Who is Brad Delong, and who was Seymour Hersh speaking to at U of Chicago?

[gristy]

This long thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1766518
refers to this link http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/000987.html

The text of which is below. Now Brad DeLong is an economist and professor at UC Berkeley. His resume is here: http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Econ_Articles/Econ_Articles.html and his home page is here: http://econ161.berkeley.edu/

But in the text below, I just cannot figure out who Hersh was speaking to in Chicago. Does anyone know? While I have no reason to doubt DeLong, this information is clearly 2nd-hand. Someone was in Chicago listening to Hersh, and that someone sent an email to DeLong, which DeLong has posted.

Torture and rumors of torture. In my email inbox this morning...

If what it reports is true, then once again it looks like the Bush administration is worse than I had imagined--even though I thought I had taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is always worse than one imagines. Either Seymour Hersh is insane, or we have an administration that needs to be removed from office not later than the close of business today. The scariest part: " said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, 'You haven't begun to see evil...' then trailed off. He said, 'horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run.' He looked frightened.

Seymour Hersh spoke... at the University of Chicago.... I took some scattered notes. The remaks will be disjoined--as will be the notes--but chilling. He asserted several things that he says he didn't have nailed down enough to write, but that he was confident of....

He then turned to the 40th president, referring obliquely to 138 names, then began to list them, saying those with long memories will catch on: they were the Reagan administration figures accused, indicted, or convicted of wrongdoing....

He talked about Carl Levin (though he didn't use his name) telling him about high officials lying to him in closed hearings, and how frustrating it was to be lied to, in classified settings, when the liars know the senators know they are lying. Levin said he'd never seen such brazenness in Washington....

He waits after the My Lai story broke mid November 1969, one week, two weeks--then, by Thanksgiving 1969, other correspondents finally write about the atrocities THEY had seen in Vietnam: an outpouring that made him feel strange that it took little old him, the police reporter who had flunked out of law school, 11 years after winning his B.A. in English, to unleash this outpouring of truth....

From My Lai, the transition to the current scandals was seemless. He connected the dots, and spoke of the CIA secret prisons we haven't heard about yet: "We're basically in the disappearing business." He made the first of several criticisms of our humble profession: "there's no learning curve in America. There's no learning curve in the press corps."...

Unsurprisingly, he flagged the extraordinary importance of the WSJ memo revealing the government's plans to torture, including its assertion that it's not against the law if the president approves it, and mocked the New York Times headline "9 Militias Are Said to Approve a Deal to Disband," suggesting in its stead, "Bush Administration Offers Hoax in Hopes of Convincing U.S. There's Some Peace." His assessment of the postwar settlement: "It's going to come down to who has the biggest militia will win."...

Then a story from one of his intelligence sources, whom Hersh says didn't find it an unflattering story: some time in 1986 or 1987, Reagan was given a long chart presentation of what actually happened with Iran/Contra and began sleeping five minutes in to it, then snoring on Nancy's shoulder. After twenty minutes it was over, the helicopter was fired up for the Friday trip to Camp David, Nancy aroused him, he awoke with a start, glanced at the charts, and asked, "What's that." Sy said something like "That's MY Ronald Reagan."...

"NATO's falling apart in Afghanistan now."

And this was one of the most stunning parts. He had just returned from Europe, and he said high officials, even foreign ministers, who used to only talk to him off the record or give him backchannel messages, were speaking on the record that the next time the U.S. comes to them with intelligence, they'll simply have no reason to believe it.... He lamented of his journalistic colleagues, "I don't know whey they don't just tell it like it is."...

He said the people most horrified by the way the war was planned were the military commanders responsible for protecting their troops.... He talked about the horror of the 1000 civilian deaths in Fallujah (but was careful to note the Marines were doing their job, placing the blame with their superiors)....

He talked about how hard it is to get the truth out in Republican Washington: "If you agree with the neocons you're a genius. If you disagree you're a traitor." Bush, he said, was closing ranks, purging anyone who wasn't 100% with him. Said Tenet has a child in bad health, has heart problems, and seemed to find him generally a decent guy under unimaginable pressure, and that people told him that Tenet feared a heart attack if he had to take one more grilling from Cheney. "When these guys memoirs come out, it will shock all of us."...

He said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, "You haven't begun to see evil..." then trailed off. He said, "horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run."

He looked frightened.

[librechik]

1. here's the event

delong got an email from someone who attended the discussion.

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/04/040603.hersh.shtml

[Michael Costello]

2. Brad...

...DeLong is a bozo who wants to become a big-name economist. Rick Perlstein might have been the one who originally wrrote this up.

[Logansquare]

6. Yeah right...if Bozo had a vitae like this

<small excerpt>
Professor, Department of Economics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA (July 1997-present).
Columnist, Project Syndicate (2002-).

Columnist, Wired, "Change..." (2002-).
Chair, Political Economy of Industrial Societies Major (2001-).
Columnist, Fortune "In the Long Run..." (2000-2001).
Columnist, New York Times "Economic Scene" (2000).
Co-Editor, Journal of Economic Perspectives (April 1996-present).
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, United States Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC (April 1993-May 1995).

<and a scholarly publication list as long as your arm...>

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/Econ_Articles/Econ_Articles.html

[ant]

3. what's the problem?

I glanced at the other thread you linked to - I admit, I didn't read every post - and I can't figure out what, exactly, you're wondering about.

I saw people wondering why Hersh hasn't released the pictures, but nowhere does he claim to have the pictures, only that he's seen them. By talking about them he's certainly "releasing" them as much as is in his power to do so. Or, if he does have them, perhaps the people who gave them to him asked him not to release them because it'll identify them. Maybe they're waiting to cut their deals or get lawyers or whatever else.

Also, Hersh did mention the abuse of children in his interview with O'Reilly back when this first came out. In that interview he said:

There was a special women's section. There were young boys in there. There were things done to young boys that were videotaped. It's much worse. And the Maj. Gen. Taguba was very tough about it. He said this place was riddled with violent, awful actions against prisoners.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,118955,00.html

There was also an MSNBC article, I think, that quoted anonymous military people as talking about the rape of a boy on video.

None of this is new information. Hersh, at least, has been talking about the abuse of a child and/or children since this all first came out.

[gristy]

4. My "problem" was that

I just cannot figure out who Hersh was speaking to in Chicago.
The first poster went a long ways in resolving my confusion - thanks. Still want to read a 1st-hand account of his talk. I have an email list and this is too incredible to send a link of a 2nd-hand account.

K?

[ant]

5. geez, no need to get defensive

Usually when people are trying to track down the primary source it's to confirm the content of their second hand information. When I asked what the problem was I was asking what issue in this second hand information you were wondering about, specifically. Since the claim about children being abused seems to be the most alarming bit people are focusing on, I assumed that might be it. I gave you the O'Reilly quote to help support these claims about Hersh's speech in Chicago - since he's talked about it before, it's likely he talked about it again.

If that's not what you were after, my intense apologies for trying to help. :eyes:

[Eloriel]

7. What's "incredible" about it?

You think, with all the photos you HAVE seen, that they would stop at rape? Puhleez.

Either bide your time and wait for the additional info to come out, or pass it along for exactly what it is -- a 2nd hand report of a talk given in Chicago, the details of which you're not privy to.