Lying in Ponds

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It’s not very common for Maureen Dowd and Jeff Jacoby to write similar columns, but that’s what happened yesterday. Both columnists responded to shocking new allegations of mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. Here’s Ms. Dowd:

Who are these women? Who allows this to happen? Why don’t the officers who allow it get into trouble? Why do Rummy and Paul Wolfowitz still have their jobs?

The military did not deny the specifics, but said the prisoners were treated “humanely” and in a way consistent “with legal obligations prohibiting torture.” However the Bush White House is redefining torture these days, the point is this: Such behavior degrades the women who are doing it, the men they are doing it to, and the country they are doing it for.

And here’s Mr. Jacoby:

If this were happening on a Democratic president’s watch, the criticism from Republicans and conservatives would be deafening. Why the near-silence now? Who has better reason to be outraged by this scandal than those of us who support the war? More than anyone, it is the war hawks who should be infuriated by it. It shouldn’t have taken me this long to say so.

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I’m leaving this morning for a quick business trip to California, to discuss modeling of the winds in the Altamont Pass with some colleagues at UC Davis. I went to first and second grade in San Diego, but it’s been a long time since I’ve set foot in the state. I’ll have to catch up on columns this weekend.

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Both Donald Luskin and Brendan Nyhan have been extremely nice to me, so I’m not very happy that a post of mine with some mild criticism of Mr. Nyhan has led to a very unfair attack on him by Mr. Luskin on the issue of Paul Krugman and Social Security. Mr. Nyhan responded at length. I mostly agree with Mr. Luskin’s dim view of Paul Krugman, but I’ve interacted with Brendan Nyhan by e-mail and met him once in person, and he’s not “pretentious” and not a “twerp”.

Each of the three Spinsanity guys freely discloses their liberal political background, but their four years of work clearly demonstrates their willingess to attack icons of the left such as Michael Moore, and even Paul Krugman on occasion. If you look at the current main page of Mr. Nyhan’s blog, you’ll find plenty of criticism of Republicans and conservatives, but also criticism of Maureen Dowd, Terry McAuliffe, Cynthia McKinney and Bill Clinton. If I evaluated him as a Lying in Ponds pundit, I assume Mr. Nyhan would look like Richard Cohen or Michael Kinsley, left-leaning but independent.

In his post, Mr. Nyhan also discusses his view of Paul Krugman and partisanship, and I will have to disagree with him when I have time for a full explanation.

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William Safire ended his 30-year run on The New York Times editorial page today with a farewell set of four columns. As I said back in November, I have always admired Mr. Safire’s independence and style. Unfortunately, he has often been unwilling to issue a correction of make an apology when his many accusations against political figures have not panned out.

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My favorite fact-checking website, Spinsanity, hadn’t been updated since just after the election, and I was afraid that they might be considering ending it. The announcement finally arrived:

We want to let you, our readers, know that we have decided to stop updating Spinsanity. Since March 2001, we’ve poured vast amounts of our time into this site, writing more than 400 articles as well as a book. It has been a rewarding but exhausting process, and after much reflection, we have decided not to continue the website. We will make sure our complete archive remains online as a resource for citizens and journalists, and have completed a final update of our topical index that presents an annotated guide to our body of work.

Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan did an outstanding job and provided an excellent resource of factual, objective political analysis. It was hard work, and it’s certainly understandable that they are ready to pursue other things. Best of luck to each of them . .

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Columnist Joe Conason has a new job:

American Prospect Executive Editor Michael Tomasky announced today that the Prospect has hired Joe Conason to serve in a new position as the magazine’s Investigative Editor. Conason, the well-known investigative journalist, political columnist, and best-selling author, will oversee the Prospect’s new emphasis on investigative reporting. He will assign, edit, and write articles, and he will join the magazine formally on January 24.

I don’t know if that means he will stop writing his column or not.

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I’ve signed up to attend the Triangle Bloggers Conference in Chapel Hill next month. I’ve never been to one, so it will be fun to see famous NC bloggers like Ed Cone.