Saturday, April 09, 2005
Monday, April 04, 2005
A Western Heart
A Western Heart: "Look at Freedom House's latest report on free nations:
The report, 'The Worst of the Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies 2005,' includes detailed summations of the dire human rights situations in Belarus, Burma (Myanmar), China, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. Chechnya, Tibet, and Western Sahara are included as territories under Russian, Chinese, and Moroccan jurisdictions respectively.
The report is available online.
Significantly, six of the eighteen most repressive governments--those of China, Cuba, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe--are members of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), representing nearly 11 percent of the 53-member body."
The report, 'The Worst of the Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies 2005,' includes detailed summations of the dire human rights situations in Belarus, Burma (Myanmar), China, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. Chechnya, Tibet, and Western Sahara are included as territories under Russian, Chinese, and Moroccan jurisdictions respectively.
The report is available online.
Significantly, six of the eighteen most repressive governments--those of China, Cuba, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe--are members of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), representing nearly 11 percent of the 53-member body."
Sunday, April 03, 2005
Power Line: April 2005 Archives Berger Folly1
Power Line: April 2005 Archives: "Casual readers of the news will have no idea what to make of Sandy Berger's guilty plea. This AP story says:
Former national security adviser Sandy Berger, who once had unfettered access to the government's most sensitive secrets, pleaded guilty Friday to sneaking classified documents out of the National Archives, then using scissors to cut up some of them.
Rather than the 'honest mistake' he described last summer, Berger acknowledged to U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson that he intentionally took and deliberately destroyed three copies of the same document dealing with terror threats during the 2000 millennium celebration. He then lied about it to Archives staff when they told him documents were missing.
Noel Hillman, chief of the Justice Department's public integrity section, tried to be reassuring:
Berger only had copies of documents; all of the originals remain in the government's possession, Hillman said.
The AP describes the Berger incident as 'bizarre,' and, to an ordinary reader, it must seem bizarre indeed. Why would anyone steal and destroy 'three copies of the same document,' and then lie about it?
The answer, obviously, is that all of the 'copies' were different, in that they contained different handwritten notes by various Clinton administration officials, apparently including Berger. This Washington Post story is slightly more informative:
Berger's associates said yesterday he believes that closure is near on what has been an embarrassing episode during which he repeatedly misled people about what happened during two visits to the National Archives in September and October 2003.
Rather than misplacing or unintentionally throwing away three of the five copies he took from the archives, as the former national security adviser earlier maintained, he shredded them with a pair of scissors late one evening at the downtown offices of his international consulting business.
The document, written by former National Security Council terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke, was an 'after-action review' prepared in early 2000 detailing the administration's actions to thwart terrorist attacks during the millennium celebration. It contained considerable discussion about the administration's awareness of the rising threat of attacks on U.S. soil.
Archives officials have said previously that Berger had copies only, and that no original documents were lost. It remains unclear whether Berger knew that, or why he destroyed three versions of a document but left two other versions intact. Officials have said the five versions were largely similar, but contained slight variations as the after-action report moved around different agencies of the executive branch.
So Berger removed five copies of the Clarke report, carefully destroyed three of them 'late one evening,' and returned the other two to the Archives. Obviously he reviewed the notes on the five documents and destroyed the three that contained information damaging to the reputation of the Clinton administration. I do not find reassuring the Post's suggestion that these were 'copies only' and that it 'remains unclear whether Berger knew that.' Obviously all five copies of the Clarke report were 'copies.' But they contained unique notes, and Berger certainly thought that they were the only 'copies' of those notes in existence, or it would make no sense to destroy them. I have seen no evidence whatsoever that he was wrong.
One aspect of Berger's sentence that seems almost humorous is the fact that his security clearance is suspended for three years. He wasn't going to need it during President Bush's second term, in any event, and he'll have it back in time for the new Democratic administration that, he hopes, will begin in 2009. What a penalty for attempting, apparently successfully, to destroy a portion of the historical record relating to the government's anti-terror activities in the months leading up to September 11."
Former national security adviser Sandy Berger, who once had unfettered access to the government's most sensitive secrets, pleaded guilty Friday to sneaking classified documents out of the National Archives, then using scissors to cut up some of them.
Rather than the 'honest mistake' he described last summer, Berger acknowledged to U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson that he intentionally took and deliberately destroyed three copies of the same document dealing with terror threats during the 2000 millennium celebration. He then lied about it to Archives staff when they told him documents were missing.
Noel Hillman, chief of the Justice Department's public integrity section, tried to be reassuring:
Berger only had copies of documents; all of the originals remain in the government's possession, Hillman said.
The AP describes the Berger incident as 'bizarre,' and, to an ordinary reader, it must seem bizarre indeed. Why would anyone steal and destroy 'three copies of the same document,' and then lie about it?
The answer, obviously, is that all of the 'copies' were different, in that they contained different handwritten notes by various Clinton administration officials, apparently including Berger. This Washington Post story is slightly more informative:
Berger's associates said yesterday he believes that closure is near on what has been an embarrassing episode during which he repeatedly misled people about what happened during two visits to the National Archives in September and October 2003.
Rather than misplacing or unintentionally throwing away three of the five copies he took from the archives, as the former national security adviser earlier maintained, he shredded them with a pair of scissors late one evening at the downtown offices of his international consulting business.
The document, written by former National Security Council terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke, was an 'after-action review' prepared in early 2000 detailing the administration's actions to thwart terrorist attacks during the millennium celebration. It contained considerable discussion about the administration's awareness of the rising threat of attacks on U.S. soil.
Archives officials have said previously that Berger had copies only, and that no original documents were lost. It remains unclear whether Berger knew that, or why he destroyed three versions of a document but left two other versions intact. Officials have said the five versions were largely similar, but contained slight variations as the after-action report moved around different agencies of the executive branch.
So Berger removed five copies of the Clarke report, carefully destroyed three of them 'late one evening,' and returned the other two to the Archives. Obviously he reviewed the notes on the five documents and destroyed the three that contained information damaging to the reputation of the Clinton administration. I do not find reassuring the Post's suggestion that these were 'copies only' and that it 'remains unclear whether Berger knew that.' Obviously all five copies of the Clarke report were 'copies.' But they contained unique notes, and Berger certainly thought that they were the only 'copies' of those notes in existence, or it would make no sense to destroy them. I have seen no evidence whatsoever that he was wrong.
One aspect of Berger's sentence that seems almost humorous is the fact that his security clearance is suspended for three years. He wasn't going to need it during President Bush's second term, in any event, and he'll have it back in time for the new Democratic administration that, he hopes, will begin in 2009. What a penalty for attempting, apparently successfully, to destroy a portion of the historical record relating to the government's anti-terror activities in the months leading up to September 11."
Power Line: April 2005 Archives Robert Borg Racist
Power Line: April 2005 Archives: "The New York Times features a predictably fawning profile of former Ku Klux Klan Kleagle and current West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd: 'A master of Senate's ways is still parrying in his twilight.' By contrast with its coverage of the Pope's death, the Times had no problem finding quotes from supporters of Senator Byrd before press time.
Robert Byrd is indeed a valuable link not only to the Senate's past, but also to the Democratic Party's history as the party of slavery, segregation, and opposition to equal treatment of blacks. Times reporter Sheryl Stolberg obviously loves Byrd's cornpone constitutional shitck in favor of filibustering a Republican president's judicial appointees. It's a shame that Stolberg exerted no effort to put Byrd's shtick in the context it merits.
Byrd is old enough, for example, to have vowed memorably regarding the integration of the Armed Forces by President Truman that he would never fight 'with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.'
Even after his resignation from the Klan, Byrd continued to hold it in high esteem, writing to the Klan's Imperial Wizard in 1946: 'The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia.'
And Byrd is old enough to have participated in filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as to have voted against it after cloture along with 18 other Democrats -- in the name of the Constitution, of course. Funny Stolberg didn't invite Byrd to take a walk down memory lane on that subject. It would have been highly illuminating. (Thanks to Deroy Murdock's excellent NRO column: 'Dems need a houseclean.')
More recently, Byrd put his eloquent voice to use in an interview with Tony Snow on Fox News Sunday. Here Byrd harked back to the days of old, but with a twist, observing that 'there are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time.' Walter Williams mordantly wondered 'whether he was talking about whites who act like blacks.'
In the Times article Byrd cites the late Georgia Senator Richard Russell as his mentor and quotes the advice Russell gave him regarding the ways of the Senate. Russell was a wise man in many ways, but he was also one of the signers of the infamous 1956 Southern Manifesto opposing Brown v. Board of Education -- in the name of the Constitution, of course.
Also signing the Southern Manifesto was the late Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina. Like Byrd, Ervin was resurrected as a heroic cornpone constitutionalist in the eyes of the elite media. In the eyes of the media, Ervin was born again during his chairmanship of the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973. As with Senator Byrd today, all was forgiven.
byrd.jpg
The Times profile of Byrd is accompanied by the photo above by Doug Mills with the caption: 'Senator Robert C. Byrd, after speaking at a MoveOn.org rally last month in Washington, defending the use of the filibuster to block judicial nominees.' Only a fellow as supremely lacking in self-awareness as Senator Byrd can miss the inadvertent allusion to the black power salute of the late 1960's in Byrd's gesture, or to the 'right on' salute of the radical left of the same period, or other more remote historical precedents that Senator Byrd himself loves to invoke against his Republican opponents."
Robert Byrd is indeed a valuable link not only to the Senate's past, but also to the Democratic Party's history as the party of slavery, segregation, and opposition to equal treatment of blacks. Times reporter Sheryl Stolberg obviously loves Byrd's cornpone constitutional shitck in favor of filibustering a Republican president's judicial appointees. It's a shame that Stolberg exerted no effort to put Byrd's shtick in the context it merits.
Byrd is old enough, for example, to have vowed memorably regarding the integration of the Armed Forces by President Truman that he would never fight 'with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.'
Even after his resignation from the Klan, Byrd continued to hold it in high esteem, writing to the Klan's Imperial Wizard in 1946: 'The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia.'
And Byrd is old enough to have participated in filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as to have voted against it after cloture along with 18 other Democrats -- in the name of the Constitution, of course. Funny Stolberg didn't invite Byrd to take a walk down memory lane on that subject. It would have been highly illuminating. (Thanks to Deroy Murdock's excellent NRO column: 'Dems need a houseclean.')
More recently, Byrd put his eloquent voice to use in an interview with Tony Snow on Fox News Sunday. Here Byrd harked back to the days of old, but with a twist, observing that 'there are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time.' Walter Williams mordantly wondered 'whether he was talking about whites who act like blacks.'
In the Times article Byrd cites the late Georgia Senator Richard Russell as his mentor and quotes the advice Russell gave him regarding the ways of the Senate. Russell was a wise man in many ways, but he was also one of the signers of the infamous 1956 Southern Manifesto opposing Brown v. Board of Education -- in the name of the Constitution, of course.
Also signing the Southern Manifesto was the late Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina. Like Byrd, Ervin was resurrected as a heroic cornpone constitutionalist in the eyes of the elite media. In the eyes of the media, Ervin was born again during his chairmanship of the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973. As with Senator Byrd today, all was forgiven.
byrd.jpg
The Times profile of Byrd is accompanied by the photo above by Doug Mills with the caption: 'Senator Robert C. Byrd, after speaking at a MoveOn.org rally last month in Washington, defending the use of the filibuster to block judicial nominees.' Only a fellow as supremely lacking in self-awareness as Senator Byrd can miss the inadvertent allusion to the black power salute of the late 1960's in Byrd's gesture, or to the 'right on' salute of the radical left of the same period, or other more remote historical precedents that Senator Byrd himself loves to invoke against his Republican opponents."
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