HAS BUSH TAKEN THE WRONG LESSONS FROM VIETNAM? Read this interview with Max Boot.
UPDATE: A failure of the generals? “America’s generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy.” Hmm. I’m not so sure, but read this and see what you think.
NIGERIA: “The government used the oil revenue, which is over two-thirds of of government income, to buy the recent elections. . . . The stolen oil money is spread around, with about ten percent of the population getting some of it, and doing what needs to be done to keep the thieving politicians in power. The majority of Nigerians get nothing, and the better armed politicians dare anyone to do anything about it. But the current government claimed to be reformers, and blamed all the former problems on corrupt military dictators.” Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
JOHN TAMMES POSTS MORE news from Afghanistan that you probably missed.
THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE LOOKS AT how people are spinning Petraeus.
MORE ON MIKE GRAVEL’S sudden stardom.
M.I.T. ADMISSIONS DEAN STEPS DOWN over resume-faking scandal. “Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became well known for urging stressed-out students competing for elite colleges to calm down and stop trying to be perfect. Yesterday she admitted that she had fabricated her own educational credentials, and resigned after nearly three decades at M.I.T. Officials of the institute said she did not have even an undergraduate degree.”
This week saw a small and telling controversy involving a mural on the walls of Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles. The mural is big–400 feet long, 18 feet high at its peak–and eye-catching, as would be anything that “presents a colorful depiction of the rape, slaughter and enslavement of North America’s indigenous people by genocidal Europeans.” Those are the words of the Los Angeles Times’s Bob Sipchen, who noted “the churning stream of skulls in the wake of Columbus’s Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.”
What is telling is not that some are asking if the mural portrays the Conquistadors as bloodthirsty monsters, or if it is sufficiently respectful to the indigenous Indians of Mexico. What is telling is that those questions completely miss the point and ignore the obvious. Here is the obvious:
The mural is on the wall of a public school. It is on a public street. Children walk by.
We are scaring our children to death. Have you noticed this? And we’re doing it more and more.
Well, government-sponsored race-hatred seems bad, too. But read the whole thing.
SECRETS OF “CROWD-BUILDING,” explained.
HILLARY AND HAMSHER: “Democratic activists privately questioned Clinton’s decision to appear on Firedoglake because of the tarnished reputation of Jane Hamsher, one of its chief bloggers.”
More here. It’s a tempest in a teapot, really — but also another reminder to bloggers who want to be political players that real political players (successful ones, anyway) are careful about the record they produce.
PATTERICO HAS MORE on the Atlanta cops charged in the Kathryn Johnston no-knock raid gone wrong.
Following up on a comment, I’d also like to know more about the judge who signed the warrant in this case.
UPDATE: Here’s more from Radley Balko:
We now know that Kathryn Johnston fired only a single bullet, through the door as police were trying to break in. They responded with a storm of bullets, which apparently both wounded Johnston and the officers themselves. When they realized their fatal error, they planted cocaine and marijuana in the woman’s home. They then pressured an uninvolved informant to testify to having made controlled buys at Johnston’s home to cover their tracks.
The New York Times is now reporting that the officers have told federal investigators that their behavior was not out of the ordinary. That corruption, planting evidence, and giving false testimony are routine at APD. That’s not surprising. The only way these officers could think they’d get away with all of this is if they were operating within a system that routinely allows for—or even encourages—such behavior. APD’s focus on arrest numbers and professional rewards for the big bust apparently incentivized such short cuts.
It’s also important to remember that it’s possible we wouldn’t know any of this were it not for the uncooperative informant who admirably refused to help the cops cover their asses.
Read the whole thing.
I’d be more impressed with the Democratic candidates if they had united in their opposition to the War on Drugs, which has done the country much more harm, over much more time, than the one in Iraq.
CLAYTON CRAMER LOOKS AT HR 297, the mental-illness reporting bill, and isn’t sure why some gun-rights groups are unhappy with it.
A flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday, each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season. . . . No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions.
All but Biden, who flew on a private jet, chartered their flights — a campaign expense of between $7,500 and $9,000.
Couldn’t they have “jet pooled” to cut down on carbon emissions? Or, you know, flown commercial with the hoi polloi? (Via Newsbusters).
UPDATE: John McGinnis thinks it would have been smart to fly commercial: “Every jet flying the
friendly skies is filled with — Voters.”
THIS DOES SEEM LIKE A RATHER LOW THRESHOLD for swooning.
Plus this: “Maybe somebody needs to explain to Greenwald what ‘Trutherism’ means. Hint: it ain’t a compliment.” Well, in his circles it probably is. Hence the misunderstanding.
JOURNALIST AS DAFFY DUCK: But what’s really “despicable” here, of course, is that it works.
MICKEY KAUS NOTES debate Laphamization at the Associated Press, but concludes that it’s okay: “The one she wrote before the debate was better!”
SO I’VE ACTUALLY BEEN TRAVELLING TO AND FROM NASHVILLE TODAY, to a meeting at the Capitol on revising the state constitution, and I queued up a bunch of “scheduled posts” (including this one) before I left this morning. So if some big news event happened and I haven’t mentioned it, that’s because it hadn’t happened yet when I scheduled all of this stuff. More fresh stuff whenever I get home, which given that they’re forecasting hail, severe thunderstorms, etc. for Knoxville, Nashville, and the Cumberland Mountains in between may be late.
LIVEBLOGGING THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES’ DEBATE: I’d say that Mike Gravel improved his situation the most: “Gravel… that’s news to me. I didn’t even know he was still alive!”
Still alive! Getting that news out is an essential first step in a campaign.
UPDATE: Hey, Gravel-mania threatens to explode: “Where did this guy come from? . . . I suspect he is going to gain a LOT of attention and some popularity.” It’s a trend!
ANOTHER UPDATE: This rapid rise has already produced a wave of Gravel-Bashing: “I still don’t like Gravel. I think he’s crazy.”
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win.” One debate and he’s already to stage three! Watch for people to start poaching his campaign staff.
MORE: A sure sign of momentum in a campaign — pundits are starting to suck up to the candidate: “Gravel was direct and tough on the other candidates during the debate. He also certainly provided the funniest moments of the debate. We have not given him enough attention and for this we apologize. Here is a link to his campaign website.”
STILL MORE: Matt Stoller hearts Mike Gravel. It’s Mikementum, baby!
Dave Weigel, not so much. He thinks Obama won, even though he had the biggest gaffe.
MORE STILL: I’m surprised that TigerHawk is swimming against the tide: “Gravel is a loon, by the way. He makes Kucinich look sober as a judge.”
I dunno. You gotta love this line of Gravel’s: “I’m embarrassed about this Congress.”
Hey, me too. Even more than the last one, and that’s saying something.
Best comment yet: “President Gravel? Only on an episode of The Flintstones.”
Though judging by tonight, that may be speaking too soon!
The Hotline blog: “Still unknown: What constitutes success in Iraq for Edwards, Obama and Clinton.”
I think the honest answer would be would be “my election in 2008.”
And here’s a roundup at The Moderate Voice.
I WENT TO NASHVILLE AND BACK TODAY, for a meeting of the state committee on constitutional revision that I’m on. It was at the Capitol, and when it was over Bob Cooper, the Attorney General, took one of our out-of-state visitors on a tour. I haven’t wandered the Capitol proper in quite a while, so I tagged along. Tennessee’s Capitol is very pretty in an austere sort of way, and if I’d had more time — and if I were Ann Althouse — I’d have a lot of stunning photos. But here are a couple, anyway. It was interesting to hear people compare Capitol-building trivia, and it brought home that when the artisans who designed the chandelier in the Senate chamber put in intertwined symbols of the state, they were doing something with political, not just aesthetic, implications — things that show even today in little bits of state pride on the part of constitutional officeholders. Federalism is built on these things, as well as on the Tenth Amendment.
The meeting was pleasant and useful, and in its informality and its matter-of-fact practicality it brought home another difference between state politics and government and those at the national level. Or maybe it’s just a Tennessee thing; I don’t have much experience with other states’ operations.
Driving both ways today, I noticed that high gas prices still haven’t induced people to slow down — or, judging from the traffic, to drive less. What was sad was that although some of the trees are in full spring glory, many are brown from die-back induced by the late freeze. They’ll bud eventually, but the huge patches of brown on the mountainsides looked like some strange disease was breaking out.
And yeah, posts continued via “scheduled posting” — I managed to get online briefly a couple of times, but never for all that long. I like that feature.
UPDATE: Yes, it was a public meeting, though sparsely attended by the public — I wouldn’t have blogged about it otherwise. I’m just not blogging about this stuff in detail because I don’t think many readers are deeply interested in updating the gubernatorial succession provisions of the Tennessee Constitution. But yes, they know about the blog — both Gen. Cooper and Gov. Bredesen made InstaPundit jokes during the introductions.
