Entries associated with the tag "Salon.com":

Barack Obama has made a campaign issue of his good judgment on the Middle East, and I'm beginning to wonder if that good judgment now has him exactly where John McCain wants him.

From the get-go Obama opposed the invasion of Iraq as the wrong war for the wrong reasons. McCain lined up behind his president. Now Obama wants to redeploy our Middle East forces. He wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times on July 14: "Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Irag is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out, we won't have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq. As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan."

Famous last words -- "finish the job in Afghanistan." American and allied armies invaded soon after 9/11 and overthrew the Taliban in a few weeks, but it turned out the job wasn't finished. The Taliban leaked back in. Was the problem simply that we were two combat brigades short?

"The main reason we are losing in Afghanistan," Thomas Friedman wrote in the Times on July 30, "is not because there are too few American soldiers, but because there are not enough Afghans ready to fight and die for the kind of government we want." He approvingly quoted from a July Time cover story by Harvard professor and Kabul resident Rory Stewart: "A troop increase is likely to inflame Afghan nationalism because Afghans are more anti-foreign than we acknowledge, and the support for our presence in the insurgency areas is declining."

Friedman supported the Iraqi invasion in the beginning, though not for the reasons President Bush gave to the nation. Friedman sees the whole, vast Arab-Muslim world as a dysfunctional realm that has failed at modernity. Far more important than the assassination of Osama bin Laden, Friedman believes, is the creation of "islands of decent and consensual government" that offer young people an alternative to clerical nihilism. He thought Iraq could become such an island. He seems to think that again. "The reason the surge helped in Iraq," he said in his July 30 column, "is because Iraqis took the lead in confronting their own extremists -- the Shiites in their areas, the Sunnis in theirs. That is very good news."

So McCain, if he has his wits about him, can say this: "Thanks to the surge, whose effectiveness my opponent refuses to admit, the Iraqis now see a way forward to peace and democracy. If they are correct, Iraq will set an example for the entire Muslim world of a nation prosperous, pious, progressive, and free. This is an outcome my opponent was unable to imagine and cannot imagine yet. For some reason, he'd rather fight in Afghanistan, a primitive collection of clans and warlords on the fringes of Arabia that for centuries has defied every attempt to civilize and reform it, chewing up and spitting out every invading army that tried. Osama bin Laden is nowhere to be found in Afghanistan, and neither is the future of the Arab-Muslim world. My opponent is young and naive and doesn't understand any of this."

Maybe Obama does and maybe he doesn't, but as violence increases in Afghanistan the idea that it's the "good war" is being called into question even in precincts that might considered Obama's base. The leftist listserve Portside has just forwarded me a couple of articles that warn Obama to watch out. Conn Hallinan, a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus, commented, "The initial invasion in 2001 was easy because the Taliban had alienated itself from the vast majority of Afghans. But the weight of occupation, and the rising number of civilian deaths, is shifting the resistance toward a war of national liberation. No foreign power has ever won that battle in Afghanistan."

If you ever find yourself singing Chicago's praises to the folks who wish you'd come back home to Topeka, without actually believing a single word you hear yourself saying, then I have just the article for you. Salon's "Look Homeward, Obama," by Dan Conley, a former speechwriter for Mayor Daley, is as dewy-eyed a  portrait of our city as you'll find this side of a City Hall press release. Conley's larger point is that when Obama preaches the politics of consensus he should be taken seriously, because . . .

Because "anyone who doubts that a toxic political environment can be overcome should look to Chicago. Consensus has become more conspicuous than conflict. Deal-making is more important than showboating. In short, the city's politics has become post-partisan. It's a concept that should be familiar to anyone who has followed Obama's presidential bid."

I don't think there's any question but that Richard M. Daley has run a more inclusive administration than his father, Richard J.,  and that the son's big insight was the recognition that most of his political opposition would go away as soon as he cut it in on the action. Conley aggregates personalities as disparate as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, and Bill Ayers, because they all measure up to what he seems to think is the only standard that matters in Chicago -- they all have something to offer. Ayers, for example, "has become an expert in public school reform. He wants to participate at the table and he brings something to that table, so he's taken seriously. . . . In Chicago, as long as you bring something to the table, people are willing (almost eager) to ignore the less flattering dimensions of your character."

And as for the screwed-over little guy who's the hero of 10,000 newspaper columns, Conley bathes his tormentors in as gentle a light as will ever find them: "Critics might also argue that leaving a seat at the table open -- and allowing a multitude of unelected leaders to emerge -- opens the door to corruption. Chicagoans would respond that the true naif is anyone who thinks that citizens who are inactive in politics -- who bring nothing to the table -- should share equally in the largesse of government. Politics does not reward passivity."

Conley came to town in the mid 90s, and he's got a shaky grasp of the history that set the stage he found when he got here. For instance, he suggests that Council Wars preceded the '83 primary between Byrne, Daley, and Washington. And today's docile City Council symbolizes restoration, not reform.  Conley writes: "In the same chamber that during the Council Wars featured endless parliamentary maneuvers and more than a few fistfights, policies are ratified in generally dull proceedings; details are usually ironed out internally before going public." Conley likes to think of this colorless secrecy as post-partisan; someone else might call it post-antiauthoritarian. Details are forever being quietly ironed out internally by Chicago's movers and shakers, who regard public knowledge of their intentions in pretty much the same way biologists regard the atmosphere of Jupiter -- as incompatible with life as we know it.

Conley's article has stirred up a lot of response at Salon, where plenty of his readers wonder what he's been smoking. Some don't recognize Conley's Chicago, some don't buy the idea that Obama was ever enough of a player in Chicago politics to warrant being discussed in that context. But others are Obama fans happy  to embrace Conley's premise, which he restates in conclusion: "What Obama promises is an America where politics is a good thing, where arguments on the merits are encouraged, where a seat is always open for anyone eager to sit at the table and contribute what they can."

On December 19, 2005, the New York Times carried two compelling pieces on child pornography by reporter Kurt Eichenwald. One was the story of an 18-year-old boy who'd become a kind of star on porn video sites. The other was an essay explaining how Eichenwald got in contact with the boy and eventually persuaded him to leave the business. 

On August 20, Eichenwald wrote again. This Times story was about Web sites that feature prepubescent children scantily attired in an attempt to get around child porn laws. Five days later freelance writer Debbie Nathan responded on Salon. "The kind of looking [Eichenwald] did can get a journalist arrested," she wrote, and she was "irked" that during an exchange of e-mails with him he hadn't taken that danger seriously. "When I stumbled on similar material earlier this year doing my own research," she explained, "I was terrified I'd be busted simply for doing my job as a member of the media." Despite laws forbidding the public to even visit child-porn sites, journalists must be able to, Nathan argued, to test "government claims about how prevalent child porn really is. . . . Otherwise the government can use our fear and loathing of kiddie porn to make false political claims. And to terrorize people like me." If there was no way Nathan could have legally visited child-porn sites -- well, of course that meant there was no legal way Eichenwald could have done so either.

Nathan's story had barely been posted when Salon repudiated it and took it down. "In fact," the site explained, "federal law does offer some legal protection for journalists and other researchers. An 'affirmative defense' may exist that would protect such work under certain circumstances, and the opinion asserted by Nathan that her work, and the work of other journalists, would constitute a violation of the law was inaccurate." 

Readers and bloggers were outraged. "Salon's editors only allege that there may be an affirmative defense, not that there is one," one poster argued. "So Nathan's article can be disclaimed to express her concern that it could be a violation and it still stands. This is not a legitimate correction. It is overt censorship." 

Here's the law. Decide for yourself.

Salon didn't yield. Instead, it ran a second, much more elaborate correction, in a format that didn't allow for responses. This time it didn't just say Nathan was wrong about the law, it explained how nimbly and responsibly Eichenwald and the Times had stayed within it. "The Times reported to federal authorities all of the potentially illegal content it inadvertently viewed and made it clear that the paper did not copy or retain any illegal images. Salon has no reason to doubt Eichenwald's and the Times' account of these actions." For good measure, Salon repeated itself: "The assertion that there was no law regarding inadvertent discovery with which the Times could comply was incorrect. Any implication that the conduct of the New York Times or Mr. Eichenwald was illegal was also incorrect."

When journalists throw up their hands like that and say they were wrong, wrong, wrong, it means one thing -- lawyers told them to. Sure enough, the January/February 2007 issue of Extra!, a journal published by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, says Eichenwald read Nathan's piece and threatened to sue both Nathan and Salon for libel. According to Extra! a passage in Nathan's story claiming Eichenwald had "looked at a lot of kiddie porn" sent shivers down his spine. "There could be, by necessity, a referral to Child Services and the removal of children from my home," Extra! had him explaining. Eichenwald's admission would seem to reinforce Nathan's argument about the law, not contradict it--but whatever. The Salon piece had disappeared and it wasn't coming back, and there was nothing Nathan could do about it except fire off e-mail to people who might be interested in what she'd been through. I'm a friend from her days long ago at the Reader, so I was one of them.

Jump to the present: On March 6 the New York Times ran an unusually long correction of the original story and essay Eichenwald wrote about that 18-year-old boy back in 2005. It was actually more of a confession than a correction -- the Times admitted that Eichenwald (who's no longer at the Times) had at one point sent the boy a $2,000 check and should have said so: "Times policy forbids paying the subjects of articles for information or interviews."

News of the check came out as a trial got under way in Ann Arbor, Michigan, of a man charged with criminal sexual misconduct involving the youth. On March 7 Eichenwald took the stand, and a tart account of what he had to say promptly showed up on the New York magazine Web site. "It could have been renamed '$2,000 Check v. Journalism 101' -- and Eichenwald's testimony showed he knows he broke the rules," New York reported. "Fearing [the youth] was under 18, Eichenwald offered to send $2,000 but only if [the youth] provided a full name and a mailing address," New York went on. "He got both and sent the check but opted not to turn the information over to the police. Instead, [Eichenwald] said today, he made a date to meet [the youth] at Los Angeles International Airport." That's where, according to Eichenwald's testimony, he told the youth he was a straight reporter and explained that "he paid that money to save your soul." 

When the youth said he wanted out of the porn business Eichenwald pitched a story to his editor, and soon the "incredible story" was told. "But," New York admonished, "one detail got lost: the check. And now, in the Michigan courtroom, Eichenwald said he knew the payment was 'a little bizarre,' and that in issuing it, he'd 'gone off the deep end.'"

The New York piece was signed by its reporter, Debbie Nathan.

UPDATE: The saga continues. Eichenwald responded to Nathan's New York article with a long, angry letter to Romenesko that attacks the press in general for not telling his story accurately and Nathan in particular, describing her as someone "who has been nursing a deep and public anger against me following a ugly confrontation in the fall." Eichenwald announced, "I have instructed my attorney to file a $10 million libel suit against her immediately, involving both her original and more recent libels." According to gawker.com, the suit's going to be filed in Dallas, in either state or federal court. Eichenwald lives down there. 

UPDATE: As of Wednesday, March 14, there was still no sign of a suit. By now some long, analytic responses to Eichenwald's letter had been posted at Romenesko.