Monday, March 14, 2005
Two years of Mark Levin essays in National Review Online single-handedly sliced, diced and ridiculed in a single post
To be sure, my motivation for writing the following is Levin's new book Men in Black, which I understand to put forth the false claims that the government of United States was intended to and does have a religious component and that Supreme Court justices are more grammarians than defenders of the law.
I intend to fairly read and review the tome and today examined and evaluated other writings of the author as groundwork. My conclusion after today is that reading and reviewing the book will be less fun than I thought it may be. Levin's writings in his National Review column are garden variety poisonous right-winger lunacy. I am disappointed in myself for expecting more.
February 6, 2003 Last Dance: U.N. lessons.
In the first Levin essay I'll examine, he applauds Bush for putting together a "broad coalition" to invade Iraq numbering "over 40." In an essay year and a half later, he reduces the applause to one for a "real and impressive coalition" of 32. Now that even more nations have left it, perhaps he would call it an "actual and notable" coalition?
Anyway, Levin writes,
The U.N. is a cumbersome bureaucracy. Its processes can quickly become counterproductive. Many of the member states don't share U.S. objectives and values. Therefore, if, for example, Iraq poses an imminent threat to U.S. national-security interests, which the administration contends as it prepares for war, the U.N. should not have a voice in that decision.
The "U.N lesson" that should have been learned was that the U.N. process works rather well - when heeded - in matters of threats to peace. The process Security Council that led to the conclusion that the Iraq problem should be approached with a tempered level head instead of a hysterical charge to war was correct. That is to be sure.
February 10, 2003 We're All Hawks Now: Most of us, anyway.
But none of the weapons-related information Powell discussed was any more impressive than that which was already on the public record. For example, the U.N. and the rest of the world have known for years that Iraq has 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard, and VX nerve agents, almost 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents, several mobile biological-weapons labs, an advanced nuclear-weapons development program, a design for a nuclear weapon, and a program to enrich uranium.
Oh, yeah? That was an interesting hypothesis, wasn't it? I hope he found enjoyment in finding it "impressive."
Additional comment: The rest of the world didn't claim to "know" those things, we were concerned by the possibility those things may still exist.
March 11, 2003 A Just War, Jimmy: The ex-president is wrong.
Levin attempts to show Carter's NY Times op-ed piece, A Just War - or Just a War? was "wrong". Levin asserts, "It's impossible to cover adequately all of its defects," so instead of addressing any he ignores all and simply launches into the reasons he thought the invasion was right. Among Carter's points Levin thought to be so obviously wrong was,
The peace [a war] establishes must be a clear improvement over what exists. Although there are visions of peace and democracy in Iraq, it is quite possible that the aftermath of a military invasion will destabilize the region and prompt terrorists to further jeopardize our security at home.
I believe Carter's foresight has been proven accurate: the invasion has been used as a recruiting tool for the Jihadists, Iraq itself is certainly not stable, and Turkey and Iran are interested in the recent election results but for conflicting reasons.
Levin considers the war to be over, so we can take a brief glance of what Levin's peace looks like. In the last few days there have been three Iraqi policemen murdered, a pipeline in Baghdad blown up, 50 Iraqis killed in suicide bombing, corpses of 30 Iraqi policemen found, and another pipeline set ablaze. This comes from a quick glance from halfway around the world.
Among Levin's reasons for why it would be a just war are.
Since coming to power in 1979, Saddam Hussein has killed 200,000 of his own people, mostly Kurds and Shiites.
Levin likes to play the statistics game with deaths to try to justify military violence, so let's play along with him. As of the date of this writing, Iraq Body Count has documented a minimum of 16,231 corroborated reports of civilian deaths in the war so far - over 8,100 a year. Levin's 200,000 over 24 years comes to over 8,300 a year. Add in the costs of thousands of deaths on both sides and Levin's "justification of war through math" falls flat. Oomph.
Levin lists as another reason for justification that Hussein refused to disarm in violation of U.N. resolutions. We can toss that justification out. Splat.
He mentions the brutal nature of Hussein's regime. Yes, they were awful, horrid. He was uninterested in weighing this against any possible negative results of launching an invasion, so I'll just have to concede that it's his right to think we ought to go to war merely because we see inhumane treatment of human beings. This seems to me the same type of fault Icarus exhibited, but again, it's Levin's right to be an unconditional militaristic humanist. His last point,
Hussein's continuing pursuit of nuclear weapons and his hidden stores of tons of chemical and biological weapons are not intended for defensive purposes ... the risk of Hussein arming terrorists with deadly weapons for use against the United States is real and serious.
I would hope we could now agree that this was an irrational hysteria that did not grip many of us. But that seems not to be the case, as his reaction to the realization he was wrong was to cry (as we will see in a later column), "Mmmph, gulp grfaw ... welp, ya know, Clinton launched missiles at this one factory that might not have been producing chemical weapons. I don't know, it might have been. But like, um, gulp, it might not have been a weapons factory. So there. I mean, 'so there, anyway'."
Levin's conclusion,
For these reasons, among others, war against Iraq will not only be just, but a long time coming.
The only reason you have left is "Saddam was a bad guy." Agreed, but that was not a self-standing argument Levin presented for war. And I want this war to just be over.
April 10, 2003 The Anti-Liberation Front: Lest we forget.
Levin records for posterity the statements of people who considered Levins's beloved invasion of Iraq to be rash, including,
I always tell people, when you got the only real super military in the world, you can kill people next week or the week after that, or the week after that, but you can't bring them back.
- Bill Clinton
"There are other ways to go about it than to have thousands of people killed on both sides."
- Nancy Pelosi
Concludes Levin,
So, when you witness the jubilant Iraqis thanking Americans for their freedom, their gratitude isn't owed to everyone.
It's been two years and dozens of innocent Iraqis are still being murdered by car bombs each week and Iraq now has a government friendly to the Iranian regime. Let's check back with Levin in another two years when we have a greater benefit of hindsight.
May 2, 2003 Kemp's Cant: The former HUD secretary takes on Newt Gingrich
This one will be good if you have some popcorn. Pull up a chair and watch an angry right-winger savage a Republican for criticizing a right-winger's attack on measured Republicans who disagree with some of the right-wing contingent's methods and policies. Melee tonight! See Levin ravish Kemp for striking Gingrich who assailed Powell for questioning Bush policies.
June 4, 2003 She Knew. Everyone Knew. The Clinton spin machine drones on.
Read this one if you enjoy the same genre of pornography as Mark Levin. Relish steamy, detailed fantasies about presidents from Arkansas.
June 10, 2003 Backtracking: The Bush Doctrine can't succeed with exceptions
Levin argues that Bush is a bad ally of Israel. Here, I get to defend Bush on two counts, a rare opportunity.
Levin argues that Israel shouldn't restrain itself from attempting targeted assassinations. Specifically, Levin is critical of the White House's criticism of Israel's 2003 attempted assassination of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi (they have since successfully assassinated him).
The day after Levin wrote this piece, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus, killing 17 Israelis in an act of retaliation. If that did not make it explicitly clear why the White House was right to criticize Israel's attempted assassination, maybe nothing will. Just a week before, Bush had joined Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas in Jordan to launch the road map to peace. It was time for Israel to try something new.
Levin notes that Israel is a democracy and it's leaders are answerable to Israeli citizens, not the White House. The U.S., however, plays an important role in peace talks between Palestine and Israel and at that time, there was new Palestinian leadership, a new road map to peace and Levin's preferred solution - violence - had proven itself not to work over a half century. How could he possibly think it would start working on June 10th, 2003?
The second point of defense of Bush's policy towards Israel against Levin's neanderthal ravings in this essay is this. Levin claims,
Having been president during 9/11, [Bush] must understand the fear and anguish the Israeli people live with every day. In the aftermath of 9/11, he didn't sue for peace. He didn't seek negotiations with the Taliban regime.
Mark "Short Memory" Levin, you are wrong. Bush did indeed "sue for peace" (and in this case we were both the rightful petitioner and judge). On September 20th, 2001, Bush issued the conditions under which the Taliban could help resolve the situation,
And tonight, the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban: Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land ... Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, and hand over every terrorist, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate authorities. (Applause.) Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.
So indeed, there is a parallel, put the opposite of what Levin thought he remembered: due process was given to the Taliban.
July 10, 2003 Where's Carl Levin? WMD hypocrisy
This is one of Mark's best works of surrealism. He defends the invasion and military overthrow and occupation of an entire country based on faulty and fabricated intelligence because in 1998, Clinton authorized a missile strike on a single factory in Sudan which may or may not have been capable of producing VX. If, Levin concludes, the factory in Sudan was not capable of producing chemical weapons, the attack was,
... a far more severe intelligence failure
I mean, yeah, Levin is probably comparing the intelligence on the Sudanese factory to a specific piece of forged intelligence on an alleged Iraqi purchase of uranium from Niger, but come on!
July 21, 2003 Lies about Iraqi Nukes: Bill Clinton & Carl Levin
Levin notes that a lot of Democrats made declarative statements that Iraq had retained components of it's nuclear weapons program as of 1998. He quotes Bill Clinton on December 16th, 1998 (Levin's emphasis retained),
"Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors."
Well, if Iraq did indeed have a nuclear weapons program at that time, Operation Desert Fox, which Clinton was announcing, sure solved the problem, eh?
16 Words to the Wife: Joe Wilson is back September 29, 2003
Levin goes through a few things that don't change the fact that it's a felony to reveal the identity of an undercover agent. Then Levin lays blame on the victim's family,
Like it or not, Wilson bears some responsibility for his wife's predicament.
December 8, 2003 About that Wall... Iraqi and Israeli security interests
Levin is critical of Bush's opposition to the Israeli "security fence", and I congratulate Levin for accurately calling it a "wall" and not a "fence". As with most Bush policy towards Israel, I strongly agree so I'll put Levin's quoting of Ari Fleicher on the matter in blue,
"Israel should freeze settlement construction, dismantle unauthorized outposts, end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people, and not prejudice final negotiations with the placements of walls and fences."
Levin asks why are we criticizing Israel for building a fence on Palestinian territory between the West Bank and Israel when we are encircling entire Iraqi villages in barbed wire? Levin puts forth a mathematical argument,
In the last three years alone, there have been over 6,700 Israeli casualties, including nearly 900 deaths. This far exceeds the casualty levels of the U.S. military thus far in Iraq.
Ignoring the spuriousness of only counting U.S. military deaths and the argument in general, I will point out that as of today 1516 of our troops have died over two years, far exceeding the 900 deaths of Israeli deaths over three years which Levin invoked. So can we agree that building fences everywhere is not the solution for world peace?
February 23, 2004 The Reagan-Bush Doctrine: Why W. must be reelected
His argument for the re-election of George Bush was that,
President Bush has done more in three short years to liberate and defend Muslims the world over than any former president, any foreign leader, or any Muslim leader.
Let's see how Levin supports that premise. The politicians and political groups he mentions,
Bush or Republicans
|
Ronald Reagan
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Democrats
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So the main reason Bush must be elected is because he's not a Democrat? Why didn't Levin just say that?
February 26, 2004 Limbaugh Law: Hypocrisy in the defense of liberalism is no vice
Levin claims that,
If Rush had been a Democrat state judge or Democrat state senator in Florida, he would have been applauded for his courage in confronting his problem, as two such officials were, and that would have been that.
Well, I could make the same spurious hypothetical claim that if Clinton had been a Republican, his extramarital affair would have been quickly forgiven. Oh wait, I forgot about Henry Hyde, Bob Barr, and Newt Gingrich. Maybe Levin could search Lexis for me and tell me how quickly the media forgave their moral lapses.
On the rest of the complaints Levin makes in this essay, maybe he is right, I don't know. It does seem he's rankled over the fact Limbaugh got busted.
April 12, 2004 The Media Knew, Too: The release of a vague PBD is no smoking gun
Here, Levin poo-poos any significance in the famous August 6th PDB,
Most of the PDB had already been leaked to the press over the course of the last two years. Moreover, far from being specific, the PDB was wrong in several critical respects. The hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia and Yemen ... The declassification and release of the August 6 PDB proves one thing: The president and his people have been telling the truth all along about both the substance and nature of the intelligence information they received.
Telling the truth? Condoleeza Rice had testified under oath that the PDB "was not based on new threat information ... It did not warn of attacks inside the United States ... I don't remember the al Qaeda cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about." That Rice claimed it didn't warn of present threats was a lie.
The brief did indeed warn that al Qaeda had wanted to attack within the U.S. for quite some time and that "FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks."
Levin goes on to point out that there had been media reports of a domestic terrorist threat to the U.S. for years. That it was public knowledge that there was a threat makes it more ridiculous to claim - as Rice did - that al Qaeda cells were not "something that we were told we needed to do something about," not more reasonable.
April 15, 2004 Millennial Mistake: Jamie Gorelick's dangerous "wall of separation"
Here, Levin seems to be critical of the way in which Ahmed Ressam's "Millennium plot" was disrupted, although it's not clear how beyond it being somehow related to Ashcroft's bellowing and something Levin read in Reader's Digest.
The only thing I can be certain of in this essay is that he spells "Millennium" incorrectly: "Ahmed Rassam, the 'Millenium Bomber".
May 17, 2004 NRO, Guide Star: Support this cyber think tank.
Just a bunch of back-patting: "Byron, that was some fairy tale you just told!" Of note,
There's really nothing like NRO, and its importance to our movement.
So, at least he admits he's part of a radical "movement", not someone trying to reinforce existing American mainstream values.
June 1, 2004 A Familiar Place: It got ugly in postwar Germany, too
Sayeth the Mark,
I think we can agree that the postwar occupation of Germany, and the rest of Europe, worked out quite well, despite numerous difficulties and the best efforts of the New York Times to highlight them - as it does today in postwar Iraq.
"Postwar"? "Postwar?" We lost more troops in September, 2004 than we had any previous month - five months after Levin wrote of "postwar" Iraq. The "end of the invasion" was the start of the war.
Comparing an ongoing guerilla war in post-invasion Iraq to the first six months in postwar Germany is absurd.
July 1, 2004 Court Review: Hamdi & Rasul.
Levin argues that a president can decide whether constitutional rights apply to a U.S. citizen.
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld was a case where a U.S. citizen was being indefinitely detained without access to the courts to attempt to prove his innocence. Hamdi claims he was in Afghanistan as a relief worker, the Bush administration claims he was there as an enemy combatant. The Supreme Court decided that yes, all U.S. Citizens must be afforded due process of law. This is clearly a case where the executive branch of government is stating one fact and a citizen is stating a contrary fact. Our court system is designed to work out disagreements on such matters of fact - it is designed to protect citizens from governmental tyranny.
Of the decision, Levin opines,
This is a fundamental breach of executive authority, and yet it's dismissed as upholding a basic constitutional right.
If Levin wishes to argue for an absolute monarchy with a court system available at the king's convenience, he ought to be plain-spoken about it. Instead, he claims that our Constitution describes such a system of tyrannical government. The reason he does not cite any constitutional text to back up his claim is because there simply is none.
September 28, 2004 Comparing Coalitions: Iraq is more multilateral than, say, Korea.
Levin points out,
Korean War: "Total: 16 nations; 387,570 combat troops"
Iraq invasion: "Total: 32 nations; 149,985 combat troops"
His point? "The fact is that President Bush has built a real and impressive coalition in Iraq."
Well, no. Using his own numbers, we see that nations other than the U.S. were contributing 39,570 troops to the Korean War and 23,485 - less than half as many - to the Iraq war. Additionally, few of the nations in the "Iraq coalition" provided "combat troops".
Comment from the peanut gallery, He forgot Micronesia, Etricia, and Macedonia !
October 4, 2004 Slighting Substance: Kerry's statements deserve greater scrutiny
Levin begins by dropping his jaw and brain to the floor at John Kerry's suggestion that we ought to help Iran develop peaceful uses of nuclear energy,
Kerry made this remarkable statement about how he would have confronted Iran's frenzied efforts to secure nuclear weapons: "I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes. If they weren't willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together."
President Bush made the point that sanctions are already in place. But why hasn't Kerry's proposal received any attention, let alone the condemnation it deserves?
Levin is not condemning nuclear energy, he is condemning sharing nuclear energy technology with a Iran - a state which is a party to the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States is also a party to the treaty. A key component to the treaty is that nations not only have the right, but the obligation to share peaceful nuclear technologies. Article IV § 2 states,
All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.
Levin's second criticism of Kerry is that he is open to bi-lateral negotiations with North Korea. Perhaps someone needs to provide Levin with a graphic illustration (my words),
Pretend this apple is multi-lateral talks and pretend this pear is bi-lateral talks. Now Mark, if I take the apple away, the pear is still there, see? But if I take the pear away too, there is nothing there! And I can put the pear or apple back and there will be an apple or a pear. And I can put them both back at the same time, here, watch ...
Levin's next point of criticism,
Kerry said, "the president made a mistake in invading Iraq." But later, Jim Lehrer asked him, "Are Americans now dying in Iraq for mistake?" Kerry answered, "No, and they don't have to, providing we have the leadership that we put - that I'm offering." So, the war in Iraq is a mistake, but soldiers who die fighting the war aren't dying for a mistake? What kind of perverse thinking is this?
Kerry explained his thinking,
I believe that we have to win this. The president and I have always agreed on that. And from the beginning, I did vote to give the authority, because I thought Saddam Hussein was a threat, and I did accept that intelligence. But I also laid out a very strict series of things we needed to do in order to proceed from a position of strength. Then the president, in fact, promised them. He went to Cincinnati and he gave a speech in which he said, "We will plan carefully. We will proceed cautiously. We will not make war inevitable. We will go with our allies." He didn't do any of those things.
Levin then shifts for a moment in his essay and rants about the media, apparently an entity he does not consider himself part of despite his AM radio talk show, his own column on National Review and his Landmark Legal Foundation's boasts of being a self-proclaimed important part of America's media establishment,
Landmark has gained a reputation as one of the national media's most respected and sought-after sources of expert commentary on constitutional and legal questions. Articles about Landmark have been featured by the Associated Press ,National Review (and National Review Online ), The Wall Street Journal ,Investor's Business Daily , The Washington Times , and Education Week , as well as hundreds of national and local newspapers and magazines.
Landmark's work has been highlighted on nationally-syndicated radio shows such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Reagan, Janet Parshall's America, Marlin Maddox and other radio programs from Australia, England, Ireland, Mexico, Canada and elsewhere. In short, Landmark has an unparalleled reputation as an authority on the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law.
Shifting back to criticism of Kerry, with a straight face, he suggests that saying "Treblinka" when he meant "Lubianka" is a mistake "on a par with" Gerald Ford's mistaken claim that Poland was not controlled by the Soviet Union. If Levin is suggesting Ford meant "The Netherlands" when he said "Poland", he is revising history. Is he is saying something else, it is childish prattle. Yes, Kerry said Treblinka when he described an event which actually happened in Lubianka, something that should be corrected - perhaps with the rolling of the eyes, but not criticized.
Levin has the audacity to follow that pettiness by pointing out that Kerry also referred to an event in 1953 as happening in 1952 and rhetorically asking,
Would it have been ignored if Bush had made the mistake?"
Levin summarizes his frivolous and one-sided raving with,
This isn't the swimsuit portion of the Miss America contest. We're deciding on the next commander-in-chief in the midst of a war. You'd think substance would be more important than ever.
I will end with a big roll of my own eyes.
// posted by Erik @ 3/14/2005 12:46:00 AM
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