Brendan Nyhan

During an interview on NPR’s “On Point” tonight, David Savage, the Supreme Court reporter for the LA Times, described today’s Supreme Court ruling against Grokster and Streamcast, the owner of Morpheus, as pertaining to “websites” that encourage copyright infringement. Um, David — Grokster and Morpheus are peer-to-peer file sharing services, not websites.

Bob Somerby is right to ridicule the insipid claim that Karl Rove was talking about liberals, not Democrats, during his speech to the New York Conservative Club. But he gets one thing wrong in quoting this exchange from yesterday’s edition of Fox News Sunday:

BILL KRISTOL: Look, what Karl Rove said, what outraged people is when he said, “Al Jazeera is broadcasting the words of Senator Durbin, certainly putting America’s men and women in uniform in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.” He is saying — I mean, that is a very tough and I think inaccurate and — it’s just a bad statement to make.

BRIT HUME: But that’s not what —

KRISTOL: I’m sorry, that is. “No more needs to be said –”

HUME: Of course it’s not.

KRISTOL: Twenty percent — 20 to 25 percent of the American people identify themselves as liberals. Are they not patriots, most of them? That is what Karl Rove is saying? “No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals?”

HUME: I think it’s — your indignation about that is interesting. It has very little if anything to do with what liberals were reacting to.

Somerby then added:

But as web-readers know, liberals were responding to that statement all week! Only a consummate hack like Hume could just keep denying the obvious.

But here’s the rest of Hume’s statement, which Somerby omitted (continuing directly from above):

HUME: Here is what actually happened. He made this talk in front of — with almost no coverage in front of the Conservative Party meeting in New York. A tiny little cable operation, which serves New York City, called New York One, was the only news organization there.

A single sound bite from that speech is what was extracted, and it was not the one you’re talking about. It was the one about the difference in the reaction to 9/11 that was — and that was the whole source of the controversy.

I doubt very seriously if any of those senators reacting on Capitol Hill knew the full context of what he said. If they had, they would’ve known he was talking about moveon.org.

Now, again the point that Rove was only talking about MoveOn.org and Michael Moore is ridiculous. But Hume is right that almost no one has addressed Rove’s suggestion that liberals want to put US troops in danger — it has been largely ignored by both the press and the Democrats who have criticized Rove.

PS Props to Bill Kristol for noting the vicious and unfair implications of Rove’s statement.

Update 6/27: Video of the exchange is available here.

Update 6/28: Media Matters tracks people repeating the “liberals, not Democrats” line here.

Just saw two things you won’t see anywhere else in North Carolina:
-A giant abacus sculpture with basketballs instead of beads
-A Kucinich 2008 bumper sticker

Only in Chapel Hill!

Via Gawker, check out the speculation of an “insider” about the family values of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey:

Another insider said: “If Nick and Jessica were to get divorced, it would be after their next ABC special in the fall. Contractually, they have to do the special and they are both professionals.” A Simpson rep denied all.

Tom DeLay would be proud!

Hanna Rosin has published a fascinating article in The New Yorker on Patrick Henry College, a small Christian school in Virginia that is becoming a breeding ground for the next generation of Republican operatives.

One scene that struck me took place in a class on the presidency that Rosin observed:

[Professor Robert] Stacey moved on to Machiavelli’s principle that politics is governed by conspiracies and lies. “Come on, we know politicians lie,” he began. “This is a bit sensitive. How about our beloved George W. Bush? Does he deceive us with what he says in public? Does he lie?”

The students, who had been fully engaged on the subject of Machiavelli and Waco, were silent. Bush has been President since they were teen-agers, and the school newspaper’s editorials never deviate from the White House position. Finally, one student said, “No, I don’t think so.”

Stacey didn’t say anything. After a pause, the student said, “I mean, it would be nice if he didn’t.”

I’m sad that so many students there seem to have never considered the possibility that Bush is dishonest, but encouraged that Stacey is pushing them to think about it. I guess it’s time to put All the President’s Spin on the syllabus! I emailed Stacey to offer him a free copy; hopefully he’ll take me up on it.

This issue also gets at a very important larger distinction between conservative principles and GOP propaganda. I have no problem with a school that takes a conservative (or liberal) approach to education as long as it teaches its students to think critically about both sides. Given the close ties between Patrick Henry and the Republican establishment, it’s especially important to make sure students aren’t just being taught to march in lockstep behind George W. Bush and Tom DeLay.

Dana Milbank points out in the Washington Post today that the controversy over Karl Rove’s attack on liberals has overshadowed Rep. Deb Pryce’s nearly identical suggestion that Democrats are helping terrorists by criticizing the government.

In a press release, Pryce said, “[W]hat we’ve seen from Democrat leaders is a growing pattern of jumping at any chance to point the finger at our own troops — bending over backwards to promote the interests of terror-camp detainees while dragging our military’s honored reputation through the mud.” She later added, “It’s a sad day when — as Members of Congress — we have to remind our colleagues that they were sent to Washington to represent the best interest of Americans — not foreign criminals, not would-be terrorists.” And she also said that “we cannot excuse what has become a pattern on the part of Democrat leaders of tearing down the efforts of our troops and providing fodder for our enemies.” In addition, the press release accused Democratic leaders of “a growing pattern of demoralizing U.S. troops to serve the interests of prison-camp detainees.”

When combined with Rove’s comments and Rep. Joe Wilson’s statement that Democratic leaders are “conducting guerrilla warfare on American troops,” there is a clear pattern of Republican demagoguery of the sort we haven’t seen since September 2004, when President Bush and other Republicans suggested that John Kerry and other Democrats were emboldening the enemy and undermining US troops.

Why are so many reporters ignoring the worst thing that Karl Rove said?

During his speech to the New York Conservative Club, Rove attacked liberals for their response to 9/11. Most media coverage has focused on the following two passages:

But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war. Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban.

…Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies. Conservatives see the United States as a great nation involved in a noble cause of self-defense. Liberals are concerned with what our enemies will think of us and whether every government approves of our actions.

Though Rove mentions MoveOn.org and Michael Moore and so forth, this is, of course, a smear that distorts the views expressed by the vast majority of liberals after 9/11, both among the public and elites.

The problem, however, is that the controversy has focused on these comments, rather than Rove’s most offensive remarks:

Has there ever been a more revealing moment than this year. when the Democratic senator, Democrat Richard Durbin, speaking on the Senate floor, compared what Americans have done to prisoners in our control in Guantanamo with what was done by Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot — three of the most brutal and malevolent figures of the 20th century?

Let me put in this in really simple terms. Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Sen. Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.

This is one of the worst examples to date in the long history of attacks on dissent since 9/11 (which includes egregious recent comments by Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh [MP3 audio], and Rep. Joe Wilson). Rove didn’t just say that liberals had the wrong response to 9/11; he used Durbin’s comments to suggest that liberals who criticize the government are intentionally endangering US troops. These are ugly words with dangerous implications in a free society.

However, a number of major media outlets reported the “offer therapy” passage but excluded the “motives” passage: The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Times, Reuters, New York Newsday, The Associated Press (6/23 AM story) and The New York Times (6/24 story). In fact, only a handful of major outlets covered the “motives” quote: The Boston Globe, The New York Times (6/23 story), The Washington Post and the Associated Press (6/23 mid-day and PM stories). And two of the four major outlets that initially covered the “motives” passage dropped it in later coverage (the Times and AP).

In addition, no one asked White House spokesperson Scott McClellan about Rove’s “motives” comment during press briefings on Thursday and Friday even though it would seem relevant when McClellan claimed that Rove “was talking about the different philosophies and our different approaches when it comes to winning the war on terrorism” (my italics). Of course, Rove suggested precisely the opposite — that liberals are intentionally endangering US troops and hurting the country’s efforts in the war on terrorism. But no reporter saw fit to bring this up.

The lack of attention to the “motives” comment is partially the fault of Democrats, who primarily criticized Rove’s comments about “therapy” instead. But regardless of what the opposition does, journalists have a responsibility to report when the President’s top adviser says that liberals are intentionally putting troops in danger.

When did Andrew Sullivan become such a stickler for rhetorical nuance?

After defending Dick Durbin, he’s now attacking Karl Rove’s outrageous suggestion that liberals want to put US troops in greater danger (more on Rove soon):

It seems to me that Karl Rove’s sickening generalization about “liberals” in the war on terror is revealing in ways not obviously apparent. Sure, there were some on the hard left who really did jump to blame America for the evil perpetrated by the monsters of 9/11. I took names at the time. But all “liberals”? The New Republic? Joe Lieberman? Hitch? Paul Berman? The Washington Post editorial page? Tom Friedman? Almost every Democrat in the Congress who endorsed the war in Afghanistan?

He later criticized Rove more specifically for overgeneralizing:

What Rove was doing, they say, is citing hard-left types like Michael Moore and Moveon.org and Kucinich and the like. He doesn’t mean all mainstream liberals. But this is too clever by half. The rubric Rove used was the “conservative-liberal” rubric, in which the entire polity is bifurcated into one type or the other. All non-liberals are, in Rove’s rubric, conservatives; and all non-conservatives are liberals. This is in keeping with the very familiar electoral tactic of describing even moderate or centrist Democrats as “liberals” with as broad a brush as possible. Rove, in other words, cannot have it both ways. He cannot both use the word liberal to describe everyone who is not a Republican and then, in other contexts, say he means it only for the hard left. Rove is a smart guy. He picked his words carefully. A simple addition of the word “some” would have rendered his comments completely inoffensive. But he left that qualifier out. For a reason.

Note that even as Sullivan criticizes Rove, he suggests that Rove’s comments would be “completely inoffensive” had the presidential adviser said “some liberals” want to put US troops in danger instead of just “liberals.”

I guess you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Sullivan, of course, said much the same thing as Rove in the days after 9/11. Here’s what I wrote on Sept. 20, 2001:

Amongst the many commentators attacking leftist opponents of the “war on terrorism”, Andrew Sullivan stands out for his attacks on a putative “fifth column”.

The conservative pundit first wrote that “[t]he decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead – and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column” (part one, part two). Then, he wrote this: “[W]e might as well be aware of the enemy within the West itself – a paralyzing, pseudo-clever, morally nihilist fifth column that will surely ramp up its hatred in the days and months ahead.”

As Ben noted, this is an irrational suggestion that American leftists will aid terrorists, and a tactical attempt to equate dissent with aid.

Not too many subtle distinctions there. And when Sullivan tried to defend himself, he again failed to distinguish between the vast majority of opponents of a military response to 9/11, who did not wish harm on the US, and the tiny minority that did so. Instead, he again suggested that all critics of a military response were aiding the enemy: “I have no reason to believe that even those sharp critics of this war would actually aid and abet the enemy in any more tangible ways than they have done already” (emphasis mine).

At a larger level, Sullivan’s attacks on Rove and the critics of Durbin reminds me of the growing number of conservative pundits distancing themselves from Ed Klein’s loathsome Hillary Clinton biography, including Bill O’Reilly, John Podhoretz and Peggy Noonan. Apparently even the most irresponsible pundits have their limits!

Update 6/26: James Taranto of Opinion Journal’s Best of the Web ran a couple of amusing items on Sullivan’s inconsistencies last week — see here and here (make sure to scroll down).

Following up on my collection of amusing spam names like “Antifreeze B. Chi,” here’s a spam or worm email I just got with some political content:

Hello, handsome!

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Indeed.

Fred Becker of Wonkette notes George W. Bush lording his office over Samuel W. Bodman, his PhD-holding Secretary of Energy, yesterday:

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate the Secretary of Energy joining me today. He’s a good man, he knows a lot about the subject, you’ll be pleased to hear. I was teasing him — he taught at MIT, and — do you have a PhD?

SECRETARY BODMAN: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, a PhD. (Laughter.) Now I want you to pay careful attention to this — he’s the PhD, and I’m the C student, but notice who is the advisor and who is the President.

You think someone’s a little insecure? Sure seems like it — Bush actually used the same line on Andrew Biggs, one of his Social Security officials, back in February:

THE PRESIDENT: Tell them whether or not we got a problem or not,
from your perspective.

DR. BIGGS: Put simply, we do, in fact, have a problem.

THE PRESIDENT: By the way, this guy — PhD. See, I was a C
student. (Laughter.) He’s a PhD, so he’s probably got a little more
credibility. I do think it’s interesting and should be heartening for
all C students out there, notice who’s the President and who’s the
advisor. (Laughter and applause.) All right, Andrew, get going.
(Applause.) Andrew’s got a good sense of humor.

Bush also pulled rank in March on Jeff Brown, a professor:

I’ve asked Jeff Brown to join me. He is a professor. He can tell
you where — where do you profess? (Laughter.)

DR. BROWN: I have a PhD in economics, and I teach at a business
school.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. It’s an interesting lesson here, by the way.
He’s an advisor. Now, he is the PhD, and I am a C-student — or was a
C-student. Now, what’s that tell you? (Laughter and applause.) All
you C-students at Auburn, don’t give up. (Laughter and applause.)

What it tells me is that some people pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and others were the son of the president of the United States.

Given Bush’s frequent need to mock experts with graduate degrees, it’s no wonder his administration has a pathological aversion to expert advice. After all, who’s the president?

Update 6/23: Welcome Wonkette readers!