Saturday, August 06, 2005

Bullshit works if we let it

I don't want to disagree with BooMan's post about the efforts to release all the photos from Abu Ghraib and the governments efforts to keep them hidden. It is a good post over all.

But I do have one bone to pick with the following:

I sympathize with the government here. The release of footage of young boys being sodomized while our soldiers make snarky comments is bound to put all Americans at increased risk. But maybe, just maybe, Americans will finally realize what has been done in our name.

Let's be clear about this: if Americans are put at increased risk it won't be because of the release of footage of young boys being sodomized while our soldiers make snarky comments. It will be because young boys were sodomized while our soldiers made snarky comments.

The fault for the consequences lies in the acts, not the proof of the acts.

Burn this into your brains because when (not if, when) these photos and videos get released, it will be a right-wing talking point that the photos are a threat to our security and anyone who wants them released wants to make Americans less safe.

It's bullshit. But if we don't prepare ourselves for it then the bullshit will work.

It has before.

Cracking the suburbs

Jerome Armstrong brings up an interesting point that has been lost in all the post-race analysis of the OH-02 race: Paul Hacket, Democrat, trounced the Republicans in the rural areas of the county. Indeed, the victory margins for Hacket in the rural half of OH-02 was in the 60-40 range. It was in the suburban and ex-urban areas of Hamilton and Clermont counties that Schmidt managed to eek out the necessary votes for her victory.

But isn't this a contradiction of the myth that Republicans play better in rural areas? Maybe a tough talking Democrat really can play well in the farm communities?

From this race, it looks like the real battleground, the real stronghold for Republican power, is not in the countryside but in the suburban beltways around major cities. Democrats, generally, own the inner-cities. Hackett has demonstrated that Democrats, as long as they talk unapologetically about their views, can own the farmlands. It is only in that middle region that Republicans remain competitive.

If we can crack the code on the suburbs then the Republicans will be routed.

Novak faces reality and runs

Jay Rosen has an excellent explication of the Novak-storms-off-the-set incident that does the best job of making the point that it most definitely was the Valerie Plame case that was the reason for his outburst and not anything related to the discussion they were having at the time. Jay points out that the carefully constructed wall that Novak had built to protect him from questioning by his colleagues ("My lawyer said no") was pierced by his column on Monday about the case. From that point on Novak was in an impossible situation. It wasn't until Thursday's outburst that Novak himself realized it.

Where I disagree with Jay is his suggestion that Novak did it on purpose in order to create an excuse for him to further avoid answering the questions. Apparently Novak was warned ahead of time that the questions were coming. So, if he didn't want to answer them he could have simply refused to go on the show in the first place. He might have gotten flack from CNN bigwigs about it, but it wouldn't have been the embarassing spectacle that a walk-off is.

No, I don't think Novak planned this public outburst. What I think happened is that he decided to go ahead with the show knowing that he was going to be grilled. He went ahead because he thought he could handle the questioning.

But then Carville made his comment about Novak having to look tough for the right-wingers and Novak responded with "That's Bullshit!" It was at that moment that Novak knew that he WOULDN'T be able to handle the upcoming grilling. If he was going to snap at Carville over a fairly inoccuous comment like that then what would he say when the REAL questions started flowing?

Novak is a quick thinker. You have to be in his business. In the seconds that followed his outburst Novak self-reflected and realized he was in a no win situation. His "let's just drop it" was an external expression of his inner desire to run away. But then he realized he said that to and that was when that inner desire took control and he ran.

Novak was brought down by his own arrogance.