No Horoscope This Week

Making fun of the news this week wouldn't be right.

Polycarp’s Special 1040 Edition Weekly Horoscope

Click on the highlighted words for hints and subtle clues as to the the stars' true meaning

Aquarius (January 20-February 18): Talk about taxing! These westerners with their silly deadlines! After all, it’s just a power plant, right, Aquarius? Besides, you has a big birthday bash for your dead dad to attend. Polycarp’s astrological prediction for you, Aquarius, is that those silly Americans will insist they’ve already released your money from a now-defunct state-owned bank in Shanghai and set yet another deadline, at which you will also thumb your nose. Polycarp’s advice: throw in a demand for a few boatloads of food. After all, you care so much for your starving millions, right?

Pisces (February 19-March 20): Leo was waaaay out of line, Pisces, no doubt about it, but an interesting fact is that he was quoting you. Were you out of line? No? Really? I know. It’s a Pisces thing. I wouldn’t understand.

Aries (March 21-April 19): Putting conditions on the spending bill seemed a bit of an overreach at the time it passed, Aries, but Cancer’s public petulance seemed to mute charges of micromanaging, and the non-McCain Repubs are so afraid to say anything about the war that you seem to have the field to yourself. Good politics. Good policy? Not so sure.

Taurus (April 20-May 20): Happy birthday, your holiness! Releasing a book about spirituality only in German cements your status as the world’s spiritual leader, Taurus, because everybody knows how spiritual Germans are. Polycarp suggests doing Sunday headcounts in your churches. Note that in many places the counts can be completed using only fingers, no toes needed. Look again in twelve months and note that fewer fingers are needed. Then imagine how those numbers might look if your flock could go to church without being scolded by nasty old celibate (well, mostly) men for living normal lives.

Gemini (May 21-June 20): You’re Polycarp’s favorite Republican, Gemini. But then, Polycarp’s a Democrat, so he’s not sure that's good news for you. Not only are your ideas less dictated by a rigid agenda dictated by preachers in Kansas and Virginia, but you haven’t lurched to the right in search of all the Baptists and their money. Good for you. You were also extremely effective in the last elected position you held—New Yorkers don’t vote for Repubs lightly. But how did a Mormon Pisces raise so much more money than you?

Cancer (June 21-July 22): Now that real nucular threats are popping up in the mideast, lets lead the world in exposing the danger and threaten to use military force to make them stop. No wait--we can’t, because nobody would believe us any more and because our army is stretched too thin for a threat to be credible, Cancer. And just look at that nucular program over in Iran. And the one in Syria. And Jordan, Yemen, Egypt and Turkey. Not to mention North Korea. Too bad, really too bad, we're not in a position to do anything at all about it.

Leo (July 23-August 22): Nappy-headed hos? Lordy, Leo. Polycarp’s getting on in years himself, and knows that old men sometimes embarrass themselves by trying to use current cultural references, but God almighty how could you say sich a thing? Polycarp predicts that nice people from a satellite network will be calling this week, and recommends you talk to them seriously. There you can resume your feud with the world’s fifth most obnoxious Capricorn who hasn’t murdered a pretty former actress who was working at the Hard Rock Café.

Virgo (August 23-September 22): Well, maybe basing a big case on the unsubstantiated word of an irrational, unstable, bipolar alcoholic on anti-psychotic medication isn’t the way to go, Virgo. Who knew? Polycarp hears the North Carolina State Bar Ethics Committee messed up a case against some prosecutors for failure to disclose exculpatory evidence a couple of years ago and ever since they’ve been itching for a chance to get it right. Sucks to be you, Virgo, but thank God for prosecutorial immunity, huh?

Libra (September 23-October 22): You were right, Libra, to stick to your guns when Leo came to you seeking cheap atonement for his uninformed and unforgivable insult to a nice team of young women from New Jersey. Now Polycarp is confident you will take 50 Cent and Ludacris to task for using the exact same language. Right?

Scorpio (October 23-November 21): Now that all the loyal Bushies are busy putting their feet in their mouths, deleting e-mails, and trying to avoid prison, it appears you’re taking a new approach to your job: you’re talking to people in other countries. Good idea, Secretary Scorpio! The stars say that Syria can help you with the Israel/Palestine deal and that if something isn’t done in Pakistan fast you’re looking at a meltdown of regional significance. Wolfie and Rummy aren't just gone but wholly discredited, Cheney's been neutered, and Cancer’s distracted by his lawyer’s incompetence, so now’s your chance to get something done.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21): Polycarp predicts that no Saggitarian will appear in the news this week, either.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19): You’re doing a heckuva job, Capricorn. Keeping your girlfriend on the World Bank payroll even though she doesn’t show up any more? Sweet. Calling a meeting to explain to your own staff and they boo and hiss so much you have to cancel? Even sweeter. Being charged with corruption after years of calling poor countries corrupt? Like sacherine. You instructed her supervisors to give her automatic raises? This is almost as stupid as the Iraq plan. Oh, wait, that was yours, too, wasn’t it?

Please Accept My Apologies

The first I heard of the Duke lacrosse case was on March 24, 2006 when the local paper reported on its interview with a then-unnamed woman, who claimed that she had been raped at a party where she had been hired to dance. I was about eight miles away from Duke in a coffee shop and there was more conversation than usual as people talked about what they knew and had heard about the case. Everybody seemed to know some fact not reported in the paper or to have some deduction about what had happened. Everyone was horrified. Over the next few days the media provided more details and the case morphed form a local to a national story. Mike Nifong, the Durham County District Attorney, took personal charge of the case.

All along there were clues that it hadn’t really happened. When Nifong’s investigators requested DNA samples from the lacrosse team, they all lined up and provided samples. You generally don’t get that kind of cooperation from people with lawyers if there’s any possibility that there’s something to hide. It also wasn’t immediately apparent that the accuser’s story was changing. At the time it just seemed like we were getting more details as time passed, and even if the story changed a little, people who have been through trauma sometimes get their facts a little addled. It’s natural. Over the first week or so, her story came to include a claim to that she was assaulted with a broomstick, though, and that’s the sort of thing you’d expect to be mentioned early on.

I wasn’t working in early 2006 and spent most mornings at that same coffee house where I’d first read about the story, and for the next few weeks, the Duke Lacrosse case was the constant topic of conversation, just as it became the favorite case of the tv talk shows. There were demonstrations at North Carolina State and marches at Duke. There were public letters signed by Duke faculty members excoriating the lacrosse team. Public figures beseeched the team members to come clean about what had happened that night.

And nowhere, in any public forum from coast to coast, did anyone stop to consider the chance that no crime had been committed.

There are a couple of reasons for that, but note of them excuse the way we as a nation treated Reade Seligman, Dave Evans, and Colin Finnerty. We have a natural desire to help and natural inclination to pity the victims of assault. We have faith that our law enforcement officers won’t pursue groundless claims against the innocent. The lacrosse team’s social activities included instances of boorish and insulting behavior.

None of this excuses the fact that in the early days of this case all of us assumed Seligman, Evans, and Finnerty were guilty.

Mike Nifong got the D.A. job from Gov. Easley as an interim appointment. He needed someone to finish out a term of the previous D.A., whom Easley had appointed to the bench. Easley has said that Nifong promised at the time that he would never seek re-election and that he never would have appointed him otherwise. Nifong claimed he wasn’t interested in politics and didn’t think he could get elected. Then he changed his mind and decided to run, and as a political newcomer, he faced a very tough primary election. He was not connected with a party machine and had no experience campaigning or fundraising. His poll numbers were very low with Durham County's sizable African-American polulation. Several weeks before the lacrosse case broke he was trailing several other candidates in the polls. Calculating that by being vocal in his support for the accuser and becoming personally involved in the case he might increase his appeal to African-American voters, he forged ahead, never meeting with the accuser himself, never thoroughly examining the statements of the accused, concealing exculpatory DNA evidence, mishandling the case in myriad ways, refusing to look at clear and convincing alibi evidence for one of the defendants or even to meet with the defense lawyers, but he did manage to keep his face on tv until election day. His name recognition got him the win, and then the conflicting evidence started showing up. The case unraveled quickly.

One of the problems with our legal system is the way that big cases so often go awry. Put cameras in a courtroom and you enhance dramatically the chances for a bad result. O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake go free. Saddam Hussein is convicted, but after a trial that wouldn’t pass muster in any court of appeals in the United States. This shouldn’t be so, of course. Judges and lawyers shouldn’t be playing to the cameras. Those with more money to spend on lawyers shouldn’t routinely get better verdicts than those who don’t. There’s lots to learn here.

But most of all, right now, we should all apologize to Dave Evans, Colin Finnerty, and Reade Seligman. We owe you. We’re sorry. You deserved better. We will learn from this.

Polycarp's Weekly Horoscope

Click on the highlighted words to find hints and subtle clues as to the meaning of this weeks horoscope.

Aquarius (January 20-February 18): Continued insistence that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeada has a very seasonal feel to it, Aquarius, because all of the people who buy it believe in the Easter bunny or have the initials GWB. Even if there was a relationship, and nobody but you thinks so, al-Queada hated Hussein and wanted to get rid of him, same as you. You think he kept the sharia, with his palaces and booze and Viagra?

Pisces (February 19-March 20): Well, Pisces, you finished up the money-grubbing season with the biggest war chest on your side of the aisle but the repubs just aren’t buying your foxhole conversion regarding on pretty much every issue of national importance. Note that in the polls you place way behind a certain Leo tv actor who hasn’t even said he’s running. Time to evolve into a real candidate.

Aries (March 21-April 19): Welcome back to the USA, Aries. Despite the way he acted, Polycarp thinks a certain Cancer chief executive was actually glad the supplemental spending bill had strings attached and that you went jetting off to the middle east. At least it gave him something to talk about other than the messes at Justice and Defense.

Taurus (April 20-May 20): You got them back for Easter, all safe and sound, Taurus. Good work. Now hand the keys to your successor before anything bad happens. You had a great run while it lasted, but it’s time to go.

Gemini (May 21-June 20): I dunno, Gemini. Polycarp’s not sure what continuing the race now shows about your priorities. Your wife is a class act, so maybe you do whatever she wants you to do, but presidential races make it hard to keep priorities straight in the best of circs. Since you raised “only” $14 million the best thing for you will be if Leo and Scorpio start spitting on each other. Keep up the high-minded appearance. Since you were a plaintiff’s med-mal lawyer, Polycarp suspects this is a façade, but it seems to be working.

Cancer (June 21-July 22): There was lots of petulance this week Cancer, but your “recess” appointments were pretty egregious. You withdrew your candidate for ambassador to Belgium because you knew he didn’t have the votes, then underhandedly snuck him back the very next week as a “recess” appointment. Congress specifically refused your deputy director of Social Security nominee in February, but then you gave him the job anyway as another “recess” appointment. This isn’t what recess appointments are for, it’s unconstitutional, and if you’d had a real lawyer as White House Counsel instead of a bunch of cronies, somebody might have told you so.

Leo (July 23-August 22): Leo, your Easter egg hunt gave you almost as much money as Scorpio and way more than handsome Gemini, and he’s done this before. Polycarp knows from experience that quitting smoking makes people foul-tempered and edgy, so maybe this period of sniping amongst hopefuls will end when you get off the Nicorette gum.

Virgo (August 23-September 22): Being Aries’ tour guide last week made you look almost sensible, but in fact you’re doing everything you can to destabilize the middle east, Virgo. According to you, that Hamas is a legitimate resistance movement and Hezbollah is just another Lebanese political party. So why do their leaders have to live under your protection in Syria instead of their own homes?

Libra (September 23-October 22): Your inspector says the evidence the neocons cooked up about a pre-invasion link between Saddam and al-Qaeada was “not reliable,” Libra. Polycarp’s bureaucratic thesaurus has “Easter bunnylike” listed next to ‘not reliable.” Your Cancer predecessor never would have allowed this to happen, so Polycarp feels safer with you in the job.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21): You’re both the most popular and the most hated candidate in the race, but you have $26 million in your Easter basket, Scorpio. Maybe it’s time to talk about something else, though. Something like an issue.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21): You snorted your father’s ashes mixed with cocaine. Sagittarius, in a long life seemingly devoted to giving us good drug stories, this is a personal best.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19): Capricorn, when Polycarp was in high school he saw a poster-sized picture of another famous Capricorn captioned “Would you buy a used war from this man?” Oddly enough, you got your start in politics and diplomacy in that administration, and like your old boss, you sold a used war by using lots of untrue information. You also promised that invading Iraq would democratize the entire Middle East, echoing the Domino Theory. To paraphrase Animal House, “We screwed up. We trusted you.”

Stop Me If You've Heard This Before....

You will recall that one of the justifications for invading Iraq was that there were ties between Saddam Hussein (remember him?) and al-Qaeda. It always seemed unlikely that Hussein, who was far more worried that his own people would rebel than he was about any external threat, would have tolerated, much less encouraged, a group like al-Qaeda, which is skilled at eluding detection, disorganized, and not bound by traditional national loyalties. Indeed, it seems far more likely that Hussein would do as much as possible to squelch any pan-Arabic Islamic fundamentalist movement in Iraq--just a few years earlier the U.S. had been funding such a movement in Afghanistan, and it ultimately outfought a much better armed Soviet army. That kind of group gives nightmares to dictators. It's hardly surprising, then, that no real evidence was ever found linking Iraq and al-Qaeda before the invasion. That al-Qaeda is in Iraq now is undeniable, but they came to fight us, not Hussein.
What's interesting is how far the neoconservatives (remember them?) were willing to go to find a link that didn't exist. Documents released this week by the pentagon include e-mails from our old friend Paul Wolfowitz, then Deputy Defense Secretary, to Douglas Feith, then the number three man at the Pentagon. "We don't seem to be making much progress pulling together intelligence on links between Iraq and al-Qaeda," Wolfowitz wrote in January of 2002. The memo is included in a just-declassified report issued by the Pentagon's Inspector General, that, somewhat surprisingly, is available for public viewing (link here). Wolfowitz told Feith to find him a link, and he began what turned into a yearlong hunt for links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and never found anything definitive. There was lots of talk about a meeting with Mohammed Atta (how about him?) in Prague, but no one could fund much else, and there was no convincing evidence or Iraqi interest or involvement.

Feith's investigation and release of his extremely attenuated conclusion that there was a link between Hussein and Iraq led to an investigation (requested by Senator Levin) by the Inspector General into whether Feith's search for the nonexistent links, and the alternative intelligence assessment that drawing such a conclusion implies, was a proper use of Feith's unit in the Pentagon. The Inspector General concludes that it wasn't proper, but that it wasn't illegal because they were authorized under the Pentagon's then-effective organizational chart, which has since changed. The following is on page 15-16 of the report, and is reiterated several other places: "The office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers. While such actions were not illegal or unauthorized, the actions were, in our opinion, inappropriate given that the intelligence assessments were intelligence products and did not clearly show the variance with the withe the consensus of the Intelligence Community. This occurred because of the OUSD(P) expanded its role and mission from formulating Defense Policy to analyzing and disseminating alternative evidence. As a result, the OUSD(P) did not provide "most accurate analysis of intelligence to senior decision makers."

So--Wolfowitz told Leith what to find, who overstepped his role but did his best and cobbled together a misleading report that was at variance with what everybody else thought, then they took it to Rumsfeld, who shared it with Cheney and the President, who used it to justify the invasion.

I know it's easier to find something if you want it to be there, but the conclusion that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was lacked intelligence in every sense of the word.

Polycarp's Pretty Much Weekly Horoscope

In which the highlighted words provide subtle clues and hints as to this week's astrological message.

Aquarius (January 20-February 18): Congratulations, Aquarius. You managed to get the amended spending bill passed even though your party has only a bare majority and even though keeping Senators in line is like teaching morality to teen aged boys: it’s not that they don’t understand, it just doesn’t occur to them to comply. The troop withdrawal provision assures its veto, which my not be so bad, since the bill also contained $20 billion in tack-on pork. So much for the earmark promises.

Pisces (February 19-March 20): All you prominent Republicans bolting toward the right is causing a draft, Pisces. As governor you were pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, then you morphed into Jerry Falwell faster than Polycarp could say “activist judges.” It’s great that you’ve only been married once (despite the alternative opportunities your religious background affords) but the more important integrity for a politician is one of honesty with ideas and fidelity to principle. That fresh-and-clean feeling you used to have vanished the minute you pandered to the NRA.

Aries (March 21-April 19): Polycarp is delighted with the peace plan and the power-sharing proposal, Aries. You and a certain green Libra seem to have negotiated an end to centuries of squabbles, shootings, bombings, military occupation, angry parades, occasional hunger strikes, and much lachrymose drunken singing. But why couldn’t you have done this in 1975?

Taurus (April 20-May 20): Polycarp is glad you’re out there, Sir Taurus, showing that not all rock stars are self-obsessed wastrels with nothing better to do than whine about YouTube and Napster. You’re articulate and principled and honorable and really, really need to change your look, starting with those glasses.

Gemini (May 21-June 20): A mixed bag for you recently, Gemini. Endorsement by mega-rich magazine-owning former candidate: good; info about your police commissioner's ties to the mob and when you found out about it: bad. Messy family relationships and multiple marriages: sound bad but actually don’t seem to matter this year for non-Mormon Republican presidential hopefuls.

Cancer (June 21-July 22): If we were studying your administration in English class, Cancer, a white-haired high school teacher would be telling us that your tragic flaw is how you value loyalty over competence. From big things like invading non-belligerent countries to small things like nominating your silly Leo friend to the Supreme Court, if you’d spent more time listening to the smartest guy in the room instead of the most “on-message,” everything could have been different, and if you’d ever been a real C.E.O., you’d know that. All good managers do.

Leo (July 23-August 22): Well, Leo, you thought throwing your former star pupil to the wolves might save your job, but instead he testified and now the wolves are sniffing after you again. You say the others are all “confused,” but if so why do they all agree? Admit it: you were involved in tacky and partisan political meddling. Is it comforting to hear the big guy say your job is secure, Leo, and if so, do you remember Rumsfeld?

Virgo (August 23-September 22): Having you show up at Dodgertown has always been Polycarp’s favorite harbinger of spring, Virgo. A friend sent him a recent snapshot, and he’s guessing you’re no longer the spokesman for Slim-Fast. As for the recent allegations by a notorious Hollywood madam and tell-all author that you were a good customer, well, your denials might have been more convincing if you hadn’t hired a lawyer to issue them for you.

Libra (September 23-October 22): Your nuttiness would be highly amusing, Libra, if it weren’t so scary. Polycarp’s aware that your election above other more-popular candidates was a fluke and that you have very little support at home, so some grandstanding is to be expected, and nobody over there cares about international law, much less international opinion, but is there any way at all in which you can claim to be in charge? And if so, what, exactly, are you planning to do with those sailors?

Scorpio (October 23-November 21): Polycarp hears that you’re well ahead of the other Democratic hopefuls in the all-important fundraising race, and since California and pretty much everybody else is moving to earlier primaries, that puts you halfway home, Scorpio. Here’s the rub: you can win the primary, but you can’t win the general election. The religious right still makes money off of hating you and your presence on the ticket will motivate them in a way that none of the current Republicans could possibly do themselves.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21): So did you actually complete rehab in record time or did the other drunks vote you off of detox island, Sagittarius? No more wardrobe malfunctions, please.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19): Polycarp thinks your popularity is proof of something highly unpleasant about America’s tastes, Capricorn, but since American Idol is one of the few things in the cosmos that’s arguably more annoying than your radio show, Polycarp isn’t sure whether he’s morally offended or highly amused at your sabotaging of Idol’s voting.