Undiplomatic

22 July 2010 Keith Porter
04:44 pm

Treat Your Minorities Well

An important message from the entire Kosovo-Serbia experience, highlighted by today’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling is this: treat your minorities well*.

If you abuse minority populations; if you give special privileges to majorities or any “chosen” group in a society; if you fan the flames of nationalism for political gain; if devise political structures which systematically deny a voice to minority populations; if you seek to eliminate or marginalize certain ethnic groups within your territory… you are playing with fire.

Those frustrated with the ICJ over Kosovo are saying the ruling will cause more separatist groups around the world to seek independence. Perhaps it will. But sovereign nations have tremendous advantages at their disposal in this struggle. Those advantages can be defined (and then employed) by asking these questions:

Do the minorities inside your territory…

enjoy all of the freedoms defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
have duly elected and effective representation at the federal, state, and local levels?
have legislative and executive control over the sub-territories where they are in a majority?
have access to and representation at all levels of the nation’s judicial mechanisms?
enjoy the full and equal benefits of your nation’s educational and health systems?
participate fully in an integrated economic system with a level playing field?

Sovereign governments which flinch at these questions are likely the same ones which felt a little queasy after hearing the ICJ ruling on Kosovo today.

*with apologies to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.

When Did Government Service Become Unpatriotic??

Pardon the rant, but as I’m sure you know, today is tax day.

Don’t look for me to bitch and moan. In fact, Molly and I owed money this year. And we paid it. On time. Because that’s part of being a good citizen — paying for the services our government renders. So you won’t find me at any tea party rally today — or any day, for that matter.

I wonder. Do tea partiers ever send letters? Use the phone? Access the intertubes? Get vaccinated? Go to National Parks? Drive on interstate highways? Who in God’s name do they think is responsible for them? It’s as if they live in a hermetically sealed little world in which government never enters their lives — except when they collect their social security checks and use medicare.

I am sick and tired of these folks pissing on the federal government. I ask you: when did government service become unpatriotic?

When I was at the State Department, I had the honor to work with some exceptional people, many of whom had traveled to dangerous locales around the world and risked their life in service to this nation. As E.J. Dionne noted today, that’s also true of many others in many lines of government service.

You might imagine that if a terrorist attack killed an American public servant and threatened the lives of 200 people, it would have been big news for weeks and an enduring symbol of the risks taken by those who serve their country.

Yet when an American named Joseph Stack flew a plane into an office building in Austin in February, killing Vernon Hunter, a 68-year-old Vietnam veteran, the news reports were remarkably muted, and the story quickly disappeared.

Hunter worked for the Internal Revenue Service, which was housed in the Austin building, and according to Stack’s suicide note, the IRS was his target.

On or about April 15, the Web and the commentary pages overflow with assaults on the IRS that cast its employees as jackbooted thugs, to use an old phrase, and our tax system as a form of oppression comparable to the exertions of the worst Russian czars and the most fiendish modern totalitarian dictators.

We should call this propaganda what it is: a sweeping falsehood that libels the work of committed federal employees such as Hunter.

I’d take it a step further. Have we forgotten the lessons of Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City? Have we forgotten that 168 people, including children, for God’s sake, lost their lives that day? Monday is the fifteenth anniversary of that terrible, terrible day.

Have we forgotten about the foreign service officers killed in the Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania? Have we forgotten about the soldiers killed by the attack on the U.S.S. Cole? The post office workers killed in the anthrax attacks? The FBI, DEA, ATF, Border Patrol, and other agents killed in the line of duty? Are they socialists? Or fascists? Are all those lives meaningless because you have to pay a few more cents on the dollar in taxes?

Tea party patriots my ass. Their selfish rants dishonor all those who have died in service to this country.

Flag photo: Jcolman via Flickr using CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license

The Ultimate #BoehnerFAIL & Will.i.am Mash-Up

I hope that some very smart Democrat makes sure this bad boy goes viral, because nothing does a better job of summarizing the difference between the two parties.

All we need now is for someone to auto-tune him.

h/t Marbury

“It’s Not Easy to Become a Law, Is It?”

I don’t have much to add on the House passing both the Senate and reconciliation versions of the health care bill — I will leave that to those, like Ezra Klein, who have been so ably and brilliantly following this from the start.

That said, I would note that for all the talk of the compromises and deals that came and went throughout the process, what Schoolhouse Rock said 35 (ack) years ago is still true: “It’s not easy to become a law, is It?” That is true when the task is fairly straightforward and simple, but even more true when talking about as massive an undertaking as health care reform has turned out to be.

Many commentators are adopting their usual binary perspective — Democrats win, Republicans lose, Democrats benefit, Republicans hurt, Obama wins, Republicans lose, blah blah blah. The reality is that it’s not as simple as that: some Dems will lose their seats over this, but others will retain theirs. And I think Republicans, as David Frum has so brilliantly argued, don’t yet realize the damage they’ve done to their long-term prospects as a political party.

One last observation: I hope that the success of this legislation does not diminish the Democrats’ ardor for systemic reform, particularly in the Senate. The structural roadblocks that almost killed this legislation still exist, and it’s time to find a way to end the ability of a near super-minority (no one ever thinks about it that way, do they) to obstruct legislation for the sake of obstruction.

I would suggest that the place to begin is with confirmations of judges and executive appointees. “Advise and Consent” has degenerated into Hold and Pontificate ad infinitum. As someone who helped organize the anti-Bolton campaign, I used to loooooove the filibuster — it kept Bolton from ever getting confirmed. But I think the reality is that a President should have the right to name his/her people to office — even if those people have manifestly different world views.

R.I.P. Alex Chilton

Alex Chilton, one of the world’s great — and perhaps least known — pop songwriters died today, at age 59. I love almost all his songs — from when he was with the Boxtops, when he was leading Big Star, and when he was solo. But my favorite, well, that’s a no-brainer.

When my daughter Kate was born last September, this December boy sang “September Gurls” to her — well, not the whole song, but enough to make Molly smile. It’s a beautiful, bittersweet song that, as Paul Westerberg once sang, should have had “children by the million listen[ing] to Alex Chilton.” Why that never happened is one of the great mysteries of rock-n-roll.

Why the Coffee Party is a Dumb Idea

Just posted over at Care2 on my unhappiness with the effort to create a “Coffee Party” movement:

Progressives don’t need a Coffee Party. We just need more caffeine.

The challenge right now isn’t a lack of mobilization mechanisms — after all, other groups, including MoveOn, Organizing for America, and a little thing called the Democratic Party already exist. The real problem is that we progressives are apathetic, scared and demoralized. We look at the energy generated by the right and wonder what happened to our mojo. We see the Republican Party’s steadfast opposition to all Administration initiatives and moan about how dysfunctional our political system is.

Please. It’s time for progressives to get angry, not cute.

You can read the whole thing here.

“Tom” May Want to Reconsider that Whole Auto-Friending Thing

If you are a member of MySpace (and is anyone out there still using it in this age of Facebook?), you know that the first person to friend you is Tom Anderson, who co-founded MySpace way back in the dark ages (a.k.a. 2003). It’s a cute little way MySpace encouraged you to seek out and friend folks from your real life — a technique that Facebook successfully copied, albeit much more successfully.

I haven’t bothered with MySpace for years, but the whole Jihad Jane thing got me thinking about it again. And about ol’ Tom. If you go to the Google cache of her MySpace page, you’ll see that she has 116 friends, with the “Top 4″ featured:

Whoopsie!

Something tells me that ol’ Tom is going to be getting a call from his new friends at the FBI.

Dillweed$ of the Day: Barron’s Magazine (and Its Readers)

So I’m reading an op-ed (on health care reform) from yesterday’s WSJ, and I notice a link to a story entitled “Ten Best Places for Second Homes.” Now we don’t own a first home, so it’s not like I’m in the market for a bungalow in Tahiti. But I was still curious — maybe there’s some little town in Florida where you can get a beachfront home for $200,000.

I should have known better. The story originally appeared in Barrons’s the arm of the Murdoch empire designed to make the Wall Street Journal look like a communist rag. It wasn’t a story about bargains; it was an hommage to status and excess. Permit me to share with you just what they think we are looking for in a second home:

There’s nothing like a stabilized economy and a huge rebound in stocks to send folks looking for the perfect manse. The return of hefty Wall Street bonuses hasn’t hurt, either. With all that in mind, and with summer just around the corner, Barron’s sized up the market for upscale second homes, one of the greatest luxuries of all. We scoped out dozens of deluxe enclaves across the country, speaking with brokers, homeowners and others.

Prices are way down–40% off the peak in some locations. Seemingly at or near bottom, they are starting to attract the first wave of bargain hunters–and not just families in need of R&R. . . .To help you in the hunt, Barron’s has selected the 10 best places in America for second homes. These alluring locales have it all: gorgeous houses, spectacular views, world-class golf, fishing and skiing, fine dining and great shopping. You’ll find the complete range of lifestyles, from peaceful and easy to vigorously social.

And these folks wonder why “average folks” hate them so much? What Dillweeds. Or perhaps I should say Dillweed$ instead.

Sorry Folks, But John Yoo Did Not Throw Liz Cheney under the Bus

A lot of folks in the Twittersphere are pointing to a New York Times story this morning and saying that John Yoo — John Yoo! — has thrown Liz Cheney and Keep America Safe under the bus.

I don’t think that’s the case. Here’s the original quote, along with the NYT’s framing of it (emphasis mine):

John C. Yoo, the former Justice official whose memorandums on torture and presidential power were used to justify some of the most controversial policies of the Bush administration, said he had not seen the material from Ms. Cheney’s group. But Professor Yoo, who now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and is active in the Federalist Society, said the debate about lawyers who once represented detainees at the American prison in Guantánamo Bay serving in the Justice Department was overheated.

“What’s the big whoop?” he asked. “The Constitution makes the president the chief law enforcement officer. We had an election. President Obama has softer policies on terror than his predecessor.” He said, “He can and should put people into office who share his views.” Once the American people know who the policy makers are, he said, “they can decide whether they agree with him or not.”

Right now, everyone is focusing on the first half of Yoo’s comments. But it is, in fact, the last sentence that is most telling. Yoo is saying that DOJ should name names. And that’s the core message of Keep America First’s ad: why is DOJ refusing to name names?

One of the things that made McCarthyism so dangerous — and so corrosive — was the Senator’s constant brandishment of supposed lists and his demand that the government give him the names of the people already supposedly on the list. In essence, he was demanding that the government become complicit in the smear, either by naming names or by insisting that names were not on the list — either way giving McCarthy a win and destroying careers.

Yoo is suggesting that once DOJ names names, then “the American people know who the policy makers are, they can decide whether they agree with” the President.

But people shouldn’t be making up their minds over whether they agree with a policy based on who executes it. They should be making their decision based on the policy itself. The whole KAS argument — and Yoo’s implicit support for it — is predicated on the idea that “wrongheaded” people somehow can’t implement good policy. And since the Obama Administration can’t be hit for the actual policy, they’re going after the people responsible for making it work.

And that’s why the KAS ad is so outrageous What Cheney, Thiessen, Kristol — and yes, John Yoo — are arguing is that you should blame the messenger — and demand that she be fired because you didn’t like a message she delivered before she had her current job. It’s a straw man argument at its worst, because it is designed not only to damage the Administration by association, but to destroy the lives — and livelihoods — of good and decent public servants.

To its credit, the DOJ has refused to respond to the demands. From the same NYT piece:

Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, said accusations that the administration had been secretive or had dragged its feet in responding to the inquiry were untrue. But Mr. Miller said the department would not participate “in an attempt to drag people’s names through the mud for political purposes.”

In a letter sent to Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, the Justice Department said in February that the lawyers understood that they had to take different positions while working for the United States than they did as private lawyers, and that in any case they would recuse themselves from matters in which they had participated earlier.

That’s the real answer, and all we can do is hope that DOJ will not back down.

Jack Cade, White Courtesy Phone Please

Via Adam Serwer, it turns out that the Cheneyites remain convinced of the justice of their holy cause. This time it’s Hans von Spakovsky, who was one of the Bush-era DOJ officials responsible for hiring attorneys for non-political positions based on their political affiliations:

I certainly don’t think those same lawyers should be in the Justice Department directing policy and making decisions on prosecutions of those same terrorists. That would be like hiring Mob lawyers in the Organized Crime and Narcotics Task Force or hiring someone who volunteered to defend the Klu Klux Klan in the Civil Rights Division. Those lawyers who all come from big firms have a wide choice of who to help on a pro bono basis and their choice of terrorists says a lot about them –- I would not hire them to represent my company either if I were still a corporate in-house counsel, because I would not want my company’s money subsidizing that kind of legal work.

Those lovely sentiments come via Dave Weigel over at the Washington Independent, who sought out von Spakovsky’s views. Von S. also has a lengthy piece in National Review arguing that the DOJ under Holder is radicalizing its civil rights division — and thus is racist. (I wish I was making this up, but I’m not It just goes to show that the current stewards of William F. Buckley’s legacy will not be satisfied until they eliminate all rational thought from this former bastion of thoughtful conservatism.)

I’ve already touched upon the mob lawyer canard in my comments on Marc Thiessen column in today’s WaPo. Now Steve over at Nomoremrniceblog dismantles the equally insipid (and offensive ) Klan lawyer argument:

I can’t find any Klan defenders in Holder’s Justice Department, but I can certainly find Klan defenders whose work I think Holder would approve of.

How about Eleanor Holmes Norton, currently D.C.’s non-voting member of the House of Representatives, who, as a young ACLU lawyer, defended the free-speech rights of Klansmen, George Wallace, and the National States Rights Party?

Or Anthony P. Griffin, who defended a Klan Grand Dragon in the early 1990s and won the 1993 William J. Brennan, Jr., Award from the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression?

Or David P. Baugh, who defended a Klan cross-burner in 1998 and subsequently received the Virginia State Bar’s Lewis F. Powell Jr. Pro Bono Award?

All three of these lawyers are African-American, by the way.

This is a disgraceful argument. Attempting to secure due process for terrorism defendants, or free speech rights for racist haters, is not the same as waging jihad or fomenting a race war. It’s about maintaining a society with the rule of law.

Methinks the Cheneyites are starting to sound like the mob in Act IV of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2:

DICK THE BUTCHER: First thing we do, let’s smear all the lawyers. . . .in DOJ.

Okay, that’s not quite what he said, but it’s close enough. And lest we forget, here’s what happens a little later in the same scene — an event that few remember and no one likes to quote:

CADE: Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name? Or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest plain-dealing man?

CLERK: Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can write my name.

ALL: He hath confessed; away with him! He’s a villain and a traitor.

CADE: Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and ink horn about his neck.

Because that’s what happens after you kill smear all the lawyers: a long slow slide into summary justice and mob rule.

Marc Thiessen: Our Bizzaro World Torture Apologist

Ladies and gentleman, I present you the latest WaPo column by Marc Thiessen, who apparently has decided that his goal in life is to make Liz Cheney look like Mother Theresa:

Would most Americans want to know if the Justice Department had hired a bunch of mob lawyers and put them in charge of mob cases? Or a group of drug cartel lawyers and put them in charge of drug cases? Would they want their elected representatives to find out who these lawyers were, which mob bosses and drug lords they had worked for, and what roles they were now playing at the Justice Department? Of course they would — and rightly so.

Yet Attorney General Eric Holder hired former al-Qaeda lawyers to serve in the Justice Department and resisted providing Congress this basic information.

Get the insinuation? Mob lawyers, as everyone knows, are lawyers hired by the mob to defend their interests. Drug cartel lawyers, as everyone knows, are lawyers hired by drug cartels to defend their interests. So “al Qaeda lawyers” must be. . . .

I know! Paid by al Qaeda! Those bastards! Send them to Guantanamo!

Only one small problem here, Marc. The attorneys in question worked pro bono, frequently at the request of [Bush] Administration officials. And some of the people in question, as I’ve noted elsewhere, were brought in by the Bush Administration in the exact same way that you now object to under the Obama Administration.

One other thing: those lawyers you despise for allegedly selling out their country? They took their cases to the Supreme Court. And in a couple of instances, they won. If we were to use your twisted logic, we should now start calling members of the Supreme Court “al Qaeda justices.” And what about the JAG attorneys who defended terror suspects in front of the military tribunals? Are they now al Qaeda judge advocates?

Here’s another Thiessen counter-factual:

Where was the moral outrage when fine lawyers like John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Jim Haynes, Steve Bradbury and others came under vicious personal attack? Their critics did not demand simple transparency; they demanded heads. . . .The standard today seems to be that you can say or do anything when it comes to the Bush lawyers who defended America against the terrorists. But if you publish an Internet ad or ask legitimate questions about Obama administration lawyers who defended America’s terrorist enemies, you are engaged in a McCarthyite witch hunt.

Sigh.

First of all, the critics of Yoo et. al. demanded both transparency and heads. Second, this isn’t a tit for tat situation. You are alleging that the lawyers in question did something you didn’t like — but was perfectly legal — when they were in private practice. Those criticizing (and yes, demanding the resignation/censure of) Yoo and friends were saying that they engaged in illegal behavior. Those are not the same thing — and you know better. This is the worst kind of straw man argument — one that uses a straw man to mount an ad hominem attack.

Would someone please again tell me why the Washington Post hired this guy?

Does Liz Cheney Hate America? Or Does She Just Love Dillweeds?

Does Liz Cheney hate America? Of course not. But if I were to use the tactics that she and her friends over at Keeping American Scared Safe are using to attack the Obama Administration, that’s just the kind of thing I’d be saying right now. That, of course would be an ad hominem attack. And as Liz Cheney knows well, ad hominem attacks are out of bounds in American politics.

Heh. If you believe she believes that, I have a used prison in Cuba I’d like to sell you.

As it happens, the folks over at Care2 asked me for my thoughts on Liz Cheney’s campaign to subvert America accuse Obama Administration DOJ officials (who KAS likes to call the al Qaeda 7 or the Guantanamo 9) of being soft on terrorism because they have, at some point in their career, defending terrorist suspects. Here’s an excerpt:

The Bush Administration also hired individuals who defended alleged terror suspects. . . .And that little inconvenient truth gets to the crux of the matter: defending the accused is is not some sort of lefty plot destroy America. Oh no. It’s far worse: it is a fundamental tenet of the American legal system originally expressed by the Founders in a little something we like to call the Bill of Rights.

Al Qaeda 7? Guantanamo 9? I’d like to suggest a more accurate name: the Sixth Amendment 9. Or if you want to include the three individuals from the Bush Administration, let’s call them the Sixth Amendment 12. Or we could take it even further and include every lawyer who has ever defended someone unsavory. But then we’d have to call it the Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association.

You can find the whole thing here.

While I’m at it, I hope that I won’t be accused of engaging in McCarthyism when I suggest that Liz Cheney and her friends at Keeping America Scared (and no I”m not going to link to them — go Google it yourself) are worthy of today’s Dillweed of the Day honors. Because frankly, I can’t actually prove that she is a dillweed. In fact, I have no evidence that she has ever eaten, grown, or in any way been associated with dillweed. But it is quite possible that in the past, she knew somebody who has eaten, grown, or hugged dillweed. So we can’t necessarily rule it out. And that, of course, means that we will continue to suspect her until we find out the troot, the whole troot, and nothing but the troot.

So I urge you. Call Liz Cheney today. Ask her why she won’t tell us whether she’s been associated in the past with dillweed. What does she have to hide?

The Mother of All Newspaper Corrections

I imagine that the New York Times definitely is going to regret this error. Take a look at the caption on the photo below, from a screenshot of the Times’ home page earlier today (h/t):

I’m not sure who those lovely young women are, but I’m pretty sure they’re not Hillary Rodham Clinton and Michelle Bachelet.

Screw the Banks and Grow a Pair

I don’t know much about the proposed U.S. Consumer Protection Agency (other than I’m in favor of it), but this is a laugh-out-loud funny argument in its favor:

Funny or Die’s Presidential Reunion from Will Ferrell

Care2palooza: Jacques Rogge and Ronald Reagan

I have a couple of new posts over at Care2, my other blog home, and I’ve been negligent in linking to them. The first looks at Jacques Rogge and the International Olympic Committee, and wonders whether they’ll ever actually let the Olympics celebrate the human spirit in a way that doesn’t involve the detention, death, or denegration of humans:

The reality is that Rogge and his colleagues have absolutely no incentive to change things. They are making ridiculous amounts of money. They get treated like kings and queens everywhere they go. And everytime an athlete does something spectacular, most people forget about the bad stuff. As Jenkins notes, the Olympics are virtually indestructible. That’s good news in terms of the amazing spectacle they offer viewers. But let’s stop pretending that they are some sort of celebration of the human spirit. . . . When it comes to the utter mendacity competition, you’ve got to give the gold medal to Rogge and his colleagues on the IOC.

The second looks at a bill introduced yesterday by Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) proposing to replace Ulysses S. Grant on the fifty-dollar bill with Ronald Reagan. . .because he did better in a poll of Presidential historians.

Grant isn’t on the money because of his service as President. By all accounts he was a lousy President — although he’s no longer regarded as one of the worst. But he was kinda sorta maybe really responsible for leading the Union forces to victory in the Civil War. So using a poll of historians on who was the best President as the basis for excluding Grant pretty much misses the reason why he was honored in the first place.

You can read them both here, along with a more thorough takedown of Marc Thiessen, Dick Cheney’s favorite torture apologist.

Blogging Truth to Power in the Middle East

The photo is of Ahmed Maher, another prominent Egyptian blogger and activist who was arrested for helping to organize a pro-democracy group on Facebook. Via CyberDissidents

I had the honor today of moderating a panel on elections and new media co-sponsored by Google and Freedom House. What made it particularly interesting was the participation of a group of eleven bloggers from the Middle East and North Africa — individuals who every day take risks in order to promote human rights, and who often find themselves in trouble for saying and doing things we take for granted. Like their colleague Ahmed Maher, they do not know whether they will be imprisoned for their writing and activism.

Rather than talk about the meeting, I thought I’d let you learn more about the bloggers themselves — and, when possible, offer links to their sites. I encourage you to check them out and to support their important work.

AbdelKader Benkhaled is an active Algerian blogger and member of the political party the Peace Society Movement, or Harakat Mudjtamaa Silm. He regularly contributes to various newspapers, magazines and websites in addition to leading trainings on electronic media in many departments across Algeria. Mr. Benkhaled has attended several training sessions on effective media communication skills, and is a member of various youth associations for bloggers and students.

Bassem Samir is a founding Member of the Egyptian Democratic Academy, which seeks to promote the principles of democracy and citizenship, equality and forgiveness, as well as to renounce the culture of violence, racism, corruption and despotism in accordance with the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Since 2007, Mr. Samir has served as the Director of the Human Rights Unit of the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth organization, which promotes the principles of political, economic and social liberty in order to redefine the relationship between the individual and the State in Egypt.

Dalia Ziada is the current Director of the North Africa Bureau of the American Islamic Congress. Prior to working at the American Islamic Congress, she was the Egypt Regional Coordinator for the Tharwa Foundation for Diversity, Development and Democracy; researcher for the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information; and was the political reporter and translator for Al-Ahram Daily Newspaper. Most recently, Dalia organized Cairo’s first human rights film festival to high acclaim and was featured in Time Magazine. Dalia is an outspoken women rights activist who advocated against Female Genital Mutilation in Egypt. In addition to blogging, she has translated two books into Arabic and her first book of poems will be published in early 2010.

Esraa Rashid is the Media Coordinator at the Egyptian Democratic Academy. The Academy runs Almahrousa, an online radio which is very popular among Egyptian youth. Creator of the April 6 Strike Group on Facebook in March 2008, she organized a strike in support of workers in Mahalla al-Kobra that lead to her arrest and sentencing of two-weeks in jail. It was the first arrest order of its kind issued to a woman by the Egyptian Interior Ministry. The success of the strike, the size of the Facebook group - over 70,000 members -, and the notoriety she received for her jail term made her a well-known figure throughout Egypt and among human rights activists. Her blog articles focus on human rights violations in Egypt, with a critical perspective on workers’ rights. In 2007, she attended an International Republican Institute sponsored training course in Casablanca, Morocco on the various mechanisms of running a local election.

Kamal Sedra is the Managing Director of the Development and Institutionalization Support Center (DISC), an Egyptian consultancy firm dealing with good governance, human rights, and community development throughout Egypt and the Middle East. Mr. Sedra has previous experience organizing DISC’s advocacy campaigns, and he is the founder and manager of a number of websites such as the Egyptian Transparency Network, Nazaha-eg.net, which won the 2009 e.Democracy Forum Award; Aswatna-eg.net, or “Our Voices,” which covers Egyptian election news; and NGO Jobs (ngo-jobs.net), a site for job and training opportunities. Prior to coming to DISC, he was the head of the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services Training Center. Mr. Sedra has attended 20 professional trainings and conferences on topics including information resource management, anti-corruption and voter education, 7 of which he has facilitated both locally and internationally. He has consulted and served as a trainer for numerous organizations, including YMCA Egypt, Catholic Relief Services, and Mansoura University.

Shahinaz Abdel Salam has been a freelance journalist and blogger in the Egyptian Movement for Change, also known as the Kefaya movement, in Egypt since 2005. She is an avid blogger concerned with the lack of freedom of expression in the Middle East. As an activist, she has volunteered her time and services to NGOs and other civil society organizations in Egypt, sharing and streamlining ideas to encourage the formation of coalitions among human rights organizations. Previously, Ms. Abdel Salam has worked as an assistant journalist for reporters from the Irish Times, Reporters Without Borders, and Grec TV, as well as a consultant regarding blogging, human rights and freedom of expression in Egypt. She is currently working with the Arab Network for Human Rights to produce and write the 2009 annual report on the state of blogging and the Internet in the Arab world. She also continues to contribute news articles to a community-grown blog that expresses the view points of 20 women in 10 Arab countries.

Imad Bazzi is a prominent Lebanese blogger, journalist, and civil society activist. He is a co-founder of the Arab Bloggers Forum, an organization dedicated to improving bloggers’ professionalism, generating debate about social issues and defending internet activists from censorship in the Arab world. Mr. Bazzi, in conjunction with 13 Lebanese bloggers, recently launched the first Lebanese bloggers committee, The League of Lebanese Bloggers. Previously, he was the Communications and Outreach Officer for Greenpeace Mediterranean, and the project manager for the Center of Sustainable Democracy in Beirut. Mr. Bazzi has won several awards for his activism in the blogosphere, including the 2008 Young Arab Artists Prize in Amman and the Hamberton-Campbell award for e-initiatives. He is also in the running for the Best of the Blogs (BOB) Award for “Best Weblog in Arabic,” to be awarded by Germany’s international public broadcaster, Deutche Welle. His blog covers a wide variety of topics relating to Lebanese politics and society, monitors domestic human rights abuses, and condemns sectarianism and ideological agendas. Mr. Bazzi strives to bring about peaceful, democratic change in Lebanon, creating a more just, secure, and independent country. His writings have also appeared in numerous Arabic newspapers and magazines.

Mustapha El Bakkali is a blogger, journalist, poet, and producer, who currently works for the BBC’s Arabic Bureau in Rabat. Mr. El Bakkali has a rich background in video and type media gained through his previous responsibilities as the producer for the television production company Mediacast Maghreb. He is a co-founder and correspondent for Aljazeeratalk.net, a former freelance journalist for Aljazeera.net, the Vice Chairman of the Association of Moroccan Bloggers, and producer and director of a short film on blind Moroccan university students. In 2008, Mr. El Bakkali was awarded 3rd place for the “Best Video Blog” at the Best of the Blogs (BOB) Awards, the world’s largest international Weblog awards ceremony for weblogs, podcasts and video blogs. He is also a founding member of Bloggers Without Borders (Doha, Qatar), and is currently working on a soon to be published book, titled, New Media and its Impact on Arab Youth’s Values.

Abdel Wahab Al Oraid is the Editorial Director of Cultural Affairs and the Director of the Eastern Regional Office for Okaz newspaper in Saudi Arabia. He is a journalist with 18 years of experience in the press industry and has worked with several institutions in the United Kingdom, United States, Bahrain, and Jordan. He was a war correspondent and has covered a number of war zones in Kuwait and Iraq. Mr. Al Oraid additionally plays an active role in Saudi Arabian’s civil society as a member of the Bahraini writers Association, and the Saudi Journalists Association, which aims to protect the rights of journalists in the Kingdom and coordinate their relations with established media. Mr. Al Oraid is a published poet.

Soufiene Chourabi is a journalist for Attariq Al Jadid newspaper, an opposition newspaper in Tunisia that has often come under direct and harsh repression efforts by the government. Mr. Chourabi is also a correspondent for the online news site Menassat.com, which focuses on news, trends, and events concerning the media in the twenty-two countries of the MENA region and his articles focus on the state of free media and press in the Middle East. He is a member of the Tunisian Syndicate of Journalists and has attended trainings for civilian leader activists as well as a Frontline organized training on electronic security.

Fathi A. Al-Dhafri currently serves as the National Coordinator for the Youth for Change program in Yemen, a venture begun in 2008 by TakingITGlobal, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and other local groups to improve the organization of youth activism, through volunteerism, youth activities, or networking opportunities across a selection of 10 Arab countries. Since 2006, Mr. A-Dhafri has served as a consultant and trainer for the Youth Leadership Development Foundation and has attended numerous conferences about youth leadership development in the United States, Italy, Jordan, and Yemen. He is currently working on publishing his book Blogging for Change, an e-book that is composed primarily of postings and news articles that have appeared on his blog. Mr. Al-Dhafri is hoping to expand his knowledge of Web 2.0 skills as a way to sharpen his advocacy and grassroots organizing skills.

I will only add that one participant at the event noted the sad reality that this generation of cyber-dissidents, who have the ability to distribute their writings via the internet, are far less known than the Soviet-era dissidents — Havel, Sakharov, Scharansky, Walesa, etc. — who often had to resort to distributing their essays underground, using carbon paper and word-of-mouth. If you would like to learn more about these activists fine work, I urge you to go to the Freedom House site (linked above) as well as to two other organizations working to make their efforts better known — Global Voices and CyberDissidents

Surprise: Washington Post Mangles Story on Religion and Foreign Policy

I’ve been meaning to get to a report in Wednesday’s Washington Post headlined “‘God gap’ impedes U.S. foreign policy, experts say.” The story, by Post reporter David Waters, well… let me just quote it rather than try to explain it:

American foreign policy is handicapped by a narrow, ill-informed and “uncompromising Western secularism” that feeds religious extremism, threatens traditional cultures and fails to encourage religious groups that promote peace and human rights, according to a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

When I read this, I was surprised — The Chicago Council on Global Affairs is a well-regarded and -respected organization, and its reports have made valuable contributions to the debate on the scope and direction of U.S. foreign policy. How in the world could they be associated with a report that suggest that religion should be a core tenet of our foreign policy?

Then I went to their website and read the report. The first thing I discovered was that the phrase “God gap” doesn’t appear anywhere in either the executive summary or the full report. The second thing I discovered is that “narrow” is used in the report, but not exactly in the way Waters suggests:

The United States should avoid actions that use or appear to use religion instrumentally, i.e., the United States should not try or be widely perceived as trying to manipulate religion in pursuit of narrowly drawn interests.

and…

The greater visibility of religion and religious actors in international politics has greatly complicated America’s approach to world affairs. A narrow view of religion in the context of terrorism and counterter- rorism strategy will no longer suffice. Instead, religion must be seen as a more profound and encompassing social reality—one that shapes and is shaped by other major transnational phenomena, including violent conflict and war, globalization, and democratization.

What about “ill-informed”? Nope. Nowhere to be found.

And “uncompromising Western secularism”? Yes, that does appear, but I think it’s not exactly what Waters infers:

The United States should build, cultivate, and rely upon networks and partnerships, which will vary in scope and size, with religious communities. . . . Such a strategy will enable the United States to avail itself of opportunities and facilitate the constructive role that religious organizations and leaders play in the world. It also recognizes that the United States cannot reduce the appeal of destructive religious forces by promoting an uncompromising Western secularism. Such a position can have the unintended effect of feeding extremism by further threatening traditional sources of personal, cultural, and religious identity. Instead, engaging religious communities can cre- ate an atmosphere that marginalizes extremists.

So if I understand the report correctly, promoting an “uncompromising Western secularism” could feed extremism. That, of course, may be true, but it’s also true that much of the world could regard past actions by the United States — particularly during the Bush Administration — as having promoted an uncompromising Christian world view. So Waters manages to state a key point — and yet mangle it at the same time.

Then there’s this graph from Waters’s story, which is even more alarming:

The council’s 32-member task force, which included former government officials and scholars representing all major faiths, delivered its report to the White House on Tuesday. The report warns of a serious “capabilities gap” and recommends that President Obama make religion “an integral part of our foreign policy.”

Here’s what the report actually says:

President Obama’s speech in Cairo in June 2009 set the stage for a new departure in U.S. foreign policy toward Muslim communities. This is a vital task and a laudable beginning. However, the scope must be much broader. Engaging Islam is only one very crucial component of a larger challenge—engaging the multitude of religious communities across the world as an integral part of our foreign policy.

Uh, okay. Call me crazy, but I think there is an enormous difference between making “religion” an “integral part of our foreign policy” and making “engaging the multitude of religious communities” an “integral part of foreign policy.” There is a kinda sorta pretty much completely obvious distinction there. But Waters doesn’t seem to notice it.

In seeking a response to the report Waters quotes Chris Seiple, the President of the Institute for Global Engagement:

“It’s a hot topic,” said Chris Seiple, president of the Institute for Global Engagement in Arlington County and a Council on Foreign Relations member. “It’s the elephant in the room. You’re taught not to talk about religion and politics, but the bummer is that it’s at the nexus of national security. The truth is the academy has been run by secular fundamentalists for a long time, people who believe religion is not a legitimate component of realpolitik.”

I don’t know Chris Seiple, so I won’t make any assumptions here. But I do know his dad, Robert Seiple, who was the first U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom in the Clinton Administration. It’s a little odd, don’t you think, that his son would think that religion isn’t part of U.S. foreign policy when his dad’s former job was to make sure that the U.S. addressed religious freedom issues as part of its foreign policy. Even more troubling is the fact that Waters doesn’t appear to have even thought about using the Googles to make the connection.

Maybe Waters read the report. But it sure doesn’t look like it. And as a result, a serious effort to address the question of how U.S. foreign policy should address the challenge of engaging religious communities becomes, in Waters’ story, an “ill-informed” screed calling for an end of separation of church and state in U.S. foreign policy.

To put it another way, the report attempts to put forward a nuanced argument in favor of broader U.S. engagement with religious groups around the world, and approvingly cites President Obama’s speech in Cairo as an important first step. And it’s not exactly news that engagement with religious communities is a component of U.S. foreign policy. Last I checked, we had diplomatic relations with the Vatican, the President regularly receives religious leaders — most recently the Dalai Lama — at the White House, and the State Department issues an annual report on religious freedom around the world.

Waters’ story, in contrast, adopts a sensationalistic tone that breathlessly implies that the report thinks Obama should to name God to be his next Secretary of State.

In fairness, Waters isn’t the only one who didn’t read the report. Bloggers from across the political spectrum seized on his story, using it to reinforce their own arguments. They might want to sit down and read the 100-page report, or at least the executive summary. As I’ve said, I don’t agree with many of the report’s conclusions. But I do think that it deserves a better fate than the Waters’ inept pastiche.

This is exactly the kind of shoddy journalism that the Washington Post used to abhor. Shame on them for allowing such a terrible piece of reporting to grace their pages.

Image: josephpetepickle via Flikr, using a CC BY 2.0 license

Dillweed of the Day: Mitch McConnell, Official Timekeeper

I’m following the health care reform summit on Twitter today, but I wanted to take a moment to dishonor Mitch McConnell for a level of immaturity that demonstrates just how impossible this discussion has become.

He just complained that Democrats had had more speaking time than Republicans. Like this was a football game and he’s worried about time of possession.

I kid you not.

If you go to McConnell’s website, he’s got a big headline saying “Americans want us to listen on health care.” Apparently they also want McConnell to be the official timepiece of the health care summit.

If McConnell had been at the Korean War Armistice talks, they never would have agreed on the size and shape of the table because they would have been too worried about how much time each side got to talk.

What a dillweed.

Don’t forget — if you have nominee for dillweed of the day, put it in the comments below or email me at cbrown at undiplomatic dot net.

Dillweeds of the Day: Insensitive Russian Ice Dancing Faux Aborigines

Meet Maxim Shabalin and Oksana Domnina, the Russian ice dancers who thought it would be cool to pretend they were aborigines or something.

Look! Body paint! Loin cloths! Leaves for crying out loud! What a huge heaping load of ignorant insensitive awesome sauce! I mean I can’t understand why Canada’s First Nations and Australia’s Aboriginal people could be so upset. I mean it’s only art, right?

Right?

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip called Sunday’s dance by Shabalin and Domnina “deeply offensive,” not just for its fake tribal drum music and costumes, but also the feigned violence toward female dancer Domnina.

Shabalin appears to grab Domnina by her ponytailed hair at one point in the dance.

“I’ve dedicated my entire life to speaking out against violence against women,” said Phillip, chair of the Okanagan Nation Alliance.

“This unfortunate dance (pair) has disrespectfully exploited indigenous culture in previous performances, but I’m absolutely disappointed they appear to have breached an agreement not to do so again.”

Sigh.

See, this isn’t the first time they’ve performed this dance. They also did it earlier this season at the European Championships. And believe it or not, the costumes and makeup were even worse.

I’m all for artistic expression, but this has gotta be somewhere south of that, perhaps in the realm of ugly and offensive. I don’t know which is worse — that they thought it would be okay to do this or that the Olympic judges gave them enough points to win the bronze medal.

They may have only won bronze in Vancouver, but I can assure you that the win today’s Gold Dillweed.

I Love the Working Class. It’s Workers I Can’t Stand

My newest post on Care2 is up — it’s all about the disconnect between progressives, who say they want the best for working people, and actual real honest-to-goodness working people.

The post was prompted by an earlier piece I did reporting on Keith’s Toyota experience. I observed in passing that the Toyota recalls were going to hurt the U.S. economy, as many of Toyota’s American plants have closed while the company sorts out its response. Although the plants will reopen soon, the reality is that thousands of Americans are suddenly without jobs.

The response I got was surprising. To paraphrase, many readers said “Well what do you expect? American workers are lazy good-for-nothings who produce lousy goods.” Here are some representative examples of their comments:

[T]oyota never had problems until they started making them IN THIS COUNTRY,funny thing about that huh?

Toyotas have never been cars that I cared for, as they appear to be poorly designed and built. But having them built by Americans? That cracks me up! The 2nd worst car designers having their cars built by the worst car builders in the world!

I love my country and all that, but I am often dismayed and chagrined at the lack of pride American workers have in their jobs. . . .I am willing to pay a bit more for American goods, but consider it unacceptable to have to pay more for inferior goods. Wherever we go, I see Americans who do not seem grateful for their jobs - lots of grousing, clock-watching, distraction, attitudes that detract from efficiency.

Boy, talk about condescension. No wonder progressives can’t understand why average Americans think progressives are out of touch. It reminds me of the old Peanuts cartoon where Linus says he wants to be a doctor:

Needless to say, I don’t share such sentiments. You can read my full response here.

Odd Couple

I know, I know. Shakira is pretty smokin’, but who knew that World Bank President Robert Zoellick was such a stud muffin?

(h/t)

Dillweed of the Day: Marc Thiessen

In case you don’t know who Marc Thiessen is, let me tell you the names of his three most recent bosses prior to 2009:

George W. Bush (speehwriter)

Donald Rumsfeld (speechwriter)

Jesse Helms (spokesman and speechwriter)

Not to play guilt by association here, but it takes a special kind of person to work for these three.

I’ve first met Thiessen since the 1998 World Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, when Helms sent him to Rome to try to sabotage the negotiations that later led to the ICC. We had more than a few beers together, but we also butted heads repeatedly, given that I was the delegation spokesperson. And it was clear that he enjoyed provoking a media storm more than sticking to the facts.

These days, Thiessen has emerged as the right’s apologist-in-chief on torture, becoming so vocal on the issue that he’s made Dick Cheney look like a dove. In fact, Cheney even wrote a blurb for Thiessen’s new book, Courting Disaster:

Marc Thiessen knows, in ways that few others do, just how effective, heroic, and morally justified were the interrogators who kept this nation safe after 9/11. If you want to know what really happened at the CIA interrogation site or Guantanamo Bay, you simply must read this book.

Now I want to confess that I have not urshed out to read Thiessen’s book. The thing is, that Thiessen has become so omnipresent in the media that I don’t really need to read a book-length exposition of the theses he’s peddling in print and on TV. Most recently, he’s gone after Obama for the use of drones to attack and kill members of al Qaeda and the Taliban:

Today, the Obama administration is no longer attempting to capture men like these alive; it is simply killing them. This may be satisfying, but it comes at a price. With every drone strike that vaporizes a senior al Qaeda leader, actionable intelligence is vaporized along with him. Dead terrorists can’t tell you their plans to strike America.

That’s true, but I would note that dead terrorists also can’t attack America. They are, after all, dead. As Matt Yglesias put it, Thiessen apparently believes that it is better to let four terrorists go free if that means you can torture the fifth.

But that’s not surprising coming from someone who is unwilling to acknowledge that the Bush Administration used torture techniques once used by the Khmer Rouge.

Thought of the Day: Parenthood as Counterinsurgency

I’ve come to the conclusion that the US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual may be the best parenting guide I’ve ever read. Here are just a few examples of what I’m talking about:

1. Sometimes the more force you use, the less effective it is.

2. Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction.

3. The [child] doing something tolerably is normally better than [the parents] doing it well.

4. If a tactic works this week, it may not work next week.

5. Tactical success guarantees nothing.

6. Actions executed without properly assessing their political effects at best result in reduced effectiveness and at worst are counterproductive.

On a more serious note, I would suggest you pick up a copy of this important work today — it’s also available for free online, but the online edition does not include the introduction by Sarah Sewall, who is executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard. The manual offers an excellent overview of the very approach the Army and Marines are using in Marjah province — so much so that reading news stories about the offensive is like watching a football game after you’ve read one of the team’s playbooks.

Ron Paul is Not a Dillweed…

at least for today.

I’m not a fan of Paul, but I love the fact that he walked into CPAC today and told the audience — the same folks who cheered Marco Rubio, Dick Cheney, and Ann Coulter (and the same folks who overwhelmingly supported him in the straw poll) — that they — and everyone who had preceded him — were completely wrong on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I didn’t agree with anything he said, and this theories on economics and foreign policy are flat out crazy. But going into red meat central and announcing you’re a vegan took some serious huevos.

If It’s Sunday, It Must Be…

…Keith Porter.

Our good friend and Undip contributor has started a new blog, “If It’s Sunday.” It’s all about NBC’s Meet the Press. Think of it as the Weather Channel for Sunday morning news show junkies.

Check it out here. I’ve added it to the blogroll to your right as well.

Dillweed of the Day: Marco Rubio Equates Waterboarding with a Kids’ Game

If you haven’t yet heard of Marco Rubio, you may soon. He’s a 38-year-old Cuban-American from Miami who is challenging former Florida Governor Charlie Crist for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. Rubio is a rising star in the conservative movement, and is widely regarded as having come from nowhere to offer a serious challenge to Crist. Hard right conservatives love him for his passion, his wit, and his hatred of all things reasonable moderate sane “socialist.”

Yesterday at the Conservative Political Action Committee annual conference here in Gomorrah Washington (a brief aside: if conservatives hate DC so much, why do they hold all their big meetings here?), Rubio, in the words of one journalist, “wowed” the crowd, acting as if he already had secured the nomination.

What caught my eye (h/t) were two excerpts from his speech (transcript here):

[Crowd chants "Marco! Marco! Marco!"]

RUBIO: That cheer — I don’t know what that one was, but that Marco cheer always worries me because I’m always afraid that someone is going to starting screaming, “polo,” and would ruin the speech.

[audience laughter]

RUBIO: . . .Now, Americans are also looking for clear alternatives on the issues of national defense. As I said earlier, there is no greater risk to this country than the risk posed by radical Islamic terrorists. Let me be clear about something. These terrorists aren’t trying to kill us because we offended them. They attack us because they want to impose their view of the world on as many people as they can, and America is standing in their way. We need to make it unmistakably clear that we will do whatever it takes, for however long it takes, to defeat radical Islamic terrorism.

We will punish — we will punish their allies, like Iran — and we will stand with our allies, like Israel. We will target and we will destroy terrorist cells and the leaders of those cells. The ones that survive, we will capture them.

AUDIENCE: Waterboard them!

RUBIO: We will get important — remember the Marco Polo thing I told you? [audience laughter and cheers.] We will capture them, we will get useful information from them and then we will bring them to justice, in front of a military tribunal in Guantanamo — as I said, in front of a military tribunal in Guantanamo, not a civilian courtroom in Manhattan.

Ohhhh I get it Marco — it’s not waterboarding, it’s Marco Polo! A game! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Such a kidder, that Marco. Did uncle Dick give you a big bear hug for that one?

Such a kidder. Wonder how long before Rubio becomes the new Scott Brown? I mean he’s young, good looking, “outspoken,” and, oh yeah, new. Will we even have to wait until November before the Presidential whispers start? All he needs now is a pickup truck. Because he certainly has the whole ignoring the constitution thing down pat.

Dillweed of the Day: Scott Brown, Anti-Tax Patriot

Hey boys and girls, it’s time for the return of a popular feature here on Undip, the Dillweed of the Day, where we dishonor men and women for their utterly stupid, fatuous, or awful actions/behavior/comments.

Today, we begin with a doozy: Senator Scott Brown, who had this to say to Fox News’s Neil Cavuto in response to the guy who flew his plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas (h/t):

Brown: “It’s certainly tragic, and I feel for the families, obviously, that are being affected by it. And I don’t know if it’s related, but I can just sense, not only in my election but since being here in Washington, people are frustrated. They want transparency. They want their elected officials to be accountable and open and, you know, talk about the things that are affecting their daily lives. So, I’m not sure if there’s a connection. I certainly hope not. But we need to do things better.”

Cavuto: “Invariably, people are going to look at this type of incident, Senator, and say, well, that’s where some of this populist rage gets you. Isn’t that a bit extreme?”

Brown: “Yes, of course it’s extreme. You don’t know anything about the individual. He could have had other issues. Certainly, no one likes paying taxes, obviously. But the way we’re trying to deal with things, and have been in the past, at least until I got here, is there’s such a logjam in Washington, and people want us to do better. They want us to help solve the problems that are affecting Americans in a very real way.”

Because in Scott Brown’s world, this is the appropriate response to being unhappy about taxes:

And to think some folks want this guy to run for President.

Olympics: Why Go Grunge When You Can Wear Clown Pants?

Before today, I thought that the U.S. snowboarding team’s pseudo-grunge outfits were the coolest official uniforms at the Olympics. Then I saw this.

My apologies for such an obvious mistake. My only question: are these clown pants, golf pants, or a clown’s golf pants?

Photo: Haavard Vad Petersson of the Norwegian curling team gets set to deliver the stone during practice at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Monday, Feb. 15, 2010. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) via The Big Picture blog. Used under doctrine of fair use.

Olympics: Jingoism We Can Believe In

Heh:

I haven’t been able to watch Colbert since he landed in Vancouver, but I gotta wonder whether he’s keeping an eye out for those evil, evil Canadian bears.

And while I’m on the subject of the Olympics, would people please stop whining about how the Canadians are not running a perfect games? I mean which would you want — a Zamboni Olympic ice resurfacer breaking down or the detention of anyone who dares to show up to a free speech zone? The difference between Vancouver and Beijing is that the Government of Canada allows its mistakes to be aired in public while the ChiComs do everything they can to hide them.

Call me a spoilsport, but I’d rather watch a faulty torch lighting ceremony than North Korean-style human puppet shows any day of the week.

The Toyota Disaster: What the Media Missed

I loved Keith’s post. And it’s crazy to think this is the media’s fault. But there is one part of this story that the media has largely missed. It’s the impact of the Toyota mess on the U.S. economy.

As I noted over at Care2, many of the cars being recalled were built by American workers in American plants. Most of those plants are now dark, as Toyota tries to fix the problems and deal with a backlog of cars on their dealers’ lots.

All those workers are now temporarily (and perhaps permanently) unemployed. And let’s not forget all those folks working at Toyota’s dealers. The mechanics may have guaranteed jobs for a while, but what about everyone else? And remember, some of these folks are the same dealers who only a few months ago lost their GM, Ford, or Chrysler franchises. And then think about all the productivity lost as millions have to take time off from work to get their cars fixed.

Does anyone believe that this won’t have a ripple effect? The first to be hurt will be companies (some American) who make the auto parts Toyota uses in their cars. Then other businesses, particularly in those communities where Toyota has its plants, will find that they have fewer customers buying their goods and services. Finally, local and state governments will see their tax base shrink even further.

This isn’t merely a public relations disaster — it’s another blow to the American economy.

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