The Clintons’ Colombian Connection.

“The meeting was an error in judgment that will not be repeated, and I am sorry for it.” Clinton consigliere and inveterate torturer of reason Mark Penn gets into trouble for playing both sides of a Colombian trade deal, is forced to apologize, and subsequently gets sacked by the nation in question. If only Sen. Clinton had followed Colombia’s example months ago, she might still have a shot at the presidency right now.

In related news, Al Giordano of Rural Votes explains why Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is rooting against Obama, and why that speaks strongly in the Illinois Senator’s favor. “The Uribe regime, after all, continues a chummy friendship with Bill Clinton, granting him the government’s ‘Colombia Is Passion’ Award last June. That, during the same 2007 spring when former vice president Al Gore cancelled his appearance at a Miami environmental conference because he did not want to share a podium with Uribe, the hemisphere’s poster boy for state-sponsored terrorism, narco-trafficking, and assassinations of opposition political, labor and social movement leaders.“

Free-Born Men of the U.S.A.

Fare thee well gone away, there’s nothing left to say. Pour a glass of Jamesons and give the devil (way down in the hole) his due: The Wire, a television show with a better claim than most to the title of “Best Ever” (and definitely the best show ever made about American politics), ends this evening. As such, before one last Sunday round with the men and women of Baltimore, some links from the vault:

“The Wire, which has just begun its fourth season on HBO, is surely the best TV show ever broadcast in America…no other program has ever done anything remotely like what this one does, namely to portray the social, political, and economic life of an American city with the scope, observational precision, and moral vision of great literature.” Slate‘s Jacob Weisberg sings its praises.

THND‘s Andrew Dignan dissects the credit sequences of the first four seasons.

“Thematically, it’s about the very simple idea that, in this Postmodern world of ours, human beings — all of us — are worth less. We’re worth less every day…The show is written in a 21st-century city-state that is incredibly bureaucratic, and in which a legal pursuit of an unenforceable prohibition has created great absurdity” Creator David Simon discusses the show.

“In a way, it doesn’t make sense to talk of ‘The Wire’ as the best American television show because it’s not very American. The characters in American popular culture are rarely shown to be subject to forces completely beyond their control…’The Wire’ is not Romantic but classical; what matters most in its universe is fulfilling your duty and facing the inexorable with dignity.” Salon‘s Laura Miller makes the Best Show Ever case.

““The Wire” is dissent,’ he says. ‘It is perhaps the only storytelling on television that overtly suggests that our political and economic and social constructs are no longer viable, that our leadership has failed us relentlessly, and that no, we are not going to be all right.’” Simon previews Season 5.

“‘You can carve off a symptom and talk about how bad drugs are, and you can blame the police department for fucking up the drug war, but that’s kind of like coming up to a house hit by a hurricane and making a lot of voluminous notes about the fact that some roof tiles are off.” Simon discusses the journalism critique of Season 5.

“The season is about the chasm between perception and reality in American life and how we are increasingly without the tools that allow us to recognize our true problems, much less begin to solve them.” Simon checks in again at the end of Season 5.

“Since declaring war on drugs nearly 40 years ago, we’ve been demonizing our most desperate citizens, isolating and incarcerating them and otherwise denying them a role in the American collective. All to no purpose. The prison population doubles and doubles again; the drugs remain.” The writers of the show make the case for civil disobedience against the drug war.

“All the pieces on ‘The Wire’ matter, which is why the show was so brilliant, and why its small fanbase will mourn its loss after the final episode ends tonight around 10:35…Every character, every moment, is important in some way, and if it doesn’t seem so at first, just take a cue from Lester and be patient until you can see the whole picture.” Alan Sepinwall revisits some of the show’s best scenes, with Youtubes (and spoilers, if you’re not caught up.)

And you know the only thing better than having enjoyed all 60 hours of the show? Having never seen it at all. If that’s you, pick up Season 1 and start from the beginning — you’re in for a real treat.

Update: “The main theme is that…it’s a newspaper that is so eviscerated, so worn, so devoid of veterans, so consumed by the wrong things, and so denied the ability to replenish itself that it singularly misses every single story in the season.” The final episode has aired, and David Simon has emerged from behind the curtain for a last round of interviews. “By the way, if you want to not focus on what the fuck’s going on, read the newspapers. Suffer the journalism, and don’t worry: the big picture will elude you nicely.“

We’re not going to take it anymore.

“What the drugs themselves have not destroyed, the warfare against them has. And what once began, perhaps, as a battle against dangerous substances long ago transformed itself into a venal war on our underclass. Since declaring war on drugs nearly 40 years ago, we’ve been demonizing our most desperate citizens, isolating and incarcerating them and otherwise denying them a role in the American collective. All to no purpose. The prison population doubles and doubles again; the drugs remain.”

On the eve of the final episode, the writers of The Wire — Simon, Burns, Lehane, Pelecanos, and Price — argue in favor of jury nullification as an act of civil disobedience against America’s failed drug war. “If some few episodes of a television entertainment have caused others to reflect on the war zones we have created in our cities and the human beings stranded there, we ask that those people might also consider their conscience. And when the lawyers or the judge or your fellow jurors seek explanation, think for a moment on Bubbles or Bodie or Wallace. And remember that the lives being held in the balance aren’t fictional.“

The Victim Card…Again.

“I regret the way that this matter has been used,’ Clinton told reporters. ‘The comments about it are baseless and divisive. I was personally offended at the approach taken that was not only misleading but unnecessarily hurtful.’” When asked about Congressman Jim Clyburn’s dissatisfaction with her recent remarks on the civil rights movement, Sen. Hillary Clinton suggests she‘s the aggrieved party here, and, worse, that a vast Obama conspiracy is to blame for people — including Clyburn — finding fault with her remarks. “She suggested reporters consider the sources of the criticism, much of which has come from the black community. ‘I think it clearly came from Senator Obama’s campaign and I don’t think it’s the kind of debate we should be having in our campaign,’ she said.” Wow. I mean, I’m running out of ways to be surprised here. Isn’t this the exact same cynical and misleading strategy that President Clinton just accused Senator Obama of running? This is just getting depressing.

Update: On Meet the Press, Sen. Hillary Clinton continues the “Vast Obama Conspiracy” defense. “‘This is, you know, a, a — an unfortunate story line that the Obama campaign has pushed very successfully,’ she said. ‘They’ve been putting out talking points. They’ve been making this — they’ve been telling people, in a very selective way, what the facts are.” Uh, swift-boat much? What evidence do you have that the Obama team is responsible for people finding your recent actions dismaying? And why not just say your words could be misconstrued, apologize, and move on? Instead, we get: “Clearly, we know from media reports that the Obama campaign is deliberately distorting this.” What media reports? (The closest I could find was this, when an Obama spokesman suggested there might be a “pattern” here. Well, given Billy Shaheen, mandatory minimums, “imaginary hip black friend,” and such readily misconstruable remarks as “fairy tale” and “kid,” and the LBJ “It takes a president” history lesson, I can see why one might think so. But I see little other evidence that the Obama campaign is responsible for the general dismay surrounding the Clintons right now. These people have no sense of shame.

Update 2: Obama’s response: “‘The notion that this is our doing is ludicrous.” Meanwhile, the Clinton people point to this memo, drawn up by Amaya Smith, Obama’s press secretary in SC but not released to the press. Sigh…this may well be the dumb mistake the Clintons have been baiting the Obama team to make. Still, having read through the memo, I’m not seeing any “deliberate distortions” of the Clintons’ behavior, so much as a litany of the unfortunate incidents that have been emanating from the Clinton camp. (I hadn’t heard the Trippi v. Penn “cocaine” one. Cute.) Plus, the memo seems to follow the concerned responses of leaders such as Jim Clyburn and Donna Brazile — in fact, that’s the newspeg. Hard to say that it created them.

Update 3: Hillary Clinton is defended by BET’s Robert Johnson, who also sees fit to bring up the drug spectre again. “‘As an African American, I’m frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Bill and Hillary Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that I won’t say what he was doing but he said it in his book’…Clinton’s campaign says Johnson was not referring to Obama’s past drug use. Meanwhile, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, another African-American supporter of Clinton, said of the comments, ‘Sometimes people say things that aren’t sanctioned…I can’t speak for Bob.’“

Update 4: Johnson — previously a stalwart foe of the estate tax, by the way — also went on to compare Obama to Sidney Poitier, and not in a good way. Yep, a classy day all around for Team Clinton. I have to think this’ll backfire.

Update 5: Johnson’s official response to his earlier comment: “Johnson said it would be ‘simply irresponsible and incorrect’ to read his words that way. ‘My comments today were referring to Barack Obama’s time spent as a community organizer, and nothing else.’” Now, read back into the original quote, that clearly doesn’t make a lick of sense. But who’s got his back? Why, Bill Clinton: “I think we have to take him at his word.” It’s not a lie if you believe it, right, Mr. President?

Let the Judges Judge.

One of the staples of the failed drug war, mandatory minimums take two substantial hits as the Supreme Court decides 7-2 in favor of judicial discretion in a pair of drug cases, Kimbrough v. U.S. and Gall v. U.S. “Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented in both cases.”

The War on Drugs is Lost.

“All told, the United States has spent an estimated $500 billion to fight drugs – with very little to show for it. Cocaine is now as cheap as it was when Escobar died and more heavily used. Methamphetamine, barely a presence in 1993, is now used by 1.5 million Americans and may be more addictive than crack. We have nearly 500,000 people behind bars for drug crimes – a twelvefold increase since 1980 – with no discernible effect on the drug traffic. Virtually the only success the government can claim is the decline in the number of Americans who smoke marijuana – and even on that count, it is not clear that federal prevention programs are responsible. In the course of fighting this war, we have allowed our military to become pawns in a civil war in Colombia and our drug agents to be used by the cartels for their own ends. Those we are paying to wage the drug war have been accused of human-rights abuses in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia. In Mexico, we are now repeating many of the same mistakes we have made in the Andes.“

To their credit, those left-wing hippie radicals at National Review said as much way back in 1996, and HBO’s The Wire has dramatized the dismal consequences of the conflict for several years now. Now, coming to the same dour conclusion in 2007, Rolling Stone‘s Ben Wallace-Wells explains how America lost the War on Drugs, and argues that continuing to perpetuate it in its current fashion — with its “law and order” emphases of crushing supply, international interdiction, and mandatory minimum sentencing — is tantamount to flushing money and lives down the toilet. “Even by conservative estimates, the War on Drugs now costs the United States $50 billion each year and has overcrowded prisons to the breaking point – all with little discernible impact on the drug trade…The real radicals of the War on Drugs are not the legalization advocates, earnestly preaching from the fringes, but the bureaucrats — the cops and judges and federal agents who are forced into a growing acceptance that rendering a popular commodity illegal, and punishing those who sell it and use it, has simply overwhelmed the capacity of government.” (Found via Jack Shafer’s endorsement at Slate.)

Paul for Vendetta.

“‘The American Republic is in remnant status,’ he says. ‘The stage is set for our country eventually devolving into military dictatorship, and few seem to care.'” Remember, remember the 5th of November? The Ron Paulies do, raising over $4 million in one day for their man (with help from this site) to commemorate Guy Fawkes Day. “Mr. Benton clarified that Mr. Paul did not support blowing up government buildings. ‘He wants to demolish things like the Department of Education,’ Mr. Benton said, ‘but we can do that very peacefully, in a constructive manner.’” (Just to clarify, however much sense Paul makes occasionally on issues like the Wars on terror and drugs, I find him mostly wrongheaded and frightening.)

“The postmodern institutions…those are the indifferent gods.”

“This final season of the show, Simon told me, will be about ‘perception versus reality’ — in particular, what kind of reality newspapers can capture and what they can’t. Newspapers across the country are shrinking, laying off beat reporters who understood their turf. More important, Simon believes, newspapers are fundamentally not equipped to convey certain kinds of complex truths. Instead, they focus on scandals — stories that have a clean moral. ‘It’s like, Find the eight-hundred-dollar toilet seat, find the contractor who’s double-billing,’ Simon said at one point. ‘That’s their bread and butter. Systemic societal failure that has multiple problems — newspapers are not designed to understand it.“

A huge find by way of Chris at Do You Feel Loved?: Margaret Talbot offers a long-form New Yorker profile on David Simon and The Wire. (If you haven’t yet seen Season 4, I recommend bookmarking this for now — it gives away many of S4’s major beats.) There’s also a good deal of spoilerish information on what to expect from Season 5, what David Simon wants to do next, and who’s singing this season’s version of “Way Down in the Hole.” (I’ll give that one away…Bubbles’ sponsor, Steve Earle — listen here.) “Simon makes it clear that the show’s ambitions were grand. ‘”The Wire” is dissent,’ he says. ‘It is perhaps the only storytelling on television that overtly suggests that our political and economic and social constructs are no longer viable, that our leadership has failed us relentlessly, and that no, we are not going to be all right.’”

Well, they do know lots of words for snow.

“Given the State Department’s $32 billion budget, an additional $1 million for food hardly ranks as a major scandal. But this tangled tale of how an Alaskan tribal company ended up in a South American tropical forest sheds an illuminating spotlight on the often-secretive world of federal contracting, an area of government rife with abuse and poor oversight.” Our government in action: Salon‘s Michael Scherer explains how Alaskan Eskimos won a no-bid contract to feed cocaine-fighting Bolivians, with the help of Senator “Bridge to Nowhere,” Ted Stevens. Here’s a hint: Halliburton is involved.

Ground Control to Justice Bill.

Newly released — and somewhat controversial — FBI files, dating from the former Chief Justice’s two confirmation battles in 1971 and 1986, disclose that William Rehnquist battled a painkiller addiction in the early ’80s while serving on the Court. “Doctors interviewed by the FBI told agents that when the associate justice stopped taking the drug, he suffered paranoid delusions. One doctor said Rehnquist thought he heard voices outside his hospital room plotting against him and had ‘bizarre ideas and outrageous thoughts,’ including imagining ‘a CIA plot against him’ and ‘seeming to see the design patterns on the hospital curtains change configuration.’ At one point, a doctor told the investigators, Rehnquist went ‘to the lobby in his pajamas in order to try to escape.’“