Deadwood" is magnificently gritty in appearance and poetically obscene in language. No one ever says something as simple as "I'm hungry" without a notorious gerund between the first word and the third. But you get used to it, and it actually becomes kind of lyrical.

I'm told that Sen. Cornyn did make a point about Byrd's argument about "free speech" on the floor today: "The distinguished senior Senator from West Virginia has been in the Senate a long time. Much of his service he is justly proud of. But one of the dangers of being in the Senate for a long time is that you go on record making statements which have the potential of contradicting one's current statements. Indeed, that has been the case when it comes to the senior Senator from West Virginia.

"For example, the very procedure which he now decries as nuking free speech, he himself championed in 1977, in 1979, in 1980, in 1987. Hardly can it be true that today trying to reinstate majority rule as he himself did on those four occasions on the dates of the years mentioned, hardly can that be nuking free speech. In fairness, he ought to concede what we are doing is nothing radical. Indeed, it is doing the same thing he himself did four times earlier."

I'm not going to get in the middle of Ramesh's tussle with this Goldstein guy. But I would like to offer one modest defense raised by Ramesh's post below. The essence of Goldstein's epic broadside against Ramesh is that Ramesh is essentially a partisan hack. Ramesh's attack on Tribe, according to Goldstein, was without merit and therefore Ramesh's only motive could have been to discredit Tribe in advance of the coming judicial nomination battles. Anybody who knows Ramesh understands that this interpretation says far more about Goldstein than it does about Ramesh. But consider the fact that Ramesh is against the so-called nuclear option (as is the magazine). Presumably, if Ramesh were a hired gun for rightwing judges he would have no problem adopting this argument. Indeed, it would be far easier -- and more useful to the cause -- for him to adopt this position then go so far out of his way to go after Larry Tribe.

Anyway, I don't want to get in the crossfire -- and I don't want Goldstein registering all the JonahGoldberg.com domain names either. I just think that arguments about motives are usually silly and for them to be true you have to find a larger pattern of behavior that fits that motive. No one who's read Ramesh over the years could find any such pattern because he's an intellectually honest guy.

Cornyn does a fine job of responding to most of Byrd's contentions. (I say this although--not that I wish to re-open this debate!--I side with Byrd and not Cornyn on the question of whether the Senate ought to change the filibuster rules.) It seems to me that the senator is letting Byrd get away with an awfully base-stealing use of the concepts of "free speech" and "dissent."

Supposedly ending filibusters of judges "threatens the rights to dissent, to unlimited debate and to freedom of speech." Because it could lead to the end of filibusters for other measures, ending judicial filibusters "could rob a senator of the right to speak out against an overreaching executive branch or a wrongheaded policy." Ending filibusters "would mute dissent and gag opposition voices." There are several more such references to "freedom of speech."

But of course under any proposed rules change senators would have the right to speak out and to vote as they wish. They would be forced to allow an up-or-down vote where 51 votes prevailed. But if that's an attack on free speech, so is a 60-vote rule. Take the case where 61 senators want to vote to confirm a judge and 39 senators object. Under the current rules, those 61 senators can cut off debate, hold a vote, and prevail. So, on Byrd's account, it would seem that those 39 senators had their rights to freedom of speech trampled on. If 99 senators want to do something and Russ Feingold objects, Byrd's version of freedom of speech would require letting Feingold have his way. Since Byrd is willing to compromise on this idiosyncratic concept of free speech, he ought to explain why his compromise is preferable to Bill Frist's. And merely invoking that concept (repeatedly) can't get him to his preferred conclusion.

I thought this point was made, but apparently it wasn't:

Are you and Derb forgetting that the personal accounts being proposed by Pres. Bush are VOLUNTARY? Slothful folks like Derb won't have to take them; they'll still get their SS check every month. To be clear, though, I'm with you, Jonah. Freedom isn't free. Taking care of your own money is a small price to pay for ownership and a smackdown of Leviathan. Eyes on the prize, people! Anyone who has a 401K and "gets it" on an elementary level already understands the basics of these proposed accounts. They'd probably be willing to at least take a look and see how much "work" it would be to manage the SS private account. It sounds like the choice of investments would be much more limited than most 401Ks, anyway, so folks who are only mildly averse to putting forth any effort might still find them palatable.

I can't help but comment on the evolution of Goldstein's rhetorical strategy. First he said (go to rameshponnuru.com and you can follow all the links!) that my article on Tribe was "profoundly silly." (Me, I think that what's silly is the use of that intensifier before "silly.") It was just a profoundly silly article that can't be taken seriously, which is, I guess, why Goldstein has written 17 pages about it--that number is not an exaggeration, by the way--and bought all those websites. When I responded to the "profoundly silly" post, he came back with a post that said that my response had caused his opinion of my levelheadedness to sink. He was writing, you see, more in sorrow than in anger. In the next go-round, he commented that he had never heard of me before my article. I'm a nothing! A nobody!

So let's reconstruct the chronology here. Goldstein had never heard of me. Then he read my article, which both struck him as "profoundly silly" and left him with an impression that I am at least somewhat levelheaded. Then this impression faded away. And now, of course, he is talking about how there have to be "consequences" for all this silliness. This sort of thing certainly played a role in my decision not to match Goldstein page for page.

Okay, that's all (unless Goldstein starts making threats to my puppies). (Note to Goldstein: I don't actually have any puppies. You can scratch that off the to-do list.)

Tom Goldstein has another post. The interesting thing about this one is that he announces that he has bought a bunch of websites with my name in them--rameshponnuru.com, etc. Each of these sites will direct people to his posts and to links to my responses. When people enter my name in "Google and various search engines," they will read the stuff at his sites. There have to be "consequences" for my "reputation" and "credibility" after the terrible things I've supposedly done. I don't know that all that many people enter my name in searches, and if they do I suspect they'll be predisposed to take my side of the argument. But anyone who wants to bookmark his pages, be my guest. If Professor Tribe wants to write a letter to National Review, I'll be happy to do a detailed response and everyone will be free to draw their own conclusions. Otherwise, I don't foresee having tons more to say after this series of posts.

I'm still going to pass, that is, on reading and responding in detail to Goldstein's posts, because, as mentioned before, I don't think they're worth my time (or my readers' time). I know that sounds insulting, and obviously I don't mind that it does, but the truth is that there are a lot of posts out there that one doesn't have the time for. A while back I read a post, for example, attacking something I had written about the politics of health care. The post didn't really have much to do with anything I had written. This guy explained that I really knew better than what I had written--I really understood that we needed much more government involvement in health care--but clearly Rich Lowry wouldn't let me say it. I'm not going to waste time responding to posts that foolish. That's my judgment here, too. And while I understand why Goldstein objects to that judgment, I'm standing by it--with one exception, which I'll get to in my next post.

(If Tribe decides not to send a letter, by the way, well, that's his prerogative too. The only difference I can see between his not responding to me and my not responding to Goldstein is that Tribe made a point of telling me he looked forward to refuting my article. I never said anything similar about Goldstein.)

From a reader:

Derb's shock, like many other things, reminds me of a moment from the Simpsons. Homer is baby-proofing the home to protect Maggie. To keep her away from the electric outlets, he draws bunny heads around them. Marge points out that Maggie isn't scared of bunnies. Homer responds, "she will be."

The mastermind of the Bali bombing has received 30 months in jail. This amounts to about 1 week for every murder victim. The Australian public is not amused. Meanwhile the guy's followers are outraged. Belmont Club's Wretchard has got the details.

I get a lot of email from readers angry with conservatives who (allegedly) argue that the ends justify the means. I also recall that under Clinton, lots of conservatives complained about the same thing.

Having read quite a bit about pre-WWII liberalism, I know that many liberals and progressives used to explicitly endorse the notion that the ends can justify the means and the spirit of ends-justifying-the-means suffuses vast areas of liberal public policy and, often, conservative foreign policy.

Anyway, does anyone know about an essay or book specificly on this concept and the arguments which swirl around it? I think it would make for fascinating intellectual history to trace the concept and its critics throughout Western history. Maybe someone has done that? If so please let me know I would really love to read it.

Email from Poppa G:

I think I once emailed you that the epitome of sloth was Oblomov, the hero and title of the mid-19th century novel by Goncharov, a Ruissian classic. Oblomov, a wealthy landowner living in St Petersburg, succumbed to sloth so that he never wore anything but bathrobe and slippers, reclining on his couch and ignoring his friends' supplications to do something about his landed estate, which was falling into ruin. He eventually dies, of course. His slothful life gave rise to the condition known as Oblomovshchina, extreme sloth, and it was used as a metaphor for Russia's indifference to its future, especailly among the upper classes. I find that I am increasingly in the grip of one of the most powerful forces in the universe, inertia.

Bank essentially sets mans pants on fire and makes him think he's dying but hasn't apologized yet.

From a reader:

Hey Jonah,

As the Times article mentioned, the University of Chicago has just supplied
us with a number of bathrooms for those "uncomfortable" about classifying
themselves in with the hegemonic taxonomies of bourgeois heteronormativity.
The new bathrooms are private and infinitely nicer than the bathrooms for
those of us who have timidly accepted the social construction of our
maleness or femaleness. They are so much nicer, in fact, that I use them
regularly. When I was confronted about using the bathroom a confused
looking "somebody" I simply replied, "I'm not comfortable calling myself a
man on this campus."

Derb -- Again, I have considerable respect for the argument from sloth but, a few objections:

* as you intimate, the argument from sloth overlaps mightily with the argument from stupidity and/or ignorance; "I'm too stupid to figure out what to do with my money" is very close to "I'm too lazy to figure it out."

* if conservatives are willing to concede that Americans are too stupid to take care of themselves when it comes to providing for their future then we've really redefined basic economic conservative dogma.

* Just because the government system is "easier" now doesn't mean the private sector-and-government couldn't make a more privatized system easier still.

* sloth for me is not an argument for sloth for thee. By what right can a lazy person say other non-lazy people must have big chunks of their money taken from them for an absolutely terrible retirement plan?

* similarly saying government policies for everyone should be shaped around your own personal preferences and personal tastes is vaguely immoral and never strong argumentation. If you believe that the system should be flexible to your priorities you should favor a more privatized system rather than a one-size-fits all approach. Make room for the industrious individualists and thrifty savers as well as the sloths rather than say everyone must work within the slothful system.

The Bush administration is considering a more aggressive effort to foster opposition inside Iran and seeking ways to use a new $3-million fund to support activists without exposing them to the risk of arrest.

No work for you!

Gerard Baker's got a good column. Here's the opener:

ONE OF MY favourite cinematic moments is the scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian when Reg, aka John Cleese, the leader of the People’s Front of Judea, is trying to whip up anti-Roman sentiment among his team of slightly hesitant commandos.

“What have the Romans ever done for us?” he asks.

“Well, there’s the aqueduct,” somebody says, thoughtfully. “The sanitation,” says another. “Public order,” offers a third. Reg reluctantly acknowledges that there may have been a couple of benefits. But then steadily, and with increasing enthusiasm, his men reel off a litany of the good things the Romans have wrought with their occupation of the Holy Land.

By the time they’re finished they’re not so sure about the whole insurgency idea after all and an exasperated Reg tries to rally them: “All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

I can’t help but think of that scene as I watch the contortions of the anti-American hordes in Britain, Europe and even in the US itself in response to the remarkable events that are unfolding in the real Middle East today.

Some readers may remember a long column I did on how Pragmatic liberalism has evolved into an obsession with the cultural and social outliers rather than the reasonable man. I wrote:

The reasonable man's behavior was the group average of moral conduct in a very moral country. Today, all of our arguments are about how much the society must bend to the behaviors and attitudes of the man of the fringe, the outlier, the arrow that sails farthest from the bulls-eye. Schools are paralyzed by the question of what to do about the atheist, the homosexual, the handicapped, while the average kids — i.e., most of them — are given short shrift.

Anyway, here's a good example of what I'm talking about From the New York Times:

SAN FRANCISCO - Political epiphanies can occur in unexpected places. For Riki Dennis, a 35-year-old humanities student who is transsexual, it was the women's room at a rest stop on Highway 101 north of Santa Barbara.

"The boyfriend hit me, even in mellow California," said Ms. Dennis, who was in the early stages of becoming female when she was assaulted by a stranger after using the women's room. "I said, 'Sir, I have no designs on your girlfriend.' I just want to use the bathroom."

Ms. Dennis, whose lowish voice is now the lone betrayal of her birth sex, is a foot soldier on a new political frontier: the campaign to establish gender-neutral bathrooms in public places. The idea is to make sure that transgender people (an umbrella term that can include transsexuals, cross-dressers and those with a fluid, androgynous identity who do not consider themselves completely male or female) can use bathrooms without fear of harassment.

To see if Dan Schorr had burst into flames after he wrote this column. The last line about Bush and the "Iraq Effect": "He may have had it right."

Note: Stoopid typo fixed. Shouldn't have been posting pre-coffee.

(Sorry for continuing a thread from yesterday that probably doesn't deserve it)

I just saw Ramesh's partial defense of Geohegan's laziness. I certainly agree that Swallow was too hard on him. Indeed, I recall that Derb made a somewhat similar argument against reform on much the same grounds. Nevertheless, as a general principle I think this is a terrible line of argument for conservatives to endorse -- save to ratify the mere fact that it does in fact exist and therefore needs to dealt with.

How are conservatives going to possibly make any headway about the need for smaller government and more individual responsibility if we're prepared to stipulate that it's a respectable position to be too slothful to keep your own money and hand-it-down to your children. I mean we're not talking about voluntarism in local soup kitchens to replace government programs, we're talking about being interested in how their own money is allocated -- for them.

Bradley Smith's warning that the FEC may extend McCain-Feingold speech restrictions to the blogosphere, linked to earlier by Kathryn, reinforces a point made by Jonah: far from welcoming the rise of the blogosphere, Democrats view it as yet another burgeoning threat to their media monopoly.

From the CNET article: "Smith and the other two Republican commissioners wanted to appeal the Internet-related sections. But because they couldn't get the three Democrats to go along with them, what Smith describes as a 'bizarre' regulatory process now is under way."

And from the interview portion of the article, Smith said: "This time, we couldn't muster enough votes to appeal the judge's decision. We appealed parts of her decision, but there were only three votes to appeal the Internet part (and we needed four). There seem to be at least three commissioners who like this." [And these three commissioners are Democrats.]

Smith does go on to say, "I don't think the Democratic commissioners are sitting around saying that the Internet is working to the advantage of the Republicans." But I think he's just being diplomatic, in hopes of still changing some of their minds.

Noam Scheiber of the New Republic is worried that Bush might win with a compromise proposal that creates "add-on" accounts. After a few years, he warns, Republicans will propose letting people put their payroll taxes into these accounts. The Bush plan will triumph on the installment plan. As Scheiber notes, Paul Krugman has the same fear.

It seems to me that the underlying logic of the Scheiber-Krugman position is to oppose IRAs and 401(k)s, or at least to oppose any increase in the number of people who have them. The more people have them, and the more experience people have with them, the easier it will be for Republicans to propose letting people deposit payroll-tax money into them. Scheiber needs to worry more about the possibility that people will become fonder of investing their own money and less about the particular mechanisms by which this happens.

As for the political likelihood of this scenario unfolding, I'd say it's up in the air. I think it would be hard for Democrats to oppose add-on accounts, especially if they were targeted at the poor. That was a Democratic idea from the start. The bigger problem would be getting Republicans to support the idea. I'm for it, but my view is not prevalent among Republicans.

One thing I find interesting about the debate is that many Republicans support personal accounts because of what one might call a dynamic analysis of the politics of the investor class. But they haven't incorporated that analysis into their personal-account strategy. By all means, for example, conservatives should try to make sure to make the maximum size of the account as high as possible. But if the whole underlying political theory is correct, then we have reason to think that whatever number we start with, we'll end up with a higher number over the long run.

So to with "add on" accounts. To conservatives who say that they would "do nothing to solve Social Security's fiscal problem," I would respond that that's the case only if we assume that expansions of the new investor class don't have salutary political effects--which, again, is the theory that most of these same people hold (or think they hold).

There are good reasons for conservatives to prefer personal accounts "carved out" of Social Security to "add-on" accounts, but ultimately I'm for almost anything that expands the number of people in the markets and the extent of their involvement. (And Scheiber ought to be opposed to anything that does those things.) But if a passable deal required a majority of Republicans to come around to that position, it's an open question whether it would happen.

This could be a good thing. Unleash all bloggers on the idiocy of McCain-Feingold and the FEC.

I've got my popcorn and my mouse ready to watch the battle.

Just participated in a press/"opinion leader" conference call with the senator. Some highlights:

1. The senator wants personal accounts--and he's against any bill that doesn't have them. “I will not vote for it, and it will not get out of the United States Senate.”

2. On the Democratic line that there's no major problem: "Even among seniors, it's not working."

3. In response to a question about falling poll numbers for personal accounts, Santorum says that the president has not been making the case for them over the last two weeks--although he says that is starting to change. We knew the other side would be "armed and dangerous."

4. He thinks the argument has to be about "retirement security," not about the program's "solvency" or "trust fund," which is "green-eyeshade talk."

5. Democrats are happy to talk about raising the payroll-tax cap because "that's a safe field for them." That's all they're talking about.

6. Santorum did not seem to find the idea of raising the payroll-tax cap and lowering the rate appealing. Since the two policies would counteract each other in terms of revenue, he didn't see the point. [But wouldn't the question be whether the combination won some Democratic votes?--RP]

7. Greenspan was "tremendously helpful."

8. Santorum is "happy to campaign on this in 2006" if it comes to that--even in the second-most senior-heavy state in the country.

After I responded to his attack on me, calling it slippery and dishonest, Goldstein issued two responses--one in the comments section of his original post and one new 9-page (!) post. Goldstein says his "personal opinion" of my "levelheadedness was higher" before I responded to him on the Corner. Looking back on it, I do regret the "slippery and dishonest" comment. It's incomplete! Goldstein is also rock-dumb.

I'm not going to produce a 15-page response to go through every error Goldstein no doubt makes. I've only read a third of his endless commentary and skimmed the rest. But that's enough for me to see that there's no point in reading the whole thing thoroughly to see if he's made any valid criticisms of me. Let me select two easy-to-explain examples of the quality of thinking (and reading) we're dealing with here.

1) Goldstein alleged that my article was an attempt to weaken Tribe in advance of a confirmation fight over Rehnquist's replacement. I noted, a bit sardonically, that this alleged motivation of mine required me to believe that no other liberal law professors would step forward to play Tribe's role in such a fight. In other words, Goldstein's account of my motivation made no sense. Goldstein, totally missing the point, now writes this in his comments section: "[Ponnuru's] hyperbole does run a little wild with the idea that my post suggested that Tribe was the only person who would oppose Bush's nominees."

2) My article, you'll recall, concerned Tribe's 2003 claim to have made a daring Ninth Amendment argument to the Supreme Court in 1980, even though he faced pressure from the establishment not to make it. I went through evidence showing that Tribe didn't do any such thing, while plenty of other lawyers did. At one point in my article, I compared Tribe's brief to the Court with other briefs, noting that those other briefs made much more extensive Ninth Amendment arguments than Tribe did. I therefore noted some of the points those other briefs mentioned and Tribe's did not.

For Goldstein, this portion of my article "just represents Ponnuru's view that he knows better than Tribe how to argue a constitutional law case in the Supreme Court." He then expands on this idea: "If you believe that, then by nature you're going to believe inconsolably that Ponnuru is right about all of this and Tribe is wrong. (Tribe did win the case, incidentally.)" First of all, re "inconsolably": I do not think that word means what Goldstein thinks it means. Second--and Goldstein should read this next passage slowly: Obviously I'm not saying that Tribe made a mistake in how he argued his case before the Supreme Court. He told me, in a comment I quote in the article, that he had figured out a way to argue the case before the Supreme Court without invoking the Ninth Amendment. That, he said, was the wisest thing to do given the prevailing view of the Ninth Amendment. I'm not at all second-guessing that judgment. Listening to the counsels of prudence may have been the right thing to do! But having done that, don't go around saying how you bravely ignored those counsels. The problem isn't with how Tribe argued the case, but with how he later misrepresented what he had done.

It's also worth noting that Goldstein's zeal leads him to make arguments for Tribe that Tribe has already cut off! Goldstein advances a cockamamie argument that Tribe was trying to talk about the Ninth Amendment at the Supreme Court but was cut off. But this means we now have three different stories. Tribe's 2003 article reaches its focal point with what he "dared to say" at the Supreme Court (not what he had daringly tried to say but wasn't quite able to say). In a 2005 interview with me, Tribe said he had figured out how to make the argument without invoking the Ninth Amendment. And then there's Goldstein's theory.

Goldstein keeps saying that he never "talked" to Tribe before writing these comments. Let's hope Tribe comes up with something better when he gets around to refuting my article, as he has promised to do.

Now this is an encouraging story. I won't hold my breath for applause from Ted Kennedy.

Iraqi troops have spread their control over Mosul, according to Interior Minister Falah al-Naqeeb.

Insurgents controlled Mosul, the country’s second largest city last November, after overrunning its 12 police stations.

“Mosul was on the point of collapse from the security point of view and under threat from organized gangs,” the minister said in an interview.

“The Interior Ministry was forced to take urgent measures, ferrying troops and commandos who have managed to return tranquility and stability to the city,” Naqeeb said.

The minister said the troops have now established “an intelligence and information” gathering center in the city which is receiving full cooperation from residents.

Mr. Pryor was sent up -- actually he's on the bench now, because he was given a recessed appointment. He was sent up, and it was made very, very clear, he was there simply as a symbol. He's a nice enough person. I have met him. He's a pleasant person and all of that, but sent as a symbol and packaged by the White House in a way that we want to have a symbolic ideological position on this independent court. I mean, that almost guaranteed there would be opposition. We'll go back now. He has been on the court for a few months. We'll go and look at the decisions he has written since he's been there.

Judging from interviews (mostly with people outside the administration but very close to it) and observation of its behavior, the strategy is clearly to approach the issue step-by-step. The first step is to persuade the public that the