Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Some of you may know that the English newspaper, The Guardian, is expanding its coverage of the U.S. It’s website has a global reach and now has a significant portion of its readers here in this country. As part of this expansion, Comment is Free, the Guardian’s daily blog about politics and international affairs will be adding a U.S. section come June.

The Washington DC editor asked me if I would contribute a weekly column to CiF. This is really a dream come true for me. When you first start blogging as I did in 2003, you sometimes feel like you’re shouting down a dark hole and all you hear in reply is your own echo. It’s gratifying when the mainstream media validates the value of your work.

In addition, there is still a significant percentage of people who look down their noses at political blogs as a reliable research source of information or opinion. Usually those people are the ones who disagree with your views to begin with and their dismissiveness tends to confirm their opinions in a loop of circular reasoning. I appreciate the Guardian granting its imprimatur to my work. It goes some ways toward combating this prejudice.

A perfect example of this is Wikipedia, the world’s largest source of online research. It has a deeply confusing attitude toward blogs as sources for Wikipedia articles. Generally, they are frowned upon as unreliable since they are self-published sources, a definite no-no in the Wikipedia world. However, if you are a genuine expert in the field you write about, then blogs can be accepted as sources:

Self-published material may…be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications

But it seems up to the blogger and Wikipedia members to sort out whether you are an expert or not. If you consider yourself an expert, and even if your blog presents original research on a topic, if another member disagrees they can remove your links at will and quote you irrelevant chapter and verse to “justify” their actions.

In my case, there are several members who have campaigned to remove references to my blog (read my Talk page) in Wikipedia articles arguing that by linking to my blog I’ve created a conflict of interest. Given that the conflict of interest rules were created mainly to prevent commercial entities from either promoting themselves or tearing down their rivals, they aren’t relevant to my situation. They also argue that despite my background in the field about which I write, since I am not a professional journalist, author, or academic, my contributions are not trustworthy and not disinterested. Considering that Wikipedia exists online and exploits all the opportunities that the web offers to disseminate knowledge, I find it ironic that it’s standards are so conventional. Either you write a book, newspaper or magazine article, or academic journal article if you wish to be an acceptable source. Write a blog and you’re chopped liver.

A senior Wikipedia editor I respect recently wrote to me about a phenomenon called “wikilawyering,” a tendency, as the online encyclopedia grows ever larger and more complicated, to parse the rules to an incredibly fine degree. In Talmudic interpretation it’s known as pilpul or in English ‘casuistry.’ He examined the work of my opponents and told me that it was such an example. I’m hoping to be working with him and other sympathetic Wikipedia members to figure out how serious political blogs can be treated with more respect within the Wikipedia universe.

And should anyone reading this edit Wikipedia articles, I’d welcome my work being referenced and linked there.

Though the pay at CiF isn’t much, at least I am getting paid. I remember a hilarious story Calvin Trillin wrote I believe in the New Yorker about a nice lunch The Nation’s editor treated him to over a discussion of his becoming a contributing writer. Trillin relates jocularly that the fee for his pieces was to be “in the low three figures.” But three figures is better than no figures.

My English friend, Michael Furmanovsky wrote to me saying: “You should be proud to be contributing to the best newspaper in the world.” As a dyed in the wool NY Times reader I find it difficult to transfer that title to The Guardian. But the truth is that the Times has nowhere near the diversity of political opinion in its pages that The Guardian does. This is proven by the fact that it is The Guardian and not the Times which has developed Comment is Free, a terrific means of integrating the best of the blog world into mainstream media.

The Guardian truly lets a thousand flowers bloom. The Times seems to specialize in a limited and carefully selected number of hot-house flowers. It’s a different journalistic philosophy and while I value both–as a writer I’m especially grateful for The Guardian’s approach.

I want to continue encouraging readers to provide story ideas to me along with links and any other background information that is necessary to write it.

Yup, you read it right and you’re gonna love this. Thanks to M.J. Rosenberg for this wild hat tip. The ‘august’ Wall Street Journal runs an OpEd column by Robert Turner, a former “acting assistant secretary of state (1984-85),” calling for Pelosi to be prosecuted for pursuing an independent U.S. foreign policy; something that is allegedly prohibited under the provisions of the Logan Act, an obscure 1799 law that prohibits individuals from negotiating with foreign powers against the express wishes of the executive:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may well have committed a felony in traveling to Damascus this week, against the wishes of the president, to communicate on foreign-policy issues with Syrian President Bashar Assad. The administration isn’t going to want to touch this political hot potato, nor should it become a partisan issue. Maybe special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, whose aggressive prosecution of Lewis Libby establishes his independence from White House influence, should be called back.

The comment that this “shouldn’t become a partisan issue”–that’s a joke, right? And as for calling for a special counsel, that’s a pretty feeble joke as well. But truly, I’d love to see the Justice Department “touch” this “hot potato.” In fact, please, please indict Pelosi. I can’t wait to see Bush provoke a Constitutional crisis over this. What little credibility he has in the rest of the country goes down the tubes in a heartbeat.

Let’s hear from the editorialist his take on how the Logan Act supposedly applies:

The Logan Act makes it a felony and provides for a prison sentence of up to three years for any American, “without authority of the United States,” to communicate with a foreign government in an effort to influence that government’s behavior on any “disputes or controversies with the United States.”

…Ms. Pelosi and her Congressional entourage spoke to President Assad on various issues, among other things saying, “We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace.” She is certainly not the first member of Congress–of either party–to engage in this sort of behavior, but her position as a national leader, the wartime circumstances, the opposition to the trip from the White House, and the character of the regime she has chosen to approach make her behavior particularly inappropriate.

So let’s see, the fact that Pelosi briefed the White House before she left, carried along with her State Department staff and flew on Air Force One to Damascus constitutes communicating “without the authority of the U.S.?” Further, how did she “influence Syria’s behavior regarding its “disputes with the U.S.?” She brought a message of “friendship and hope” and the faith that “the road to Damascus is the road to peace.” Golly, sounds like promoting a political agenda in contravention of every law and value of American foreign policy.

I do also like the comment about “wartime circumstances.” News to me: we’re at war with Syria. Bet you didn’t know that. Last I checked we hadn’t declared war against anyone and Iraq was a different country than Syria. Maybe Mr. Turner knows something I don’t.

He closes his disputation with this passage:

The U.S. is in the midst of two wars authorized by Congress. For Ms. Pelosi to flout the Constitution in these circumstances is not only shortsighted; it may well be a felony, as the Logan Act has been part of our criminal law for more than two centuries. Perhaps it is time to enforce the law.

Isn’t that interesting. Because we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan Nancy Pelosi can’t talk to the president of Syria. Makes perfect sense to me. I think he’s got an air tight case. What Turner neglects to mention but which Wikipedia reveals is that since the Logan Act was passed in 1799 precisely one person has been indicted under its provisions (in 1803) and no one, repeat NO ONE, has ever been prosecuted, let alone convicted. Please, oh please indict Nancy Pelosi.

I don’t know what it is about neocons. They seem to have a death wish. Every policy they’ve pushed over the past six years has proven disastrous. Yet they continue to push the envelope probing for ever new disasters they can promote. Seems like they have a political death wish.

WSJ conveniently omits from Turner’s bio that he’s a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, a haven for Norman Podhoretz and other anti-terror nutjobs, which should tell you oodles about his political perspective.