Stupid spin
Although the spin seems to change hourly, there is one underlying theme in most of the efforts by the White House and it's allies to save Karl Rove. It usually boils down to "no crime was committed, because..." The entertaining part comes after the "because." The because points have gotten sillier and less relevant and probably reached bedrock yesterday with National Review editor John Podheretz writing:

But Plame's undercover status at the time was and is a little questionable in any case. How undercover could she have been when her name was published at the time as part of Joseph Wilson's own biography online?

The biography that Podheretz refers to says, "He is married to the former Valerie Plame and has two sons and two daughters."

Meanwhile on Fox News, John Gibson tried to make the same point:

Were you ever in any of those receiving lines where Joe Wilson brought his CIA operative wife out into public view in front of cameras to meet the president and such? If he brings her out in public to be photographed by TV, hasn't he outed her?

I think you can all see where the problem lies. The existence of Valerie Plame was not a secret. The fact that her name is Valerie Plame was not a secret. The fact that Valerie Plame was married to Joseph Wilson was not a secret. It is the fact that Valerie Plame was a covert operative for the CIA that was secret.

The backup point to the "no crime" argument is the "Wilson is the real criminal here" argument. Wilson, they tell us, was only able to get the highly desirable unpaid trip to the Sahara Desert through nepotism. Hundreds of more deserving Republicans wanted a trip to a dusty, malarial, third-world hell-hole, but Plame pulled strings and got her husband the job. This was, in fact, the point Novak was attempting to make back in his original article.

Two years ago, the right-wing talking heads and bloggers tried to deny that a crime had been committed by pretending that Valerie Plame wasn't really a covert operative. The problem with that strategy was that no amount of arguing on their part would change her job classification at the CIA. It wasn't theirs to decide. Today, they have picked up that strategy and run with it again. And again, it's not theirs to decide. Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald and the grand jury will decide whether they think Rove committed a crime. The Wall Street Journal tried this argument out today in an editorial. Mustang Bobby points out that the editorial is probably Rove's defense team testing arguments. After all, no one in their right mind would seriously make such a stupid argument.

What is the point of this strategy of embarrassingly dumb defenses? I can think of only one possible explanation. They are assuming that Rove is guilty, that he will be indicted, and convicted. The spin is entirely aimed at minimizing the importance of the crime.

Ever since Watergate, it has been the strategy of Republicans to dismiss all ethical and legal lapses as not important, everyone does it, or the liberals/Democrats/press are picking on us. To be fair, most politicians make that argument when caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. The difference in the Republican Party over the last thirty years has been their discipline in closing ranks to protect their own and the success they have had in blurring the lines between the serious and the insignificant.

If Rove does go to trial, you can bet the right wing message machine will be screaming witch-hunt, out of control judges, and Democrat conspiracy. I'm sure they will somehow make it all look like the ones wanting to protest the integrity of the intelligence service are the ones who are being treasonous in a time of war. Don't we know everything changed on 9-11?

It's mine now
After 31 years, I just made the final payment on my student loans. I own my education outright. They can't repossess it. It's mine, mine, all mine!! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. It must be time to go back to school.

Did you miss me?
I just flew in from Anchorage*. We married away my only niece on Sunday in a typical family extravaganza. I spent all day Saturday wrapping asparagus and stuffing mushrooms. At about noon, while we were still tasting the stuffing and deciding that it needed just teeny bit of lemon, Archy had its 40,00th visitor. Whoever you were, I hope you had a good time while you were here and I hope we see you again.

* And, boy, are my arms tired.

London
It's a pretty unpleasant sort of deja vu to get up once again and start the day with news of another major terrorist attack in another major western metropolis. We don't know who did it or why, though I'm sure everyone has made their assumptions. My first thought was the French Olympic committee, but I could be wrong.

I'm surprised at how low the fatality count is. Right now they're still saying around thirty in the underground, but it's not clear whether that counts the bus or not. Still, since it's clear whoever-it-was was trying to imitate the Madrid train bombings, we can be thankful that they weren't as competent as the terrorists in Spain.

Just for the record, I want the perpetrators of this outrage quickly tracked down and brought to justice. Even though I'm a liberal, when I say "brought to justice" I do not mean "given milk and cookies," I do not mean "hugged," and " I do not mean "put in therapy." However, because I'm a liberal, I also do not mean "let's bomb a country we don't like," "let's assassinate someone and declare victory," or "lets disappear some people into a shadowy system with no accountability." I want the people responsible captured and tried in full daylight for all the world to see.

Because I'm a liberal, I believe in rule of law. I believe in playing according to the rules and making them work. I believe in the value of the government doing things--especially law and justice--in public. I think there is great value in putting the guilty on public so everyone can see what contemptible little monsters they are. I think there is great value in making the workings of the system public so everyone can see that it is fair and honest. I think the rules should play out the same whether terrorists are Islamic fundamentalists, American anti-abortion crusaders, animal rights activists, or the French Olympic committee.

You have been warned
For the next two and a half weeks, I'm going to be running around dealing with various crises and family obligations. Blogging will probably be erratic (as opposed to my normal pace, which is irregular). Of course, since the normal pace of crises is "hurry up and wait" I may find myself from time to time with hours on my hands just waiting for something to happen. In those cases I might feel like pouring my guts out on the blog (messy, but acceptable in this wacky blogosphere of ours) or I might sit and sulk behind my "leave me alone" sign. If you happen to drop by, I'd appreciate it if you would bring in the newspaper, water the plants, and pick on my new best friend, Banjo. I'll fill you in on the details after it's all over.

Some coverage of evolution
CNN has an AP piece up today on the controversies over teaching creationism in the schools. It's not tied to any specific piece of news; it's just a background piece. I suppose editors get a little desperate for something to fill the education page during the summer. The author, Ben Feller, the AP education writer, appears to have put the piece together by interviewing teachers at the National Education Association's annual meeting in Los Angeles.

As such pieces go, this one isn't too bad. Feller is sympathetic to the plight of educators trying to teach their subject in a heated political environment. The human side of his article is the best part, but when he tries to explain the underlying issue, the article is weaker.

The beliefs of creationist groups vary widely, but the doctrine's principle is that a supernatural being created the universe and living things. Biological evolution refers to the process of change in which species formed from preexisting species through the ages.

So far, so good. Feller cuts through one level of nonsense buy pointing out at the start that the opposition to evolution is religious, not scientific, though he could have done a better job explaining why that matters. He also gets points for defining evolution as dealing with change in existing life. Many creationists try to condemn evolution for being weak on explaining the origin of life. Though origins are a legitimate biological problem, they are not a necessary part of evolutionary theory.

Congress has weighed in with guidance to schools, saying in 2001 that students should be allowed to "understand the full range of scientific views" about biological evolution -- but also that students should be taught to distinguish between testable theories from religious or philosophical claims.

This is deceptive to the point of dishonest. What Feller refers to is something known in evolution/creationism circles as the "Santorum Amendment." During the debate over the "No Child Left Behind" education bill in 2001, Rick "man on dog" Santorum added an amendment to the senate version of the bill. This amendment was written by Phillip Johnson, a Berkeley law professor and one of the founders of Intelligent Design creationism, and David DeWolf, Gonzaga law professor and Senior Fellow at the creationist Discovery Institute. It stated:

It is the sense of the Senate that- (1) good science education should prepare students to distinguish the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious claims that are made in the name of science; and (2) where biological evolution is taught, the curriculum should help students to understand why this subject generates so much continuing controversy, and should prepare the students to be informed participants in public discussions regarding the subject.

As is often the case with creationist materials, the low key wording obscures the wide-ranging effects that such an amendment could have caused. Creationists wanted this amendment in the spending bill because they planned to use it to claim that their "teach the controversy" approach was required by federal law.

Though the Santorum Amendment was in the version of NCLB passed by the Senate, it was not in the House version. It was removed in conference committee and it is not in the version that became law. So, Feller is right that the congress weighed in, in the sense that the Senate expressed an opinion, but that opinion is not part of the law of the United States. This detail has not stopped creationists (Phyllis Schlafly for example) from trying to bully school boards with the idea that a discarded amendment still holds some power.

Back to Feller's article.

Religious accounts of life's creation are not permitted in public schools under the First Amendment, the Supreme Court has ruled.

He loses points again for uncritically repeating the myth that it is against the law even to mention god or religion in schools. The Supreme Court has ruled again and again over the last half-century that it is against the law to use public funds for religious indoctrination. Discussing religious beliefs in school is perfectly fine as long as it is done in the right context and the teacher is careful not to appear to endorse any one set of beliefs on behalf of the school.

Another theory fueling debate, intelligent design, asserts that some features of the natural world are so ordered and complex that they are best explained by an intelligent cause. Critics call that a rehashed version of creationism, stripped of overt religious references, a claim that intelligent design researchers vigorously dispute.

The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that represents many scholars who support intelligent design, is not seeking to require schools to teach the theory. Nor is it out to diminish the teaching of evolution, said Bruce Chapman, the institute's president.

Without quote marks, this paragraph is unclear. Is the first sentence part of the quote of Chapman or is it Feller making a statement of undisputed fact? If the latter is his intent, he's completely wrong. According to the Wedge Strategy, the twenty year plan for the Discovery Institute that they sent to supporters as a fund-raising letter in the nineties, getting Intelligent Design creationism into the schools is one of their explicit goals.

At best, the Discovery Institute is opposed to introducing Intelligent Design creationism too soon. Their method is to first undermine evolution by spreading confusion about what it is and how it works. They then introduce their religious alternative, which has the benefit of replacing confusion with the certainty of religious faith. Their plan doesn't stop with evolution. The Discovery Institute strategy is to eventually undermine the entire scientific method and replace it with revealed religion.

The wedge strategy document aims at destroying the scientific method because the Discovery Institute founders feel that the lowered prestige of religious truth is to blame for most of the social evils of the modern world. This anti-science, anti-modern attitude is typical of fundamentalists in all religions. It is a backward-looking dream of returning to an imaginary golden age when no doubt existed. The Discovery Institute dream includes the unspoken assumption that scientific and economic progress would continue uninterrupted without scientific knowledge to guide them.

Once more, back to Feller.

National science leaders are alarmed by these renewed questions about evolution. Bruce Alberts, a cell biologist and immediate past president of the National Academy of Sciences, recently wrote all of its members to warn of the "growing threat" to the teaching of science.

Feller loses lots of points here. Scientists and educators are not alarmed by being questioned; they are alarmed by an assault on one of the main pillars of modern biology. They are alarmed at a trend in using the law to dictate how subjects will be taught and to legislate what constitutes truth (biologists should get together with historians. They've had to fight this battle for decades). To claim they fear question is an insult to all teachers and scientists.

At the college level, the American Association of University Professors has deplored any efforts to force public school teachers or higher education faculty to teach theories of the origins of life that are "unsubstantiated by the methods of science."

This brings us back to the starting point. Feller never makes clear the division between science and religion. Since this is a background piece, and this the entire nexus of the debate, he does a great disservice to his readers by not mentioning it. Science is a method of gathering knowledge based on what we can measure, test, and predict. Religion is a body of knowledge supported by divine authority. It is a core strategy of the creationists to confuse the distinction and call both "ideas about the way things work."

I don't know anything about Feller, so I can't say whether he intentionally favored the creationist side or not. Based on his initial sympathetic tone presenting the teachers' dilemma, I would say he's not against them. But by uncritically repeating some of the claims of the creationists and passing up opportunities to blow away some of their smokescreen, he has not helped the teachers in any way.

Taking tests is a drag
Here's one I don't think was ever tried on me during my short teaching career.

A Russian youth wearing a drag outfit which gave him improbably large breasts has been caught trying to sit an entrance exam for a female friend.

Moscow University security guards first thought the applicant had an oversized bust because "she" was trying to take crib sheets into the exam.

A search unmasked the false bosom, the university told the BBC News website.

The bizzaro workplace
A few others have already pointed out the excerpts from the new Santorum book over at CapitolBuzz. Santorum's opinions on the status of women are indeed creepy, but I wanted to point out how out of touch with normal working people one of the same quotes shows him to be.

In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might confess that both of them really don’t need to, or at least may not need to work as much as they do… And for some parents, the purported need to provide things for their children simply provides a convenient rationalization for pursuing a gratifying career outside the home. (It Takes a Family, p. 94)

To Santorum, modern women are selfish monsters who fling their children aside in order to have fun, fun, fun in workplace.

Santorum's job provides the best health insurance in the country for him and his entire family. He makes $162,100 per year. He also collected $70,000 from the State of Pennsylvania Penn Hills School District to home school his kids, even though they are full-time residents of The state of Virginia. He is one of the poorest people in the Senate. His brother is a CEO. Given that environment, I suppose it's easy for him to believe that a married woman's only reason to work outside the home would be for the fun and prestige of it.

Santorum probably would be shocked and amazed to discover that many people--educated, middle-class men and women--do not have gratifying careers. They have miserable, soul crushing jobs that they are afraid to leave because they are only one or two paychecks away from financial disaster. Many families need two payckecks to own a home. Many families aren't paid $70,000 to keep their kids at home.

Many workers--men and women--regard their lives as in hock to the employment world. They work forty hours a week in order to earn enough to ransom back two days a week and, if they are lucky, three weeks a year. They live this way, year after year, in the hopes that if they follow the rules in good faith they will be rewarded with a few years all their own sometime before they are completely worn out.

Tom Friedman thinks those workers have unrealistic expectations and a bad work ethic for wanting those two days a week for themselves. John Tierney thinks those workers are selfish and spoiled for not staying at work as long as their employers can still wring some work out of them. When asked to explain that crack, he added that the elderly were also out of line for not accepting lower pay as their energy declines. Such contempt for life experience seems like an odd position for a fifty-something writer to take.

Friedman and Tierney have highly respected, well rewarded, and satisfying careers. They can't imagine why some people look forward to the end of the day, to the weekend, to vacation, or to retirement. They're doing what they want to do, so a sixty hour week or a career into their late seventies doesn't seem like something to dread. If either of them ever was trapped on the "work to live, live to work" treadmill, it was so long ago that they have conveniently forgotten it.

Most of the people that I know who have jobs that they love, jobs that are a source of self-respect and satisfaction, do know that they are lucky. They have had bad jobs on their way to the good one. They remember trying to make ends meet, employment that was irrelevant to their interests and skills, and ego destroying bosses. They recognise that some of their friends and kin aren't as lucky as they are. They have a sense of perspective and live in the real world.

Santorum seems to think that all work is so satisfying that women would neglect their children to partake of it (and he clearly thinks not staying home IS neglect). Friedman and Tierney seem to think that all work is so satisfying that only great character flaws explain not wanting to do more of it for less pay. They are all living in a parallel world and working in a bizzaro workplace. Their world bears little resemblance to one the rest of us work in.

Important questions
My clever wife just asked an important question. We get New Year's Day off primarily to sleep off New Year's Eve. Even if one does not imbibe, the neighbors will party till the cows come and and then party with the cows. The Fourth of July is the same. Those bad neighbor kids--and where ever you live, there are bad neighbor kids, even if they are in their fifties--have been to reservation for illegal fireworks and tonight is going to sound like election night in Baghdad. Even if we get to sleep by one or two, we aren't going to be allowed to stay asleep till Thursday. So , why, she asks, why are we expected to go to work on the fifth of July?

History Carnival XI
The eleventh issue of the History Carnival is up over at Siris. Brandon has gathered a fascinating and diverse group of posts for your reading pleasure. They run the gamut from serious issues of historiography, to debunking, to current events, to the just plain silly and fun. My contribution fits into the last category. Brandon has done a great job of organizing the Carnival making it easy for you to find something that fits your interests. So, go, read, have fun, and maybe learn something. There are worse things you could do on a Friday.