Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham do, and they’re trying to make sure that their do-nothing colleagues in Congress take note of America’s successes in that godforsaken land. Nothing doing, say the Dems [e.a.]:

The Senators — allies of John McCain — had hoped to attach the resolution to a defense bill under consideration this week. But Mr. Reid wouldn’t allow it. Democrats have often claimed that while they may oppose the war in Iraq, they wholeheartedly support the troops. That’s a defensible position, and this resolution honoring our soldiers and Marines for a job well done gave them a chance to back up their rhetoric. Yet they still balked.

The reality is that success in Iraq has confounded the political left, which placed a huge political bet on our defeat. Senator Reid famously declared the war lost in April 2007. Joe Biden introduced a resolution opposing the surge. And Hillary Clinton said the reports of progress in Iraq required “a willing suspension of disbelief.” In the Democratic narrative, our troops in Iraq are victims of a lost cause, not heroes. They’re allowed to get maimed and killed, but not to succeed.

Thus Democrats are left to argue that success in Iraq is irrelevant because the real fight against al Qaeda is occurring in Afghanistan. Or that the reduced violence in Iraq has resulted not from the troop surge but from the Sunni Awakening and the retreat of the Sadr militias.

Sound familiar? It should, because E. L. Doctorow and Howard Zinn expressed exactly this view when confronted with incontrovertible proof that the Rosenbergs were guilty as charged. That truth is irrelevant, those stalwarts of the Old Left claim, because the real fight is against the American government, which overreacted in 1953 and which has forever since been considered guilty even when proven only a little bit guilty.

Isn’t it so much simpler to admit the truth? to be intellectually honest?

I call my blog Infotainment Rules, and I have great fun here at the expense of the cretins and clowns who make their living in front of the cameras of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, but when I actually think about the repercussions of the three ring circus that is American television and of the serious media’s whitewash of inconvenient truths (and its simultaneous hyping of convenient exaggerations) , it scares me a little and it pisses me off a whole lot.

The media is willfully spreading ignorance and covering up the truth with lies.

If Amy Alexander, writing in The Nation, can admit to it, I suspect that soon enough other women will follow:

Even though I detest her politics, as I watched Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s much-anticipated interview with ABC News’s Charles Gibson, God help me, I had to admire her steeliness. …

[T]here are probably more than a few of us who drift off, from time to time, on the delicious fantasy of what it would feel like to draw down with shotgun on the misbehaving men in our lives. We don’t know if Palin has ever done such a thing, but it appears she sure as hell could. I have to own up to the part of me that admires that. After watching her with Gibson, it’s safe to say that it took a spine of titanium to stay upright in that chair as “Charlie” scowled at her over the top of his reading glasses …

[B]y over-intellectualizing this steeliness factor, and by underestimating its power to sway voters, we are not being true to our cultural history. …

Progressives and feminists who sneer at women unwilling to separate that stimulus-response “I heart ballsy women!” from the business at hand–”Does she have the intellect and experience to be vice president?”–are spinning their wheels. They also conveniently overlook the possibility that Palin’s raw ambition is very close to the self-confidence we want to encourage in our daughters. Sarah Palin is a strong woman, and that is good. Her politics, and what they may lead her to create for our democracy… not so much. [e.a.]

I was encouraged to be self-confident and outspoken by my parents, and I have certainly encouraged my daughter to be self-confident and outspoken.

Judging from the softened attitude I saw this morning from Katty Kay on the Chris Matthews Show and from her pal and fellow op-ed writer Claire Shipman on This Week with George S [transcripts are not yet available at either site], the high-powered women of the MSM have gotten the message to think before they pop off their mouths, and to learn to accommodate other women’s choices—including those who don’t have the luxury of opting out of “prestige” jobs and those whose ambitions include helping to guide the United States of America toward a better course.

Fed up with 50- and 60-hour weeks and a career ladder we didn’t build and don’t want to climb, women are looking for jobs that demand fewer and freer hours. We want to work but we also want quantity time, as well as quality time, with our children. Most of us no longer buy the onwards-and-upwards drive to the corner office (or in Mrs. Palin’s case, the West Wing) at the cost of a fragmented family life. More and more, women are choosing a tapestry of family and work in which we define our own success in reasonable terms — even if we sacrifice some “prestige.”

I find it very interesting that these two women, who beg for time to be with their families, who are supposedly remaking their lives, both find the time to be front and center on the Sunday talk shows (and one of them appears on air with her husband. So excuse me if I feel it necessary to ask Ms. Shipman and Mr. Carney: Who, exactly, is minding your kids while you earnestly debate John McCain’s disappointingly political campaign for president and while you pass judgment on Sarah Palin?)

How do you praise a video game that teaches evolution and simultaneously frown on the game’s undue emphasis on competition? Let the NYT’s Seth Schiesel show you the way as he describes Spore:

Mr. Wright has spent the last eight years trying to figure out how to convey the vast sweep of evolution from a single cell to the exploration of the galaxy as an interactive entertainment experience. His answer, Spore, is being released in stores and online for PCs and Macs in Europe on Friday and in North America this weekend.

As an intelligent romp through the sometimes contradictory realms of science, mythology, religion and hope about the universe around us, Spore both provokes and amuses. And as an agent of creativity it is a landmark. Never before have everyday people been given such extensive tools to create their digital alter ego. …

Mr. Wright and his publishers at Electronic Arts deserve all the credit they have received from some scientists merely for making a game about evolution (though it will be fascinating to see how the game fares among people who do not believe evolution is real). And yes, millions of people will surely spend countless hours, and dollars, on the fabulous computer toy that is Spore. And they should. [e.a.]

So much for the swooning. Here comes the sniffing [e.a.]:

As perhaps befits its subject matter, Spore is not one game but a collection of five discrete mini-games, each reflecting a different stage of biological and social evolution and a different archetypal game style. … Spore goes a bit off the track as it reaches the tribal phase and beyond. Perhaps the biggest problem is that all that time you spent lovingly fine-tuning your otherworldly avatar in the creature phase basically doesn’t matter anymore. After the creature phase the cosmetic appearance of your species is locked in, but the abilities it developed are largely meaningless. … Progressing out of the tribe and civilization stages requires either conquering or co-opting all the neighboring tribes or cities. …

Spore, like real life, is largely about the survival of the fittest.

Why, I am simply outraged. What gall. Imagine that. They made a game about evolution and they expect your alter ego to compete! And that’s not all!

In each stage your species either becomes dominant and evolves, or it becomes extinct (meaning you try over and over again until you “win”).

It turns out that you’re expected to compete and to “win.” And they’re marketing this to children. Oh. My. God.  Call the Culture Police!

Don’t you hate it when David Brooks uses his New York Times perch to remind his readers that life is full of unexpected turns, expecially ones that reflect well on BushHitler?

Bush is a stubborn man. Well, without that stubbornness, that unwillingness to accept defeat on his watch, he never would have bucked the opposition to the surge.

Bush is an outrageously self-confident man. Well, without that self-confidence he never would have overruled his generals. … The additional fact is that Bush, who made such bad calls early in the war, made a courageous and astute decision in 2006. More than a year on, the surge has produced large, if tenuous, gains. Violence is down sharply. Daily life has improved. Iraqi security forces have been given time to become a more effective fighting force. The Iraqi government is showing signs of strength and even glimmers of impartiality. Iraq has moved from being a failed state to, as Vali Nasr of the Council on Foreign Relations has put it, merely a fragile one.

The whole episode is a reminder that history is a complicated thing. The traits that lead to disaster in certain circumstances are the very ones that come in handy in others. The people who seem so smart at some moments seem incredibly foolish in others.

Yep. (This also applies to Brooks, by the way, who referred to the Iraq war as “a disaster” many times during what he now refers to as “the dark days of 2006.”) He’s not humble enough to acknowledge his own previous cocksureness and foolishness. But he’s out there on the cutting edge of what should be opinion right now. We’ll see how it plays.

Brooks sets the stage:

The cocksure war supporters learned this humbling lesson [about orthodox thinking] during the dark days of 2006. And now the cocksure surge opponents, drunk on their own vindication, will get to enjoy their season of humility. They have already gone through the stages of intellectual denial. First, they simply disbelieved that the surge and the Petraeus strategy was doing any good. Then they accused people who noticed progress in Iraq of duplicity and derangement. Then they acknowledged military, but not political, progress. Lately they have skipped over to the argument that Iraq is progressing so well that the U.S. forces can quickly come home.

But before long, the more honest among the surge opponents will concede that Bush, that supposed dolt, actually got one right. Some brave souls might even concede that if the U.S. had withdrawn in the depths of the chaos, the world would be in worse shape today.

It’s unlikely that there will be many such souls, but count me among those who grudgingly (grudgingly because we are of a certain [anti-Vietnam War] age) admit that Bush’s stubbornness has, on balance, been a good thing for America in the immediate wake of 9/11. Many of America’s cocksure enemies have stood down in the wake of Bush’s cowboy-like cocksure aggressiveness. Bush himself has said he regrets the language he used; I didn’t hear him say that he regrets his “going on offense” against America’s enemies, as indeed he shouldn’t.

Something else has been gained in these long seven years. Brooks doesn’t mention it, but I will:L Islamism now has many respectable enemies—including several of Britain’s most famous public intellectuals and novelists.

The New York Times doesn’t quite approve of such heterodox thoughts as this one expressed by Ian McEwan, the author of Atonement:

“As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark skinned, he who criticizes it is racist.” He added: “This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable. Martin is not a racist. And I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on — we know it well.”

The Independent, a British paper, referred to McEwan’s words as

an astonishingly strong attack on Islamism

and pointed out that these words could,

in today’s febrile legalistic climate, lay him open to being investigated for a “hate crime”.

Despite adding to the “febrile” climate surrounding this issue, at least the Independent is honest enough to give a full airing to McEwan’s views, which I reprint here with some emphasis [e.a.]:

McEwan – author of On Chesil Beach and the acclaimed Atonement and Enduring Love – has spoken on the issue of Islamism before, telling The New York Times last December: “All religions make very big claims about the world, and it should be possible in an open society to dispute them. It should be possible to say, ‘I find some ideas in Islam questionable’ without being called a racist.”

But his words in the Corriere interview are far stronger, although they do fall short of the invective deployed by Martin Amis. He has said “the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order”, and told The Independent’s columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a Muslim, in an open letter: “Islamism, in most of its manifestations, not only wants to kill me – it wants to kill you.”

McEwan’s interviewer pointed out that there exist equally hard-line schools of thought within Christianity, for example in the United States. “I find them equally absurd,” McEwan replied. “I don’t like these medieval visions of the world according to which God is coming to save the faithful and to damn the others. But those American Christians don’t want to kill anyone in my city, that’s the difference.”

But McEwan’s specific irritation is reserved for those who find ideological grounds to condemn his and Amis’s views. “When you ask a novelist or a poet about his vision regarding an aspect of the world, you don’t get the response of a politician or a sociologist, but even if you don’t like what he says you have to accept it, you can’t react with defamation. Martin is not a racist, and neither am I.”

Thank you, Ian McEwan. And may others join you in perpetrating the “hate crime” of speaking out in favor of freedom of expression, even (perhaps especially) when your ideas are out of favor with “expert and elite opinion” [Brooks's phrase].

A leopard never loses her spots.

Once she was a loudmouth authoritarian of the right and now she’s a loudmouth authoritarian of the left: Arianna Huffington jumps on the truth-and-reconciliation bandwagon (which I described here) [e.a.]:

It’s no coincidence that a war built on lies continues to be conducted using lies (”the surge is working”). Mark Green proposes a way to end the cycle of deception: create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “This worked in a very different historical situation of South Africa and can work here as well,” wrote Green on HuffPost. “South Africans who engaged in murder and violence were given amnesty if they confessed under oath to their crimes and knowledge — but would be prosecuted if they didn’t…. The largely successful effort led to both truth and reconciliation.”

Richard Clarke echoed Green’s proposal last week, and also suggested something each of us can do: “I just don’t think we can let these people back into polite society and give them jobs on university boards and corporate boards and just let them pretend that nothing ever happened when there are 4,000 Americans dead and 25,000 Americans grievously wounded, and they’ll carry those wounds and suffer all the rest of their lives.”

If the leaders responsible for that suffering are not held accountable — both at the ballot box and by being shamed and shunned as Clarke suggests — we dishonor the sacrifices of the fallen, and make it likely that many more will endure a similar fate.

I can’t help but note that some of the most vocal Obama supporters in the blogosphere share these same revenge fantasies, and that their rhetoric runs strongly counter to what Barack Obama posited as a successful electoral strategy in an opinion posted on DailyKos in 2005. He was very clear back then that hyperpartisanship was not the way to win the White House [e.a.].

I don’t believe we get there by vilifying good allies, with a lifetime record of battling for progressive causes, over one vote or position. I am convinced that, our mutual frustrations and strongly-held beliefs notwithstanding, the strategy driving much of Democratic advocacy, and the tone of much of our rhetoric, is an impediment to creating a workable progressive majority in this country.

According to the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists - a storyline often reflected in comments on this blog - we are up against a sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican party. They have beaten us twice by energizing their base with red meat rhetoric and single-minded devotion and discipline to their agenda. In order to beat them, it is necessary for Democrats to get some backbone, give as good as they get, brook no compromise, drive out Democrats who are interested in “appeasing” the right wing, and enforce a more clearly progressive agenda. The country, finally knowing what we stand for and seeing a sharp contrast, will rally to our side and thereby usher in a new progressive era.

I think this perspective misreads the American people. From traveling throughout Illinois and more recently around the country, I can tell you that Americans are suspicious of labels and suspicious of jargon. They don’t think George Bush is mean-spirited or prejudiced, but have become aware that his administration is irresponsible and often incompetent. They don’t think that corporations are inherently evil (a lot of them work in corporations), but they recognize that big business, unchecked, can fix the game to the detriment of working people and small entrepreneurs. They don’t think America is an imperialist brute, but are angry that the case to invade Iraq was exaggerated, are worried that we have unnecessarily alienated existing and potential allies around the world, and are ashamed by events like those at Abu Ghraib which violate our ideals as a country.

Perhaps Obama has changed his mind since then. He certainly has changed his behavior and his rhetoric an awful lot since then. (Jennifer Rubin has been bird-dogging his flips and flops on just one issue.).

What he believes today and how he will behave tomorrow: those are the things that matter, and some of us feel quite insecure with an otherwise appealing candidate, because a) he has been thoroughly compromised by the PRopaganda^TM campaign that made him into a messiah with devotees who were urged to “come to Obama” and b) because even those of us who are ultra-tolerant and can understand on some level the pull of a Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Obama just can’t figure out where he stands.

And then there are the Clintons, who don’t care at all where Obama stands: they’re too busy keeping score. Don’t worry, though. Revenge has nothing to do with it, says Terry McAuliffe [e.a.]:

Mr. Band keeps close track of the past allies and beneficiaries of the Clintons who supported Mr. Obama’s campaign, three Clinton associates and campaign officials said. Indeed, he is widely known as a member of the Clinton inner circle whose memory is particularly acute on the matter of who has been there for the couple — and who has not.

“The Clintons get hundreds of requests for favors every week,” said Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. “Clearly, the people you’re going to do stuff for in the future are the people who have been there for you.”

Mr. McAuliffe, who knows of Mr. Band’s diligent scorekeeping, emphasized that “revenge is not what the Clintons are about.” The accounting is more about being practical, he said, adding, “You have to keep track of this.”

I hate politics. But, even more than politics, I hate attack-dog authoritarians and demagogues and ideological purists—of both the right and the left.

Mark Steyn reads a New York Times editorial and detects a price that Hillary supporters will have to pay:

I’ve been mulling over that weirdly hysterical anti-Hillary editorial in yesterday’s New York Times in which the voice of America’s liberal establishment turned on the candidate it had endorsed only a couple of months previously for going negative, “waving the bloody shirt of 9/11″, etc.

If I were a timeserving party hack - which is to say a “superdelegate” - wondering about my support for Hillary, Pennsylvania ought to confirm the shrewdness of my judgment: Obama’s a hopelessly weak candidate with minimal appeal beyond blacks and upscale white liberals who enjoy the kinky frisson of racial guilt. But, if I were a timeserving party hack who reads the Times, I’d be struck by the ferocity of its assault on a woman it’s admired for 15 years and I’d be thinking, whoa, I don’t want that kind of publicity if that’s the price of sticking with Hill…

And the number of people who qualify for membership in polite society grows ever smaller.

“Comrade Lenin Cleanses the Earth of Filth”

Michelle Obama strikes again:

“The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.”

(via Glenn Reynolds, who refers to this as “Obamanomics.”)

If Obama were as convinced as his fans that he had put his pastor problem behind him, something tells me he wouldn’t be making a stop on The View in his continuing apology tour. But that’s where he’ll be today:

Obama’s ‘View’: Defend Man, Not Words

The Senator, who is currently leading Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in the pledged delegate count for the 2008 Democratic nomination, agreed Wright’s remarks are “rightly offensive.”

Obama described Wright as a “brilliant man who was still stuck in a time warp.”

“View” co-host Elisabeth Hasslebeck expressed concern that Obama’s choice of pastor may show a lack of judgment.

The candidate explained, “Part of what my role in my politics is to get people who don’t normally listen to each other, to talk to each other, who [say] crazy things, who are offended by each other, for me to understand them and to maybe help them understand each other.”

Obama said he talked to Wright after the controversy erupted.

“I think he’s saddened by what’s happened, and I told him I feel badly that he has been characterized just in this one way, and people haven’t seen this broader aspect of him,” Obama said.

I see he stopped by and talked to ABC’s Charlie Gibson, too:

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., defended Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his pastor for 20 years, telling ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson that it’s unfair to judge him based only on the controversial remarks of a few sermons and not his entire career. (Ida Astute/ABC)

Will this stop the bleeding?

Tom Maguire doesn’t think so:

Can someone help me with what looks like the latest fantasy from Obama as he explains his Reverend Wright (emphasis added):

WASHINGTON - White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama’s campaign, not stepped down.

“Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying at the church,” Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, “The View.” The interview will be broadcast Friday.

Let’s make the working assumption that this excerpt is accurate and in context - time will tell, since the show airs tomorrow.

So, when did Wright acknowledge that what he had said was deeply offensive and inappropriate? The AP story recounts some of Wright’s controversial comments but oddly omits to mention his apology, as does all other news coverage with which I am familiar. And I am strangely certain that a Wright apology would have made the news - unless he never made it publicly.

In case you think I’m being too hard on Obama, think again: I’ve been talking about his hollow PRopaganda^TM image for quite a while. Now I’m just watching it unravel.

Barack Obama and his handlers are apparently so arrogant that they thought they could ignore the first rule of celebrity-image construction: the man must consistently reflect the message. Unfortunately, with Obama, you scratch the highly polished surface and you get a bundle of contradictions that you cannot make consistent with his message, no matter how hard you try.

He says he’s a uniter, and yet for 20 he has chosen to stay inside the bosom of a church whose pastor a) promotes the nursing of grievances in the black community and b) routinely says all kinds of crazy shit. And then, instead of addressing this issue (which, of course, he cannot address in any way that will make him, as a man, consistent with his messiah image), he chose to lecture us about American racism.

I don’t know about you, but no matter how much I admire the political dexterity, I find his politics very old school. If this is change, I don’t want any part of it—particularly since I still don’t know what he stands for.

And if you think I’m cynical, read Kaus. But do not fail to note his reasoning, because it’s sound [e.a.]:

e) The “profound mistake” of this sermon is not that Wright “spoke as if our society was static”–Obama’s analysis on Feb. 18th. The problem is that “white folks’ greed” is not the main cause of a “world in need.” I’m not saying voters shouldn’t cut Obama a lot of slack on Wright’s anti-white fulminations. But the Senator should have spoken up publicly against the semi-paranoid “white greed” explanation a long time ago, no? And he could show a little humility. Again, this wasn’t the occasion for him to be lecturing everyone else. …

Me, I’m thinking that Obama agrees with the Reverend, at least partly. And guess what? I agree! He’s right! (After all, the evils of capitalism—and there were evils of capitalism—were all perpetrated by white people, because white people ruled America.)

But if you’re planning to run for president of the United States, you evict people like the Reverend from your life. You disown them—yes, even if you’re black and you have a long list of righteous reasons to be aggrieved.

Because it’s nasty shit, and no one wants to think of their president as having breathed in that polluted talk—even if he was only nodding in tune to the atmospherics—for 20 years.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough says that “media people are living in fear“ of saying the “wrong” thing [e.a.]:

“There are all these minefields out there for Barack Obama that I think the press has been tiptoeing through,” Scarborough said. He continued, “If you attack Hillary Clinton, we have found, there are organizations out there that will bombard your sponsors, that will call the president of your network and will say, ‘Get that person off the air.’ Media people are living in fear.”

Scarborough challenged both fellow guest Farai Chideya (NPR) and members of the audience who disagreed with him, saying, “Everybody clapping in the audience obviously hasn’t worked at netowkrs during this campaign, where people take them in the back and say, ‘You’ve gotta be very careful now. If you attack Hillary Clinton too much we’re going to be called sexist. And if you attack Barack Obama too much, we’re going to be called racist.’”

I for one am delighted to hear that the architects, gatekeepers, and practitioners of the culture of political correctness tie themselves in knots as they scramble to avoid becoming its next victims. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch!

You won’t see many stories like this in the news, but you’ll find them in print outlets:

Castro’s Cuba was no place for a socialist like me

My wife and I, as unreconstructed paleo-lefties who support Clause Four, free school meals and NHS dental provision, had long wanted to visit Castro’s Cuba. All the people whose views we respect had said that the Caribbean island was a progressive model whose policies on education and healthcare ought to be copied throughout the world. We went there last April desperately wanting to like the place — after all, if George W. Bush and other right-wing nasties hated Cuba so much, then the country must be on the right tracks.

But we returned home terribly disillusioned. Neither of us had been to a country which was so utterly decrepit.

There are smart restaurants, designer shops and modern hotels. Wander a few streets away, however, and you’ll witness scenes of incredible dereliction. Dilapidated buildings with wires hanging out, streets that haven’t been resurfaced for more than 50 years, balconies that look like they’re going to fall down at any minute. In my travels in the Middle East and Asia, I’ve certainly witnessed squalor, but nothing prepared me for the back streets of Havana.

Author Neil Clark was probably referring to images like this,

which are familiar to anyone who has seen the fabulous movie The Buena Vista Social Club.

But the romance with Fidel and the Cuban revolution lives on in the imagination of biens-pensants, patronizing Westerners, who consider Cuba the height of authenticity.

I read Engram’s blog with great pleasure, because of his methodical and data-filled critical analysis (or, rather, dismemberment) of the “trends” cited unilaterally as such by the MSM, although these “trends” are oftentimes not supported by meaningful evidence.

Engram tracks reductive bite-size memes (such as, say, “the surge is a failure”) , providing data points on a month-by-month basis, thus providing meaningful evidence accumulated over a period of time, which in turn is something that can fairly and reasonably be claimed to assess the truth (or the lies or the empty speculation) behind such claims.  

As Engram repeatedly notes (and as should be obvious but often isn’t), this is the only objective way to track actual (as opposed to rhetorical) trends (aka change).***

His neutral approach to accumulating and reporting the data doesn’t mean that Engram doesn’t have a point of view, however, or attitude. 

I admit that I share his attitude today, about the NYT’s one-year-long ”reporting” about the “surge” being (first) doomed and (then) a failure. Engram writes [e.a.]:

But in their editorial [published] right after the testimony by Petraeus (in September of 2007), the editors [of the New York Times] adopted the standard liberal line according to which the whole purpose of the troop surge was give Iraqi politicians time to pass political benchmarks:

The chief objective of the surge was to reduce violence enough that political leaders in Iraq could learn to work together, build a viable government and make decisions to improve Iraqi society, including sharing oil resources.

This has become a standard liberal talking point even though it is factually inaccurate. The left switched to this talking point after their prediction that the troop surge would not reduce violence in Iraq was proven wrong. Instead of acknowledging how wrong they were about that, they seamlessly invented a new story about the “real” purpose of the surge. It is a story that exists in the liberal brain but is nowhere to be found in Bush’s speech to the nation in which he explained the purpose of the troop surge (which the New York Times criticized for not focusing on political reconciliation in Baghdad).

In any case, as the horrid news of greatly reduced violence in Iraq becomes increasingly inescapable even to those who are so blind that they cannot see that we are fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, talk of political reconciliation (and attendant pessimism about that) has become standard on the left (in the New York Times as well). Unfortunately, more horrid news of political reconciliation in Iraq is starting to pile up, so much so that the editors had to painfully acknowledge that fact in their editorial today:

Making (Some) Progress in Iraq

Good news is rare in Iraq. But after months of bitter feuding, Iraq’s Parliament has finally approved a budget, outlined the scope of provincial powers, set an Oct. 1 date for provincial elections and voted a general amnesty for detainees.

Of course, the same editors who declared that Iraq was a failure, that the troop surge would be of no help, and that General Petraeus was lying about a massive reduction in violence are now somewhat pessimistic that these laws will be effectively implemented. Gee, that’s significant. After all, these crack journalists have proven time and again that they know what they are talking about, haven’t they?

No, “these [New York Times] journalists” often don’t know what they are talking about. They are not any better-informed than many dozens of well-informed members of the public who have created opinion platforms for themselves in the blogosphere. They are often peddling a narrative line.

Some of “these journalists” give the impression of being humiliatingly ill-informed. (Although I’ll admit there’s a silver lining in Alessandra Stanley’s inability to remember which cable “news” outlet it is that boasts, probably dozens of times in every 24-hour-period, that it has ”the best political team on television.” Propaganda is only successful if it sticks.)

—————- 

*** I would add this: Everything else is speculation or deliberate manipulation, aimed at influencing public opinion—aka propaganda. And McLuhan was right: the medium is the message.

Who knew?

On Tuesday night, the nine members of the Berkeley City Council are expected to do something they, or the Marines, for that matter, very rarely do: retreat in the face of fierce opposition. …

[Their] proclamation, which called the Marines “uninvited and unwelcome intruders,” sparked an angry response in the form of hundreds of telephone calls, thousands of e-mail messages and countless hours of “How dare they!” on the radio and elsewhere.

This is one of the cases where not all publicity is good publicity.

Code Pink, seen here in a recent performance,

and other fringe radical groups probably thought it was a good idea for Berkeley to take on the Marines,  to call attention to the continuing war in Iraq, along with their aggressive malice toward anyone they decree responsible for it.

Undoubtedly, they thought they were “safe” doing this on their home turf in Northern California, whose demographic is Nancy Pelosi’s core constituency (the one she was signaling on Sunday when she repeatedly called the surge and Iraq a “failure.“)

Something tells me that this constituency’s “ideas” are going to be tested in the coming months. One straw in the wind is the Berkeley mayor’s cluelessness, and his clumsy attempt to pretend that the city council didn’t launch a frontal attack on the United States armed services as a hostile entity:

Mayor Tom Bates, who was in the Army and seems slightly bewildered by the backlash, said the [new] resolution would be “a substitute for what we’ve had out there.”

“Actually I wouldn’t even call it a substitute,” Mr. Bates said a moment later. “I think it’s just a restating of our policy.”

Somehow, I doubt that Mr. Bates will be allowed to rewrite Berkeley’s history with impunity.

The Council regularly takes up foreign policy and other faraway issues. But even veterans of the scene say the Marine hoopla is one for the books.

Ms. Olds, who voted for the parking spot but not the language about the Marines, said she had never seen such a response. Not that the Council did not deserve it, she added.

“I live in the [Berkeley] hills,” Ms. Olds said. “And they don’t like this one bit.”

I’m pretty sure that the folks who live in the “hills” are rich Democrats—Pelosi’s core constituency. They allow the fringe to represent the views of their party at their own risk.

The Daily Mail attacks the British Olympic Association for its ourtrageous coddling of the Chinese with a vivid reminder of Britain’s shame and dishonor in the run-up to World War II:

National disgrace: In a picture from a German archive never before published in Britain, the England football team give Nazi salutes in Berlin in 1938  [e.a.]

Here are the facts, from the Mail:

British Olympic chiefs are to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China’s appalling human rights record – or face being banned from travelling to Beijing.

The controversial clause has been inserted into athletes’ contracts for the first time and forbids them from making any political comment about countries staging the Olympic Games.

It is contained in a 32-page document that will be presented to all those who reach the qualifying standard and are chosen for the team.

From the moment they sign up, the competitors – likely to include the Queen’s granddaughter Zara Phillips and world record holder Paula Radcliffe – will be effectively gagged from commenting on China’s politics, human rights abuses or illegal occupation of Tibet.

Here’s the argument against, from David Mellor, also writing in the Mail:

The Chinese have no right to a free ride this summer. And it isn’t just because China isn’t a democracy or that basic human rights and fundamental freedoms are denied to its citizens.

China is a menace to the civilised world for many other reasons, ranging from its support for renegade regimes such as the government of Sudan, who used Chinese weaponry to commit the Darfur massacres, to its shameless emergence as the number one polluter.

The Chinese deserve as much criticism over their contributions to global warming as over their suppression of human rights.

Long live the British tabloid media!

Does it mean something that even the “Obama Girl” didn’t bother to vote?

On Tuesday night, City Room ran into Ms. Ettinger at an election-watching party in Greenwich Village and asked how things went at the polls.

“I didn’t get a chance to vote today because I’m not registered to vote in New York,” she said.

So where is Obama Girl registered to vote?
“New Jersey.”

Um, but didn’t New Jersey also hold a primary?

True. The problem, she explained, was that she was sick in New York City and was unable to get back across the Hudson River to the polls in Jersey City.

“I was in Arizona for the Super Bowl — every time I get in the airplane I get sick,” said Ms. Ettinger, who did manage to make it to the Svedka Fembot election returns party at Chinatown Brasserie at Lafayette and Great Jones streets.

Okay, maybe the Obama girl isn’t a good example of the flakiness factor evident in Obama’s supporters. But what about the very respectable Kevin Drum, who voted for Obama and then found himself hoping that Hillary would win [e.a.]?

And although Obama obviously made up a huge amount of ground over the past two weeks, what it felt like to me was disappointment. He seemed to be coming on so strong that it seemed inevitable he’d win one or two of the big Hillary states — or at least make them into close races — but he didn’t. In the end, Hillary won California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts by double digit margins. It really seemed to take a lot of wind out of the Obama surge.

The other thing inside my head that I didn’t expect was that as the results came in, I found myself sort of rooting for Hillary. Why? Buyer’s remorse? Rooting for the underdog? Guilt for having “betrayed” her by voting for Obama?

Outsize, overinflated expectations—like the insane hype created by the Obama campaign and its friends and supporters in the media—can easily lead to crushing disappointment (and even more voter apathy than the “hopeful” started out with).

I predict that young people will not be inspired to help “change” America. (For one thing: where would they go to effect that change? It’s not as if Obama has suggested, as JFK did, that his supporters actually give something of themselves to their country. So far, all the contributions have been to his campaign. What does that do to bring about “change” in America?

And that’s just one of the risks of running a vapid “inspirational” campaign. The other risk is that you’ll have much more battle-hardened and much less mushy folks, like, say, Jeff Jarvis and me (here and here and here and here, for example)—not to mention Bill Clinton—to remind you that Obama is selling snake oil:

His supporters, including many New York friends of mine, buy his image and believe he is less political and that he is indeed different. I think he’s more political and his campaign is the greatest example of the selling of the president I’ve yet seen. To state it harshly, I say that relying on these stock phrases — believing that we are going to swallow empty oratory about “change” punctuated with chants of “yes we can” — is a cynical political act.

But then again, I can’t argue with the fact that it’s working. It’s working with voters and it’s certainly working with the media, which have given Obama more attention through much of the campaign.

It worked for a while. But the media didn’t give the whole picture, as this picture posted by Ben Smith attests:

Note the many empty seats.

You won’t see this in most of the news photography, because photographers are packed into press risers, opposite whatever backdrop — a crowd, a flag — the campaign prefers.

But while Obama has held some very large rallies in some very small cities — 14,000 in Boise! — there have also been quite a few empty seats at some of the bigger venues.

Does it come as a surprise to you that the media and the campaigns worked together to create the impression of a “surge” for Obama? It shouldn’t.

I boldly predict no mo’ Mo for Barack Obama.

But I could be wrong … because hope springs eternal!

full disclosure: I voted for Bill Clinton twice, and for Hillary Clinton for the U.S. Senate, and for Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination yesterday. This despite the fact that I am no fan of the Clintons.

On the other hand, I don’t expect to be a fan of my president. I expect my president to work hard at the business of our nation so that I and my friends and family can go about our lives doing the things we like to do, and go to sleep at night knowing that a responsible person is overseeing the big, scary mess that is the United States of America.

If there was a more callous remark than this thrown out into the blogosphere today, I’d like to hear it:

Joe Klein:

if Obama–or Clinton–can change the focus of the debate to the question of strategy–the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption and broader foreign policy priorities (real Al Qaeda v. Al Qaeda in Iraq), McCain has a far more diffiult hill to climb.

I guess those people who got blown up today in Baghdad in a gruesome and heartbreaking mass murder don’t matter, because they’re not “ours.”

The U.S. military, which gave a lower death toll, said both attacks were caused by female suicide bombers and blamed al Qaeda. An Iraqi military official said the two women were mentally handicapped and the bombs detonated by remote control.

I guess what happend today is okay—because it was done “only” by Al Qaeda in Iraq, not by the “real” Al Qaeda.

Does Joe Klein consider this a serious argument?
Does he ever consider the full implications of the things that come out of his mouth?
How many more morons like him are out there?

And does he really think that Democrats can win on national security with arguments like this?

Roger L. Simon thinks the NYT demonstrates pathological hatred of Rudy Giuliani:

The idea that the NYT actually backs a Republican for President seems more likely to be a spoof at The Onion, but it’s evidently for real and they are giving the (very weak) nod to McCain. Yawn…. but what’s fascinating is that the brief remarks supporting McCain are followed by an attack on Rudy which is virtually pathological:

The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square.Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking.

It goes on. When I used the word pathological, I wasn’t exaggerating. The hatred is out of control. It would be interesting to speculate on why, but it’s late and I leave that to readers.

It’s fun to speculate why! Here’s my idea: New York liberals are afraid that if Rudy gets elected, they’re gonna have to answer for him—kinda the way that American Jews have to answer for Israel. Everyone will hate and blame New York, and we can’t have that!

From Christopher Hitchens, natch:

Let us give hearty thanks and credit to Rudy Giuliani, who has never by word or gesture implied that we would fracture any kind of “ceiling” if we elected as chief executive a man whose surname ends in a vowel.

Yet actually, it would be unprecedented if someone of Italian descent became the president of the United States and there was a time — not long ago at that — when the very idea would have aroused considerable passion. Now that it doesn’t, is it not possible to think that that very indifference is the real “change”?

Indeed. Hitchens also nails the real problem—identity politics—with a delicious bon mot [e.a.]:

People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of “race” or “gender” alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason. Yet see how this obvious question makes fairly intelligent people say the most alarmingly stupid things.

So what else is new?

Following up on my post earlier today, here’s a story from TNR that provides evidence of the sick, treacly rot—the insane PC obsession with hurt feelings, as if it is words and not hurtful, harmful, obscene, illegal, immoral, and unconscionable actions that they should be worried about—that is eating away at progressives, Democrats, and what’s left of the left:

The latest maiming of the historical record and elementary historical logic has come over Martin Luther King, Jr., Lyndon B. Johnson–and the presidential primaries of 2008. The media echo chamber is now booming with charges that Senator Hillary Clinton has disparaged Dr. King, praised President Johnson in his stead, and thereby distorted the history of the civil rights movement. …

Now, Representative James E. Clyburn, the most prominent African-American elected official from South Carolina, has picked up the ever-changing story and implicitly accused Senator Clinton of denigrating Dr. King and the civil rights movement. “We have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics,” Clyburn told The New York Times.

[e.a.]

Do we? Who is “we”? And Why?

What matters is the truth, not the tender feelings of the hypersensitive. And the truth is that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a massive hero to millions and millions and millions and millions of Americans, black and white.

He was strong, tough, honorable, noble, and unbending in the face of hideous real-life persecution. He shamed bigots throughout America and ennobled an entire nation. His accomplishments will not soon be matched by another human being.

Why do we have to be careful about talking about his era? Why?

Since my primary topic on this blog is media coverage of events and pseudo-events, I am well aware of the fact that Bush’s trip to the Middle East has gotten almost no media and/or blogospheric play. Everyone would rather do horse-race coverage of an election campaign that has been under way for a year and still has almost a year to go—because it’s way more entertaining.

However, the silence from the usual suspects (that is: all pundits) about Bush’s trip to a part of the world that is perpetually on fire has been astonishing even for me.

Now Matthew Yglesias hints at something that may be going on in PunditWorld^TM. He would love to rip Bush on Israel-Palestine, he says [e.a.],

but I’ve been convinced by people active in these issues that it’s important to provide positive reenforcement. Bush is moving in the right direction and deserves to secure some credit for his troubles.

Enquiring minds want to know all about this conspiracy of silence suggested by an unnamed cabal that has had such a powerful influence on young Mr. Yglesias.

In the past, he has not been so shy with his opinions. Why, he knew it all!

Were Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians resolved, other challenges like Hezbollah would soon melt away. The idea of firing rockets into Israeli towns would appear absurd. Iran and Syria would have nothing to gain from supporting groups that behaved in that manner. Arab public opinion would no longer applaud the firing of rockets at random into Israeli cities.

Who is offering the advice to young Mr. Yglesias to say nothing if he hasn’t anything nice to say? Do they believe in the same fairy tales that he believes in?

Apparently, there’s been quite a reaction to the announcement that Bill Kristol will have one of the most coveted bully pulpits in America: a column in the New York Times. I first wrote about this a couple of days ago and then went out of town.

Now the Times has been confronted. Editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal finds it easy to defend his hire:

Rosenthal told Politico shortly after the official announcement Saturday that he fails to understand “this weird fear of opposing views.”

“The idea that The New York Times is giving voice to a guy who is a serious, respected conservative intellectual — and somehow that’s a bad thing,” Rosenthal added. “How intolerant is that?”

Kristol himself is one gleeful culture warrior:

“I was flattered watching blogosphere heads explode,” Kristol told Politico. “It was kind of amusing.”

She’s not in the blogosphere, but could Kristol have meant Katha Pollitt?

Just shoot me. First, it was Sam Tanenhaus, conservative editor of the New York Times Book Review being put in charge of the News of the Week in Review section. That means one conservative will determine how politics,culture and ideas are covered in TWO of the most important sections of the supposedly liberal newspaper of record. Now, says the Huffington Post, the Times is set to announce that Bill Kristol will be writing a weekly op-ed column. That’s Bill Kristol ,Fox commentator , editor of the the Murdochian agitprop factory Weekly Standard, George W. Bush’s propagandist in chief, co-founder of the Project for a New American Century, relentless promoter of the war in Iraq , ideological bully and thug.

Kristol responded directly to that attack (via Exurban League, where you can check out his Thug 4 Life pic too):

Give a holla to my neocons in the Bay,
I’m livin’ in DC still clutchin’ on my AK.
Tell ‘em,
“Thug for life,
High till’ i die”
When ‘em stupid Nation witches ask why!

Among other spicy events to look forward to, election 2008 is about to get a little more interesting (Kristol has a one-year contract).

Bottom line, says The Politico, this is a smart business decision for the New York Times:

Despised or not, Kristol is bound to create controversy (read: Web page views). It’s no surprise that during this overheated election season Newsweek and other such magazines are bringing in political lighting rods like Karl Rove and Markos Moulitsas.

In the new media world of the early 21st century, apparently it’s no longer enough to merely attract attention. You want (or need) to attract lightning to get noticed.

Philip Weiss discovers anti-democratic extremism.

I was shocked by Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Any fool knew it was coming, that is the not the point. It was the pure evil infamy of it. They hate democracy. Who hates democracy? Well, some elements of radical Islam. When David Axelrod of Obama’s campaign yesterday hinted that Hillary Clinton was somehow responsible because she voted for the Iraq War, I thought, Don’t be an idiot. …

After the Cold War, Susan Sontag famously said that the National Review was more reliable than the Nation on the Soviet Union. This time around the left must show that it is more reliable than the Weekly Standard and the New Republic about “the war on terror”. We are winning this ideological battle because we have not overstated the threat, and they have, and we do not ignore the fact that the Palestinian situation is a red flag across the Muslim world. Yet we can’t forget: there are forces of darkness out there.

The sewer rats in his comments section are none too pleased about Weiss’s revelation:

We liked you better when you blamed everything on the Jews.

Posted by: Realist | December 28, 2007 at 07:57 AM

For his cheerleading of those other blamers of the Jews, Weiss made a Top Ten Moonbats of 2007 list:

Weiss has become an “Israel Lobby” fundamentalist. In his eyes, to question the scholarship of Walt and Mearsheimer is to question truth. Every page of their book is gospel. Any negative review of their work is automatically dismissed as a “smear,” and every day that passes without an expose of the “Israel Lobby” on “60 Minutes” or the cover of Time magazine is further evidence of Jewish control over the media.

This mild critique doesn’t do Weiss justice. He has to be read to be believed. I’ll give you all the pleasure of finding out for yourselves, but I won’t provide another link.

 David Brooks elaborates:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Welcome to Drexel University, the site of tonight’s Democratic presidential debate. Let’s get started with Senator Barack Obama. Senator, you’ve vowed to spend this entire debate standing on Senator Clinton’s windpipe while reducing her to a quivering mass of jelly. How do you plan on doing that?

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: Well, Brian, as you know the goal of my campaign is to make this country as noble as I am. But without casting aspersion or criticism in any direction, I have noticed that Senator Clinton, probably without meaning to, has not fully contextualized her discourse, which has had the effect of diffusing the national conversation we must have about the tremendous challenges we face.

WILLIAMS: Senator Clinton, I’m going to give you a few seconds to recover from that mauling.

SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON (quietly weeping): Thank you, Brian.

TIM RUSSERT: Senator Edwards, let’s turn to you. Four years ago, you vowed to run an entirely positive campaign. Now you’re running a negative one. What changed?

JOHN EDWARDS: My convictions, Tim. …

Gee, I wonder where Brooks got the idea that Obama is a gushing fountain of “correct” ideas and language [e.a.]:

Senator Barack Obama says he would “engage in aggressive personal diplomacy” with Iran if elected president and would offer economic inducements and a possible promise not to seek “regime change” if Iran stopped meddling in Iraq and cooperated on terrorism and nuclear issues. …

Mr. Obama said that Iran had been “acting irresponsibly” by supporting Shiite militant groups in Iraq. He also emphasized that Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program and its support for “terrorist activities” were serious concerns.

Yes, of course: Iran has made errors of judgment, and if it doesn’t behave, it definitely needs a time-out, helpfully outlined by Wikipedia:

1. Decide what type of behavior warrants a time-out (such as fighting, arguing or throwing tantrums), and try to enforce this fairly and consistently. All adults involved with the child should follow similar guidelines when using a time-out.
2. Designate a corner (hence the common term corner time) or similar space where the child is to stand during time-outs. Never use their bed.
3. Use an age appropriate time length for the time-out. For a short time-out, approximately one minute per year of age is reasonable; that time may be doubled if necessary if the child pushes their limits during the time-out.
4. Have an incentive for completing the time-out without arguing. This may for instance be a loss of a privilege until the time-out has been completed.
5. The time-out should always have verbal warnings before the discipline to allow the child to make appropriate choices. If their bad behavior continues, they should have an explanation for the time-out as they are being escorted to that area. Even one-year olds understand when they have reached their parental limit, but the explanations should be age appropriate.
6. Afterwards both the parent and the child should try to leave the incident behind.

See how easy it is?

Here’s the background to the Norman Mailer–Norman Podhoretz “feud” that Andrew Sullivan so generously alluded to and so stingily failed to provide the context for. (Every story has at least two sides.):

In taking a critical stand on the Berkely [Free Speech Movement] uprising, we did not deny the reality of the grievances against the university that had presumably caused the trouble. Nor did we deny the need for changes in the way Berkeley, and the American educational system in general, operated. That would have been the conservative or right-wing position. What we did deny was that the situation had become so bad that nothing less than revolution could possibly do any good. We thought that Berkeley was a fundamentally sound institution that should and could be improved without resort to “tactics of force and disruption” and the rhetorical violence that always seemed to accompany tactics of that kind. …

[We were served notice] that to deviate from [the Movement party line], then, even gently, was at a minimum to risk abuse and to open oneself up to the most insulting interpretation of one’s motives.

This too was reminiscent of the experience of our intellectual elders in the thirties….
In the sixties things were a bit different, but what s ome were later to think of as the “terror” also came into play then. The word “terror,” like everything else about the sixties, was overheated. No one was arrested or imprisoned or executed; no one ws even fired from a job. … The sanctions of this particular reign of “terror” were much milder: one’s reputation was besmirched, with unrestrained viciousness in conversation and, when the occasion arose, by means of innuendo in print. People were written off with the stroke of an epithet—”fink” or “racist” or “fascist” as the case may be—and anyone so written off would have difficulty getting a fair hearing for anything he might have to say. Conversely, anyone who went against the Movement party line soon discovered the likely penalty was dismissal from the field of discussion.

Seeing others ruthlessly dismissed in this way was enough to prevent most people from voicing serious criticisms of the radical line, and—such is the nature of intellectual cowardice—it was enough in some instances to prevent them even from allowing themselves to entertain critical thoughts. The “terror,” in other words, could at its most effective penetrate into the privacy of a person’s mind. But even at its least effective, it served to set a very stringent limit on criticism of the radical line on any given issue or at any given moment. A certain area of permissible discussion and disagreement was always staked out, but it was hard to know exactly where the boundaries were; one was always in danger of letting a remark slip across the border and unleashing the “terror” on one’s head. …

They were afraid of what might be said about them … and not only to their faces but behind their backs when they would be unable to defend themselves and when, as they knew all too well from their own reluctance to defend others against such insulting charges, there would be no one else to stand up for them either. …

Of course one could recant and be forgiven; or alternatively one could simply speak one’s mind and let the “terror” do its worst. Yet whatever one chose to do, the problem remained. …

[In 1968] the new radicalism was riding so high that it was in no mood for anything but allegiance, praise, and flattery. This had been enough, and more than enough, to frighten William Phillips. but what was more surprising, and more significant, it was even enough to intimidate Norman Mailer, whom Phillips commissioned to write the piece for Partisan Review about Making It.

The author of these words is Norman Podhoretz. This is from his book Breaking Ranks (1979).

I would add two things:

One: Norman Mailer has said (I can’t find the reference, but I will) that judging a man by his politics is like looking at him from the perspective of his asshole. He and Podhoretz were friends, and that Mailer tried to keep up the friendship after this, Podhoretz reports. Under the circumstances, the friendship withered.

Two: Podhoretz went on to have a magnificent career, and a profound impact on two generations of thoughtful, politically engaged Americans—as did Norman Mailer.

Recently, Katie Couric asserted that everyone in the audience at the National Press Club with her thinks that Bush lied, so people died:

“Everyone in this room would agree that people in this country were misled in terms of the rationale of this war,” said Couric, adding that it is “pretty much accepted” that the war in Iraq was a mistake.

When people accuse the media of having a liberal bias, this is what they mean. It is Couric’s default position—and her colleagues’ default position, sh