Schneier and Marshall on TSA security theater

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Bruce Schneier is a renowned authority on "all matters security," including cyberwar, physical security, and domestic antiterrorism procedures. If you don't have much exposure to Schneier or airport security, it may be worthwhile for you to read his summary of the current backlash against TSA. At very least, read the fifth paragraph and then skip down to the graf beginning "Common sense from the Netherlands" and read the rest. But do read it all if you have time.

Josh Marshall, whose cred and authority have been rapidly falling in my view for a year, thinks the outcry is "a crock" because the people he thinks are complaining the loudest are politicians and pundits who gave full-throated support to two insane wars and the associated abridgments of our civil liberties. Well, it's not the backlash that's a crock; the crock is Marshall not doing his homework before he writes an inane post on the subject. It's also a crock that the backlash is politically motivated just because Obama's enemies are criticizing him about it. The right wingers are correct about this, even if it is exclusively for hypocritical and exploitative reasons. Maybe Josh should turn his little "muckrakers" loose on the airport security hypocrites, compiling a database of the complainers and cross-referencing their names with their previous votes or positions on draconian national security measures that don't catch terrorists and hurt only innocent Americans.

Wherein I have a sissyfight with JMM

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It should be evident to anyone who reads this that Josh Marshall is my media hero, mainly due to the accomplishments of his TPM investigative reporting unit and his fine capacity both for issuing political ridicule and championing human decency. But today, with this post and a few earlier ones, the lad has disgustipated me. Just like that, both the public option and Medicare buy-in are dead at the hands of the King and Queen of the United States, Joseph and Olympia. But Josh thinks that furious progressives (not to mention the majority of Americans) should bend over and take it for the good of the Democratic Party. I wrote a note to tell Josh, politely, that he's full of shit. Here it is, for what it's worth:

“Ravening masses,” Josh? Really? Pheeewwww!

So many “responsible” liberals, like some who pontificate in your comments threads and sometimes you yourself, always seem ready to provide cover to “serious” politicians like the putative King and Queen of the United States, Lieberman and Snowe, when they bargain in bad faith in order to destroy progressive public policy initiatives that are favored by a majority of Americans. These people enable the erosion of majority rule by lecturing us about how "something is really better than nothing," and that if we threaten to pull our support then we’re “taking our marbles and going home.” We’re engaging in political theater instead of political activism. We need to grow up. Or whatever.

Progressives are authorized by you to speak our piece --- gosh, thanks!!! --- but not to use our own political muscle to sabotage King Joseph’s health care vision for us peasants (which is to say, no meaningful reform whatsoever plus increased costs for many, many working people). Withdrawing support from this ugly policy initiative would be irresponsible of progressives, you say; a “cop out.” Pheeewwww! You rarely reek of sanctimony, but today you sure do.

Joe Lieberman, with constant backroom assistance from Rahm Emanuel in the White House and the entire GOP as a pom pom squad, blocks and scuttles majority rule in this country, and “responsible” liberals cluck a pretty good game about it. But in the final analysis, betrayed progressives are expected to STFU, accede to King Joseph’s proclamations, and “improve it” later. Tell me: what makes you believe that it will be feasible to “improve it” later if King Joseph and Queen Olympia do not wish it to be improved? Seriously: what makes you think that is a possibility?

This situation represents an epic failure of Democratic leadership, especially by Obama, who is supposed to be, um, a leader after all. Since you are a “political junkie,” I will direct your attention to Machiavelli’s “The Prince.” Machiavelli’s contribution to political science was not his prescriptions for achieving ends by any means, but by describing what successful leaders from history *did* to achieve their ends. And, as you’re fond of saying, it wasn’t through bean bag. I’m not suggesting that President Obama lead his adversaries to their demise behind a velvet curtain, Caesar Borgia style. But geez: RTFM! For starters, you don’t invite a Fifth Columnist from the other side into your tent, at least not if you expect to keep your own counsel. Next, you do use your charm, your guile, and your muscle to compel people (particularly opportunists) to get with your program. Neither Obama nor Harry Reid seem to have any idea whatsoever about how to get anything done, except on behalf of King Joseph and Queen Olympia. Step back and ask yourself, what is really going on here? If Obama really believes he’s playing 11-dimensional chess, as Atrios likes to joke, then he’s stalemated in half of the dimensions and checkmated in the rest.

If this useless HCR legislation represents a “responsible” liberal’s idea of the best the Democratic Party can do to help our constitutional democracy start clawing its way out of the hole after 30 years of Reagan Revolution, then you can have it. It makes zero real-world difference if policy wonks see some advantages to passing the current legislation: there’s nothing in it for me or anyone I know. It makes zero difference to me that scuttling this version of HCR would be an embarrassment and a 2010 electoral disaster: they deserve it.

To be more specific, the “responsible” Democratic Party does not deserve the support of progressives as it has “progressively” been undermining our interests since the day Ronald Reagan smirked his way into the Oval Office and tore out the solar panels. I totally advocate that progressives should “pick up our marbles and go home.” They’re *our* marbles! And you can’t succeed without them any more than you can succeed without Lieberman’s marbles. Politics ain't bean bag. So go ahead, “responsible” liberals: call us “cop outs.” Cluck about us from now until the inauguration of President Lieberman and Vice President Snowe. Maybe that will be change you can believe in. But not me.

So then, Josh wrote back:

"[StuporMundi], You might want to adjust your sensor for facetious post titles."

And then, my tit for a tat (and I'm done, because basically he's a mensch):

Maybe my sensor does need adjusting, Josh. But judging by the body of your post, the title doesn't seem facetious at all. Your point appears to be that the ravening masses need to get with the Lieberman/Snowe/Landrieu program because it provides "monumental gains" relative to something or other. And that progressives who want to use Lieberman's tactics to scuttle the legislation are irresponsible "cop-outs." So maybe the title of your post is facetious in your eyes only, but actually an accurate indicator of your intended meaning. (Incidentally, there was something more to my note than the throwaway comment about the title of your post. Maybe there was some substance, maybe not.)

Judging from what you wrote, it seems that in your view this HCR legislation must clear the Senate *not* because it's good for U.S. citizens, but because it would be an electoral disaster for the Democrats to come away empty handed. If that's the case, so be it. If the Republicans are going to continue dictating regressive national policy through people like Lieberman and Snowe (and helpmeets like Rahm Emanuel), then let's allow the GOP to directly control the levers of government so they can be fully held to account when all the chickens come to roost. Today Krugman said, not ironically, that this nation is well on its way to failed-state status. I agree, and am not sanguine about that.

That's all. A bunch of recycled words about my hissy fit in the blogosphere today. This Lieberman/Snowe agenda is pretty much what I've been expecting the Senate to come up with. We've been treated to 6 months of political theater: Garfield Goose on the Little Theater Screen. My political contributions for the foreseeable future will be routed to progressive Democrats challenging apparatchiks like Harry Reid and Claire McCaskill and Max Baucus in primaries.

Update before I'm done: JMM and I had one more exchange but it's not worth reporting because I need to log off and download some more purple booze into my gullet.

Josh Marshall makes a funny

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Josh: "Modern day lynchings" seem to happen to people who get caught trying to do old-fashioned lynchings."

The sanctity of contracts [updated]

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Today on All Things Considered I heard some New York Times reporter named "Andrew Ross Sorkin" try packaging a lame apologia for criminally incompetent executives as good old American contrarian horse-sense. His point seems to be that the government can't just "rip up contracts" because we have laws, and therefore AIGFP retention bonuses (for example) "must" be paid if we (we-who, he didn't say) are to retain the fabric of trust in society. Or something.

To her credit, ATC co-host Melissa Block quizzed this fool about the difference between ripping up AIGFP executive bonus contracts and ripping up union contracts as part of the in-progress auto industry bailout. But I wish she would have told him that nobody is literally expecting the government to "rip up contracts." By failing to follow up insistently to question Sorkin's premise, she allowed him to waste 3 minutes of my time in the car that I could have been listening to "Playground Psychotics." Meanwhile, Sorkin explained to all us rubes that "we" really need to keep these AIGFP execs on board because they're the only ones how know how to "unwind" the exotic derivative securities that they conjured. Yes: they need to be paid excessive bonuses in addition to their salaries so they will continue to do the jobs they are contractually obligated to perform.

See, the way I process this in my cinder of a brain, I am convinced that both parties to an emploment contract need to honor said contract. Therefore, before we hear any more horseshit like this from reporter Sorkin, he needs to employ the Google, Nexis and Lexis, his telephone, and his Outlook address book to find out for the American public (who is an 80 percent majority shareholder in AIG) whether the AIGFP bonus recipients did in fact fulfill the terms of their contract. If he's too frightened, lazy, or unskilled to do that, then he could at least check TPM a few times a day to keep up with the facts of the story... just for appearances.

When it's time to unwind" the AIGFP mystery securities portfolio for real, we AIG majority shareholders won't need to pamper and coax reporter Sorkin's smarmy MBA pals to do that job. We will go to the real experts: auditors, bank examiners, criminal investigators, and federal prosecutors.

Update: that cute little Ezra Klein addressed a similar topic today, referencing Sorkin's NYT column as source material. There's a bit of ambiguity in his point, however, possibly due to the lack of vetting his text through a simple country editor. To make up for the ambiguity, there are a number of interesting remarks in the comments thread below the post. No, we can't confiscate money from a small, specific group of people without any valid legal framework. Yes, there are many possible ways to approach the quashing of the AIGFP bonuses, such as legislation about executive bonuses working in corporations that have accepted TARP funds or giving AIG a friendly reminder that they're fucking bankrupt and must settle up with a long line of customers and shareholders before making good on contracts that rewarded gross mismanagement or worse. One commenter suggests freezing the accounts out of which executive bonuses are to be paid pending the outcome of a fraud investigation; I like that one.

Another reason why "Hoover" means "suck"

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Josh Marshall has a few posts up today puzzling over the possible resurgence of the Herbert Hoover wing of the Grand Old Party. Given how unlikely it is that a "neo-Hooverite" pro-depression economic ideology will sweep the nation (like the Mudshark) anytime soon, Josh wonders whether the new Hooverite vanguard is motivated by

“strictly economic reasons (creditors can do well in a deflationary economy), moral reasons (need a good hard recession to re-teach the poor moral values) or just because they're economic illiterates....”

One TPM reader offered a fourth hypothesis that I think best explains why these creatures are trying to rally the party around the legacy of Herbert Hoover instead of swarming back under their rocks for a few decades. He says:

“Given the new demographic realities of the country, Obama's presidency must be a failure if Republicans are to ever emerge from the political wilderness. The more they obstruct, the more Obama and Congressional Democrats will be forced to water down economic policy. And a watered-down policy just won't cut it at this moment in history. This is sabotage, pure and simple.”

Oh goody --- I truly hope so! I think a Republican strategy like that would be outstanding for the country, especially without a Democrat supermajority in the Senate. Now, for progressive legislation to be enacted rapidly, some Republicans are going to have to vote with Democrats. And I’m certain they will do exactly that if they want their political careers to remain intact for long.

I think some people are forgetting that the GOP no longer has unified political leadership let alone any power to reward and punish. This may not have sunk in on Republicans yet. I can’t think of any reason why the likes of Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins would support a long Republican filibuster of, say, a national healthcare bill or an infrastructure program just because Mitch McConnell decrees it... especially since Democrats can wheel, deal, and threaten to gain the support of moderates who want a piece of the action. It's feasible that we could see the so-called "Gang of 14" working backwards, drawing its Republican members over to vote with Democrats.

For that matter, I can’t think of any good reason why a moderate Senate Republican wouldn’t consider shedding his or her toxic brand and switching parties. Obama’s magnanimity toward Lieberman, considered from this perspective, might be seen as a shrewd move to subliminally invite a few more conservative Senators into the Democrat tent. The opportunity to be treated with respect might have its attractions for a handful of the more reality-based Republicans.

Meanwhile, on CNN and Fox News, Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Shopper can enjoy the spectacle of Republican stalwarts creating gridlock in the Congress for purposes of burnishing Herbert Hoover’s legacy (i.e., The Great Depression). In the process, they may even learn that there is already a widely accepted modern name for neo-Hooverite doctrine: Reaganomics.

Josh Marshall makes a funny

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Like so!

Moose droppings!

It's time for a Moose droppings! riddle!

Q: How do you turn a sow's earmark into a silk purse?

A: By lying and lying and lying about it!

Editor's note: as you can see, and therefore it goes without saying, today's edition of Moose droppings! would not have been possible without Josh Marshall and Talking Points Memo. [Holy crap! Four military fighter jets just scrambled about a mile outside my home office window at about 800 ft --- no kidding! I gotta log off now and head for the basement --- might be a "maverick" flying one of those birds!]

Josh Marshall makes a funny

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One of the things I like about TPM is the style of humor employed by Josh Marshall. It's sort of a throwback to a more innocent time in that he rarely swears or relies on topical pop culture references. When he uses terms like "malarkey" and "bamboozlement" they have an automatic ring of authenticity, and they arrest the eye for a moment.

Today Josh and company seem to have gotten impatient with Obama's defense of his "lipstick on a pig" remark, in the face of McCain's phony outrage about it, even though McCain has repeatedly used the phrase himself (not to mention his own well documented public sexist insults of Chelsea Clinton, Janet Reno, his second wife, and others). So the TPM gang does its part to help the Obama campaign and other weak-kneed Democrats get over their defensiveness and "embrace the pig."

I think the logo is cute and devastating. And TPM even provides an example of how to employ the pig in a commercial. Very nice --- wicked, but not vicious. This is the kind of stuff that the "moderate undecided voter" can instantly understand. And the laughter at the end is a nice touch.

Water ice on Mars: confirmed by NASA

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Lost in the unprecedented shocker about John McCain injecting racial smears into his presidential campaign against Barack Obama comes a news note from The Red Planet. NASA tonight announced that the Phoenix lander has collected ice from martian soil, melted it at 32 degrees Farenheit, and documented the presence of water molecules in the experimental chamber. Really. From the Associated Press. Ho hum.

If the water on Mars story were ever to gain traction, which it won't because it's not mentioned by God in the Bible, McCain can always pick up and run with this related story from a blog called "The Jed Report". In addition to Jed's photographic evidence of Obama's alien connections, the name "Barack" clearly has a Cardassian sound to it. Look for McCain to play the Xenobamislamofascist card right soon.

So-called "stunning comeback"

I can barely stand to hear political news coverage by the state-controlled media. For one thing it mainly speaks for corporations and propertied Americans. For another thing, it guards the gates against facts that don't fit the daily military-industrial narrative. And for a third thing, it's wrong about all the important things.

It was disappointing to see my hero Josh Marshall fall into the trap of echoing conventional platitudes about Clinton's "riveting win." Here is a link to TPM reporter Greg Sargent quoting AP on the "major upset" as if that characterization is a fact rather than someone's opinion.

Let's look at the freakin' historical NH poll data from Pollster.com. I'm terrible parsing lots of numbers, eyeball-wise; maybe Big Otis can help sort out these numbers for me. But it looks to me as if Obama, in most polls, was trailing Clinton by a wide margin --- often double digits --- back in November 2007. His numbers started creeping up in December 2007, but he was still a bit behind in most polls. He was even tied with or behind Clinton in a number of polls as late as 2 January 2008.

In actual voting totals, Obama finished only three points behind Clinton, which is well within the margin of error for a properly conducted poll. Now I'm just a simple country editor, but it looks to me as if the real stories are these:

* Obama slowly and steadily closed the gap between him and Clinton in December, and finished in a statistical tie with her for the primary win.

* Something --- the euphoric impact of a real news event on the people polled, the polling organizations, and the mass media, maybe --- skewed multiple polling results between the caucuses and the primary crazily in Obama's favor.

* The entire media establishment (plus non-establishment guys like Josh Marshall) became deranged --- first by all the amped-up Obama buzz out of Iowa, then by all the bizarre Clinton buzz (negative and positive) after Iowa through NH.

I think the Clinton fall from grace and stunning comeback happened mainly in the minds of celebrity journalists and the people who shovel them press handouts. Yes, we may see that Clinton had a late surge in voter support, and there is in fact anecdotal evidence (too lazy to link to it) that some late support was voter reaction against the negative coverage of her after Iowa. Fine: so be it. But the final NH voting totals were right in line with how the polling there had been trending all along! At least that's the way it looks to my dyslexic eyebones.

So the big news, in my view, is that the establishment media and polling organizations completely misreported what was really happening in the run-up to NH. And now they are all covering each other's backs by pretending that some sort of miracle occurred for Ms Clinton. Can't let the rubes see behind the curtain. To me, this "comeback kid" narrative is even less plausible than the fairy tales Mike Huckabee is ridiculed for spinning.

I'll forgive Josh, though: he's a young guy, and overworked.

Late update: I hate Blogger's numbered list and bulleted list styles. They screw up all typography that comes after them. Therefore, my bulleted lists will employ manual asterisks in order to otherwise preserve typographic beauty and legibility.