Plus--Readers 1, Ethicists 0

There's an analogy that will win over angry anti-legalization conservatives. ... [via Drudge, which makes it worse for Snow] 3:09 P.M.

'In The End It Almost Doesn't Matter if the Hitler Diaries are Real Or Not' Paragraph of the Day: From Kurt Eichenwald's gauzy "news analysis":

Indeed, it could be argued that the most significant lesson from the trial had nothing to do with whether the defendants, both former Enron chief executives, committed the crimes charged in their indictments. Instead, the testimony and the documents admitted during the case painted a broad and disturbing portrait of a corporate culture poisoned by hubris, leading ultimately to a recklessness that placed the business's survival at risk. [Emphasis added]

Even if the "most significant lesson" didn't have to do with with their technical guilt or innocence, surely it had to do with whether they were guilty of something a bit more culpable than "hubris" and "recklessness"--something like what Joe Nocera [$] calls the "fraud" of creating "the illusion of a profitable corporation" through various deceptive machinations. ... [Thanks to reader J.] 2:45 P.M.

"Girls Can't Hide From Intensified Guys": Loved Dekker. Hated Marley. Object to identifying Dekker mainly as precursor to Marley! RIP. 2:20 P.M.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

The MSM's Unicameral Pressure:

"House GOP's Back is to the Wall on Borders"--headline in today's LAT

Why is it, exactly, that it's the House that's now backed up against a wall, and not the Senate? Each chamber has passed an immigration bill; now they're negotiating. The LAT's Janet Hook portrays the looming choice as a decision by House GOPs to go along with the Senate's legalization approach or do nothing. But why isn't it a decision by senatorsto either go along with the House's enforcement approach or do nothing? ... I'll believe the MSM isn't biased in favor of semi-amnesty when I start to read stories in the two Timeses questioning why the Senate's negotiators don't back off their extreme, untested**, megalomaniacal, Hillarycarian do-it-all-at-once scheme in favor of the House's more responsible, incremental approach. ...

P.S.: If the House GOPs now pass a watered-down enforcement-only bill (e.g., a fence or wall, employer sanctions, but no felony) wouldn't that put a difficult choice to Democrats running in swing districts: Do they really want to explain, right before November, why they voted against reasonable enforcement measures? Whose 'back would be to the wall' then? ... And are we sure such a bill would founder in the Senate? Would, say, Hillary really vote against it? DeWine? Frist? I don't think so. ...

P.P.S.: The concise, anti-Timesish Deborah Orin set out two interesting sub-contests  in today's Senate immigration-bill vote: a) Would it get a majority of all Republicans (so it couldn't be portrayed, in the House, as a "Democratic bill")? and b) How would it do among those Republican senators up for reelection. ... The answer is it lost among all Republicans by a non-trivial 32-23 margin. And it lost, 10-5, among Republicans up for reelection. ... Among all senators up for reelection, however, it won by a 20-13 margin. ... (The bill passed, with lots of Democratic support, 62-36. kf spin: That's a solid starting base of 36 for the enforcement common-denominator!) ...