Poisoning the well of public opinion against the Patriots

On January 21, Chris Mortensen published a story at ESPN.com that claimed, among other things, that

The NFL has found that 11 of the New England Patriots' 12 game balls were inflated significantly below the NFL's requirements, league sources involved and familiar with the investigation of Sunday's AFC Championship Game told ESPN.The investigation found the footballs were inflated 2 pounds per square inch below what's required by NFL regulations during the Pats' 45-7 victoryover theIndianapolis Colts, according to sources.

This claim wasn't true.

On January 19, league official David Gardi sent a letter to the Patriots claiming “In fact, one of the game balls was inflated to 10.1 psi, far below the requirement of 12-1/2 to 13-1⁄2 psi. In contrast, each of the Colts’ game balls that was inspected met the requirements set forth above.”

Two more claims, neither of which is true.  First that the Patriots had a ball that was 2.4 psi low.  Also the claim that none of the Colts' were low.

Stupid Republicans

Clearly the Clintons are hypocrites, says the White House. Bush, after all, has only commuted one sentence, while Bill Clinton issued hundreds of pardons!

Quick talking point for people momentarily floored by the 200:1 ratio: NONE OF CLINTON'S PARDONS WAS IN SELF-DEFENSE!

None would even remotely qualify as "obstruction of justice". And yet that's what the Libby commutation is.

The Republicans serve as a good argument for mandatory class mobility. Let's have a restoration of the estate tax, at a higher level. And no more private schools. Public schools for everybody! Then we'll see how good they are.

politicization of DoJ

A quick hit:

back in 2000, I repeatedly ran into Bush supporters who argued with a straight face that there was nothing wrong with what Katherine Harris was doing in Florida. After all, she had won the election to be the Secretary of State, so she had the power to do what she wished, even if that meant putting all of her energies into making sure George W. Bush was elected.

This argument was advanced in all sincerity! When I tried to argue that she was supposed to serve the interests of the citizens of Florida and maintain fair elections, that criticism was laughed away as being hopelessly naive. "The Democrats would do the same thing" I was told, and numerous people made vague references to JFK's triumph in 1960 as if that were the only proof they needed.

I guess they skipped the "Two wrongs don't make a right" part of ethics instruction.

Anyway, what is going on now at DoJ is directly analogous to what Harris did in Florida in 2000. Harris then, and Gonzales now, have been using the power of the state to directly advance the interests of the Republican party instead of the interests of justice. At DoJ, this is most dramatically seen with the various USAs who were fired either for refusing to investigate Democrats or for having the gall to investigate Republicans. But a lot more of this kind of "party first!" thinking has been going on.

What's my point? Anybody who is surprised at all the scandals that have arisen with Bush wasn't really paying attention during the Florida recount, when it become perfectly clear that Bush had no respect for the rule of law and was utterly focused solely on advancing his own interests at every step. As usual with this kind of thing, Republican projection launched the identical complaint at Al Gore, and the GOP-friendly media lapped it up.

*sigh*

I think it's naive to assume this problem will go away once W. and his family move to extradition-safe Paraguay after he leaves office.