Old And Not Improved

The New York Times takes Obama to task for his changes in position from the primary to the regular election. Some of their complaints are valid; others are exaggerated.

• "First, he broke his promise to try to keep both major parties within public-financing limits for the general election." - except, of course, that wasn't his promise. The promise he broke was to work with his opponent to stay within the public financing limits, and it's fair to criticize him on that - but where's the piece lambasting McCain for walking away from everything he supposedly believes in, in relation to campaign finance reform, lying about his commitment to public financing during the primary campaign, and possibly breaking the law in his hasty retreat from that promise?

• "The new Barack Obama has abandoned his vow to filibuster an electronic wiretapping bill if it includes an immunity clause for telecommunications companies that amounts to a sanctioned cover-up of Mr. Bush’s unlawful eavesdropping after 9/11." - I think that's a fair criticism, particularly given the New York Times' consistent advocacy against an immunity provision. But why is it that the Constitution is seen as something Democrats must defend but that Republicans are free to ignore? I can't help but wonder, if major newspapers held some Republican feet to the fire over their disdain for civil liberties, this dispute would have ended a long time ago in favor of the Constitution. The "he said, she said" framing of issues by the media also contributes to the problem. "Democrats say important freedoms are at stake. Republicans say that the only freedoms the Democrats want to protect are those of terrorists, that Democrats agree that not closing FISA loopholes poses a danger to this country, and all they are trying to do is to prevent trial lawyers from bringing frivolous lawsuits against companies that were acting in good faith and trying to help protect the nation from terrorism. You decide."

• "The Barack Obama of the primary season used to brag that he would stand before interest groups and tell them tough truths. The new Mr. Obama tells evangelical Christians that he wants to expand President Bush’s policy of funneling public money for social spending to religious-based organizations - a policy that violates the separation of church and state and turns a government function into a charitable donation." - As I understand the proposal, Obama is proposing rolling back some of Bush's excesses, and expanding upon the approach to funding religious charities that existed even before Bush took office. Further, there is no contradiction between "stand[ing] before interest groups and tell[ing] them tough truths" and recognizing that religious charities can offer a significant contribution to the public welfare. McCain seems to be all for continuing Bush's existing policies - again, why are only Democrats supposed to oppose positions that, in the Times' words, "violate[] the separation of church and state"?

• "Mr. Obama endorsed the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the District of Columbia’s gun-control law. We knew he ascribed to the anti-gun-control groups’ misreading of the Constitution as implying an individual right to bear arms. But it was distressing to see him declare that the court provided a guide to 'reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe.'" - So here there's no actual contradiction, but the Times takes the position that the Heller decision was wrongly decided, and that Obama shouldn't support an opinion that could restrict "handguns, or requiring that firearms be stored in ways that do not present a mortal threat to children". I think it's very much an overstatement to suggest that Heller provides a guide to what type of regulation is reasonable, but this is neither a flip-flop, nor is it sensible for Obama to try to turn this into a major issue by reversing his stance on individual rights and implicitly promising to appoint justices who will reverse or limit Heller.

• "We were equally distressed by Mr. Obama’s criticism of the Supreme Court’s barring the death penalty for crimes that do not involve murder." - That's fair also, particularly in contrast to his embrace of Heller - what's his standard for picking and choosing which Supreme Court decisions to support or decry? But again, what's the distinction here from McCain? Why, if this is such an important civil rights issue, does McCain get a free ride?

The Times carries on,

We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games.

McCain has made similar representations about himself -a maverick, independent, able to work across the aisle. So where's the similar analysis of his flip-flops and contradictions, even if not a similar attack on his disdain for civil rights and liberties?

This type of piece is part of the problem, not part of the solution. When it's convenient, the mainstream media ignores major differences between the candidates - such as with the false suggestion in 2000 that Al Gore and G.W. Bush were essentially the same on all the issues. When it's convenient, false and scurrilous attacks on a candidate turn into fodder for entertainment, not analysis - such as with the "Swift Boat Liars" and their attack on John Kerry. Now, it seems to be convenient to accuse Obama of having insufficient respect for civil rights and to be chaning his positions in order to get elected, while giving McCain a free pass on similar, perhaps greater, sins - and giving the entire Republican Party a free ride on the issue of civil liberties.

Please, go right ahead - savage the candidates, and try to make them honest. But do it to both sides, and don't reduce critical points of distinction between the candidates to an afterthought.
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Update:

As if I needed a "case in point" for the worst sins of the media, read Matt Yglesias on Charles Krauthammer's latest display of mendacity.

Almost Seven Years Late....

You know what would have been a suitable time for the New York Times to advocate a gas tax? The months following 9/11. Instead we seemed to get what amounted to a quiet endorsement of Dick Cheney's position, "Conservation may be a personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."

Gas Taxes

Following the lead of Charmas Friedhammer, the New York Times opines,

Expensive gasoline is not good news for most American families. In some rural areas where people must drive long distances, and a pickup is more of a necessity than a lifestyle choice, filling up the tank can eat up nearly 15 percent of a worker’s take-home income. Pricey gasoline is acting as a brake on the economy and pushing up the price of food and other goods.

Still, Americans’ response to rising gasoline prices makes an excellent case for a gas tax. It proves that drivers will change their behavior in response to high fuel prices. And even if Detroit doesn’t buy global warming, drivers can help persuade it to embrace fuel efficiency.

Right. Because there's no better time for new, regressive taxation than when working Americans are already struggling.

It's Official - Luttwack Is Full Of....

Well, semi-official, but the New York Times public editor has softly agreed with the idea that Edward Luttwack's smear of Obama was not "fit to print". Some of the column is amusing,

Many Times readers saw the article as irresponsible (“gasoline on the fire,” said Paul Trachtman of Tierra Amarilla, N.M.) or false (“Islam is not like our hair or the color of our skin, which we inherited from our parents,” said Ali Kamel of Rio de Janeiro). The blogosphere lit up with assertions that Luttwak did not know what he was talking about.

But you have to read down three more paragraphs before you find out, the blogosphere was right:

I interviewed five Islamic scholars, at five American universities, recommended by a variety of sources as experts in the field. All of them said that Luttwak’s interpretation of Islamic law was wrong.

Luttwack attempted to defend himself with reference to an anonymous scholar of Islam who... also seemed to believe Luttwack was wrong:

Interestingly, in defense of his own article, Luttwak sent me an analysis of it by a scholar of Muslim law whom he did not identify. That anonymous scholar also did not agree with Luttwak that Obama was an apostate or that Muslim law would prohibit punishment for any Muslim who killed an apostate. He wrote, “You seem to be describing some anarcho-utopian version of Islamic legalism, which has never existed, and after the birth of the modern nation state will never exist.”

The editor of the Op-Ed page, David Shipley, seems to be brimming with lame excuses for running anti-Obama propaganda:

David Shipley, the editor of the Op-Ed page, said Luttwak’s article was vetted by editors who consulted the Koran, associated text, newspaper articles and authoritative histories of Islam. No scholars of Islam were consulted because “we do not customarily call experts to invite them to weigh in on the work of our contributors,” he said.

What, exactly, did they consult? The collected works of Daniel Pipes? Really, I would like to hear the specifics.

Shipley, the Op-Ed editor, said he regretted not urging Luttwak to soften his language about possible assassination, given how sensitive the subject is. But he said he did not think the Op-Ed page was under any obligation to present an alternative view, beyond some letters to the editor.

I do not agree. With a subject this charged, readers would have been far better served with more than a single, extreme point of view. When writers purport to educate readers about complex matters, and they are arguably wrong, I think The Times cannot label it opinion and let it go at that.

I'm still wondering, how did Shipley decide that Luttwack's column was suitable to print in the first place? What was the process by which the column ended up in the New York Times? I suspect that story's at least as embarrassing as the fact that Luttwack was regurgitating the propaganda of Daniel Pipes.

Contempt For Free Speech

The Times editorializes in relation to Joseph Lieberman's attempts to coerce Google into deleting "videos produced by Islamist terrorist organizations or their supporters" from YouTube, and his apparent anger that they only removed videos that were not consistent with their terms of service,

While it is fortunate that Mr. Lieberman does not have the power to tell YouTube that it must remove videos, it is profoundly disturbing that an influential senator would even consider telling a media company to shut down constitutionally protected speech. The American Civil Liberties Union has warned that the “Homegrown Terrorism” bill and related efforts “could be a precursor to proposals to censor and regulate speech on the Internet.”

Not only do these efforts contradict fundamental American values, it is not clear if they would help fight terrorism. Even if YouTube pulled down every video Mr. Lieberman did not like, radical groups could post the same videos on their own Web sites. Trying to restrain the Internet is a game of “whack-a-mole” that cannot be won, says John Morris of the Center for Democracy and Technology. Having the videos on YouTube may even be a good thing, because it makes it easier for law enforcement officials, the media and the public to monitor the groups and their messages.

The Times seems to be missing the forest for the trees. The issue here probably isn't so much Lieberman's fear of terrorism. It's likely more a manifestation of Lieberman's ignorance of and contempt for the First Amendment.

Evolving Right-Wing Smears Against Obama

I can barely keep track... One day, Obama's a secret Muslim reared in a radical Islamic madrassa, and is plotting to take over the country. The next day, he's a wild-eyed black man enthralled by a radical preacher whose teachings "aren't Biblical". Now it seems he's a Christian, which means the Muslim world wants him dead. Really, that's the argument of Edward N. Luttwack in today's New York Times, where he was granted space for an editorial despite what appears to be a complete lack of credentials on religious matters, let alone Islamic law. (Insight into the flaws in Luttwack's interpretation of Islam may be found here and here.)

One of the glories of writing an editorial, of course, is that you're not fact-checked, but that doesn't stop various right-wing hacks and haters from trying to suggest that Luttwack's position has somehow been endorsed by the Times. The smear piece relates this history:

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

Perhaps "most Americans" understand that Obama is not a Muslim because he wasn't raised as a Muslim, has never been a Muslim, and... is a Christian. The phrasing here seems intended to suggest that Obama was once Muslim and converted to Christianity - that's consistent with a right-wing smear piece, but it's completely at odds with the facts. As for the "apostasy" claim, Luttwack claims,

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings.

For all adults? So in Luttwack's fevered imagination, when Obama was born and his parents chose not to raise him as a Muslim, the newborn baby Obama was an adult who chose not to be a Muslim? This is the best he can do to sustain his smear?

More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House.

Because in Luttwack's mind, Muslims are really, really stupid and thus, despite international coverage of the campaign and the "Rev. Wright" pseudo-scandal, have no idea that Obama is a Christian.

This smear is bizarre. First and foremost, who cares what the Muslim world thinks of Obama? Isn't "being hated by the Muslim world" a bragging point for G.W.? Isn't the notion that Islamic extremists will "fear" him a cornerstone of John McCain's campaign? Second, if the test of who we want for President is "hope that [the President] would decisively improve relations with the world’s Muslims", assuming the worst of Luttwack's smear piece to be true, how does that distinguish Obama from McCain? As for the possibility that there might be Islamic radicals who would like to kill the President, again the difference between McCain and Obama would be... what?

Meanwhile, in his increasingly loathsome manner, Joe Lieberman is advancing a related smear against Obama, suggesting that Hamas will be happy if he wins. (Where was Luttwack during Lieberman's Presidential run, to "warn" us that the Islamic world may not be thrilled with the idea of a President who is also an Orthodox Jew?) Yes, this is the same Joe Lieberman who solicited Obama's endorsement against Lamont, after losing the Democratic primary for his Senate seat. Perhaps eventually these attacks will become coherent, as if you combine Lieberman's smear with Luttwack's you're left with the near-psychotic notion that Hamas is eager for an Obama victory so that they can condemn him, refuse to cooperate with him, and try to kill him.

If you took all the neurons in Luttwack's head and banged them against all the neurons in Lieberman's head, would you generate enough energy to create a spark? Meanwhile, considering the origins of this particular smear, one wonders why the Times thought it was "fit to print".