When Believing Is Seeing

July 14, 2014, 6:20 a.m.

Check It On Snopes
Note: For more on this subject see, "Snopes, Popes, and Presidents," December 26, 2014, and "Obama-Haters' Rhetoric and Media Responsibility," July 5, 2014.
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When Believing Is Seeing

Nicholas Johnson

Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 14, 2014, p. A5
Hitler’s Joseph Goebels is credited with the strategy that, “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.” That’s deliberate lying.

More common is Mark Twain’s insight that, “It’s not what we don’t know that’s the problem, it’s what we know that ain’t so.” We’re not “lying.” We’re just repeating false information we assume is true because it’s consistent with our beliefs — something journalists are trained to guard against.

New York’s four-term U.S. Senator Daniel Moynihan famously admonished, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”

But what are we to do when it is our opinion that creates our facts?

“Seeing is believing?” Yes, sometimes. But the reverse is also true: “Believing is seeing.” We tend to see that which supports our belief.

In a Yale paper last year, “Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government,” the authors report their research finding that even scientists, highly skilled in math, make more errors when the correct math answer leads to conclusions contrary to their political orientation.

The phenomenon occurs for what we love as well as what we hate. Fans of Pope Francis are likely to believe favorable, false stories about his good deeds, however implausible (e.g., he’s slipping out at night to visit Rome’s homeless). See, “Snopes, Popes and Presidents,” http://bit.ly/1mRLzLY.

Similarly, Obama haters are equally willing to believe almost any emailed negative assertion about our “Muslim, socialist, Kenyan, imperial” president — and send it on.

Snopes.com is a wonderful online service for checking the truth of the “urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation” that circle the global Internet each day. So when the occasional Obama-haters’ email comes our way, we check it on Snopes.com, and kindly inform the senders if the email is untrue.

Recently came a whopper, widely circulated since January.

It was so obviously wrong on so many counts it would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been seriously libelous in its efforts to link the President — and Hillary Clinton, too, for good measure — to words allegedly authored by community organizer Saul Alinsky: “Eight steps required to create a socialist state.”

To paraphrase Senator Lloyd Bentsen’s retort when Senator Dan Quayle compared himself to Jack Kennedy during their 1988 vice presidential candidate debate, “I knew Saul Alinsky. Saul Alinsky was a friend of mine. And believe me, Sir, Saul Alinsky never wrote those words.”

Nor could Barack Obama have received the mentoring from Alinsky the email hints at, since President Obama was only 10 years old when Alinksy died. In fact, during a conversation I once had with candidate Obama about community organizing, neither of us even mentioned Alinsky’s name.

The need to oppose, and demonstrate the evil in everything President Obama has ever read, thought, advocated or done can lead to bizarre results, one of which is the email’s effort to demonize community organizing as “socialism.” It not only reveals equal ignorance regarding both, but rejects what is actually just another description of democracy.

Community organizing is the study, design, and utilization of strategies by which neighborhoods, or other groups of individual citizens, can more effectively present their grievances and proposals to governments and other institutions. These are techniques millions have proudly used since our nation’s birth, including both the Tea Party and Occupy movements during this century.

What can we do?

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow simply tries to state the facts occasionally. Examples: “He really was born in Hawaii. And climate change is real. And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes. And evolution is a thing. And no one is taking away anyone’s guns. And the moon landing was real. And regulations of the financial services industry are not the same thing as communism.”

You get the idea.

And for the rest of us? “Check it on Snopes or risk looking like dopes.”
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Nicholas Johnson, Iowa City, maintains www.nicholasjohnson.org and the blog, http://FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com.

For more, in the form of related research on this subject, see, Amina Khan, “‘Liberal’ or ‘Conservative’? Brain’s ‘Disgust’ Reaction Holds the Answer,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 30, 2014 ("[F]indings, published in Current Biology, show that the brains of liberals and conservatives may indeed by wired differently — and shed light on the biological factors at play in political beliefs. . . . [M]any of the same subjects at issue in certain political ideologies – attitudes toward sex, family, education and personal autonomy, for example – have an emotional component as much as a logic-based one. And some research has indicated that political leanings can be inherited (much in the same way that height can inherited but modified, affected by a number of factors from nutrition to the environment).").

# # #

There is No War in Afghanistan

December 4, 2009, 9:00 a.m.

Why Are We There?
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
It turns out that President Obama's war plan for Afghanistan is even worse than I thought.

Yesterday I hunkered down by myself and tried to think it through. I ended up concluding that, although no one had really specified exactly what the metrics would be for ever deciding whether it had been "successful," it seemed to me doomed to "failure" by any rational standard I could imagine. "Obama's Afghanistan; He Can't Win, Can't Break Even, and Can't Get Out of the Game," December 3, 2009 (borrowing, and setting forth the lyrics from Michael Jackson's version of "The Wiz"). In an effort to be more than merely critical, that entry concludes with what our policy and anti-terrorist strategy ought to be to produce better results at much, much lower cost.

In the last 24 hours I have come upon a transcript of MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" from December 1, 2009, the evening of President Obama's West Point speech. The insights it provides into Obama's Afghanistan strategy, and the conclusions a reader is left with, are if anything even more troubling than mine from yesterday.

The entire transcript is well worth reading. It includes the text of video clips she used, and the discussions she had with, among others, Presidents Obama and George Bush, Secretary Clinton, and "from Afghanistan . . . NBC‘s Richard Engel [and] from Washington . . . Retired Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl, who literally wrote the book on modern counterinsurgency theory."

Here are some especially relevant excerpts for our purposes, followed by my own take-away from them:

MADDOW: President Obama tonight spoke at the site where President Bush unveiled the Bush doctrine—the proclamation that the United States would no longer reserve the right just to wage war against countries or forces that threatened us, but that we would wage war to stop the emergence of threats in the future.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long. The war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Before they emerge, before they emerge. We must confront threats that might happen someday.

And thus was born not only the justification for, in the name of 9/11, attacking a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, but also the maximalist Bush doctrine concept of America at war globally, indefinitely, against anyone at our own discretion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Our security will require transforming the military you [i.e., West Point cadets] will lead, a military that must be ready to strike at a moment‘s notice in any dark corner of the world. We must uncover terrorist cells in 60 or more countries. All nations that decide for aggression and terror will pay a price.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: The Bush doctrine was probably the single most radical thing about the Bush presidency, because it dropped the requirement that the United States actually be threatened before we‘d start a war with someone, instead saying that if we just thought we might be threatened sometime in the future, that would be justification enough for us now to start a war. It is a really radical concept, if you think about it, not only about war, but about us, about America.

And it may have survived the Bush presidency. President Obama tonight is explaining his second escalation of the war in Afghanistan, announcing that the 32,000 Americans who were in Afghanistan when he took office will become 100,000 by next year. A war reborn in what the president is describing as his own image, his own strategic terms, but which is justified fundamentally by what sounds like the Bush doctrine.

The administration admitting that we are not actually threatened now as a nation by Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JAMES JONES, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: Obviously, the good news that Americans should feel at least good about in Afghanistan is that the al Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: No ability to attack us or our allies.

Afghanistan poses no threat to us, and yet, our war there is being doubled and tripled in size. Why? It‘s because we think there might be a threat from Afghanistan in the future, if a safe haven for terrorism there re-emerges in the future. In other words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Is the massive escalation of the war in Afghanistan announced tonight President Obama‘s own implementation of the preventive war Bush doctrine that . . . no one has really been able to justify?

This war is not about threats to the United States from Afghanistan. To the extent that it is justified by preventing threats to us from emerging from Pakistan sometime in the future, that‘s preventive war. That‘s the Bush doctrine—in all its Orwellian extremism.

To the extent, though, that this war is not about some potential future threat but a real current one, like the president described tonight, a current one that—he didn‘t say it bluntly, but he meant it—one that exists in Pakistan. To the extent that our 100,000 troops in Afghanistan are there simply to backstop and contain the real war against the real threat next door in Pakistan, then tell me this—how are we fighting our war in Pakistan?

We‘re fighting it using the CIA, which effectively functions as a fifth secret branch of the U.S. military now. They even have their own Air Force. They‘re a fifth secret branch of the military now which our civilian leaders as a matter of policy do not answer for. They don‘t even bother explaining what they‘re doing.

Do you remember when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was questioned about our secret CIA drone war when she was recently in Pakistan?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At the same time, the drone attacks are still going on in Waziristan. What does madam or America in general plans to do with that, because it‘s creating a lot of frustration among our people.

(APPLAUSE)

HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, I will not talk about that specifically, but generally, let me say that there‘s a war going on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Pakistani parliament, of course, has also requested that these drone attacks be stopped yet they continue and the Pakistani people have begun to resent them and associate them with U.S. policy towards Pakistan as a whole.

CLINTON: You know, I think what‘s important here is that there—there is a war going on, as several of you have said. And I won‘t comment on that specific matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: I won‘t comment on that specific matter. I won‘t talk about that specific thing, but there is a war. That war, that secret one—because CIA actions, even when there‘s a war, are covert and deniable.

If the real war is Pakistan and we‘re fighting this war not to prevent some threat to us in the future, not as an extension of the Bush doctrine, but rather than to respond to a real threat now, why are we fighting it with our secret military that we don‘t admit to? Why are we fighting it with our CIA?

Maybe there will someday be an Obama doctrine to replace the Bush doctrine. If that‘s going to happen, then, first, the Bush doctrine needs to be ended. No more wars to prevent future threats that may or may not emerge.

But, secondly, at some point, this president will need to be able to explain and take the credit or the blame for his real wars that right now are still getting only a “no comment.”

My take-away:

1. Sources. Because I don't like it when useful source material on the Internet does not provide a full citation, I like to provide sources and links when making assertions in blog entries. Yesterday's blog entry provided no sources for the assertions that al Qaeda was probably in 60 countries, al Qaeda should be identified as the real enemy (not the Taliban), less than 100 al Qaeda are in Afghanistan, and that they and the Talaban pose no real threat to us. They were just my best estimates. The transcript, above, provides sources: President Bush: "We must uncover terrorist cells in 60 or more countries." President Obama's National Security Advisor, General James Jones: "The maximum estimate is less than 100 [al Qaeda] operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies."

2. True motive. The entire transcript, beyond that quoted above, creates the sense that this entire effort, with the 30,000-troop build up, may really be just a skillfully crafted, bizarre, political, public relations approach to an exit strategy. The White House, which apparently offered the President options including immediate withdrawal, may think that a build up, followed by announced little "victories" over the Taliban of one kind and another, will insure the appearance that no one "lost their life in this useless folly of a war," and that we did not "lose" the "war in Afghanistan." We can then "declare victory and come home" -- without impliedly criticizing the judgment of President Bush or his military, and with the acceptance of Congress, American veterans and their families (including the families of those who died there), the American people, and our NATO allies.

3. The Taliban are not "the enemy" of the Afghan people, the Taliban ARE the Afghan people. NBC's Richard Engel in Afghanistan: "Only about 6 percent of the people want the Taliban to come back. But they‘re not seen as occupiers, or they‘re not seen as outsiders. They‘re seen as part of the society here that should be brought back into the fold. . . . [T]he Taliban are not, by and large, attacking civilians in this country. [C]ompared to Iraq, [where] you had market bombings, al Qaeda militants that were killing civilians by the dozens every single day . . . [in Afghanistan] it‘s mostly a conflict between the Taliban and foreign forces in this country. People are hoping that there can be some sort of reconciliation between the two." There are many lessons for the U.S. in that observation.

4. Pakistan. As has been clear from the beginning, Pakistan has nuclear weapons, Afghanistan just barely has IEDs. The shared border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is almost irrelevant. There may well be very few who even know precisely where it is, and fewer still who actually care. In a region dominated by tribal loyalties and the territories they control, it wouldn't even have to be a "porous" border. But it is that, too. So it seems the real story, the real war, is the "CIA Army and Air Force's" war in Pakistan -- the war that neither the Secretary of State nor the President are even willing to acknowledge, let alone talk about and explain to the American people.

More troops to the "war in Afghanistan"? What war in Afghanistan?
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Here are links to earlier entries on some of the other hot topics from the past week or so that are now getting the most direct hits, along with links to "updates" in the form of subsequent news articles, among which may be the entries you came here looking for:

UIHC, Regents and UI.

"UI's Basketball Fees Self-Defeating," November 23, 2009

I'll drink to that: "UI Has A Drinking Problem," November 18, 2009 [see "Updates," below];

If UI has become a for-profit corporation . . .: "Corporatizing the University of Iowa; If We're Going to Do It, Let's Do It Right," November 17, 2009

Strategic Communications VP position: "Strategic Communications a Failed Strategy; Actions Speak Louder," November 13, 2009 [See "Updates," below]

Executives trip to Disney World: "Mickey Mouse Patient Satisfaction; UIHC's Troubles: Is Orlando the Answer?" November 8, 2009

"Contributions from patients" proposal: "UIHC: 'Sick Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?'; A Check-In and a Check," October 31, 2009, 7:00 a.m. (with numerous updates through November 4, links to additional, related material -- and now with over 30 of the Press-Citizen readers' comments on B.A. Morelli's stories) [see "Updates," below]

Board of Regents and State universities' budget cutting: "Cutting Slack, Cutting Budgets; Regents, University Presidents, Deserve Some Thanks and Credit," October 30, 2009, 8:30 a.m. (with links to prior, related blog entries); Jason Clayworth, "Governments in Iowa now $11.6 billion in debt," Des Moines Register, December 6, 2009

Spence break-in grand jury proceedings: "UI Spence Break-In: Gazette Scoop Illustrates Issues," October 27, 2009 [See "Updates," below]

School boundaries, school boards, and the ICCSD.
"School Board Election: Now Work Begins; It's Swisher, Dorau, Cooper; Old Board 'Starting Off Backing Up' With Consultant and Tough Decisions," September 9, 2009, 7:00 a.m. (with its links to 11 prior and related blog entries including, for example, "School Boundaries Consultant Folly; Tough Boundary Questions Are for Board, Not Consultants or Superintendent, Plus: What Consultant Could Do," and "Cluster Schools: Potential for IC District?")

Nicholas Johnson, "School Board Has Work to Do," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 2, 2009 (and reproduced in blog)

"Boundaries: Only Board Can Do Board's Job; Drawing School Boundaries Made Easy," November 2, 2009

And Updates: UI VP Medical Jean Robillard says patient-donation-dunning plan "canceled a week ago"; spokesperson "clarifies," says "canceled" means "under review," B.A. Morelli, "Leaders Address Employee Concerns; UI Officials: No Decision on Job Issues," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 20, 2009, p. A3; Ashley Oerman, "UI Cancels Asking Patients for Money," The Daily Iowan, November 20, 2009, p. A1; UI's Funded Retirement Insurance Committee asks President Mason to "abolish rather than just delay" UIHC's "patient donation plan," B.A. Morelli, "Group Wants UIHC Patient Donation Plan Nixed," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 19, 2009, p. A1; B.A. Morelli, "New incentive upsets some UI employees; Change encourages employees to seek care at its hospital," Iowa City Press-Citizen, December 3, 2009;

Gunnar Olson and B.A. Morelli, "Regents might rethink bonuses; 2 presidents say they are divisive," The Des Moines Register and Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 30, 2009; B.A. Morelli, "Regents delay tuition, Hancher decisions," Iowa City Press-Citizen, December 1, 2009; Emily Busse, "Mason received bonus in 2008," The Daily Iowan, December 4, 2009; Gunnar Olson, "Departing University Staff Get Stimulus," Des Moines Register, December 14, 2009; Staci Hupp and Gunnar Olson, "Regents Add $100 Tuition Surcharge," Des Moines Register, December 11, 2009;

Emily Busse, "UI shuns advisers on budget," The Daily Iowan, November 30, 2009;

Two Spence break-in grand jury witnesses jailed for refusal to testify, one now indicted, "UI Spence Break-In: Gazette Scoop Illustrates Issues," October 27, 2009; Anonymous, "Davenport Grand Jury Subpoena for Scott DeMuth," Nov. 11, 2009; "Two jailed for refusing to testify before grand jury," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 17, 2009; Carrie Feldman's Web site and the new "Support Carrie and Scott!"; "Activist indicted for alleged role in Spence Labs vandalism," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 19, 2009 [in hard copy as "Man Indicted for Animal Terrorism," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 20, 2009, p. A1]; Ann McGlynn, "Activist who refused grand jury testimony now charged with conspiracy," Quad City Times, November 19, 2009; Ann McGlynn and Diane Heldt, "Lab Break-in Charge Pleases UI Officials," The Gazette, November 20, 2009, p. A1; Regina Zilbermints, "Man Charged in Spence Action," The Daily Iowan, November 20, 2009, p. A1; Ann McGlynn, "Animal rights activist pleads not guilty in University of Iowa vandalism," Quad City Times, November 20, 2009; Zack Kucharski, "Judge Orders Animal Rights Activist Held," Quad City Times, November 26, 2009; Kurt Allemeier, "Animal rights activist ordered released," Quad City Times, December 1, 2009; Regina Zilbermints, "Grad student cites protecting subjects as reason not to testify," The Daily Iowan, December 9, 2009, p. A1;

Press-Citizen editorial: Hold off on VP for Strategic Communications: Editorial, "Stakes Have Risen for UI's Strategic Communication," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 20, 2009, p. A7 ("it's wrong when UI seems to care more about finding the right way to spin its decisions than about making the right decisions in the first place. The best strategy for UI communication is for officials to be more forthright and to show more common sense.");

Press-Citizen editorializes for 21-only, Editorial, "21-Only Still an Option for Bars with PAULAs," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 19, 2009, p. A7; "Number of UI alcohol crimes rise," The Daily Iowan, December 4, 2009; B.A. Morelli, "Report: Colleges try to cover up rapes; UI incident led to policy overhaul," Iowa City Press-Citizen, December 5, 2009; Danny Valentine, "The Siren Song of Alcohol," The Daily Iowan, December 7, 2009, p. A1;

Hancher Relocation: Rachel Gallegos, "Property owner for Hancher site won't sell land," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 26, 2009, p. A1; Rachel Gallegos, "Property owner for Hancher site won't sell land," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 26, 2009; B.A. Morelli, "Biz leaders: Opposition to land sale for Hancher not an obstacle," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 30, 2009 (and see related five-part series, "Hancher - Part V," September 18, 2009, with links to prior four);

School District/Board. Rob Daniel, "School district facing more budget cuts," Iowa City Press-Citizen, December 4, 2009; Rob Daniel, "What will redistricting do? Little known on effect of altering boundaries," Iowa City Press-Citizen, December 5, 2009.

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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
# # #

Dissing the Office of President

October 12, 2009, 6:10 a.m.

Looking for commentary about the Oct. 12 Hancher relocation forum? Click here.
Looking for the entries about the University, and Iowa's, budget cuts? Click here and here.

Ad Hominem Attack as Political Strategy
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Rodney Dangerfield made a career out of the line "I can't get no respect."


What was funny coming from Dangerfield is not so funny coming from those Republicans today who seem to have chosen ad hominem attacks on the President as their primary political strategy.

Is this anything more serious than a very, very thin plank in what they offer as their political platform? I fear so. As Jon Stewart once said to the "Crossfire" hosts, I say to these Republicans: "You are hurting America."

1. "You lie!" "[T]he House held that by shouting 'You lie' during the president’s speech Mr. Wilson [Congressman Joe Wilson], a South Carolina Republican, committed a 'breach of decorum and degraded the proceedings of the joint session, to the discredit of the House.' . . . The outburst . . . made Mr. Wilson . . . an embarrassment and symbol of Republican disrespect to the president . . .." Carl Hulce, "House Rebukes Wilson for Shouting 'You Lie,'" New York Times, September 16, 2009, p. A14.

2. Break Obama. The Republicans' strategy is revealed most nakedly in their attacks on health care reform.

"Last week, in a variety of television appearances, Sen. Jim DeMint (R) of South Carolina said he'd like to see the health care reform push slow down. DeMint proceeded to tell a conservative conference call what he really hoped to accomplish: 'If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.'

"Today, RNC Chairman Michael Steele endorsed this approach.

"At the end of the address he was asked by the Huffington Post whether he agreed with Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-S.C.) assessment that health care reform could be Obama's Waterloo -- a chance for the Republican Party to break the president politically. 'I think that's a good way to put it,' he [Steele] responded." Steve Benen, "Reform Opponents Can't Do It Alone," Washington Monthly, July 20, 2009.

Sadly, Iowa's own Republican Senator Charles Grassley has joined in these efforts:

"Mr. Grassley also cited policy objections to the Baucus legislation. He criticized its costs, though Mr. Baucus has proposed offsetting savings, and he objected to its mandates that individuals have insurance, though Mr. Grassley previously has said health insurance should be mandatory just as auto insurance is for drivers. He said the bill would not do enough to guard against aid going to illegal immigrants and for abortions, and complained that it would not limit malpractice awards.

"For Democrats, Mr. Grassley’s list only reinforced their belief that he never would have compromised no matter how much time he had.

"Democrats wrote off Mr. Grassley in August, when at his meetings with Iowa voters he seemed to affirm conservatives’ claims that Democratic proposals would create government death panels to 'pull the plug on grandma,' and when he vowed in fund-raising appeals to lead the opposition to health care legislation." Jackie Calmes, "G.O.P. Senator Draws Critics in Both Parties," New York Times, September 23, 2009, p. A22.

Although I'm unable to find the link at the moment, my memory is that Senator Grassley along with other Republicans also earlier supported a bill that would have created Medicare funding for the end-of-life counseling that the Republicans are now calling "death panels." That Bill, "Medicare End-of-Life Care Planning Act of 2007," S. 466, was introduced into the 110th Congress by Senator Rockefeller [D-WV], two other Democrats, and three Republicans: Senators Collins, Isakson and Lugar. Others presumably signed on later, possibly including Grassley, but the Bill never passed.

So the "anti-death-panel" Republicans are not only deliberately misrepresenting the contents of the currently pending legislation, engaging in obstructionism for the sake of obstructionism that they hope will "break" the President, but willingly engaging in some considerable hypocrisy as well -- fear-mongering a proposal that their fellow Republicans once introduced.

3. "President Can't Swim." In a reaction to what he felt was unfair treatment in the media President Lyndon Johnson once complained, "If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read 'President Can't Swim.'"

For President Obama to be the third sitting president to receive the Nobel Peace Prize is as much a tribute to America, and the Americans who elected him to their highest office, as it is for him alone. Here is a report of some of the world's reaction:

"'Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,' the [Nobel Prize] committee said. 'His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.' . . . President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said the award marked 'America’s return to the hearts of the world’s peoples,' while Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said . . . 'In a short time he has been able to set a new tone throughout the world and to create a readiness for dialogue.'" Steven Erlanger and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Surprise Nobel for Obama Stirs Praise and Doubts," New York Times, October 10, 2009, p. A1.

Those sentiments from abroad are no mean accomplishment given where America's prestige had fallen during the last administration. And they do constitute, in fact, when multiplied by the number of the world's people who now share them, a significant element in creating a more peaceful world.

So what was the Republican response?

On Saturday, October 10, Michael S. Steele, the Republican National Committee Chairman, sent the Party faithful an email under the subject line, "Nobel Peace Prize for Awesomeness." It succeeded in not only dissing the President but the Nobel Committee as well, and began:

"I'm sure you've heard the news -- Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It's a stunning, if not truly surprising, indication of just how meaningless a once honorable and respected award has become. What has President Obama actually accomplished? . . . Even the normally fawning media have expressed shock at the clearly political and unmerited award. . . ."

The email concluded: "Help us remind the Democrats that trendy slogans and international esteem don't create new jobs for Americans, reduce the national debt, or keep our country safer in a dangerous world . . .."

In the same spirit, and to no one's surprise, the Republican Television Network, Fox, also trivialized the Prize. The Times reports, "On the Fox News show Fox & Friends, Brian Kilmeade, one of the hosts, said: 'This arguably could be the third person to win the award for not being George Bush.'"

The point is, Republicans don't have to take this stance. The story continues, Senator John McCain, President Obama's rival in the 2008 election, while not unrelievedly enthusiastic about the President and his new honor, at least had the decency to add, "as Americans, we’re proud when our president receives an award of that prestigious category.” Kate Phillips and Maria Newman, "Blog Talk: Perceptions of Obama's Prize," New York Times, October 9, 2009.

"President Can't Swim," indeed.

Could anything be worse than trying to disparage an American president's receipt of the Nobel Peach Prize?

Yes.

4. Cheering America's loss of the Olympics. President Obama, like other heads of state, went to Copenhagen in an effort to win an Olympics bid for America -- Chicago 2016.

He was unsuccessful.

So how did the pit bull conservative Republicans (with and without lipstick) respond? They cheered! They cheered the fact that America had lost in its effort to host the Olympics. Why? Because it was a further achievement in their campaign to disparage and trivialize President Obama, their efforts to make sure he "can't get no respect," to "break him."

"'The worst day of Obama's presidency, folks. The ego has landed. The world has rejected Obama,' echoed Rush Limbaugh.

"'For those of you ... who are upset that I sound gleeful, I am. I don't deny it. I'm happy,' Limbaugh said. 'Anything that gets in the way of Barack Obama accomplishing his domestic agenda is fine with me.'" Rachel Slajda, "Conservatives Revel In America's Olympic Defeat," Talking Points Memo, October 2, 2009.

OK, Limbaugh is just a talk show host -- albeit one who is rabidly anti-Obama and pro all things Republican.

But take a look at this Rachel Maddow video.

Rachel Maddow, "Conservatives Applaud Chicago's 2016 Olympics Loss," October 2, 2009, includes some of the audio and video of conservatives cheering Chicago's loss (and presumably their perception of conservatism's gain from any misfortune that comes President Obama's way) along with statements from a broad spectrum of the attack dog anti-Obama conservatives:



But what you also saw, if you watched this YouTube video, is President Bush's much more genuinely patriotic view of a Chicago Olympics, starting about 1:50 into the video: "But really it's coming to America. And I can't think of a better city to represent the United States."

Here again, the point is both that (1) Republicans don't have to be hateful to be successful, and (2) it's a little hypocritical to cheer an American loss that the Republicans' last president clearly hoped would be a win.

Where do we go from here?

It was not always thus. In 1932 a court upheld the old Radio Commission (predecessor to the 1934 FCC) in its denial of a license renewal to Reverend Dr. Shuler of the Trinty Church in Los Angeles, licensee of station KGEF.

Based on the record in the case it would seem that his speech was no more inaccurate, mean spirited and hateful than what is coming from some Republicans today or passes for talk shows on Fox or Rush Limbaugh. The court, while upholding Shuler's First Amendment rights to hold and speak his views elsewhere, drew a distinction in terms of his right to use a station licensed to serve "the public interest" for such purposes. Judge Groner wrote:

[If broadcasters are permitted to] use these facilities, reaching out, as they do, from one corner of the country to the other, to obstruct the administration of justice, offend the religious susceptibilities of thousands, inspire political distrust and civic discord . . . and be answerable for slander only at the instance of the one offended, then this great science [of radio broadcasting], instead of a boon, will become a scourge, and the nation a theater for the display of individual passions and the collision of personal interests. This [restriction on a broadcaster's speech, in this case resulting in the Commission's refusal to renew Shuler's license] is neither censorship nor previous restraint, nor is it a whittling away of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, or an impairment of their free exercise.

Appellant may continue to indulge his strictures upon the characters of men in public office. He may just as freely as ever criticize religious practices of which he does not approve [which were Roman Catholicism].

He may even indulge private malice or personal slander -- subject, of course, to be required to answer for the abuse thereof -- but he may not, as we think, demand, of right, the continued use of an instrumentality of commerce for such purposes, or any other, except in subordination to all reasonable rules and regulations Congress, acting through the Commission, may prescribe.

Trinity Methodist Church, South v. Federal Radio Commission, 62 F.2d 850, 852-53 (C.A.D.C. 1932). [First described in this blog in Nicholas Johnson, " Externalities: Hawkeyes' Football, Obama's Safety," September 21, 2009.]

Still earlier in our nation's history we had a law making it a crime to "write, print, utter or publish . . . any false, scandalous and malicious writing . . . against . . . the President of the United States, with intent to defame . . . the said President, or to bring them . . . into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them . . . the hatred of the good people of the United States . . .." "An Act for the Establishment of Certain Crimes Against the United States," July 14, 1798 (expiration date March 3, 1801), Statutes at Large, 5th Cong., 2nd Sess., p. 596.

The crime described is what was called in England, and in this country 210 years ago, "sedition."

I hasten to assure the reader that I am not advocating either the re-enactment of an American sedition law (the 1798 law expired in 1801) or a return to the FCC's monitoring of programming content represented, and upheld, in the Trinity Methodist Church case.

For I do not challenge the legal, indeed the constitutional, right of Republicans to savage our, and their, president in their effort to deny him, and the office he holds, the respect most Americans would say is rightfully his.

Respect for the President, and the Office of the President, is no longer required as a matter of law or FCC regulation. But it is still required as a matter of patriotism, effective and constructive governing, and civility in the discourse of a democracy's effort at a people's self-governing.

This does not mean agreement of the kind urged upon us during the first years of the latest Iraq War, in which "support the troops" became shorthand for "support the president." Throughout these blog entries can be found a good deal of criticism of members of both political parties in general, and some of the policies, personnel, and procedures of President Obama in particular -- but all, hopefully, with a respect for the person and office of the presidency.

I applaud those Republicans who have stood up to their colleagues in "the Party of 'No,'" and who, while not abandoning their values, are continuing to participate constructively and with civility in the legislative process.

I simply ask of the "give-the-President-no-respect" Republicans today what attorney Joseph Welch once asked of the red-bating Republican Senator from Wisconsin, Senator Joseph McCarthy, during the Army-McCarthy Hearings, June 9, 1954.

In the middle of the hearings Senator McCarthy chose to pin the "communist" label on a young lawyer in Mr. Welch's firm, a Republican who was neither a member of the communist party nor a potential witness in the hearings -- nor a member of Mr. Welch's team attempting to defend the U.S. Army from McCarthy's accusations.

Mr. Welch responded, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

"Senator McCarthy: I know this hurts you, Mr. Welch.

. . .

"Mr. Welch: Senator, I think it hurts you, too, sir. . . . Mr. McCarthy, I will not discuss this further with you. You have sat within six feet of me and could ask -- could have asked me about [him]. . . . [I]f there is a God in heaven, it will do neither you nor your cause any good. I will not discuss it further. . . ."

I happened to have watched that exchange live, on television, was moved by it, and wrote Joseph Welch of my admiration for him -- along with a request for a photo. He replied that he was nowhere nearly as great as I thought he was but that he was good enough to send me the signed photo that is today framed and hanging in my law school office.

To those Republicans who today attack the person and office of the presidency, who seek to "inspire political distrust and civic discord," to "excite against [the President] the hatred of the good people of the United States," I say with memories of Joseph Welch, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

With the protection we afford them, with the First Amendment to the Constitution, the Supreme Court's interpretations of it, and the FCC's non-regulation, all we can do is to point out the harm in their strategy -- as I have attempted to do here. We must trust in the good sense of the American people whose parents ultimately turned their backs on McCarthy, said "shame, that's not nice; it is you, sir, who are 'anti-American.'"

We can hope, to paraphrase Joseph Welch, that "[I]f there is a God in heaven, disrespecting the President will do neither the pit bull members of the Party of 'No' nor their cause any good."
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
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