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• I was a full-time employee with the Conference Board between September 2007 and July 2008. I resigned almost a year ago to take a fulfilling job with a non-profit in British Columbia.


• I submitted draft research to my former supervisor for the IP reports in mid-August 2008. I finished the research after I moved even though I was neither on salary nor on contract with the Board.


• The research I submitted did NOT include the controversial passages or plagiarized content.


• I worked with three contract researchers on this project between April 2008 and June 2008, including Jeremy deBeer, whose work I integrated into the draft. These researchers did not submit research that included the controversial/plagiarized content.


• I had no involvement in any content changes and did not see these papers after I submitted them in August.


• My new work was interrupted in mid-September by my former supervisor at the Conference Board to tell me there had been “push back” from one of the funding clients about the research and inclusion of Mr. deBeer’s contribution. I had quit almost two months earlier so this was of no concern to me.


• Around the same time, my new work was also interrupted by a call from one of the funding clients who expressed similar concerns. Again, I informed him that I no longer had anything to do with these reports.


• I received news of its publication on May 26, 2009, ten months after my resignation. I downloaded and read the research after I was informed of the controversy and was alarmed to see the direction it had taken.


• I sent my letter to Anne Golden the following day.


• The VP of Public Policy e-mailed me on May 29th to ask for my assistance in finding both researchers who could "fix" the reports, as well as external reviewers who would be impartial in reviewing the new work. His message stated that “I trust your judgment, experience and knowledge and would value your help.”

The Conference Board wants my help to fix reports that were published 10 months after my departure. It wants me to help fix publications that were re-written (and plagiarized) months after my departure and after they discarded the research I compiled and submitted. The Conference Board asks for my help but won't acknowledge that it was wrong to put my name on reports that bear little resemblance to the original research I submitted, were substantially reworked, and were published ten months after I resigned. After Anne Golden laid blame on contract researchers and supervisors late last week, I noticed two of the authors who still were listed on the organization's web site were no longer on the staff list.

So John Cole has pretty much addressed this, but last week Jonathan Chait criticized me and others for referring to Jeffrey Rosen's piece on Sonia Sotomayor as "gossip".

"Gossip" is an effective label for those who wish to denigrate Rosen's reporting or the reputation of TNR, but it's an inaccurate one. Gossip is unverified information. Gossip is something you hear all the time--say, Senator X mistreats his staff. No serious publication can pass off gossip as reporting. However, if you actually speak with the principals firsthand--you interview staffers for Senator X who report that he mistreats them--then what you have is reporting. That's what Jeff did. He spoke first-hand with several of Sotomayor's former clerks, who provided a mixed picture. Unsurprisingly, they declined to put their names on the record, but that's utterly standard for people who are speaking in unflattering terms about people they worked with or for.

Chait is one of my favorite writers on the interwebs, but this is less than persuasive. A big publication printing gossip doesn't change the definition of gossip. The issue isn't that the information was "unverified" as in, no one told Rosen these things, it's that it was objectively unverifiable, as in, assertions about Sotomayor's intelligence are unprovable. Rosen, as a well-respected legal expert, could have made that argument himself in some form, but he didn't, possibly because he wanted to present it as an "unbiased" observation. But since the source is anonymous, there's no way to judge the individual's motivations or perspective. There's reason to give people anonymity under certain circumstances to relay unpleasant information about a colleague or a superior, but not when that information can't be verified. Anonymous, unverifiable information is gossip.

Most oddly, Chait suggests I, along with others have some sort of agenda against the New Republic. I can only speak for myself, but in my many posts on Sotomayor and Rosen, I didn't say anything about the New Republic except that to identify the publication Rosen had been writing in.?

-- A. Serwer

"What I do support is what has been termed the responsible closure of Gitmo. Gitmo has caused us problems, there's no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has been used by the enemy against us. We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activity since 9/11 and again Gitmo is a lingering reminder for the use of some in that regard...

I don't think we should be afraid of our values we're fighting for, what we stand for. And so indeed we need to embrace them and we need to operationalize them in how we carry out what it is we're doing on the battlefield and everywhere else...

 So one has to have some faith, I think, in the legal system. One has to have a degree of confidence that individuals that have conducted such extremist activity would indeed be found guilty in our courts of law.

When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions, we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it's important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those," - general David Petraeus, conceding that the US violated the Geneva Conventions under president Bush, and pledging to remain within the laws of war in the future, as the best way to win the war on terror.

(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty.)

Steve Levitt makes an astounding discovery.

• GM files for bankruptcy. Washington will give the company an additional $30 billion to play with, and will take a 60 percent stake in return. The U.S. isn't the only government taking ownership: Another 12 percent goes to Canada.

• The Nevada legislature overrides a veto and legalizes domestic partnerships.

• Someone who hasn't parsed the phrase "pro-life" very carefully has killed an abortionist.

• The emergency powers behind the Fed's Wall Street bailouts.

• Irony alert: A report making the case for stronger intellectual property rights was partly plagiarized.

The Conservative government is set to unveil a new approach to its relations with Canada?"s First Nations that will see fresh money flowing to bands when Ottawa believes there is a good prospect of economic success, while bands with a track record of failure will be frozen out.

As part of its move toward a more market-oriented approach, the government is also keen to reform the electoral system used to elect aboriginal chiefs.

Chuck Strahl, the Minister for Indian Affairs and Northern Development, will outline the policy Thursday in a speech in Ottawa. ?SThere will be a shifting of resources. If you take economic development as an example, there has been a tendency to sprinkle it like pixie dust and hope for magic results. I?"m increasingly convinced we have to reward those who are ready to take that kind of help,? he said in an interview with the National Post.

In his speech, he will say that the single defining feature of the new approach is that the government is not prepared to ?Swaste time on unproductive and unsuccessful processes?.

Phil Fontaine, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said that he was surprised that the government is going down this path. ?SThe Prime Minister spoke of reconciliation last year with the historic apology [on residential schools], in effect setting the stage for a new era that ended unilateral decisions and the ??we-know-best?" approach. We?"re committed to partnership but we don?"t want the imposition of government will,? he said in an interview.

In its most recent budget, the government announced $1.4-billion of new spending on aboriginal Canadians -- including $200-million on skills and training, $400-million for on-reserve housing, $515-million for on-reserve infrastructure and $325-million for health programs and child and family services.

Mr. Strahl said that new money will be directed towards bands that can strike partnership agreements - with provinces on education and health issues, and with the private sector on economic development and infrastructure. However, he said that base funding for other First Nations would not be cut as part of the new strategy. ?SYou?"re just not going to get extra funding, if you?"re not doing something different and better.?

The government is intent on rolling out pilot projects in education, where the minister said partnership agreements with provincial and First Nation governments were proving successful in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; and, in skills development, where it hopes to replicate deals with private sector employers like uranium producer Cameco, with which Ottawa has a $30-million training agreement. ?SWhat I?"m not prepared to do is have a system where each schoolhouse has its own school-board. It?"s not practical and the results are no good. There?"s not much doubt about where we want to go with this,? he said.

Mr. Strahl contrasted the benefits of co-operation and partnership with the situation on the Akwesasne reserve, near Cornwall, where residents have closed the Seaway International Bridge as part of a protest opposing the arming of border guards.
The Mohawks of Akwesasne see themselves as a sovereign nation that is not part of Canada, despite receiving millions of dollars for schools, health and social development from the Canadian taxpayer.  

Mr. Strahl said  the government of Canada does not recognize that sovereignty claim and said the rule of law applies to everyone. ?SMohawk communities have a particular perspective about pre-Confederation and so on. I hope that nothing I?"m saying is disrespectful but my observation is, notwithstanding all the other interesting discussions, if you don?"t develop healthy working relations and partnerships with other levels of government, and your neighbours, you will suffer because you lack opportunities,? he said.

Mr. Strahl said that a number of provincial premiers have told him that the single most important change he could introduce would be to engage in electoral reform to make the system of electing chiefs more accountable. He said chiefs in Atlantic Canada and Manitoba have approached him about resolving what he called a ?Srevolving door? of aboriginal leaders that made tripartite striking deals difficult. He said Ottawa could intervene by striking legislation that, for example, would introduce fixed election dates, standardized rules on a voters?" list and a common appeals process. ?SAny legislation would have to pass muster in those communities,? he said.
National Post
jivison@nationalpost.com