Krugman’s been on Ashcroft’s case recently. First he questioned the timing of his press conferences and how the announcement of the arrest of a terrorist in the heartland just so happens to deflect attention from some embarrassment for the Administration again and again.
Today, Paul’s spouting off about the William Krar double-standard:
In April 2003, John Ashcroft’s Justice Department disrupted what appears to have been a horrifying terrorist plot. In the small town of Noonday, Tex., F.B.I. agents discovered a weapons cache containing fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon — a cyanide bomb — big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building.
Strangely, though, the attorney general didn’t call a press conference to announce the discovery of the weapons cache, or the arrest of William Krar, its owner. He didn’t even issue a press release. This was, to say the least, out of character. Jose Padilla, the accused “dirty bomber,” didn’t have any bomb-making material or even a plausible way to acquire such material, yet Mr. Ashcroft put him on front pages around the world. Mr. Krar was caught with an actual chemical bomb, yet Mr. Ashcroft acted as if nothing had happened.
Paul’s a bit late to this party (see this commentary by Jim Kessler from over three months ago), but he nails the chief hypocrisy here on the head: “it’s hard to believe that William Krar wouldn’t have become a household name if he had been a Muslim, or even a leftist.”
Who/what is Krar, you ask?
In 1985, Krar was arrested in New Hampshire for impersonating a law enforcement officer, according to the FBI. He stopped paying federal income taxes in 1989. His ties to New Hampshire’s white supremacist and anti-government militia groups in the mid-1990s were investigated by federal agents.
I have no proof Krugman’s right that a Krar press conference would have been a priority by Ashcroft had Krar been Muslim. Perhaps Ashcroft has very good reasons for not making oversized posters of Krar’s likeness, propping them up on easels so the photographers can get a good shot, and pontificating about how he’s saved us again. It would make me more confident he’s not a opportunistic, wholly partisan, hate-baiting creep if he shared them with us though.
Perhaps there is a difference between organized terrorism and an individual planning terrorism. Perhaps there is a difference between personally running illegal activity and organized crime.
This criticism is extremely week. I can’t believe it gets any ground. It is indicative of what’s going on towards the left.
Let’s do a poll of journalists…
Which press conference would you prefer to see, one relating to the arrest of a terrorist or one relating to organized crime?
Hmm…
It would make me more confident he’s not a opportunistic, wholly partisan, hate-baiting creep if he shared them with us though.
Speaking of opportunistic, wholly partisan…
This is just low.
” It is indicative of what’s going on towards the left.”
Please knock it off, Blue. Your broad brushes are frequent, meaningless, and ill-conceived.
“Which press conference would you prefer to see, one relating to the arrest of a terrorist or one relating to organized crime?”
How does this question apply? They did arrest a terrorist.
Blue – I’m not getting you. From what I’m reading in these stories, Krar was arrested for his involvement in a terrorist plot. Furthermore, the plot in question seems to have been further underway than that of (for example) Jose Padilla.
Do you have some source for suggesting the Krar case was actually an organized crime case rather than a terrorism case? Or am I misunderstanding your point?
The blogospheric superstar of the William Krar case was Dave Neiwert; without Orcinus, I sincerely doubt I’d have ever heard of it. I strongly recommend you go through his archives if you want to know more, including the appalling under-reporting and general half-assery with which the case was pursued.
Sebastian,
Could you play out your thinking a little bit more? Do you think there is a difference, and what is it?
It seems to me that the main reason we would care about organized crime vs. individuals is that we expect a given criminal organization is expected to have more total bad effects on society than a given individual (or, alternatively, we can achieve more reduction in crime by attacking criminal organizations than by taking on individual criminals).
Do you consider it more important (or significant) whether a given terrorist suspect received training from al-Qaeda (vs. on the internet), or is it more important whether a terrorist suspect had the means, opportunity and motive to kill thousands of people (vs. one who had motive but no means)?
sorry for the grammatical confusion in there. one day I will learn to preview carefully, no matter how busy I think I am…
Perhaps there is a difference between organized terrorism and an individual planning terrorism. Perhaps there is a difference between personally running illegal activity and organized crime.
Perhaps there is a difference between an individual who may or may not have been involved in some kind of plot whose recounting seems to change almost weekly, and an individual who actually possessed WMD — at least, by the standards of the Bush Administration — and was planning on using them against civilian targets. Perhaps that difference — the difference between hypothesis and reality — should be the cardinal difference in any and all reporting on the subject.
“one day I will learn to preview carefully, no matter how busy I think I am…”
what hee said
This is just low.
er…yeah….
I agree with Anarch.
An al Qaeda trained flunky with no access to WMD vs. a non al Qaeda trained white supremicist with an arsenal of weapons including a WMD.
One is clearly more dangerous, especially as Muslims are watched more carefully than non-Muslim Americans.
Perhaps there is a difference between organized terrorism and an individual planning terrorism.
Krar was not acting alone here:
and
So, we have a criminal with WMD, co-conspirators, and a radical ideology. Other than a sense that being a Muslim terrorist is worse than being nonMuslim terrorist, what explains the difference in PR of his arrest?
Buried in Krugman’s diatribe is a perfectly sensible question – how does the Justice Dept. allocate resources between foreign and domestic terror, and is there decision process reasonable?
However, he illustrates that question with an absurd example – the fact is, this guy *was* arrested, in what CNN described as “one of the most extensive domestic-terrorism investigations since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing”. The “extreme malfeasance” Krugman rants about is not the investigation; it is the absence of a press conference.
And if the story was so darn news-worthy, why is the NY Times specifically, and the major media generally, so coy about covering it? Abu Grahib crept onto the front pages without an Ashcroft press conference. By contrast, Krugman’s own NY Times mentioned this story once, buried on a Saturday in December while we were out shopping.
And, since everything old is new again, Nick Kristof wrote pretty much the Krugman column (sans the hysterics) two years ago. VERY SERIOUS stuff. So how did the Times cover the important news about domestic terror in June 2002? Their lead:
A Far-Right Militia’s Far-Fetched Plot Draws Some Serious Attention
By BLAINE HARDEN
KALISPELL, Mont., March 2, As its secrets began to spill out here this week, Project 7 sounded suspiciously like a Monty Python sketch.
A far-out Monty Python sketch. The Times won’t take this seriously, but I should? OTOH, and not to minimize the danger, some of these right wing kooks really are just kooks – the FBI apparently has put Krar under a microscope but hasn’t uncovered a broader conspiracy.
Krugman’s question – is Ashcroft putting the proper focus on domestic terror – is a good one. We might add (althoguh Krugman won’t), is the media or Congress putting the proper focus on possible domestic terror, or is this a huge blind overlooked blind spot, just as foreign terror was in the 2000 election campaign?
That said, the evidence Krugman presents of Ashcroft’s extreme malfeasance (primarily the absence of a press conference) is unconvincing.
sidereal,
As I read it, Edward referred to Ashcroft as a hate-baiting creep. Krugman called him the worst AG ever. He also implied in his article that Ashcroft is more sympathetic to Krar because his own ideological biases. Krugman is implying that Ashcroft is sympathetic with the White Supremists.
That’s pretty harsh don’t you think?
The brush isn’t broad, ill-conceved or meaningless. It comes straight from their comments.
At the same time he was trying to make a legitimate criticism, but that kind of comment lowers the overall discussion in my opinion. I think that kind of language about Ashcroft is undeserved and immature.
I mean criticize him for his policies all day long, but now he’s being criticized for what press conference he does and doesn’t hold.
I think Krugmans angle of attack is weak and vicious. I think Edward truly dislikes Ashcorft and it shows.
Umm, folks, Sorry to stray from this illuminatin’ post and discussion. But, the worst AG ever (according to that idiot Krugman):
1. Caught and arrested Krar;
2. Caught and arrested Padilla.
Oh, I see, you boys are more interested in PR campaigns, rather than the top cop catchin’ bad guys. No wonder why some of you boys are liberal! You need to refocus them mental binoculars — you missin’ the salient data.
Carry on:)
By that standard, ND, Ashcroft also:
3. Missed 19 Al Qaeda operatives who crashed four planes into various buildings, killing nearly 3000 people in the worst terrorist attack in history.
…which pretty much qualifies him for Worst Ever status immediately.
I don’t think Ashcroft has passed Mitchell or Palmer just yet–you should perhaps ask me again after a second term or after everything is declassified.
Tom Maguire’s right, though; a lack of press conferences isn’t the main problem. There are much better examples that Krugman could have given.
Blue: The brush isn’t broad, ill-conceved or meaningless. It comes straight from their comments.
Blue, it has been established by actual unscientific experiment right here on this blog (and on other blogs) that any time you refer to actual real live people in the following broad, ill-conceived, and meaningless terms:
“It is indicative of what’s going on towards the left”
you are indeed painting your comments with a brush so broad it could be used as a landing strip for Airforce One. (The same applies, naturally, to comments about “the right”…)
If I said that Ashcroft’s dishonesty, scaremongering, anti-Muslim bias, and failure to respect the U.S. Constitution made him the worst AG ever, that is a targeted comment with which you may agree or disagree. If I say “it’s indicative of what’s going on towards the right”, that’s just rude about a good many folks who are to the right of me and who feel the same way I do about Ashcroft. You see the difference?
The point of this post is in the title.
It’s not whether I think Ashcroft is a hate-baiting creep (I gave him an out on that) or whether Krugman thinks Ashcroft is the worst AG in history (don’t ever conclude that while someone is still in power; it gives them free reign to do worse)…it’s whether Ashcroft is playing politics (via a blatant double-standard) with the capture of Muslim terrorists (playing off people’s fear and latent racism), when the threat of terror from other sources is arguably stronger. (Think Anthrax.)
The real underlyinig question here is whether Ashcroft is waging a war against terror or simply a war against Islamist terror. Pretending it’s the former is where the double-standard charge comes in.
Krugman’s point could only have been made after the succession of politically advantageous announcements about flunky AQ trainees caught with no weapons and no clue…the Somali in Ohio being the straw that broke the camel’s back. So complaints about the timing of this column fall a bit flat.
As for how newsworthy the arrest of Krar was back when it happened, let’s turn the question around within the context of Krugman’s complaint: Would the Somali have been on the front page of every paper in the US had Ashcroft not held a press conference about him? His choices do matter.
I mean criticize him for his policies all day long, but now he’s being criticized for what press conference he does and doesn’t hold.
What press conference he does or doesn’t hold is perhaps the best (only?) indication the general public has of his priorities, so this is a hollow criticism.
The charge against Ashcroft is that he’s singling out Muslim criminals and thereby spreading hatred and fear. For an AG to stoop to that certainly qualifies him for the race for worst AG ever.
It’s also that he’s using his office and the nation’s anxiety about terrorist attacks to deflect attention away from embarassing news stories that break. That he’s more interested in getting Bush re-elected than he is in educating the public on where the real threats lie. The Ohio Somali could have been arrested just as quietly as Krar had. His press conference choices do send messages.
Thankfully, Dave Neiwert’s gone back through his archives and conveniently re-posted the relevant links to his earlier posts so we don’t have to go wading through them ourselves. Once again: if you’re new to the Krar case, Orcinus is categorically the best place to start.
The charge against Ashcroft is that he’s singling out Muslim criminals and thereby spreading hatred and fear.
The charge is reckless. He’s reacting (not singling out) to Muslim criminals who blew up 2 buildings, thereby causing much hatred and fear (and murder).
It would have been much better to single to these Muslim criminals before they did the dirty deeds.
The charge is reckless. He’s reacting (not singling out) to Muslim criminals who blew up 2 buildings, thereby causing much hatred and fear (and murder).
Huh?
The Ohio Somali blew up a building?
He didn’t even have the weapons to do so.
The Ohio Somali blew up a building?
No, he was charged with conspiring with Al Queda
to blow up a mall .
So, Navy, we have two men
One has co-conspirators and the other has co-conspirators. One subscribes to a radical ideology and the other subscribes to a radical ideology. One as actual WMD and the other has none.
The one with the WMD does not have Ashcroft blowing up his photo for the world to plaster all over its newspapers.
Why? He’s clearly the more dangerous of the two.
Krugman is implying that Ashcroft is sympathetic with the White Supremists.
That’s pretty harsh don’t you think?
Not so harsh. Ashcroft certainly is an admirer of Jefferson Davis.
Bernard Yomtov: Not so harsh. Ashcroft certainly is an admirer of Jefferson Davis.
No, no, we’re talking about the trashy kind of white supremicists, not the genteel kind!
Bernard Yomtov: Not so harsh. Ashcroft certainly is an admirer of Jefferson Davis.
No, no, Blue means the trashy kind of white supremicists, not the noble, genteel kind!
Krugman is implying that Ashcroft is sympathetic with the White Supremists.
That’s pretty harsh don’t you think?
Not so harsh. Ashcroft certainly is an admirer of Jefferson Davis.
Whoops, sorry for the double-post. I swear I checked carefully to make sure the first didn’t go through!
The site’s hangtime is particularly long today, Gromit.
Gromit,
I posted twice (apologies to all). No reason you shouldn’t respond twice.
The order is a liitle odd though.
Yeah, considering the first of my posts is really the second one I submitted (after hitting submit, I thought better of pinning that particular prejudice on Blue, since my first thought at hearing the term “white supremacist” isn’t someone like Jeff Davis either).