For those of you distraught over the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, you’ll appreciate the headline / photo juxtaposition on the front page of today’s L.A. Times :

“Bush’s pick to head the Supreme Court was sworn in today. In other news, the gates of hell have opened up in Southern California.”

Over at the National Review, the guy from Weekend At Bernie’s thinks we’re being too harsh on Bill Bennett :

It was in this context that Bennett remarked: “I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” Was he suggesting such a thing? Was he saying that such a thing should even be considered in the real world? Of course not. His whole point was that such considerations are patently absurd, and thus he was quick to add: “That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do.”

Bennett’s position, clearly and irrefutably, is that you cannot have tunnel vision, especially on something as emotionally charged as abortion, in addressing multifaceted problems. It is almost always the case that problems, even serious ones, could be minimized or eliminated if you were willing to entertain severe solutions. Such solutions, though, are morally and ethically unacceptable, whatever the validity of their logic. The lesson to be drawn is not that we can hypothetically conceive of the severe solutions but that we resolutely reject them because of our moral core.

Exactly! Bill Bennett wasn’t saying that we should abort all black babies. Only a monster would even suggest such a thing. He was simply pointing out the obvious fact that black people are inherently criminal. He’s not some sort of racist that approves of abortions, he’s a racist who hates abortion. Big difference.

In defending Bennett, the guy from Pretty in Pink was forced to point out an uncomfortable fact about America that most conservatives have spent the last few decades trying to sweep under the rug :

Statistics have long been kept on crime, breaking it down in various ways, including by race and ethnicity. Some identifiable groups, considered as a group, commit crime at a rate that is higher than the national rate.

Blacks are such a group. That is simply a fact. Indeed, our public discourse on it, even among prominent African Americans, has not been to dispute the numbers but to argue over the causes of the high rate: Is it poverty? Breakdown of the family? Undue police attention? Other factors — or some combination of all the factors? We argue about all these things, but the argument always proceeds from the incontestable fact that the rate is high.

Are African-Americans more likely to commit crimes^{[1]And by “crimes”, I mean the scary kind that they talk about on the news like robbery and assault, not the “everyone does it” variety that’s so popular in Washington these days like insider trading, money laundering, and obstruction of justice.}? Possibly so, but notice the string of questions that follow this assertion, as if to imply that “this stuff is so complicated, nobody really knows the causes”. This is complete bullshit. African-Americans are also more likely to be living below the poverty level, get shitty educations, have inadequate access to healthcare, etc. All of which are actual factors^{[2]As opposed to skin color.} in determining whether or not someone is going to be a criminal. The lack of insight of assholes like Bill Bennett and the guy from St. Elmo’s Fire is so great, they can’t see the statistics that have “long been kept on crime” and come to any conclusion deeper than “black people commit crimes”. In other words, they’re too fucking stupid to understand the statistics that they use to defend themselves.

But pointing this out inequalities doesn’t make someone a racist. No, Bill Bennett and the guy from Mannequin are racist because they’re pea-brained shitheads who refuse to look at the racial inequality in this country and search for answers beneath the surface. Why are African-Americans less likely to have healthcare than whites? Why do predominantly black schools get less money and have larger class sizes? Why do back people die sooner, make less, and are more likely to spend time in prison than their white counterparts? People like Bennett like to point out that the “black” part of town is usually the “bad” part of town, but it’s never really bothered them enough to ask “Why?”.

The reason for this cultural myopia is that the “If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist” brand of conservatism has long held that racism is a thing of the past. To them, Martin Luther King Jr. cured racism with his “I Have A Dream” speech, and any remnants of inequality is due to some unexplained “cultural difference”^{[3]A slimy way to leading people to that other conservative maxim, that all poor people are lazy.}. If you point out the obvious fact that the scars of slavery are still healing, they’re quick to respond “I’ve never owned any slaves”. Well, duh! The question isn’t whether slavery is over, but whether African-Americans are fully integrated into American society. The very fact that there are serious differences makes the answer a resounding “no”.

To cut this rant off while it’s still semi-coherent, lemme go back to the remark that started all this. In response to a question about whether the increase in abortions reduced the crime rate, Bennett said “you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down”. Even if that comment was defensible on its merits, one has to wonder why the first example that popped into Bennett’s head was the nexus between race and crime. The fact that there are still people like Bill Bennett who think there’s a causal relationship between skin color and crime tells you all you need to know about where we stand in terms of race relations in this country.

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1 : And by “crimes”, I mean the scary kind that they talk about on the news like robbery and assault, not the “everyone does it” variety that’s so popular in Washington these days like insider trading, money laundering, and obstruction of justice.

2 : As opposed to skin color.

3 : A slimy way to leading people to that other conservative maxim, that all poor people are lazy.

UPDATE : Yes, I know the Andrew McCarthy who wrote the NRO article isn’t the same one who acted in all those movies in the 80’s. It was supposed to be a joke, so you can stop emailing me about it. Sorry for any confusion. I hope nobody got the impression that the actor from those John Huges movies was a racist or that the writer for the National Review was talented enough to star alongside Molly Ringwald or Rob Lowe.

That’s what Tom DeLay was indicted for, his conspiring to launder corporate money to Republican candidates (via The Carpetbagger Report) :

In 2001, Tom DeLay helped to set up an organization called TRMPAC (Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee) aimed at helping the Texas GOP gain control of the state Legislature. His goal was to force a redistricting of Texas’ congressional districts that would increase the Republican majority in Washington.

DeLay succeeded in sending five more Republicans to Congress. But his tactics created two problems. First, Texas has very strict laws forbidding the use of money raised from corporations in state races, and TRMPAC raised a lot of corporate money. Second, it made for one very shady deal. On Sept. 20, 2002, the director of TRMPAC sent $190,000, including money raised by corporations, to the Republican National State Elections Committee. Exactly two weeks later, that committee sent exactly $190,000 to state candidates favored by TRMPAC. Each transaction, taken alone, appears legal. Bundled together, they look like an effort to funnel corporate money into a race from which it was banned.

DeLay’s defense is that he didn’t know the details of what was happening in the organization, that the matching numbers of the $190,000 transfers were just a coincidence, and that the money raised from corporations was spent on administrative office expenses, which is legal in Texas legislative races. But all of those arguments have major weak spots that the experienced prosecutor on the case, Ronnie Earle, could expose.

As the geniuses at Blogs For Bush summed up his defense “Tom Delay didn’t know about the perfectly legal transaction he is accused of conspiring to make”. Maybe you should ask DeLay again.

Is anyone surprised by the John Roberts confirmation? I didn’t think so. I don’t like the guy, but I’m not so fond of fact that our Executive and Legislative branches are ruled by social conservatives either. As far as the next appointment, if Bush picks someone based on personal loyalty (which is his only real litmus test), the Dems had better be ready with press releases decrying “Justice Brownie”.

I know it may seem like old news in light of the DeLay indictment, but this exchange from yesterday’s questioning of Mike Brown was funny :

SHAYS: I can’t help but wonder how different the answers would be — excuse me; you’re blocking me — if someone like Rudy Giuliani had been in your position instead of you, I think he would have done things differently and I think his answers to us would have been very different.
. . .
BROWN: I never thought I’d sit here and be berated because I’m not Rudy Giuliani, and I never thought someone would sit here and take out of context the fact that I said I’ve thought of several things I would do differently. I mentioned two of them.

If we’re gonna play the “I wish Michael Brown was _____” game, I’m gonna vote for Moses. If Moses were in charge of FEMA, he would have just parted those flood waters instead of just standing around like a fucking doofus.

Of all days, why did President Bush choose today to pardon four drug dealers? Are they all well-connected Republican donors or is George just paying them back for letting him crash on the couch? (via Think Progress)

Lunar Soil, a blog dedicated to space exploration, has taken me to task in a roundabout way over a post I wrote a year and a half ago in which I said “it’s always seemed like a big waste of money to research other planets when we have so many problems going unsolved down here on Earth.” The post links to five articles that supposedly refute my contention. I’ll be the first to admit that this is hardly a new argument, so with an open mind, I followed the links. This article is representative of the two main arguments at play :

When the money used for space exploration is totalled up and presented as a single sum, it looks like a lot of money that one is then tempted to apply to other purposes. That is a deception. In the United States, the federal government each year spends less than 1% of its budget on space exploration, and more than 30% of the budget helping the poor in this country. That means that if the space program were completely eliminated, a poor person instead of getting $1.00 would then get $1.03. That does not seem like the extra help they really need to save them.

What would we lose for giving the extra 3 cents to the poor (or some other program)? Well for one thing without the space program you and I could not be having this e-mail conversation because there would be no communications satellites. There would be no weather satellites so there would be little or no warning of hurricanes or typhoons. I’m not sure about Malaysia, but in the United States it is now unusual for a lot of lives to be lost in a hurricane, whereas in the past we could lose thousands of lives to these storms.

In other words :

It’s not that much money in the grand scheme of things.

If it weren’t for the space program, we wouldn’t have ______.

Both of which I agree with in principle, but let’s dig a little deeper.

I totally agree that NASA’s budget is minuscule in terms of the overall federal budget. That’s why I’d never take any “porkbuster” who thinks he can solve the world’s problems by gutting NASA (or the NEA, foreign aid, etc.) seriously^{[1]Which is why my original post included the caveat “It’s not as big a waste as something like an unprovoked war or a tax giveaway to the super-rich, so it’s not an issue I’ve really lost much sleep worrying about.”}. That said, I strongly object to the implication that every penny that NASA spends is equally noble. How does a mission to Mars or a manned return to the moon help us in the long run? What technological goals do these missions accomplish? How are we breaking new ground by continuously wasting money on the repair and life-support of the space shuttle fleet? What’s the scientific value in sending an octogenarian into space for a photo-op?

It seems that even asking these questions is tantamount to discarding the entire “space program”^{[2]An umbrella term often used to accuse people like me of wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater.}. I don’t think we should stop exploring space entirely, but I would like to have an reasoned debate about NASA’s future without resorting to vague generalities. If I do a post on my concerns over the Mars mission’s cost, it doesn’t mean that I’m some neo-Luddite who thinks we should get rid of our satellites and microwaves to go back to the days of telegraphs and toaster ovens. To pretend that any criticism of NASA is an either/or proposition is as ludicrous as complaining that critics of FDA want to return to the conditions described by Upton Sinclair.

Additionally, I think it’s worthwhile to discuss the elephant in the room, which is that the space program’s popularity and high cost make it an attractive source of federal pork. It’s no bridge in Alaska, but it’s pretty obvious that NASA’s stagnant progress over the last few years has been partially due to the fact that it’s much safer, politically speaking, to keep NASA under the radar by spending cash on the status quo^{[3]Like the well-connected aerospace companies that would lose millions if the shuttle fleet was grounded.} rather than take the risk of publicly asking for more money to modernize our capabilities to travel in space.

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1 : Which is why my original post included the caveat “It’s not as big a waste as something like an unprovoked war or a tax giveaway to the super-rich, so it’s not an issue I’ve really lost much sleep worrying about.”

2 : An umbrella term often used to accuse people like me of wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

3 : Like the well-connected aerospace companies that would lose millions if the shuttle fleet was grounded.

Not this again. Now that Tom DeLay has been sidelined and replaced with closeted homosexual Rep. David Dreier, the gleeful outing campaign has begun anew. As with the Gannon scandal, I’m of the opinion that using someone’s homosexuality as a smear is a bit hypocritical when you’re trying to tarnish the reputations of bigots. Granted, it’s a much lesser hypocrisy than being a gay homophobe, but I’m still uncomfortable with liberals using homosexuality in a negative way to taunt conservatives. Nevertheless, in this particular instance, I agree with the L.A. Weekly story on Dreier’s outing from last year :

I have always taken the view that outing a gay person should be approached with caution, and that in doing so one should strictly adhere to the Barney Frank Rule. As articulated by the openly gay Massachusetts congressman during another anti-gay GOP witch-hunt over a decade ago, when Frank threatened to out a number of gay-baiting Republican fellow congressmen, the rule insists that outing is only acceptable when a person uses their power or notoriety to hurt gay people.

Dreier clearly meets that standard, for his voting record is strewn with anti-gay positions. To cite just a few: He opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would have banned discrimination against gay people in hiring; voted for the gay-bashing Defense of Marriage Act; voted for banning adoption by gay and lesbian couples in the District of Columbia (3,000 miles away from Dreier’s district); voted to allow federally funded charities to discriminate against gays in employment, even where local laws prohibit such bias; and voted against the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Asking Dreier to reconcile his anti-gay public record with his homosexuality is a legitimate avenue for criticism. Playing “gotcha!” just reinforces the notion that being gay is something to be ashamed of. So yeah, Dreier is a hypocrite whose private life is about to catch up to him. So be it. But can the liberal blogosphere try to point this out without being so childish about it?

I’ll close with something I said in the comments section earlier this year :

What makes this situation so tragic is that the right’s homophobia forces some of their strongest supporters even deeper into the closet. Gay Republicans aren’t hiding from us, my conservative friends, they’re hiding from you.

Dammit. Now we have to go back and rewrite the ethics rules again.

UPDATE : This has me so excited, I’m going to listen to nothing but this song for the rest of the day. Maybe if we’re really lucky, we’ll get indictments of Frist and Rove before the end of the year.

Coming up next, a very special episode of “Holy shit, our poll numbers are plummeting!” (via Digby) :

Facing criticism that he appeared disengaged from the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina, President Bush has been looking for opportunities to show his concern. But the White House will take the effort a step further Tuesday, venturing into untested waters by putting the nation’s first lady on reality television.

Laura Bush will travel to storm-damaged Biloxi, Miss., to film a spot on the feel-good, wish-granting hit “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” Mrs. Bush sought to be on the program because she shares the “same principles” that the producers hold, her press secretary said.
. . .
The show has been likened to a modern-day “Queen for a Day.” But it could be difficult to discern whose fortunes will be lifted higher — the displaced victims of two hurricanes or the White House, which was widely perceived as slow to understand their pain.

Which is probably why the Bush team contacted the show for a booking instead of the other way around. The series was ranked among the top 15 shows last season with an average 15.8 million viewers. Airing Sunday nights, it is considered one of the strongest family hours on television.

If this publicity stunt is successful, the White House plans to have George make an appearance on Fear Factor. Nothing boosts approval ratings faster than setting yourself on fire and eating a rotten pig rectum. Then again, if they wanted to make the President face his fears, they’d need to come up with something more creative like having him stand up to the evangelical Christian lobby or respond to a crisis in a timely manner.