Magpie

Saturday, April 10, 2004

'Truth in Blogging' message.

For some reason known only to the nether reaches of our brain, we kept referring to the date of the presidential briefing document as Sept 6, 2001, instead of the correct date of August 6, 2001. Besides making Dubya look less incompetent than he actually was, the date was just plain wrong.

We think all the affected posts have the correct date now. But we wanted to be honest and admit that, at least where the PBD date has been concerned, our brain has been on vacation.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:57 PM | Get permalink

Iraqi troops refuse to fight other Iraqis.

The Washington Post reports that the 2nd Batallion of the new Iraqi Armed Forces refused to fight after the unit was fired upon in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad. Instead of going on to Fallujah to support the US siege of the city, the unit went back to its base. Members of the batallion told US military officials that 'We did not sign up to fight Iraqis.'

To put it mildly, the batallion's refusal to fight does not augur well for US plans to tranfer Iraqi security to local forces.

U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, the official overseeing the development of Iraqi security forces ... declined to characterize the incident as a mutiny, but rather called it "a command failure."

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:45 PM | Get permalink

Things to come?

The juxtaposition of two stories in the NY Times reminds this magpie of how, during the Vietnam War, Washington and the military told one story about the war, while the press on the ground in Vietnam was telling another story entirely. And how the story that the press told was far closer to the truth.

First, there's this report on how the US prepares to deal with a long-term Iraqi insurgency:

Officials in Baghdad and at the Pentagon said the military was prepared, if no peaceful solution materializes, to use two distinct sets of tactics to counter what they viewed as two different insurgencies — both of them dangerous and complex situations on difficult urban battlefields.

One campaign would entail retaking cities around Baghdad, if necessary block by block against an entrenched Sunni foe. The other would involve a series of short, sharp, local strikes at small, elusive bands of Shiite militia in southern cities, continuing until the militia was wiped out. Even as commanders offered a cease-fire to Sunnis in Falluja, allowing Iraqis to try to find a peaceful solution, and postponed any assault on Shiites in Najaf and elsewhere during religious holidays, they prepared for campaigns against foes who showed unexpected discipline and ferocity this week.

"We are on a war footing," said a senior military officer in Baghdad.

The other story describes a new Iraqi resistance to the US occupation that's mushroomed in recnet weeks:

In Baghdad, Kufa, Najaf, Baquba and Falluja, interviews with Sunnis and Shiites alike show a new corps of men, and a few women, who have resolved to join the resistance. They also reveal a generation of young people inured to violence and hankering to join in the fighting.

There is no way to estimate the size of the mushrooming insurgent force, but demonstrations in several cities by armed and angry people indicate that it probably runs in the tens of thousands. Many people said they did not consider themselves full-time freedom fighters or mujahedeen; they have jobs in vegetable shops, offices, garages and schools.

But when the time comes, they say, they line up behind their leaders — with guns.

The picture we get from these stories isn't a pretty one.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:10 PM | Get permalink

Proudly doing our part to help ruin the day for some anti-semites.

From Notes from the Tundra:

An anti-semitic group has googlebombed the word "Jew" so that searches for the word make their own own nasty page Google's first hit. When you type in "jew" and hit "I'm feeling lucky" on Google, you get to their website. If you link to wikipedia's page for it, like this ~ Jew~ then eventually, google's first hit will end up there.

(And it is a nasty page. Trust us on this, please — if you go look yourself, you just give the anti-semites another hit.)

So here we go:

jew, jew, jew, jew, jew, jew, jew, jew, jew, jew, jew, jew, jew, jew

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:55 PM | Get permalink

Your (US) state tax dollars at work.

Those dollars are being used to send state government work overseas. According to the Seattle Times, US states are directly or indirectly sending 'technology consulting, software programming, and records processing' work to companies in Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere. (For example, the US Department of Agriculture says that 41 states have contracts with companies that use Indian worker to answer questions about food stamp benefits.)

States will spend US $3.8 billion to outsource technology work this year. According to Gartner (a technology analysis and consulting firm), about 5 percent of this spending — US $190 million — will go overseas, and foreign outsourcing by states will double by 2006.

To try to get a handle on the extent of offshoring, Washington state officials recently found 29 of 41 state agencies and state higher-education institutions had farmed out some work overseas since 2002.

"We represented this as what we could say in a quick review of the records, knowing we hadn't followed up with each contractor and subcontractor to determine where the work was being performed," said Chris Rose, a policy adviser for Gov. Gary Locke.

Rose's office estimated perhaps 1 to 2 percent of state government contracts for labor and services were being done overseas.

Among the examples found in Washington state:

• Department of Agriculture: Has a number of contracts with overseas companies to expand export sales, provide software-programming services and perform scientific work.

• Community and Technical Colleges Board: A quarter of a $9.7 million contract with Hewlett-Packard for software development will be performed by its India subsidiary.

• Department of Corrections: About 20 percent of the work for an $18 million contract with IBM Global Services for programming and application development will use foreign workers or companies.

• Department of Ecology: Roughly 60 percent of two contracts with Covansys worth a total of $850,000 will be handled by personnel in India. The contracts are for computer tracking of permits and applications.

• Retirement Systems: Has a $25,000-per-year contract with a Canadian firm, Cost Effectiveness Measurement, to study the management of its public-pension administration.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:37 PM | Get permalink

We guess this figures.

The AP says that Sony Pictures has bought the film rights to Richard Clarke's bestselling book on how Dubya's administration failed to deal with terrorism.

The movie version is to be produced by John Calley, the entertainment group's former chairman, who worked on the 1976 Watergate drama "All the President's Men" at Warner Brothers.

"You could shoot the first 56 pages and have an extraordinary half of a movie, then it goes on to more enthralling stuff," Calley told the Times. "If we were able to do `All the President's Men' with people meeting in garages and whispering in parks, then certainly with someone sitting at a table in the White House we could have a remarkable event."

For those who haven't seen All the President's Men, the IMDB description of the film is here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:23 PM | Get permalink

How the White House is spinning the Aug. 6, 2001 briefing document.

The White House has posted a 'Fact Sheet' on the presidential briefing document that it made public earlier today. Our translation of the official spin on the PDB is: 'Nothing to see here. Move along.'

So you can make up your own mind, here are the most pertinent parts:

Q: Did the PDB item include any warning of the 9-11 attack?

No. The only recent information concerning possible current activities in the PDB related to two incidents. There is no information that either incident was related to the 9-11 attacks. The first incident involved suspected "recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." This information was based on a report that two Yemeni men had been seen taking photographs of buildings at Federal Plaza in New York. The FBI later interviewed the men and determined that their conduct was consistent with tourist activity and the FBI's investigation identified no link to terrorism. The second incident involved a call made on May 15, 2001 by an unidentified individual to the U.S. Embassy in the UAE "saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives." The caller did not say where or when the attacks might occur. o On May 17, 2001, the NSC's counterterrorism staff convened the Counterterrorism Security Group, whose members include State, DoD, JCS, DoJ, FBI, and CIA, and reviewed the information provided by the caller. o The information was also shared with Customs, INS, and FAA. o The PDB article advised the President that CIA and FBI were investigating the information. o We had no information, either before or after 9/11, that connects the caller's information with the 9/11 attacks.

Q: The PDB item stated that "al-Qa'ida members have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks." Was this new information and what was being done about it?

The presence of individuals associated or affiliated with al-Qaida in the United States was not new information. This information had been well-known to the intelligence and law enforcement communities for a number of years. The FBI was actively investigating individuals associated or affiliated with al-Qaida in the United States -- a fact noted in the PDB article. As also noted in the PDB article, the FBI was conducting approximately 70 full-field Bin-Laden-related investigations.

Q: Why is the term "patterns of suspicious activity" used in the PDB and what does it refer to?

The CIA author of the PDB item judged, after consulting an FBI colleague, that there were suspicious patterns of activity that were worrisome, even though nothing pointed to a specific operation in a specific location. o In that vein, the author was concerned that one of the East African bombing defendants had told FBI officers earlier in 2001 that Bin Laden would retaliate if the defendants in the trial were convicted -- four were convicted in New York on May 29 -- with a major attack, something the FBI interpreted to mean possibly in the United States. o In addition, the CIA author understood that there had been possible recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York. Except for the information relating to the possible surveillance of federal buildings in New York, which was later determined by the FBI to be consistent with tourist-related activity, the PDB item contained no information from FBI investigations that indicated activities related to the preparation or planning for hijackings or other attacks within the United States. None of the information relating to the "patterns of suspicious activity" was later deemed to be related to the 9-11 attacks. From June through September, the FAA and FBI issued a number of warnings about the possibility of terrorist attacks. FAA warnings included specific warnings about the possibility of a hijacking to free imprisoned al-Qaida members inside the United States and the possibility of attacks in response to law enforcement actions against al-Qaida members.

You can see the full White House 'Fact Sheet' here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:09 PM | Get permalink

An interesting take on events in Iraq.

We found out recently that the vice president of Iraq has a blog. Here's part of what Iranian VP Mohammed Ali Abtah posted yesteday about the situation in Iraq:

I believe that America, close to the presidential elections, needs Iraq situation to be convulsed more than ever. It is because the best reason for America’s stability is these convulsions. Bush needs to announce the public in America that there is an unfinished project in Iraq that no one else other than him can make it to the last point and if doesn’t finish, the Middle East will be in war and fire and America will be injured and damaged more than any other country.

If my analysis be the right one, Moghtadi Sadr attitudes and actions in Convulsion making in Iraq and unifying Shiite and Sunnis together against America, is just exactly what America needs in such a situation. [...]

I hope that those who are influential in political areas of Iraq, including Shiite and Sunni parties, pay attention to this reality and do not prepare grounds for the longer stability of occupational regime and let Iraqis to be able to decide on their destiny as soon as possible.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:36 PM | Get permalink

White House releases August 2001 presidential briefing document.

That's the report from CTV in Canada. We haven't seen any details yet.

More: Via Kos, here's the text of the presidential briefing document, which was given to Dubya on August 6, 2001. It is not an unedited text, however. The White House made deletions before releasing it. [Later: As this PDF file of the document shows, however, the deletions are small.]

Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladensince 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [deleted text] service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told [deleted text] service at the same time that Bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack.

Ressam says Bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

AI Qaeda members -- including same who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in and traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.

Two Al Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Laden cell in New Yorkwas recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [deleted text] service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar' Abd aI-Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns o fsuspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers Bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May sayingthat a group or Bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:35 PM | Get permalink

Another interesting re-definition from Washington.

Who's causing all the trouble in Iraq? Let's check with the prez, from the radio address he gave earlier today:

As the June 30th date for Iraqi sovereignty draws near, a small faction is attempting to derail Iraqi democracy and seize power.

How big does a 'small faction' have to be in order to cause trouble in Fallujah, in Baghdad, and in several cities in southern Iraq, we wonder? Not to mention how big it would have to be to be responsible for the violence occuring in other parts of the country.

But we shouldn't be surprised to hear this kind of language from an administration that was recently insisting that the trouble in Iraq was being caused entirely by foreign terrorists and Saddam supporters, not by dissaffected Iraqis. (Actually, Dubya rolled out those claims today, too.) And the same administration that, shortly after the invasion, said that violence against the occupation was being carried out by criminals, not by insurgents.

We wonder what term the administration will be using for Iraqi insurgents next week?

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:09 PM | Get permalink

History lesson.

Thanks to Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber for pointing to this excellent article by historian Niall Ferguson that appeared last week in the Sunday Telegraph.

For many Americans - including the Democratic contender for the presidency, John Kerry - the only history relevant to American foreign policy is the history of the Vietnam War. True, the Department of Defence has commissioned some ambitious historical studies. In August 2001, Donald Rumsfeld's office produced "Strategies for Maintaining US Predominance", which compared America's bid to establish "full spectrum dominance" with the attempts of previous empires. Most of it, however, consisted of pretty superficial economics and the conclusion was that technological change has put the US in a league of its own, so more detailed comparative study would be superfluous.

There was amazement last year when I pointed out in the journal Foreign Affairs that in 1917 a British general had occupied Baghdad and proclaimed: "Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators." By the same token, scarcely any American outside university history departments is aware that within just a few months of the formal British takeover of Iraq, there was a full-scale anti-British revolt.

What happened in Iraq last week so closely resembles the events of 1920 that only a historical ignoramus could be surprised. It began in May, just after the announcement that Iraq would henceforth be a League of Nations "mandate" under British trusteeship. (Nota bene, if you think a handover to the UN would solve everything.) Anti-British demonstrations began in Baghdad mosques, spread to the Shi'ite holy centre of Karbala, swept on through Rumaytha and Samawa - where British forces were besieged - and reached as far as Kirkuk.

Contrary to British expectations, Sunnis, Shi'ites and even Kurds acted together. Stories abounded of mutilated British bodies. By August the situation was so desperate that the British commander appealed to London for poison gas bombs or shells (though these turned out not to be available). By the time order had been restored in December - with a combination of aerial bombardment and punitive village-burning expeditions - British forces had sustained over 2,000 casualties and the financial cost of the operation was being denounced in Parliament. In the aftermath of the revolt, the British were forced to accelerate the transfer of power to a nominally independent Iraqi government, albeit one modelled on their own form of constitutional monarchy.

I am willing to bet that not one senior military commander in Iraq today knows the slightest thing about these events....

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:36 PM | Get permalink

Ceasefire reported for Fallujah.

Aljazeera reports that fighters in Fallujah have agreed to observe a 12-hour ceasefire proposed by US forces that are besieging the city. The truce will reportedly begin at 0600 GMT on Sunday.

The US-led occupation army had offered to observe a temporary truce from midday on Saturday to allow mediators and al-Sadr supporters to discuss a possible end to the clashes.

Earlier, Alaa Makki, a senior member of the Iraqi Islamic Party which was leading mediation efforts for the truce told AFP the fighters in Falluja have given the delegation "a series of conditions for the ceasefire, including a pullout of US forces from Falluja into the surrounding desert."

"They did not give a specific area for the pullout, but logically it would be around five kilometers," he said.

"They also asked for opening the entrances to the city to allow people as well as food and medical supply to enter easily and for people to bury their dead," he said.

The coalition has "asked for a ceasefire, for handing over those who took part in the mutilation and repeated riots."

"The demands of the two parties are logical and should be easy to satisfy," he said.

"We are all very hopeful because we have been given promises from the two sides, the only difficulty would be in the mechanism of the implementation of the ceasefire because it concerns military operations on the ground," he said.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:29 PM | Get permalink

A great gift idea!

Yes, you can give your child the proper appreciation for how the Department of Homeland Security make their world a safer place by getting them this Security Check-In activity set from Playmobil.

What's that in your suitcase?

We're anxiously awaiting the release of the Suspicious Muslim Immigrant activity set.

Via Boing Boing.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:16 PM | Get permalink

Mysterious occurrence in northeast Portland.

A can of Cheerwine (a wonderfully caffeinated cherry soda made in North Carolina) just appeared on our front doorstep. Since we view Cheerwine as the nectar of the goddess, we have no problems with this unexpected boon. But given that the closest place you can buy Cheerwine is in Texas, we have to wonder how this can traversed those last 1500 miles or so.

Very strange.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:29 PM | Get permalink

Japanese hostages to be released.

Aljazeera is reporting that the Iraqi group that's holding three Japanese hostages has dropped its threat to kill them, and will release the hostages within 24 hours.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:18 PM | Get permalink

Let's spin some survey findings, shall we?

The LA Times has published the results of their new poll on US attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. The main finding is that the general public's acceptance of gay men and lesbians has dramatically increased over the past two decades.

While the survey results to be interesting in themselves, the way another major US media outlet — the Associated Press — has spun the poll is every bit as interesting.

First, let's look a bit at how the LA Times reported the poll results. Here's the headline:

Stigma Against Gays Fading, Survey Finds

And here's the crux of the story, picking up with the second paragraph:

Almost seven in 10 Americans know someone who is gay or lesbian and say they would not be troubled if their elementary school-age child had a homosexual teacher. Six in 10 say they are sympathetic to the gay community, displaying an increasing inclination to view same-sex issues through a prism of societal accommodation rather than moral condemnation.

On questions ranging from job discrimination to adoption to whether homosexuality is morally wrong, responses indicate that as gays and lesbians have become more open, heterosexuals in return have become more open toward them.

The change has come within one generation. In two Times Polls in the mid-1980s and other data from the same era, the level of sympathy toward gays and lesbians was half what it is today.

"The stigma of being gay is disappearing," said Gary Gates, a demographer at the Urban Institute in Washington. "This is a huge change. Gay people in general are feeling more comfortable in society — and society is feeling more comfortable with gay people."

So the Times thinks that the main significance of its poll is the rapid shift in public attitudes. The article goes on later in the story to describe how this shift is generational &#!51; that younger people are far less likely to have negative attitudes about gay men and lesbians than are older people.

Given the current newsworthiness of same-sex marriage, the poll also deals with that issue. But you have to go down five more paragraphs to get to the first mention:

A slim majority of those surveyed by The Times opposed same-sex marriage — an issue that has driven the subject of homosexual rights to the forefront as Massachusetts prepares to allow gays and lesbians to marry next month.

And, a few paragraphs later, is this important qualification to that finding:

Yet the nationwide survey showed that regardless of their own feelings on the subject, 59% of respondents believe legal recognition of marriage for same-sex couples is inevitable.

Okay. We now know a few things about the Times poll: 1) public attitudes toward lesbians and gay men have grown more positive; 2) the public is evenly split on same-sex marriage; but 3) most people believe that legal same-sex marriages are inevitable.

Now let's look at how the Associated Press is reporting the same poll. Here's their headline:

Poll: Most Americans oppose same-sex marriage

(We're using the wording of the headline that CNN put on its version of the AP story, but if you do a Google search on the terms AP poll homosexuality, you'll find that there are only minor variations in the headline. And that most variations bias the story even further.)

And here are the first few paragraphs:

Most Americans oppose same-sex marriage and many believe homosexuality is "against God's will," but otherwise consider themselves tolerant of gays, according to a Los Angeles Times poll.

By a margin of 55 to 41 percent, those polled agreed with the statement that "if gays are allowed to marry, the institution of marriage will be degraded."

About half favored a U.S. constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman, while 42 percent opposed it, according to the poll published Saturday on the newspaper's Web site.

The AP report focuses on the negative findings of the LA Times poll, making it look like what the Times surveyed was attitudes about same-sex marriage and about whether homosexuality is a sin. This negative spin is subtle in some places, as in this paragraph:

Only about a quarter of those polled for the Los Angeles Times felt homosexuals should be allowed to legally marry and 38 percent believed they should be allowed to form civil unions. About a third said that neither type of union should be permitted.

Now compare that to the equivalent paragraph in the Times story:

In The Times Poll, just 24% of respondents said gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry. Another 38% said gays and lesbians should be allowed to form civil unions but not marry, and 34% said same-sex couples should not be allowed to marry or form civil unions.

Did you catch the difference? While the AP story made it look like the percentage of people who approve of same-sex marriages or civil unions is about the same as the percentage who disapprove of either, the Times story included the important word another when listing those percentages. Just the addition of that word makes it clear that, while one third of the sample diasapproved of marriages and civil unions, two-thirds of those polled approved.

And what about the finding that most people believe that same-sex marriages will be legalized? The AP buries that in the next-to-last paragraph, making sure to couple it with something negative:

While about six in 10 people felt homosexual relationships are "against God's will," a similar percentage felt that legal recognition of same-sex marriages was inevitable.

The AP certainly has the right to put a different frame around the poll results than the LA Times did. Since there isn't something called 'the truth' out there in the world that everyone agrees on, all any reporter or editor can do is to point the stuff that they think matters. And you can be almost certain that no two editors or reporters will see things the same way.

While we can't read minds, it nonetheless looks to us like whoever wrote the AP story went into it looking for stuff that confirmed their own attitudes about lesbians and gay men. To do so, that reporter chose to ignore almost all of the positive findings of the Times poll — findings which made up the bulk of the poll results. We don't call that responsible journalism. And, as we usually do in cases like this, we'd suggest that a competent editor would have caught the problems with the story. But given the stories by Nedra Pickler and other reporters with questionable journalistic that the AP routinely sends out on the wire, perhaps they don't have any competent editors.

But don't take our word for any of this. We suggest that you go read both the Times story and the AP story so you can decide for yourself whether you think our analysis is right.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:22 PM | Get permalink

More details on the August 6, 2001 presidential briefing document.

CNN has confirmed these contents for the briefing, which is indeed called 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the US':

• An intelligence report received in May 2001 indicating al Qaeda was attempting to send operatives to the United States through Canada to carry out an attack using explosives. This information had been passed on to intelligence and law enforcement agencies;

• Al Qaeda had been considering ways to hijack American planes to win the release of operatives who had been arrested in 1998 and 1999;

• Osama bin Laden was set on striking the US as early as 1997 through early 2001;

• Some intelligence suggested suspected al Qaeda operatives were traveling to and from the United States, were U.S. citizens, and may have had a support network in the U.S.;

• At least 70 FBI investigations were underway in 2001 regarding possible al Qaeda cells/terrorist-related operations in the U.S.

More: Open Source Politics has confirmed even more of the contents. Or something like that.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:41 AM | Get permalink

The truth comes out.

From a BBC story on Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman:

"I don't watch my own films very often. I become so jittery and ready to cry... and miserable. I think it's awful," he said in a rare interview on Swedish TV.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:36 AM | Get permalink

Dubya was warned of an al-Qaeda plot before 9/11.

We continue to be amazed at how officials in Dubya's administration re-define words to suit their purposes. On Thursday, for example, we pointed to the interesting definition of sovereignty that the administration uses when talking about Iraq. And just yesterday, we sent you off to look at William Saletan's list of definitions that national security advisor Condoleezza Rice used during her testimony at the 9/11 commission.

Today, we find out that Dubya's national security advisor re-defined yet another term during her testimony. You'll recall that Rice told the 9/11 commission that a presidential daily briefing given to Dubya just days before the attacks on New York and Washington contained only 'historical information' about al-Qaeda. and she also told commissioners that this memo did not warn of any imminent attacks.

So what did Rice really mean when she used the term historical document? Courtesy of some administration leaks and a nice summary from the BBC, we now have a pretty good idea:

Several people who have seen the memo told the Associated Press that it contained recent intelligence indicating that Bin Laden supporters were attempting to get inside the country to carry out an attack with explosives.

It was not specific about timing or target, according to the sources interviewed by AP, but it made it clear that it was in the 2001 time frame and that the FBI and other intelligence agencies were investigating the reports.

The New York Times also quotes a government official who says that President Bush was told in the briefing that al-Qaeda supporters were plotting an attack in the US and wanted to hijack airplanes.

So what Rice meant by historical document was something like: 'The prez was warned about al-Qaeda, and didn't take the warning seriously. But I'll be damned if I'll tell you that.'

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:06 AM | Get permalink

Losing control of Iraq?

The downward spiral in Iraq continues, as even the US press is starting to acknowledge. This LA Times story paints a bleak picture of things as they stood on Friday:

A week of intense fighting between coalition troops and a variety of Sunni and Shiite Muslim fighters triggered concern that the coalition had lost control of the country.

"The lid of the pressure cooker has come off," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told BBC radio. "There is no doubt that the current situation is very serious and it is the most serious that we have faced."

"It is plainly the fact today that there are larger numbers of people, and they are people on the ground, Iraqis, not foreign fighters, who are engaged in this insurgency," Straw said.

U.S. authorities here sought to cast the widespread revolt in the best light.

"It's a gross mischaracterization to say the entire country is at war," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters.

And Secretary of State Colin L. Powell took to the airwaves Friday afternoon, conducting a series of interviews seeking to assure Americans that the recent developments did not signal a loss of control over Iraq.

Translation: 'We are losing control of Iraq.

More: The Iraqi governing council (appointed by the US, remember?) is demanding that the US stop attacking civilians:

"We call for an immediate ceasefire and for resorting to political solutions for situations in some parts of the country, particularly in the city of Fallujah," said an official statement obtained by AFP .

The statement, issued after six days of fierce fighting in Fallujah that has killed more than 450 and wounded over 1000 Iraqis, denounced what it called "military solutions to the problems and the collective punishment of innocent civilians".

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:45 AM | Get permalink

Friday, April 9, 2004

Keep this in mind.

While people are dying in Iraq, here's what Dubya thinks is important.

Dubya on vacation

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:24 PM | Get permalink

Priceless.

A disgruntled (and homophobic) viewer sends a complaining email to a network television reporter. Then the fun begins.

Via Wonkette!

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:55 PM | Get permalink

High-level Iraqi opposition to the Fallujah siege.

It appears that the US-appointed Iraqi governing council is cracking over this issue. The BBC has more details. (Also see our earlier post.)

Ghazi Ajil al-Yawer, a Sunni Muslim member of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), said he was ready to resign if the US did not seek a peaceful solution to the crisis in Falluja.

"How can a superpower like the US put itself in a state of war with a small city like Falluja? This is genocide," he told AFP news agency on Friday, the first anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Fellow IGC member Adnan Pachachi said the Falluja offensive was "illegal and totally unacceptable" whilst Kurdish IGC member Mahmoud Uthman described US policy as counter-productive.

The Iraqi interim Human Rights Minister, Abdel Basit Turki, and a member of the Iraqi Governing Council's rotating presidency, Iyad Allawi, both resigned on Friday without giving a reason for their decision.

Moqtada Sadr, the radical cleric whose followers have been directing violent unrest in Shia areas since Sunday, has demanded the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq.

Speaking in a sermon read out at Friday Prayers by an aide in the town of Kufa, he said US President George W Bush could no longer point to Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction as reasons to be in Iraq.

"You are now fighting an entire nation, from south to north, from east to west, and we advise you to withdraw from Iraq," said Mr Sadr, who is the subject of a coalition arrest warrant.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:16 PM | Get permalink

And then ...

There's what things look like if you're a US soldier in the middle of the 'current situation' in Iraq. This one happens to be a woman from Minnesota.

We'd suggest starting with the entry for April 1.

Thanks to Brad DeLong for the pointer to Ginmar's journal.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:31 PM | Get permalink

This is what 'collective punishment' looks like.

Aljazeera's website has a slideshow of pictures from the Fallujah siege that you can be certain won't show up in the US media.

The story that goes with the pictures is here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:28 PM | Get permalink

A Scottish mystery solved.

Scottish railway police figure out who's been putting gravel and small rocks on top of train tracks in northeast Scotland.

Hint: The name of the culprit starts with a C.

Via Aberdeen Evening Express.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:58 PM | Get permalink

Decoding Condoleeza Rice's testimony.

While this magpie would have enjoyed getting a decoder ring, we have to admit that Slate's William Saletan has done a great service by compiling this glossary of Condoleezza Rice's self-serving redefinitions of everyday terms.

Gathering threats: Unclear perils that previous administrations irresponsibly failed to confront quickly. Example: For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient. Historically, democratic societies have been slow to react to gathering threats, tending instead to wait to confront threats until they are too dangerous to ignore or until it is too late.

Vague threats: Unclear perils that the Bush administration understandably failed to confront quickly. Example: The threat reporting that we received in the spring and summer of 2001 was not specific as to time, nor place, nor manner of attack. … The threat reporting was frustratingly vague.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:14 PM | Get permalink

Iraqi council members angered by siege of Fallujah.

The siege of Fallujah is causing members of the US-appointed governing council to distance themselves from what the US is doing. According to the AP, one member of the council is threatening to resign in protest, and another has suspended his membership.

One of the strongest pro-U.S. voices on the council, Adnan Pachachi, denounced the U.S. siege, launched after Sunni insurgents killed four U.S. contract workers and a mob dragged their burned and mutilated bodies through the streets and hung two of them from a bridge.

"These (U.S.) operations were a mass punishment for the people of Fallujah,'' Pachachi told Al-Arabiya TV. "It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal.''

Added [Sunni council member Ghazi] al-Yawer: "We all agree that those who did that (killed the four Americans) were criminals who deserve to be arrested. But the result was the mass punishment of a city. ... And that we refuse.''

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:55 AM | Get permalink

Iraq, one year later.

It's 'National Day' in Iraq, the anniversary of the fall of the Saddam Hussein government. Writing from Baghdad, though, Riverbend isn't doing any celebrating:

There's an almost palpable anger in Baghdad. The faces are grim and sad all at once and there's a feeling of helplessness that can't be described in words. It's like being held under water and struggling for the unattainable surface- seeing all this destruction and devastation.

Firdaws Square, the place where the statue was brought down, is off-limits because the Americans fear angry mobs and demonstrations… but it doesn't matter because people are sticking to their homes. The kids haven't been to school for several days now and even the universities are empty. The situation in Baghdad feels very unstable and the men in the neighborhood are talking of a neighborhood watch again- just like the early days of occupation.

Where are the useless Governing Council? Why isn't anyone condemning the killings in the south and in Falloojeh?! Why aren't they sitting down that fool Bremer and telling him that this is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong??? If one of them were half a man or even half a human, they would threaten to resign their posts if there isn't an immediate ceasefire… the people are enraged. This latest situation proves that they aren't Iraqi- they aren't here for the welfare of the Iraqi people.

The American and European news stations don't show the dying Iraqis… they don't show the women and children bandaged and bleeding- the mother looking for some sign of her son in the middle of a puddle of blood and dismembered arms and legs… they don't show you the hospitals overflowing with the dead and dying because they don't want to hurt American feelings… but people *should* see it. You should see the price of your war and occupation- it's unfair that the Americans are fighting a war thousands of kilometers from home. They get their dead in neat, tidy caskets draped with a flag and we have to gather and scrape our dead off of the floors and hope the American shrapnel and bullets left enough to make a definite identification…

Via Baghdad Burning.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:21 AM | Get permalink

What's destroying Irish traditional music?

It's those damned Americans, with their lavish arrangements of traditional tunes, and all of their miserable guitars and bodhrans.

Or at least that's the view of Irish radio presenter and Mayo Comhaltas secretary, Seamus O Dubhthaigh (Duffy) as relayed by an article by Michael Cummins in the Irish newspaper, the Western People.

"I am often amazed and also annoyed by music artistes and radio presenters who introduce various recordings of Irish music as being traditional. In fact, the latter adjective must be the most abused, relative to Irish music, that exists. By its very nature, Irish traditional music is a folk music, simple and uncomplicated.

Unfortunately, in many modern recordings we get elements which are not within the tradition such as lavish attempts at arrangements, in some cases overtures, with a callithumpian concert of guitars, bodhrans and basoukis in the background - instruments of low or no musical quality which tend to obscure and distract from the central artiste. This feature of the recording business seems to worsen on an annual basis. I can assure all and sundry that this is not an Irish influence but a commercial one, and largely American." [...]

While Seamus says guitars are fine in "country music, the Beatles and pop where they have their own place", they are a 'no go' in the traditional stakes here at home.

"Today, we find ourselves in a situation where, in some instances, the accompaniment dominates to such an extinct that it drowns the central artiste but in all cases distracts attention from the artiste, all in the name of progress but aimed at commercialism.

"I believe guitar and bodhran players who operate in traditional circles are people of low esteem and undiscerning musical tastes. Noise is substituted for actual music. These instruments add nothing to our music but take a lot from it.

A pertinent question should be - can we allow conscious commercialism to destroy a most important element of a nation's culture?," asks Seamus.

Dubhthaigh's views have provoked a lively discussion at TheSession.org, a website that promotes the playing of Irish traditional music. Here's one response:

Hm, as far as I can remember, the only person I met in Ireland who told me "You play guitar? Why don't you learn some decent instrument?" was an American fiddler. A really fine man, if somewhat purist in view. So much about blaming the Americans.

And here's another:

"Freinds and sinners. I was once a person of low esteem and undiscerning taste. Yes. I was once a bazouki player. I'd thrash the thing within an inch of it's life. I'd pay no attention to melody. I'd pay no attention to the tune. Hell, I'd barely even pay much attention to the key."

"But lo! I saw the light. I got myself a fiddle. I learned the tunes. I immersed myself in the endless variations of decoration. I was saved. I was baptised by the rightessness of one note at a time (except for the odd double stop of course)."

"I did cast out that evil fretted thing from foriegn shores. I made a neclace of my plectrum and hung it arround my neck lest it always remind me of my misguided past."

"I encased the music in amber so that it may be preserved for ever in it's purest form. I forbad the playing of it in public lest it be contaminated by foreign ears. I sacrificed goats at the alter of it's heavenly beauty. I ... ... ... ... ... ...

Of course, there are people who agreed with all or part of Dubhthaigh's comments, too. You can find the entire discussion here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:53 AM | Get permalink

Don't like Dubya's 2004 budget?

Maybe you can do better.

We reduced the budget deficit by US $302 billion.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:21 AM | Get permalink

Thursday, April 8, 2004

Definitions can be slippery.

Like the definition of the word sovereignty when referring to Iraq:

Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday the new interim Iraqi government may have to accept some limits on its sovereignty after the United States hands over authority on July 1.

Powell said Washington intended to work out agreements for U.S. troops now fighting against Shi'ite and Sunni rebels to remain in the country after the handover and for Iraq's armed forces to remain under U.S. command.

Or, as this magpie wrote back in March:

We'd be willing to bet that the new Iraqi government will have to accept a permanent US military presence as well.

Via Reuters.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:10 PM | Get permalink

The largest private army in the world.

It's in Iraq, where mercenaries are now running part of the 'current situation.'

Under assault by insurgents and unable to rely on U.S. and coalition troops for intelligence or help under duress, private security firms in Iraq have begun to band together in the past 48 hours, organizing what may effectively be the largest private army in the world, with its own rescue teams and pooled, sensitive intelligence. [...]

The demand for a private security force in Iraq has increased since the war ended, said officials with the CPA, the U.S.-led authority that is running the occupation of Iraq. There are about 20,000 private security contractors in Iraq now, including Americans, Iraqis and other foreigners. That number is expected to grow to 30,000 in the near future when the U.S. troop presence is drawn down after the June 30 handover to Iraqi authorities.

The presence of so many armed security contractors in a hot combat zone is unprecedented in U.S. history, according to government officials and industry experts. [...]

Some Defense Department officials are concerned that private commandos are not subject to adequate oversight. There is no government vetting of contract workers who carry weapons. "The CPA has let all kinds of contracts to all kinds of people," said one senior Defense Department official who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject. "It's blindsided us."

Via Washington Post.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:59 PM | Get permalink

Something to think about.

Regarding the current situation in Iraq.

Falloojeh has been cut off from the rest of Iraq for the last three days. It's terrible. They've been bombing it constantly and there are dozens dead. Yesterday they said that the only functioning hospital in the city was hit by the Americans and there's no where to take the wounded except a meager clinic that can hold up to 10 patients at a time. There are over a hundred wounded and dying and there's nowhere to bury the dead because the Americans control the area surrounding the only graveyard in Falloojeh; the bodies are beginning to decompose in the April heat. The troops won't let anyone out of Falloojeh and they won't let anyone into it either- the people are going to go hungry in a matter of days because most of the fresh produce is brought from outside of the city. We've been trying to call a friend who lives there for three days and we can't contact him.

This is supposed to be 'retaliation' for what happened last week with the American contractors- if they were indeed contractors. Whoever they were, it was gruesome and wrong… I feel for their families. Was I surprised? Hardly. This is an occupation and for those of you naïve enough to actually believe Chalabi and the Bush administration when they said the troops were going to be 'greeted with flowers and candy' then I can only wish that God will, in the future, grant you wisdom.

This is crazy. This is supposed to be punishment for violence but it's only going to result in more bloodshed on both sides… people are outraged everywhere- Sunnis and Shi'a alike. This constant bombing is only going to make things worse for everyone. Why do Americans think that people in Baghdad or the south or north aren’t going care what happens in Falloojeh or Ramadi or Nassriyah or Najaf? Would Americans in New York disregard bombing and killing in California?

Via Baghdad Burning.

More: As if to prove the point, check out the picture in this post at Whiskey Bar.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:31 PM | Get permalink

Get used to seeing this headline (3).

Gas prices expected to top $1.82 next month.

Via USA Today.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:01 PM | Get permalink

'It's hard to be a moderate Republican or a moderate Democrat.'

On Monday, we posted an excerpt from an excellent article by Bill Bishop in the Austin (TX) Statesman American that described how the US electorate has polarized in the last three decades, and how we thought that some results of this polarization ran against 'common knowledge.' Today, the Statesman American has the second part of Bishop's article, and it's another must-read.

(Before you can read the article, the newspaper will make you go through one of the most obnoxious registration processes we've enocountered. Bishop's piece is more than worth the trouble, though. Besides, you can have fun making up your personal information, just like we did.)

For eight presidential elections, from 1948 to 1976, presidential elections at the local level on average grew more competitive.

Republican voters became more likely to encounter Democrats at the courthouse and in the express line at the grocery. Democratic presidential voters became more likely to have Republicans as neighbors or bowling league partners.

There were still counties filled with Republicans and communities of mostly Democrats, but the average county was growing more politically diverse, at least when it came to presidential voting.

After 1976, however, the political mixture began to separate, and for the next six presidential elections, Republicans and Democrats pulled apart.

By the time George W. Bush narrowly defeated Al Gore in 2000, the nation's counties had grown more politically segregated than at any time since the end of World War II.

Meanwhile, those majorities are growing. Nearly seven out of every 10 voters live in counties where presidential elections are becoming less competitive, according to a study of U.S. election data by the Austin American-Statesman's statistical consultant, Robert Cushing.

Does it matter that American voters are increasingly living in ideologically homogenous communities? The American-Statesman queried more than a dozen political scientists, social psychologists and political pollsters, and they all said, yes, it matters a lot.

Via Campaign Desk.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:47 PM | Get permalink

When good eggs go bad.

A few days ago, we rode Amtrak up to Seattle. It's a really nice train ride that takes you through places that you don't see if you drive up on I-5. One of our favorite sights from the train (besides the Mima Mounds) is the giant egg in Winlock, Washington, which celebrates the town's history as a chicken-ranching center. The photo here shows what the egg pretty much as it looked the first time we saw it, about eight years ago. It's about 11 feet from tip to tip.

The pristine Winlock egg

Pristine egg
Since 9/11, however, we'd heard terrible rumors about big changes to the egg. We'd hoped that they weren't true, but when the northbound train passed through Winlock, things were even worse than we'd feared. (While the photo we snapped from the train yesterday was too blurry to use, we were able to find this shot taken from a similar pespective.)

'The post 9/11 Winlock egg

Post-9/11 egg
This magpie liked the suggestion of the woman who ran the cafe car on the southbound train: Winlock should whitewash the egg again, then hold a contest each year for the best Easter Egg design. No matter which design won such a contest, the egg couldn't look worse than it does now.

More: Just to be fair to the people of Winlock, this 2003 story from the Seattle Times tells the story of why the US flag was painted on the egg.

We still hate it, though.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:56 PM | Get permalink

Condoleezza Rice's testimony at the 9/11 commission.

If you're like this magpie and didn't have the stomach to watch or listen to Dubya's national security advisor try to justify the administration's handling of terrorism, the Washington Post has a complete transcript of Rice's testimony here.

And if you only want to deal with the essentials, the Center for American Progress has a very nice comparison of how Rice's testimony matches with the public record here.

From what we've heard and read so far, it sounds like the best Washington can hope for is that Rice's testimony didn't make things any worse. Some commentators are pointing to the new information about the August 6 presidential briefing as a possible 'smoking gun.' The title of that classified briefing was revealed in today's hearing: 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'

We'd be very interesting in hearing comments from people who saw or listened to Rice's testimony earlier today.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:43 PM | Get permalink

What do you say about a genocide?

Now that it's been ten years since the 800,000 or more deaths in the Rwanda genocide, the Western press is trying to figure out how to mark that anniversary. In this excellent post (with extensive linkage), The Revealer says that the bulk of the coverage is 'a well-intentioned collage of vicarious suffering, voyeuristic horror, and awkward piety,' that explains little about Rwanda's history (particularly its colonial past) and the complexities of the religious environment in which the genocide occurred. Because of these and other omissions, the messy facts on the ground in Rwanda refuse to fit neatly into the news frame into which Western journalists want to put the Rwanda genocide — the genocide and its aftermath defy trite metaphors and simplistic attempts to give meaning to the horrendous death toll.

Bob Smietana, another Christianity Today journalist who also maintains a thoughtful weblog called god-of-small-things, has suggested that affluent Western Christian readers’ fascination with genocidal scenarios of another variety -- those featured in Left Behind — as well as accounts of persecution in developing nations constitutes a kind of "vicarious Christianity." If that’s so, much of the coverage of Rwanda coming even from the secular press might be said to be partaking of the same emotional release, such as Mary Kimani’s 2003 Time feature story, "Killers Come Home."

"'‘To be honest, I did not even know the people we went to kill,' says Gerard Uwize, clutching a Bible and songbook," the piece begins. Kimani moves on to an exploration of the seemingly hopeless moral situation men like Uwize -- and those around him -- face before concluding with an account of a Rwandan Catholic nun whose family was murdered, and who now runs a program through which killers meet survivors and help rebuild their homes.

More recently, Laurie Goering writes in The Chicago Tribune of Louise Mushikiwabo, who lost 12 immediate relatives and now wants to make a book about what happened. Goering concludes:

Mushikiwabo, a graduate student in Washington at the time of the genocide, recently ran into the brother of one of her family's killers in Kigali.

"I said hello in an awkward way, and I think he thought I wouldn't shake his hand, but I did," she remembers.

"Ten years after such a horrendous genocide, the fact that people are living together peacefully is very important," she added.

Indeed. And so are such stories. But to whom? When served up in the Western press -- accompanied by Dantesque dips into hell such as this BBC oral history, "Taken Over By Satan" — they function almost as morality plays, binding Rwandan killers and survivors together with American and European readers as the "everyman" who has passed through sin to a hard-won redemption.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:13 PM | Get permalink

Ooooooh, shiny!

The asymmetric M66 spiral galaxy.

'M66 spiral galaxy

You'll find more information and a larger image here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:59 PM | Get permalink

So we lied.

Regular blogging didn't resume yesterday. But it will today. Honest.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:58 PM | Get permalink

Wednesday, April 7, 2004

It happened again.

The last time we spent this long away from Magpie, the power grid crashed in eastern North America. This time, everything is blowing up in Iraq. We know it's just coincidence, but ...

Regular blogging will resume later today.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:14 AM | Get permalink

The latest from Kingsley, Hampshire.

The King's Blog reports that times in Kingsley are getting very modern indeed.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:00 AM | Get permalink

Monday, April 5, 2004

What's up with the US electorate?

No, we're not back — we still won't be blogging as usual for at least a few more days. BUT, we read something so interesting we wanted to post it now, rather than later.

The Austin (TX) Statesman American has an article on changes in the US electorate and voting patterns over the past few decades that's a must-read. What we found most interesting was that the research cited in the article shows some changes among voters and political parties that are pretty much the opposite of what we'd expected.

The article is worth the annoying registration process you'll have to go through before you can take a look. Go read it now.

Since the early and mid-1970s, the American political scene shifted almost completely from the independent-minded, ticket-splitting, non-partisan landscape Broder documented:

• Voters have grown more partisan.

Party loyalties rebounded in the 1980s and by the 1990s partisanship among American voters — their propensity to identify themselves in polls as either Republican or Democrat — had increased to levels not seen since at least the 1950s. Since 1980, party loyalty has increased to levels "unsurpassed over any comparable time span since the turn of the last century," writes Princeton University political scientist Larry Bartels.

• Voters have become less independent.

The percentage of true independent voters peaked in 1978 and has declined since. Meanwhile, the percentage of people who see important differences between the parties went from 46 percent in 1972 to 66 percent in 2000.

• The parties have become more ideological.

The percentage of conservatives who call themselves Democrats — and liberals who call themselves Republican — has been declining since 1972. The two parties once were a stew of conflicting ideologies — mixtures that included northern liberal Republicans and conservative rural Democrats. Now they are growing more ideologically pure.

• Congress compromises less often.

Despite the rancor caused by war and the civil rights movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were fewer strict party-line votes in those years than at any time since World War II. Since then, the number of times a majority of Republicans in Congress has voted opposite a majority of Democrats has steadily increased.

The percentage of these party-line votes in the 1990s was higher than for any 10-year period since 1950 and the parties "differ more on issues now than at any time since the early days of the New Deal," wrote Colby College political scientist Mark Brewer.

• Voters cast more straight party tickets.

In the 2000 and 2002 elections, ticket splitting — where voters cast ballots for both Republicans and Democrats — "declined to the lowest levels in over 30 years," according to University of Missouri-St. Louis political scientist David Kimball.

By the beginning of this century, compromise had disappeared from the House of Representatives. Voters were becoming staunch supporters of parties they increasingly saw as ideologically distinct. Democrats had more liberal voting records. Republicans were more conservative.

Thirty years after Broder predicted the end of party and partisanship, Roger Davidson in the Congressional Quarterly Almanac wrote that the country is "in the midst of the most partisan era since Reconstruction."

Beneath these national measures of increasing partisanship, however, there was another trend developing, as communities shifted and strengthened their political allegiances. At the local level, voters were grouping in like-minded communities. Counties were becoming either more Democratic or more Republican each election.

At the microlevel of society families gathered to make decisions about where and how to live. The discussions at these kitchen table summits weren't overtly political, but decisions about schools and neighbors and lifestyle all had political results. In deciding where and how to live, the country was segregating by political preference.

Via Campaign Desk.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:03 PM | Get permalink