Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Factchecking Bush

Posted on September 12, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Wow. That didn’t take long. Bush gives a press conference this morning and says,

Question: Did they misinform you when you said that no one anticipated the breach of the levees?

President Bush: No, what I was referring to is this. When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, whew. There was a sense of relaxation, and that’s what I was referring to. And I, myself, thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to. Of course, there were plans in case the levee had been breached. There was a sense of relaxation in the moment, a critical moment. And thank you for giving me a chance to clarify that.

In no time at all, the blogs expose this as a inconsistent with the facts we know. Or, if you prefer, a real whopper.

Posted in Unspeakably Awful (Katrina) | 10 Comments

It’s Getting Harder and Harder To Tell Truth from Fiction

Posted on September 12, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Here’s a little test of your acumen. Can you tell (without clicking the links) if

A) Both I & II are true

B) Both I & II are parodies

C) I is true but II is a parody

D) I is a parody but II is true

Remember, no clicking links until you’ve picked one of the above.

I. Everyone is a Meteorologist Now

Dateline: Hollywood – ROBERTSON BLAMES HURRICANE ON CHOICE OF ELLEN DEGENERES TO HOST EMMYS: Hollywood — Pat Robertson on Sunday said that Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of expressing its anger at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for its selection of Ellen Degeneres to host this year’s Emmy Awards.

… Robertson added that other tragedies of the past several years can be linked to Degeneres’ growing national prominence. September, 2003, for example, is both the month that her talk show debuted and when insurgents first gained a foothold in Iraq following the successful March invasion. “Now we know why things took a turn for the worse,” he explained.

II. They’re Under the Bed Too!

There’s controvery over a planned memorial to Flight 93 — the flight hijacked 9/11 in which passengers fought back and which crashed in Pennsylvania.

A committee was formed of surviving 9/11 family members, people from the community and designers/architects. They solicited proposals for a fitting memorial to be built on the crash site and received an amazing 1100+ entries!

After several elimination rounds a winner was chosen… The stunning “Crescent of Embrace” design by Paul and Milena Murdoch, architects, of California … will feature a “Tower of Voices, containing 40 wind chimes — one for each passenger and crew member who died — and two stands of red maple trees that will line a walkway caressing the natural bowl shape of the land. Forty separate groves of red and sugar maples will be planted behind the crescent, and a black slate wall will mark the edge of the crash site, where the remains of those who died now rest,” according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Not everyone is pleased, however: Michelle Malkin blogs to warn about the proposed design, because it’s a crescent. And bin You Know Who loves crescents.

“Is this a coincidence, an example of amazing cluelessness, or something more deliberate?” Malkin asks, approvingly quoting a blogger from Little Green Footballs. Also quoted approvingly from another source: “What next–a holocaust memorial in the shape of a swastika?”

Hints as to the answers below.

Continue reading →

Posted in Politics: US | Comments Off on It’s Getting Harder and Harder To Tell Truth from Fiction

It Can’t Happen Here

Posted on September 12, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

In totalitarian countries, when they want to have a march and make good TV pictures, or pack a street for an address by the Dear Leader or the Chairman or whomever, they just tell all the cadre and the bureaucrats that they will be required to march.

We don’t do that here, because we have a professional and non-political civil service.

Oops. Well we didn’t used to to do that sort of thing. But now we do.

And what’s a “freedom march” without tight control, coerced participation, and roughing up dissidents while the police look on,

One protester, Rik Silverman, 27, of Arlington said he was holding a sign that said, “Shame on You” when a marcher leaned over the railing and punched him in the stomach. A U.S. Park Police officer wrote a report but no arrests were made.

UPDATE: Carpetbagger Report has more on the unFreedom at the ‘Freedom’ March: protestors had signs confiscated, and this disappearance jem from the NYT:

One man who registered for the walk was detained by a Pentagon police officer after he slipped a black hood over his head and produced a sign that read, “Freedom?”

The man was removed from the Pentagon registration area, handcuffed and taken away in a police car. It was not clear whether he was charged or simply detained and the police did not respond to messages requesting more information.

Posted in Civil Liberties | 1 Comment

What Goes Down Should Come Up

Posted on September 11, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

The site is up and down like a yo-yo today. Sorry about that. I’ve initiated inquiries as to why.

Posted in Discourse.net | 1 Comment

Plenty of Blame to Go Round (IV)

Posted on September 11, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

One issue that looks pretty raw right now was the local effort by neighboring Gretna to keep (black, poor) New Orleans residents from walking to safety–apparently because the route would have taken them right past (white, wealthier) people’s neighborhoods.

Start with the summary account offered by Kevin Drum — he has a good map. Then read Digby at hullabaloo for the details, and the outrage. Also Making Light. Ice the cake with this excerpt from an interview with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin in which he talks about the closing of the bridge:

That says that people value their property, and were protecting property, over human life. … I’m pissed about it. And I don’t know how many people died as a result of that.

Posted in Unspeakably Awful (Katrina) | 4 Comments

Second Amendment, Anyone?

Posted on September 10, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Interesting debate at the Volokh conspiracy between David Kopel, New Orleans Gun Confiscation is Blatantly Illegal, and Orin Kerr, Response to David Kopel. Kopel’s original post has an update to respond to Kerr, who has a further post of his own.

I claim no relevant expertise, but in the past I have found Prof. Kerr’s work on statutory interpretation to be of the highest quality (we part company sometimes on constitutional interpretation). As for Kopel, well, Kopel’s approval of shooting New Orleans ‘looters’ is a view that justly revolts reasonable people. Of course the demerits of a speaker don’t necessarily reflect on his cause.

Personally, I do not think private ownership of guns has on balance proved to be a social good, espeicially in urban areas, but I recognize that the Second Amendment protects them (up to a point, whose exact extent I remain uncertain about) whatever I may think. More generally, if we’re going to argue for expansive constructions of other parts of the Bill of Rights — and I sure am — I think the Second Amendment gets to come along for the ride. Thus, although my knee jerks that the confiscations are suspect, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a court would side with Prof. Kerr.

Posted in Civil Liberties | 3 Comments