HARRY TRUMAN

Harry Truman, New Deal Democrat and 33rd President, was born this day in Missouri 120 years ago.

Below is a photograph of Harry Truman, seated right, with my great uncle Merrill Hartshorn, center, and Elmer Eller, seated left. The photo was taken in Kansas City in 1959 at a meeting of the National Council for the Social Studies, of which Merrill was executive secretary from 1943 to 1974. Merrill died when I was quite young -- we never had an opportunity to discuss his work -- but I wouldn't be surprised if he got a kick out of this picture for its statement about social scientists advising the politically powerful, especially after they leave office.

PREDICTABLE SILLINESS FROM FOX, BUT WORTH AN E-MAIL

Me, today, to comments@foxnews.com:

Just wondering why you chose to omit Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's recent reference to "yawning fiscal deficits" in your story from Friday, May 7, entitled "Forecasters Shrink Deficit Projections." [See here.] You chose not to report on any of Greenspan's comments from Thursday until you could bury them deep in a story about a decreased (but still massive) deficit for this fiscal year. And even then, you chose to omit any precise reference to Greenspan's long-term concerns.

Perhaps your reporters didn't cover the Fed Chairman's remarks? This would be odd. Or perhaps you fear that Greenspan's message would be frightening to your customers? From the New York Times, note the following quote from Greenspan:

"Our fiscal prospects are, in my judgment, a significant obstacle to long-term stability because the budget deficit is not readily subject to correction by market forces." [See here.]

Your readers would be better served if they were told what the Fed Chairman thinks about budget deficits over the long term. Not to mention the fact that truly "fair and balanced" reporting would cover even unpleasant news for this particular Congress and President.

Sincerely,

Brett Marston

FIRST RULING FROM SUPREME COURT OF NEW ZEALAND

The Otago Daily Times reports:

Legal history was made with the briefest appearance by Justices Andrew Tipping and Thomas Gault, who delivered the first decision made by the new Supreme Court of New Zealand yesterday.

Its new home has yet to be built, but the High Court stood in yesterday for the two judges to refuse leave to appeal to the Supreme Court in a case which challenged provisions made in a will.

The text of the ruling is here (PDF file). And here's the Court's web site.

For some discussion of the controversies over the establishment of the Court, see my post here.

CANADIAN SC NOMINATIONS PROCESS

The Globe and Mail reports:

A parliamentary committee is badly split over altering the appointment process for Supreme Court justices, but it has agreed on one key issue: creating a committee of eminent jurists, leaders of the bar and members of Parliament to submit a short list of judicial candidates.

Some parliamentarians want provincial governments to have a say in drawing up lists of nominees, and others want a formal parliamentary screening process. The governing liberals haven't embraced these proposals. For some anti-screening arguments, see this editorial from the Toronto Star. Apparently, the thought of hearings on SC nominations makes some parliamentarians cast worried looks southward.

See also here and here.

ISRAELI SUPREME COURT NOMINATIONS

Ha'aretz reports on a current Supreme Court nominations battle in Israel, here and here. The candidate is State Prosecutor Edna Arbel. Nominations to Israeli courts are made by the Judges' Nominations Committee, which is composed of three Supreme Court justices, two ministers, two members of the Knesset, and two representatives of the Israel Bar Association. See here. The names of prospective nominees are published by the committee in advance, presumably in order to get public comment on the candidates. This Committee also has the power to remove judges if seven of the nine members vote to do so.

By the way, the SC of Israel has a fantastic web site with an extensive database of its decisions in english, here.

MORE: Arbel was nominated by a vote of seven to one with one abstention. Also nominated were Elyakim Rubinstein, Salim Joubran, and Esther Hayut. Joubran is the first arab to have a permanent post on the Court. For more on the nominations, see this J-Post article.

WELL. . .

Between Jonah Goldberg's tongue-lashing for CBS's sources for providing the Abu Ghraib photos and and his criticism of CBS for airing them, and Powerline's argument that the photographs don't depict "torture" and that if the people being humiliated in the photos "were terrorists, they got off easy," I'm beginning to feel a bit queasy. May need to unhook myself from the web for a while.

Goldberg tries to save his argument with a factually-challenged comparison to press reactions to the slaughter of Belgian peacekeepers in Rwanda (contra Goldberg, the deaths were reported quite clearly by the major networks in early April, 1994 -- just do a Lexis search). And Powerline tries to save its argument with a reference to arab press reactions to Palestinian terrorism.

Oh well.

Man! Whole swaths of our current political discourse appear to be thoroughly corrupt.

American troops should not engage in torture. Any allegations of torture should be thoroughly investigated and should be the cause for deep national shame. Press reporting of these allegations is appropriate and necessary to keep pressure on the perpetrators and their superiors. Full stop.

How hard is that, really?

MORE (5/7): Goldberg updates the claim today here, but I have been unable to verify the story about news organizations suppressing the details of the Belgians' deaths. Any help on sourcing would be appreciated. In Goldberg's defense, the stories about the extent of the mutilation -- at least the ones available on line -- appear in interviews with Dallaire or in connection with coverage of the official government reports on the massacres. Both kinds of stories appear in the late 1990s.

UGH

From Adam Kessel's Fair and Balanced Weblog (see footnote 3 -- yes, footnote 3):

[In The Tempting of America,] Robert Bork describes an encounter between Justice Holmes and Judge Learned Hand in which Hand urges Holmes, “Do justice, sir, do justice,” to which Holmes replies, “That is not my job. It is my job to apply the law.”

Hard to argue with that quote -- as a descriptive matter, at least -- after reading this news story and the opinions in Dretke v. Haley announced by the U.S. Supreme Court today (via Howard Bashman, at his new digs).

I want to say: just release the guy, for crying out loud. He's already served six years for stealing a calculator -- and, technically, he has served six years for a crime he didn't commit, as everyone on the Court appears to agree. What the heck is wrong with this country?

I suppose that that's the cry of "justice." Ugh and double ugh.

COLD WAR FOLK MUSIC?

Heard, yesterday, on the Dick Spottswood show (I think), a rippin' bluegrass / country tune with the following words in the refrain (from memory):

You will see the lighting flashing, hear atomic thunders roll

When Moscow lies in ashes, God have mercy on your soul

Here's a question mister Stalin, and it's you who must decide

When atomic bombs starts fallin', do you have a place to hide?

There was also a line about how the U.S. would survive a nuclear war. I guess that the doctrine of mutually assured destruction hadn't trickled down to that corner of popular music by the time of the recording.

The cold war theme makes the music seem archaic in a strangely modern sense.

Looking for the album, I am.

MORE: The tune is called "Advice to Joe," and I just corrected the refrain. The song is introduced around 17:00 in last weekend's show. Apparently Roy Acuff's recording is more famous. See here, and for a longer list of popular music tunes with an atomic theme, go here.

CHANGING THE SCALE

Notice anything weird about the way that the polls are reported at this site?

On a more fundamental level, go here for some thoughts on polling during wartime.

BLOGS AT DIE ZEIT

Take a look at Richard Herzinger's blog at Die Zeit. He's got a few entries worth a look right now: one commenting on the photos from Abu Ghraib (Herzinger claims that "it is to be feared" that the acts of torture at the prison will destroy the "moral legitimacy of the American occupation"), another on North Korea's official web page ("the kind of thing that should make you sick") and another with a long text (in english) from the American Jewish Committee castigating european countries for ignoring islamic antisemitism.

Jochen Bittner's got one, too.