FRIDAY FOLLIES: on Palin's world, Trump's fence, and, more important, remembering Les Paul

Sarah Palin knows her history.  It's our history that throws her.  Go ahead and laugh if you want to. Sarah still says Paul Revere was warning the British, and if you can't figure out why, it's your problem not hers.  People who like her (or maybe it was people whose bread she butters) even tried to change the Revere story on Wikipedia to more closely reflect Palin's version.  It didn't happen, but it doesn't matter.  She's just so darned cute, idn't she? Golly.

 Is Donald Trump still thinking of running for president?  Or is he setting his sights even higher?  Here's his latest warning:

 “I am watching very carefully. If the wrong person is nominated you watch what happens with Donald Trump and what he does, because we have to beat Obama. This country cannot last any longer with Obama as our president.”

I don't know.  Here's another goofball we like to laugh at, but sometimes while we're laughing larger forces are at work and we end up having to turn that smile upside down.  Last Week Jonathan Turley wrote about third-person Donald's actions in far-off Caledonia, where he's building a huge golf course complex:

In Scotland, Trump is bullying a Scottish couple who have had the temerity to refuse to surrender their home to his development. Trump is reportedly not only seeking governmental order to acquire the land but he encircled the home with a fence and then charged the couple with half of its cost — hitting David Milne, 46, and his wife Moira with a bill for £2820 for a fence they do not want. 

So when Trump says he's not running for president but he's going to do something drastic if Obama wins again, doesn't that sound like a threat?  What could he mean?  Shouldn't we be pressing him for more details?  I mean, it's not like he's going to clam up over one little question.

Hey you kids!  Republicans in charge here.  Just go home.  Now!  Student representatives in Iowa got a chance to go before the state education appropriations committee last week to put in their two cents about rising education costs.  This is what they heard from Shawn Hamerlinck, the ranking Republican on the committee:

“I do not like it when students actually come here and lobby me for funds. That’s just my opinion. I want to wish you guys the best. I want you to go home and graduate. But this political theater, leave the circus to us OK? Go home and enjoy yourselves. I want to thank you for joining us and though I have to concede, your time speaking before us is kind of a tad intense. It’s probably a pretty new experience. You probably prepared for it for days and you sat there in front of us trying to make sure your remarks were just right, and that’s a good thing. But actually spending your time worrying about what we’re doing up here, I don’t want you to do that. Go back home. Thanks guys.”

 (Thanks to Eclectablog, where I first found the story.)

Another Weiner speaks out:  It ain't funny.   Writer Eric Weiner has had enough of the jokes at his expense.  He may not be an Anthony but he's still a Weiner:

 The truth is I don’t know how to feel about my namesake, caught recently with his pants (nearly) down. On the one hand, as a fellow Weiner, I feel his pain. On the other hand, he has given us Weiners a bad name, and let’s face it: we didn’t have a great one to begin with.

 Pringles inventor Fredric Baur is canned for the last time.  Time reports that Baur's ashes were poured into two Pringles canisters and buried.  Much thought went into which flavor canister would be most appropriate, but in the end the Original won out.  (Good choice.  What else, actually?)

Moment of Sublime:  Yesterday Google paid tribute to Les Paul on what would have been his 96th birthday by creating a guitar-like instrument that plays notes when you mouse over the strings.  Once a tune had been created, it could then be recorded and sent to Google.  It was so popular, they're leaving it up through today.  I watched Rachel Maddow plunk it and play last night, but when I try it I don't get any sound.  I can move the strings and they color up, but they won't sing to me. (The computer hates me and it always has.  I'm too much in love with it to give it up now, but this relationship borders on SM and that's just crazy.  But never mind my little rant here.  The point is, I've lost any chance at being a published composer, an achievement I didn't even know I wanted, but now it seems I desperately do.)

 Cartoon of the Week:

Walt Handelsman, Newsday

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Sometimes a Picture isn't Worth a Thousand Words

On the issue of the latest torture pictures, many, if not most of the people whose opinions I normally value are going against me on this one. (Joan Walsh, Jonathan Turley, Rachel Maddow, Sen. Russ Feingold. . .)

But I believe Obama is doing exactly the right thing in withholding those pictures from public scrutiny. It's hardly "hiding evidence", as so many are suggesting. It's simply keeping them from being broadcast al over the world. The people who need to see those pictures have either already seen them or will see them. That's where "transparency" comes in. Because you and I and the other guy haven't seen them doesn't mean there's anything nefarious or even dishonest going on. Nor does it mean that Obama is going back on a promise.

There are thousands if not millions of items that we may never see because they're classified. As I see it, this is entirely a security issue. I do believe our military will be compromised if they're made public. The clamoring for viewing baffles me. What would it gain? What is it any of us needs to see? Isn't it enough that we know they're out there? Do we really need to see them over and over again, day after day, night after night, for weeks or months on end--knowing that the whole world is seeing them, too--including our enemies?

Jonathan Turley called Obama's decision not to release the new photos "Positively Orwellian".

Joan Walsh said Obama sounded "positively Rumsfeldian" when he announced that he would recommend not releasing the photos.

Janis Karpinski, the retired brigadier general formerly in charge of Abu Ghraib prison, told CNN today, "It is sad and tragic. The reversal will absolutely stir up more controversy than release of the photographs, causing an outpouring of rampant speculation -- What is the government hiding? Who are the people in the photographs? How awful can these new photos be? And worse."

She may be right concerning the speculation. We live in an age of information overload, where "news" is broadcast 24 hours a day, with the chance that the day's stories might be repeated 30 or more times. We could spend mountains of time speculating about what is in those photos, or we can spend days poring over the photos themselves. Or--here's a thought--we could get over the fact that we may not see the actual pictures any time soon and move on to the fact that it was Obama himself who released the OLC torture memos in what some might call a refreshing display of. . .transparency.

The fact that we know that thousands of these photos exist is sickening enough. People have been torturing in our name and have been obscenely, absurdly, photographing the acts. That is horrifying--but it's out there. President Obama hasn't swept that fact under the carpet.

There are many who say that we can't possibly get the same gut feelings--and thus the appropriate rage--from a written account of incidences of torture as we can from actual photographs or film. That's assuming that gut feelings and rage are the bottom line here. They're not. It's justice we're after, not a balm for our anger.

But the larger point is that, whether or not the public has a chance to view the new torture photographs, nothing is going to change.

Obama either will or will not pursue the prosecution of American war criminals. (Something I'm all for.)

His administration either will or will not actually change policy concerning confinement, interrogation and torture. (A necessary step if we're ever to hold our heads up again.)

And culpable members of the Bush Administration may or may not get their comeuppance.

Sam Stein wrote a piece yesterday in The Huffington Post quoting an ACLU lawyer who spoke on Fox News (Really? ACLU? Fox News? Together??) about the president's decision to stop the release of the photos. Jameel Jaffer said, "These photographs are critical to the historical record so it is very disappointing... that the administration is going to try and suppress them."

I haven't heard from anyone that the pictures will never be made available. To use the "historical record" argument as a reason to release such inflammatory pictures during a time of war is disingenuous.

Stein also quotes an "anonymous White House aide":

"The President would be the last to excuse the actions depicted in these photos. That is why the Department of Defense investigated these cases, and why individuals have been punished through prison sentences, discharges, and a range of other punitive measures. But the President strongly believes that the release of these photos, particularly at this time, would only serve the purpose of inflaming the theaters of war, jeopardizing US forces, and making our job more difficult in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. "

There is no real indication that Obama is going to sweep the wartime abuses of the Bush Administration under the carpet. There is no evidence that any of that information, including the photos, will be destroyed. We've already begun to have congressional hearings concerning the use of torture in American military prisons. (What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration)

Matthew Alexander, leader of the Zarqawi interrogation team in 2006 and author of "How to Break a Terrorist", gave written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, explaining how useless torture really is. Ali Soufan, a former FBI special agent involved in interrogations, spoke behind a screen at that same hearing, saying basically the same thing.

Get some perspective, please. And be honest. We don't need to see those actual photographs in order to get a good picture of prisoner abuses perpetrated in our name. The evidence is surfacing daily and the word is getting out. New witnesses keep coming forward, new memos keep popping up. So how is that happening? It's happening because we finally have a government in place that understands the need for honesty and transparency.

But there are still responsibilities associated with the release of information regarding our actions. Those photos won't tell us anything we don't already know.

Ramona

(Cross-posted at Talking Points Memo)