The Commentariat -- June 6, 2014

Internal links, photo removed.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama came together with a parade of kings and queens and prime ministers to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing that sent young men storming onto the forbidding beaches of northern France amid a hail of fire in perhaps the greatest invasion in human history":

"... what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa." -- Charles Wilson, GM President & U.S. Secretary of Defense, Eisenhower administration ...

... Hillary Stout, et al., of the New York Times: "General Motors executives let slip for a decade "opportunities ... to rectify a safety problem that was detected even before the first of the cars came on the market, according to an internal investigation of G.M.'s handling of the ignition switch issue. The report, which the company on Thursday turned over to federal regulators and lawmakers, is a tale of nonchalance, ignorance and incompetence with tragic consequences. The 325-page document provides new details to help fill in a chronology of inaction that has been taking shape in investigations by federal regulators, lawmakers and law-enforcement officials." The report is here. ...

... Dominick Rushe of the Guardian: "General Motors' fatal delay in recalling cars with faulty ignition switches was caused by a 'pattern of incompetence and neglect', chief executive Mary Barra said Thursday. Announcing the findings of an internal report, Barra said she had fired 15 people and disciplined another five for the decade-long delay that has been linked to at least 13 fatal crashes and eventually led to the recall of 2.6m Chevrolet Cobalts, Saturn Ions and other models equipped with faulty ignition switches."

Noam Levey of the Los Angeles Times: "Sylvia Mathews Burwell sailed to confirmation Thursday as President Obama's next Secretary of Health and Human Services, picking up bipartisan support in the Senate despite Republicans' ongoing opposition to the Affordable Care Act. Twenty-four Republicans joined 52 Democrats and two Independents in backing Burwell...."

Charlie Savage & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "A classified military report detailing the Army's investigation into the disappearance of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in June 2009 says that he had wandered away from assigned areas before -- both at a training range in California and at his remote outpost in Afghanistan -- and then returned, according to people briefed on it. The roughly 35-page report, completed two months after Sergeant Bergdahl left his unit, concludes that he most likely walked away of his own free will from his outpost in the dark of night, and it criticized lax security practices and poor discipline in his unit. But it stops short of concluding that there is solid evidence that Sergeant Bergdahl, then a private, intended to permanently desert." ...

... Kimberly Dozier of the Daily Beast: "The Pentagon rejected the idea of a rescue mission for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl because he was being moved so often by his Taliban captors that U.S. special operators would have had to hit up to a dozen possible hideouts inside Pakistan at once in order to have a chance at rescuing him. That's according to U.S. officials, who also say the Obama administration did not want to risk the political fallout in Pakistan...." ...

... Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "The five senior Taliban leaders released to Qatar after years of detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are subject to strict bans on militant incitement or fundraising that might pose a danger to the United States, according to people familiar with the negotiations that freed American prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl. The Afghans are also under a one-year travel ban insisted upon by Washington despite a Taliban request that the men be allowed to make the hajj, Muslims' annual pilgrimage to nearby Saudi Arabia." ...

... BUT Massimo Calabresi of Time: "The Last Time Qatar Promised To Watch A Gitmo Prisoner, He Walked." ...

... Aryn Baker of Time reports on the Taliban's POV about the exchange. ...

... David Fahrenthold & Jaime Fuller of the Washington Post: Several Congressional conservatives have changed their minds this week about Bowe Bergdahl's retrieval. "First, they demanded that President Obama get Bergdahl back. Then, when the soldier was released, they blasted Obama for giving up too much to get him. Those conservatives have been mocked by Democrats and cable-news talkers, who accuse them of playing politics. 'It is clear they are worried his release could be seen as a victory for President Obama,' Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said on the Senate floor Wednesday." ...

     ... CW: Love this: "Just after Bergdahl's release, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) released a statement that said: 'Our prayers have been answered and we offer our thanks for the perseverance of the family and the many Idahoans who have kept this vigil. We appreciate the men and women who made this release possible.' [Huh. Wonder if President Obama is among those "who made this release possible."] Five days later, Crapo expressed doubts about the exchange, telling a local news outlet: 'I believe that is a problem ... that could potentially result in a problem for our national security.'" ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Earlier [Thursday], three different members of Congress -- two Republicans and a Democrat -- deleted their tweets of support for Bergdahl's release." ...

... Tom Kludt of TPM: "Back in 2009, not long after Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was taken prisoner in Afghanistan, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA) signed onto a letter along with 22 other members of Congress to denounce a Fox News analyst who described the soldier as a deserter. But this week, after President Obama negotiated an exchange to get Bergdahl back, Hunter found himself on Fox News making the same accusations he once found so detestable." ...

... ** New York Times Editors: "The last few days have made clearer than ever that there is no action the Obama administration can take -- not even the release of a possibly troubled American soldier from captivity -- that cannot be used for political purposes by his opponents." Includes great examples of Republican hypocrisy on Bergdahl's release. ...

An OB/Gyn Weighs in on Bergdahl's Medical Condition. Dana Bash of CNN (in a CNN Exclusive!): "Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, who is a also a physician, told CNN he is convinced that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was drugged in the so-called 'proof of life' video shown to senators during a closed briefing Wednesday.... 'Now, his mental health is probably not, and his psychological health, but his physical health is fine,' said Coburn." ...

     ... Digby assesses Dr. Coburn's creds. Hilarious. ...

... CW: Even though David Brooks doesn't write his column's headlines, I felt compelled to read a Brooks column with the title "President Obama Was Right." It turns out I agree with much of Brooks's rationale on the Bergdahl release, except, um, for his central premise: that retrieving Bergdahl was essential to maintaining "national solidarity." In my opinion, the main reason for retrieving Bergdahl, assuming he did desert (and I don't know that he did), was a conservative one: continuity of policy. The U.S. military has long had a policy of "leave no soldier behind." To break that policy, based on unsubstantiated claims by a handful of Bergdahl's fellow soldiers, would be an insupportable breach of precedent. It's D-Day. Maybe conservatives could watch "Saving Private Ryan." ...

     ... UPDATE: William Saletan of Slate has more on the Armed Forces Code of Conduct, published 50 years ago, which guarantees that "the government will use every practical means to contact, support and gain release for you and for all other prisoners of war." Saletan adds, "We can't just say it. We have to mean it, even when it carries a price."

     ... Steve M.: "Brooks ... never acknowledges why the recovery of Bowe Bergdahl is the subject of howling rage. It's his allies. On Fox, on talk radio, in the halls of Congress, they divide America every hour of every day." Also, Steve catches Brooks in a ridiculous falsehood -- Brooks's claim that "the Obama administration can be faulted for not at least trying to use the language of communal solidarity to explain this decision." ...

... AND, for comic relief, Morning Joe & Tuck Chodd get in a shouting match over Bob Bergdahl, Bowe's father. Bill Kristol, BTW, thinks Joe is presidential material.

AP: "An additional 18 veterans in the Phoenix area whose names were kept off an official electronic Veterans Affairs appointment list have died, the agency's acting secretary said Thursday.... Acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson said he does not know whether the 18 new deaths were related to long waiting times for appointments but said they were in addition to the 17 reported last month by the VA's inspector general. The announcement of the deaths came as senior senators reached agreement Thursday on the framework for a bipartisan bill making it easier for veterans to get health care outside VA hospitals and clinics."

David Ignatius of the Washington Post: "As the intelligence community continues its assessment of the damage caused by Edward Snowden's leaks of secret programs, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says it appears the impact may be less than once feared because 'it doesn't look like he [Snowden] took as much' as first thought. 'We're still investigating, but we think that a lot of what he looked at, he couldn't pull down,' Clapper said in a rare interview at his headquarters Tuesday. 'Some things we thought he got he apparently didn't.' Although somewhat less than expected, the damage is still 'profound,' he said." ...

... Juliette Garfield of the Guardian: "Vodafone, one of the world's largest mobile phone groups, has revealed the existence of secret wires that allow government agencies to listen to all conversations on its networks, saying they are widely used in some of the 29 countries in which it operates in Europe and beyond."

AFP: "Hillary Clinton favoured arming Syria's rebels early in the country's civil war but was overruled by Barack Obama, the former secretary of state said in her new memoir, according to CBS News." ...

     ... UPDATE: Here's the CBS News story, which didn't show up on a site search earlier this morning. ...

Tim Egan assesses the Tea Party's "accomplishments": "So, no legislation. A shutdown that cost billions. A near-default that almost threw the United States back into recession. What else? Oh, science denial. Evolution, climate change, medicine -- all a hoax, in one form or another. But the Tea Party does have something to show for its five years of annoyance: Ted Cruz, senator from Texas." ...

... UNLIKE Ted Cruz, Paul Krugman understands the message of "Green Eggs & Ham": "The new carbon policy ... is supposed to be the beginning, not the end, a domino that, once pushed over, should start a chain reaction that leads, finally, to global steps to limit climate change. Do we know that it will work? Of course not. But it's vital that we try."

Beyond the Beltway

Paul Weber & Will Weissert of the AP: "The Texas Republican Party would endorse psychological treatment that seeks to turn gay people straight under a new platform partly aimed at rebuking laws in California and New Jersey that ban so-called 'reparative therapy' on minors. A push to include the new anti-gay language survived a key vote late Thursday in Fort Worth at the Texas Republican Convention where, across the street, tea party star U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz fired up attendees at a rally to defend marriage as between a man and a woman." ...

     ... CW: So it's okay to treat kids who have absolutely nothing wrong with them, but a teenaged girl who is actually but accidentally pregnant -- a well-known medical condition -- is out of luck.

Judicial Activism, Florida-Style. Ralphie Aversa of Yahoo! News: "A Florida judge is stepping down from the bench after a courtroom incident in which he allegedly punched an attorney. Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Chief Judge John M. Harris said in a statement Tuesday that Judge John Murphy 'has agreed to seek anger management counseling and treatment during a temporary leave of absence.' On Monday, video of an altercation between Judge Murphy and Assistant Public Defender Andrew Weinstock went viral online."

Presidential Race 2016

Bruce Schreiner of the AP: "Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that a state law preventing candidates from having their names appear more than once on the ballot won't deter him from staging dual campaigns for Senate re-election and president -- if he decides to run for the White House in 2016.... Kentucky lawmakers considered legislation this year that would have relieved Paul from the potential quandary. The GOP-led state Senate passed a bill that would have revised the ballot law so as not to apply to candidates running for president or vice president. The measure died in the Democratic-run House. Paul's camp maintains that states don't have authority to restrict ballot access for federal elections. A Republican with considerable tea party support, Paul maintains that federal law governs federal elections." (Emphasis added.) ...

... CW: States' Rights Forever. Except when inconvenient.

News Ledes

Bloomberg News: "Employers added 217,000 jobs in May to push U.S. payrolls past their pre-recession peak and the jobless rate held at an almost six-year low as the economy gained traction. The advance was broad-based and followed a 282,000 gain in April, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington.... Unemployment in May was unchanged at 6.3 percent."

AP: "Police say a Seattle Pacific University student on Thursday disarmed a lone gunman who entered a building and shot four people. A hospital spokeswoman says one man has died and three other people are injured, one critically." ...

     ... An UPDATED AP story, naming the alleged gunman, is here.

AP: "A man suspected in the shooting deaths of three Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the wounding of two others in a rare case of gun violence in eastern Canada was arrested early Friday, police said."

AP: "An American tourist has been detained in North Korea for allegedly committing an unspecified crime, the country's official news agency reported Friday."

I Fall to Pieces

In case you haven't noticed, my efforts here have become more and more abbreviated. I'm working under terrific time constraints, not much helped by the fact that my Internet connection is not. I hope that beginning about a week from now, I'll begin doing a better job. In the meantime, I'm having an awful time. My latest catastrophe is comical -- or at least I'll think so in retrospect -- but right now feels extremely consequential.

Meanwhile, the comments to Reality Chex have been a great help -- not just the links some of you have provided, which are much appreciated -- but the jokes!

Yesterday, a realtor came to my house. He noticed the chop saw on the porch & said, "Oh, I see you have someone helping you with the fixing-up." "No," sez I, "That's my chopsaw. I was installing baseboard in the dining room." Nonetheless, as a feminist, I must say that there are times it is essential to have a man around the house. Which I don't. I need a fella today.

Also, the people at McDonalds are signing Christian songs this morning. Lovely. Maybe we need some swell atheist hymns, so I could interrupt a la "Casablanca":

The Commentariat -- June 5, 2014

Internal links removed.

Michael Shear & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "White House officials failed Wednesday night to quell rising anger and frustration in both parties on Capitol Hill after a senators-only classified briefing about President Obama's decision to free five Taliban prisoners in return for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who military officials say walked off his base in Afghanistan five years ago. Senior defense, diplomatic and intelligence officials showed lawmakers a 90-second, classified video of Mr. Bergdahl in January that officials said raised alarms about his health and spurred action, according to several members who attended. The video showed Mr. Bergdahl distraught, incoherent and in overall very poor shape, according to the descriptions of several senators." ...

... Guardian: The town of Hailey, Idaho, has cancelled its planned June 28 celebration of Bergdahl's release "amid allegations that Sgt Bowe Bergdahl had deserted his post and fears about the security implications of protesters and supporters who had promised to turn up." ...

... Bergdahl as Metaphor. Alex Berenson in a New York Times op-ed: "The White House clearly erred by pretending that Sergeant Bergdahl was an ordinary prisoner of war and that his return would be cause for unalloyed celebration. It should have brought him home as quietly as possible, with no fanfare. Now I don't see how the Pentagon can avoid re-examining what happened on June 30, 2009.... But the anger and confusion that his release has generated seems somehow fitting, a messy and inconclusive end to a war that went on far too long without a clear purpose after the rout of Al Qaeda." ...

... A Daily Kos contributor checks out the Way Back Machine & finds a boatload of winger commentary calling for the retrieval of Bowe Bergdahl & criticizing President Obama & Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for not bringing him back "using all means available." Now the usual suspects are of course calling for Obama's head. It works like this: if Obama doesn't do X, it's a travesty & he's a weakling; if he does something -- IMPEACHMENT! Thanks to reader Bonita for this essential link. ...

The mission to bring our missing Soldiers home is one that will never end. It's important that we make every effort to bring this captured Soldier home to his family. -- Sen. Jim Inhofe, June 2013

Releasing dangerous terrorists from Guantanamo is all part of the President's focus as he looks to solidify his legacy in these last two years of office.... He is willing to compromise our national security and our military members in harms way to get one step closer to closing Guantanamo. -- Sen. Jim Inhofe, Time column, June 5, 2014

... Adam Weinstein of Gawker reproduces the "reassessmennts" of a parade of tweetin' hypocrites. Weinstein got his stuff from Matt Binder. ...

... Dana Milbank: Right Wing World's Office of Scandals & Conspiracies is working overtime to find the multitude of links between the Bergdahl & Benghazi "scandals." "Bergdahl and Benghazi both begin with the letter 'B,' and although Afghanistan is in Asia and Libya is in Africa, both continents begin with the letter 'A.'" ...

... IMPEACHMENT! Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned Wednesday that Republican lawmakers would call for President Obama's impeachment if he released more prisoners from Guantanamo Bay without congressional approval. Republicans worry Obama may try to shut down the prison camp unilaterally after congressional opposition has repeatedly stymied efforts to pass legislation to close it." ...

... Emily Bazelon of Slate: "Obama promised to close Guantánamo. Why is he releasing dangerous detainees and ignoring the rest?"...

... CW: Don't know what all the fuss is about. Gitmo is like a resort. Especially compared to Illinois.

Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post recounts the incredible Senate confirmation hearings testimony of Michael Boggs, one of President Obama's nominees to the federal bench. Read the whole column, including the last two grafs. CW: I don't think you'd buy a used car from this guy, much less expect him to conduct a fair trial.

Juergen Baetz & John-Thor Dahlburg of the AP: "Russian President Vladimir Putin was kept out of Wednesday's summit of world leaders but dominated the meeting as President Barack Obama and his counterparts from the G-7 group of major economies sought the Kremlin chief's renewed cooperation to end the Ukraine crisis."

"A Scandal in Search of a Victim." Michael Cohen, former Guardian columnist, in Yahoo! News: In his NBC interview last week, Edward Snowden "asked: If the U.S. government 'can't show a single individual who's been harmed in any way by this reporting, is it really so grave?' This was one of the interview's most unintentionally revealing moments because, while the agency's domestic data gathering raises serious privacy concerns, Snowden's question can be turned back on him. Can he point to a single American who's been harmed by the NSA's actions? One of the more striking takeaways from a year of stories about the NSA is that they have turned up no evidence to suggest that Americans' privacy rights are being systematically violated or that NSA-collected metadata is being used to target political enemies. None."

Annals of Journalism, Ctd.

** "Iraq Everlasting." Frank Rich on a novel by Michael Hastings titled The Last Magazine, to be published posthumously. Hastings -- and Rich -- skewer the so-called liberal journalist whose Iraq War boosterism included deriding the few prominent writers who opposed the war. Thanks to MAG for the link.

Michael Hastings has never served his country the way [Gen. Stanley] McChrystal has. -- Lara Logan of CBS "News"

We now know that Hastings served both his country and profession with more honor than Logan, who later maimed her own career and '60 Minutes' by perpetrating a Benghazi hoax. -- Frank Rich ...

... Hadas Gold of Politico: "Lara Logan is officially back to work at '60 Minutes' after a seven-month leave of absence, CBS News spokesperson Sonya McNair confirmed." ...

... Update: Charles Pierce reckons what with the Bergdahl & Benghazi "scandals" warming up, this is a mighty good time to put Logan back to work making up stuff. ...

... Driftglass sez "I Told You So."

Katie McDonough of Salon: "For all of his talk of giving feminists credit for their work, [New York Times abstinence columnist Ross] Douthat is not interested in having a serious conversation about misogyny or male sexual entitlement. The norms he clings to rest too heavily on both. He just dresses this position up with lots of appeals to good faith and the search for common ground. Because maybe if you say feminists are sometimes right about some things enough, no one will notice that you've spent the rest of your column making the exact opposite point."

More Fake Journalism. Joe Coscarelli of New York: MoDo's mojo tour guide warned her about edible weed. "'She got the warning,' Matt Brown told the Denver Post's Cannabist blog. 'She did what all the reporters did. She listened. She bought some samples -- I don't remember what exactly. Me and the owner of the dispensary we were at and the assistant manager and the budtender talked with her for 45 minutes at the shop.'"

A Little Bit of Americana. "Openly Racist" in New York -- and proud of it. With video.

Senate Races

If Mississippi did what the tea party claims they want ... we would become a Third World country, quickly. We depend on the federal government to help us build our highways. We depend on the federal government to fund our hospitals, our health-care system. We depend on the federal government to help us educate our students on every level.... [I was born in a hospital that] wasn't built by the taxpayers of Mississippi, it was built with federal money that was collected from taxpayers in New York and Chicago and L.A. and San Francisco. -- Rickey Cole, Mississippi Democratic party chair ...

... Gail Collins: "Voters dealt a stunning rebuke to their courtly Republican senator, Thad Cochran, who is famous for his ability to direct federal cash in Mississippi's direction.... Now he's headed for a messy runoff with a fiery state legislator who opened his campaign by announcing: 'For too long we've been addicted to federal monies.' ... Federal spending accounts for 46 percent of all the state's revenue: defense contracts, Social Security, farm aid, highway building, you name it.... One thing the Mississippi Republican establishment and the Tea Party seem to agree on is that you're not supposed to remind people that their state is way more dependent on Washington than the average food stamp recipient."

Joni Ernst, the Dirty Water Candidate. David Firestone of the New York Times: "Joni Ernst, the winner of the Iowa Senate Republican primary on Tuesday, has a briefcase full of the usual shopworn, hard-right policies.... But one of her positions ... demonstrates a particularly pernicious and little-known crusade of the modern Republican Party: she opposes the Clean Water Act. She called it one of the most damaging laws for business.... Iowa's waterways are notoriously dirty, the result of runoffs from vast livestock operations and crop fertilizer."

Presidential Race 2016

I know I have a decision to make. But part of what I've been thinking about, is everything I'm interested in and everything I enjoy doing -- and with the extra added joy of 'I'm about to become a grandmother,' I want to live in the moment. At the same time I am concerned about what I see happening in the country and in the world. -- Hillary Clinton, to People magazine ...

... AFP: Renowned feminist "Vladimir Putin waded into US politics Wednesday describing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- and possible 2016 presidential candidate -- as 'weak' in some sarcastic comments about women. 'But maybe weakness is not the worst quality for a woman,'" he said.

The Sporting News

Margaret Hartmann of New York: "On Wednesday [Donald Sterling], the racist Los Angeles Clippers owner, agreed to drop his lawsuit against the NBA and allow the team to be sold to former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer for $2 billion. Sterling's attorney, Maxwell Blecher, said he 'has made an agreement with the NBA to resolve all their differences,' so it appears that Sterling will not be sued or fined $2.5 million by the league (though he's still banned for life).

News Ledes

New York Times: "The European Central Bank cut its benchmark interest rate to a record low on Thursday and, in an unprecedented attempt to stimulate the euro zone economy, said it would begin charging interest on deposits held by the bank. The so-called negative deposit rate has never been tried on such a large scale and is a bid to push down the value of the euro and encourage banks to invest excess cash rather than hoarding it in central bank vaults."

Washington Post: Chester "Nez, the last of 29 Navajo 'code talkers,' died Wednesday. He was 93."

New York Times: "The government [of Ireland] and the police are coming under increasing pressure to open an investigation into allegations that a Roman Catholic religious order secretly buried up to 796 babies and toddlers born to unmarried mothers in a septic tank over several decades. Speaking in the Irish Parliament on Wednesday, the minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Charlie Flanagan, called the discovery of what is described as an unmarked grave as 'deeply disturbing and a shocking reminder of a darker past in Ireland when our children were not cherished as they should have been.'"