Black Box Report

Nobody needs to educate me of the horrors of child abuse. If you work long enough in the news business, you come across stories that all too often make your stomach turn. But in a rush to protect the vulnerable, the well-intentioned in Massachusetts have gone too far. Spanking is not ideal, but it is not child abuse.

Guidelines for parents are one thing, but unenforceable threats of prosecution are just empty words. How exactly do you suggest a cop catch parents in the act - x-ray vision? The idea that law enforcement has a place in the home when junior gets smacked on his rear is as comical as it is troubling. Two out of three parents support, if not practice spanking - are we really ready to label them all criminals?

Do parents go overboard? Yes.

Should parents try something else, before they raise their hand? Again, yes.

But at a time when we demand more parental involvement, if we also send the message that discipline comes with the threat of prosecution - just be careful what you wish for.

A rising tide of foreclosures threatens to "break the back of our national economy." That's the headline of a report compiled by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, released ahead of today's meeting in Detroit.

The report titled "The Mortgage Crisis: Economic And Fiscal Implications For Metro Areas" said: “The wave of foreclosures that has rippled across the U.S. has already battered some of our largest financial institutions, created ghost towns of once vibrant neighborhoods - and it's not over yet."

The biggest losses in economic activity are projected for some of the nation's largest cities.

New York tops the list and is expected to lose almost $10.5 billion in 2008.

The report also projects property values will decline by more than a trillion dollars in 2008, due in part to the foreclosure crisis.

But all hope is not lost - the mayors recommend homeowners, banks, securities firms, and loan services can work together to ease the economic effects - for example agreeing to new payment terms.

Late today: the mortgage bankers association agreed to help the nation's mayors raise public awareness about ways to avoid falling into foreclosure.

"Such actions will help to lessen the number of foreclosures thereby avoiding the further negative effects on local housing markets and on the broader economy."

Trenton, NJ mayor Douglas Palmer - said: "We're coming to Detroit with a dogged determination to fight for the families in our cities, our cities and the national economy... We're optimistic that we're going to come up with models that will work."

For the past seven years, in an ever changing world, one thing has remained constant - the deeper the pockets, the bigger the breaks. Where this left the middle class is squeezed, a precarious spot now downright petrifying considering the mortgage mess.

This much I know, the one thing most Americans had was their home. When your principal asset is so inflated in value in a housing market, almost designed to delude both buyer and seller, when that asset goes kaput where do you go? For too many, the answer is anybody's guess.

Consider the story of a retired widow outside of Chicago. Convinced to refinance her mortgage a few years ago - she spends her entire monthly fixed income to pay a mortgage she can no longer afford. Going without her medications, even food - she knows the knock on the door from the bank or even the cops is coming - it's only a matter of how soon.

Foreclosure fear is gripping her and more than a million other homeowners, and the consequences - beyond the human cost, will be staggering for countless communities. As our guest just said, this is a problem only in its infancy - when it matures, all of us, including the ones who can still afford our mortgages - will pay a price.

Immigration has been a hot topic on this program, on the campaign trail and in the halls of congress. It has humbled a governor and made a career for Lou Dobbs. It has also divided this nation - even though if any country owes its foundation to immigrants, it is America.

All the overheated rhetoric has served to accomplish is to ensure that nothing ever gets done. No meaningful reform - no honest dialogue. We still have at least 12 million undocumented aliens within our borders, but every time an original suggestion arises to bring these people out of the shadows, Lou Dobbs and friends scream “terrorism!” and other nonsense, pandering to fear but making sure to avoid the facts.

A license plan - endorsed by Homeland Security experts and full of sticks and carrots is killed by the phony chorus - but the illegals continue to drive, unlicensed and uninsured.

The DREAM Act - a plan to reward the best and brightest kids who as toddlers were brought to this country by their parents, kids who've excelled in the classroom and kept their noses clean - Dobbs and friends call the prospect of making them citizens a nightmare.

The charlatans who bloviate into their mikes every night that immigrants are overrunning America, stealing jobs and destroying our economy - have succeeded in stoking fear and rallying their listeners to round em' all up.

This was illustrated last week in Long Island. After tough talk of cracking down on immigrant gangs, armed federal immigrant agents - along with local cops - busted down doors in the wee hours in Greenport. Sleeping families were rousted and 11 men were arrested, tagged as violent gang offenders and singled out for deportation.

It turned out only one man was even suspected of gang affiliation - the others, not even a single criminal violation. Here's where the story gets interesting - the town rallied to the defense of these men. One resident described as un-American warrantless searches, where hard working, family men get cuffed in the dead of night in front of their families. The mayor said this was all about scaring the white majority about the Latino population. Employers bailed out workers, others hired them lawyers. As one resident put it, "We need to do something about immigration, but not this."

In towns and cities across America, a reverse “not in my back yard” seems to be taking place. When crackdowns and raids come to their neighborhood, invariably they say, “This isn't what we had in mind.” Boarded up stores, empty apartments and a shrunken workforce are unwelcome scars.

So while Washington plays to the cameras, and talk show hosts take advantage of the camera - random, uncoordinated and ill-thought policy fills the breach - we are all the worse for it.

Ever since a flubbed question on immigration a few weeks ago in Philadelphia, pundits everywhere have spent their time talking about Hillary's bad stretch of road. Had she damaged her campaign? Could she comeback?

"Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years"

It seems like the fake narrative coming out of yesterday's debate is that Hillary Clinton is now "coming back" after her fake "stumbling" in the previous debate. As best I can tell, she didn't actually stumble then and she's not actually coming back now and nothing has actually changed.

No, nothing HAS changed. Clinton is still averaging 20+ points over her competition, and despite the current climate of obsession with driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, it's really not an issue for any presidential candidate to get worked up about. But no sooner is one media-forced narrative foisted upon us, than the next one begins to take shape:

If the last debate was the moment where Democrats realized that the Clinton coronation was, at least, postponed…This debate was about Clinton effectively fighting back, Obama sticking to his guns and separation between those two and everyone else.

See there? Big cable network blog declares it's now officially a two-person race. Nevermind the merits of the debate performances themselves, or any analysis of the candidates' positions that might allow the public to decide who is "in" or "out" of the race. It's a horse race. And we should all be thankful we have our intellectual betters in the national media to tell us what's what. Suggesting that someone other than Clinton or Obama did well displays a lack of respect for the official post-debate narrative:

If most of the attacks were geared towards Clinton in Philly, most of the attacks were geared towards Edwards last night. He can reasonably make the case that this was a positive development - he's important enough to go after.

And if a non-narrative-approved candidate provides important onsight on an issue that could - and should - shape the debate, well, there's just not enough time to talk about that. It's much easier to talk about the horse race between the "big two" than to inform the public:

The gap for the "big two" is nothing new, of course, and it has little to do with debate performances. It's based on celebrity, fundraising and media attention, which reinforce each other in an autocatalytic political process that has left serious and more seasoned candidates in the dust. The media may be so beholden to this story about "the big two" -- remember when it was three? -- that what candidates actually do at debates will not be allowed to get in the way. But for voters who actually listened on Thursday, Joe Biden offered a bold and specific alternative foreign policy for the United States.

Candidates providing specifics on how to deal with, say, Pakistan just doesn't sell papers/get viewers/generate traffic. Especially when you've got fluff like this to feed them:

Maria Luisa, the UNLV student who asked Hillary Clinton whether she preferred "diamonds or pearls" at last night's debate wrote on her MySpace page this morning that CNN forced her to ask the frilly question instead of a pre-approved query about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

Hmmmm..."diamonds or pearls?" It's not "boxers or briefs," but...this is CNN not MTV.

I don't mean to single out CNN for being intentionally obtuse and shallow. Our cream of the punditry crop have decided they don't give a damn about informing the public when it interferes with their horse race narrative:

Russert flashed the following quote from Rudy on the screen justifying his relationship with Kerik:

"There were mistakes made with Bernie Kerik. But what's the ultimate result for the people of New York City? The ultimate result ... was a 74 percent reduction in shootings, [and] a 60 percent reduction in crime..

"Sure, there were issues, but if I have the same degree of success and failure as president of the United States, this country will be in great shape."

Neither Russert nor his guests spent a second asking whether Rudy's claims were true. Russert selected this quote beforehand, so he had plenty of time to entertain this question. But he didn't -- and neither did his guests. Instead, they only discussed whether it will work politically.

And yet, as has already been thoroughly documented, Rudy's claims amount to dissembling of the wildest sort...
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The point is, no matter how you interpret it, Rudy's push-back demands aggressive factual scrutiny. Yet here you have a group at the top of the punditry game -- Russert, Chuck Todd, Ronald Brownstein, Gwenn Ifil, etc. -- and none of them even took a tentative step down that path. These folks are so preoccupied with whether Rudy's pushback will work that there's no mental space left to question whether it's true. The irony, of course, is that this wrongheaded focus makes it more likely that Rudy's pushback will work.

This point was driven home when, in the final downer, one of the assembled pundits says: "If he is the nominee, time will begin again, the morning after. We will begin to explore the New York record, and debate it and discuss it in a way that we haven't so far."

A roomful of chimps with videocameras and laptops could hardly do better.

The media called him "America's Cop." MSNBC called him a "hero of 9/11." George Bush came within a hair's breadth of calling him Secretary of Homeland Security. But after today, most people are calling Bernie Kerik a crooked, mobbed-up protégé of Rudy Giuliani, who just got indicted on 16 counts of felony:

Just boil it down and say it: when it came time to choose a police commissioner Rudy chose a crooked, mobbed up cop. And he was warned about it all in advance.

That isn't just one decision among hundreds of thousands. It's one of such recklessness, irresponsibility and even a hard-to-figure indifference to criminal conduct that, just on the terms upon which Rudy has asked voters to judge his candidacy, it should pretty much end his campaign in its tracks.

In Rudy Giuliani's book, "Leadership," he says "I believe that the skill I have developed better than any other was surrounding myself with great people." And by great, Rudy apparently means "loyal," instead of "competent" or "honest," a flaw he shares with our current president:

Like the man he wants to replace, Giuliani values loyalty…over all. And this has caused someone who brags about his ability to pick leaders to repeatedly overlook disturbing information and inconvenient questions when they pertain to the people loyal to him.

Disturbing information like ties to organized crime, which Rudy initially claimed he hadn't heard about Kerik, but later said he just plum forgot:

Giuliani claims he doesn't remember being told that the man he was about to nominate to command the New York City police department had ties to organized crime. That's like not remembering when you were warned that the person you hired to babysit your kids was a convicted sex offender.

Why would Rudy stick by such an obvious political liability as Kerik? Answer: they're both very similar:

Kerik engaged in massive cronyism, as Giuliani has always done. Kerik dismantled the separations between himself and people charged with overseeing him, as Giuliani systematically did in the city as a whole. And where Giuliani set up the city's pre-9/11 emergency response center as a love nest for himself and the woman he was having an affair with, post-9/11, Kerik used a rescue worker apartment for his own affair. Of course Giuliani thinks he's a great guy.

Once the "I forgot" excuse fell apart, Rudy's next trick was to employ the ends-justify-the-means argument. Shorter Rudy: "Sure he made a few mistakes (i.e. tax fraud, favors for mob-linked companies, sleeping with Judith Regan), but at least he made the trains run on time!" Except those "ends" weren't all they were cracked up to be either:

It wasn't Bernie Kerik who brought the crime down in New York, it was Giuliani's prior police commissioner, Bill Bratton, who is now LA's police commissioner. While the reduction may have continued under Kerik, he just benefited from policies implemented years earlier by Bratton.
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And there are many who believe it wasn't either Rudy or Bratton (and certainly not Kerik) as crime was falling nationally anyway and a large part of New York's reduction was in how they wrote up the crimes to avoid the violent designation.

Still, Rudy doesn't want anyone to hold Kerik's laundry list of (allegedly) illegal proclivities to reflect on him. It's was an aberration! Give him a mulligan, will ya'? Except, again, this was not an isolated incident, but rather part of a larger pattern:

I’ve been keeping a list of Giuliani’s odd choice of associates, and it’s getting pretty long.

* Kenneth Caruso, a close Giuliani friend and business partner, has been accused of conspiring to steal $10 million invested through a Caribbean bank.

* Giuliani inexplicably backed Bernie Kerik, and made him the city’s police commissioner, after he’d been briefed on Kerik’s organized crime connections.

* Thomas Ravenel, the chairman of Giuliani’s presidential campaign in South Carolina, was indicted on cocaine distribution charges.

* Arthur Ravenel, the replacement chairman of Giuliani’s presidential campaign in South Carolina, has characterized the NAACP as the “National Association for Retarded People,” and has an unusual fondness for the Confederate battle flag.

* Alan Placa was accused by a grand jury report of sexually abusing children, as well as helping cover up the sexual abuse of children by other priests. Giuliani then put Placa, his life-long friend, on the payroll of Giuliani Partners. (Adds Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks suspected priest abuse, “I think Rudy Giuliani has to account for his friendship with a credibly accused child molester.”)

* Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), the family-values conservative caught up in a prostitution ring, was not only Giuliani’s top Senate backer, he was also the regional chairman of Giuliani’s campaign.

I’ve never seen a presidential candidate have this much bad luck, in such a short period of time, in picking the wrong people to be associated with.

Rudy is either the worst judge of character, EVAH, or so willfully obtuse and willing to turn a blind eye to obvious misdeeds as to disqualify him for the office of President of the United States. Would you trust someone like this to look into the eyes of another world leader and get a sense of their soul?

Of course, I'd be remiss not to mention the standard wingnut response to their hero getting all this unwanted attention. It can be summed up, as it is so often, in two words: Attack Clinton!

Between the timing, and the force with which the news media seems to be applying in covering this little affair, something does seem rather obvious...the only reason that Bernie Kerik’s being pilloried (Hillary’ed?) now is because he is associated with the Republican frontrunner...and the Democrat front runner is Hillary Clinton… someone who decidedly needs her own scandalous past to be mitigated by scandals amongst her opponents.

Given the scandals and Hillary Clinton’s past, even her recent past, doesn’t it stretch credibility beyond the breaking point that this indictment against Kerik comes down just now, while Hillary Clinton’s scandal filled past gets ignored? the timing, in particular, would seem questionable.

The long arm of the Clintons...

The "B-b-b-but...CLINTON!!1!!" argument, both laughable and predictable, gets one of the best treatments I've ever seen from Maha:

I would like to explain how “news” works. The reason the Kerik indictment is in the news is that it happened yesterday. Scandals associated with the Clintons are not on the front pages at the moment because there are no new developments. See, that’s why they call it “news.”

Now, the rightwingers who are pro-Rudy (and anti-Hillary of course...actually, all rightwingers are anti-Hillary, just not necessarily pro-Rudy), will have to continue with this kind of denial becauise they've bought into the whole Rudy! package, hook, line and sinker:

Anyone who's fallen for Giuliani has fallen for the myth of Giuliani: that he's some sort of ubermensch, a giant who tamed savage urban beasts, then faced down Death Itself. These starry-eyed hero-worshipping voters -- and there may be enough of them, a year from now, to put Giuliani in the freaking White House -- can't imagine him existing on the same stratum as a hapless mook like Kerik. Never mind the fact that the two of them actually did exist on the same stratum.

I respectfully disagree with Mister NB; for people who've never heard of Bernie Kerik, this will still be a major issue. And the more anecdotes we hear like this, the more that will begin to sink in:

When Mr. Giuliani became mayor, he gave Mr. Kerik a job in the Correction Department. A year later, the mayor asked him to drop by Gracie Mansion.

The two men sat upstairs and shared a bottle of red wine, a gift to the mayor from Nelson Mandela. Mr. Giuliani said he planned to appoint Mr. Kerik as first deputy correction commissioner.

Mr. Kerik, who wrote of this in his autobiography, “The Lost Son,” was taken aback; he was a year removed from being a police detective.

“Mayor, I appreciate your confidence in me, I really do,” he said. “But I ran a jail. One jail. Rikers is like 10 jails.”

Just do it, the mayor replied.

Mr. Kerik followed Mr. Giuliani downstairs to a dimly lighted room. There waited Mr. Giuliani’s boyhood chum Peter J. Powers, who was first deputy mayor, and other aides. One by one, they pulled Mr. Kerik close and kissed his cheek.

“I wonder if he noticed how much becoming part of his team resembled becoming part of a mafia family,” Mr. Kerik wrote. “I was being made.”

I picture a bald-pated Paul Giamatti as Rudy and an even balder Dennis Franz playing Bernie in the inevitable cable TV movie version of this scene.

I mentioned recently that the only question left over Michael Mukasey confirmation as attorney general was which Democrat would stab their party in the back. Now we know. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has voted with Republicans so often she may as well change her name to "Josephine Lieberman," so that's no surprise. But Chuck Schumer? Talk Left's Jeralyn says he's the real disappointment:

Not because he is a progressive on criminal justice issues and this is a change of hat for him -- he isn't -- but because it seems like he voted for Mukasey just to avoid looking like a jerk for suggesting his name in the first place. In other words, he cares more about his reputation than what's good for the Justice Department.

Schumer defends his decision, that despite his furrowed brow, soul-searching and "deep concerns," he believes Mukasey is a "good man." What definition of "good man" is he talking about?

Have we reached the point in this country where a man can countenance torture and the shredding of the separation of powers, and still be called 'a good man'? At what point do we say 'no', such a man cannot be good? Is this now a partisan point of view?

Schumer defends his decision, saying Mukasey assured him privately (instead of on the record, during his confirmation hearing) that if Congress outlawed waterboarding, he'd enforce that law. Marty Lederman says, "Yeah, so what?"

That all sounds perfectly fine and reasonable...except, of course, that no such specifying law will ever be "in place," because the President, devoted to torture and cruelty, would veto it.

What Senator Schumer ought to do, therefore, is simple -- that is, if he truly cares about ending torture and cruel treatment: pledge to vote to confirm Judge Mukasey if and only if -- and after -- the President signs S.1943.

Hmmmm...S.1943. "A bill to establish uniform standards for interrogation techniques applicable to individuals under the custody or physical control of the United States Government." And it specifically outlaws waterboarding. Why, what a good idea! It's cagey, politically popular, and has the added benefit of being the right thing to do. Which is, of course, why it will never happen and why the bill languishes in the Judiciary Committee. Because this crop of Democrats just doesn't roll that way. Smart? Tough? Not these guys. (Granted, even if Schumer found a pair and pushed the bill through, and it passed with a veto-proof majority, you know Bush would add a signing statement and Dems would throw up their hands and say, "Well, that's that, then!" Still, y'know, it's the right thing to do.)

Schumer defends his decision because now is not the time for the Senate to make a "bold declaration" about torture and waterboarding. Shaun Mullen asks, "If not now, then when?"

There is nothing more important today than the fight over water-boarding. It is quite literally a fight for America's soul...

Here are my responses to each of Schumer’s rationalizations:

(1.) Yes, Main Justice is a mess, but putting its administrative house in order pales in comparison to calling out the president on torture.

(2.) It’s nice to know that he believes that Mukasey is a man of his word, but we know without question that the president is not. Nor is he about to cede any of the unprecedented power that he has grabbed.

(3.) When is it the time for the Senate to make “a bold declaration” about anything of consequence, let alone something so consequential as torture? The answer is evident: Not any time soon.

But the deeply ingrained Democratic instinct to roll over and play dead is, sadly, alive and well. Schumer says to keep Bush from getting everything he wants with a recess appointed AG, we have to give Bush everything he wants with Mukasey.

(Cue forehead slap)

You wanna know why congress is so unpopular, Chuck? That's why.