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So I was on Bloggingheads yesterday talking about - what else? - Murdoch and his nefarious ways. Felix Salmon was excellent and lovely and more patient than he should probably have been. Anyway, there's a whole hour of this stuff! If I look demented or spout nonsense I blame Rupert...
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Cycling fans will recall the Festina Affair that crippled the 1998 version of the Tour de France. The discovery that the peloton could be considered a travelling pharmacy did not surprise veteran cycling aficionados, even if the extent and sophistication of the doping was enough to shock some. Entire teams withdrew from a race that, with grim inevitability, quickly became known as the Tour de Farce. Well, this phone-hacking scandal is, for the press and parliament, a comparable scandal.
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Given how roughly he was treated by the press it's not a surprise that Neil Kinnock still thirsts for revenge against tormentors. On the other hand, his appearance on the Today programme this morning when he called for the free press to be suppressed or otherwise outlawed demonstrated that, actually, the press was right to monster him all thos eyears ago. Bagehot says all that needs to be said about Kinnock's ideas which can best be categorised as looopy when they're not sinister and vice versa. This, however, was a truly remarkable statement: What [the rules] require is balance and I think that is all that anyone would possibly ask for in terms of freedom of expression… if we could have a balanced press without any form of public responsibility, that would be wonderful.
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John McTernan has some good advice for MPs questioning the Murdochs and La Brooks this afternoon. The main thing is basically this: see those famous Congressional hearings in the United States? Yeah, don't behave as Senators and Members of the House of Representatives are prone to do. It's not about you, it's about the answers. So no rambling opening statements just because, unusually, people are watching this hearing. Joe Biden is not your role model. Anyway, dear readers, what would you ask the trio? Meanwhile, Private Eye have opted to go classic this week. Bravo.
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The public may not be much interested in the Murdoch Affair but the importance of an issue is not measured by the level of public interest in it. If it were and if the news channels only covered the things the public loves we'd be treated to exhaustive coverage of kittens in trees, car chases and executions. Bully for the great British public. Equally, those tempted to dismiss the implications of the Prime Minister's involvement in this stramash might consider whether they'd be quite so generous if the scandal had erupted - like some giant suppurating boil - while Labour were in government. As a general rule if you think something would be a scandal if the other mob were in power there's a good chance it should also be thought a scandal when your friends are in government.
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Guido - or Harry Cole, actually - asks Where's the Outrage? about Maurice Glasman's declaration that all immigration to these fair islands should cease forthwith. Ed Miliband's advisor or intellectual guru or whatever he's termed these days believes immigration makes Britain little more than "an outpost of the UN" and we should cease being so generous to beastly foreigners and concentrate on oor ain folk. Of course Harry is right in one respect: if a Tory thinker had come out with this stuff the BBC and Guardian and the Labour machine would have denounced him and called for his defenstration or permanent exile and so on. So, yes, there's a double standard of some sort at play. But the Tories aren't making a fuss because, deep down, many of them agree with Glasman.
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Tim Montgomerie suggests that we all at least try and keep the News of the World scandal in some degree of perspective. This is a worthy thought but not one that's likely to fly very far given the febrile mood at Westminster. Moreover, Tim's reasons for calling for calm are not, perhaps, quite as persuasive as they might be. For instance, pointing out that all these abuses occurred while Labour was in power is, while true, not terribly relevant. Ed Miliband may have been a member of that government but he wasn't involved in courting News International. Besides, it's the Tories who are in power now and, reasonably enough, their relationship with the Murdoch empire is of more consequence now than whatever yesterday's men did yesterday.
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How many Tory MPs came into parliament - even this parliament - thinking they'd be asked to support a Tory-led plan to cut the army by 20%? How many Tory voters think this is where the public spending axe should fall? Precious few, I reckon. And yet, remarkably, this is what Liam Fox is planning. As I've noted before Fox is hoist upon his own petard having rashly promised 25% savings without (of course!) there being any impact on "frontline troops". Now there will be rather fewer frontline troops and Liam Fox appears to have been kippered by the Treasury. Boosting the Reserve capability is a worthy goal, for sure, but it's not, or should not, be considered a replacement for the regulars. That is, this might sensibly be thought a Both/And matter not an Either/Or question.
From our UK edition
I rather like Fox News, partly because it's so blessedly shameless (and, lord knows, it's more fun to watch than CNN America). Even so, one can't avoid the impression that there are times when its hosts and guests don't quite know very much about the stories they are supposed to be "covering". This is terrific, albeit in the way one imagines the Pyongyang Bugle must be magnificent.
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Rebekah Brooks has been arrested on grounds of conspiring to intercept communications and, more generally, corrupting public life and so on. Since this story is no place for the naive, an appropriate measure of cynicism demands one ask why Brooks has been arrested today? At the very least this development is likely to make a mockery of her appearance before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee on Tuesday. One imagines Brooks' lawyers will suggest she come armed with one answer to any and all questions: "I'm sorry but these are matters currently being investigated by the police and I would not want to jeopardise or otherwise prejudice those enquiries. Accordingly I am afraid that I cannot answer your question.
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No pressing need to post this except that I enjoyed this sharp little short written and directed by an old chum from college days, Luke McManus. Nicely observed.
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I've been guest-blogging at Andrew Sullivan's place this week where, somewhat to my surprise, I ended up refighting the War of 1812 with Jonathan Rauch. I meant to post this here earlier but forgot, so here it is now. My word, that jackanape Jonathan Rauch does severely provoke me. First blogging, now the War of 1812. I surmise he aspires to nincompoop status. The War of 1812, upon which many American myths now seem to depend, was a foolish and futile enterprise from the start, rested on a policy of ignorance and needless aggression, and was founded on the erroneous assumption that Napoleon Bonaparte would prevail in the epic, global struggle of which the War of 1812 was but a minor sideshow.
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Nashville is a fun town and there's a heck of a lot of good stuff that's come from Tennessee but Texas is the other great home of country music and the Texas singer-songwriter tradition is maintained by Robert Earl Keen (among many others). Here he is with The Road Goes on Forever (And the Party Never Ends). True that. Remember: we're in the country of country...
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I still maintain that Rick Perry is the biggest obstacle not named Mitt Romney standing between Mitt Romney and the Republican presidential nomination but, dang, he needs to be talking to some better people: From Katrina Trinko at the Corner: Word in Austin is that Rick Perry is doing everything necessary to prepare for a presidential run, including brushing up on foreign policy. We hear that he recently met with top national-security experts Doug Feith and William Luti. I admire anyone who can type that stuff and suppress a mirthless chuckle. Forget Mr Luti for a moment. If you were running for the Republican nomination how many foreign policy folk would have to refuse to return your calls before you thought "Guess it will have to be Doug Feith. He'll do!" Fifty? A hundred?
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Obviously that's a Question To Which The Answer Is No. At the American Spectator (arrivistes!) Iain Murray and Matthew Melchiorre report on the success of a privatised fire service in Chatham County, Georgia: Free riders bankrupted London's fire insurance companies by taking advantage of their fire services, but the free rider problem is not insurmountable. Had the two services been operated separately, the insurers could have incentivized the purchase of fire company subscriptions by offering clients discounts on premiums. Meanwhile, the fire company could have averted losses by billing non-subscribers for its services.
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I'm glad the kinetic military action faux-war in Libya has gone so well. What's that? Oh. Nevertheless, the war has this to be said for it: very few people seem to care one way or the other what happens in Libya. Granted, a churl could construe this as a good reason to have avoided getting involved in the (latest) Battle for Tripoli in the first place since the lack of interest in the conflict might be considered evidence that few vital interests - for the United States or other NATO powers - are at stake. Nonetheless, alea iacta est and all that. So this is not a surprising development: “The United States views the Qaddafi regime as no longer having any legitimate authority in Libya,” Mrs. Clinton said.
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There are few organisations that persuade one to root for Rupert Murdoch but the US Department of Justice is probably one. Then there's Eliot Spitzer, just the kind of creep and hypocrite* who is supposed to be treated roughly by the newspapers. Spitzer, yet another example that Scott Fitzgerald's silly suggestion "There are no second acts in American lives" is useful only because it's not at all true, wrote a typically vindictive piece for Slate this week arguing that News Corp be investigated by the American authorities. He argued that: [T]he facts already pretty well established in Britain indicate violations of American law, in particular a law called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
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Not the least astonishing aspect of the News of the World affair is the useless manner in which the Murdoch family has responded to the crisis. There appears to have been no plan, no attempt to get a grip on the situation; they have instead lurched from one miscalculation to another. Not that Rupert sees it that way. Apparently the company has made only "minor mistakes" and the crisis has been handled "extremely well in every way possible". Which is one way of looking at it. The initial decision to simply shutter the News of the World took everyone by surprise. Perhaps the Murdochs assumed this would put an end to the matter. In retrospect, closing the paper simply invited additional questions.
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I think Liberal Conspiracy should drop the "liberal" bit if they keep publishing tommyrot of this sort: I’ve never understood why we allow our print media to support a particular political viewpoint. Why is it that just before an election, our media line up in their separate camps and decide to tell us who to vote for? If there is a point of law I’m unaware of, perhaps someone will enlighten me, but just how is it in the public interest to seek to influence the outcome of general elections? Why do we need them to tell us what to do? Mark my words, we'll be hearing more of this kind of guff from other, more elevated places than Sunny's mob. Indeed, Gordon Brown's suggestion last night that the press must be "responsible" stems from the same controlling instinct.
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Fairness demands one acknowledge this has been Ed Miliband's best week since he became Labour leader. James's piece in this week's edition of the magazine explains why in typically fine fashion. He concludes: There’s undoubtedly something different about Miliband now: more swagger, more conviction. His adept handling of this crisis and his successful parliamentary gamble have shaken the confidence of the Tories. Being the first party leader to take on Murdoch and threaten to win is no mean feat. But can he keep it up? He wonders if this current drama will turn out to be just ‘a couple of weeks when the world looks like it has turned upside down and then the world goes back to normal and everybody is like, what was all that fuss about?’ Indeed.