It Seems Like 1988

when, as you'll recall, GHW Bush used the Pledge of Allegiance to make Michael Dukakis look un-American. Now the forces of the right are using the First Amendment to similar purpose. I'm not sure I can recall the recent use of a Senatorial resolution to condemn an advertisement engaged in the kind of political speech that the First Amendment was designed specifically to protect. This is the sort of thing one expected in the 1830s, when Congress frequently condemned the speech of abolitionists. Neither party thought it could present itself as "soft" on abolitionism, of course. And in the 1950s you'd find this sort of thing directed against Communists. But please, abolitionists and Communists were crazies, by the standards of their times. MoveOn.org? Not in the same league. So what gives?

Ahmedinejad, on the other hand, is, by the standards of our times, a crazy. But still, he's a head of state, and if he wants to lay a wreath at ground zero, well, why not? Because he's an Arab, that's why not. Only, of course, he's not an Arab, as Iranians speak Farsi. The argument goes that Ahmedinejad sponsors anti-US terrorism, and is waging a proxy war against the US in Iraq. Does this somehow tie him in with the terrorists who blew up the World Trade Center? And has he ever contemplated abetting an attack against the US in the US? While, of course, the US has continually been contemplating an attack on Iran.

But Ground Zero aside, why not let him speak at Columbia? Lee Bollinger--by the way, one of the nation's most intelligent commentators on the First Amendment--was heroic in withstanding pressure to withdraw the invitation, and was equally impressive in giving such a naughty introduction. I'm grateful that he showed such fortitude. I wish the Senate understood the tradition of free speech nearly as well. Especially the Republicans, who style themselves the party of freedom and get all lathered up at "political correctness."

National Guard Service One More Time

Courtesy of Dan Rather, who is mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore. Rather has filed a lawsuit against CBS seeking 70 million dollars, complaining in part that he was sacrificed to appease the White House over the disputed report he narrated on the Pres-o-dent's AWOLiness in the 1970s.

In the suit, filed this afternoon in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Mr. Rather charges that CBS and its executives made him “a scapegoat” in an attempt “to pacify the White House,” though the formal complaint presents virtually no direct evidence to that effect. To buttress this claim, Mr. Rather quotes the executive who oversaw his regular segment on CBS Radio, telling Mr. Rather in November 2004 that he was losing that slot, effective immediately, because of “pressure from ‘the right wing.’ ” (The whole story from NYT is here.)

The only question to ask here is how much money CBS is willing to spend to make this go away. CNN spent a couple of million to make the dispute over its "Valley of Death" story on the Tailwind project go away. (Interesting sidebar: Rick Kaplan, who was then president of CNN, is now producer of the CBS Evening News.) The Gannett corp. made the Cincinnati Enquirer pay 14 million to Chiquita Brands to forestall a lawsuit over its expose of that company's labor and environmental record in Central America. I'm guessing CBS might be good for somewhere in between--8 million would just about split the difference.

There is no likelihood that this will produce the long-awaited authorized acknowledgment of the general truth of that report. For one thing, Rather has apparently adopted the Peter Arnett defense: I was just reading a script. For another, the US political system has no use for "truth and reconciliation" processes. There are, I guess, reconciliation processes, but abandoning the truth is usually a precondition for that. I expect to see a lot of reconciliation in 2009, but not a lot of truth, and in another generation, when the next Vietnam moment occurs, we can rerun the whole sad story as if we hadn't already done this before.

Unrelated aside: Hooray for Gitmo. It's the only prison the mainstream media can refer to without wisecracking about anal rape.