A Blog Named Sue

When you play at this level there's no ordinary venue

I have to say that I'm one of those New Yorkers who'd rather see the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed take place someplace other than downtown New York City. I'm not afraid of Al Qaeda attempting any dramatic, Tom Clancy-style jailbreak or some other kind of terror attack to disrupt the trial, but I'm also not looking forward to the security theater of the absurd that would inevitably accompany the trial. I still remember the massive disruptions caused by security for the 2004 Republican National Convention, and I'm certain the people arrested and detained for simply being on the wrong street when the NYPD dropped the net remember them even more clearly. That being said, I am in favor of the trial being held in the United States, at an easily controlled venue like Governor's Island (they can just hold off on building the damn water park out there). The most critical point, for me at least, is that the trial be open and accessible to the press and other observers. Otherwise, they might as well hold the damn thing at Gitmo and send us the occasional Twitter update to let us know how it's going.  

One thing I've found curious about various city officials' objections to holding the trial downtown is their continued insistence that the trial will take years:

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly began planning and concluded that it would cost about $215 million for the first year and $200 million in subsequent years to provide security, according to Mr. Browne. The main cost was overtime, not just at the site but all around the city to cope with an anticipated rise in threats.

I'm not at all sure how the trial could take that long. I'm all for due process, hell, that's why I want these guys tried in the States. Do we have so much evidence against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators that we need that long to build our case? Are they figuring in the time his defense will need to prepare their case? If so, does that mean he hasn't yet had access to counsel? That seems unlikely, since the government claims to have already held pre-trial hearings down at Guantanamo Bay. Perhaps the transfer to a civilian court requires him to acquire new counsel, since to this point he has had military representation? Have the conditions at Guantanamo been so heinous that they anticipate prisoners who were held there will have massive grounds for endless appeals? I honestly don't know. Feel free to enlighten me if you do. 

Their claim that the trial will take years fascinates me because I've long suspected that conservatives' claim that Guantanamo prisoners are too dangerous to hold in United States supermax prisons isn't based on any rational assessment of Al Qaeda's operational capabilities but rather their certainty that once these prisoners are on American soil, some judge, somewhere, is going to give them access to civilian counsel and then we're going to find out what really went down at Guantanamo. I'm not sure anyone in the government from either party wants to see that happen. At this point, I don't think the Obama administration can back off from holding the trials in the States - the key will be whether or not the trial is open to the public, or at the very least reporters. A former CIA official claims that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is nearly brain-dead after being waterboarded 183 times in one month. Do you think anyone in the Obama administration wants that shown on TV?

A well known drag

I'm sitting here wracking my brains trying to figure out when Rudy Giuliani became such a slack bastard. Don't get me wrong - I've considered the man and his policies despicable since his time as mayor of New York City and the intervening years have not mellowed my opinion. Still, there at least seemed to be some fire in his belly, some vigor and drive. Granted, it was drive fueled by naked ambition and raw narcissism but it was drive nonetheless.

This lingering reputation as a hustler and street figher seems to be the main reason why pundits think his decision to abandon his run for governor of New York must be because he's set his sights higher. I'm not convinced. Even before Bernard Kerik's conviction, the rumor here in New York was that Rudy had lost interest in running for governor because he didn't want to deal with the state's wildly dysfunctional legistlature and rapidly deteriorating budget crisis.  (That link is to an article in the New York Post, by the way, an outlet that under normal circumstances Giuliani couldrely on for a thorough tongue bath.) Rudy's no fool; he can see what dealing with California's unfolding disaster has done to Arnold Schwarzenegger's political future. But New York City was in pretty tough shape when Giuliani was first elected mayor, and he didn't seem to be cowed by that challenge.

It's possible that years of highly-paid political consulting work and accountability-free media appearances have softened the old boy up - or maybe be was never the pit bull the media makes him out to be. If he were to run for governor of New York he'd most likely be running against Andrew Cuomo, whose brand-name in New York is at least as strong as Giuliani's - and he also enjoys a pugilist's reputation. Giuliani might very well beat Cuomo but it would be a bloodbath. Kirsten Gillibrand is a much softer target. Charles Schumer, and old-school power-broker if there ever was one, is said to be educating her in the ways of the Senate and grooming her as a protege, but she hasn't yet made much of a name for herself in Washington. She's someone he could conceivably beat with name recognition alone.

Maybe Giuliani's always been about hitting the soft target. New York City's crime rate - Giulani's signature issue - was already dropping at the end of David Dinkins' term as mayor, but by that point Dinkins was remarkably unpopular and had a reputation as an ineffectual leader. In other words, he was an easy target for a tough talking media darling.

If he does decide to take on Gillibrand, even that election won't be the cakewalk for Giuliani, despite Fox New's inevitable attempts to tell you otherwise. It's worth remembering that Rudy came in a distant fourth in the 2008 New York presidential primary - pretty unimpressive for the hometown hero! Also, New York City voters recently awarded a third term to Michael Bloomberg even though he trampled the city's popular term limits law. Giuliani's suggestion that his term be extended in the wake of 9/11 was greeted with a resounding, "Um ... no, thanks." He's simply not a popular guy. On the other hand, if does decide to run for Senate, at least I'll have an excuse to revive this graphic:

 

Blips

Too busy, once again, with personal/business/rich fantasy life to blog "for real," but in the meantime, here are a few items that I'd like to share:

Um, Jackson? Some us knew a long time ago that the Iranian protestors weren't necessarily pro-America. See, we actually read their party platform.

Also, this ad for a local pawn shop, which features Uncle Sam with a wad of cash in one hand and a fist full of other people's bling in the other, is really kind of awesome:

SAY HI TO MOM - FROM JAIL

Ah-heh. Ah-heh-heh.

[chuckle]

[snort]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Who?

Fox is telling me that Rudy Giuliani is outraged over the situation in Iran.

They're not telling me why anyone should care what Giuliani thinks. Does he even have a job these days?

Forget about your woman and that water can - Today we're working for the man

It seems like every time I try to make a renewed effort to post substantive material here on a regular basis my schedule goes boink and I get buried in work. Seeing as this is all paying work, I'm not complaining. Really. It beats the hell out of the alternative. In fact, I'd like the fates to note that I am now once again planning on posting here more often. Not just posting, but posting exhaustively researched, intricately structured pieces of such dense verbosity that Glenn Greenwald will send me an e-mail saying simply, "Dood, it's called an editor." Yep. That's my plan.

Now, while I wait for the phone to ring and end up with another dozen projects to work on, a quick thought: am I the only one who finds it kind of hilarious that Rudy Giuliani spent years cultivating his "America's Mayor" image and licking all the GOP boots he thought were appropriate only to find himself sidelined by the likes of Sarah Palin?

Ah, schadenfreude - hope may disappoint, joy is fleeting, but schadenfreude is eternal.

Downtown the young ones are growing

This story, about a teenager charged with tagging a 9/11 memorial mural in New York City, depressed the hell out of me. Not so much because there's a teenager out there clueless enough to think that tagging a memorial mural is a good idea, although that's depressing enough, but mostly because of a comment made by a firefighter who worked out of the same house as the firefighter commemorated on the mural. When interviewed by local cable outlet New York 1 before the tagger's arrest, he (correctly) surmised that the perpetrator was probably a "teenager," someone around nine or ten years old when the 9/11 attacks took place and therefore he probably had no idea what it was all really about.

That got me thinking about how much more aware I became between the ages of nine and seventeen, and that's when the abyss really opened up for me. For all intents and purposes, today's adolescents have come of age knowing nothing but post-9/11 America. Growing up in an age of anxiety is nothing new; I grew up during the height of the Cold War (and I've got the Nena songs on my iPod to prove it) and we actually had to watch and summarize The Day After as a school assignment. (Spoiler alert: Nuclear war sucks ass!) What bothers me is that so many things about post-9/11 America that have outraged many of us are simply the status quo for today's young people. The United States government has always had the ability to monitor your cell phone calls without a warrant. The government has always tracked the books you borrow from the library and the movies you rent from Blockbuster. The government has always been able to declare you an "enemy combatant" and hold you indefinitely without trial or access to counsel. There have always been extraordinary renditions. There has always been a Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay.

The United States has always tortured.

I guess I'm lucky, inasmuch as I grew up in the lull between J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO and today's Patriot Act. Those of you reading this who are old enough to have lived through both probably think I'm a bit naive, and it's a fair charge.  COINTELPRO, however, was ultimately shut down after its excesses were exposed. Our elected leaders stepped in and did their jobs. The Patriot Act continues along its merry way and one of our major party's presidential candidates has declared that he sees nothing wrong with warrantless wiretapping.

This is why accountability matters, and why measures designed to hold our elected leaders accountable when they abuse their power must never be "off the table." What is it like to come of age in a country where rights and freedoms that our leaders claim to be sacrosanct are, in fact, anything but? How will today's young people react - with anger? fear? cynicism? docility?

I know which reaction I'm hoping for, but I have no idea which one we're going to get.

The Mel Cooley Index for Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Today, Mel Cooley is thinking, "Well, I guess since you're not America's Mayor anymore, we can tell you how we really feel."

Yeah, it's been that kind of day

Man, I hate it when giant rats burst from a flaming hellmouth and try to devour midtown Manhattan...

Pic via my crappy camera phone.

They Got High Powered Lenses On The Cameras Outside

So the NYPD's pervasive, high-tech and no doubt very expensive security camera system has been bested by that dastardly piece of supervillain technology known as the hoodie. I can't say I'm surprised. The cameras have always struck me as security theater of the highest order, since there's no way anyone can be watching the feeds coming in from all of them in real time - meaning their value in preventing or disrupting a potential terrorist attack or other criminal act is practically nil. As for their potential use as an investigative or evidentiary tool, well, all anyone ever had to do was simply not look at the camera (easily done since most New Yorkers, including me, have really crappy posture) - or in this case, pull up your hood. And most suicide bombers don't really care if you know they did it or not, what with them being dead and all.

So now the question is: what next? Security theater that doesn't make anyone feel secure (or, for that matter, afraid) is even more pointless than your everyday run-of-the-mill security theater. One possibility is that the New York City police and government will recognize this rather obvious flaw in their planning and take time to hammer out a new, rational, and effective security plan for the Big Apple. Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen either. So what will happen? Here are the possibilities, as I see it:

A) Even more and bigger cameras! Situated on every lampost at shoulder height so they can see your face no matter what. Costs for these additional cameras will be offset by corporate sponsorship; each will bear a sign saying "A secure New York - brought to you by Citigroup! Go Mets!"

B) Anti-personnel mines laid around Time Square's Military Island every night at midnight, taken up around 5 AM (hopefully before the crowds gather there for that day's taping of Good Morning America). Actually, I can get behind this option, but only if they promise to leave the mines in place all day during the holiday season. Might cut down on the tourist traffic. I used to work on Times Square - you have no idea how bad it gets. Think of a human wave attack, but with strollers, humongous bags bursting with crap from Toys R' Us and large people wearing ill-fitting leggings instead of Red Chinese infantrymen.

C) The immediate outlawing of hoodies. Good luck with this one - you'll pry my black hoodie from my cold, dead hands.

Got an opinion? Vote in comments, if you're so inclined.