Bits and Pieces
Bits and pieces is just some random thoughts about some of the events we are seeing swirl around us and that might give us some perspective and insight into our world and our perception of it. To Wit:
- Bernie Madoff and his Ponzi scheme should have been no surprise to anyone. Recently on PBS Masterpiece Theater they ran a wonderful production of Dickens’, Little Dorrit, which he wrote in 1855. One of the pivotal characters was Mr. Merdle, who everyone paid homage to as the great and wise investor who made money out of thin air. Of course his and all his investor’s houses came tumbling down when they discovered he was running a Ponzi scheme, paying off old investors with new investors investments. So with the history of this type of unscrupulous behavior so well chronicled in our literature, why were we surprised when what seemed too good to be true, turned out to be too good to be true? Maybe because most people don’t read anymore.
- The other night on the season finale of House, in one scene a doctor is in the operating room performing a critical and delicate surgery and the other doctor starts talking to him about his personal life and his problems. This kind of behavior is reflected in many of our TV dramas, NCIS comes immediately to mind. In the real world, it is becoming apparent that the commuter airline that crashed near Buffalo last winter was caused by pilot error and part of the problem may have been pilot distraction as the pilots were chit chatting during a critical phase of the flight. Now some might say this is why women should not be in the cockpit as though men don’t do this. But I would say this is a much more prevalent problem and it is simply a lack of professionalism and self-discipline. I thought television mistakenly portrayed this kind of chit-chat as some kind of steely eyed professionalism that allows you to multitask during critical times. But as real life is showing us, real expertise as a professional is to be totally focused on your task during critical phases of it.
- Charley Crist, Republican Governor of Florida has announced that he will run for the Florida Senate Seat. In announcing his bid he said, “The challenges we face are national issues. We have to understand that, and I want to serve where I can serve the people of my state the very best.” Gee, is that a Republican recognizing that the role the federal government plays is extremely important and instead of “states rights”, most problems will have to be solved on a national level? Could this be a shift in the Republican dogma of small government? I doubt it, just a shift to suit a personal agenda, a.k.a. Arlene Specter.
- Liz Cheney was on the airways trying to defend her father again. I actually felt sorry for her. She loves her Dad and is blinded by that love. Not so much different than anybody else’s daughter. But in this case she came up against Eugene Washington of the Washington Post, who is unafraid to challenge circular and sordid logic. Liz was saying that we did not do torture because we had legal memo’s that said it wasn’t torture. Eugene pointed out that if you follow this logic then any country can get lawyers to justify anything and there is no law. Poor Liz thinks these memos justified her Dad’s behavior when the reality is he went lawyer and memo shopping to get them to justify what he wanted to do anyway. The fact that these memo’s are now being totally discredited as legal justifications just doesn’t penetrate her wanting to defend her Dad. Somebody take these people off the air and put them out of our misery.
- Miss California has given an impassioned speech about her right to have her own views and not be attacked for them. But that wasn’t why she was at risk of losing her crown. She did pose semi-nude (I am taking this on faith because I am not allowed to Google her pictures on penalty of death) and starting work with political action groups against gays, which clearly was a violation of her contract. In addition, she seems to think her right to speak her mind should not be criticized by others who want to exercise their right to speak their minds. She seems a bit schizophrenic to me and a great recruit for the Republican Party. Then of course we have Donald Trump forgiving all sins. No surprise here, but if she were unattractive or only mildly attractive, do you suppose he would have cut her the same slack? If you are a woman watching this travesty, doesn’t it tell you everything you want to know about sexism?
Just another day where stop making sense is now a life style.
Joel_:
I found your analysis of liz Cheney completely unconvincing. You assume that Bush went into this thing saying… I really want to WATERBOARD… not any of hundreds of other available techniques for getting information… and then wrote a memo to justify the ONE THING he wanted to do. PLEASE.
Secondly, your argument is NO BETTER (or less circular) than Cheney’s. You don’t think waterboarding is right… because… YOU say so? It’s torture because that’s what YOUR moral sensibilities lead you to conclude? That’s not even an argument, it’s moral superiority loosely disguised as an argument. At least the Bush administration approaches this topic with arguments and with an eye to the law… everyone on the left seems to say that the Bush administration should be held accountable to a bunch of un-written, moral laws they can’t exactly pinpoint or can’t exactly explain… IT JUST IS THAT WAY. Righhhtt… because YOU say so. At least the bush administration had something more to back up their argument than moral superiority.
Just something to think about.
May 22, 2009, 8:10 amslightner:
Torture is wrong because I say so. Not really. There all those messy international laws and of course our own. Secondly, although beside the point, most interrogators will tell you it is ineffective, produces unreliable results, and in fact can produce any result you want. The SERE trainers in fact warned the Bush administrations that this was in fact the case and these methods were designed to produce false confusions, which of course came into play with our going to war in Iraq. So it is illegal, and yes, in my opinion immoral because if violates everything we based out Constitution on, you know that messy stuff like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, due process, the rights of individuals. Our whole government system is based upon limiting the reach of government, and torture violates everything that system stands for.
May 22, 2009, 10:27 amJoel_:
except… we have a bunch of memos that Obama WON’T release (despite his claims of openness and transparency… I guess it is only good to be transparent about stuff that benefits your administration, huh?). If these memos don’t support Cheny’s assertions, then why not release them? If they do support his assertions but are fradulently crafted (as you seem to assume elsewhere on your blog), why not release them but describe their flaws? Why NOT?
This is a really tough little cog in your wheel… but it’s not going to just go away. You can continue to assume that waterboarding never gives us valuable information… and ignore this little bit of evidence… or you could continue to believe that Cheney is SILL LYING. Which raises the question: why would Cheney lie about these memos and the effectiveness of waterboarding? He’s not running for anything anymore… he’s not in power anymore… and he could so easily be PROVEN TO BE A FRAUD!!!! WHY RISK BEING COMPLETLY MARGINALIZED over waterboarding. This leads me to believe that this technique DID work… and worked rather well.
I’m not going to argue with you over international law… from what I understand, terrorists are just like pirates… which is why Obama could order 3 of them to be snipered out of their boat without a hearing or without any constitutional protections. In other words… they don’t REALLY HAVE all these protections you wish they had. Did Obama abandon our “shared values” when he snipered those teenagers? Just curious how selective you are in your outrage here…
Finally, WOW! We have DESIGNED a method of interrogation to produce FALSE RESULTS…. the CIA DESIGNED them this way! WOW, Maybe Pelosi IS telling the truth after all!
May 25, 2009, 7:54 amslightner:
Well I will take a shot at this Joel. On the issue of memos that support Vice President Cheney’s claims of efficacy, remember that VP Cheney was the one who assured us of WMD and a connection to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, some of this obtain through torture later proven not true. If there are memos I don’t think it is President Obama who wants to keep them classified, but it is the CIA. I think they know if memos supporting the efficacy of torture come out, then pandora’s box is open to question their veracity and I am fairly certain that these were written specifically for an audience of one, just as the intelligence for WMD and Al-Qaeda in Iraq were carefully culled. But I am just guessing and I fully support and encourage turning it all over to the public. Sooner or later I think they will be out and we can continue this debate after we have been able to analyze them.
I don’t think Vice President Cheney is lying, I think he is deluded. He has to believe what he has to believe because otherwise he would have to accept the damage he has done to this country. I do have to question your idea that it worked very well when we know it produced false testimony in Colin Powells presentation to the U.N.. I also am fairly certain you are disregarding all of the arm services which rejected this approach to interrogation outright. Then of course there is the question that if it work so well, why did we have to use over 100 times on one detainee? I will remind you that the 2004 CIA inspector general’s investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from agrressive interrogation helped thwart any “specific imminent attacks.” FBI Director Robert Mueller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn’t think that the techniques disrupted any attacks. Finally the Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair said the information “was valuable in some instances”but the “there is no way of knowing wiether the sam information could have been obtained throu other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the worlkd, the damage they have doe to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essentioal to our national security.” These are no my words, but people in positions to know.
One of the fatal flaws in your logic is that if torture is so wonderful, why oh why did we not use it during past wars, heck why don’t we let our police torture. If the argument for its use rests on its effectiveness, then laws and moral principles are not necessary.
I will leave you with one last thought. Col Wilkerson, Colin Powers Chief of Staff when he was the Secretary of Defense, has told how the CIA misled and hid facts in their presentation to prepare Colin Power for his speech to the U.N. We will never know who is telling the truth about the Pelosi briefing, but based upon their history, I am siding with Nancy. And oh by the way Republican lawmaker Peter Hoekstra, a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, has released unclassified portions of the CIA inspector general’s report that he says, show the agency misled the Justice Department and Congress about the shoot down of a plane in 2001, and that CIA officers knew of and condoned violations of procedure. I don’t think any Democrat did their duty back in those early years, but on this one, I am siding with Nancy because the CIA has a history of covering their butts.
May 25, 2009, 1:40 pm