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A lengthy email from an immigration insider. Click “read more” to read it.

(more…)

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH writes in TechCentralStation:

We’ve previously seen the Bush Administration’s lack of devotion to the principles of federalism in the debate over the Federal Marriage Amendment — which proposed to constitutionalize the precept that in all fifty states, marriage should be limited to being between one man and one woman. Now the Administration’s stance in Ashcroft v. Raich resurrects concerns among small-government conservatives and libertarians that the principles of federalism are going by the boards. . . .

It is paradoxical that a conservative Republican Administration should repeatedly be seeking to inflict hammer blows against a cherished conservative and libertarian doctrine — the doctrine of federalism which is part and parcel of our Constitutional order. But on issues like same-sex marriage and the Raich case, the Bush Administration has sought to undermine the system of federalism and to instead establish a federal police power that is entirely anathema to our system of government. This effort must be resisted by conservatives and libertarians as surely as if the effort were being made by a liberal Democratic Administration. Federalism deserves no less.

Indeed. By the way, for some more scholarly writings of mine on the importance of federalism, you might want to read this article on its importance in limiting the power of special interests, and this article (and this followup piece) on the way lower courts have treated the Lopez and Morrison decisions. And for a real blast from the past, here’s a paper that I wrote for the Cato Institute back before the Lopez decision came down.

ARMOR: Various snarky antiwar readers seem to think that this story, in which Rumsfeld was challenged (by a member of my local National Guard outfit, actually) regarding armor, is somehow a devastating indictment of the Bush Administration and the war in toto. Actually, I’d say it’s rather a lot less than that.

Armor’s nice, of course, when people are shooting at you, and soldiers tend to want more of it. They’ve traditionally added sandbags, etc., to vehicles regardless of weight penalties that result. But as Jeff Taylor — no fan of Rumsfeld — notes over at Reason, it’s not as simple as more armor = better:

Truth is most U.S. military vehicles have required some kind of armor upgrade to withstand the volleys of RPGs and large-munition roadside bombs the Iraq conflict has produced. The Stryker units have what looks like steel grating around them to throw up an anti-RPG “fence,” photos of Bradleys show what looks like reactive armor kits in place, and even the mighty Abrams appear to have been modified with extra plating.

So it is just not a case of the bloodless Pentagon stiffing the Guard and Reserves with thin-skinned Humvees, as some of the comments today seem to suggest. Rummy was right, if typically tone-deaf, by telling Wilson he could get blown up in a tank too.

Further, more armor is not a magical solution, never has been. It is represents a trade-off between protection and mobility, just as in the age of knights when if the peasants managed to violently unhorse an up-armored foe, they could go off and have lunch and leave the knight flailing face down in the mud. If he didn’t drown, you could always stab him in the eye-slits later.

The preference for less armor can be seen today with at least some Marines in Fallujah. They point out that up-armoring their Humvees reduces the ability to see threats coming. Oh, but they bitch that the regular Army gets all the good stuff anyway, so at least that’s square.

Finally, was it a disgrace or outrage that American tankers in Normandy had to cut up German steel obstacles to make hedge-cutting teeth for their tanks? No, it was an inspired response to the insanity of war. Rummy being nuts has very little to do with this sad and eternal fact.

I think it’s nice that Rumsfeld heard criticisms from the troops — though not, in this case, troops that had actually gotten to Iraq yet — but to try to turn this into some sort of claim of generalized incompetence on the part of the Administration is to show, yet again, the ignorance of so many of the critics.

UPDATE: Reader Tim Morris emails: “I think it’s interesting that everyone seems to be missing the real point – the Secretary of Defense, essentially second only to the President in the civilian portion of the chain of command, was called to account by an enlisted solider, and a low ranking one at that, and he stood there and took it because that’s his job.”

It’s certainly an interesting contrast to the way that, say, Dan Rather receives criticism.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This post, from another soldier who was present when the questions were asked, is a must-read:

I was very surprised when we were told there would be the opportunity to ask questions without first having them screened. I would have assumed there would have been some process where those who had questions submitted them prior to asking the Secretary, and had them approved. Instead, everyone in the room was given the option to stand, motion for one of the soldiers holding a microphone, and ask anything they desired. There was no particular order of what kind of questions were asked and the soldiers who asked questions ranged in rank from Specialists to Lieutenant Colonels. When I say I was surprised that this part of the event was not micromanaged, I want to ensure you that I was pleasantly surprised. In my opinion, it shows the attitude that this Secretary has towards the soldiers he is sworn to represent. It shows those in uniform that he does not see us or our concerns as “below his level,” but instead sends a signal that we are his concern, and ensuring we can accomplish the mission is his highest priority.

One more thing I would like to add is this, not one soldier present asked questions about why we were here, or expressed the sort of anti-war sentiment that Michael Moore led some to believe was prevalent in the military. Rather, the concern was about ensuring we would be supplied with all necessary equipment to accomplish the mission and return home safely. Let there be no doubt, this was not a hostile crowd eager to catch the Secretary of Defense off guard by grilling him with questions he has never had to answer.

More here, too. And here’s the bottom line, from Short Final:

Here’s what will come of this: Democrats will make political hay, and Rumsfield will get burned for having had the nads to stand up in front of the troops and field difficult questions. Who suffers the most from the Secretary of Defense not being able to have candid discussions with our troops for fear of being vilified by the press? Well, the only people that suffer from that are the troops that our press and Democrats pretend to support.

Indeed. And reader Walter Wallis emails:

I am amused that the MSM media has failed to note that the criticism of the failure to get armor kits to the troops comes primarily from members of the party whose leaders voted against appropriations to fund the war. They can’t have it both ways – or can they?

They’re doing their best, with a little help from the press. And they voted for the appropriations before they voted against them. Or was it the other way around? — I can’t remember.

MORE: Lance Frizzell — who I know because he used to play guitar for Audra and the Antidote, but who I didn’t know was on active duty now — sends this email from the scene:

I’m over here (Iraq) w/ the 278th but I was at Beuhring when the Rumsfeld appearance occurred. I have 2 thoughts:

1) What’s left out here is what happens if we hang out in Kuwait waiting for the official armor kits to arrive: the current rotation gets extended yet again. Most folks I know want these guys to get home ASAP. They’ve done their time and they should get to go home.

If I’m delayed next xmas b/c somebody was too good to find an alternate solution to a problem I’ll be highly pissed. After all, this is the US Army.

2) Your soldier-reader is right about unstaged, direct access to the SecDef. It would have been very easy to select soldiers who would have made sure no embarrassing questions were asked. I for one would have been happy to ask something along the lines of “given John Kerry’s appalling lack of respect for all things military, just how much of a disaster would he have been as President?”

Of course, it turns out that although the access was direct, it wasn’t quite unstaged. Drudge has reprinted an email from a reporter who says he planted the questions with the soldiers.

Should we have more armor? Beats me. Are people who are using this issue as a way of unfairly portraying Rumsfeld as a heartless murderer of American troops way off-base? Yes. Absolutely.

Meanwhile, DefenseTech notes that “Even so-called up-armored Humvees will shred if hit by a well-placed RPG shot,” and points out that the Pentagon is working on something better.

BLOGGERS AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT: Some interesting comments by Floyd Abrams.

THE BUSINESS OF BLOGGING: Interesting piece from Business Week.

I THINK THAT THIS REFUSE TO SURRENDER PLEDGE is a good idea. Regardless of which party is in power.

UPDATE: Jeez, a lot of people don’t like the ACLU. I don’t see them as evil, the way a lot of people seem to. I think that they do some good work, though their constructive role has diminished as they’ve become more and more a subsidiary of the Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party. My point, however, was the desirability — no matter who is in power — of defending the Constitution, with a slight tweak at the ACLU for treating the Bush Administration’s threats more harshly than the Clinton Administration’s. The ACLU was actually very critical of Clinton on specific issues, but never took the “barbarians at the gate” approach notwithstanding that Clinton’s record on civil liberties was, if anything, worse than Bush’s.

CBS NEWS RECRUITING ANTI-WAR BLOGGERS to push its story?

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh has first, second, third, and fourth thoughts on this. My favorite: “It’s pretty cool that some mainstream media publicists think enough of blogs that they want to promote their tens-of-millions-of-viewers broadcasts there.”

BACK WHEN IT HAPPENED, I criticized Bush’s flight-suited appearance on the Abraham Lincoln. But I think that Rogers Cadenhead makes too much of Bush’s “Commander-in-Chief” jacket. Bill Clinton had one of those too, which you can see him wearing in this CNN gallery of images from a Clinton aircraft-carrier visit — it’s not, as Cadenhead suggests, a Bush innovation. I believe that dislike for Bush has led Cadenhead (and Dana Milbank, whom he quotes) to forget that.

Bush’s jacket is, however, kind of lame. I like Clinton’s leather jacket better. A Buzz Rickson’s in black nylon would be cooler still, of course. At least to us geeks.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Just thought I’d note that the left’s idea of a perfect President – Josiah Bartlett of The West Wing – also had a Commander in Chief jacket. He used to wear it all the time in the episodes where he traveled on Air Force One or on the weekends around the White House.

I’ve never watched more than a few minutes of The West Wing, but this seems to be right. Meanwhile — pace Milbank — here’s Ronald Reagan in a C-in-C jacket, and here’s Bush 41. And a reader sent a link to a picture of Jimmy Carter similarly garbed, but it wouldn’t open.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hey, it’s Bobby Kennedy in one of these! And he was just the brother-in-chief. And reader Edward Christie found this picture of Carter in the National Archives, though their setup doesn’t allow direct linking.

ONE MORE: Jeez, don’t start with me on the carrier landing again. I think that subsequent events bore out my judgment that it was a mistake, and did more harm than good. I seem to recall Tommy Franks suggesting that it was aimed not so much at domestic political audiences — as everyone thought at the time — as at convincing the Europeans that the war was over so they’d come in and help. Judged on that basis, I guess it wasn’t any more of a success. It was a Rovian misstep, though obviously not a fatal one.

And Dean Esmay has still more photos of various presidents in military garb.

FOR A BOOK THAT WON’T BE OUT UNTIL NEXT YEAR, Mark Steyn’s America Alone is certainly doing well. At the moment, it’s #763 on Amazon.

JOHN TABIN REPORTS THAT DEMOCRACY seems to be busting out all over:

Let’s check the score:

Yesterday in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai was sworn in as that country’s first democratically elected president.

In Ukraine, the Kremlin-backed ruling party’s attempt to steal the election for Viktor Yanukovych appears completely stymied by the peaceful Orange Revolution. At minimum, it seems likely that there will be a re-vote on December 26.

In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 1.3 million Palestinians are registered to vote in the January 9 election of one of ten presidential candidates seeking to replace the marvelously dead Yasser Arafat. In Iraq, nearly 14 million Iraqis are registered to vote for one of 156 parties running in the January 30th election. As Bill Kristol has pointed out, commentators in the Arab world are starting to wonder aloud why the Arabs with the most significant voting rights are those under American or Israeli occupation.

Would it be pollyannaish, at this point, to be tremendously optimistic about the march of democracy and freedom?

Perhaps just a bit. But it’s certainly good news.

AUDACIOUS JUDITH: It’s a Hanukkah post over at GlennReynolds.com — but I haven’t converted. It’s by Dave Kopel, who’s guestblogging there this week.

BRANCH OUT IN YOUR BLOG-READING: This week’s Carnival of the Vanities is up, with a wide variety of posts from a wide variety of bloggers.

WALTER SHAPIRO IS LEAVING USA TODAY: I think this is a dreadful move for USA Today, and predict that they’ll come to regret it. Shapiro is an interesting and fair columnist at a paper whose stable of columnists isn’t so great that they can afford to lose him. I’m sure he’ll be picked up elsewhere, but I’ll miss him, and I guess I’ll have to take down his permalink, which was one of the first columnist permalinks I put up on InstaPundit.

EUGENE VOLOKH IS ON SLATE’S CASE, and deservedly so, I’d say. Slate’s “Bushism” feature is lame and borders on dishonest (and its shorter-lived Kerryism feature was, if anything, worse). And for a web-only publication to consistently refuse to link to the original source is also disgraceful. As I’ve noted before, this is making Slate look much worse than the targets of its barbs, and I don’t understand why they persist in running this feature.

JONAH GOLDBERG ON JOURNALISTIC PRIVILEGE:

But in all of this debate, what people seem to be overlooking is that journalists aren’t always analogous to witnesses to crimes. Sometimes they’re accomplices. Imagine that a vindictive government official wants to embarrass an opponent by leaking his tax returns. He steals them from confidential files and meets a reporter from the Times in a back alley. The reporter publishes them. It seems to me the reporter isn’t a witness, he’s an accessory.

Indeed. My own sense is that journalists should have to testify whenever anyone else, under the same facts, would have to testify.

IN THE MAIL: The new Cox & Forkum book, Black & White World II. Like all their stuff, it’s good. To get an idea, just check out their site.