Will They Ever Learn?

If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.

Indiana News Roundup

I’m not sure what the critical catalyst here is but since the primaries moved into “the land of Indians” after the Pennsylvania primaries, our fields are alive with the sound of DAT recorders and whatever other noises reporters make in their secrete conclaves.

Last week NPR’s All Things Considered ran the story “Primary Not the Only Political Game in Indiana”about our convoluted path toward legitimate environmental stewardship.

This morning’s Morning Edition carried the story on white-nose syndrome, a fungal condition that might wipe out Indiana’s endangered brown bat (“Disease Deadly to Bats Spreads in Northeast U.S.”)

And Talking Points Memo is linking to this piece in Portfolio which features the antiquated accounting machinery in effect at the Indianapolis military finance center. This is the center that most Porch Dog readers will only know from 2001-era stories when we were rumored to be a “major terrorist target” because of said facility.

Of course there’s also our district 2 primary pride and joy Tony Zirkle who’s basically made a total ass of himself and Indiana by attending (and being a speaker at) a birthday party for Hitler. His excuse?–He’s a media whore and he’ll speak anywhere they invite him.

Awesome.

I’m sure there are just dozens more. Send us more worthless political races please. I like seeing my state in the national news for things other than bizarre murders and large plant explosions.

Indiana Race Part III…IV?

Professor Taylor at PoliBlog links to this story from the Congressional Quarterly which quite scientifically projects what I said last week and earlier this week: Indiana doesn’t matter.

Indiana offers 72 delegates that will be apportioned by the results of the voting. Forty-seven of those 72 are directly related to results in Indiana’s 9 congressional districts. Of those 47, CQ predicts Obama and Clinton will split them right down the freaking middle with Clinton earning 24 and Obama 23. I figure if CQ is wrong by a few thousand votes in every district the result may come back a surprising 24 for Obama and 23 Clinton–a major (MAJOR) upset for the “Comeback Kid” but still close enough for her to drag on her continued presence in this race.

Of the rest CQ says this:

The other 25 pledged delegates at stake — 16 “at-large” delegates and nine party leader and elected officials (PLEOs) — will be distributed in proportion to the statewide vote. The 16 at-large delegates will split 8-8 if the winner takes less than 53.1 percent of the vote. The statewide winner is guaranteed a 5-4 victory among the nine PLEOs; it would require 61.1 percent of the statewide vote for a 6-3 edge.

So the remaining delegates will be apportioned based on statewide totals, and of course, we know that race is close. Two local pollsters have it a deadheat (48/47) and (46/46). Survey USA has Clinton by 9 with Obama closing the gap. (I don’t know if any of those polls were done after Rev. Wright’s most recent ridiculousness and none of them are post-Obama’s speech from yesterday). At any rate I suspect that the statewide delegates will be split basically down the middle with a tiny edge to Clinton.

If she’s lucky she will tighten her 159 delegate deficit by two or three. She will widen her superdelegate lead here by another handful–which still leaves her behind in the popular vote, behind in the delegate vote, and behind in votes overall.

¿Puede Ganar en Indiana el Sr. Obama? [No lo sé.]

This question is so blindingly obvious I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it on my own yet…nor have our local NPR affiliates. “The Latino vote” has been one of those bizarro story arcs for the whole campaign season and, like most northern states the recent wave of Latino immigration is a story on the tips of every tongue. The combination is the result of a natural fit. Get on it WFYI!

I have been saying that Obama’s populist jibber-jabber should appeal to Latin Americans who are not only accustomed to but seem to like politicians that cater to populist policies. But Clinton, probably because of something her husband did 15 years ago, seems to pull their vote anyway.

But Indiana, as I mentioned a few days ago, is a battleground state, sitting between Clinton-dominated Ohio and Obama-lovin’ Illinois. The demographics of the area show that its about 25% Latino, which should favor Obama getting the Latino vote there since East Chicago, Gary, Whiting, etc in the Lake County region (for those of you who are map-skillz deficient) is the part of the state that borders Chicago…Illinois….Obama’s home state. Their major news outlets are all Chicago-based. The name recognition for Obama in that region is particularly strong.

But if Clinton is able to rally the Latino vote here the same way she’s been able to elsewhere it could significantly undercut Obama’s lead in the delegate-heavy, urban northwest–an area that, without Latinos, would clearly favor him.

This is a particularly relevant threat for him since that region is steel mill-heavy too–if Pennsylvania taught us anything.

Obama should start putting soccer in his “I can play sports” repertoire.

I Suspect Daddy

What follows is not political at all, but sometimes you just have to comment on the more pervasive internetz events.

I’m neither warped, a paranoid reactionary, or guilt-riddled but I can tell you that I thought this post was perfect in its argument strategy.

People often forget that in artistic endeavor everything is intentional. Yes, there is no explicit nudity. Yes, there is Vanity Fair’s typical gray filter they use to convince us that their pictures are “artful.” Yes Miley’s hair is swept forward in an attractive and not-necessarily-erotic way. But she is naked and her nakedness is shielded to the viewer by means of a sheet. Why a sheet? Was a sheet the only prop that Vanity Fair had handy, or does the sheet represent something? What could a sheet represent? Well, it is quite obviously evocative of a bed…(that is, it evokes the image of a bed in our minds). What is the goal of placing Miley in a bed? Is it to conjure up images of sugar plum fairies? Innocent dreams? Daddy Billy Ray tucking her in at night to keep her safe? Because, I should probably remind you, she’s naked.

Why (why oh why?) is Miley naked and wrapped in a sheet in Vanity Fair? And the answer is two-fold: to sell more copies of Vanity Fair and to sell more of whatever Miley Cyrus does: songs, shows, concerts, posters, etc.

And…er…when you deliberately use erotic pictures of underage girls to sell products it is quite definitely–that is, by definition–child pornography…and kind of like child prostitution.

I guess.

I guess you could also argue that the picture is actually artful. Not just in the deliberate use of those strange white, gray, and red tones that Vanity Fair has been running into the ground over the last few years but also in terms of shading, tone, texture, line, etc. on the basis of which photography is judged. Since the picture has artistic merit, by a separate calculus, Miley and Vanity Fair are in the clear. But even artistically one cannot escape the blatantly sexual nature of the photo. The tussled hair, the sheet, the bright red lipstick…Miley isn’t just being treated like a whore by the Annie Liebovitz, she actually looks like a recently worked-over working girl.

What I like most about this photo shoot and the uproar it seems to be causing is that Miley’s dad, he of “Achy Breaky Heart” fame, King of the Mullets, was not only present, as Vanity Fair’s public statement claimed, but actually took part in the shoot. The pictures of the two together make them look like a romantic couple rather than father and daughter. Or rather, they look like both given her lusty countenance and his trailer park chic. It’s just flat incestuous from beginning to end. Most of the uproar is centered on pedophilia, which makes some sense, but really, I’m focusing on the more sinister taboo here.

Rev. Wright: Shut Up; Sen. McCain: Keep Talkin’

In-and-out blogging today so I can get back to my for-pay work–both topics meant to annihilate any lingering doubt that I might not be totally in the tank for Democrats in 2008 (It’s sometimes hard for me to forget that I once said good things about Senator Lugar.)

Reverend Wright
Reverent Wright knows better than I do which path will best serve his flock but here’s my opinion: If he really wants to promote social justice, if he really wants to help black people in American society, then helping Obama get elected is certainly as viable a plan–if not more viable–than him finding more ways to publicize his obviously antagonizing views.

Yes, I understand, he wants to antagonize; he wants to speak The Truth to The People–such is his obligation under the doctrine of his church. But part of being a good leader is understanding that there is a good time and a bad time for all things, a season, if you will…I read that somewhere. I’m not asking that he not say “God damn America,” I’m asking that he not say it right now. Is the second week of November just too far away? Honestly, one gets the feeling (and I am that one) that this is less about spreading the doctrine of black liberation theology and a lot more about collecting speaker’s fees–striking while the iron is hot and whatnot. If the love of God on Earth is made visible through the promotion of social justice then Wright will surely burn one day for flexing his vanity and working against the efforts of the larger movement.

The New DNC Anti-McCain ad:
Some thoughtful people have chimed in on McCain’s repeated admission that he doesn’t care if we stay in Iraq “for a 100 years” or “10,000.” To some, it seems that to continue to rag on McCain for his statements is purely and illegitimately to take them out of context. To others, like TPM’s Josh Marshall, these attackers are fully in the right because they are “using the senator’s own words.” The release of the new DNC ad has reignited this debate.

I had hoped to chime in on this myself before someone else made the proper defense but Marshall did it today. Basically it might be true that most of the attacks, to a very minor degree, take McCain’s statements out of context. He did say that he didn’t care if we were in Iraq for a 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 years. But he did not mean that we would be continuing the Iraq War for that long. What McCain meant was that we would occupy Iraq indefinitely under a similar arrangement as we have with Germany or Japan and boatloads of other nations, which, given the nature and success of those arrangements, is hardly a controversial policy.

The problem, as Marshall correctly points out is that:

…there’s little reason to believe our occupation of Iraq will ever be like that. We tried this in Lebanon; the French tried this in Algeria; the British even tried it in Iraq. Western countries have a very poor history garrisoning Muslim countries in the Middle East. Iraq isn’t like Germany or Japan, not simply because of the history of the country but because both countries accepted decades-long US deployments as a counterweight to threatening neighbors. The relevant point is that McCain believes American troops should stay in Iraq permanently. His pipe dream about Iraq turning into Germany doesn’t change that.

That’s the crux here, Iraq will continue to be a deadly experiment in imperialist overreach for years into the future and will likely never transform into anything else. So the fact that McCain really hopes that our 10,000-year occupation is a peaceful one is completely irrelevant. Marshall and I both love this elegant restatement of the point from the New Yorkers‘ Rick Hertzberg:

McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal–that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we’ll stay.

So regardless of whether or not you believe that McCain meant that we would have a 100-year-long war in Iraq or not, his policy will result in one, and thus this ad and all others that accuse McCain of endorsing a 100-year war in Iraq are 100% justifiably and correct. The fact that he has deluded himself into believing that that is not the case makes him more deadly, not less. This is a case where the context hurts McCain rather than helping him. Out of context he is merely calling for 100 years of war with Iraq presumably in an effort to secure the safety of Americans. In context he’s strategically incompetent and dangerously naive about national security matters; and his incompetence and naivete will result in a 100 year long war. Vote for him at the peril of your sons and grandsons (and their kids, and their kids’ kids…at least.)

Indiana Race: Part II

I’m not going back on Thursday’s statement that the Indiana race doesn’t matter and that all the talk of its mattering “for the first time since 1968″ is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of why it doesn’t matter. Looking in the traditional place of Indiana’s race not mattering (the race is effectively over by the time it gets here) commentators are missing the fact that the race doesn’t matter for a completely different reason (Indiana will split the delegate vote and leave the race essentially unchanged–as have all previous races).

Of course this second “fact” is based on the assumption that Obama and Clinton will split the vote here. Luckily for me and my big mouth, a poll released on Friday had the two Dems in a statistical deadheat. That’s right, accounting for possible errors in the polling, Clinton and Obama are tied. Hell, even if we ignore the so-called “margin of error,” they’re tied. I mean a split of 47% to 48% (Clinton) is still going to split the delegates in half.

Barring the discovery that Obama has been in charge of a sex trade ring or an illegal Chinese immigrant import operation, I think we can all safely assume that we’ll be looking at the same landscape after Indiana as we were looking at before it. In geospatial terms, think of having run a mile through the Sahara. You know in your heart you’re a mile closer to getting out, but it looks identical. There you have it: 2008 Democratic Primary Season = Sahara Desert EcoChallenge.

However, the perception that this race matters has made the news a lot more interesting. Finally some politicians I know are being interviewed. Names of nearby folk are appearing on CNN and NPR. Local affiliates are getting in the game and you can tell they’ve been aching to ask some serious questions to some of the state’s movers and shakers. And because it now seems “worth it” to them to get on the radio and talk, they are.

And here are some of the things I learned or had re-enforced over the weekend:

Apparently the target marketing of the two campaigns is why I haven’t seen or heard any Clinton ads yet. Rural-based friends of friends haven’t seen any Obama ads.

Fundamentals really do matter. I had a friend who does not follow politics at all say to me over the weekend: I don’t know, with gas prices what they are and with the war, how can you vote Republican this time? It’s nice to have the theory supported by The People–even if it was only one of them.

Evan Bayh and Dan Parker (Indiana’s very popular Democratic ([unior] senator and the head of the state Democratic Party respectively) are both throwing their lot in with Clinton and despite having fished around for a good argument why, I haven’t heard one. Bayh, presumably, is angling for a possible VP slot, having been shortlisted by several of the commentariat. Parker is just out of touch with the modern Democratic party both in his state and nationally. I assume that any superdelegate voting for Clinton is in exactly the same situation: they are either professionally invested in a Clinton candidacy or they’re just simply in love with the old school, triangulating, not-quite-Democratic Clinton wing of the party. Or, to Parker’s potential credit, he is hoping to keep Indiana’s limping Democratic Party lined up behind Bayh. A decision I wouldn’t support but at least would understand.

I read recently an op-ed where some blowhard know-it-all wrongly asserted that we should stop using the “derogatory” and “biased” term superdelegate on the basis that it was not only slanted but newly coined in this suddenly divisive political environment. Not only was he wrong that the term was newly coined, but if it is derogatory and biased then someone should tell Dan Parker to stop calling himself a “superdelegage” as he did last night on WIBC.

Obama’s recent interview appearances are starting to show a little wear and tear. He seems less “above the fray,” less polished, and just generally reduced a little bit. Part of the problem may be that his campaign seems to have some of its direction. He desperately wants to stop the Democratic in-fighting and turn his attention to McCain, who, literally everyday is making it known what a frightening prospect his presidency is but skips by unscathed for his transgresses. But Obama’s decision comes at the same time that Clinton has ramped up her attacks leaving Obama’s team working at cross purposes.

Every policy wonk, Hell–for that matter–any person following this race, wants and needs for these Lincoln-Douglas style debates to happen. Honestly both Obama and Clinton need these moderator-less free-for-alls in order to emphasize their policy differences if either of them is to take a decisive lead in the final primary contests. Unfortunately Obama needs them less and he has decided to run with this relative gains model in his rejection of Clinton’s offer. At this stage Obama seems to have rejected completely his uplifting, hope-oriented, new politics in favor of grinding out the final days. He is fully aware at this point that Clinton can’t win the popular or superdelegate lead and as long as he lays low he goes into the National Convention with both in his favor. Unless Clinton or Bush or McCain does something egregious I’m not expecting much more from him between now and the first week of June when the final primaries are held. At this stage he can reduce damage and save money by letting the 50/50 momentum that has marked this campaign do its thing. Mostly.

Personally I think Obama should go balls out against McCain. Spend a few weeks highlighting every policy gaffe that McCain is making, unleash the type of attacks he would use in the fall. I think this, more than anything else will help move a lot of Democrats behind him. 1) It makes him look more like the prospective nominee he is; 2) not wanting John McCain to be president is something that all Democrats can agree on and 3) there a lot of undecided and swing voters out there who might not vote in a Democratic primary (either because they are undecided or because they’re thinking they’re voting for McCain). Obama should help them decide to vote for him. While Obama still looks good going into the convention he would look better with a few late wins under his belt.

Oh! And there are 150,000 new Democratic voters in Indiana for this primary. This Get Out the Vote fervor is happening all over the country and it should produce even higher numbers as we approach November. I haven’t looked at the numbers to know if 150,000 new voters would be enough to give this, or any state, to a Democrat (based on 2000 or 2004 returns). I doubt it, but it could mean that if McCain were elected he might become so with even less of the popular vote than Bush got in 2000–a Pyhrric victory to be sure but a victory nevertheless.

The Presidential Race in Indiana

(Thanks to Matt Y for bringing this map to my attention [from Open Left]).

As I said yesterday, the talk around town is that Clinton has a walk here. Personally, I have seen (and been contacted by) Obama workers but no Clinton door knockers. I’ve seen a few of the now-famous Obama Hope posters stuck around town and almost no Clinton poster presence at all.

At any rate, the map shows that voter preference often bleeds across state borders which leaves the Indiana race wide open. Stuck between a very blue Ohio (pro-Clinton) and a very greenish-yellow Illinois (pro-Obama) Indiana promises to be a heated battleground, especially around the borders, which, I hasten to add, is exactly where most of the primary appearances have been from both candidates.

I think an honest assessment of Obama’s chances here must include the following two items:

• Voters in northwest Indiana, because they get most of their news from WGN and other Chicago affiliates, have been inundated with Obama-related news for years. A considerable portion of voters in that region actually work in Illinois.

But…

• Obama is not our senator, so it would be going much too far to say he enjoys any sort of home court advantage here.

If I were Obama’s crew I would concentrate in the progessive and populated Bloomington–home of Indiana University, the northwest region where he can be pictured amongst huge adoring throngs, and my old home county of Hamilton just north of Indianapolis.

Hamilton County is only about 25% Democratic but even with that paltry number it still ranks as the third or fourth largest Democratic vote (by raw numbers) in the state. Furthermore the population is largely youngish (about 35) and educated.

If there is any logic to politics at all, Indianapolis/Marion County will go for Obama with or without a monster campaign here. Julia Carson, the recently deceased African-American congresswoman from the district that represents most of the capital city, voted as far left as she could always and, until her health was visibly deteriorating, her seat was always one of the safest in the state.

If he can win in those four (delegate-heavy) areas he should keep the race close even if he loses the majority of the Hoosier State’s rural districts.

Pennsylvania Post Mortem

I’m just dropping in real fast to leave some rabbit-pellet sized commentary on the results of the Pennsylvania primary last night. Hillary won big. Check out all the pollsters and commentators to find out why or how. I just want to comment on a few things, all of which, to some degree are related to why I haven’t blogged about the state of the campaign for a while.

None of this matters anymore. Obama and Clinton will be charging my state, Indiana, now. As a matter of fact, I think she’s in my city, giving a speech right now, as I write this. I thank them both in advance for the wheelbarrows of money they bring with them. I will gladly where a PORCH DOG PROUDLY SUPPORTS ___(Fill in the blank)___ for whichever candidate will pay for the insane amount of money it now takes to get to and from my poorly-paying non-profit job.

And this amount of attention has already inspired some of the local commentariat to say something akin to “for the first time, Indiana matters during the primaries.” No we don’t. No state has mattered since Tsunami Tuesday when both candidates proved that both would stay in and continue to split each states’ votes basically down the middle thereby depriving both of them the overwhelming majority needed to lock up the nomination.

More to the point, Obama came out far enough ahead on February 5 that it was mathematically impossible for Clinton to win the lead at all and pragmatically impossible that either would do it. So, while previous Super Tuesdays reduced the remaining states to no more than symbolic democratic value by choosing the nominees before their primaries, Tsunami Tuesday has reduced states to merely repeating the decision of all previous primaries. Each subsequent primary has amounted to negligible gains in the overall division of delegates.

The voters in Indiana don’t matter. Superdelegates in Indiana matter. For example, some of the talk today is whether Baron Hill will endorse Clinton (because that’s who his district seems to support) or whether he will go for Obama to undercut the progressive vote that currently supports one of his three competitors in the primary.

And Indiana superdelegates are just a smaller version of what the race has come to mean nationally. Large victories in certain states, like Pennsylvania, are supposed to act as messages to unpledged superdelegates around the country. Clinton’s 9-point victory in the Keystone State yesterday is supposed to reassure the ambivalent that she has what it takes to win in November.

But that is all neither here nor there. What it has really come down to is this: the superdelegates are either going to vote for Obama and therefore confirm the votes of the majority of the nation, or they will vote for Clinton (who cannot earn the majority vote at this point) and deny the majority opinion. How you feel about that is the largest determinant on how you feel about this continuing primary season. Personally I would prefer if Indiana’s vote didn’t matter in the old fashioned way it used to not matter.

Clinton has been unrelenting in her pursuit of seating the Michigan and Florida voters–a tactic that is as undemocratic as it is disgusting. But if she finds a way to convince the rules committee that doing so would benefit the party (it won’t) she stands a better chance of gaining the nomination but still at the risk of alienating a large segment of her voters.

Furthermore, Pennsylvania proved nothing. Pennsylvania will go to the Democrat in November (most likely) regardless of whether Clinton or Obama is on the ticket on Election Day. They will go Democratic because 160,000 Republicans have already switched parties there (a deficit of 320,000 to the Republicans) and that number is likely to grow between now an the general. They will go Democratic because of the war in Iraq and they will vote Democratic because of the economy which is only going to get worse between now and the fall. At the very least we are going to see increased gas prices during the summer which is sure to hurt McCain’s continued support of Bush’s military and economic “strategies.”

Sure Pennsylvania is a swing state, but the numbers are in and in the general they support Clinton and Obama not one or the other. Voting preference in the primaries does not reflect voter preference in the general and superdelegates are more aware of this (I would hope) than the general public and (apparently) the reporters covering the race.

Clinton deserves kudos for her big win last night (kind of) but she should still just sit down and let Obama and the DNC take on McCain.

Greenwald and The New York Times

On Sunday The New York Times published an important, and long, story about retired military officers essentially bribed to act as government shills in the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Glenn Greenwald has rebuked this story on two accounts:

• The the information in the story is not new and that
• The New York Times, and other mainstream media outlets were critically complicit in the cover up that is now being exposed and the story under-emphasizes that aspect.

A more thoughtful response than I can muster for the moment–both to this story and for Greenwald’s commentary–seems appropriate. On the one hand it seems that David Barstow’s story is important, accurate, and laudable. It is laudable both professionally and politically. It took a lot of hard work and a lot of bravery to run with this story. The Pentagon apparatus employed here is filled with the kinds of nooks and crannies that practically define the phrase “plausible deniability.” Some of those accused of being a part of the war propaganda machine were probably taken advantage of by the Pentagon–that is–they spoke what they believed to be right and true, or they spoke what they knew would be personally profitable and were therefore more than happy to accept the mantle of “defense expert” when the time came. Others were probably duped, as they claim. The fact that the Pentagon’s heavy hand put more weight on some shoulders than on others, does not reduce their role in what was essentially the anti-democratic approach toward selling the war and it was good of the Times to draw attention to what they had done (are doing).

But newspapers aren’t, as Greenwald would want, pure watchdogs on our bureaucratic masters. Watchdoggery is just one role–arguably the most important role–but still just one, and when a paper makes a claim as far, broad, and deep as this one, it needs to make sure that what is conveyed are facts and not theories. So in that regard I think the story is laudable as well. The story seems fair and part of that seeming legitimacy is the consideration that the story was given. The price we pay for consideration is time–and the story is now too late to do much but engender or exacerbate cynicism.

We also have to pay the price of undue restraint and outrage. The New York Times will not go after these base and worthless men with the vitriol that they deserve and thus much of the reading public will think that the compassionate and restrained approach is the appropriate one. They will think it’s OK to shrug our shoulders and say, “Well, what did you expect?” and walk away. Perhaps more importantly, they will forget to associate these men with the intellectual and moral depravity that allowed them to speak well of bad people, to heap accolades on uninformed policy, and to speak lightly not only of the deaths of American solders and Iraqi civilians but also on the importance of military overreach and the huge price we would pay at home–just so they, and they alone, could profit.

Greenwald himself even musters up a little bit of the old “What did you expect” throughout his piece. Greenwald cites a few instances where much of this information was already reported, sometimes even in the Times itself.

This is one of those instances where it is just very hard to argue with Greenwald and one of the reasons I think his blog is so important–but it is also indicative of one of the frustrating things about his blog. It is true that much of this ground had been covered in the Times and in other outlets as well. But it is also true that despite those previous stories nobody has been paying attention until now. At least my impression is that this story has made a bigger splash than previous efforts.

It is also true that if the Times hadn’t run this story, then in a month or two or three when Greenwald once again got a bug up his ass about so-called experts so deeply in the pockets of the war machine they’ve gone pale and eyeless who talk in favor of the war as supposedly neutral sources he would complain that the Times and others routinely refuse to cover this very important story. It’s as if the mainstream media just can’t win at all. If they don’t run a story, then they are helping cover up important information; if they do the story, it isn’t enough or it’s too late.

Greenwald demands that mainstream media sources continue to run stories that he decides are important even if there is a proven lack of public interest in them, claiming that the press kills stories that are important and interesting while they simultaneously force banalities on their readership. And to some extent he’s right when he claims that if the press continues to print an important story it will eventually force 1) people to sit up and take notice and 2) those involved to respond–both of which will make the story “important.” But it’s not like the Times can run a story with this lede:

New York City–For the fiftieth time this month the Times is running a story on how Senator Rockefeller is undermining the Fourth Amendment through his incessant kowtowing to the Bush administration. Informed sources at the nation’s “paper of record” want to know why you idiots aren’t taking the bait on this already.

Greenwald could do that, the Times can’t. So it’s hard to blame them for touting their news as “new.”

Of course, now I’m being unfair to Greenwald and increasing the the supposed condemnatory air in his post, so I will attempt to correct that. By all appearances he seems to have liked this story. He praises the excellent investigative journalism and he applauds the Times for devoting so much space to such an important story.

He seems to be adding to the story, not for the benefit of Times readers but for the benefit of his own. And what he wants to add is this: even though the Times must tell you that this is new information, it isn’t and we must be more aware, we must extend our memories, we must look outside the mainstream papers to get more substantive news. And he wants to add this: running this story now does not act as atonement for its past crimes. At the very least, Greenwald seems to say, the Times should have mentioned its role in helping the Pentagon in this message. He seems to be adding, most importantly, this: the story condemns the officials and it condemns the Pentagon, but it doesn’t fully condemn the press that allowed it to happen.

I get the feeling while reading Greenwald that he would be satisfied with no less than absolute perfection from our mainstream media. And I suppose he should be demanding perfection; our media is our primary tool for holding government officials accountable for their actions, so its dire the system works appropriately. I also suppose by expecting and demanding perfection he will routinely be angry at the realities he is presented with. I also suppose that voices like Greenwald’s act as important restraints on the laziness and intellectual shortcomings inherent in all people, journalists not excepted. But sometimes I can’t shake the feeling that Greenwald isn’t out to make anything better; he’s just out to complain about something. It seems to me that ragging on an admittedly good piece of investigative journalism is a lot like a cop pulling over a speeder in sight of an ongoing armed robbery. It seems to me that while the Times is busy running a 7500 word on a really important story, even if imperfect, there were bigger fish to fry that day.