JustOneMinute

Charles Blow recently deplored the lack of authentic diversity at a Dallas Tea Party, describing it as a "minstrel show".  Conor Friedersdorf notes the heads they lose problem being faced by the Tea Party:

It’s this kind of piece that causes people on the right to think that on matters of race, they’re damned if they do, and they’re damned if they don’t — if they don’t make efforts to include non-whites they’re unenlightened propagators of privilege, and if they do make those efforts they’re the cynical managers of a minstrel show, but either way, race is used as a cudgel to discredit them in a way that would never be applied to a political movement on the left.

Jut so.  Meanwhile, I am eagerly awaiting a correction on this from Mr. Blow:

A New York Times/CBS News poll released on Wednesday found that only 1 percent of Tea Party supporters are black and only 1 percent are Hispanic. It’s almost all white.

It's almost all white and he has the pictures to prove it.  Ooops, my bad - that was a link to the NY Times Board of Directors, which seems to be utterly free of any Hispanic, black or Asian presence. 

Anyway, the NY Times poll reported the Tea Party as 89% white, which makes them a lot more diverse than the Times Board.  And contra Mr. Blow, the Tea Party is reported to be 3% Hispanics.  That won't change his point (as if anything would) but it would be nice to see the Times present the correct figures.

What's black and white but not read by Times columnist Charles Blow?  The NY Times!

Here is Mr. Blow, the poor man's Bob Herbert, ponders the absence of racial diversity at a Dallas Tea Party rally and tells us this:

A New York Times/CBS News poll released on Wednesday found that only 1 percent of Tea Party supporters are black and only 1 percent are Hispanic. It’s almost all white.

Well, the Times/CBS poll made available to the rest of us had slightly different stats (p. 41):  The Tea Party polled as 1% black, 3% Hispanic, 1% Asian, 6% "Other".  3% of respondents declined to self-identify.

That contrasts with the overall group of respondents (including the Tea Partiers), which were 12% black, 12% Hispanic, and 3% Asian.

The Tea Party is still mostly white - per the Times, it is 89% white.  That makes for a vivid contrast with America, which is 77% white.  Whether 89% reaches the level of "almost all white" is an editorial call, but the assertion that the Tea Party is 1% Hispanic merits a correction.

When you assume, you make an ass out of "u" and me.  I am reminded of this wisdom when reading Goldman's extended response to the SEC civil complaint against them, which includes this gem:

Goldman Sachs Never Represented to ACA That Paulson Was Going To Be A Long Investor.  The SEC’s complaint accuses the firm of fraud because it didn’t disclose to one party of the transaction who was on the other side of that transaction.  As normal business practice, market makers do not disclose the identities of a buyer to a seller and vice versa. Goldman Sachs never represented to ACA that Paulson was going to be a long investor.

Hmm.  Per the complaint, Goldman described Paulson as a "sponsor" of the transaction; per Felix Salmon, in normal usage that would mean a long investor, an impression Goldman further promoted by alluding to Paulson in the context of the residual equity tranche.  And then there is the email in which the Goldman dealmaker refers to the meeting amongst Paulson, Goldman, and the ACA dupes as "surreal". 

But to be fair, if the SEC had the smoking email or memo in which Goldman specifically presented Paulson as a long investor they would have included it.  And the trial should be fun (if we get that far), as the SEC attorneys try to get the ACA people to admit to being dupes and fools.

Still, if the Goldman defense is that their high priced smoke and fog generators worked, well, good luck with that.  The SEC is going to insist that disclosure means more than creating a mis-impression and then failing to correct it.

Salmon describes the ABC role as useful idiots here, and offers the Abacus pitch book as a prime example of non-disclosure.

The NY Times reports good news about immigration and manages to conflate it to their own editorial ends:

In 14 of the 25 largest metropolitan areas, including Boston, New York and San Francisco, more immigrants are employed in white-collar occupations than in lower-wage work like construction, manufacturing or cleaning.

The data belie a common perception in the nation’s hard-fought debate over immigration — articulated by lawmakers, pundits and advocates on all sides of the issue — that the surge in immigration in the last two decades has overwhelmed the United States with low-wage foreign laborers.

Really?  My impression is that people calling for tighter control of our borders are worried about a surge in illegal immigration.  Conflating that with legal immigration, including the H1B visa program, is absurd.

Doc Drezner summarizes the study.

Hainmueller and Hiscox are arguing that material self-interest does not explain attitudes about immigration.  The findings suggest one of two possibilities:  simple prejudice, or concerns that low-skilled immigration negatively affect overall U.S. welfare. 

And from the Times:

Americans are inclined to welcome upper-tier immigrants — like Ms. Kollman-Moore — believing they contribute to economic growth without burdening public services, the study found. More than 60 percent of Americans are opposed to allowing more low-skilled foreign laborers, regarding them as more likely to be a drag on the economy.

On the topic of Tea Parties, anger and Bill Clinton Michael Moynihan of Reason offers this:

So after the Frank Rich "they-are-all-Bull-Connor" arguments, we are back to the "they-are-all-potential-Tim-McVeigh" arguments, this time courtesy of Bill Clinton. Is there evidence to substantiate such a claim? Well, no. But there is, after all, "the rise of extremist voices on talk radio...[and] you have a billion Internet sites." Potential fertilizer bombers, all of them.

The fertilizer I spread around here will not explode.  Just so you know.

Krauthammer on the Obama's nuclear summit:

Obama's nuclear strutting and fretting

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, April 16, 2010; A25

There was something oddly disproportionate about the just-concluded nuclear summit to which President Obama summoned 46 world leaders, the largest such gathering on American soil since 1945. That meeting was about the founding of the United Nations, which 65 years ago seemed an event of world-historical importance.

But this one? What was this great convocation about? To prevent the spread of nuclear material into the hands of terrorists. A worthy goal, no doubt. Unfortunately, the two greatest such threats were not even on the agenda.

The first is Iran, which is frantically enriching uranium to make a bomb, and which our own State Department identifies as the greatest exporter of terrorism in the world.

Nor on the agenda was Pakistan's plutonium production, which is adding to the world's stockpile of fissile material every day.

When do we abandon Obama's 80's flashbacks and talk about jobs, jobs, jobs?

The SEC is filing a civil suit against Goldman, Sachs [here is the complaint]:

The instrument in the S.E.C. case, called Abacus 2007-AC1, was one of 25 deals that Goldman created so the bank and select clients could bet against the housing market. Those deals, which were the subject of an article in The New York Times in December, initially protected Goldman from losses when the mortgage market disintegrated and later yielded profits for the bank.

As the Abacus deals plunged in value, Goldman and certain hedge funds made money on their negative bets, while the Goldman clients who bought the $10.9 billion in investments lost billions of dollars.

According to the complaint, Goldman created Abacus 2007-AC1 in February 2007, at the request of John A. Paulson, a prominent hedge fund manager who earned an estimated $3.7 billion in 2007 by correctly wagering that the housing bubble would burst.

Goldman let Mr. Paulson select mortgage bonds that he wanted to bet against — the ones he believed were most likely to lose value — and packaged those bonds into Abacus 2007-AC1, according to the S.E.C. complaint. Goldman then sold the Abacus deal to investors like foreign banks, pension funds, insurance companies and other hedge funds.

But the deck was stacked against the Abacus investors, the complaint contends, because the investment was filled with bonds chosen by Mr. Paulson as likely to default. Goldman told investors in Abacus marketing materials reviewed by The Times that the bonds would be chosen by an independent manager.

“The product was new and complex, but the deception and conflicts are old and simple,” Robert Khuzami, the director of the S.E.C.’s division of enforcement, said in a statement. “Goldman wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio, while telling other investors that the securities were selected by an independent, objective third party.”

Knowing nothing other than what I am reading here, that sounds like a winnable suit for the SEC.  So why hasn't Goldman settled?  My current wild guess - a spate of private lawsuits will come in the wake of this action if it succeeds.

FROM THE COMPLAINT:

Tourre was principally responsible for ABACUS 2007-AC1. Tourre devised the transaction, prepared the marketing materials and communicated directly with investors. Tourre knew of Paulson’s undisclosed short interest and its role in the collateral selection process. Tourre also misled ACA into believing that Paulson invested approximately $200 million in the equity of ABACUS 2007-AC1 (a long position) and, accordingly, that Paulson’s interests in the collateral section process were aligned with ACA’s when in reality Paulson’s interests were sharply conflicting.

More details follow.  Seems pretty damning.

Fun's fun, but we have to go with Krugman here - not even Sweden nationalized all of its banks.

Oh, well - let me go back to a darker day when I grasped the extent of Krugman's nationalizing schemes but thought his notion was absurd:

Nationalizing one bank will freeze private equity investment in many others while people await developments.  But setting that aside, what is the precedent?  Krugman is taking his inspiration from the successful nationalization of some Swedish banks in the 90's.  For heaven's sake - two banks no one ever heard of on the periphery of international finance were successfully nationalized by the Swedes, so therefore the US government can manage two (or more!) of the largest, most complicated, most interwoven institutions in global finance.

My simple test for advocates of nationalization - name the Swedish banks that were nationalized.  And good luck; most people will have a better chance naming the members of ABBA.  (You might find the names here, here, or here or in two efforts by the Cleveland Fed.)

I still can't pass that test.

WAVE IN THE REF: Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt makes the call for Krugman but gives us this insight into Krugman's character:

Krugman and Sorkin told me that they talked Thursday. Sorkin said the conversation was “very cordial.” Krugman called it “not much fun.” They agreed that they disagree on the definition of nationalization.

Well, Krugman isn't having fun unless he is denouncing someone.

Interesting - Team Obama indicts a Bush-era leaker: [the newspaper is reported by Fox and the Times, sort of, as the Baltimore Sun; see NOW WE KNOW, below]

A former senior executive with the National Security Agency has been indicted on 10 felony charges related to the alleged leaking of classified information to a national newspaper in 2006 and 2007, the Justice Department announced Thursday morning.

Thomas A. Drake, 52, headed an office in the NSA's Signals Intelligence Directorate at Fort Meade between 2001 and 2005, and continued to work with the agency as a high-ranking contractor through 2008, U.S. officials said. The indictment alleges that Drake exchanged hundreds of e-mails with an unidentified reporter for a national newspaper and served as a source for its articles about Bush administration intelligence policies between February 2006 and November 2007, U.S. officials said.

Captain Ed of Hot Air takes the money bet and guesses we are talking about a NY Times source here.  I'll say, maybe.  The WaPo and USA Today eventually got some stories, and the first big NY Times story was from the fall of 2004 (they held it until December 2005); if Mr. Drake's indictment really covers articles beginning in Feb 2006, he had to be a secondary source for the Times, which is entirely possible.

But let me just toss in this WaPo story from Feb 5, 2006, which has 'NSA' all over it.  And USA Today broke the names of some cooperating phone companies (as best memory serves, here) in Feb 2006.  (This EFF page provides a good cheat sheet of the big NSA stories.)

Leslie Cauley led the charge on the USA Today stories, but she came at it from the business side, not the cloak and dagger part of the room.  So since I can't have the Times, I'll bet on the WaPo.  To be fair, let's note that The Politico is backing Ms. Cauley as the dark horse.

NOW WE KNOW:  From Fox:

In an indictment unsealed Thursday, federal prosecutors said 52-year-old Thomas Drake illegally retained classified information, passed some of that classified information to a reporter with the The Baltimore Sun, who was identified only as "Reporter A," and then tried to cover up his actions.

"Our national security demands that the sort of conduct alleged here - violating the government's trust by illegally retaining and disclosing classified information - be prosecuted and prosecuted vigorously," Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer said in a statement.

Fox News has learned that "Reporter A" is Siobhan Gorman, who now works for The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by the same company that owns Fox News.

And Scott Shane of the Times:

The indictment, handed down on Wednesday by a grand jury in Baltimore, does not name either the reporter who received the information or the newspaper, but the description fits articles written by Siobhan Gorman, then a reporter for The Baltimore Sun, that examined in detail the failings of several major N.S.A. modernization programs and problems with supplying its huge electric power demands. Some of her articles were honored with a top prize from the Society for Professional Journalists.

The N.S.A., which monitors phone calls, e-mail messages and other electronic communications, had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to update its systems to collect and sort the huge amount of data it was collecting. The modernization programs were plagued with technical failures and cost overruns, and Ms. Gorman, who now works for The Wall Street Journal, was the reporter who most aggressively covered the problems.

WHERE ARE THOSE LONG-FORGOTTEN TALKING POINTS WHEN WE NEED THEM?  There was a time when something like this, especially from The Captain, would set me off or turn me gray:

Oddly, though, the same people who expressed outrage over the exposure of Valerie Plame as a CIA analyst never got terribly exercised over these breaches of national security (and to be fair, the same holds true in reverse). 

Ahhh!  There has never been evidence that Richard Armitage, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer or anyone else thought that they were revealing a Big Secret when they mentioned that Joe Wilson had been picked by his wife to check out a story from Niger.  Nor is there evidence that Bob Novak thought it was particularly consequential when he published it.  Nor is there evidence that it was in fact consequential, other than as a political club for beating Republicans.

But it is quite clear (at least, from my seat here on the right) that some of the Times outings were unhelpful.

Dana Milbank watches Eric Holder flounder and flail:

Eric Holder is a Guantanamo Bay prisoner.

He's not imprisoned at Gitmo, but he's imprisoned by Gitmo. The Justice Department he leads, and to some extent the whole Obama administration, has been detained -- tortured, even -- by the star-crossed attempt to close the military prison.

It began in the first hours of the administration, when Obama pledged to close Gitmo without a plan for doing so. It got infinitely worse in November, when Holder announced that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed would be tried in New York City.

So when Holder came before the Senate Judiciary Committee for questioning Wednesday morning, Democrats and Republicans confronted the attorney general with the same question: What's the plan? And Holder had no answer.

The plan was to strike a "Not Bush" pose, which was great fun while it lasted.

Following the Times story that Obama has taken a new direction on Israel, we see from Laura Rozen that the deputy US Ambassador to the UN has urged that body forward into the MidEast breach.

In describing Obama's apparent decision to blame Israel for the (eternal) lack of progress on peace talks, the Times resorts to a bit of "Bush did it, too" subterfuge:

The glimmers of daylight between United States and Israeli interests began during President George W. Bush’s administration, when the United States became mired in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Three years ago, Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state, declared during a speech in Jerusalem that a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians was a “strategic interest” of the United States. In comments that drew little notice at the time, she said, “The prolonged experience of deprivation and humiliation can radicalize even normal people.”

Let me help the Times find the context and complete the first quote:

Peace between Israelis and Palestinians is in the strategic interest of the United States, yet we will defend against any action, as we always have, that would compromise Israel's security. That is my commitment to you.

If Obama remembered the second part, the Times forgot to report it.

Here is the transcript of the press conference from which the Times extracted this story.  I think the President was extremely opaque, and the fact that it took two days for people to interpret his words makes me wonder whether there is some hype in play here; perhaps one faction or another is overstating the case in order to force the President forward, or back.  In any case, the Times did talk to "administration officials" and we do have the push at the UN, so something is moving.

However, Obama sidestepped an opportunity to bash Israel when asked at the press conference about Israel's non-signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  And his "vital strategic interest" comment was quite general:

Q    Thank you, Mr. President.  Good afternoon.  Given the progress you have cited in recent days on your foreign policy agenda, to what extent do you feel like you have gained political capital with which to take further to the international stage for the rest of this year, to perhaps rejuvenate some initiatives in trouble spots such as the Middle East and elsewhere?

THE PRESIDENT: ...And I remain committed to being a partner with countries around the world, and in particular hot spots around the world, to see if we can reduce those tensions and ultimately resolve those conflicts.  And the Middle East would be a prime example.  I think that the need for peace between Israelis and Palestinians and the Arab states remains as critical as ever. 

It is a very hard thing to do.  And I know that even if we are applying all of our political capital to that issue, the Israeli people through their government, and the Palestinian people through the Palestinian Authority, as well as other Arab states, may say to themselves, we are not prepared to resolve this -- these issues -- no matter how much pressure the United States brings to bear. 

And the truth is, in some of these conflicts the United States can’t impose solutions unless the participants in these conflicts are willing to break out of old patterns of antagonism. I think it was former Secretary of State Jim Baker who said, in the context of Middle East peace, we can’t want it more than they do. 

But what we can make sure of is, is that we are constantly present, constantly engaged, and setting out very clearly to both sides our belief that not only is it in the interests of each party to resolve these conflicts but it’s also in the interest of the United States.  It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them.  And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.

So I’m going to keep on at it.  But I think on all these issues -- nuclear disarmament, nuclear proliferation, Middle East peace -- progress is going to be measured not in days, not in weeks.  It’s going to take time.  And progress will be halting.  And sometimes we’ll take one step forward and two steps back, and there will be frustrations.  And so it’s not going to run on the typical cable news 24/7 news cycle.  But if we’re persistent, and we’ve got the right approach, then over time, I think that we can make progress.

For my money, someone ought to ask him about Kashmir - resolving that would reduce tensions between Pakistan and India, thereby helping to mitigate Pakistan's nuclear aspirations and support of terrorist groups aimed at India; it would also reduce Pakistan's need to promote allies in Afghanistan.

Well.  Kashmir won't be solved by the US or noted by the US press, but if glorious multi-national conferences are Obama's goal, it would be a great topic.

IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE GETTING NERVOUS ABOUT THIS: From the Volokh Conspiracy we find David Bernstein wondering why Obama is so sure that Palestinans even want a state.  They have reclaimed Gaza, the world is on their side - why not hold out for the whole ball of wax, which would include a right of return and perhaps the destruction of Israel?

And if a notable subset of Palestinians and the "Arab street" believe time is on their side, then the following suggestion by Barry Rubin and linked by Mr. Bernstein comes into play:

And so if Obama were to implement any conceivable negotiated solution--even an extremely pro-Palestinian one by Western standards--he'd be labelled as the man who sold out the Palestinians and go down in history as a betrayer and Zionist imperialist. I'd bet money on being able to collect a considerably large set of clippings denouncing him as worse--more "anti-Muslim" and "anti-Arab"--than George W. Bush! And if you think that isn't likely then, forgive me for saying so, you don't really understand how Middle East politics work.

Whoa!  Obama standing in the way of the (illegitimate) aspirations of the Palestinian people!

I'LL GIVE YOU A NEW DIRECTION:

From the Times:

The administration’s immediate priority, officials said, is jump-starting indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians. There is still a vigorous debate inside the administration about what to do if such talks were to go nowhere, which experts said is the likeliest result, given the history of such negotiations. Some officials, like Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, advocate putting forward an American peace plan, while others, like the longtime Middle East peace negotiator Dennis B. Ross, who now works in the National Security Council, favor a more incremental approach.

Obama doesn't do incremental!  I say, offer the Palestinians subsidized participation in the new US health exchanges as part of a peace deal.  Then he can pin down two legacies at once.

I don't foresee any problems.

The Times did some polling on the Tea Party; their lead:

Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated 

By KATE ZERNIKE and MEGAN THEE-BRENAN

Tea party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, tend to be Republican, white, male, and married...

I await the day we see a Times story that opens "Obama supporters are poorer and less well-educated than the general public, tend to be Democratic, darker-complected, female, and single...".  Even though it might be true.

I am delighted to encourage Team Obama's use of drones against terrorists; if praising them pushes them forward, let's praise away!

However, the day may come when public sentiment turns against the use of drones (the left has already begun).  Come that day, when Team Obama segues to "Bush did it, too", they will be pleased to present the following accounting as a counterpoint to the current hype that "It is widely known that Obama has ordered more drone strikes in his year in office than George W. Bush did in his entire administration.

There are several of reasons Obama has ordered more strikes.  First, we have more and better drones, as well as more and more experienced pilots.

Secondly, a lot of drone usage occurred in the conventional battlefields of Iraq through the military chain of command; the "more drone strikes" refers to CIA-sponsored missions.

But, lest anyone doubt the martial ardor of Bush-Cheney, consider this:

The Obama Administration has dramatically increased the number of CIA drone attacks since taking office. Under President Bush, the CIA carried out only 2 strikes in 2006 and 3 in 2007. In July 2008, Bush increased the number of drone strikes, totaling 34 attacks in 2008. Most of the key CIA personnel from the Bush Administration’s drone program remain, but the Obama Administration has far outpaced its predecessor in the frequency of drone strikes. By October 19th, 2009, the CIA had conducted 41 strikes under President Obama, compared with the same number over three years under former President Bush. CIA drone strikes under the Obama Administration show no signs of abating. The agency has conducted 11 strikes in Pakistan during the first month of 2010.

By my arithmetic, Team Obama continued the pick-up of the pace that was established in July 2008.  In 2008 there were 34 strikes, mostly in the second half; in 2009, there were 41 strikes through the first ten and a half months.  Those numbers are not starkly different.  The eleven strikes in the first month of 2010 were prompted by the horrific Taliban attack that killed seven CIA people in late December.

But hey!  If praising Obama for his vision and courage is what it takes to get results, let's start singing.