Zero Tolerance for Speaking Truth to Power

Rep. John Conyers asked comedian Stephen Colbert to leave the committee room rather than present live "testimony" concerning immigration. Donald Sensing compares the media reactions to testimony by Stephen Colbert and Christopher Coates on the same day:

Colbert 1,300; Coates 196


That's the count on Google News' leads of the coverage of the testimonies of comedian Stephen Colbert and Dept. of Justice official Christopher Coates. Colbert testified before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law. Coates appeared before the US Civil Rights Commission. . . .


Note that the major media covered Colbert exhaustively, but were conspicuously absent from covering Coates. That was left almost completely to online media, especially blogs. From curiosity, I watched NBC News primetime broadcast. Colbert was the lead story. There was no mention ever of Coates. And they wonder why their viewersehip is plummeting?


Fortunately and commendably for Colbert, his "testimony" was dripping with all the sober gravitas it deserved. . . .


Coates told the commission that he was testifying as a whistle blower since he had been instructed by his DOJ superiors not to speak.


You know, some more "zero tolerance" that this administration has for speaking truth to power, especially when the power is them and the truth is, well, the truth.

Read the whole thing.  Interesting take on Colbert's apparent realization that it was absurd that he had been asked to testify about immigration.

More on the Coates testimony.  Interesting links.   Possible legal ramifications for cases with minority plaintiffs.   Criticism of AP story, kudos for real journalism.

Josh Gerstein reports the story for Politico. Gerstein's story is a model of good journalism.

Background: Older posts on the New Black Panther case which Coates discussed in the hearing (and related issues of equality before the law) here, here and here.

Coates must be an extraordinarily strong individual to have remained in the DOJ after his demotion for supporting equality before the law. His testimony, against the orders of his superiors, probably ends any possibility that he could return to his career at the DOJ. But it was probably over before now, anyway. One of his subordinates had already quit to become a whistleblower. Going public may actually reduce the hostility which Coates must have been facing within the DOJ as a whistleblower. Here is an account of what he said at the going-away event at the time of his demotion.

Of course, there's a possibility that the Colbert appearance was not planned as a diversion, but was just another devastatiing unforced error by this Congress.

Nancy Pelosi on "Hollywood-American" Colbert: “He’s an American. He has a point of view.” From the comments:

“He’s an American. He has a point of view.” I thought Congress sought testimony from people with some expertise. There are fifty people in front of the local Home Depot who know more about this than Colbert.

North Korea: Run by and Emperor

Dennis Prager interviewed the author of a new book on the ordinary lives of North Koreans. She noted that North Korea is not a typical communist country, but rather one run by an emperor. Dennis pointed out that most Communist countries are run by emperors, even when the horrors don't get as bad as those in North Korea, China or Cambodia.

She noted that in NK, the people are the possessions of the government. Dennis pointed out that the bigger the government, the more of its citizen's lives it "owns".

Happy Constitution Day

Restoring Madison's Vision

Can the Constitution be sustained in such a large country?

Toqueville and today's America. Did he miss some developments that make "soft despotism" less attractive? Something to think about.

Obsession with the Feelings of Muslims

The Ground Zero Mosque has become a soap opera. Inspired by the opposition to the mosque's location, a publicity-seeking Pastor threatening to burn Korans set off the Muslim World, asked for, and got, a message from the White House, and also got a "friendly warning" from the FBI before calling off his stunt. Spengler (via Tigerhawk) comments on larger implications in the big, nasty world of international intrigue:

Meet the Reverend Terry Jones, asymmetrical warrior. It appears that pinpricks can produce chain reactions in the Islamic world. The threat may be termed asymmetrical because Islam is more vulnerable to theological war than Christianity (or for that matter Judaism).

As the youngest of the major religions (apart from Sikhism), Islam must defend its historical narrative more fiercely than the older religions. Islam never withstood the withering criticism of Enlightenment scholars from Spinoza to the Jesus Project determined to discredit sacred texts. And because the Koran is not a human report of God's word, like the Christian and Jewish bibles, but rather the "uncreated word" of Allah himself, any challenge to its authority cuts at Islam's credibility. The fact that Islam has established neither a Magisterium in the Catholic sense, nor an authoritative tradition like that of Orthodox Judaism, leaves it decentralized, divided and fractious. . .

Russia has more urgent reasons to sow discord in Muslim countries, and centuries of experience in doing so. Simply because America has committed its reputation and resources to stability in the Muslim world, Russia has an interest in promoting the opposite. Russia views the world as a chessboard, in which pressure on the flanks increases its control of the center of the board. Moscow's on-again, off-again deal to supply Iran with an advanced anti-missile system, for example, represents a bargaining chip that it can use with Washington for a variety of purposes.

There is a deeper Russian interest in fostering Muslim weakness, though. Before mid-century the Russian Federation likely will have a Muslim majority. . . .

But back in the U.S., the liberal elite wants to reach out to Muslims. James Taranto, September 16:

The real problem here is that the liberal elite has responded to 9/11 in a totally inappropriate way. When the only tool you have is a hammer, the cliché goes, every problem looks like a nail. To American liberals, every problem looks like the civil rights struggle, the original one of which was their last real moral, cultural and governmental success.

That is why the liberal elite sees 9/11 less as a national security challenge than as an imperative for a kind of affirmative action aimed at ensuring that "inclusiveness" extends to Muslims. . . . And of course it is what Americans everywhere see in the obnoxious plan to build a fancy 15-story mosque adjacent to the site of an Islamic supremacist atrocity.

But whereas white Americans collectively had a great deal to atone for in their historical treatment of blacks, it is perverse and offensive to suggest that 9/11 leaves Americans with an obligation to atone to Muslims. . . .