The Commentariat -- December 1

Politico: "House Republicans will scrap the committee set up by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to investigate global warming, the panel’s top Republican announced Wednesday. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) made official what many had already expected — the GOP majority will axe the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming...."

Bloomberg News: "The Federal Reserve, under orders from Congress, today named the counterparties of about 21,000 transactions from $3.3 trillion in aid provided to stem the worst financial panic since the Great Depression." ...

New York Times: "The Obama administration is rescinding its decision to expand offshore oil exploration into the eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic Coast because of the BP oil spill, administration officials said Tuesday."

President Obama meets with Gen. Colin Powell:

Bruce Bartlett of Capital Gains & Games on an "important" economic speech by Republican Rep. Mike Pence, who is likely to run for governor of Indiana: "Pence's speech ... was a hackneyed rehash of every simplistic idea ever floated on Larry Kudlow's TV show, which appears to be the only source of information Pence has on the economy. I don't know how else to explain his obsession with inflation, a strong dollar, Fed bashing, tax cuts and the gold standard."

Sen. Chris Dodd sings his swan song:

Politics as Criminal Exercise. Michael Scherer of Time on the Tom DeLay verdict: "In Washington, it is widely assumed that the difference between bribery and proper business practices is not being stupid: Don't write down any evidence of a quid pro quo. Always maintain plausible deniability. Always maintain that financial backscratching is a result of deep respect, mutual admiration and altruism, not transactional value."

Shailagh Murray & Perry Bacon of the Washington Post on yesterday White House meeting with Congressional leaders: "... according to people in the room, both sides engaged in the kind of cross-party dealmaking that seems to have faded away in today's Washington. The participants emerged smiling and with a loose framework - though they did not outline it publicly - that could result in the temporary extension of all the tax cuts, as well as the ratification of a nuclear arms treaty with Russia, the continuation of unemployment benefits and funding for government operations into next year." ...

... Dana Milbank was less impressed with the non-results: "Boehner, in his news conference, wasn't unduly optimistic as he explained: 'We had a very nice meeting today. Of course, we've had a lot of very nice meetings....' That was about the time Obama began his competing statement, which included a lament about the 'hyperpartisan climate' in which 'both sides come to the table. They read their talking points. Then they head out to the microphones, trying to win the news cycle instead of solving problems.' Obama called that 'a game that we can't afford.' The statement might have carried more weight if Obama hadn't just preempted his opponents' news conference." ...

... So was David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "Much of the recent commentary about the tax cuts has skipped over this political reality." Leonhardt goes into what the limited Democratic options are, but his bottom line is that -- once again -- they will cave to Republicans. ...

... Sam Stein: Obama outsources negotiations with Republicans, Democrats are in their usual disarray & Schumer touts his million-dollar deal.

... Let's factor in this AP story in today's news: "Senate Republicans intend to block action on virtually all Democratic-backed legislation unrelated to tax cuts and government spending in the current postelection session of Congress." ...

     ... Update: here's the Republican leaders' hostage letter, now signed by all 42 Senate Republicans.

... Jena McGregor of the Washington Post: "Never mind that Senate Republicans have obstinately fought most Democratic legislation for the past two years already. Now they want to make it official. Whether it's a political gimmick or a real effort to force a focus on urgent deadlines, the letter sets aside a reality of productive leadership we expect from the people we elect."

Jackie Calmes & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "The chairmen of President Obama’s debt-reduction commission have been unable to win support from any of the panel’s elected officials for their proposed spending cuts and tax increases, underscoring the reluctance of both parties to risk short-term political backlash in pursuit of the nation’s long-term fiscal health. The chairmen of the commission ... delayed for two days, until Friday, a final vote by its 18 members."...

     ... Here's a pdf of the report, via Firedoglake.

     ... AP Update: "A tough new cost-cutting playbook submitted by the co-chairmen of President Barack Obama's deficit commission has been embraced by Sens. Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg, the first two elected officials to endorse it."

... Paul Krugman: "Bowles-Simpson, the revision, is out. It has not improved." ...

... Matt Yglesias: "Surely the strangest thing about the Bowles-Simpson debt reduction plan is that, relative to current law, it . . . increases the public debt load over the next ten years.... Barack Obama saying 'I will veto any laws that increase the deficit relative to current law' would do more to reduce the debt over the next 2 or 6 years than would adopting Simpson-Bowles."

Richard Stengel of Time interviews Julian Assange. ...

... Glenn Greenwald on the attacks on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. ...

... Edward Djerjian & Christoper Bronk of Foreign Policy: "While the Times has worked with the Obama administration to remove information of potential harm to national security, unredacted release of the cables by WikiLeaks may hold a cost measured in lives.... The leak of U.S. diplomatic cables may well produce an environment in which American diplomats will be shut out of confidential exchanges and the decision-making processes of U.S. allies and friends around the globe."

Millionaires Club, Washington Chapter. Erika Lovely & Jake Sherman of Politico: more than a quarter of the new Republicans coming to Congress are millionaires.

George W. Bush, in a Washington Post op-ed, recounts progress, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, on the U.S.'s fight against AIDS but says more must be done.

The Commentariat -- November 30

This Will Not Turn out Well or Obama Signals He'll Cave Immediately. Glenn Thrush, et al. of Politico: "President Barack Obama emerged from his two-hour bipartisan summit Tuesday, saying he was encouraged by the 'extremely civil' atmosphere — and immediately assigned two cabinet members [Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner & OMB chief Jack Lew] to hammer out a deal on Bush-era tax cuts."

New York Times illustration.Bob Herbert deplores the death penalty. ...

... So does former Justice John Paul Stevens, as he writes in this compelling New York Review of Books review.

Military Trials Are Duds. Adam Serwer in the Washington Post: "In their entire history, only five convictions have been secured through military commissions, most through plea agreement, while civilian courts convicted hundreds throughout the same period. They've yielded light sentences, except in one case where the accused simply boycotted the trial. Even with the rules tilted towards the government, they have proven to be ineffective. They're expensive and more vulnerable to overturn on appeal than convictions in civilian court. Conservatives support them not because of their efficacy, but because they sound tough."

Eric Schmidt & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The arrest on Friday of a Somali-born teenager who is accused of trying to detonate a car bomb at a crowded Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore., has again thrown a spotlight on the government’s use of sting operations to capture terrorism suspects." Related news item here.

Allan Sloan of Fortune: privatizing Social Security is still a dumb idea "because retirees shouldn't have to depend on the market's vagaries for survival money," but Republicans will bring it up again anyway.

Jonathan Chait of The New Republic: John McCain opposes repeal of DADT because he lost the presidential election & he's still having tantrums about it.

Andy Greenberg of Forbes interviews Julian Assange. Greenberg's cover story on Assange begins here. ...

... David Sanger of the New York Times: "The [WikiLeaks] cables about North Korea — some emanating from Seoul, some from Beijing, many based on interviews with government officials, and others with scholars, defectors and other experts — are long on educated guesses and short on facts, illustrating why their subject is known as the Black Hole of Asia." ...

... New York Times Editors: "After years of revelations about the Bush administration’s abuses — including the use of torture and kidnappings — much of the Obama administration’s diplomatic wheeling and dealing is appropriate and, at times, downright skillful."

... Roget Cohen of the Washington Post: the WikiLeaks cables further illustrate "the world George Bush left us. It exists everywhere but in his book, where facts are either omitted or rearranged...." ...

... Attila Somfalvi of Y-net News: In a meeting with journalists, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says the WikiLeaks leaks did not damage Israel, but he hopes Arab leaders will tell their own people what they say behind closed doors about their desire to attack Iran. ...

... CW: fortunately, there was bound to be funny stuff in the WikiLeaks cable, and this Guardian story fills the bill:  Britain's Prince Andrew, Duke of York," shocked" a U.S. ambassador with his "rude" remarks about the British press & his complaints about the "idiocy" of the country's corruption investigators. Although the ambassador expurgated her cable, apparently Andrew said, "'these fucking journalists, especially from the Guardian, who poke their noses everywhere...." ...

     ... Andrew's remark brings to mind a classic bit of literature a friend & I exchanged earlier today. The passage is believed to be of Australian origin:

I was walking along on this fucking fine morning, fucking sun fucking shining away, little fucking country lane, and I meets up with this fucking girl. Fucking lovely she was, so we gets into fucking conversation and I takes her over a fucking gate into a fucking field and we has sexual intercourse. [cited in Ashley Montagu, The Anatomy of Swearing, U. of Penn. Press pp. 314-315]

... Leak of a Leak. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post on how the New York Times got the WikiLeaks cables -- they didn't come from Julian Assange.

This proposal is a superficial panic reaction to the draconian cuts his deficit commission will recommend. A federal pay freeze saves peanuts at best and, while he may mean it as just a public relations gesture, this is no time for political scapegoating. The American people didn't vote to stick it to a VA nursing assistant making $28,000 a year or a border patrol agent earning $34,000 per year.
-- John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, on President Obama's salary freeze ...

... House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer wants to extend the pay freeze to non-combat military personnel. And he is so into cutting the deficit.

Georgia Gets Real. Katharine Q. Seelye of the New York Times: "During the centennial of the Civil War starting in 1960, Georgia celebrated the Confederacy and the view that the state had seceded in a valiant act of defending states’ rights against Northern aggressors. This time around, state historians are taking a different approach, declaring that Georgia seceded to defend the institution of slavery." ...

... "AND YET as the 150th anniversary of the four-year conflict gets under way, some groups in the old Confederacy are planning at least a certain amount of hoopla, chiefly around the glory days of secession, when 11 states declared their sovereignty under a banner of states’ rights and broke from the union. The events include a 'secession ball' in the former slave port of Charleston..., which will be replicated on a smaller scale in other cities. A parade is being planned in Montgomery, Ala., along with a mock swearing-in of Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederacy."

The World According to Brooks

David Brooks is aflutter over the WikeLeaks docudump. After posing a psychological "explanation" of why Julian Assange is such a bad boy, Brooks complains that Assange's bad behavior has upset the "world order."

The New York Times moderators again suppressed my comment on Brooks' column. So here it is:

First, let's establish that Julian Assange is not a traitor, as you obliquely suggest. He is not an American, so he cannot be a traitor to the U.S. He is not an American, so he cannot be a traitor to the U.S. He may be charged with espionage, but that is not a certainty.

Second, let's talk about how "secret" those documents WikiLeaks dumped really are: according to the Guardian, about three million people have access to these "secret" documents. Human nature & technology being what they are, it was downright ridiculous to expect 3 million people to keep this information secret. Allegedly, some low-level grunt was one of the three million not up to the secrets-keeping task. He was a tattletale waiting to happen. If it hadn't been he, it would have been someone else.

Third, let's not give the Times too many kudos for discretion. As we all well know, the Times' "discretion" during the build-up to the Iraq War led many Americans, including Members of Congress who were required to vote on matters concerning the proposal to go to war, to believe stories that just were not true. Instead, they were stories effectively dictated to a Times reporter by an Administration that was just plain making stuff up. I understand the bind journalists are in when it comes to matters of security, especially national security, but the Gray Lady has not always kept her skirts clean. That said, her redactions from the WikiLeaks cables, especially the redactions of names, may well have been the right thing to do. The decision to publish the cables was definitely justified.

Finally, we all should be able to agree the government is too damned secretive. Government secrets have become a cancer on our society, necessities in a limited number of cases, but abuse of the public good in many others. Right now, for instance, our Department of Justice, which is supposed to protect us, is invoking "state secrets" arguments in court to "protect" us from information that has long been in the public square. The victims of these so-called state secrets are real people who will not get a fair shake in court.

If you want to make a villain out of Julian Assange, then you should ask yourself first why what you call justifiable "specific revelations" have not been reported earlier. Why shouldn't we know, for instance, that "Afghan Vice President Ahmed Zia Massoud took $52 million in cash when he visited the United Arab Emirates last year"? Or that Putin & Berlusconi are best buddies? Obviously, our government was keeping secrets that should have been in the public domain. Julian Assange may have been imprudent, but it can be argued that his imprudence was necessitated by the bad behavior of bureaucrats & high-level officials who punish honorable whistleblowers and deprive the public of the right to know.

The WikiLeaks document dumps, and many of the stories they tell, are stories without heroes. You, as a journalist, have a duty to put the Wikidumps into perspective. Your tut-tuts -- absent anything but a weak acknowledgment that a few of the stories might be worth airing -- are an abdication of your journalistic responsibility. So put yourself among the anti-heroes of This Week in Journalism.