DCDL

Sorry for the late notice. Those of you on the e-mail list have already gotten this message from Cory.

Dulles Area Democrats are collecting items for survivors of Hurricane Katrina that they will drive from Virginia to food banks in Baton Rouge and Little Rock. Kat Zambon from DC for Democracy will be at Timberlake’s (1726 Connecticut Avenue NW) tonight to collect items from DCDL to hand off to the team in Virginia. They need nonperishable food items and toiletries — a specific list of items is below. Please contribute whatever you can. It’ll make a huge difference to the folks who need it. Thanks for everything you do!

For more information, see the Dulles Area Community Network site.

Republicans are now claiming that if Democrats want the release of memos written by Roberts earlier in his career, it’s only fair that they release some memos of their own. The Hill has the story:

Conservative strategists are drafting a letter to Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee demanding the release of hundreds of internal memos detailing contacts between the lawmakers and liberal interest groups opposing John Roberts’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

By planning to press Democrats on the sensitive subject, conservatives seem to be pulling a page from the Democrats’ own political playbook. In the weeks leading up to the confirmation hearings, Senate Democrats have repeatedly called on the White House to give them memos Roberts penned while he was deputy solicitor general in President George H.W. Bush’s administration.

This sounds halfway reasonable, until you think about it for a few seconds. It’s typical Republican strategy: throw dust in the public’s eyes and hope they won’t notice it’s irrelevant. Unfortunately, the Hill puts forth only the Republican side, mentioning one Democratic source who declined to comment and then quoting three separate conservatives who favored the Republican ploy.

The reason the Democrats want memos written by Roberts is because they’re being asked to determine whether he’s fit for a lifetime appointment to the highest judicial position in the nation. Since the memos are examples of his legal work and indicators of his skill, personality, and philosophy, they are relevant to that determination.

The reason the Republicans are asking for the Democratic memos is because they’re hoping to find something in them that will embarrass the Democrats. The memos were not written by Roberts and are clearly irrelevant to whether he should be confirmed. They are in no way equivalent to Roberts’s memos, but they would be equivalent to any memos related to communication between Republicans and conservative groups (say, Focus on the Family or Americans for Tax Reform). I’m taking a wild guess that the Republicans aren’t offering to release any of those memos.

I was reading Dana Milbank’s account of the Roberts Confirmation hearings when I came across this passage (italics added):

“Are you sending us a message?” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, asked hopefully. Democrats labored to unmask Roberts as a fierce conservative, but they were largely thwarted.

The clock in Hart 216 neared 11 this morning, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Democrats’ liberal lion, was on deck to question Roberts. He tapped his pencil, fixed his tie, adjusted his glasses, scratched his brow, leaned his cheek on his fist and scowled down at the nominee. Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.), two of the committee’s conservatives, left the room rather than expose themselves to the exchange.

What struck me about the passage was the use of subjective language in what is supposed to be a newspaper story. Thus the italics. I italicized what I believed to be more artful construction of a narrative, rather than something that can be verified.

I can’t help but wander if Milbank is a frustrated novelist. Which would explain his generally sarcastic tone, not to mention his tendency to lash out randomly at people.

If that’s the case, a tip to Mr. Milbank: since you referred to Kennedy as a “liberal lion,” it’s a better choice to say he “snarled” instead of “scowled.”

There’s a fair bit of blogging out there about the Freedom Walk — though surprisingly few photos on Flickr. I went to the Unity Walk instead (and ran into Paulo of How Now, Brownpau?), but here are a couple of interesting bits of blogospheric coverage:

• StealthBadger went down to the Mall and reports on what he saw there, including a couple of idiots who decided to add offensive messages to their shirts (and will star on right-wing websites for years to come) but who amazingly managed to escape bodily injury.
• Rev. Mykeru attended and has video of some of his (Michael Moorish) interviews with participants — mostly asking them to sign up with the military (part of Operation Yellow Elephant.
• Campus Progress has photos.
• Thomas Nephew has the story of what happened to him at the start of the walk. He made the New York Times:
  

  Earlier in the day, several protesters appeared to run into trouble with the large police presence at the Pentagon and along the route. One man who registered for the walk was detained by a Pentagon police officer after he slipped a black hood over his head and produced a sign that read, “Freedom?”

  The man was removed from the Pentagon registration area, handcuffed and taken away in a police car. It was not clear whether he was charged or simply detained and the police did not respond to messages requesting more information.

Update: AltHippo has a report as well.

The Houston Chronicle has an editorial today about the Freedom Walk:

Today the Pentagon will hold the America Supports You Freedom Walk, ostensibly to commemorate the victims of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and to show support for members of the armed forces. Nothing could be better contrived to show the high price Americans have paid since that day of infamy.

The Freedom Walk is limited to those who register and submit to being searched. The route of the march will be fenced and lined with police officers. No one can join the march en route. No one can leave it. The press cannot walk along the route. The walk to proclaim Americans’ freedom reveals how much freedom we have lost.

It continues.

(Via the People’s Republic of Seabrook.)

The Liberal Avenger alerts us to the latest thing keeping vigilant right-wing bloggers awake at night. It seems that the proposed memorial for Flight 93 in Pennsylvania has been infected with Islamic symbolism — specifically, a crescent (well, actually it’s an arc, but these geometric figures all look the same). Buck Batard at Bad Attitudes takes the next step, revealing that South Carolina is actually a secret Islamofascist stronghold.

Now remember we’re not talking about an actual crescent (which itself is a simple enough shape that it occurs in lots of contexts). The objection is to something that looks like a crescent. What else looks like a crescent? Consider the alphabet.

That’s right, from now on all true Amerikan Konservatives must avoid the third letter!

The Liberal Avenger has photos of the fake dog tags that Stars & Stripes is apparently really giving out to Freedom Walk participants.

On a less serious note, Kevin K. at Catch has a speculative map of the route for the Freedom Walk.

Billmon at Whiskey Bar reveals amazing similarities between the Freedom Walk and a previously undiscovered Slavery Walk in North Korea.

Six-PAC, a political action committee whose strategy is to support progressive candidates in the closest state and local races, is holding a fundraiser tomorrow, September 10, at 9pm at Childe Harold, 1610 20th Street NW (near Dupont Circle). This year Six-PAC is supporting four Virginia candidates: Creigh Deeds, David Bulova, David Marsden, and Hilda Barg. For more details on the fundraiser, see the Six-PAC event listing.

(Via e-mail from NEXT.)

In today’s Washington Post we learn how the Pentagon is celebrating Freedom through the extensive use of snow fencing:

The march, sponsored by the Department of Defense, will wend its way from the Pentagon to the Mall along a route that has not been specified but will be lined with four-foot-high snow fencing to keep it closed and “sterile,” said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense.

The U.S. Park Police will have its entire Washington force of several hundred on duty and along the route, on foot, horseback and motorcycles and monitoring from above by helicopter. Officers are prepared to arrest anyone who joins the march or concert without a credential and refuses to leave, said Park Police Chief Dwight E. Pettiford.

In other news, the campaign slogan for the Walk (or is it a March now?) has changed from “America Supports You” to “Keeping America Closed and Sterile.”

The Washington Post reports that security for the “America Supports You” Freedom Walk will be unusually tight for an event that’s occurring on a two-mile-long route on public property:

The march, sponsored by the Department of Defense, will wend its way from the Pentagon to the Mall along a route that has not been specified but will be lined with four-foot-high snow fencing to keep it closed and “sterile,” said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense.

The U.S. Park Police will have its entire Washington force of several hundred on duty and along the route, on foot, horseback and motorcycles and monitoring from above by helicopter. Officers are prepared to arrest anyone who joins the march or concert without a credential and refuses to leave, said Park Police Chief Dwight E. Pettiford.

Hooray for freedom!

Also, even though several media organizations are sponsoring the walk, coverage will be restricted:

One restricted group will be the media, whose members will not be allowed to walk along the march route. Reporters and cameras are restricted to three enclosed areas along the route but are not permitted to walk alongside participants walking from the Pentagon, across the Memorial Bridge to the Mall.

Looking at the sponsor list, it seems the Washington Times wasn’t deemed worthy after all, as fishbowlDC observes.