Baseball writer: Astros Should’ve Played in Texas
The Houston Astros are finally a great team, and were poised to play this weekend a home-field series against the cross-state rival Texas Rangers. That was made impossible by Hurricane Harvey, so Major League Baseball ultimately resolved the issue by having the two teams play on neutral turf in Tampa Bay, Fla. At National Review, Michael Brendan Daugherty (who publishes a popular baseball newsletter) says the two teams should’ve played in Arlington, Texas — even though it’s the Rangers’ home field: “Technically, both teams and Major League Baseball have come up with a ‘fair’ situation on baseball terms. But this was a huge missed opportunity for division rivals to play each other in a context where their respective Texas cities could rally each other.”
Libertarian: Stupidity, Not Defamation, at NY Times
A federal judge’s decision to dismiss Sarah Palin’s defamation suit against The New York Times is an embarrassment — to the Times. As Jacob Sullum writes at Reason, “the details described in U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff’s ruling highlight the journalistic malpractice, magical thinking, and blinkered tribalism that led to this stupid and embarrassing mistake.” After a man opened fire on Republicans playing baseball in June, the Times wrote an editorial saying Palin’s political-action committee’s ad in 2011 targeting congressional races was a “direct” incitement to violence that led to the shooting of then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. This was baldly false — as the Times’ own reporting clearly showed. Says Sullum: “Promoting baseless claims because they are ideologically convenient and make your enemies look bad may not be defamation. But neither is it good, or even mediocre, journalism.”
From the right: Comey’s Early Exoneration of Hillary
The Senate Judiciary Committee, reports Melissa Quinn at the Washington Examiner, revealed something striking: “Former FBI Director James Comey started to draft a statement exonerating Hillary Clinton in the bureau’s investigation into her use of a private email server before the FBI interviewed her or her key witnesses.” According to transcripts reviewed by the committee, Comey began putting together the statement “before the FBI interviewed up to 17 key witnesses, including Clinton and some of her close aides” — and before the feds struck immunity deals with Clinton’s chief of staff. Remarked committee chairman Chuck Grassley, “Conclusion first, fact-gathering second — that’s no way to run an investigation.”
Foreign desk: How North Korea Broke the Rules
North Korea wasn’t supposed to get a bomb. So how did it defy all the experts’ expectations? At Politico, Nicholas Miller and Vipin Narang point out that those predictions were based on three assumptions: First, “An impoverished state can’t build a bomb.” Second, “Dictators can’t manage complex projects.” And third, “Vulnerable states can be deterred or denied.” Instead, North Korea was, though impoverished, able to withstand sanctions: “As a hypernationalist regime with a state-managed, closed economy, North Korea had relatively little to lose from international pressure.” Plus, China, Pyongyang’s key patron, was “willing to look the other way and limit any sanctions to token measures — and indeed, increase trade as international sanctions ramp up.” Important lessons to learn from North Korea’s surprising success.
From the left: Hamptons Don’t Need Antiterrorism Cops
Can police militarization be not only excessive but actually counterproductive to public safety? Bloomberg’s Joe Nocera says yes. He takes note of a new counterterrorism force policing wealthy getaway Southampton, which probably impedes effective policing in the town: “With both their hands needing to be on the gun, it was far more cumbersome to respond to less extreme situations that might arise. Most real terrorism prevention takes place before ‘the moment of contact’ — when the intelligence community scopes out a planned attack and stops it before it begins.” But Southampton has caught the militarization fever, and thus “security chic,” rather than low-key but effective security, is what the town’s residents and visitors get.