awk. ward.

from the comments over at Roy's

If you haven't followed the comments thread on that Dreher post, you are missing a treat.

First some commenters point out to Rod that the "diversity is bad" conclusion is inferred by John Leo and Rod Dreher and is not one that Putnam makes in his study. Putnam's study merely shows that when people of different backgrounds are living around each other, in the short term there are some issues to work through.

Rod and his acolytes THEN explain that the real nut in the article is the item that Putnam was trying to bury his own study because it didn't fit in with leftist orthodoxy, thusly proving how liberals HATE science. Next Putnam himself turns up(!), stating that the notion that he is trying to bury the results of the study are absurd and a lie. He says that he has been publishing and discussing this study very openly for something like 6 years and even provides links as proof.

This causes Rod Dreher (to his credit)to apologize to Putnam. Crunchy's commenters, however, proceed to call Putnam a liar who has some sort of personal vendetta against John Leo.

He left out The Guy Who Wrote the Hit Piece for the Wingnut Journal, but it's all good.

good news

Steve Gilliard's News Blog is being carried forward as the Group News Blog by Doc Wendel, Lower Manhattanite and Hubris Sonic (with the blessings of proprietress emerita Jen).

I got to know these folks some during Steve's illness. They're good people (and good writers).

Take a look.

hot flash

How Scooter and Paris are different: he destroyed an intelligence network, and she went to jail.

Bush cut Libby loose

President Bush Monday spared former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby from going to prison for 2 1/2 years for obstructing the CIA leak investigation, a White House official said.

The official said Bush "has commuted the prison sentence ... leaving intact the probation and fines handed down by the court."

"That means he is not going to jail," the official said.

Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, was sentenced to prison for lying and obstructing an investigation into who blew the cover of a CIA agent whose husband criticized the Iraq war.

You gotta wonder what the bad options were if the one Our Fearless Leader chose was pissing off the 7 out of 10 americans who want Libby to serve his sentence while simultaneously pissing off the conservatives who want him without a felony conviction on his record which will keep him from practicing law.

The Editors point out how Our Fearless Leader's boundless compassion played out when he had the chance to commute the sentences of 152 death row prisoners

I don’t believe my role [as governor] is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own, unless there are new facts or evidence of which a jury was unaware, or evidence that the trial was somehow unfair.

Remember the rule of law?

from Senator Reid's office

Washington, DC — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the following statement today after President Bush commuted the prison sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for obstruction of justice:

"The President's decision to commute Mr. Libby's sentence is disgraceful. Libby's conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq War. Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone. Judge Walton correctly determined that Libby deserved to be imprisoned for lying about a matter of national security. The Constitution gives President Bush the power to commute sentences, but history will judge him harshly for using that power to benefit his own Vice President's Chief of Staff who was convicted of such a serious violation of law."

Speaker Pelosi

"The President's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence does not serve justice, condones criminal conduct, and is a betrayal of trust of the American people.

"The President said he would hold accountable anyone involved in the Valerie Plame leak case. By his action today, the President shows his word is not to be believed. He has abandoned all sense of fairness when it comes to justice, he has failed to uphold the rule of law, and he has failed to hold his Administration accountable."

just a note:

There's a queasy appropriateness about the fact that the Libby pardon came down on Bring 'em on day.

Soldiers can be maimed or die and their families decimated for Bush's bravado, but Scooter Libby can't be asked to go to jail for destroying an intelligence network because it might upset Mary Matalin's kids?

Even if you voted for these people, you didn't vote for this. Please remember it a year from now.

aw, Jim.

Susie just e-mailed me to let me know that Jim is gone.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

- “Funeral Blues,” W.H. Auden.

My friend Jim died this evening.

Jim, one of the founders of the political blogosphere, started the Rittenhouse Review a week or two before Duncan Black started Eschaton.

He was my fairy blogfather. He showed me how to install a sitemeter, he gave me tips for building readership, and advised me to “pick a fight with a blogger who’s much better known - you can’t believe how well it works.” (I never took his advice, though.) He even paid to have the ugly banner ad removed from the top of my first site.

More than that, Jim was extraordinarily generous. A master networker, he insisted on introducing all of his friends to each other and they, in turn, became friends. “See?” he’d say. “I told you you’d hit it off.” In turn, I introduced him to the sweet potato fries and the chocolate bread pudding at Silk City.

He was a great writer who won a Koufax award for what is one of the liberal blogosphere’s seminal pieces, “Al Gore and the Alpha Girls: The Enduring Power of Cliques in a Post-High-School World.” (You really should read it.) Here’s an excerpt:

Not long ago a newly found colleague, if I may call him that, lamented the harsh tone adopted by many webloggers. (He did not put this comment directly to me, but we both knew he well could have.) My response was that webloggers, some of whom I find smarter, more eloquent, and more perceptive than a sizable portion of their professional counterparts, do not share the punditburo’s status anxiety and do not join with the punditboro in enthusiastically casting aside whatever principles they might have in a craven effort to curry favor with their colleagues.

Jim spoke God knows how many languages. I once met him for lunch when he walked in wearing a Walkman. This intrigued me, because he never, ever listened to popular music. “What are you listening to?” I said, pulling at the headphones.

“I’m teaching myself Dutch,” he said, almost apologetically.

He was also an impeccable dresser who used to work on Wall Street, and he absolutely adored Philadelphia, his adopted city. He made a mean marinara. And because he was the product of a mixed marriage (Irish and Italian), he was both romantic and brilliantly sarcastic. (Jim sometimes said he couldn’t wait to hear what people said about him at his wake.) Oh, and he loved musical comedies.

He was a devout Catholic who knew more about canon law than most bishops. He often accompanied me to Christmas Eve Midnight Mass.

He struggled with his illnesses and it was difficult to hold a job. He wasn’t sick enough to get disability, but not well enough to work all that steadily. Because we were both always broke, we used to feed each other when we could.

He could be a pain in the ass, but in such an interesting way. The world is so much less scintillating without him in it.

He is survived by his much beloved bulldog, Mildred.

I can't believe Jim is gone.

Jim was prickly and suspicious and cynical and hard-edged and one of the sweetest people I've ever met.

I first "met" Jim when he linked to something I wrote and I wrote him a thank you note and he thought I was trolling for a sidebar link, because everyone did, because Jim was It back then.

He championed me all the same, as he did lots of other people who are Big Bloggers now.

We got to be e-mail buddies, and we met when he came to New York for one of the first liberal blogger foodfests (Brother's Barbecue, because Jim loved barbecue, and we left a large tip and the waitress told us that the conservatives didn't tip).

Then we arranged to meet in Philadelphia and I ended up at the house of a nice young couple named Black along with everyone with a blog who I wanted to meet in a hundred mile radius.

Jim, in the mean time, was effortless and insanely dapper and endlessly kind to newcomers who he thought should be getting more notice than they did.

I'll post some of his greatest hits in a bit, so you'll know what all the fuss is about, but let's let Jim the nice guy have his due for a few hours.

Dammit, this makes me mad.

Anyway, if you're so inclined, what you could do for Jim that would have made him happy is sometime pimp a blog that you don't think is getting as much attention as it deserves.

Also maybe send your friends an e-mail when you don't have an excuse.

Bye, sweetie. Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

fyi

If there's anything polite and constructive you want to say to the folks at the White House about the current unpleasantness, Lambert has some numbers.