German Joys

What Boumediene Does and Does Not Do

Law Professor Richard Epstein clarifies the Supreme Court's recent decision on Guantanamo detainees:

Enemy prisoners of war are never granted [habeas corpus, roughly a Haftpruefungsantrag], either in the United States or abroad.

What matters is whether a prisoner is or is not an enemy combatant.... The six plaintiffs in Boumediene, accused of plotting an attack on the American Embassy in Bosnia, claim they are not. They should be entitled to challenge both the government’s definition of an enemy combatant and the factual basis of their arrest. And they should be able to do so, as the court stressed, under standard habeas corpus procedures that allow them to present evidence and confront witnesses, and not under the paltry procedures outlined by the 2006 Military Commissions Act.

If found to be enemy combatants, they can be held for the duration of the war and interrogated, if desired, as any other detainees. If not, they must be tried for some particular offense or released.

This is an important decision that has gotten almost completely lost in most coverage of this issue in the German media (understandable, since it's a tricky subject).  Boumediene does there has to be a court hearing, but the purpose of that court hearing is simply to see whether the detainees actually are prisoners of war -- whatever that might mean in this context. If they do fit this definition, they can be held until the end of hostilities without a formal trial, just as regular prisoners of war would be.

Boumediene is important because it's unclear what, if anything, many of these detainees actually did.  If the prisoners had been uniformed enemy troops captured in battle, there would be no real dispute about the United States' right to continue detaining them, although they would surely be entitled to Geneva Conventions protections, and the question of when the "hostilities" could be declared over.  Boumediene's importance lies more in the fact that it focuses attention on the prisoners' cases and, for the first time, will force the government to have to justify its detention in some sort of meaningful court procedure.

The Irish-Plumber Vote

Via Washington Monthly, Kevin O'Rourke speculates why working-class Irish voted against the Lisbon treaty:

There are at least two ways of interpreting such patterns. The first would hold that well educated voters are more politically sophisticated and better able to understand the issues involved in a complex amendment to the institutional underpinnings of the European Union. The second interpretation is that, on the contrary, both rich and poor are capable of correctly discerning where their economic interests lie, and vote accordingly. The argument would be that globalisation generally, and European integration more narrowly, has overwhelmingly favoured skilled workers, at least in affluent countries such as France, Ireland and the Netherlands. Unskilled workers, by contrast, feel under threat from Romanian (or Asian) competition, or immigration from Eastern Europe and further afield. And while those of us who are more fortunate might regret it, it is hardly surprising that — in accordance with Heckscher-Ohlin logic — they vote accordingly....My bet is that the gap between middle-class and working-class voting patterns has a lot more to do with different interests, real or perceived, than with supposed differences in political sophistication.

The Irish Referendum

Henry over at Blogging Heads has a long-but-interesting about the Irish "no" vote on the European Constitution.  You might be angry at the outcome, he says, but many of the more reasoned objections to the vote don't really hold up.  Irish heads of state signed the treaty, then 'broke their word'?  Sure they signed the treaty, but "[s]tates frequently sign treaties that they then can’t ratify because of domestic opposition."  Ireland "sold out" the '500 million' other members of the rest of the states of the European Union?  You could look at it that way, but then again, it's not as if the Lisbon treaty has such overwhelming legitimacy, given that it's never been voted on by the public in any other EU country, and likely never will be/would have been.  Nor do Ireland's past EU subsidies oblige it to support this particular constitutional change.

Differing political styles play a role here.  "Anglo-Saxon" countries show much lower tolerance of elitism-tinged arguments.  You can see this in Henry's unconcealed contempt for the scolding comments made by Contintental European politicians after the vote.  To Europeans, the issue of whether the public actually made the right decision is a live issue after any vote, but the Anglo-Saxon instinct, if you can call it that, is to simply deal with the result and move on. Carping about how gullible or foolish the public was rubs Anglo-Saxons the wrong way.

The grand bargain in Continental Europe is that civil-service elites will run policy, and are insulated from direct public pressure as long as they do a conscientious job and get good results.  (Often enough, they're also insulated if they do a bad job, but that's another story.)  Attempts to graft this model onto the UK, though, activate the Anglo-Saxon political immune system.  Now, you may say that Lisbon wasn't an attempt to graft this model onto the UK/Ireland, since it would have actually streamlined the EU governing bureaucracy and increased the power of the European Parliament.  But, as the Germans say, Der Ton macht die Musik.  The fact that Irish political elites had to 'sell' the Lisbon treaty only heightened suspicions, since it seemed to be a case of reproducing a caricature of European political arrangements (the elite decides stuff, then tells 'the people' why that decision was wise/unavoidable) in Ireland.

I don't see much of a way out of this dilemma, since these ingrained cultural particularities ain't going away anytime soon.  Further, as a friend of mine who's an expert on the EU mailed me yesterday, there's no sense in exaggerating the consequences of the Irish vote, since the EU can still muddle through with its existing structure.  However, it strikes me that a couple of opportunities were missed. 

First of all, why rely on Irish politicians to make the case if they're not trusted by their publics?  Pardon me, but it's typically European to imagine that dull, mealy-mouthed lectures from unglamorous people in suits will prompt "the people" to come around to the right point of view.  Where was the sophisticated ad campaign?  I'm not talking about boring brochures or placards on streetcorners.  I'm talking about the sort of ads that sell products: sophisticated, low-key, ironic, with a non-threatening, man-in-the-street feel.  Humanize the European Union.  Locate it in a convincing narrative of obligation (they've done their part for us, now it's time for us to step up to the plate).  The ads could even be funny and self-deprecating (stuffy Eurocrat wanders through the Irish countryside with a dog-eared copy of the treaty, explaining Lisbon to the man-in-the-street).

Second, and this is not original to me (I got it from Klaus Haensch, interviewed on WDR5's morning call-in show (g)), why not make the referendum a choice between approving the Lisbon treaty or withdrawing from the EU?  As it stands, the reasons that drove individual Irish people to vote against Lisbon are either unknown, irrelevant or can't realistically be fixed.  Because the public only said what it was against, and not what it was for, it's impossible to draw any concrete lessons.  But making the referendum a choice between Lisbon or withdrawal would at least show the way forward.  It would also, of course, wonderfully concentrate the minds of treaty opponents, and bring into stark relief everything that EU membership has done for Ireland.  You wouldn't want to drag out this weapon too often, but for revisions as fundamental as this one, it would seem pretty fair.

Les Obamaphobes Francaises

One of the most pleasant aspects of Europe's judicious and reserved email etiquette is that you don't get pelted with screechy, ungrammatical, crazily-formatted political emails whenever an election is around the corner. 

Not so in the States, where right-wing halfwits are busy concocting e-screeds against crypto-Islamic elitist Manchurian Candidate Barack Hussein Obama and sending them to all their friends and family members with the urgent request to GET TEH TRUTH OUT!!  These things get forwarded in ever-expanding circles, creating a massive snowball effect and eventually reaching millions of people (fortunately, most of the recipients are paleo-conservatives who would never have voted for Obama anyway). 

In fact, in a troubling sign of cross-Atlantic contamination, there are even French versions of anti-Obama emails.  Obama's created his own response website called Fight the Smears, but Christopher Beam suggests IMITATING THE STYLISTIC QUIRKS!! of these right-wing emails to spread the Good News about Obama:

From: [Redacted]
To: [Redacted]
Subject: WHO IS BARACK OBAMA?

There are many things people do not know about BARACK OBAMA. It is every American's duty to read this message and pass it along to all of their friends and loved ones.

Barack Obama wears a FLAG PIN at all times. Even in the shower.

Barack Obama says the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE every time he sees an American flag. He also ends every sentence by saying, "WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL." Click here for video of Obama quietly mouthing the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE in his sleep.

A tape exists of Michelle Obama saying the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE at a conference on PATRIOTISM.

Every weekend, Barack and Michelle take their daughters HUNTING.

Barack Obama is a PATRIOTIC AMERICAN. He has one HAND over his HEART at all times. He occasionally switches when one arm gets tired, which is almost never because he is STRONG.

Barack Obama has the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE tattooed on his stomach. It's upside-down, so he can read it while doing sit-ups.

There's only one artist on Barack Obama's iPod: FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

Barack Obama is a DEVOUT CHRISTIAN. His favorite book is the BIBLE, which he has memorized. His name means HE WHO LOVES JESUS in the ancient language of Aramaic. He is PROUD that Jesus was an American.

Barack Obama goes to church every morning. He goes to church every afternoon. He goes to church every evening. He is IN CHURCH RIGHT NOW.

Barack Obama's new airplane includes a conference room, a kitchen, and a MEGACHURCH.

Barack Obama's skin is the color of AMERICAN SOIL.

Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.

Barack Obama says that Americans cling to GUNS and RELIGION because they are AWESOME.

Return of the Rule of Law?

The Supreme Court of the U.S. just handed down a decision that may well force closure of Guantanamo:

In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows — when the country faces rebellion or invasion.

The case was about whether the Guantanamo prisoners enjoyed the right to habeas corpus -- an ancient common-law legal procedure that allows prisoners to file an appeal in court and force the government to justify their detention.  The Bush Administration had argued that, since the U.S. didn't technically own the land on which the prison had been built, the Constitution didn't apply to Guantanamo, and the prisoners had no right to file appeals in U.S. courts. 

The Supreme Court just rejected (.pdf) that argument.  Here's the key passage:

The necessary implication of the [Government's] argument is that by surrendering formal sovereignty over any unincorporated territory to a third party, while at the same time entering into a lease that grants total control over the territory back to the United States, it would be possible for the political branches to govern without legal constraint.

Our basic charter cannot be contracted away like this. The Constitution grants Congress and the President the power to acquire, dispose of, and govern territory, not the power to decide when and where its terms apply. Even when the United States acts outside its borders, its powers are not “absolute and unlimited” but are subject “to such restrictions as are expressed in the Constitution.” Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, 44 (1885).

I haven't read the entire decision yet (it's 134 pages long), but the Bush Administration seems to have lost on all counts.  It's too early to say yet whether this decision will force Guantanamo's closure  -- there are still some technicalities and loopholes the Administration could use to keep people in the camp.  However, it will make keeping detainees locked up on the island much harder -- especially if the evidence against them is weak.  It will also drastically increase political pressure on the Bush Administration to close the camp, once and for all.

It's at least a clear victory for the rule of law, and it may end up being a watershed decision...

Amstetten Means Nothing

Can I just declare that the case of Josef F. from Amstetten, like almost all spectacular crime stories, has no broader implications?  It tells us nothing in particular about Austrian society, or about the town of Amstetten.  In industrialized Western societies, private property and legal protections for privacy are well-established, and lots of people can buy homesteads and keep them under their own private control, without intrusion from the state.  This is all, generally, a good thing. 

A handful of people will choose to do awful things inside those homesteads.  If they're discreet, it won't be discovered for years.  This can and does happen anywhere, not just in Austria.  The next case might be happening right now, just around the corner from you, in Ghent, Stockholm, or Waxahachie.  As long as we respect our fellow citizens' privacy, we'll never be able to prevent all such cases.  Get the victims help, find out if any policy tweaks would help detect future cases earlier, and move on. 

What I'm trying to say is that there's no profit to be gained by focusing on Josef F.  No need for long, hand-wringing editorials, or depressing plays, or book-length explorations of his psyche.  But I know they're coming anyway...

America -- A Nation of Mongrels?

I've been a bit busy lately, but I thought I would post something quick about an interview published in Die Zeit with Erardo Rautenberg, Attorney General for the German state of Brandenburg (sorry, no link).  During the interview, part of a recent package of articles about far-right forces in Germany, Rautenberg quotes a handout prepared by the NPD to school party operatives on how to respond to questions about the party's opposition to mixed marriages in Germany:

"The logical country of destination for such mongrels (Mischlinge) would be the USA, where there has never been a true folk community or national culture, but rather a thoroughly racialized (durchrasste[!]) nation built only by the will of the state and of individuals, a society of rootless, autonomous individuals, where the ethno-culturally castrated individual grows like a weed, without identity and homeland."

Rautenberg says passages like this clearly show the influence of Nazi racial ideology, and therefore justify banning the NPD.  To see whether he was right about this, I turned to my well-thumbed copy of Mein Kampf (translated by Ralph Mannheim in 1943), and found this, on page 286:

"North America, whose population consists in by far the largest part of Germanic elements who mixed but little with the lower colored peoples, shows a different humanity and culture from Central and South America, where the predominantly Latin immigrants often mixed with aborigines on a large scale.  By this one example, we can clearly and distinctly recognize the effect of racial mixture.  The Germanic inhabitant of the American continent, who has remained racially pure and unmixed, rose to be master of the continent; he will remain the master as long as he does not fall a victim to defilement of the blood."

I'll have more to say about this later, when I get a bit more free time.  Since I don't have time to put it all in context, let me issue a disclaimer to make sure I don't get put on any government watch lists: This is all horribly stupid, delusional nonsense!

Hillary im Bunker

The controversial Austrian statesman's last tirade, brought deathlessly to life by Bruno Ganz, seems to have become one of Web 2.0's most-redubbed scenes.  The latest has a transatlantic flavor, and made me chuckle [h/t Ed Philp]:

What Will McCain v. Obama Look Like?

Well, looks like it'll be McCain v. Obama in 2008.  The Onion News Service has a preview of McCain's two-fisted strategy:

Can't resist pointing out that you heard it here first.

Mid-April Banner -- New Posts Below

This is a post-dated entry that will serve as a crude banner, all this week, reminding you to drop by the Gaststaette in Mitte on this Friday, April 18th, to discuss and donate to Obama '08!  There will be plenty to see and do there.  Including me!

The poster on the left contains all the details.  Download it, print it out, and paste it all over the electricity switchboxes, traffic signals, perfume-store ad displays, local government officials, and stray dogs in your neighborhood.  Especially if you live near rich U.S. expats.  Sign up online here.

The Freak Show's Coming to Town

My position on Obama is clear: I'm fer 'im, but think he'll have a very rough time of it against John McCain. 

Europeans who thought John Kerry was a shoo-in because he was the sort of candidate they would vote for may be in for the same sort of shock in 2008. A few American political reporters at Politico look at what's going to get hurled at Obama if he wins the nomination:

McCain ... would have a free hand to exploit a paper trail showing Obama’s evolution — opponents would say reversals — over the past decade from liberal positions on gun control, the death penalty and Middle East politics. He would exploit Obama’s current position in favor of driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and beginning diplomatic talks with U.S. adversaries like the dictators of Iran and Venezuela....

...The last two Democratic nominees, Al Gore and John F. Kerry, were both military veterans, and both had been familiar, highly successful figures in national politics for more than two decades by the time they ran.

Both men lost control of their public images to the right-wing freak show — that network of operatives and commentators working mostly outside of the mainstream media — and ultimately lost their elections as many voters came to see them as elitist, out-of-touch, phony, and even unpatriotic.

Obama is a much less familiar figure than Kerry or Gore, with a life story that is far more exotic, who is coming out of a political milieu in Chicago politics that is far more liberal.

The freak show has already signaled its early lines of attack on Obama. Polls show a significant percentage of Americans believe — falsely — that he is a Muslim. Voter interviews reveal widespread unease with minor and seemingly irrelevant questions like why he does not favor American flag pins on his lapel. Nor have we heard the last about [Jeremiah] Wright and his fulminations.

For more on this, let me hoist from comments to a previous post this excellent interview of David Paul Kuhn, author of The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma.

Another Chance to Back Barack

And speaking of Berlin, don't miss:

WEEKEND WARM-UP PARTY FOR OBAMA 08

Time: Friday, April 18 at 6:00 PM - 3 hours

Location: Gaststätte Torstrasse 65

Berlin GERMANY, na 10119

Directions: UBhf Rosa Luxemburg Platz, corner of Torstrasse and Angermünderstrasse

I'll be there, bullshitting about politics with the best of them. More details and an opportunity to sign-up online here.

The Swedish Model's New Fans

The Washington Post reports from Sodertjale, Sweden, a town that has taken in as many Iraqi regugees as the entire United States:

The national government budgets $30,000 to help settle each person granted asylum. It pays for Swedish language classes, helps with housing and job training and pays a monthly allowance for living expenses.

Iraqis leave behind a country that can barely provide electricity and water. Here they attend classes that explain such benefits as 18-month paternity leaves and a 24-hour hotline for children who want to register complaints.

"In this country, when you are 65 years old, you can sit at home and still get a salary," marveled [Iraqi refugee Oshin] Merzoian, sitting in the cozy kitchen of his new government-subsidized, two-story house.

Making Amends

Dear World,

It's been a rough couple of years for us. 

We went through a lot of difficult and confusing times, and had to work through some very traumatic issues.

We're not proud of everything we did during that painful phase. 

To be frank, sometimes we lashed out.

We said hurtful things, and sometimes behaved thoughtlessly, even to the people closest to us.

Lately, we've been trying to make up for some of the harm we did.

We know that not everything we did can be undone.

But we're trying to do a bit more listening.  A bit more understanding.  And to take other peoples' needs into account, not just our own. 

It's the beginning of a long process.  And there will surely be more misunderstandings along the way.

But we're glad you seem to finally be taking notice.

Sincerely,

The United States of America

U.S. Adopts Shiny, Colorful New Currency

This just in:

The United States is to abolish the dollar and adopt the euro, according to a surprise announcement by the US Department of Monetary Policy....

Rumours had been swirling in recent weeks that the US government was considering a drastic solution to the recent collapse of the dollar. But analysts and politicians have still been taken unaware by this historic and startling decision. One of the first to issue a public rebuke was Representive Tom Plunger of Jackson County.

"This isn't about markets or business or stuff like that," he said. "This is about our culture, our very society, being sold off to the Europeans! Why do you think we renamed French fries freedom fries? To stop something like this from happening!"

Live Boys or Fascist Girls

Just par for the course when it comes to Oxonian barristers:

Max Mosley, one of the most powerful men in world sport, was under pressure to resign as boss of Formula One’s governing body last night after he was exposed enjoying a Nazi-style orgy with five prostitutes.

Jewish groups condemned the behaviour of Mosley, 67, whose father, Sir Oswald, was the leader of the British Union of Fascists and a friend of Adolf Hitler.

Mr Mosley was caught on video by the News of the World with five women in an underground “torture chamber” in Chelsea, where he spent several hours allegedly indulging in sado-masochistic sex.

The Oxford-educated former barrister, who is president of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), reenacted a concentration camp scene in which he played the role of both guard and inmate.

The article has even more salacious details, such as the fact that he was "speaking in German."  If he decides to fight for his position -- and I think we all hope he will -- his defense team may want to have a look here.

Manfred Nowak on Torture and the U.S.

Manfred Nowak, law professor at the University of Vienna and U.N. Special Rapporteur for torture, gives an interview (g) to the Sueddeutsche on the progress being made in combating state-sanctioned torture. 

Overall, human rights took a hit after September 11.  However, he says the situation's becoming calmer now.  Canada and Scandinavia have the best human-rights records, Nigeria one of the worst.  There's been progress in Indonesia, but setbacks in Russia.  And at the end of the interview, he comes to the U.S. (my translation), and minces no words:

sueddeutsche.de: In the discussion about torture methods there's been a lot said about so-called waterboarding [in English!] lately. Is that a torture method?

Nowak: Of course.

sueddeutsche.de: U.S. President George W. Bush says it isn't torture.

Nowak: He's wrong. Officials in the U.S. Justice Department did piece together a definition of torture which says torture only exists when it causes severe psychological damage.  Mental torture would, according to this definition, only exist when people were psychically damaged for the rest of their lives.  This definition is completely at odds with international law.

sueddeutsche.de: How would you describe the general attitude of the U.S. administration to human-rights questions?

Nowak: Under Bill Clinton, there were several positive developments, for example the Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia.  Under Bush, things changed a great deal -- whether you look at the struggle against terrorism, the death penalty, or the International Criminal Court in the Hague.  We certainly have never before had a U.S. administration which was so set against progress in human-rights issues.  Thank God it won't be in office much longer -- then this sad chapter in America's history will belong to the past.

Wall Street Journal on Germany's Shift Leftward

Predictably, they're Very Concerned.  The piece is a pretty good analysis of recent business scandals in Germany, and the accompanying wave of strikes:

For many years, Germany had far fewer strikes than most other developed economies. But the Cologne Institute for Economic Research, a business-funded think tank, estimates the country last year posted its highest number of strike days since 1993. The incidence of strikes was roughly five times higher than the annual average during the first half of this decade. When train drivers walked off the job several times last year to demand that their wages be boosted by nearly a third, opinion polls showed them enjoying public support, even as the transportation system descended into chaos.

Part of workers' resentment reflects a growing spread between haves and have-nots. For the past couple of years, workers have seen a long-stalled economy accelerate -- and corporate profits surge. But they continue to view their own prospects as dim, and that divergence is widening, says [TNS Emnid researcher Klaus-Peter] Schöppner, with polls indicating that fewer than 10% of people are optimistic about their personal situation.

[h/t Bro.]

A Billion Here, a Trillion There

American defense policy specialist William Hartung has looked at war spending, and has an interesting comparison or two:

If we consider the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan together -- which we might as well do, since we and our children and grandchildren will be paying for them together into the distant future -- a conservative single-week estimate comes to $3.5 billion. Remember, that's per week!

By contrast, the whole international community spends less than $400 million per year on the International Atomic Energy Agency, the primary institution for monitoring and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons; that's less than one day's worth of war costs. The U.S. government spends just $1 billion per year securing and destroying loose nuclear weapons and bomb-making materials, or less than two days' worth of war costs; and Washington spends a total of just $7 billion per year on combating global warming, or a whopping two weeks' worth of war costs.

Post title adapted from this classic.

The Stupid is Starting

If you're like millions of typical Americans, this stuff is pretty important to you:

Sen. Barack Obama's refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin along with a photo of him not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem led conservatives on Internet and in the media to question his patriotism.

Now Obama's wife, Michelle, has drawn their ire, too, for saying recently that she's really proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.

Conservative consultants say that combined, the cases could be an issue for Obama in the general election if he wins the nomination, especially as he runs against Vietnam war hero Sen. John McCain.

Here, we see conservatives releasing trial balloons into the air to see what sorts of innuendo are most likely to turn ignorant, gullible voters against Obama.  They'll try another one every few weeks or so until they get a good combination of 3-4 mutually-reinforcing memes (possible examples: unpatriotic, thinks he's smarter than you, hates/distrusts the military, spent time studying Islam) that do the most damage to Obama's reputation.

Then, all summer and fall, dozens of groups will pour billions of dollars into coordinated, massive nationwide ad campaigns on these themes.  One pro-Bush group alone reports having collected a quarter-billion dollars to help finance this effort.

This thing is a long way from over.

Andorrans Will Welcome Us as Liberators

Nation Of Andorra Not In Africa, Shocked U.S. State Dept. Reports

Berlin Backs Barack Meeting, Feb. 27th, Berlin

Don't miss the social event of late Winter in Berlin, Berlin Backs Barack! 

It'll be an informal gathering of Americans, and non-Americans to share information, drink, donate money (but not, alas, The Foreigners), drink, and talk about the presidential candidacy of this wholesome, God-fearing family man:

Look at them!  So caring and sensitive!  So playful and affectionate!  How could you not want them him to win?*

I'll be there with bells on, so if you want to finally deliver that spittle-flecked tirade about the Trilateral Commission to me in person, now's your chance!  Event details, including maps and opportunities to accept the invitation are here.  If you're too lazy to click through, here is the basic info:

Time: Wednesday, February 27 at 7:00 PM

Location: Cafe Aedes, Hackesche Höfe, Berlin

Rosenthalerstrasse 40/41
Hackesche Höfe
10178 Berlin

S-Bahn to Hackescher Markt, Court (Hof) II of the Hackesche Höfe

* Apparently the latest meme in the German media is that Obama's campaign is a sinister / empty cult of personality.  This may be due by the fact that, unlike 93% of American politicians and 96.4% of European politicians, Obama actually delivers speeches that large numbers of ordinary humans who are not employed by or related to him listen to and enjoy.  In the conspiracy-cankered minds of some Europeans, Obama plans to sweep to power in wave of mass adulation and desperate, savior-seeking hysteria before implementing his sinister secret agenda.

As exciting as that would undoubtedly be, the reality's a bit more mundane.  Obama's ability to inspire people is called 'charisma'.  And he's issued dozens of detailed proposals for what he'd do if elected.  Read them here, if you wish.  None involves mandatory midnight torchlight marches, agricultural collectives, or secret underground prisons.  (OK, except for Pamphlet #21, "Duties and Responsibilities of Membership in the American Volksgemeinschaft.")

The Intimate Apparel of Righteousness

Six Guantanamo prisoners are soon to be put on trial before U.S. military tribunals for potentially capital crimes in Guantánamo Bay. 

What sort of trials are they going to get?  According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo's military commissions:

"[Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time," recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, which had lent great credibility to the proceedings.

"I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis continued. "At which point, [Haynes's] eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can't have acquittals. We've got to have convictions.'"

What can you do about this sorry state of affairs?  Buy underwear, of course!  Reprieve UK, a nonprofit which is representing some of the detainees, has recently entered the "intimate apparel" business, according to Legal Director Clive Stafford-Smith:

Along with our allies at the lingerie designers Agent Provocateur, we developed a line of intimate apparel in Guantanamo orange, with "Fair Trial My Arse" emblazoned across the derrière.

The underpants cost £35, which is a small price to pay not only for justice, but for transparent underwear (trust me on this!) [h/t JR]

German Journalists Scooped Again?

Now this is what I call news.  A man from Liechtenstein, the tiny tax haven whose bank-secrecy laws are the scourge of Northern Europe, sold the Bundesnachrichtendienst or BND (the German intelligence agency) a CD with the names and detailed account information of potentially hundreds of Germans who have, allegedly, opened accounts in Liechtenstein's banks to hide wealth from the tax man.  The BND, we read, paid 4.2 million Euro for the data.

The information is supposedly detailed and reliable; dozens of alleged tax evaders and some accountants have reportedly already confessed.  And now we read in the German media (g) that the Wall Street Journal has revealed the name of the man at the center of the affair.  You can also find his name, if you wish, by accessing the WSJ's Europe-edition website. 

My question is this: why do we have to read his name in an English-language news source?  There would seem to be only two explanations.  First, German journalists were scooped (that is, another newspaper beat them to the story).  Among Anglo-American journalists, getting scooped by another newspaper is a deep humiliation -- especially if it's a foreign newspaper that scoops you  in your own backyard, so to speak.

The second possibility is that German journalists knew his name, but declined to publish it on privacy grounds.  German newspapers usually don't publish the full names of people who are involved in embarrassing scandals.

If this is a scoop, then it's yet another data-point in favor of the thesis that German journalists spend far too much time:

(1) sharing with us their personal opinion on various topics ("Executives make too much money!" "The smoking ban is puritanism!" "Obama is wonderful!" "Butterflies are pretty!") ; and

(2) acting as stenographers for the rich and powerful ("politician A said she was 'outraged' by politician B's comment that he was 'disgusted' by the 'irresponsible' statements politician C made about the Weimar Republic during his hotly-contested re-election campaign!")

and too little time:

(1) building a network of contacts of reliable informants in government and private industry;

(2) leaving their comfy offices to go to various parts of Germany to interview people who are willing to talk; and

(3) fearlessly publishing information that may embarrass the powerful, reveal corruption, show the failure of government policies, and/or spur reform.

Note that I'm not tarring all German reporters here, some of them, like the ones who wrote this revealing book (g) are doing what journalists should do -- calling the powerful to account.  But far too many are, frankly, just chuntering on inconsequentially, and apparently missing big stories right under their noses.

The World Wants Obama

As I found out this weekend, Europeans are obsessed with Barack Obama, mostly because they desperately want him to win in 2008.  They are also almost completely ignorant of John McCain, and generally don't understand his strengths as a candidate.  But it's not just Europeans, 'The World Wants Obama' too (h/t ZaA):

The global community is more interdependent than ever before and the next resident of the White House will make decisions that that affect us all. Whether you live in Brighton, Baghdad, Buenos Aires or Bangkok, this matters.

We cannot vote in the 2008 US elections, but if we could we’d back Obama. Why? We want an America that:

- lives up to the principles it preaches;

- listens rather than lectures;

- conserves rather than consumes;

- makes peace rather than war;

- inspires hope everywhere.

Not a bad idea, creating grass-roots support for candidates in other countries. I plan to register www.nongermansforholgerapfel.eu soon, unless someone beats me to it...

No 72-Year-Old Homosexual Atheists, Please

Via Atrios, a chart about the preferences of American voters:

	Yes, would vote for	No, would not vote for
	%	%
Catholic	95	4
Black	94	5
Jewish	92	7
A woman	88	11
Hispanic	87	12
Mormon	72	24
Married for the third time	67	30
72 years of age	57	42
A homosexual	55	43
An atheist	45	53

(But what about a German?)

Two observations.  First, we should keep separate how many voters really hold these views from what they are willing to hear themselves tell someone else out loud.  There's likely more anti-black prejudice out there, for instance, than these numbers are revealing.  The groupings above correspond exactly to the rank-order of social acceptability of various prejudices in the U.S. -- that is, how comfortable you'd feel confessing to this prejudice in front of a table to strangers.  You'd have to get a lot more creative, like these folks did, to find out the actual prevalence of these prejudices.

Second, of course, you'll probably vote for a Mormon or a divorce if you can't stand his opponent, or his opponent's policies.  Probably not the same for homosexuals and atheists, though -- they appear to be radioactive.  Bad news for McCain is that 72-year-olds like him are almost as radioactive as gays!  Pretty surprising. I'm still sticking to my prediction, though.

Great Minds...

Illusionless, Eric Alterman thinks like me:

Barring some unforeseen event, I'd pick McCain as the slight favorite over Clinton going in and Obama as a toss-up. That is terrible news, given how unpopular Republicans have become, and how they should be run out of town on a rail for supporting the catastrophic-in-every-way leadership by Bush and Cheney and the incompetents and crazies who surround them, but the media, and the public tend not to hold candidates responsible for their parties; crazy, but true. What's more, antiwar voters are picking McCain despite his promises of hundred years' war. What's more, the media love McCain and are willing to forgive him everything, save perhaps the old "live boy or dead girl" dilemma they still talk about in Louisiana ...

Helmut Schmidt: Soon A Prisoner of Conscience?

Note to foreign reporters looking for a German human-interest story: former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, now in his late 80s and a chain-smoker for years, has been swanning about Germany (g) smoking in public places and trains, in defiance of new smoking bans.

It seems to be some sort of Crusade of Principle against Germany's new anti-smoking regulations, although Schmidt's defense boils down to "I'm really old and was a fine Chancellor and I like to smoke, so fuck the law."  And speaking of European deference to bigwigs, I should note that others share his view.  The Director of the Hamburg Thalia theater, who personally decided to let Schmidt defy the smoking ban in the theater's cafe, justified himself as follows (g) (my translation):

Director Ludwig von Otting commented thus: "Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi", which he freely translated as follows: "What we let Helmut Schmidt do, we wouldn't let the cattle (jedem Rindvieh) do."

Democrats Abroad Vote in Berlin

And the Tagesspiegel has the video (g). [h/t Ed P.]  Germans -- here's your chance to wince at / laugh at/ admire various varietals of American-accented German.  Note that (1) they all voted for Obama; (2) many of them look indistinguishable from Germans.  Nice protective coloration, fellow expats!

I'll be voting tomorrow at O'Reilly's in Duesseldorf during the early part of the evening (around 7:30-ish), so drop by if ya wanna meet me.  I'll be voting for Obama, naturally, because he represents Change We Can Believe In (although I personally prefer Belief We Can Change In).

Clarification of the Deleuze/Marvin Spectrum

I already made this point in comments to a previous last post, but I wanted to expand on it.  This may strike you as pompous, but hey, I'm king of this blog, and it's good to be the king!

One aspect of American culture that many foreign observers rarely understand is the appeal of "regular guy" candidates for high political office.  They listen to commentators praise a U.S. political candidate for being the "kind of guy you could drink a beer with" and scratch their heads.  Europeans tend to concentrate more on the candidate's qualifications, and will give credit to a candidate who has achieved various status distinctions in their societies.  Job titles, educational titles, honorary degrees, and official prizes  are important in Europe.  Europeans who have them make no secret of them, and expect them to be recognized and respected by people who have lower status.  This explains why, for instance, why a doctoral title in Germany becomes part of your official name, and why you can be sued for not using the proper form of respectful address towards others.

Lower-status people, in turn, are usually willing to convey this respect and recognition for higher status.  To Americans, this respect for external accoutrements of status often seems exaggerated.  They will mock it as "groveling" or "bowing and scraping."  (One of the things that irritated English visitors to the U.S. in the 19th century was the New Worlders' tendency to mock the English for their "slavish" devotion to their monarch).  To most Europeans, respecting titles is just a natural part of how their societies work.  Europeans tend to perceive Americans as lacking in a "proper" sense of respect and deference, and having an underdeveloped sense of personal dignity.  Plus, they will argue, for all the superficial equality in day-to-day social interaction, America is quite stratified, albeit along slightly different lines (think gated communities and income inequality).

This is why lots of intelligence (Willy Brandt), charm (Jacques Chirac), noble lineage (Prince Karel Schwarzenberg) -- or being a novelist (Disraeli), poet (Dominique de Villepin) or intellectual (Michael Ignatieff) -- aren't necessarily advantages for American politicians.  These qualities make many American voters insecure and envious.  What makes a candidate Lee Marvinesque is displaying characteristics that ordinary people -- even deeply imperfect ones -- can imagine themselves possessing.  Not everyone can be intelligent or charming or can write books. But any man can look destiny in the eye without flinching, shrug off agonizing pain, prove he won't take shit from anyone, and bluntly speak his mind without worrying who he pisses off. Or at least, any man can fantasize that he possesses these qualities, even if he works for a box company in Tustin, California.  And any woman, for that matter, may not have exquisite taste in clothes, a perfect figure, or a degree from an respected university.  But any woman can be a good mother, can be a devout and reliable member of a respected church, and can volunteer for worthy charities.  For that matter, any woman can also display some of the admirable male "everyday guy" characteristics, and vice-versa.

But wait, isn't America ruled by millionaires?  Sure, but the standard model of the American dream holds that anyone can become rich, as long as she has enough grit, gumption, and determination.  The important thing for purposes of retail, day-to-day politics is not how much money you have, but whether you're able to project a "regular-guy" persona, and whether you display "regular guy" virtues.  Lee Marvinesque virtues.  That's what John McCain does with fearful effectiveness. 

The Deleuze-Marvin Spectrum; or, hail President McCain!

Light posting this weekend, so here's a big post to tide you over.  As promised, it features some thoughts about the presidential candidates.  Or really one thought, in particular.  The thought that is causing quiet unease and gnashing of teeth in Democratic circles since Republican candidate John McCain's decisive victory in the Florida primary.  That thought is "Oh shit." 

If the Republicans nominate John McCain, he will be the next president of the U.S.  If I'm right about this (more on that later), it makes the choice between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama kind of secondary.  Now, of course I'm going to vote in the Democrats Abroad primary and I'm going to pick Obama.  Not because I dislike Hillary, but because lots of other people do.  Whether this is fair or not is beside the point -- it's true, and it will be a drag on her prospects for reasons Hilzoy explains here.

Why do I think John McCain will win?  The conventional reasons are that he's not insane, not incompetent, has huge name recognition (a key fact) because of his decades-long presence on the American political scene.  He's also intelligent, loved by the press, and viewed favorably by a majority of American voters. McCain is viewed as a moderate, which makes him a tempting choice for self-described "independents."  Sure, the most conservative wing of the Republican party doesn't like him, but once he's the nominee, they'll shut up and support him.  They always have, and they will this time, too.  That's life in a winner-take-all two-party system.

Now on to the deeper reasons.  During the general election this fall, ignorant people will be heard for the first time.  Voters in presidential primaries are political junkies, but they make up only 3-4% of the population.  During a general election, though, millions of people will vote who are almost completely ignorant of the political system and the details of both parties' policy positions.

The personalities of the presidential candidates -- and most definitely not the issues -- will be a decisive factor for these voters.  Northern Europeans often misunderstand American elections.  Voters in places like Germany or Sweden are content to elect dull but competent technocrats, since governing, to them, is less taking the reins of destiny than competently managing a complex organization -- the modern European welfare state.  Large numbers of American voters, though, want to be entertained and inspired even, perhaps especially, by their politicians.  So the questions become: Is the candidate likable? Does he seem trustworthy? Sincere? Inspiring? Decisive? Is there an exciting or unusual arc to his his life that would make me feel part of a wonderful story if I voted for him?

So now many of you are saying: yeah, but how about Obama and Hillary Clinton?  First black or female president?  What's not exciting about that?

Nothing!  But keep in mind the Lee Marvin effect.  Imagine a spectrum.  On the left end, you have effete, chain-smoking French intellectuals.  Just to pick a name out of the blue, we'll populate this end of the spectrum with Gilles "Plane of Immanence" Deleuze:

Not that I have anything against Deleuze, mind you -- he just represents a certain approach to life that mainstream American voters have decided opinions about.

On the right hand of the spectrum, you have tough, decisive, virile, taciturn men of action.  A man who doesn't waste words or mince them, who doesn't swan about, and who gets the damn job done.  My pick would be Lee Marvin.  I guess what I really mean is the kind of characters Lee Marvin played, but even in his private life, Lee Marvin's seed was so desired by the womenfolk of his land that judges often had to sort things out:

Take all recent presidential elections, and locate the candidates on the Deleuze-Marvin spectrum.  John Kerry failed to conceal the fact that he spoke French, so his placement is clear:

Deleuze <------------Kerry-----------------Bush------------------>Marvin

Now to Al Gore.  Sure, his family came from Tennessee, but the man wrote books.  About the environment.  And sometimes even discussed foreign philosophers:

Deleuze<-----------------------Gore--------Bush------------------>Marvin

Clinton and Dole is pretty much a toss-up, I'd say.  But Clinton-Bush I, no question.  George H.W. Bush was tall, elegant, patrician, lived in a giant house in Maine, and liked the word "prudent."  Bill Clinton grew up in a two-bit chicken shack in Arkansas (well, sort of), and spoke with an audible Southern accent.  And, of course, his seed was also in high demand, at least in his eyes [revise!! -- ed.]:

Deleuze<----------------Bush--------------Clinton---------------->Marvin

I hardly need to do the Reagan/Mondale and Bush I/Dukakis comparisons, do I? 

A caveat or two.  First, it's not how close the candidate is to the Marvin end of the spectrum that's particularly important, but where he is relative to the other candidate.  This is why George Bush I, while clearly less Lee-Marvinesque than Bill Clinton nevertheless creamed the diminutive, squeaky-voiced technocrat Michael Dukakis, who might as well have campaigned while wearing a chamois beret and chain-smoking Gauloises from an onyx holder. The larger the distance between the candidates on the Deleuze/Marvin Spectrum the greater the advantage for the Marvinesque candidate.  Other factors come into play only when the candidates are close.

Now, some of you are protesting: this is all so damned superficial!  What about the economy?  Iraq?  The mortgage crisis?  They will be important, but not decisive.  People like me, who sit around and read books all day, we care about policy issues.  But we're freaks.  The considerations that sway great masses of voters are superficial.  They will pick the candidate they like and admire -- someone who makes them feel part of a grand, inspiring narrative.  They will pick John McCain.

That's why I will hereby confidently predict that John McCain, if nominated, will beat either Clinton or Obama. I'm so confident I've put this prediction in bold type, and will leave it up until this November, come what may.

Why am I so confident?  Because of the gigantic distance between John McCain and either Clinton or Obama on the Deleuze/Marvin spectrum.  John McCain, you see, actually is Lee Marvin.  No, wait, it's even better than that -- he's the kind of man Lee Marvin only pretended to be.  A patriotic Navy fighter pilot who spent five years being tortured by Communists!  An ornery, confident maverick who says what he thinks and defies party orthodoxy to take independent stands when conscience compels him!  A friendly, relaxed truth-teller who can tell a joke and honestly admits to (some of) his failings!

Are all these narratives 100% accurate?  Of course not, but that's beside the point.  They are deeply-established, and will color every voter's perception of McCain.  Just as you do with anyone you like, voters who like him -- and there are many of those -- will fit any political missteps or blunders into an overarching narrative of likability.  Occasional fits of rage?  What do you expect from a decisive man of action?  Doesn't understand the economy?  Sure, but neither do I.  It reassures me to know the candidate's a regular guy like me in some respects, and I'm sure he'll pick good aides.  Besides, he came right out and admitted it!  When's the last time a politician did that?  Etc., etc., etc.

Barring some drastic turn in events, neither Hillary nor Obama will be able to hold a candle to McCain's charisma.  Hillary will seem too evasive and too studied, and besides, large numbers of Americans already think they know her, do not like her, and will not change their minds.  Obama will seem embarrassingly fresh-faced and inexperienced next to McCain, and his "uniter, not a divider" message will be neutralized by McCain's actual history of reaching across party lines on occasion.

The upside is that John McCain, whatever you think of his political views, is not a blundering amateur.  Therefore, his presidency cannot but be a improvement over the status quo.

The Continuing Crisis Part VII

America's sneezed a couple of times, and Germany's catching a cold (G).  But according to a couple of recent articles, America may be in for a severe flu, which will put Germany in intensive care.

The most interesting part of the story is the subprime crisis, which we all find a transatlantic high-finance morality play (don't we?).  Latest signs indicate it is spreading far beyond mortgage loans.  According to this MarketWatch article, bond insurance agencies are now being downgraded, which could trigger further financial meltdowns.  This article in the Wall Street Journal gives some background to the current problems:

At the center of these concerns is a vast, barely regulated market in which banks, hedge funds and others trade insurance against debt defaults. This isn't like life insurance or homeowners' insurance, which states regulate closely. It consists of financial contracts called credit-default swaps, in which one party, for a price, assumes the risk that a bond or loan will go bad. This market is vast: about $45 trillion, a number comparable to all of the deposits in banks around the world.

Essentially, it goes like this.  You are a housing construction firm (or a city), and you want to build a new subdivision.  You issue corporate bonds to finance the cost of the new construction.  Normally, the risk of you defaulting on your bond would be built into the interest rate: the more risk to the person who buys the bond, the higher the nominal rate (although bond valuation is a lot more complex than this in reality).

The Man in the Street on Kidnapping Foreigners

The Onion interviews ordinary Americans about the desirability of kidnapping Brits:

Friday, December 7, 2007

Kidnapping British People Legal

A lawyer for the U.S. government told the Court of Appeal in London that the United States could legally kidnap citizens of other countries because it was sanctioned by the Supreme Court. What do you think?

Linda Sai,
Systems Analyst
"People abroad must learn that America lives in our hearts, and that gives us the right to do whatever we want, wherever we want."

Mark Solomon,
Video Editor
"I vote to kidnap those posh birds from Nuts Magazine. They've got a right set of baps on them."

Ken Ralston,
Gas Station Attendant
"Look on the bright side. They'll get a fantastic exchange rate on legal fees."

Why the WestLB is in Trouble

I am fascinated by the current meltdown in the credit industry, which is currently smashing a hole in WestLB's bottom line (G) and will hit other German financial institutions before it's over.

The cause of the crisis is hard for outsiders to understand, but don't feel stupid.  The crisis itself was caused, as far as I can tell, by the fact that the financial instruments now going bust were hard even for insiders to understand.  Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post does a good job here of initiating us into the mysteries and explaining why the current crisis is "way more serious than the junk bond crisis of 1987, the S&L crisis of 1990 or the bursting of the tech bubble in 2001."  Fasten your seat belts and read on:

By now, almost everyone knows that most mortgages are no longer held by banks until they are paid off: They are packaged with other mortgages and sold to investors much like a bond.

In the simple version, each investor owned a small percentage of the entire package and got the same yield as all the other investors. Then someone figured out that you could do a bigger business by selling them off in tranches corresponding to different levels of credit risk. Under this arrangement, if any of the mortgages in the pool defaulted, the riskiest tranche would absorb all the losses until its entire investment was wiped out, followed by the next riskiest and the next.

With these tranches, mortgage debt could be divided among classes of investors. The riskiest tranches -- those with the lowest credit ratings -- were sold to hedge funds and junk bond funds whose investors wanted the higher yields that went with the higher risk. The safest ones, offering lower yields and Treasury-like AAA ratings, were snapped up by risk-averse pension funds and money market funds. The least sought-after tranches were those in the middle, the "mezzanine" tranches, which offered middling yields for supposedly moderate risks.

Stick with me now, because this is where it gets interesting. For it is at this point that the banks got the bright idea of buying up a bunch of mezzanine tranches from various pools. Then, using fancy computer models, they convinced themselves and the rating agencies that by repeating the same "tranching" process, they could use these mezzanine-rated assets to create a new set of securities -- some of them junk, some mezzanine, but the bulk of them with the AAA ratings more investors desired.

It was a marvelous piece of financial alchemy, one that made Wall Street banks and the ratings agencies billions of dollars in fees. And because so much borrowed money was used -- in buying the original mortgages, buying the tranches for the CDOs [collateralized debt obligations] and then in buying the tranches of the CDOs -- the whole thing was so highly leveraged that the returns, at least on paper, were very attractive. No wonder they were snatched up by British hedge funds, German savings banks, oil-rich Norwegian villages and Florida pension funds.

U.S. Asserts Right to Kidnap Foreign Nationals

The Times Online reports that a lawyer representing the United States in a British court

has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States. A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects.

The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.

The 1992 United States Supreme Court case which states that foreigners abducted and brought to face trial in the U.S. have no legal remedy is United States v. Alvarez-Machain:

"[Alvarez-Machain] contends that the [U.S.-Mexico extradition] Treaty must be interpreted against the backdrop of customary international law, and that international abductions are "so clearly prohibited in international law" that there was no reason to include such a clause in the Treaty itself. The international censure of international abductions is further evidenced, according to respondent, by the United Nations Charter and the Charter of the Organization of American States. Respondent does not argue that these sources of international law provide an independent basis for the right respondent asserts not to be tried in the United States, but rather that they should inform the interpretation of the Treaty terms.

The Supreme Court essentially held that if the extradition treaty between the U.S. and another country doesn't explicitly say abductions aren't allowed, they are.  You may agree with this reasoning (although I can't see why any non-American would) or, like the dissenting judges, you may think the majority is "disregarding the Rule of Law that this Court has a duty to uphold."  Keep in mind, however, that the Supreme Court decision only allows the practice (or, more precisely, says there is no legal remedy against it).  The U.S. government could adopt a policy that it would not kidnap foreign nationals and bring them to trial in the U.S.

That hasn't happened.  Instead, the Bush Administration has decided, before the courts of its closest foreign ally, to publicly claim the right to kidnap foreign nationals.  A spokesman for a British human rights group says  “This law may date back to bounty hunting days, but they should sort it out if they claim to be a civilised nation," and a Tory MP calls "the very idea of kidnapping repugnant to us."  The Justice Department, asked to respond, provided a careful and well-reasoned explanation of U.S. policy that assuaged the concerns of its close ally declined to comment.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if the U.S. wants to improve its image abroad, proudly claiming a right to do something which would provoke howls of protest if another country did it to an American is a pretty crappy way of going about it.

Fake Journalism, Real Ignorance

My point in the last post, and one I rarely tire of making, is to highlight the taboo against intruding too far into the private lives of public figures that we still see in (especially northern) European public discourse.  Kohl's criticism of Thierse's performance in office -- however nasty -- is fair game, because it relates to his performance in office.  But when he went into Kohl's private life, he went to far, as even he recognized (and I assume he did apologize personally to Kohl in the letter). 

There are many reasons for this discretion, likely including a cultural tradition of respect for the private sphere, and a sense of decorum between journalists and politicians, who are generally both members of elite groups.  But another important factor is the belief that the public needs much more information about what politicians stand for in their public lives than what they do in their private lives.  Most journalists here have an ethos which recognizes that "bad news" -- in the sense of trivial speculation about politicians' private lives -- will tend to drive out "good news" -- in the sense of reporting about public policy and substantive differences between the political parties.  Why will bad news drive out good news?  Because it's easier for journalists to write, and because lots of ordinary people are interested in gossip about public figures.  You can sell lots of newspapers with trivial gossip about politicians' and officials' private lives.

Let's look at the United States, where virtually all media outlets are privately-owned.  Among the subjects covered intensely in the past few years in the mainstream media have been John Edwards' haircut, whether Hillary Clinton prefers diamonds or pearls, what kind of underwear her husband wears, the state of the marriages of all presidential candidates, including whether they've committed adultery or been divorced, the clothes Al Gore picks, or whether he is too fat, or what his beard looks like (it "has become the subject of intense analysis"), George W. Bush's taste for mountain biking, or whether former Presidential Candidate Howard Dean's wife should have played more of a role in his campaign.  Trust me, I could go on, and on, and on.  (Want hundreds more examples, and I mean literally hundreds?  Troll the archives here.)  Let us not forget that in the summer of 2001, the American media was obsessed with the warning signs of a potential terror attack whether an obscure Congressman might have had something to do with the disappearance of an attractive female aide (turns out he didn't).

News from Heidelberg About U.S. Military Plans

Here's an interesting report from the Altercation blog:

I got a letter the other day from a faculty member at the University of Maryland's overseas division in Europe. UM is the primary university providing classes for U.S. service members abroad. Here it is: "The reason that I am writing today is to inform you of something rather unsettling. Last weekend, we had a Europe-wide faculty meeting at our headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany. At that meeting, we were told that the U of MD military education contracts will be expanding soon to Iraq, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Djibouti, and other locations in the Middle East and Africa. This comes as no surprise.

"What is startling is that the U.S. military has also asked us to prepare a bid for educational programs in IRAN and SYRIA (and, oddly enough, France -- where we have had no presence since NATO was expelled in 1967 -- probably a function of the new conservative government there). We will be bidding on an education contract to these locations at the end of November."

This is a truly ominous development. The U of MD overseas program follows the military around the world -- thus clearly the contingencies for an occupation of several Middle Eastern countries is not only being contemplated, but actually set up."

Hard to know what to think about this.  Perhaps this is just routine contingency planning.  In any case, it seems sensible to endorse the appeal of the blog's author, Eric Alterman: "Could someone with an expense account from a major media corporation still interested in journalism please look into this?"  How about it, European journalists?

A Message from a Lawyer in Pakistan

The recent unrest in Pakistan is about much more than regional politics -- it is an attempt to destr