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TO OUR READERS:  Please click on Urgent Agenda several times during the day.  We hope, in 2011, depending on the news, to put up at least one post during the afternoon hours, so there'll always be something new to read.  So visit us regularly.

JANUARY 9,  2011

WHAT ABOUT THIS RHETORIC? – AT 12:48 P.M. ET:  A longtime reader alerts us to this bit of rhetoric, which of course was not condemned at the time.  It's quoted at HillBuz:

On June 14, 2008, while running for president, Barack Obama said this:

"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."

Obama was quoting from a movie, "The Untouchables," but he applied the quote directly to politics.  No uproar from the media. 

And on September 17, 2008, Obama said this:

"I want you to argue with them and get in their face."

Again, no condemnation. 

January 9, 2011       Permalink

CHATTER AFTER TRAGEDIES – AT 11:42 A.M. ET:  We have a long history of immediate, sometimes irresponsible speculation after tragedies.

I was discharged from active Army service the hour President Kennedy was assassinated. A fellow trooper, also just discharged, was driving from Fort Dix, New Jersey, to New York City, and offered me a ride. We heard about the assassination just after leaving the Fort Dix gates.

It took only hours for the speculation to start, and become rampant.  Dallas, Texas, we were told – and I heard it right on the radio during that car ride – was a center of right-wing political activity, and, indeed, there had been some incidents.  Adlai Stevenson, our UN ambassador, had been spat at by some crazy when visiting the city.  There was a retired major general named Edwin Walker, who struck just about everyone as unbalanced, who had become a symbol of far-right activity in Dallas.

A large, anti-Kennedy ad had been positioned in the Dallas Morning News the day of the killing.

Dan Rather, then a CBS correspondent, reported that some Dallas school children had applauded news of Kennedy's being shot.  (That story later turned out to be completely false.) 

And so, the idea was planted in our heads that the assassination had to be the work of the right, even though Dallas had given the president the warmest of receptions.

Later, of course, we learned that Lee Harvey Oswald was in fact a leftist.  But the damage to press credibility was already done.

After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton speculated that conservative talk radio might have been a factor in influencing the bombers.  While the speculation was wild and grossly unfair, it took hold in some circles. 

It's interesting that there was little political speculation after the attempt on President Reagan's life in 1981.  After all, the right could not be blamed.

Now we have a flood of internet speculation that Sarah Palin may be in some weird way partly to blame for yesterday's shooting.  Outrageous.  As the chap said, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.   

January 9, 2011     Permalink

ABOUT THE SUSPECT – AT 10:53 A.M. ET:  In an example of fine, cautious reporting, experienced journalist Bruce Drake, at Politics Daily, gives some factual background on the suspect. 

Jared Loughner, the 22-year-old suspect accused of shooting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a rampage that killed six people and wounded more than a dozen others, had a history of troubling behavior that surfaced in rambling postings on his MySpace page, YouTube videos and classes he attended at Pima Community College in Tucson.

One of his videos prompted college officials to suspend him and tell his parents that he would have to get a mental health evaluation if he wanted to return to school, according to the New York Times. Loughner attended Pima from the summer of 2005 until October when he withdrew after his suspension.

Loughner tried to enlist in the Army in 2008 and took a physical. But First Sgt. Brian Homme, a Tucscon recruiter, told the Arizona Daily Star that he was rejected as unqualified. Citing confidentiality rules, the Army did not make public its reasons.

And...

Caitlin Parker, a former friend of Loughner, told ABC News that Loughner had once met Giffords.

"As I knew him more and more after high school, he got a little bit more odd," Parker said. "I mean, he was obsessed with the 2012 prophecy. I mean, he met Gabrielle Giffords once in '07 and told me he asked her some question that made absolutely no sense to me, but he said, 'I can't believe she doesn't understand it. Politicians just don't get it.'"

At college, Loughner "disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts," according to Lynda Sorenson, who told the Daily Star she once took a math class with him.

COMMENT:  We may learn more later today, when the suspect appears in court.  It's encouraging to see that some reporters are sticking to facts.

January 9, 2011       Permalink

ARIZONA – AT 10:20 A.M. ET:  There will be briefings later today on the condition of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and the suspect will also appear in court later today.  From what we can gather, no change has been reported in Ms. Giffords's condition.  She is stil in Intensive Care, in critical condition.

An overnight report from a local station in Arizona said that the congresswoman was awake and speaking with family, but we have seen nothing to back that up.

There has been an outburst of vulgarity on the political left, claiming that this all happened because of "right-wing rhetoric," with some grossly irresponsible commentators blaming Sarah Palin.  We'll have more about this later, but Byron York, in a superb Washington Examiner piece that I commend to you, contrasts this vulgarity with the endless cautions that were issued after Major Nidal Hassan murdered 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009.  One commentator after another warned us about jumping to conclusions, even though the background and motivation of the murderer were obvious from the first moment.   York writes:

Within hours of the killings, the world knew that Hasan reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar!" before he began shooting, visited websites associated with Islamist violence, wrote Internet postings justifying Muslim suicide bombings, considered U.S. forces his enemy, opposed American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as wars on Islam, and told a neighbor shortly before the shootings that he was going "to do good work for God." There was ample evidence, in other words, that the Ft. Hood attack was an act of Islamist violence.

Nevertheless, public officials, journalists, and commentators were quick to caution that the public should not "jump to conclusions" about Hasan's motive. CNN, in particular, became a forum for repeated warnings that the subject should be discussed with particular care.

Now, even though we know so very little about yesterday's shooter, the left is out making all kinds of wild statements about his motive.  Shame, shame.  York:

Fast forward a little more than a year, to January 8, 2011. In Tucson, Arizona, a 22 year-old man named Jared Lee Loughner opened fire at a political event, gravely wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, killing a federal judge and five others, and wounding 18. In the hours after the attack, little was known about Loughner beyond some bizarre and largely incomprehensible YouTube postings that, if anything, suggested he was mentally ill. Yet the network that had shown such caution in discussing the Ft. Hood shootings openly discussed the possibility that Loughner was inspired to violence by…Sarah Palin. Although there is no evidence that Loughner was in any way influenced by Palin, CNN was filled with speculation about the former Alaska governor.

COMMENT:  I hope that conservatives have the backbone to blast the wild irresponsibility that we're seeing, but I doubt it.

January 9, 2011     Permalink

JANUARY 8,  2011

MURDER IN TUCSON – AT 6:45 P.M. ET:  Obviously, all who follow the news closely have been caught up in the terrible events today in Tucscon.  Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a moderate Arizona Democrat, was holding an outdoor meeting with constituents at a shopping center when a gunman opened fire, shooting her in the head, and hitting a total of 18 people, according to news reports.  We're told that six are dead, although some reports have it at five.

Congresswoman Giffords is alive, and has survived emergency surgery.  But her prognosis is uncertain.  She is married to an astronaut.

She was one of the members of Congress reading a portion of the Constitution on the House floor this week.  She read the First Amendment. 

The shooter has been identified as a 22-year-old white male, Jared Lee Loughner, who has entries on YouTube.  He appears to be a very confused conspiracy theorist who lists both Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and "The Communist Manifesto" among his favorites. 

Events like this bring a torrent of news stories in the first hours, a requirement of the 24-hour news cycle.  Some will turn out to be wrong.  Several news outlets reported Gabrielle Giffords dead, then had to retract the story.  The wisest thing is for viewers and readers to wait for more information, corroborated, before drawing any conclusions from the deed or the perpetrator.

Obviously, the usual suspects will be out in force, spinning this horror for their own political ends.  You know how to ignore them, and they deserve mightily to be ignored.

January 8, 2010        Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 10:37 A.M. ET: 

More than 30 years after NASA's Viking landers found no evidence for organic materials on Mars, scientists say a new experiment on Mars-like soil shows Viking did, in fact, hit pay dirt.  The new study was prompted by the August 2008 discovery of powerful oxygen-busting compounds known as perchlorates at the landing site of another Mars probe called Phoenix.

The organic material would be covered under Obamacare, but the death panel ruled that's more than 60 million years old, just outside the age limit.

January 8, 2010      Permalink

RAHM ROMPS – AT 9:23 A.M. ET:  Chicago will soon elect a new mayor, another opportunity for voters to meet their ancestors at the polls.  It appears at this time that the Obama-Chicago axis will be strengthened.  From The Politico:

Of the candidates for Chicago mayor, former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun has benefited most from the recent shrinking of the field, but former Rep. Rahm Emanuel still leads by a healthy margin, according to the first poll released since state Sen. James Meeks and Rep. Danny Davis dropped out.

Emanuel had 42 percent of likely city voters in the poll to Braun’s 26 percent second-place showing — a 16-point lead — according to the poll conducted for the city’s Teamsters union council and reported Friday by the Chicago Sun-Times.

The vote is scheduled for February 22nd.  If no candidate gets more than 50 percent, a runoff will be held in April.

Chicago is a racially charged town, with raw, 1960s-style racial politics.  There were originally three African-American candidates, but two dropped out so the black community could coalesce around one.  That one, Carol Mosely Braun, is possibly the worst candidate in the entire history of human elections, here and abroad.  A former, and hopelessly inept and corrupt U.S. senator, and a former, nondescript ambassador, she has ethics issues aplenty.  The idea of coalescing around one candidate for ethnic reasons is dubious enough.  But that candidate? 

Rahm Emanuel was Obama's chief of staff.  He's never run anything large.  But, on balance, he's the best candidate, and watching his furious, take-no-prisoners manner will be great political theater.

The Republicans have no chance this year in the mayoralty race.

I have an affection for Chicago.  I went to college there, and it's a great town, if you have a bulletproof vest.

January 8, 2010       Permalink 

AS GOES PAKISTAN – AT 9:05 A.M. ET:  We've been hearing much about Pakistan lately, and much of that isn't very good.  Pakistan, a country with an expanding nuclear arsenal, is falling further and further into the darkness of extremism.  Our media tends to ignore it, since what's happening there can't be blamed on "American policies."  But Pakistan will affect every family living in the United States.  From AP:

ISLAMABAD -- A 60-year-old university administrator in the southern port city of Karachi is wistful as he recalls the more tolerant, freewheeling Pakistan of his youth.

Once, when a teacher suggested no book can be perfect, the boy asked if that included Islam's holy book, the Quran. That sparked a candid class discussion about religion. But in today's Pakistan, Muqtida Mansoor said he would never dare to ask the question in public.

After all, "anyone could shoot you."

Days after the assassination of Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer, one of the few politicians openly challenging the onslaught of religious extremism, Pakistani moderates are facing a new and troubling reality: Pakistan is a country where fundamentalism is becoming mainstream, leaving even less room for dissent, difference and many once-prevalent leisures such as public music, dance parties or other social contact between the sexes.

More liberal-minded Pakistanis have been left with a profound sense of loss, alienation and fear for the future. One rights activist forecast that at the rate Islamist groups are rising, a religious party could be ruling the country in 10 to 15 years.

The transformation is particularly disheartening for many younger Pakistanis.

"There is no concept of freedom of speech in this country," said Aaisha Aslam, 25, who works for a non-governmental organization. People with fanatic mindsets are "out to snatch this country from us."

The poles have shifted so much that it was not just bearded students from religious seminaries who this week praised the suspected killer of a politician who opposed blasphemy laws. Some religious scholars who oppose the Taliban also joined in - and lawyers showered him with rose petals.

COMMENT:  We must ask what will happen to those nuclear weapons.  We are endlessly assured that they are "safe."  Really?  How would we know?  Who will eventually be guarding them if a fanatical, Iran-style regime takes over?

And in our universities, students will be told that we Western imperialistic, right-wing colonialist warmongers have no "right" to question what's happening in Pakistan because it's "another cultural expression."  And too many people who will go on to work in government and the press will believe that.

Welcome to the next decade.

January 8, 2010      Permalink

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL – AT 8:51 A.M. ET:  We begin our third year with a story about something we can cheer, an American teacher who does it the old-fashioned way.  We hope his example spreads through our alarmingly shallow education system.  From The New York Times:

SUDBURY, Mass. — William H. Fitzhugh, the cantankerous publisher of a journal that showcases high school research papers, sits at his computer in a cluttered office above a secondhand shop here, deploring the nation’s declining academic standards.

“Most kids don’t know how to write, don’t know any history, and that’s a disgrace,” Mr. Fitzhugh said. “Writing is the most dumbed-down subject in our schools.”

His mood brightens, however, when talk turns to the occasionally brilliant work of the students whose heavily footnoted history papers appear in his quarterly, The Concord Review. Over 23 years, the review has printed 924 essays by teenagers from 44 states and 39 nations.

The review’s exacting standards have won influential admirers. William R. Fitzsimmons, Harvard’s dean of admissions, said he keeps a few issues in his Cambridge office to inspire applicants. Harvard considers it “something that’s impressive,” like winning a national math competition, if an applicant’s essay has appeared in the review, he said...

...The term paper was once an important feature of American secondary education, requiring students to dig deeply and write at length. Mr. Fitzhugh said that most public school teachers have stopped assigning such papers — a shift that he attributed mostly to the fact that teachers have so many students and so little time.

Still, hundreds of earnest students send Mr. Fitzhugh papers every year, hoping to win his stamp of approval.

In the most recent issue, a senior from Montclair, N.J., writes of Theodore Roosevelt’s tenure as a New York police commissioner; a New Orleans student profiles a 19th-century transcendentalist philosopher; and a senior from Seoul documents the oppression of Korean residents on a North Pacific island.

COMMENT:  Just terrific.  There are still great teachers, and there are still great students.  We can reverse mediocrity.

And I hope that, within out lifetime, Americans will once again discover the joy of writing, in longhand, a personal letter to a friend, on real paper.  I don't want future generations to judge us entirely by our e-mails. 

Mr. Fitzhugh, U R doin' good werk.

January 8, 2010     Permalink