DeLay wins his appeal…

The New Neo Posted on by

…after some delays.

(Some puns are simply irresistible.)

The evidence in DeLay’s 2010 trial for money laundering to influence an election was ruled “legally insufficient to sustain DeLay’s convictions.” In other words, the case should never have been brought in the first place. The offenses were alleged to have occurred during a 2002 campaign.

I’m not a DeLay fan, although I wish we had more people in Congress now with his toughness. But neither am I a fan of trumped-up politically-motivated charges. Remember Ted Stevens of Alaska?

I didn’t follow the DeLay trial closely at the time, nor do I see a lot of detail about the evidence now, so I don’t know whether I think it was sufficient or not. But, looking up a few facts, I see that the decision to file charges was made by Travis County (includes very-liberal Austin) DA Ronnie Earle. And looking at Earle’s Wiki entry, I see that Earle is a Democrat, and that he has prosecuted several Texas Republican political figures in addition to DeLay, although DeLay was his only conviction.

In the DeLay matter:

For over two years, Earle and eight separate grand juries investigated possible violations of Texas campaign finance law in the 2002 state legislative election. Earle denies that his pursuit of Delay was part of a “fishing expedition.” His investigation of two political action committees that spent a combined $3.4 million on 22 Republican Texas House races focused on a political action committee founded by DeLay, (Texans for a Republican Majority PAC). During the investigation, DeLay charged that Earle was a “runaway district attorney” with “a long history of being vindictive and partisan”.

On September 28, 2005, the grand jury indicted DeLay for conspiring to violate Texas state election law. Texas prohibits corporate contributions in state legislative races. The indictment charged that Texans for a Republican Majority, DeLay’s PAC, accepted corporate contributions, laundered the money through the Republican National Committee, and directed it to favored Republican candidates in Texas. The presiding Democrat judge in the case, Pat Priest, eventually threw out this charge and the Court of Criminals Appeals upheld his decision in 2007.

Earle failed in a second attempt to secure new indictments against DeLay. That grand jury returned a “no bill” due to insufficient evidence according to at least one grand jury member. That member also claimed the “no bill” visibly angered Earle.

It goes on in some detail; read the whole thing. This certainly has the appearance of having been a politically-motivated pursuit and trial.

And you know what? As in the Stevens case, it worked. DeLay’s gone from political office, isn’t he?

[ADDENDUM: More here and also here:

Unless the state appeals the ruling, this means that DeLay cannot be retried on the charges. The court could have ordered a new trial if it restrained its scope to just procedural issues. However, the court apparently believed that the prosecution simply couldn’t make a case for wrongdoing, and as a result took the relatively rare step of overturning a jury’s findings on guilt.

That’s pretty strong.

In addition:

The man who should be under scrutiny now is Ronnie Earle, whose years-long legal grudge match against DeLay and other Texas Republicans has been thoroughly discredited by the appellate court.

That would be by the mechanism of charging Earle with prosecutorial misconduct, and I have no idea whether this case or any of the others rises to that level. In addition, I’m not sure who would have standing to bring the charges—my guess is that it would be Earle’s successor, who apparently shares his political persuasions.]

The mother of Aaron Alexis speaks

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s her statement:

Alexis’ mother, Cathleen Alexis, read a brief statement to reporters in response to her son’s murderous rampage Monday at the Navy Yard, saying she had no idea why he would do such a thing.

“Our son Aaron Alexis has murdered 12 people and wounded several others,” she said in the statement. “His actions have had a profound and everlasting effect on the families of the victims. I don’t know why he did what he did and I’ll never be able to ask him why.”

“Aaron is now in a place where he can no longer do harm to anyone and for that I am glad. To the families of the victims I am so, so very sorry that this happened,” she said. “My heart is broken.”

That is exceptionally sad—and exceptionally admirable for its lack of excuses. I think almost everyone can sympathize with this woman, whose son appears to have been a mentally ill individual (probably schizophrenic) who turned violent. Most schizophrenics are not violent. But some are, and if they don’t seek treatment, or if treatment is ineffective, there is virtually nothing a family can do.

Except grieve, afterwards.

The Continuing Resolution, the debt ceiling, and defunding Obamacare

The New Neo Posted on by

No, I’m not going to write the definitive analysis of these things. I’m going to turn into a linker and refer you to the analyses of others, because I don’t have much to add to what they say:

Here’s Ace:

The short version of the leadership’s plans: the House will pass a CR that defunds Obamacare and send it to the Senate to see if Senate GOP can make it stick. The House, anticipating that Senate Dems will strip out Obamacare defunding, will also pass a 1-year debt ceiling increase in exchange for an Obamacare delay until 2015, some tax and budget reforms, and the Keystone pipeline.

That’s divided government for ya.

Here’s the usual White House spin.

John Podhoretz criticizes Republican strategy or lack thereof.

They may be seeing Obama’s feet of clay—but then what?

The New Neo Posted on by

Maureen Dowd has become disillusioned with President Obama in this, his second term. To her, he’s so much less admirable than Candidate Obama was, or even than President Obama was in his first term.

It’s probably correct to conclude that Dowd stands for millions of other liberals similarly let down. But don’t get too excited—I’d wager that neither Dowd nor the rest are considering a leap to conservatism, or even to taking conservatives or Republicans seriously as alternatives to Democrats. And this despite the fact that many erstwhile Obama supporters acknowledge (as Dowd does) that Obama seems weak and vacillating, less charming and articulate than before, unwilling to schmooze with or reach out to Democrats in Congress to push his agenda, aloof and just plain “weird.”

All those are things that were already at least somewhat apparent during the 2008 campaign, and which became even more apparent during Obama’s first term. They are characteristics that much of the right detected in Obama from the start—and that was just the tip of the iceberg of the problems they saw.

Now many liberals and leftists have also noticed. But in the immortal words of Hillary Clinton in another context, what difference will it make? Dowd and company (and most of my friends, I’d wager) will merely say that Obama has lost steam and changed from the wonderful person he used to be. The vast majority are highly unlikely to believe that their judgment was impaired in their original assessment, and/or that Obama was and still is deceptive or manipulative. They will not question their basic political belief system, which will remain intact, or try to see the enemy (Republicans, that is) in a new light. They will support Obama as best they can, halfheartedly and despite their disappointment, and then turn to the next liberal candidate (perhaps her initials are HRC) and trust the mainstream media to guide them as before.

One of the things that explains this is the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance. I’ve mentioned it in the past (here, for example), but it cannot be emphasized enough:

In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the discomfort experienced when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognitions: ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions. In a state of dissonance, people may sometimes feel “disequilibrium”: frustration, hunger, dread, guilt, anger, embarrassment, anxiety, etc…

Dissonance is aroused when people are confronted with information that is inconsistent with their beliefs. If the dissonance is not reduced by changing one’s belief, the dissonance can result in restoring consonance through misperception, rejection or refutation of the information, seeking support from others who share the beliefs, and attempting to persuade others.

I’ve written extensively about the phenomenon of political change. But that can obscure the fact that political change is rare, even when people are confronted with dissonance that should be a challenge their beliefs. It is just too painful, too threatening (too “difficult,” as expressed in the title of my series) for most people to actually change their political affiliation, despite whatever challenges their beliefs might encounter.

There are other aspects of political change that are hard. Prominent among them are the social negatives I’ve also written about many times: rejection by friends and family if one is leaving the fold, or at the very least social awkwardness and the need to avoid certain topics if peace is to be maintained. But serious and sobering though that prospect is, it pales in comparison to the more basic potential alienation: separation from the previous self and its beliefs. And so it is hardly surprising that most people will do almost anything to avoid such a rift.

Swiftboating those who question Benghazi

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s a tried and true tactic, and Dana Milbank gets into the act here.

The topic this time? The Benghazi killings and coverup. The method? Emphasize the fringe arguments that are more easily mocked and/or repudiated, and ignore or gloss over the more basic and common questions and concerns. Then tar those offering the latter with the same brush as the former, and dismiss them all as silly, mendacious, and/or demented.

The technique reminds me of the way the Swift Vets’ concerns about John Kerry in 2004 were not only swept under the rug, but how the Vets themselves were attacked and reviled. So I thought it might be a good idea to revisit a post I wrote in 2008 on the subject of how the term “swiftboating” itself was a case of swiftboating—against the original Swift Vets—that was simply Orwellian.

It’s particularly ironic to read John Kerry’s words as quoted in that post, and think about what the Obama administration hath wrought since. Here’s the post (slightly shortened):

It isn’t often you get to watch a lie become entrenched truth.

Or maybe it is often, if you pay enough attention. Once it’s repeated enough, and by the right people, it becomes the revealed truth, and there’s almost no way to counter it effectively, as Winston Churchill knew.

Goebbels’ “truth” about the number of casualties at Dresden has been believed for so long it’s hard to shake no matter what new evidence comes to light. Jenin was a massacre perpetrated by the Israelis on the Palestinians, and Mohammed al Dura was killed by Israeli soldiers. Vietnam veterans are disproportionately depressed, poor, psychotic, drug-taking messes. All of these are untrue “truths” that have passed into the public domain.

Similarly, the term “swiftboating” quickly entered into mainstream usage as meaning “to unfairly attack in order to serve political ends.” John Kerry, the recipient of the original Swift Vets’ attack, uses the term this way, but he is certainly not the only one to invoke the word in righteous indignation…

As the Washington Post notes, “swiftboating” has become a synonym for “a political low blow.” And of course, in the eyes of the MSM, it tends to be the province of those nefarious Republicans.

Forget about whether the charges are actually true or not; that’s a minor quibble, hardly worthy of consideration. After all, “facts are the enemy of truth,” don’t you know?

So that means that the NY Times can attack likely Republican Presidential nominee John McCain with “facts” that barely rise to the level of good gossip, and Dan Rather can use forged documents to smear George Bush on the eve of the 2004 election, and the rest of the MSM and the Democrats somehow can’t find it in their hearts to use the term “swiftboating” for their fellow Dems, especially when it’s Republicans being attacked.

This is the case even if—as happened recently with the Times—the actions of these MSM icons are condemned even by their own side (if you can find an example of someone on the left/liberal end of things using the term “swiftboating” to describe the Times or Rather, please send me a link; I haven’t been able to find one). It seems to be reserved for anyone who might attack a Democrat.

I closely followed the Swift Vets’ story in 2004. I read their book, and found it compelling. I waited for the evidence in it—presented in very lawyerly fashion, since some of them are lawyers—to be countered.

But I never saw any of it effectively debunked other than a few unimportant details, although I looked and looked (I actually wanted the charges to be untrue, because at the time I thought John Kerry was going to be our next President, and the prospect would have been far less sobering if the book could have been invalidated).

And so I read almost everything that was written to counter it, and the counter-evidence was so flimsy I became convinced that it wasn’t countered because it couldn’t be countered. And early on in the controversy one of the main tools of the counterattack to the Swift Vets’ accusations was to smear the accusatory Vets themselves.

This, of course, was not considered “swiftboating;” the term hadn’t quite jelled yet. I watched as the legends about the Swift Vets grew: they were Republican operatives all; they were liars, despite being decorated heroes themselves. Kerry lost because he was just too nice a guy to fight back (Kerry himself is a big one for promulgating this particular theme).

John Kerry is now an Obama supporter. Here’s an email he wrote in January of 2008 on the subject; it’s full of Kerry’s characteristic “poor pitiful principled me who lost the election because of lies and because I wasn’t mean enough” routine. It deserves to be read in full, but here are some excerpts [emphases mine]:

I support Barack Obama because he doesn’t seek to perfect the politics of Swiftboating — he seeks to end it.

…As a veteran, it disgusts me that the Swift Boats we loved while we were in uniform on the Mekong Delta have been rendered, in Karl Rove’s twisted politics, an ugly verb meaning to lie [sic] about someone’s character just to win an election….we must stop the Swiftboating, stop the push-polling, stop the front groups, and stop the email chain smears….We must be determined never again to lose any election to a lie [sic].

Some of you may have heard about the disgusting lies about Barack Obama that are being circulated by email. These attacks smear Barack’s Christian faith and deep patriotism, and they distort his record of more than two decades of public service. They are nothing short of “Swiftboat” style anonymous [sic: the Swift Vets were anything but anonymous] attacks.

These are the same tactics the right [sic] has used again and again, and as we’ve learned, these attacks, no matter how bogus [sic], can spread and take root if they go unchecked.

I’m relieved to hear that there’s a new book dedicated to undoing the “swiftboating” of the Swift Vets—that is, the “swiftboating” directed, in Orwellian fashion, against them. The book is titled To Set the Record Straight, writeen by Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler. Here’s a review:

Time and again the book shows how major media either misrepresented the group’s claims, coordinated with the Kerry campaign, or went to extraordinary lengths (unsuccessfully) to discredit the group.

Back in 2004, I tried to get some of my Kerry-supporting friends to read Unfit for Command, just to see for themselves what all the fuss was about. To their credit, three of them did. Two of those people subsequently refused to vote for Kerry; and one voted for him anyway despite believing the charges in the book. But the vast majority of my friends simply refused to read it at all—they didn’t want to know what was actually in it; the MSM told them all they needed to know.

I’m glad someone has done this work to try to rehabilitate the Swift Vets themselves. But I’m not overly optimistic about its chances of reaching the very people who should be reading it. After all, “a mind is a difficult thing to change“—especially when it refuses to expose itself to information that might counter its entrenched beliefs.

Gun-free military zones

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been wondering about the history of the restriction of weapons on military bases to MPs. Googling leads to the notion that it was a result of an order by President Clinton in 1993 (see also this).

But that didn’t seem quite right to me. Before that, were members of the military just walking around base with their weapons on their persons? In a war zone, perhaps. But otherwise? I can’t quite picture it.

And sure enough, discussions by those formerly in the military (see this, for example; it’s down right now but I assume will be up shortly; and see also this) indicate the policy did not just begin in 1993 with Clinton, although it may have been tightened up then. And comments such as this one by Oldflyer on the previous thread point out the problems that would probably increasingly ensue if the rules about this were loosened.

There’s a little more info here on the laws concerning firearms on base. But not a whole lot of illumination as to what the remedies would be, now that the Ft. Hood and Navy Yard attacks have made it clear that it’s not all that difficult to get a gun on base and kill a lot of military people if that happens to be your goal.

The Navy Yard killings and the gun control advocates

The New Neo Posted on by

They don’t wait for facts to be known, because facts might ruin the narrative. So the news post-Navy Yard massacre has been filled with cries to ban semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15, initially reported as having been the weapon in the killings. This was before we knew for sure whether such a weapon had been used, and even more importantly, how the perpetrator had obtained it (legally or illegally?).

I can’t say we know for sure even yet what’s what; the fog of mass killings seems even worse lately than the fog of war (case in point: Newtown). But the latest announcement is bad news for the anti-gun crowd: Aaron Alexis is now reported to have used a far more ordinary weapon than an AR-15, a shotgun, and to have obtained it legally.

So unless the next push is to ban shotguns (watch for it), those who would ban weapons such as the AR-15 are out of luck this time. In fact, the use of a shotgun underscores the fact that mass murder can occur with a variety of more conventional weapons; where there’s a will, there’s a way.

The anti-semiautomatic crowd has some recourse even if the shotgun information turns out to be correct. They can ignore it and act as though an AR-15 was actually used. Or they can argue that, if so much damage can be done with a mere shotgun, think how much more could have been done with an AR-15. But what they (and we) should be doing is looking more closely at how Alexis slipped through the cracks despite his mental health problems combined with a history of violence.

We still are not certain what those cracks that he slipped through may have been, either. Did he in fact receive a security clearance, as has also been reported, despite his history? That is extremely troubling, and an echo of previous slip-ups in that arena. What kind of mental health treatment had he gotten? How did security at the Navy Yard allow him to enter with any weapon, much less a shotgun or rifle (did he kill the guard, relatively easily overwhelmed? was there only one guard? how can security be tightened?) And of course, what about the rule that on base only MPs can carry weapons, effectively disarming all others?

Another crack Alexis may have fallen through is the legal system itself. Why, with his history of violent gun assaults, was he never convicted or jailed? In one of the incidents he seems to have really slipped through the cracks (the charges mysteriously disappeared with no record of why); in the other authorities decided not to press charges:

The district attorney’s did not press charges after the incident even though the woman [victim] told police she was “terrified” of Alexis and believed he had fired the gun “intentionally” after calling police several times to complain his neighbour was “being loud”.

“She said that several days ago Aaron confronted her in the parking lot about making too much noise,” the report states.

The authorities said they had accepted Alexis’s explanation that the weapon had discharged accidentally as was “trying to clean his gun while cooking and that his hands were slippery”.

“After reviewing the facts presented by the police department, it was determined that the elements constituting recklessness under Texas law were not present and a case was not filed,” a statement from the District Attorney’s office said.

She said, he said—and he was believed. Perhaps there’s nothing more that realistically could have been done about that, since it was a minor case with no injuries, and police resources are limited. In retrospect, however, it was a warning of much worse things to come.

There is something powerfully revolting and enraging about the image of innocent people being gunned down by a murderer. It is especially ironic to contemplate that in this case it occurred at a Navy base, and yet the weapons that felled the perpetrator seem to have been late in arriving (although we know very little about that, too: was Alexis killed by police, military police, someone else, or by himself?). Focusing on the weapons he carried (or in the case of the AR-15, the weapon he most likely did not carry) is a simple and self-serving approach to a problem that is far more complex and multifaceted. But it comes is no surprise whatsoever.

[ADDENDUM: More here.

See also this,as well as this.]

Larry Summers is out for head of the Fed

The New Neo Posted on by

Summers was forced to withdraw by a bunch of Democrats who didn’t like Obama’s pick. As far as I can see, there were three reasons for this:

(1) Summers had been insufficiently in favor of financial regulation during the 90s.

(2) He had deeply angered feminists by his Harvard speech about the lack of women at the highest levels of science (I covered this in some detail at the time; see the bottom three posts in this list; the summary version is that I think there was nothing wrong with what Summers said).

(3) From all the rumors I’ve ever heard, Summers tends to rub a great many people the wrong way.

But it was the combination of numbers one and two above that really hurt his chances. Summers is both insufficiently ideologically pure and feminists have had it in for him since at least 2005. What’s more, there’s an available woman for the job to champion, Janet Yellen.

Actually, it was a surprise to me that Obama picked Summers in the first place. Reports now are that Obama is angry at being crossed. I’ll make a prediction, although not one I feel all that strongly about: if his nose is really out of joint about this, Obama won’t choose Yellen either. He’ll go for some third person, one who’s ideologically more to the left and perhaps even a woman, but not Yellen.

The continuing saga of Maynard vs. Salinger

The New Neo Posted on by

Joyce Maynard has made a kind of cottage industry out of her long-ago relationship with J.D. Salinger, who seduced her when she was a wunderkind of 18 and he a famous writer of 53 and then abruptly threw her out, leaving her to lick her wounds, seemingly recover, and then write a tell-all memoir some thirty or so years later.

Now she’s written a curious article in the NY Times that works a variation on the theme. It begins with a paragraph that says something about writing, fame, and fans:

IN the 50 years since J.D. Salinger removed himself from the public eye and stopped publishing, he has been viewed ”” more accurately, worshiped ”” as the human embodiment of purity, a welcome antidote to phoniness. To many, he was a kind of god.

Really? Many? No doubt some; I know there were (and perhaps still are, even though the elusive Salinger himself is now gone and not just secluded) people who felt that way, who revered him in a manner that seemed both excessive and unhealthy, and who considered his self-imposed exile a tease and an invitation to pry into it. But “the human embodiment of purity”—rather than just a really famous guy who wrote a really famous book and who, like Garbo, wanted to be left alone? Surely this was a fringe group of near-lunatics?

At any rate, there’s little doubt (knowledge in part thanks to Maynard’s revelations) that Salinger was not especially “pure” (whatever that means): he was an older guy who dug younger chicks. That’s not in itself a crime, especially because it seems Salinger was careful not to bed them till they had passed the legal age of consent (Maynard mentions a 14-year-old, but it appears—although it’s not clear from her article—that he probably only corresponded with her until she was of legal age). If that’s true, then the greater beef, it seems to me, is that he loved ’em and left ’em—or rather, he asked them to leave after a fairly short time—and was a controlling guy during the relationships as well. And they were young and malleable and generally controllable; or at least Maynard was.

Like a lot of other not-so-admirable people, Salinger seems to have hurt quite a few of his fellow-humans. But he was neither priest nor teacher nor doctor nor therapist nor anyone in the sort of special relationship of trust and authority who would have been legally barred from sexual interactions with the people (young or old) in his charge. So Salinger’s relationships with women such as Maynard fall under the heading of consensual sex with adults who looked up to him as some sort of sage, and who were ultimately hurt by him. They might instead have been hurt by contemporaries who were not famous (or even older guys who were not famous) with whom they slept, but it was instead Salinger who did the deed. And because they looked up to him, he probably had greater power than usual to hurt them.

Maynard has another curious thing to say about it all:

I am as troubled by the use of the word “woman” to describe the 18-year-old object, briefly, of a 53-year-old’s affections as I am by the use of the word “lover” to describe my 18-year-old self, in the context of that relationship.

I wonder what Maynard’s suggested remedy would be. Move the age of consent to 21 or even older? Somehow I very much doubt it. Ban sexual relations between older men and much-younger women (or the reverse)? Or does she want to ban sexual relations between all those of unequal power?

Perhaps not; perhaps she just wants us to hate Salinger for what he did to her. In that pursuit, she’s free to use the power of her pen to do the job.

[NOTE: Cross-posted at Legal Insurrection.]