TYCO

Someone just pointed out to me that the trial of the Tyco executives is a battle between the people who paid $6,000 for a shower curtain and the people who paid $600 for a toilet seat.

 
A CLASSIC GUARDIAN HATCHET JOB

The Guardian reports that the rank and file at the BBC is upset. Management is conducting its own inquiry into the sexed up report about the government sexing up the WMD intelligence on Iraq.

Via InstantMan, of course. His reaction: Accountability is for other people. As ususal, I am a tad more long-winded.

This is a classic hatchet job. All of the allegations of one side are fully aired in eighteen or nineteen paragraphs, complete with references to Soviet style "justice" and Guantanamo, followed by two or three paragraphs of vague denials by the other side.

Senior BBC staff are threatening to take some flagship programmes off the air rather than face criticisms from an internal inquiry launched in the aftermath of Hutton. A remarkable series of internal battles, which has pitched some of Britain's most senior broadcasting figures against one another, has led to the threats. The inquiry, chaired by the BBC's director of policy, Caroline Thomson, has been described as a 'kangaroo court'.

Described by whom, please? Might it be the same people who are shouting "Politburo!" and "Guantanamo!" about those horrible management types who want to know what happened and how to avoid repeating it in the future?

Executives and presenters complained that the inquiry went against natural justice, was trying to find scapegoats for the Hutton debacle and had poisoned relations. The strength of feeling among senior BBC figures comes at a difficult time for Acting Director-General Mark Byford, who has been attacked for agreeing to the inquiry.

Inquiring into how and why the BBC came to broadcast extremely serious false and defamatory charges against the government "go against natural justice"? Does that refer to these guys? Or is the (unidentified) speaker stating that it is "natural justice" that the Beeb should be able to say anything, true or false, well founded or baseless, about anyone, prominent or obscure, and not be subject to any consequences whatever? Face it guys, Andrew Gilligan used the BBC to attempt to promote his personal political views by inserting into his report claims which he knew or should have known to be baseless and which he definitely knew to be extremely damaging to the government. Call me silly, but I think at an absolute minimum, Gilligan was extremely irresponsible.

Oh, and looking for scapegoats? Nothing in the balance of the article suggests that is a possibility. Did something get edited out? Well, not exactly. Some twenty three paragraphs into the article, "senior corporation sources" are quoted as saying that the inquiry is likely to focus on internal procedures, the letter sent to Alistair Campbell (the target of Gilligan's "sexing up" report) defending Gilligan and whether the Beeb could have done more to avoid much of the mess. But of course, that's not relevant to the claim that the Beeb is on a scapegoat hunt, so it shouldn't be reported for another twenty paragraphs.

I almost forgot: poisoned relations between whom? Management and rank and file? Question: Is it more important to avoid poisoning the relationship among people at the BBC or avoid poisoning public debate? And, I note in passing that Andrew Gilligan and the people doing the shouting about Gitmo, the Politburo and kangaroos have done the lion's share of the poisoning so far.

Byford hopes to become the next Director-General to succeed Greg Dyke, who resigned after Hutton. But staff said he could be presiding over 'mass walkouts' if individuals are attacked by the inquiry.

I guess that this is "the best defense is a strong offense" tactic. It is the same kind of thing that John Kerry is doing in the US Presidential race. Whenever someone from the other side quotes him or refers to one of his Senate votes, Kerry responds by saying that this is character assassination. By the same token, accurately reciting what someone did or didn't do in connection with Gilligan's sexed up report is "attacking" him.

Stars such as political editor Andrew Marr, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, and Today's John Humphrys and Jim Naughtie have all raised concerns at the process that has been likened to 'the BBC's own Guantanamo'.

That's right, Andrew Marr is being held incommunicado thousands of miles away from home in a 6x12 cell. He's allowed out to play soccer an hour a day. I'll bet he isn't being given English lessons, though, so its probably worse than Guantanamo.

The inquiry was launched to discover 'what went wrong' following the notorious 6.07am broadcast on Today, when Andrew Gilligan claimed that the Government had deliberately 'sexed up' evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Notice the scare quotes around what went wrong? Nothing went "wrong" at all. David Kelly is alive and well and living in the south of France. No one ever made false accusations about the Blair government and its alteration of intelligence for political purposes based on something Kelly never said. And, by the way, it was a little more than the 6:07 am broadcast. It was the essential repetition of the charges in subsequent broadcasts and newspaper articles David Kelly's suicide, Gilligan's attempts to mislead the Foreign Affairs Committee in a July 14 email ... The list goes on. And while we're on the subject, why is the broadcast now "notorious" instead of "erroneous"?

'[The inquiry] is pointless but, worse than that, they might get a rush of blood and decide more heads must roll,' said one very senior figure.

Isn't it obviously pointless to try and avoid having the BBC used to promote the politcal goals of its reporters at the expense of accurate reporting? And, of course, the people conducting the inquiry won't be able to help but unnecessarily fire people once this witch hunt starts. No one here had anything to do with Gilligan or his report. Nothing to see here. Move on.

'I think people would down tools: not just presenters, but producers and editors, and it might go higher than that. They've got a fight on their hands if they do anything to anyone.'

Anything to anyone? For any reason? My god, Gilligan used the BBC in an attempt to bring down the Blair government with a false report and no one should dare to inquire as to whether or not a single person should even be so much as slapped on the wrist? As far as the threat to "down tools" goes, be my guest (or, in more current vernacular, bring it on). Do you really think that you are that important to the Beeb that it would be paralyzed without you?

Richard Sambrook, head of news, Kevin Marsh, the editor of Today, and Stephen Mitchell, head of radio, were all called to give evidence.

None of the witnesses called was told what allegations they faced, whether any of the evidence they gave would be used against them or others, or whether the interviews were a 'disciplinary matter'.

Who said they were "facing" any allegations? And if you want to run this like a criminal inquiry, then may I suggest that you stop complaining that the disciplinary rules were provided?

Many staff said the inquiry had simply furthered the BBC's reputation as 'caving in' to the Government. The fact that the corporation launched its own investigation, expected to report in the next month, after Hutton's exhaustive inquiry, has led many to question the BBC's ability to put the events behind it.

It is just terrible that the Beeb, when faced with overwhelming evidence, recognized that its reporter did what he accused the governement of doing: He sexed up his report for personal reasons. Clearly the BBC is far worse off having acknowledged this fact. It will develop the reputation for "caving in" to facts. It would be far more desireable for the Beeb to continue to bury its head in the sand, allow the abuse to continue and develop a reputation for airing unfounded falsehoods.

'This inquiry has changed everything,' said one Today staffer. 'There is an atmosphere of nervousness.

What are you nervous about, Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous Staffer? Have you done the same thing as Gilligan did? If so, then you probably should be worried. If not, then there is nothing to be concerned about. Especially in light of the fact that the BBC says that the inquiry will be focused on internal procedures, the letter sent to Alistair Campbell (the target of Gilligan's "sexing up" report) defending Gilligan and whether the Beeb could have done more to avoid much of the mess. But again, that's not relevant to the claim someone is nervous about something that isn't the object of the investigation, so it shouldn't be reported until the end of the article.

'The management see it as a "truth and reconciliation" process that will heal us, but that is not what is happening. Even if they don't come up with any concrete findings, as I suspect will be the case, it will still have a lasting and very bad effect.'

And precisely what will that lasting effect be, other than to emphasize that its a real good idea to base your reports on what people actually say, rather than what you wish they would have said? I need concrete examples of how the Beeb is going to go down the toilet regardless of the outcome of the investigation.

Another senior member of BBC staff said that 'screens would go blank' if further attacks were made on respected staff for their part in Gilligan's original report and the subsequent battle between the BBC and Downing Street over its veracity.

No one in the entire United Kingdom would be the least bit interested in replacing anyone striking because people were fired for "their part in Gilligan's original report and the subsequent battle between the BBC and Downing Street over its veracity"? I have some recommendations. The list starts with Andrew Sullivan.

The highly public nature of the battle, led by Alastair Campbell, Number 10's former director of communications, led to the eventual 'outing' of the source of Gilligan's claims, Dr David Kelly.

Problem: David Kelly wasn't Gilligan's source. Gilligan had no source.

Kelly, a Ministry of Defence expert on WMD, committed suicide after an internal departmental inquiry questioned his 'unauthorised contacts' with the media. 'We apologised for mistakes during Hutton, we apologised for mistakes when the Hutton report was published, what do they want us to do, apologise again?' said another senior executive.

No, they want to find a way of trying to assure themselves that it won't happen again. That's their job.

Another person involved said that, from the outset, the inquiry's tone was set. 'They said "What went wrong", rather than "What happened",' he said. 'I think that says a lot about what they thought they might find.'

Nothing went wrong? Gilligan lied, Kelly committed suicide, the BBC was seriously embarrassed about a false and clearly baseless "news" story and nothing went wrong?

News staff said that the BBC was now much more cautious with stories than it had been in the past ...

Caution as a means of assuring accuracy in reporting is such a bad thing!

... and that the internal inquiry had meant that many senior executives were still bogged down in the Hutton aftermath.

Damn those senior executives. Can't they just come to grips with the fact that we should be able to report anything we want to, whether or not its based on something someone actually, you know, said? Why do they have to get bogged down (quagmire alert!) trying to prevent us from doing that?

Thomson, who is the partner of Downing Street policy adviser Roger Liddle, is undertaking the inquiry with Stephen Dando, the director of personnel. Critics point out that Thomson was directly involved in putting the BBC's case to Hutton.

'It's ridiculous. Is Thomson meant to interview herself about "what went wrong"?,' asked one BBC executive.

Basically, this is complaint states that, because the conclusions that Hutton came to were not acceptable, we call a "do-over", and the one person who, because of his involvement in the official Hutton inquiry, already knows more about this than anyone else at the BBC is an entirely inappropriate individual to conduct further internal inquiries. I agree. Let's start all over again and, by all means, the new inquiry should be led by someone who has no clue what anyone is talking about. Let's not contaminate this inquiry with any of the facts we already learned in the course of the Hutton investigation.

Although witnesses did not have official legal representation, many of them have hired lawyers. After criticisms that the inquiry amounted to a Politburo-style investigation, each was allowed to take a 'buddy' to the hearings. Marr, for example, accompanied Mark Damazer, the deputy director of news.

Well, which is it, big bad American Guantanamo style justice or big bad Soviet style Politburo justice? Are you headed to Cuba or Siberia?

Marsh was so nonplussed by his first interview that he refused to answer questions. A second series was launched last week and will continue for the next few days.

Let me make sure I understand this. The head of Today was so rattled when asked a question that he could not answer it? What does he do when he is asked a question on the job?

The BBC initially said that it was not a disciplinary inquiry, but witnesses were angered when a copy of the corporation's disciplinary guidelines were attached to letters from the inquiry team.

It is always a bad practice to tell people what disciiplinary rules are in effect. Isn't that just what the Politburo did? Isn't that what they're doing now in Gitmo? The fact that the inquiry might have, as a secondary consequence, some disciplinary fallout means that you must never tell people what the disciplinary rules are.

In an attempt to head off criticism, the BBC has now written to witnesses outlining the main areas of the inquiry.

Senior corporation sources said that it was likely that the inquiry would criticise internal procedures, rather than specific individuals.

Ah! The first evidence that someone on the other side of this story was interviewed. How many paragraphs down? Twenty three. And the general language is directly contradictory to the complaints voiced in the first twenty two paragraphs. So of course it should not be placed near the complaints it contradicts.

It is likely to focus on the 'defence letter' sent to Campbell by Sambrook, outlining why the BBC believed Gilligan's story to be justified. It will also look at whether the Governors could have done more to defuse the row when they had an emergency meeting after Kelly's death.

Senior BBC figures said there could even be some criticism of the way the Hutton case was handled, with some pointing out that the BBC should not have apologised for its errors in front of Hutton when the Government refused to do so.

A BBC spokesman said the corporation was unhappy about what he described as the 'unfair names' for the process being repeated outside the organisation. He added that the 'internal process' team was working 'as quickly as they possibly can' to complete its inquiries, although there is no official end-date in view.

Well, if you don't like being referred to as the Politburo, stop threatening to send people to Siberia, and if you don't like being analogized to Guantanamo, stop holding Andrew Marr incommunicado. What? That hasn't happened?

Oh. Never mind.

 
Everyone's commenting on the 14 year old (or 8 or 16 year old, depending on where you look) would be Palestinian suicide bomber in Israel.

The part I like the best was that he was paid in sheckels. The Palestinians apparently don't mind using that feelthy Joooooooooooooooo money.

 
Rand Simberg mentions that color TV is 50 years old today.

Color TV was invented at RCA. My father was a patent attorney at RCA (although not at that time) and liked to tell a story that had made the rounds there about the development of color.

The develpment procedure involved a team in one room operating a camera aimed at a bowl of fruit on a table, and a second team in another room receiving the signal from the camera. Halfway through the testing, the camera operators painted the banana in the fruitbowl blue. After much consternation on the signal receiving team, they called the camera team on the phone and told them that the banana looked great, but everything else was horrible.

 
THE ELECTION

Are you as skeptical as I am of those opinion polls showing Kerry leading Bush? Well, I think Kerry himself is just as skeptical. Here's why. Front runners never voluntarily agree to debates, much less propose them. And Kerry is proposing monthly debates. For the numerically challenged among us, that's eight.

 
MADRID

I wanted to write something about the bombing in Madrid. But I made the mistake of reading Lileks first. There's simply nothing more to say.

But it's all a front. If there’s a man sitting on a park bench reading about Buddhism: it’s a front. If there’s a woman at the mall with her head uncovered, it’s a front. If there’s a little girl in a school learning about the periodic table, it’s a front. If there’s two women in a park holding hands and sneaking a smooch, it’s a front. If there’s a guy in a room posting to his website his arguments for atheism, it’s a front. If you’re reading your child a story whose hero is a clever pig, you’re living on the edge of the front. If the appointed hour comes and the call to prayer doesn’t drift from the spiky towers, it’s a front.

So what do I hope I'll tell my child? Simple. It's over. We won.

 
DUKE DIVERSITY REDUX

More on diversity (of the political thought variety) at Duke.

My original posts are here (responding to this article), here (responding to this one) and here (responding to my very first (!) commenter).

InstantMan notes that, as a result of the widespread discussion in the press and blogosphere, Duke held a panel discussion. Only the faculty and administration got to speak. Please remember that this is the faculty that has already been documented to come almost entirely from one side of the political spectrum. And also note that it is likely that the administration (which hired the faculty) shares the political bent of the faculty. Question: Would a panel discussion concerning the racial or gender makeup of the Duke faculty in which no minorities or women were permitted to speak be received seriously? Anywhere?

If you can look beyond the seriously flawed makeup of the panel, its subject was "Does Political Affiliation Matter?" Isn't the answer blindingly obvious? When your presence on the Duke faculty predicts your political affiliation with near 100% accuracy, clearly your political affiliation is in some way related to your ability to get a position on the faculty at Duke. Don't bother trying to convince me that the fact that the faculty is uniformly Democratic is a result of random chance. Would such an assertion be given any credence whatsoever if the faculty were uniformly white male and the issue was racial or gender discrimination in hiring? No? Then why should I give the same argument credence in a situation where the issue is still discriminatory hiring, just not discrimination based on skin color?

I am not suggesting that there is any overt bias against hiring conservatives. I am certain that there is nothing in the Duke personnel manual about rejecting Republicans. But at the very least, the homogeneous nature of the faculty's political affiliation is partially the result of an environment in which liberals feel free to ridicule conservatives in terms which, if the situation were reversed, would land the speaker in hot water with the speech police. And that is discriminatory. If you have odious rules like speech codes (which, as noted below, Duke has) they should be applied uniformly. They are not.

Nor am I suggesting that the only proper result is for the faculty to reflect the same political spectrum as the general population. This is, as has been pointed out, a self selected group. There are bound to be factors which cause the group to differ from the general population, such as the availability of the time and money required to get a doctoral degree or a post doc, not to mention the desire to do so.

No, I think that the fact that Duke's faculty is uniformly Democratic shows us more about what the future would be like if the nation were under the control of the left wing of the already left leaning Democratic Party than anything else. I think that the future under either the religious right or the Deaniacs (remember, Howard Dean claims to represent the democratic wing of the Democratic Party) would be more than a little scary, because true believers, whatever part of the political spectrum they reside in, almost always end up doing the same types of damage to civil liberties.

My wife is convinced that civil liberties are currently under attack, and she believes that the attack is coming from the religious right. First, I agree that civil liberties are currently under attack. But then, they are almost always under attack. That is not intended to minimize the serious nature of the situation, just to emphasize that freedoms do not disappear in large chunks. They are slowly eroded, except in unusual situations. And I also agree that the religious right has a number of causes that conflict with civil liberties. They want to reduce or eliminate the right to abortion. They want to regulate my sex life. They want to limit what I can read or listen to on the radio or see on TV. They want to ban a specific form of speech: flag burning. These are all extremely important matters which bear directly on my ability to be and remain free of government interference in my life to the extent possible.

But the religious right is not alone in its attempt to curtail freedom in this country. The left also has its windmills.

The left starts off with the quite reasonable premise that officially sanctioned or overlooked discrimination against women and minorities is a bad thing and then advocates, as a remedy for discrimination which occurred in the past, officially sanctioned discrimination in favor of those minorities. The concept that one can acquire rights by reason of membership in one racial, ethnic or gender group or another is, to my mind, just as ridculous when applied to the advantage of white males as it is when applied to the advantage of, say, African American women. And I can't say often enough that imposing a new and different regime of government sponsored discriminatory rules will never result in the end of discrimination.

The left also has serious problems with free speech. They start off with the entirely reasonable position that everyone should be secure in their dignity and then adopt speech codes to protect people from "harassment" or "intimidation.". Duke University, for example, has a speech code. It is couched in terms of a policy against harassment, but it nonetheless regulates speech. It defines harassment as "the creation of a hostile or intimidating environment, in which verbal or physical conduct, because of its severity and/or persistence, is likely to interfere significantly with an individual?s work or education, or affect adversely an individual?s living conditions." (Emphasis added.) Well, when Professor Brandon feels perfectly free to ridicule and dismiss the political beliefs of others as "stupid" and suggest that students take the opportunity provided by contact with the professor's superior intellect to discard their stupid ideas and adopt those more in line with the professor's, might that not "interfere significantly with an individual's ... education"?

And when this potential violation of Duke's own speech code occurred, did anyone even consider the possibility that Brandon violated Duke's rules? No. Why not? Because the speech codes are not intended to be enforced against the people who adopted them, they are intended to be enforced only against "wrong thinking people." That's one reason that the speech codes are always so vague. If they were more precise in what types of speech that they banned, there would be no room to interpret them so as to apply them in a one sided manner. These days, on campus at least, the "wrong thinking people" are conservatives, and therefore the speech codes are applied almost uniformly to punish conservatives.

A more concrete example occurs regularly when campus conservatives hold "affirmative action bake sales," in which goods are sold at varying prices depending on the ethnic or racial affiliation of the customer. Intended to poke fun at affirmative action and make a political point, such events are regularly shut down by school authorities. Worse yet, more than occasionally the protesting conservatives are harassed or even physically attacked by other students, leading to intervention by campus police. And rather than protect the ability to conduct a lawful protest against school policies, the campus police shut down the bake sale. Various reasons for doing so are given. Maintaining order, preventing violence, no permit to sell food. Whatever. Regardless of the reason for shutting down the bake sale protest in response to verbal or physical attacks on the protestors, doing so clearly violates the protestors' right to speak.

Both the left and the right are well on their way to advocating an authoritarian government in the United States. The left's approach is more incremental. For forty years they have been advocating a "nanny state" to protect me from the consequences of my own decisions, which in turn leads to the more extreme elements of the left wanting to make those decisions for me. The right is more direct (and therefore less successful) in its approach. But the extreme ends of both sides of the political spectrum want the government to be able to tell me what I can say and to whom I can say it. The type of society desired by the extreme left differs radically from that desired by the extreme right. But the methods chosen to achieve that desired society are identical: reduction of freedom now in exchange for supposed benefits later.

Sorry. No deal.

 
THAT JUST DON'T SEEM RIGHT

LT says it's time to pick sides in the argument about gay marriage.

My problem is that I can't pick the side I want.

I like small government, but not so small it fits into my bedroom. Or anyone else's. As far as I am concerned, what two consenting adults do in private is just that: private. It's none of my business. I don't really want to know. And if they want to establish a long term relationship with all the legal trimmings, fine. I really don't care if they happen to be two (or ten) people of the same sex.

So I'm in favor of allowing same sex marriage. I think the consequences of that position need a great deal more thought before it is formally adopted, and I suppose its possible that I could be convinced that there are difficulties with allowing same sex or group marriages that cannot be overcome. But unless and until that unlikely event happens, I'm in favor of allowing it.

But I have a serious problem with achieving changes in the law using the methods now being employed by "my side". The people getting married in San Francisco are not engaging in civil disobedience. They are complying with the law, at least on its face. There is no "disobedience" involved. The state requires a piece of paper for a marriage to be recognized as valid, and they have the appropriate piece of paper. That this piece of paper will later be determined to have been illegally issued involves no act of disobedience on the part of the couples.

It does, however, involve an act of disobedience on the part of the issuing authority, presumably Mayor Newsom. And that's the rub. Newsom was elected to enforce the law in San Francisco. That's his responsibility. I'm no expert, but my guess is that the law quite clearly states that marriage licenses cannot be issued to same sex couples. Mayor Newsom's position is that such a prohibition is illegal in that it violates the equal protection clauses of the California and US Constitutions. In my opinion it is certainly true that the ban on same sex marriages is unfair in many respects. It is also possible that it is unconstitutional. I doubt it, but its possible (especially given my relative ignorance of the law in the equal protection area). Regardless of whether it is illegal or not, Mayor Newsom is not competent to make that determination.

I don't mean he that he is not entitled to have an opinion. I mean that the authority of his office does not include the ability to make determinations about the constitutionality of the laws he was elected to enforce. He could resign in protest, rather than enforce a law he felt was unjust. He can chain himself inside the legislative chambers in Sacramento until that law is changed. He can write op-ed pieces for the San Francisco Examiner urging such a change. He could start a lawsuit to have the prohibition declared illegal by the courts, which are competent to make the determination. He could join others in petitioning the state legislature to have the law changed. He could start a drive to have the matter placed on the ballot for all California voters to decide (again).

He can do a lot of things. But the one thing he cannot do is simply declare the law void and proceed to act according to his beliefs, whatever they may be. That way lies chaos. There are an awful lot of people out there, including, I am sure, a whole bunch of mayors, who believe, for example, that every student should start the school day with a prayer. Or that the ten commandments should be prominently posted in every public office. There might even be some mayors left who believe that inter-racial marriages should not be permitted.

The personal views of mayors on such matters, as on same sex marriage, in their position as mayors, are wholly irrelevant. Mayor Newsom could not erect a monument on public property displaying the ten commandments despite a (hypothetical) belief that the law permits him to do so, or that the law prohibiting him from doing so is unconstitutional. Nor could he require school prayer in San Francisco. Nor could he refuse to issue marriage licenses to inter-racial couples.

If, and only if, you believe that Mayor Newsom's office carries with it the authority to choose which laws he should enforce and which he can ignore for what he and he alone considers valid reasons, should you believe that he can issue marriage licenses for those same valid reasons, regardless of what the law provides.

And I don't believe in government according to the personal beliefs of those doing the governing. I believe in government according to law. And that means that I cannot support Mayor Newsom's efforts to legalize gay marriage by fiat. He has to enforce all the laws, not just the ones he agrees with. Me, on the other hand, I get to obey the laws I agree with, provided only that I am willing to pay the price when caught disobeying the laws I disagree with.

And that just doesn't seem right. Until you remember that no one forced Gavin Newsom to run for mayor.