Here's What's Left

Things that make you go "hmm": military recruitment roundup

From the NY Times:

For the first time since January, the Army met its recruiting goal this month, but it still faces what some senior Army officials say is a nearly insurmountable hurdle to meet the service's annual quota.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a public forum at the Pentagon on Wednesday that the Army exceeded its June goal, but he gave no details. Senior Army officials said in interviews earlier in the day that the Army exceeded the quota of 5,650 recruits by about 500 people. The Army Reserve also made its first monthly goal since last December, the officials said.

Wow, so they're finally out of their slump, huh?  (as noted with sadistic glee by Powerline)  Oh, but wait a sec...what's this nice graph next to the text of the NY Times article?

Notice anything about the month of June? (see the update below for my corrected version of this graph)

And this is after the Army lowered its quota in May with no public notice. 

So now that recruitment is (somewhat) up, what should be done to help meet future quotas?

America's parents should not stand in the way of sons and daughters who want to join the military, but should let them follow their patriotic instincts, the nation's No. 2 general said Wednesday.

"Those who are looking to serve this country should be encouraged to do so," said Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Telling parents to quit trying to protect their children--man, that guy has some balls.  But I guess that's how you get to be the nation's No. 2 general.  Big, hairy, impertinent balls.

And for anyone who likes a little insult with their injury: A couple republican senators are claiming that the reason parents have been discouraging their children from enlisting is negative media. (Via Bulworth)

Families are discouraging young men and women from enlisting "because of all the negative media that's out there," Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, said at a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Inhofe also said that other senators' criticism of the war contributed to the propaganda of U.S. enemies. He did not name the senators.

Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker urged members of Congress to use "your considerable influence to explain to the American people and to those that are influencers out there how important it is for our young people to serve this nation at a time like this."

The Army on Wednesday said it was 14 percent, or about 7,800 recruits, behind its year-to-date recruitment target even though it exceeded its monthly target in June. With extended deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, recruiting also is down for the National Guard and the Reserves.

"With the deluge of negative news that we get daily, it's just amazing to me that anybody would want to sign up," said Sen. Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican.

So we are to believe, it seems, that American moms readily encourage their sons and daughters to enlist, until one evening they turn on the news and say, "Holy shite!  People are dying in Iraq!  I had no idea.  Wow, I'd never heard of these, um, what's the term, 'su-i-cide bomb-ers.'  You're not going anywhere, mister/missie.  You're grounded until this war is over."

As a final note, if you do a search in Google News for "army recruitment," Powerline's post is the first link.  Scaaaary.

-Heather

UPDATE:  Kos notes something I missed that makes the graph above even more suspicious--when lowering the recruitment quota for May, Army officials claimed that:

...it made more sense to shift some of that quota to the summer months, traditionally a better season for recruiters to attract new high school graduates.

How much of a shift are we talking about?  The Army needs on average 9,760 new recruits in each of the summer months to make its goal of 80,000 (for the year) by the end of September.  They got about 6,100 in June.  So the graph above should actually look like this:

Let's see some effort, people

All of a sudden, everyone thinks that Rehnquist is NOT going to retire.  WaPo:

The cagey chief justice, who has thyroid cancer, may yet announce his retirement at any moment. But with each passing hour, the doubts grow. Since Monday, the capital's conventional wisdom has executed a perfect 180, and the smart money now says Rehnquist (and Sandra Day O'Connor and the others) won't resign.

This is a big disappointment to anxious press:

"It's hell," said NBC News's Pete Williams, sitting in his cubicle in the Supreme Court press room -- waiting. Outside, at the bottom of the court steps, an NBC camera crew languishes as it has all week -- waiting, eating Doritos, reading the paper, talking to tourists. "You can't do a story saying nothing happened," Williams pointed out.

The court is now out of session, but the Supreme Court press room is still buzzing with reporters catching up on their reading and sticking around -- just in case.

Aw, c'mon.  Michael Jackson showing up to court in his pajamas is a story, so surely you make something out of this bit of nothing.  Can't you just get footage of all the people waiting around, a la Schiavo?  24-hour Rehnquist-cam?  Anything?

-Heather

Jonah Goldberg is a pretty crappy writer

Jonah writes an utterly retarded piece on his endorsement of a "dead constitution" (i.e., one that is constructionist or not "living").  Nestled in his annoying cutesy writing is just the sort of deception (or more generously, misunderstanding) that leads Americans not only to mistrust individual judges, but to hold misconceptions about the nature and function of the judicial branch.  Let's take a look at the relevant portions of his essay and give him a grade, shall we?  We'll start him off with a 100% and take off points as necessary.

Better Off Dead: A conservative Constitution

Corny title: -3 points.

In Washington, conservatives and liberals are quietly loading up on drinking water, D batteries, and extra ammo, in preparation for the coming battle over judges. Ralph Neas himself has been seen by the campfire carving notches into the stock of his rifle, muttering, “Pain don’t hurt.” No one knows when the fight’s coming, but everyone knows it is. But while we’re digging fresh foxholes and listening to our Vera Lynn records, waiting for the blitzkrieg, it might be worth taking a step back to look at the big picture.

Joke falls flat: -2 points.  Unfunny metaphor continues long after showing itself to be unfunny: -3 points.

This is a battle between the forces of life and death, and, as inconvenient as it may be to the marketing efforts of abortion opponents, we are resolutely on the side of death. For we are those who believe the only good constitution is a dead constitution...

Silly rhetoric: -2 points    Using the phrase "For we are those":  -4 points.  General douchebaggery:  -8 points.

Let's skip ahead some:

The more reasonable arguments for a living constitution revolve around the view that society is changing too fast and the Constitution-as-written must grow to stay relevant...

And it’s obviously true that the Founders never envisioned a world of embryonic stem cells or retinal-scan cat doors (coming soon!). And there are good answers for what the Supreme Court should do when the Constitution is truly silent on an issue. For example: It should stay silent.

But the problem here is that these arguments are all on the opposition’s turf. Conservatives aren’t merely anti-living Constitution — we are pro-dead Constitution. In order for us to live in freedom, the Constitution must die (Faster, Federalist Society! Kill! Kill!).

Weak attempt to refute counterargument: -15 points.  More lame humor: -5 points.  Too many exclamation points:  -12 points.

I cannot fathom how it is that Jonah not only lives in a world with embryonic stem cells but also mentions them in his piece, and yet doesn't understand why the original meaning of a document written over 200 years ago might not be entirely relevant today. Stem cells...hell, why jump that far forward in history?  There were so many other things the founders didn't envision.  Like gas lighting, which was invented in 1792.  Or batteries, which showed up in 1800.  Tin cans (1810).  Photographs (1814).  Matches (1827).  Wrenches (1835).  Safety pins (1849).  Plastic (1862).  Barbed wire (1873).  Toilet paper (1880).  We could go on for volumes before we even get to the stuff that really matters.

Yet Jonah would have us believe that the founders--who in 1789 were wiping their asses with god knows what--were able to create a document that fully applies to contemporary situations.

Onward:

The case for dead constitutions is simple. They bind us to a set of rules for everybody.

Setting the stage for the introduction of a false dichotomy involving dead constitutions versus no rules:  -18 points.

Having a set of rules with a fixed (i.e., dead, unliving, etc.) meaning ensures that future generations will be protected from judges or politicians who’d like to rule arbitrarily...A “living Constitution” denies us our voice in this regard because it basically holds that whatever decisions we make — including the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments — can be thrown out by any five dyspeptic justices on the Supreme Court. In other words, the justices who claim the Constitution is a wild card didn’t take their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution in good faith because they couldn’t know what they were swearing to.

Introduction of false dichotomy: -5 points.  Inexcusable misinformation imparted by use of false dichotomy:  -20 points.  Not understanding issues:  -20 points.  Misstatement of judicial powers: -18 points.  Saying that there justices who claim the Constitution is a "wild card" when there in fact are not:  -15 points.

First of all, if we consult our 8th grade American government textbook, we see that Supreme Court justices cannot "throw out" Constitutional amendments.

Second, Jonah would have us believe that there are two choices:  a fixed set of rules on the one hand and decisions that are completely arbitrary on the other, as if even the smallest step outside the original text of the Constitution will result in complete chaos.  This is absurd.  Clearly, there is a range of interpretive stances, along which we may locate any one justice any any one point in time.

Third, in his goofy attempt to offer a quick and easy solution to solve the problem of (in his view) maverick judges, Jonah forgets that there are many dimensions along which a justice's behavior can vary.  Adherence to a "dead Constitution" principle of interpretation doesn't automatically give us (what Jonah would see as) a judge that plays by the rules.  A justice could, for example, show a disregard for precedent that might result some pretty erratic behavior. 

And what of the fact that much of the Constitution is so vague as to demand signficant interpretation?  Hmm?  What is "cruel and unusual"?  How many words have a more context-dependent meaning than "unusual"? 

Anyway...all in all, out of 100 points, Jonah loses 31 points for style, 113 points for content, and 8 points for being a douche, giving him a final score of -152.  Could be worse.

-Heather

See you in a few

I'm going to be extremely busy in the next two and a half weeks, so I won't be doing a lot of blogging.  Heather will be picking up the slack though, and since she's much funnier than I am, this site will get a lot more amusing fast.  I'm sure you're all relieved to hear that.

Anyway, I'll dropping in to say something from time to time.  In the meantime, play nice.

-- Michael

Poorly chosen words

Very poorly chosen:

WASHINGTON -- Puppies and kittens likely are not the first things that come to mind when many think of Sen. Rick Santorum _ the conservative No. 3 Senate Republican known for his tough stance against abortion and gay marriage.

No?  I guess it depends whose mind you're talking about.

But Santorum, R-Pa., has won high praise from the Humane Society of the United States for pushing legislation aimed at ending breeding facilities known as puppy mills.

Well, ok.  Good for him.  And this will help reduce opportunities for interspecies sex too.

-Heather

[If you don't get the joke, look here first and here for the explanation.]

Ten commandments: when will this issue go away?

For what it's worth, I find the ten commandments-in-courthouse issue really frustrating.  The constitutional issue is pretty clear to any reasonable reader, and the Supreme Court said pretty much the same thing yesterday that it's always said about the issue, but the politics of it remain intractable.  As far as I can tell there are three basic positions (with nuances within them):

1) The historically ignorant conservative position: We know some out-of-context historical facts!  Washington was religious!  Read Washington's Thanksgiving address; that's religious!  The phrase "separation of church and state" doesn't appear in the constitution!  The founding fathers were all Christian!  Why are liberals scared of democracy?  Why do liberals hate people of faith? 

This position rears its ugly head once again this morning's George Will column, a masterpiece of stupidity and poor reasoning. 

2) The liberal position (also known as "the constitutional position"): When the constitution says "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion," that means that the government cannot establish a national religion or endorse any religion or favor any religion or pass laws that are primarily religious in purpose or get excessively entangled in religion.  In short, it can't pass laws respecting the establishment of religion.  That's what the constitutional says, and we want to amend the constitution repealing the 1st amendment, no amount of griping will change the basic constitutional fact. 

3) The wimpy liberal position (also known as the "'I'm asking the republican party to call me unprincipled' position"):  The "real liberal position" is basically correct; but majorities like the ten commandments in courtrooms, and we wish it weren't so, but we need to win elections.  So therefore we're willing to sacrifice the 1st amendment to political expediency. 

And ne'er shall the three meet. 

To be honest, though readers of this blog know that my position is #2, I can see the seduction of #3.  Because in the big picture, what's a piece of paper in the courthouse when taken against the possibility of Democratic majorities in both houses?  Of course, the problem is that the trade-off is not likely to work that way. 

What I find must annoying though is that the conservative position often assumes the liberal position is hostile to religion, specifically to Christianity.  Such an assumption is unreasonable, unfair, and wrong, and I won't rehash the the arguments, which are well known; but surely they're designed to make the conservative base see red, as it were. 

And that makes trouble with the #3 position that even if liberals start going against their principles and allowing ten commandments displays, that won't suddenly change the minds of people who are already inclined to think liberals are anti-religion, because the leadership figures who say that will just find some other thing to whine about.  Indeed, even if liberals somehow, suddenly, sincerely and wholesale changed their positions, I don't think conservatives would believe it. 

In other words, it's hard to know how to argue against a lie that people want to believe (and the last 4 years have been all the evidence we need for that). 

All of which is a long way of saying that I'm genuinely lost in this debate.  Even though the constitutional question couldn't be clearer, it's not a political issue we can win in the foreseeable future.  So how do we deal with it?  Just not talk about it?  Ideas? 

-- Michael

SCOTUS and the ten commandments

Though I'm tired of this issue, and I don't think it's one that we'll win on in the foreseeable future, I'm glad to see that SCOTUS ruled Kentucky's Ten Commandements display unconstitutional.  The opinions don't seem to be available yet, and the "em ess em" might be misreporting the whole thing, but I find the decision to be wholly ordinary and unsurprising, and the dissent to be really weird. 

Justice Souter, says CNN, writes for the majority something very similar to what the Supreme Court has said in the past:

“The touchstone for our analysis is the principle that the First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion,” Justice David Souter wrote for the majority.

“When the government acts with the ostensible and predominant purpose of advancing religion, it violates tha central Establishment clause value of official religious neutrality,” he said.

Does any serious person disagree with that?  Does anyone think that the government shouldn't be neutral "between religion and religion?"  I guess some people do, but I have a hard time believing that they really think that -- that they're not just exploiting a political issue.   

Souter's opinion, in short, is really the same thing that the Supreme Court has been saying for a very long time.  Since at least Lemon v. Kurtz (1971) [sorry, that's Lemon v. Kurtzman; thanks to reader Michael for pointing it out], and, more recently, Allegheny v. ACLU (1989)

Although, in refining the definition of governmental action that unconstitutionally "advances" religion, the Court's subsequent decisions have variously spoken in terms of "endorsement," "favoritism," "preference," or "promotion," the essential principle remains the same: The Clause, at the very least, prohibits government from appearing to take a position on questions of religious belief or from "making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community."

That the Kentucky display fits into this same pattern is patently obvious to me, and I really wonder why the court bothered taking the case. 

Justice Scalia's dissent, if it's being reported accurately, is what's really perplexing:

In a dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that Ten Commandments displays are a legitimate tribute to the nation's religious and legal history.

Justice Scalia can't really believe that the intention of the displays is to honor the nation's "religious and legal history" can he?  Again, can any serious person believe that this is the goal of ten commandments displays advocates?  Is Justice Scalia living in a fantasy land?

Not to be too critical of the ten commandments people -- I don't think most of them are necessarily insincere or bad people or anything.  But it seems that their intentions are so clear.  Roy Moore, for instance, famously answered "yes" to the following questions:

[W]as your purpose in putting the Ten Commandments monument in the Supreme Court rotunda to acknowledge GOD’s law and GOD’s sovereignty?

And the monument is also intended to acknowledge GOD’s overruling power over the affairs of men, would that be correct?

There's not much ambiguity here.  And if Kentucky wants to distinguish itself from Judge Moore's philosophy, it now has a clear ruling from the Supreme Court on how to do so.

-- Michael 

Here is the reason that Donald Rumsfeld should not be the secretary of defense

Again, from yesterday's Meet the Press:

SEC'Y RUMSFELD: ...I presented the president a list of about 15 things that could go terribly, terribly wrong before the [Iraq] war started.[...]

MR. RUSSERT: Was a robust insurgency on your list that you gave the president?

SEC'Y RUMSFELD: I don't remember whether that was on there, but certainly it was discussed the possibility that you could have dead-enders who would fight.

OK, I guess we have three explanations for Rumsfeld's statement that he can't remember whether he considered the possibility that there would be a post-war insurgency: 1) he's lying, 2) he's senile, 3) he's incompetent.  All of those things disqualify him for the job. 

-- Michael

Rumsfeld's having some truth problems

Rumsfeld brought back into the public forum some important topics on Meet the Press today.  I want to dissect this little section of dialogue, because there is just so much that is misleading that it's hard to fathom (well, not really, but it would be if, you know, things weren't in crazy mode right now in this country). 

MR. RUSSERT: Lindsey Graham, Republican, South Carolina, says he is now for an independent commission to look into prisoner abuse at Guantanamo because, "We have to prove..."

SEC'Y RUMSFELD: I don't think that's right. I thought he said he was interested in looking into the legal basis that was decided by the administration.

MR. RUSSERT: He said he had now resisted the idea of congressional action to review the issue related to prisoner abuse, but Graham said, "The uproar related to the latest accusations of abuse had convinced him that we've crossed the point where it isn't working anymore." He said, "The United States needed to prove to the world that we are a rule of law nation."

Would you be in favor of an independent commission?

SEC'Y RUMSFELD: We've had, I think, 11 or 12 investigations and...

MR. RUSSERT: By the Pentagon. This would be independent like...

SEC'Y RUMSFELD: There was an independent investigation.

Was there?  I'm not aware of one.  Is he perhaps referring to the ICRC?  If so, that remains misleading, because the ICRC didn't publish their findings.  Indeed, we don't even know the extent to which the Pentagon has accepted the ICRC's findings.

MR. RUSSERT: Similar to the 9-11 Commission.

SEC'Y RUMSFELD: I think that to go back into all of the things that's already been reviewed by everybody else doesn't make sense, but that's not a decision for me.

Oh please

Had I been anywhere near Seattle yesterday, I surely would have stopped by Focus on the Family's Love Won Out conference, "A dynamic one-day conference addressing, understanding and preventing homosexuality."

Focus on the Family is promoting the truth that homosexuality is preventable and treatable — a message routinely silenced today. We want people to know that individuals don't have to be gay. That's why we've developed a one-day conference for those looking for answers on this often-divisive issue.  Whether you are an educator, parent, concerned citizen or even a gay activist, Love Won Out will inform, inspire and offer you hope.

Hope you say?  Wow, that sounds great.  Tell me, which of my questions can you answer?

• Is it genetic?
• Can it be prevented?
• What's being taught in schools?
• How will gay marriage affect our society?
• What causes homosexuality?
• What should I say to my children about it?
• I don't think it's right, so what should I do?
• What should the church's stance be?
• What about gay rights and minority status?
• How do I help my friend who's gay?

Sweet.  And to top it all off, one of the speakers was Anne Heche's mom.  Unfortunately, this conference has an enemy: liberals.  From an editorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (via Vigilance):

The ongoing controversy surrounding Focus on the Family's upcoming "Love Won Out" conference on Saturday reveals the hypocrisy of liberals who call for tolerance and unquestioned acceptance of diversity yet attempt to stifle all opposing views to their politically correct, pro-gay agenda. As a result, another liberal mantra -- the freedom to choose -- is denied to those seeking to walk out of unwanted homosexuality.

Apparently, in today's America, you can still Be Who You Want to Be -- so long as it isn't "ex-gay."

Uh oh!  Liberal rhetoric being thrown back at us.  It's just soooo....not effective.  And what's with the all-caps "Be Who You Want to Be"?  A misquote of the old army slogan?...which is a little funny considering what you can't ask or tell about in the U.S. military.

-Heather