Discourse.net

Vanity Fair Does Palin

A very good read: Sarah Palin the Sound and the Fury.

Full of creepy personal details. And this:

For messaging strategy, Palin relies on William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and Fred Malek, who was an aide to Presidents Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush.

It is actually hard to imagine a worse combination (although I will admit preemptively that it is undoubtedly possible): one stupid and venal, the other evil. Yes, it's that Fred Malek.

How Did It Happen?

A friend who just spent six months abroad concentrating on his work asks in bemused wonderment, “What happened to the US while I was away? How did it lose 15 IQ points and lurch to the right?”

Please Tell Me He's Wrong

Glenn Greenwald has some gloomy thoughts in What collapsing empire looks like.

Please tell me why he's wrong.

The Politics of Face

Rep. Grayson gave a stemwinder of a speech the other day in which among other things he noted that by delaying the extension of unemployment insurance Republicans were “taking food from the mouths” of children. There's probably an element of truth to this, since not everyone losing benefits will be able to go on welfare immediately, but in any case it's not the sort of talk the GOP is used to receiving; it would rather dish it out.

The reaction was not slow: a GOP apparatchik at something called the Media Research Center offered a public call:

“I'll give $100 to first Rep. who punches smary idiot Alan Grayson in nose.”

Grayson's reaction is at least as good as his original speech.

'The Decider' Endorses Dan Froomkin

The Decider's Blog says “This article by Dan Froomkin is well worth reading.”

Don't miss the comments.

The spirit of Dennis Thatcher's Dear Bill letters lives on.

Saftey Might Have Sold

Jalopnik: How The U.S. Government Killed The Safest Car Ever Built.

Not tin foil. It seems to be true.

Jon Stewart on Fox

“How is Barack Obama a socialist? As far as I can see, the majority of the billions of dollars he's given, he's given to banks. So if he's a socialist, he's dyslexic.”

—Jon Stewart during his Fox Bill O'Reilly appearance.

How's Obama Doing, A Debate

Even before yesterday's election in Massachusetts, progressives have been split between those who see the Obama administration as a pretty good thing, doing the best one could hope for in difficult circumstances, and those who think they are either political cowards or what would be genuine liberal Republicans if we had such a thing.

On a mailing list I belong to, Nathan Newman posted a strong defense of the Obama record. I think it misses the point. With his kind permission, I'm posting first his text, then a second version interspersed with my responses. (For fairness, I wanted to give readers the full flavor of his argument before I responded to it.)

Here's the bulk of Newman's original posting, responding to the suggestion that Obama had failed to deliver for his electors:

• Obama passed the largest social spending bill in history in the form of the recovery plan last year, directing $300 billion into health care and education spending, along with tens of billions of dollars into food stamps, housing aid, unemployment insurance, and child care.
• Billions were directed into mass transit, weatherization and other conservation programs through the same bill.
• Millions of children have health care because of the SCHIP bill that was also passed.
• CAFÉ standards were raised for the first time in decades—with a 35mpg standard adopted
• Lily Leadbetter and Equal Pay laws passed to fight pay discrimination
• Pro-labor executive orders promoted project labor agreements and helped unionized contract workers
• 2 million acres of land were protected against oil and gas drilling
• Strengthened state authority and restricting federal preemption to protect state consumer, environmental and labor laws
• Reversed Bush ban on stem cell research and on funding overseas family planning clinics

This is just a summary but these are solid achievements, less than what some might want but hardly “fucking us over.” The reality is that this is the first recession ever where we have provided health care insurance for the unemployed, where unemployment insurance was expanded to cover a higher percentage of the unemployed, and other aid to them was expanded in such a significant way. Notably, in December the NY Times found that 61% of the unemployed approved Obama’s handling of his job, quite a bit higher than the general population. But then, the unemployed are seeing first hand the help they’re getting due to Obama’s actions.

People are free to want more but we saw nothing like this during Clinton’s or Carter’s Presidency—and the Great Society was delivered in the middle of an economic boom. So you basically have to go back to FDR to find this level of social and economic legislation enacted in the middle of a recession.

Yes, Obama hasn’t delivered FDR-level political accomplishments, at least not yet. But that hardly justifies the animosity some people seem to have adopted.

• Obama passed the largest social spending bill in history in the form of the recovery plan last year, directing $300 billion into health care and education spending, along with tens of billions of dollars into food stamps, housing aid, unemployment insurance, and child care.

It was too small. 1 out of 5 men are unemployed. And we knew it was too small when he proposed it. It was pre-compromised: he didn't fight for more.

•Billions were directed into mass transit, weatherization and other conservation programs through the same bill.

Very little has trickled down yet. And by the way, that's approximately equal to the cost of one year of Bush's tax cuts for the richest 5% — which have not been repealed.

•Millions of children have health care because of the SCHIP bill that was also passed.

A win. But not one the middle class notices.

•CAFÉ standards were raised for the first time in decades—with a 35mpg standard adopted

When does that take effect? 2020? Yawn.

•Lily Leadbetter and Equal Pay laws passed to fight pay discrimination

Back to the status quo ante (before Supreme Court). An important (and relatively uncontroversial) change – because this had been the rule previously.

•Pro-labor executive orders promoted project labor agreements and helped unionized contract workers

How many workers have actually gotten jobs from this? Not many.

•2 million acres of land were protected against oil and gas drilling

•Strengthened state authority and restricting federal preemption to protect state consumer, environmental and labor laws

Way below the radar.

•Reversed Bush ban on stem cell research and on funding overseas family planning clinics

Payoffs are either abroad, or far in the future.

This is just a summary but these are solid achievements, less than what some might want but hardly “fucking us over.”

Almost nothing there for the middle class. Very little for the poor except SCHIP

The reality is that this is the first recession ever where we have provided health care insurance for the unemployed, where unemployment insurance was expanded to cover a higher percentage of the unemployed, and other aid to them was expanded in such a significant way. Notably, in December the NY Times found that 61% of the unemployed approved Obama’s handling of his job, quite a bit higher than the general population. But then, the unemployed are seeing first hand the help they’re getting due to Obama’s actions.

Much better than nothing — but jobs would be much better. Where's that big new public works infrastructure push to fix bridges? Nowhere visible. Do you see any signs anywhere in your neighborhood about a federal works project? I sure don't see any here.

People are free to want more but we saw nothing like this during Clinton’s or Carter’s Presidency—and the Great Society was delivered in the middle of an economic boom. So you basically have to go back to FDR to find this level of social and economic legislation enacted in the middle of a recession.

The PROBLEM is that it's nowhere on the scale of what FDR did (modulo bailouts) — and yet that is what the times require. We need FDR. We have … Nelson Rockefeller?

Yes, Obama hasn’t delivered FDR-level political accomplishments, at least not yet. But that hardly justifies the animosity some people seem to have adopted.

It's not simply the failure to deliver. It's the failure to show any DESIRE to deliver them. For someone who was such a great campaign speaker to fail to make the public case, repeatedly, for the big programs — not the crippled stimulus, with all the tax breaks, or the health care plan that contracted HillaryCare disease — failing to have a simple progressive (or populist) narrative that people could rally behind.

Without that big, public, bet-your-Presidency commitment, it all looks pretty half-hearted at best, Republican Lite at worst.

Harsh But Fair?

Glenn Greenwald labels Sen. Evan Bayh as The face of rotted Washington.

And not without reason.

Coming Soon to a Country Near You?

The Ultimate Horror flic.

(From SNL)

There's a lot that rings true in the broad-brush parts Matt Tabbi's latest screed although I take exception to the most vicious bits, like the line about Palin “having the brains of an innertube.”

No, Palin is stupid like Ronald Reagan was stupid. Which certainly makes her smart enough to be dangerous.

DSCC Pokes at GOP Senate Obstructionism

Via SFDB, The GOP Plan, an unusually tough video from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.

I thought this one was unusually good, although (or perhaps because?) it seems a lot like an ad for some new second-rate sitcom.

Most Terrifying Obama Pix Ever

Via Open Left, some truly terrifying photos of President Obama:

Turnabout is Fair Play

President Obama did Letterman; now Limbaugh is going on Leno.

Seems fair: Letterman gets the head of the Democratic Party, Leno gets the head of the Republican party.

Taylor Branch Has the Clinton Tapes

Who would have guessed that Taylor Branch —Taylor Branch — had umpteen hours of secret tapes of Bill Clinton during his Presidency chewing over his plans and setbacks. History narrated as it happens by a master (but exhausted) talker. And now it's going to be a big book: The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President.

It seems that Branch — an amazing historian and writing — had been friends with Clinton in their salad days, but they had drifted apart. Then Clinton pulled him back into the orbit, in the hopes he would become the court historian. And from the sounds of it, the President got both more and less than he wanted.

Unarmed, This Time

The ultra-rightist mob had a demonstration in DC this weekend. Although organizers predicted a huge turnout, and some partisans claimed over a million, reports are that there was in fact something in the mid-five figures. So it wasn't a big crowd by DC standards — maybe 30-50% the size of the anti-war rally in 2005 that got almost no media coverage.

This rally, though, got front-page treatment. In addition to having a cable network as a sponsor, this group of protesters had two other advantages: they're overwhelmingly white, and they're scary. Anti-war protesters of this decade have worked within the system, and mostly it has ignored them. (Contrast to the anti-globalism protesters, who have had a violent fringe, and have enjoyed violent police preemption and reaction.) The teabaggers act in a way that makes you think shouting at meetings is only the start.

(Source: Josh Nelson)

Imagine if anti-Iraq-war protesters had carried signs with such a whiff of violence? The media would have crucified them as the second coming of the SLA, Baader-Meinhof, and the Weathermen. But these guys? Salt of the earth, of course.

Making the Rounds

This email is making the rounds. Original source unknown (to me anyway):

this morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the national aeronautics and space administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US department of agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the food and drug administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the national institute of standards and technology and the US naval observatory, I get into my national highway traffic safety administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the environmental protection agency, using legal tender issed by the federal reserve bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the department of labor and the occupational safety and health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to ny house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it's valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the defense advanced research projects administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right

Bingo.

Update: Kevin Drum reminds us that for really infuriating customer service you have to be a budget-minded consumer dealing with a large faceless profit-minded corporation.

Class Act

This was a classy move by the President — Obama visits White House press room on birthday:

On the day he turned 48, President Barack Obama decided to splash a little celebration on someone with whom he shares the birthday: legendary White House correspondent Helen Thomas, now a columnist with Hearst Newspapers. She turned 89 on Tuesday.

Helen Thomas is not, based on my one short conversation with her, a deep thinker. But for two generations she has had her eye on the essentials and remains as tenacious as any of the best reporters of yore. And she calls them as she sees them — no fakery.

The Telling Link Tags

Slashdot reports on Computerized Election Results With No Election:

“In Honduras, according to breaking Catalan newspaper reports (translations available, USA Today mention), authorities have seized 45 computers containing certified election results for a constitutional election that never happened. The election had been scheduled for June 28, but on that day the president, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted. The 'certified' and detailed electronic records of the non-existent election show Zelaya's side having won overwhelmingly.”

Which is indeed interesting.

And one of the tags the editors put on the story is …. “Florida2000”.

Sing Along With the Wingnuts

This video Auto-Tune the News uses great technical trickery to take a TV feed and turn the speakers into singing self-parodies. The content feels a little heavy-handed, even if most of the targets are deserving, but I'm wowed by the make-'em-sing technique.

Spotted via Jazz From Hell who says,

Right after I first posted about them, The Gregory Brothers are back with “Auto-Tune the News” No. 6, featuring my favorite insane elected official, Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN). And here's a recent interview with Michael Gregory of this very inventive and destined-to-be-legendary band of brothers.

Textbook Takedown

Statistical Proof that You Hate Freedom: Daily Kos has a textbook takedown of a hack study purporting to show a correlation between the lack of freedom in a US state (measured, it turns out, according to a somewhat peculiar metric) and the propensity to vote for Democrats.

Emily's List Phone Fundraising Could Be Better

I think Emily's List is a perfectly fine organization, although I don't think their behavior in Florida's 18th district in the last cycle was anything to brag about — they were very very slow about endorsing Taddeo.

So I'm not about to give them money.

I was polite about that when they called a few days ago, we were in the middle of something, and I said I was busy.

They called back today. I had more time today, so I asked to be put on the 'do not call' list, this being the second call in a few days. The guy (!) on the phone denied they'd ever called me before.

I can't say they lost my dime, as I wasn't going to give anyway, but really.

Bipartisan Group of Miami Legal Luminaries Endorse Koh

A powerhouse list of the local bar, including major Cuban-American luminaries, have written an open Bipartisan Letter from Miami attorneys in support of Dean Koh's nomination as Legal Adviser to the Secretary of State.

Kudos to Roberto Martinez (US Attorney, SDFL 1992-93), Robert Josefsberg (President and Dean, International Academy of Trial Lawyers, 1998-2001; Counsel to Florida Governor Robert Graham, 1979- 1980), Marcos Jimenez (US Attorney, SDFL 2002-05), Cesar Alvarez (Greenberg Traurig, CEO), Frank Jimenez (U.S. Navy, General Counsel, 2006-present; U.S. Department of Defense, Deputy General Counsel, 2005-06; HUD, Chief of Staft 2002-04; Governor Jeb Bush, Acting General Counsel, 2000), Jacqueline Becerra (DOJ 1994-2004), Rene Murai (President, Cuban-American Bar Association, 1985-1986) and Francisco Angones (President of The Florida Bar, 2007-08, President, Cuban-American Bar Association, 1982-1983).

Earlier post: Of Koh, Johnsen … and Bork.

Jon Stewart Tackles Obama Derangement Syndrome

This other riff, making fun of Obama's trip, is pretty wonderful too:

After something of a fallow period, Stewart seems back in full form.

Of Koh, Johnsen ... and Bork

Astonishingly, a group of Republican Senators is threatening to filibuster the nominations of Dean Harold Koh (for Legal Adviser to the Secretary of State) and Dawn Johnsen (for head of OLC). There appear to be two threads to this campaign. The overt thread is simply based on lies and the occasional irrelevancy. The covert campaign, if reports can be believed, is based on something even more disgusting.

The campaign against Koh is based on the scurrilous allegation that he supports the application of Sharia law in the US. The source for this is the New York Post's reporting of what someone seems to have misheard or misremembered from an alumni event a few years ago. It's bunk. But don't take my word for it, or that of his long-time colleagues, turn instead to well-known lefty Theodore Olson and to Tom Smith, of the Right Coast, who blogs Right wing nuts should not be nuts about Koh.

I do not believe that Professor Koh said let's enforce sharia in the US at some alumni gathering. Possibly some Yale Law Alum thought that was what he said. One of the things I like about having gone to a wealthy law school is that open bars are frequently present at alumni gatherings. But seriously, you don't get to be the dean of Yale Law School by saying stupid things, or at least not that sort of stupid thing.

… Speaking just for myself then, I will say that the right wing critics of Koh are doing an excellent job appearing to be nearly totally ignorant of the relevant areas of law and look like know-nothing attack puppies of anything liberal. As is their right, I suppose. Everyone has to make their own way down the right wing nut career path I suppose. But just maybe they should consider talking to some real conservative international law experts (of which I am not one, but there are some out there) before they shoot off their mouths. Just a thought.

More from Tom in a minute. But first, the Dawn Johnsen case. The ostensible case against Dawn is that she has misrepresented a position she took in litigation relating to abortion law. The charge is wholly false, as detailed in an open letter to Senator Specter from Andrew Koppelman which begins,

It has come to my attention that a footnote in my article, Forced Labor: A Thirteenth Amendment Defense of Abortion, 84 Northwestern U. L. Rev. 480 (1990), has been cited for the proposition that the brief that Dawn Johnsen wrote in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services claims that the Thirteenth Amendment guarantees a woman’s right to abortion. The Webster brief to which my article referred, however, was not the brief submitted by Dawn Johnsen but was an entirely different brief.

Another idea bruited about is that Prof. Johnson isn't up to the job somehow — even though she held the job in an acting capacity for some time in the Clinton administration.

So much for the overt cases. Stupid politics of destruction only somewhat worse and stupider than usual.

The alleged covert manoeuvrings, on the other hand, are much worse. Scott Horton reports,

Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.

After being one of the first people online to dissect the first torture memos to be released, I've mostly stopped posting about the newer torture memos because so many others were doing it so well. But it bears repeating that there is no excuse for these memos to be kept secret (there might be a case for the occasional redaction, it's impossible to say in the abstract). It's not proved, but holding nominations hostage in order to either keep a cover up in place, or to protect the guilty from whatever consequences may be due for alleged war crimes, would be — if true — a sign of a the ultimate moral collapse on the part of the Senate GOP.

Even if the torture angle turns out to be a red herring, there's still some ugly politics going on here — in part to block Koh and Johnsen from any future court appointments, in part as the rollout of a general campaign of obstruction on all court appointees who don't belong to all-male country clubs or contribute to the Republican party.

The excuse commonly trotted out by saner and more moral Republicans for obstructionist behavior of the overt sort described is that it's simply payback for what they believe was done (unfairly) to Judge Bork (and sometimes Justice Thomas gets mentioned too). There's some of this in Tom Smith posting noted above. The claim is that somehow Judge Bork was subjected to a 'politics of destruction' and that changed the terms of the debate.

There are two major problems with this assertion. The first is that while the overt case against Koh and Johnsen is based on lies, the gravamen of the case against Judge Bork was based on his actual views: he didn't believe there is a right to privacy in the Constitution; this wasn't just about abortion, but also about cases like Griswold v. Connecticut (striking down a ban on condom sales, even to married people). That was a legitimate inquiry, and a perfectly sound reason to turn down his nomination. The howls of rage it produced on the right were because, but for their reframing, the Bork case would have stood for the proposition that right-wing extremists are not welcome on the Supreme Court. In the event we ended up with four of them.

The second major problem with the “Koh is payback for Bork” thesis is that the cases are not parallel. There's much more scope for considering a nominee's views who is up for a judgeship than there is for an executive branch job. Judges have life tenure. Supreme Court Justices have independent power. The people in the executive branch work for the President. (Independent agency officials occupy a middle ground.) I'm not saying there is no scope for inquiring into an executive branch nominee's views. On the contrary, sometimes it's a good way to get the nominee to make promises of future action. Second, there are views or histories that do disqualify someone from having an executive post, and not just the obvious ones like racism, sexism, violent temper (think “John Bolton”), criminal past, tax evasion (yes), or the like. I'd also include people who had committed themselves in their speech or writing to views inimical to the agency's mission. None of this, however, remotely applies here, and none of it justifies even the threat of a filibuster. (I'm not against filibusters - I do think we should go back to the old-fashioned kind where people actually have to hold the floor, though.)

[Note: I was a student of Harold Koh's when he started teaching at Yale. Great course. And Dawn Johnsen was, I think, a year ahead of me in law school. I've stayed vaguely in touch with Professor and then Dean Koh since graduation, but haven't seen Dawn in a very long time.]

An Insight Into Obama's Vetting Problems

My law school classmate Richard Painter is guest blogging up a storm over at Chez Volokh. This has been a reminder that Richard thinks very differently from me.

I found this remark about Team Obama's vetting troubles insightful:

the nominees who have been problems have not been from the President's Chicago inner circle but other Democratic party stalwarts, many of whom did not work for his campaign until he got the nomination. Contrast this to the problems with the inner circles of Nixon, Carter (remember Bert Lance!) and Clinton and other presidents who brought to Washington some people from their home states who should have stayed home.

One commentator suggested it was because the old guard had already been thrown under vehicles during the campaign, but I don't think most of the few cause célèbres would have up for jobs anyway.

Nice Clean Political Fun

The DCCC is having some nice clean fun with this “Rush Limbaugh rules the GOP” thing.

Here's the latest: I'm Sorry Rush apology generator for GOP leaders who dare to criticize the Leader, and then need to write a grovelling apology.

Unfortunately, the options are too limited, and will quickly be used up by Congressional Republicans.

What He Said (Gang of 4 Hypocrites Dept.)

TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime, Remember The “Gang Of 14?”

So when McCain, Graham, Snowe and Collins promised to only filibuster “under extraordinary circumstances,” they were lying.

Carl Malamud for Public Printer

Carl Malamud is an early hero of the battle for access to knowledge. He was on the ground floor of the standards wars. He's responsible for EDGAR. He's put more information on line than universities.

And he'd like to be the Public Printer. We should be so lucky.

Support Carl Malamud for Public Printer. Visit Yes We Scan! for more information. Or place your signed endorsement in the comments to this blog posting.

The Speeches

It's difficult to resist using the difference between President Obama's oration and Gov. Jindal's baby-talk sing-song of a presentation as metaphors for the state of the debate between the two parties.

No, I can't resist.

The President's speech was a return to the virtues that served him so well on the campaign trail. It was meaty. It inspired. It contained the outlines – vague outlines, but outlines nonetheless discernible – of a complex program whose goals and motives were explained to an attentive public in sentences with a reading level well in excess of junior high school. There was much to quibble with – the assertion that the US invented the car, the equally dubious claim that Social Security has problems in any way comparable to the other crises addressed to name but two – but there was even more to look forward to.

Contrast the GOP's spokesperson, so-called rising star Gov. Bobby Jindal. He spoke in sentences that clocked in at a grade-school level, the speed of delivery was lugubrious, or perhaps aimed at the part of the audience that processes the occasional polysyllable rather slowly. And the ideas, to the extent there were any (spend less money, government is bad) were rather simplistic too. He insulted our intelligence, or rather, assumed we didn't have any to insult. The contrast to Obama was stark, and unflattering.

After the initial shock wore off – the first returns for Jindal were bad even on Fox – the GOP noise machine swung into action, and revved up the line that Obama's policies were a 'spending fiesta' full of 'pork' that will pass uncountable debt on to our grandchildren (Jindal's soundbite was something like 'things we do not need and cannot afford'). I can understand a party and its propaganda arm betting that voters have never heard of Keynes, or are instinctive believers in the long discredited 'Treasury View' of macroeconomics. But can it also count on voters forgetting where much of current deficit came from (Bush and the GOP)? Or where it went (rich taxpayers' pockets, Haliburton)?

At present there are genuine reasons why an intelligent person might disagree with the President's ambitious, expensive, and (at present) somewhat formless plans for a revolution in energy, health care, and education. But are there any reasons — other than naked self-interest on the part of taxpayers making over $250,000 who might genuinely reason that the GOP will save them money (at least in the short term, before the dollar crashes were their policies to actually be implemented) — why an intelligent person would agree with the party of Jindal, McConnell, and Cantor?

One of the truest political maxims is that you can't beat something with nothing. Until it regroups and finds something to be for, the party of Jindal will learn the power of that maxim.

The Most Amazing Twitter Story Yet

Not Larry Sabato: Social Media Saves [Virginia State] Senate For Democrats:

Apparently Senator Ralph Northam had agreed with Minority Leader Tommy Norment to vote to give Republicans power sharing in the Virginia Senate today.

Before it was announced on the floor and finalized, RPV Chairman Jeff Frederick tweeted about it.

Majority Leader Dick Saslaw adjourned before it could happen.

The Democrats got into a room and pounded into Northam what would happen if he did this.

Northam backed down. (Now everyone hates him, idiot).

Twitter scares me: I don't need more distractions in my life. But this is an amazing story.

Style, Check. Now As to the Substance....

Mark Nickolas' Blog: Obama Press Conference Answers Three Grade-Levels Higher Than Bush's First.

I copied each full transcript into separate Word documents. After doing that, I deleted the introductions by both men (since those are largely or fully scripted) and then deleted all reporter questions from the transcripts. What you have left are simply the answers that each president offered, off-the-cuff and unscripted, to all questions.

Then I ran Word's readability tool.

Guess what?

Bush's answers were spoken at 7th grade level. Obama's at a 10th grade level.

Yes, he speaks very well, and shows a command of the issues.

But no, (some of) those policies do leave something to be desired. Take, for example, this one: Geithner’s Plan: Bail out the Banks, Keep the same people in charge and let them do what they want.

A Dogged Candidate for Congress

An amazing number of folks I read regularly online practically seem prepared to swear that the only reason congressional candidate Tom Geoghengan hasn't walked on water is that he's been too busy doing good on land. (For more mainstream adulation, see James Fallows, Tom Geoghegan for Congress.)

The latest is How Tom Geoghegan Saved My Dog: Hildy's Story.

Kidding aside, Geoghegan sounds like an absolutely amazing candidate to replace Rahm Emanuel in Congress. They are taking donations.

Small World Dept.

Nick Katzenbach, guest blogging at TPMCafe, Respect for Law and the Constitution Is Also Good Politics, writes a whole load of interesting stuff, but I was especially taken with this aside:

Nor do I think that when I confronted George Wallace to get Vivian Malone admitted to the University of Alabama anyone imagined that her brother in law, Eric Holder, would be attorney general of the United States for its first black president.

Inauguration Day

This is a happy day.

We look forward to an historic moment at noon today: We eagerly anticipate the symbolic if not yet fully actual fulfillment of a national commitment to racial equality begun in the Civil War, largely shelved for two generations, then resurrected and now not perfected but nonetheless made more real and meaningful more quickly and assertively than one might have reasonably imagined. Lincoln's Bible will be there, providing a tangible link to the time when promises, unspoken and sometimes unintended, were nonetheless made and are now in some essence redeemed.

How then to so mar the occasion by a counter-symbolism of an invocation by a true homophobe? Let us not mince words: Pastor Rick Warren is by his own speech and actions revealed to be phobic about gay people. Until recently, he even seemed proud of it. That is his right, but not a great qualification for a so visible supporting role in this national pageant. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that Warren's participation tarnishes a celebration that should have been the apotheosis of equality, the inauguration of a President ethnically and culturally both black and white, a man able to identify himself as black, to be so identified, and still win a landslide in America.

But perhaps we are not so unfortunate to have Rick Warren as a cautionary specter. Equal treatment for all under law remains one of the critical moral issues of our times. Discrimination against black people did not end when we elected Barack Obama; it will not end when we inaugurate him, it will not have ended when he retires from office. So too, only more so, for the next chapter in the progress of our march towards the realization of our fundamental national ideals, the equal rights of gay people. Barack Obama did not campaign on a platform of equal marriage rights, and although he lent his support to civil unions it was in the end treated as a divisive state issue far from the heart of his campaign. Rick Warren symbolizes a part of the work we have left to do.

President-elect Obama has studied his predecessors, both the great and the late. Lincoln is not his only model; already we see signs of Reagan and, yes, even the small better fraction of Nixon. ''Watch what we do, not what we say,'' Attorney General John Mitchell famously advised reporters at the start of the Nixon Administration. Perhaps we, the audience, should vow to apply that test. Then again, both during and after the campaign, President-elect Obama vowed honesty and transparency and truth. And indeed, the Obama transition team last week reiterated in the most unequivocal terms its commitment to abolishing the “don't ask, don't tell” policy for the military. Given that it is entrenched in law, 10 U.S.C. § 654, that may require more than the stroke of a pen, although certainly the existing rules could be weakened without an Act of Congress. Let us hope that President Obama remembers Bill Clinton's first mistake. Clinton had campaigned more clearly than Candidate Obama on a platform of equal rights to wear the uniform. But when faced with generals who objected strenuously, President Clinton backed down. Similarly, we look forward with relief to the speedy redemption of another campaign promise related to basic justice and decency: the closing of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. Let it be done more quickly than all deliberate speed.

President-elect Obama has made a great show, in the last two weeks, of ostentatiously consulting those who are not his natural friends: conservative columnists, Senator McCain, other Republicans. Insofar as a charm offensive can moderate their opposition, this may be good; insofar as it might mean trimming to the prescriptions of those just rejected decisively by an electorate, one is less charmed. Speaking more softly, showing a conciliatory mien, can be great things if they do not stand in the way of (or, better yet, mask) bold actions. And, yes, consultation is not endorsement. But our reflexes are well-trained: as the Presidency has become more Imperial, less democratic, symbol has been one playing field on which policy wars are fought, and thus symbol has come increasingly to signal substance.

For now, those of us far outside the Beltway can only applaud, then wait and see. Perhaps, as words turn into law and regulation, we will be able to relax about the occasional clanging symbol, unfortunate pal or oppositional adviser; that indeed would be a sign of a revitalized democracy.

Meanwhile, as we celebrate the end of eight years of misrule, and the inauguration of a President whom history and circumstance suggest may have greatness thrust upon him, and who shows signs of being fit for the truly overwhelming challenges to come, we can only pledge to try to avoid the twin pitfalls of blind approval and a rush to judgment; to hope, but not blindly, but yes, to hope.

Countdown to the Restoration

Countdown to the Restoration

Countdown to the Restoration

Countdown to the Restoration

Countdown to the Restoration

Countdown to the Restoration

The Holder Strategy

Usually Steve Benen is to my mind one of the most clear-sighted observers of the DC scene. Yet, in an item on Eric Holder's GOP Friends in which he correctly notes that Holder will get confirmed with votes to spare, Steve writes,

I'm struggling to wrap my head around the Republican gameplan on this. Their caucus has 41 members, and even if the GOP were to filibuster Holder's nomination, which seems unlikely, they'd lose.

Why then, he wonders, beat up on the guy?

From out here the answer seems obvious: it's a two-fer. First, the Justice Dept. is one of the bureaus that can really hurt the GOP if it starts to investigate what's been doing these past eight years. There's no harm, and much gain, to bloodying up the Attorney General as much as possible in order to attempt to diminish his credibility, and it sets up future accusations of partisanship and/or attempted payback if prosecutors get frisky.

Second, think of the TV: a well-spoken black lawyer in the dock being accused of unethical conduct. Plus, a chance to hyperventilate about links to Clinton sleaze. Might splash back on the President in some eyes? Can't hurt to try.

Whither the FCC?

Harold Feld is the guy I read when I want to understand what's what in communications policy.

Here's his guide to what he calls “the terrain at the FCC”

What Next For The FCC? Beats the Heck Out of Me — So I'll Just Describe the Terrain … I can describe one thing with some certainty, the terrain at the FCC. Or, more accurately, I can describe the uncertainty around that terrain and how it will likely effect policy. In addition to the power to designate the Chairman, Obama may be looking at appointing no commissioners (very unlikely), one commissioner (reasonably likely), two commissioners (also likely), or three commissioners (unlikely). This uncertainty makes it very hard to predict what happens with the FCC next year. To add to the lack of clarity, the DTV transition occurring in February will pretty much suck up all the attention for the first two months — possibly more if it goes really badly. Add to this the significant turn over in both the House and the Senate Commerce Committees, with accompanying likely changes in staff, and you have a cloud of uncertainty powerful enough to obscure any crystal ball.

And then he does scenarios…

Actual Change

Watch change happen.

Yesterday:

House: Waxman, Dingell look ahead to tomorrow's dramatic Democratic caucus vote:

Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) said on the pro-Dingell conference call that he did not think Democrats would uproot a seniority system that seldom trumps sitting chairmen. “If I was John Dingell, I'd be feeling very good right now,” Boyd said. “I can't imagine these rank-and-file caucus members replacing John Dingell as chairman.”

Today:

Waxman Defeats Dingell for Gavel - Roll Call

Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) has ousted Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (Mich.), as Democratic lawmakers voted 137-122 Thursday morning to hand the gavel of the powerhouse panel to its second-ranking member.

Change is unimaginable to some…

Obama FCC Transition Team

Susan Crawford isn't here in New Haven because she has just gotten a new and better gig on the Obama FCC transisiton team:

Science, Tech, Space and Arts Team Leads | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team

FCC Review Team Leads

Susan Crawford is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, teaching communications law and internet law. She was a partner with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale) until the end of 2002, when she left to become a legal academic. Ms Crawford recently ended her term as a member of the Board of Directors of ICANN.

Ken Werbach is an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and the organizer of the annual Supernova technology conference (http://www.supernova2009.com). His research explores the legal and business dynamics of information and communications technologies. Formerly, he served as Counsel for New Technology Policy at the FCC during the Clinton Administration. He has also edited Release 1.0, a renowned technology newsletter, and founded Supernova Group, a technology analysis and consulting firm.

Both of these are great choices!

May do a little special pleading, friends? Let's reverse the Brand X decision — odds are this will do more to help net neutrality than any regulations could.

Call Your Senator about Lieberman (UPDATED)

Help remind your Democratic Senator that Lieberman should go (or at least pay a very serious price) for his election-season behavior.

Clicking above will take you to a tool that will ask you for your phone number. When you submit, it calls you, plays a recording with suggestions as to you how to frame your conversation, then connects you with your senator's office. No actual phone dialing is required.

UPDATE: Not sure if this is worth the trouble in light of this news from the HuffPo: Obama Wants Lieberman To Remain In Democratic Caucus.

There is some daylight between “remain in caucus” and “remain unpunished” so I suppose it's not yet an unmitigated disaster, but it will soon be.

I think this shows two things. First, that Obama will tack heavily to the right on many, most issues outside those few liberal issues he directly campaigned on. Rahm Emanuel may be only the beginning.

Second, I think it shows that the Obama people haven't learned as much from the Clinton admin as they should — or are the Clinton admin!

Recall that President Clinton's first controversy was over 'don't ask, don't tell'. He'd said he was going to do something to increase gay rights in the military. Senior brass objected. Clinton backed down. The lesson learned by the Hill was that Clinton had no backbone as he could be buffaloed even by people who had to salute him. And the costs were soon seen as Clinton's health care and other parts of his legislative package plan went down in flames (although there were substantive reasons for the health care plan to run into trouble, the political reality was that Clinton looked weak).

There's a similar danger to Obama if the lesson learned from the Lieberman episode on the Hill is that there's no cost to trashing Obama.

I Expect the Memory Hole to Be Very Busy

Eschaton is one of the first to speculate about all the GOP talking points that are about to be subjected to major forgetting.

To his “Up or down vote” I'd add all the stuff about respecting the commander in chief.

[Lest I be misunderstood, I'd like to note that

(1) I don't think filibusters are inherently wrong, even when they block things I like;

(2) I do think a great deal of the 'respect for the CIC' talk was wrong-headed, an attempt to shut down meaningful debates that should have taken place; but,

(3) I have a very low tolerance for hypocrisy.]

In the Interests of (Social) Science (Final Repeat)

According to a very polite email I got six weeks ago, a research team from the Psychology Department at New York University, headed by Professor Yaacov Trope and supported by the National Science Foundation, is investigating the cognitive causes of voting behavior, political preferences, and candidate evaluations throughout the course of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election.

They're doing a study and in the hope of getting politically aware respondents are asking bloggers to pass on their request to fill out their survey. The study will, they hope, “shed light on the information people use to inform evaluations during the last few weeks before the election”. They “seek respondents of all political leanings from all over the country (and from the rest of the world)” to complete a 15-minute questionnaire, the responses to which they promise will be completely anonymous.

It looks legit.

One interesting aspect of the request is that I turn off comments on this item: “a necessary precaution we have to take in order to avoid the bias that is likely to result when new respondents see comments about the survey before taking it.” That sounds sensible, so I've complied with the request.

Another is that they want time series data:

… we would like to have respondents complete the survey throughout the days leading up to the Election. To this end, if would be ideal if you were willing to have the link appear (i.e., repost it) four times, in equally spaced out intervals (about every two weeks), with the first running asap and the last running several days prior to Election Day. Of course, if you would be willing to post it even once, it would already be a great help to us.

So, what the heck, I've queued it up for science. Excuse the repeats.

Handicapping the GOP

No, I'm not talking about Sarah Palin.

Well, actually, in a way I am: but I mean handicapping in the horse race sense.

Time to stop obsessing about this election and think, for a moment, about the next…

Let's suppose that McCain fails to win on Nov. 4. Who will become the likely nominees for '12?

- Palin will have a big advantage with the remnants of the 'base', but many others will blame her for the loss and her negatives are high. Presumably Palin will start reading foreign news sources, like the New York Times, and learn to mouth seemingly relevant platitudes instead of irrelevant ones. I don't think it will work.

- Huckabee will contest Palin for the evangelical vote, and his folksy ways will help with other groups too. I think it will work.

- Florida's own Charlie Crist will be a bigger possibility than Jeb! as the Bush brand will remain tarnished nationally, and Jeb!'s association with the financial meltdown will finish the job. His marriage will help.

- Tancredo will run again, but get as little traction.

- Romney will run again, he's got the money, but the same set of obstacles.

- Gulliani, Paul, and Thompson are not going to be factors (although Paul might try the third party thing, conceivably, as might Barr).

- Newt Gingrich is looking for a comeback.

I'd say the early leaders will be Crist and Huckabee, but handicapping Republicans is not obviously my strong suit. Who have I left out?

In the Interests of (Social) Science (Second Repeat)

According to a very polite email I got four weeks ago, a research team from the Psychology Department at New York University, headed by Professor Yaacov Trope and supported by the National Science Foundation, is investigating the cognitive causes of voting behavior, political preferences, and candidate evaluations throughout the course of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election.

They're doing a study and in the hope of getting politically aware respondents are asking bloggers to pass on their request to fill out their survey. The study will, they hope, “shed light on the information people use to inform evaluations during the last few weeks before the election”. They “seek respondents of all political leanings from all over the country (and from the rest of the world)” to complete a 15-minute questionnaire, the responses to which they promise will be completely anonymous.

It looks legit.

One interesting aspect of the request is that I turn off comments on this item: “a necessary precaution we have to take in order to avoid the bias that is likely to result when new respondents see comments about the survey before taking it.” That sounds sensible, so I've complied with the request.

Another is that they want time series data:

… we would like to have respondents complete the survey throughout the days leading up to the Election. To this end, if would be ideal if you were willing to have the link appear (i.e., repost it) four times, in equally spaced out intervals (about every two weeks), with the first running asap and the last running several days prior to Election Day. Of course, if you would be willing to post it even once, it would already be a great help to us.

So, what the heck, I've queued it up for science. Excuse the repeats.

In the Interests of (Social) Science (Repeat)

According to a very polite email I got two weeks ago, a research team from the Psychology Department at New York University, headed by Professor Yaacov Trope and supported by the National Science Foundation, is investigating the cognitive causes of voting behavior, political preferences, and candidate evaluations throughout the course of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election.

They're doing a study and in the hope of getting politically aware respondents are asking bloggers to pass on their request to fill out their survey. The study will, they hope, “shed light on the information people use to inform evaluations during the last few weeks before the election”. They “seek respondents of all political leanings from all over the country (and from the rest of the world)” to complete a 15-minute questionnaire, the responses to which they promise will be completely anonymous.

It looks legit.

One interesting aspect of the request is that I turn off comments on this item: “a necessary precaution we have to take in order to avoid the bias that is likely to result when new respondents see comments about the survey before taking it.” That sounds sensible, so I've complied with the request.

Another is that they want time series data:

… we would like to have respondents complete the survey throughout the days leading up to the Election. To this end, if would be ideal if you were willing to have the link appear (i.e., repost it) four times, in equally spaced out intervals (about every two weeks), with the first running asap and the last running several days prior to Election Day. Of course, if you would be willing to post it even once, it would already be a great help to us.

So, what the heck, I've queued it up for science. Excuse the repeats.

In the Interests of (Social) Science

According to a very polite email I got today, a research team from the Psychology Department at New York University, headed by Professor Yaacov Trope and supported by the National Science Foundation, is investigating the cognitive causes of voting behavior, political preferences, and candidate evaluations throughout the course of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election.

They're doing a study and in the hope of getting politically aware respondents are asking bloggers to pass on their request to fill out their survey. The study will, they hope, “shed light on the information people use to inform evaluations during the last few weeks before the election”. They “seek respondents of all political leanings from all over the country (and from the rest of the world)” to complete a 15-minute questionnaire, the responses to which they promise will be completely anonymous.

It looks legit.

One interesting aspect of the request is that I turn off comments on this item: “a necessary precaution we have to take in order to avoid the bias that is likely to result when new respondents see comments about the survey before taking it.” That sounds sensible, so I've complied with the request.

Another is that they want time series data:

…we would like to have respondents complete the survey throughout the days leading up to the Election. To this end, if would be ideal if you were willing to have the link appear (i.e., repost it) four times, in equally spaced out intervals (about every two weeks), with the first running asap and the last running several days prior to Election Day. Of course, if you would be willing to post it even once, it would already be a great help to us.

So, what the heck, I've queued it up for science. Excuse the repeats.

[slightly edited since the original posting]

Zinger

Someone at Jack and Jill Politics has a wicked sense of humor.

Don't Look Behind that Curtain!

Greenwald, AT&T thanks the Blue Dog Democrats with a lavish party. Worth reading.

Le plus ça change, le plus c'est la même chose

'The Racial Implications of a Barack Obama Presidency'

This Daily Kos diarist's take on The Racial Implications of a Barack Obama Presidency is deeply cynical, but that doesn't make it wrong.

More Evidence that Hilary Clinton Has Bad Taste In Men

Via Delong, Ezra Klein on the Disloyalty of the Clinton Staffers:

The most powerful case against Clinton's candidacy was always her political advisers. They were, and are, the sort who sign up with Fox News, and enter into business partnerships with Karen Hughes. And they do all that while they're still associated with Clinton, and when their services might still be needed in the near future.

Clinton's domestic policy instincts often seemed better than Obama's, but her political instincts, as evidenced by the folks she gathered around her, were far worse. It was hard to believe anyone who's internal compass pointed progressive would nevertheless spend millions of dollars asking Mark Penn for advice. The answer, from Clinton supporters, was always that it was about loyalty. These folks had been in the foxhole with Clinton, and she trusted them.

But there's nothing loyal about Penn's decision to partner with Hughes, or Wolfson's decision to rush to Fox — these moves hurt Clinton.

This bad taste in advisers is not news. It dates back to her White House days when she relied on Ira Magaziner to do her health plan numbers. Oddly, President Clinton on the whole had better taste in cronies. But don't get me started on his judge picks, which were all over the map.

200 Days To Go

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Go Read Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald, British debate highlights the cravenness and complicity of congressional Democratic “leaders” .

Please say it ain't so — they can't really be selling us out like this on FISA, can they?

Must Read

Rick Perlstein, The Meaning of Box 722 in light of Sen. Obama's historic victory this week.

Best thing you'll read online today. Heck, maybe this week, and it's quite a week.

This excerpt from the start doesn't really do the essay justice, as it picks up steam as it goes along, but at least it sets the stage,

When I started researching NIXONLAND I knew the congressional elections of 1966 would form a crucial part of the narrative. They'd never really been examined in-depth before, but by my reckoning they were the crucial hinge that formed the ideological alignment we live in now.

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson—and, apparently, liberalism—achieved such a gigantic landslide victory that it appeared to pundits the Republican Party would be forever consigned to the outer darkness if it ever entertained a Goldwater-style conservative law-and-order platform again. Two years later, most of the new liberal congressmen swept in on LBJ's coattails—the congressional class that gave us Medicare and Medicaid, the first serious environmental legislation, National Endowments for the Humanities and Arts, Head Start, the Voting Rights Act, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the end of racist immigration quotas, Legal Aid, and more—was swept out on a tide of popular reaction.

That reaction, I hope I demonstrate effectively in NIXONLAND, rested on two pillars: terror at the wave of urban rioting that began in the Watts district of Los Angeles; and terror at the prospect of the 1966 civil rights bill passing, which, by imposing an ironclad federal ban on racial discrimination in the sale and rental of housing—known as “open housing”—would be the first legislation to impact the entire nation equally, not just the South. (What that reaction most decidedly did not rest on: fear and loathing of “hippies,” which were unknown, except in California, to most of the nation until 1967; or antiwar activists, which were not associated with either party, because Republicans and Democrats had about an equal number of hawks and doves in 1966.)

When I learned that the papers of Senator Paul Douglas were at the Chicago Historical Society (as it was known then; now it's cursed with the decidedly more prosaic name the Chicago History Museum), I decided to make Douglas's 1966 loss to Republican Charles Percy a key case study for my hypothesis.

Got anything as good to recommend? Please note it in the comments.

Sen. McConnell Sings the Congressional Republican Songbook

Sen. Mitch McConnell revives an American Classic of political song in this little video, Elephant Feathers: or Whatever It Is, Mitch Is Against It!

The Republican Creed

I did the entry below a few days ago, and then got unsure about posting it. I like political jokes, but maybe this was too mean? And then I saw this: RNC careful not to humanize Clinton, Obama — and I decided what the heck. Besides, it's almost all true. So here goes:

From Frank Kaiser,

THINGS YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE TO BE A REPUBLICAN TODAY …..

• Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a “we can't find Bin Laden” diversion.
• Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
• A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.
• The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.
• If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
• A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.
• Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism. HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.
• Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
• A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.
• Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
• Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.
• You support states' rights, but the Attorney General can tell states what local voter initiatives they have the right to adopt.

Lame Duck Watch

We seem suddenly to be in serious lame duck territory.

And, can you imagine a major network running anything even remotely like this a year ago? Much less less three or four years ago?

Good Lottery Numbers

The lottery is a tax on stupidity, since the expected value of a ticket is so low. So I don't imagine many readers of this blog buy lottery tickets.

But if you are betting, may I suggest these numbers: 84, 60, 53, 51, 43, 36 and 32.

Those would be Bush's poll ratings around the time of each State of the Union address.

Spot the Difference

Democratic idea of bipartisan cooperation:

House Democrats will postpone votes on criminal contempt citations against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, while congressional leaders work with President Bush on a bipartisan stimulus package to fend off an economic downturn, according to party leaders and leadership aides.

“Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would 'step on their message' of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks.

One day later — Bush idea of bipartisanship:

Justice Nomination Seen as Snub to Democrats

The Justice Department lawyer who wrote a series of classified legal opinions in 2005 authorizing harsh C.I.A. interrogation techniques was renominated by the White House on Wednesday to a senior department post, a move that was seen as a snub to Senate Democrats who have long opposed his appointment.

Judging by the results, one has to admit that the White House plays this game much better than the hapless Democrats, who cave time and time again. How did they become such sniveling cowards, and on what possible theory of politics do they think this serves their — much less the nation's — interests?

It seems all too likely that we're going to see a worse example of cowardice today, as leading democrats have been signaling that they'd love to cave in on FISA. Senator Dodd will filibuster, but the question is who if anyone will join him.

Still Going Strong

It's been too long since I recommended that people read the Daily Howler. Today's, Daily Howler: Parents should show their children the Post—and tell them they mustn't be like that, is a real classic.

Euphemism Watch

Enhanced Interrogation Technique: Torture

Intelligent Design: Creationism

Regime Change : Coups

Add yours.

A Finding With Many Implications

Is a photo worth a thousand votes?:

People asked to rate the competence of an individual based on a quick glance at a photo predicted the outcome of elections more than two-thirds of the time.

Nearly 300 students at Princeton University were asked to look at pairs of photographs for as little as one-tenth of a second and pick the individual they felt was more competent, psychologist Alexander Todorov reports in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The participants were shown photos of leading candidates for governor or senator in other parts of the country, but they were not told they were evaluating candidates. Those who recognized any of the photos were not counted.

When the elections took place two weeks later, the researchers found that the competency snap judgments predicted the winners in 72.4 percent of the senatorial races and 68.6 percent of the gubernatorial races.

It seems to me that this finding, if valid, has many implications.

• National political parties should focus group photos before deciding who to recruit or support in primaries
• I'll bet it's a very sexist test — this may explain part of how elections disadvantage female candidates.
• I wonder if this works for law schools? Would student satisfaction be higher when taught by professors whose looks signaled competence? Can we focus group potential hires via their photos? Can we do it without disadvantaging anyone who's not a white male of a certain age?
• Might it be that dress sends signals of competence? If so, is it important to dress up (or down?) for the first day of class?
• “Lookist” takes on a new meaning
• Do I sense the makings of a new suspect class? Are people who don't look competent to others a “discrete and insular minority”? Certainly their disability affect electability, thus undermining their political power, which is one of the tests….

And, how do I look?

Base Arguments

Political discourse continues to be further and further debased.

We get the government we deserve? A frightening thought.

Down We Go

Glenn Greenwald, who seems from his writing to be both shrewd and decent, argues that at present there is no alternative to the politics of the lowest common denominator:

as the MoveOn vote demonstrated, we have the opposite of a healthy political system, and it is thus far preferable — for reasons I I set forth here — to ensure that a corrupt standard is applied equally rather than allow it to be applied by one political faction against another. Taking the corrupt political tactics wielded by the war-hungry Right and applying those same tactics to them (rather than ineffectively protesting the unfairness of the tactics) is the only way to ensure they cease.

Please persuade me he's not right.

Priorities

The Democrats (and a some Republicans) want to increase funding for medical care for poor children. The specter of healthy poor children cased by the expenditure of tax money has so terrified GW Bush that it has turned him into a born-again fiscal tightwad, or so his stennographers would have it. (Actually, for some strange reason the stenography is silent on the subject of the children…)

The debate is pretty simple: how many kids to insure in the federal scheme, with the understanding that as the number grows, the program reaches up into the working poor and even if funded to Democratic levels, substantially above the poverty line.

The Speaker's office has more on the issue, along with a nice chart comparing the cost of this program to a few weeks of the Iraq occupation. (They call it a war.)

But Does He Scare the Horses?

George Bush the Texan is 'scared of horses'

President Bush may like to be seen as a swaggering tough guy with a penchant for manly outdoor pursuits, but in a new book one of his closest allies has said he is afraid of horses.

Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, derided his political friend as a “windshield cowboy” – a cowboy who prefers to drive – and “the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life”.

He recalled a meeting in Mexico shortly after both men had been elected when Mr Fox offered Mr Bush a ride on a “big palomino” horse.

Mr Fox, who left office in December, recalled Mr Bush “backing away” from the animal.

''A horse lover can always tell when others don't share our passion,” he said, according to the Washington Post.

Mr Bush has spoken of his fondness for shooting doves and cutting brush on his Crawford ranch in Texas, which he bought in 1999.

The property reportedly has no horses and only five cattle.

Fascinating Discussion About AEI

These two blog posts about the AEI,

• Steve Clemons, Norman Ornstein's AEI/Neocon Problem
• Mark Schmitt's My Life Among the Neo-Cons

are really interesting, and the howls in the comments to them are even more so.

Both are mainstream partial defenses of the AEI-as-it-was (an anti-Brookings) and to a very much more limited extent as it is — a think tank in the tank to donors, overrun with neo-con supports of draconian social policies and extremist militarist aggression eerily reminiscent of the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff, which nonetheless remains a home to a few policy people who don't live on a full-time diet of Kool-Aid.

In the comments, some people agree that the AEI deserves props for lingering broad-mindedness (and the lingerers don't deserve guilt by association); others say that conditions have reached a point where guilt by association is appropriate; still others attack the very idea of policy 'analysis' that isn't willing or able to subject itself to peer review, there's debate as to whether a think-tank is more effective if it's centrist and nuanced, or extreme and rabid, and so on …. All in all, something to read.

Healthcare Politics in a Few Words

In We Are All Uninsured Now the Mahablog pithily describes the sorry state of current health care politics.

Straussians Everywhere

Digby, Hail Caesar.

Sterling Newberry Does a Jeremiad

Over at The Agonist, Sterling Newberry does a three-part Jeremiad about the state of modern politics.

• The Decade is Done Part I
• The Fall of the House of Gusher
• The Decade is Done: Hillary Reagan Clinton

Bottom line is that we're into a new politics of scarcity and fighting over a pie that isn't growing and may shrink. Rather than try to assemble a progressive coalition, however, the leading Democrat is playing to the (richer) suburbs.

I'm sympathetic to the claim that a big difference between progressives and neo-conservatives is one favors universalizing programs (rural electrification, health care) and the other thinks it saves money by leaving poor people behind (give the unemployed tax breaks for health care). I am not as persuaded by the description of the coalitions:

Let me summarize then the different cleavages:

1. Within the Democratic Coalition there was a three fold divide: rural Democrats, suburban Democrats, Urban Democrats. The first Republican victory was to cleave the Dixiecratic, if not in location, in cultural pattern vote away from the Democrats, by having resource inflation and big defense budgets. Reagan then cleaved away the suburbanists as a bloc and formed a coalition.

2. Within the surburbanists, there is a division between those that make their money from cities, and those that make their money from defense, resources and sprawl. It was the Rovian understanding that the resource suburbanists were more closely tied to the resource exurbanites than the city suburbanists were to the urbanists. That in a series of political conflicts, the resource bloc would vote as a bloc against two blocs that could easily be divided over a variety of issues.

3. Within the present Democratic coalition, there is a conflict between whether the urbanist or suburbanist wing of the party will be dominant. This division is rapidly closing, because Iraq and corruption are seen by all of them as benefiting the exurbanists.

4. Within the Republican coalition there is a division between the resource extractionists tied to oil, and those tied to agriculture. The agricultural rural voters have been slapped silly by both the war, which has bled them of precious young people, and by high energy prices.

I think it is too economically determinist, for one thing.

But this part sounds right:

Washington is out of touch with, however, a fundamental, and essential, indeed crucial change that is happening: the rift between cities and financial suburbs is rapidly healing, over issues which are in the short term more important than the dwindling wins of offshoring and the rapidly disappearing differences over inflation containment of health and education versus universalization. For one thing, both groups are pro-immigration: since both groups rely on waves of new entrants. For another, off-shoring is now gutting suburbanist jobs as fast as urbanist jobs. For a third thing, the urbanists have an ideology which makes cities, not rural hinterlands, seem the cutting edge of political, economic and social values.

And I worry that this might be right too:

It is into this environment that Hillary Reagan Clinton steps. On one hand she is the only figure in the Democratic party that can unify the suburbanist bloc of the party. The only one. This gives her a base of between 35% and 40% of the party. Enough to win the nomination doing nothing but playing defense. …

In short, Hillary moved far enough to the left to convince self-deluded suburbanists that she won't gut the cities. But she is proposing exactly that, and the cities, and the rural voters, understand this. She offers exactly nothing.

…However, the very “no brainer” road to the White House as a liberal Reaganite dooms Hillary in the short Thousands as much as it makes her the obvious choice in the long Thousands. This for the simple reason that while the city facing suburbs can defeat the rural and urban elements of the Democratic party as long as those elements are divided, it cannot govern. It cannot govern because of the packing of urban districts, which are now filled with legislators who are immune to suburban pressures, since they have almost no suburban voters any more. A generation ago the pizza slice districts combined urban and suburban votes. It cannot govern because the suburbs do not float above the rest of the planet. It cannot govern because the oil resource Republicans are going to demand enormous, and unpayable, concessions to not attack Hillary into the ground.

There is not enough money in the treasury to bribe the hinterlands, and fix the suburbanists problems with medicare and social security.

Sterling promises a part four, that sounds like it might be more optimistic. But then, what good Jeremiad doesn't end with a path to redemption, while of course lamenting that it is unlikely to be followed?

Worth a read, even if it raises your blood pressure.

How to Write Effective Letters to Congress

Firedoglake, Correspondence School, walks us through how to communicate with Congressfolk & Senators for maximum impact. Apparently, sending letters to DC, and the district office and making a phone call are likely to get you triple-counted sometimes.

Check on the Ratings for Bridges in Your Neighborhood

MSNBC.com does a real public service by publishing this State-by-state list of deficient or obsolete bridges. A deficient bridge is what it sounds like; obsolete means that while the bridge doesn't have major maintenance issues, the design isn't sufficient for modern traffic volumes.

Not surprisingly, the North-east, with the oldest infrastructure and a vicious freeze-thaw-heat cycle does worst overall, although the Midwest isn't doing great. Florida, being a fast-growth Sunbelt state has more troubles with “obsolete” bridges (is every bridge in Miami on that list?) than deficient ones.

Happy July 4, 2007

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

600 Blows

I make it 600 more days of the Bush admnistration

Prozac Nation, or the Eye of the Hurricane?

“Most people are under-reacting” to the latest Bush scandals.

That's what Jonathan Chait (& The Carpetbagger Report) say. And indeed, people are awfully calm about this stuff. The question is why.

So which is it: Is this seeming calm

(a) A classic case of boiled frog;
(b) A recognition that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, even if it is still 641 days away;
(c) Because we trust Congress to staunch the wounds now;
(d) A media illusion; or,
(e) Real, because it's not really such a big deal?

Or is there an (f) I'm overlooking?

On Imus

One of the few things I've read on the Imus situation this week that wasn't totally predictable: Making Carefully Nuanced Distinctions Regarding the Totally Unacceptable.

US Treaty With Tripoli 1796-97

US Treaty with Tripoli, 1796-1797: Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli and Barbary.

Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.

…

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

The implications for modern politics are left as an exercise for the reader.

Bush Supporters and Buyer's Remorse

Even some of Bush's own senior campaign staff now have buyer's remorse: Ex-Aide Details a Loss of Faith in the President.

So who are those three out of ten people who tell pollsters they support him?

Bush's support still exceeds that of perennial French presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front (FN) who currently has 17% support.

Worsts

The current administration has managed to achieve an impressive number of record-breaking worsts.

Early Winners

• George W. Bush - our worst President ever. Yes, even worse than James Buchanan
• Richard Cheney - worst Vice President ever
• Donald Rumsfeld - worst SecDef ever
• Alberto Gonzales - worst AG ever (despite tough competition)
• John Bolton - worst UN Ambassador ever
• Alphonso Jackson - worst HUD Secretary ever
• Michael D. Brown - worst FEMA Director ever

• Dr. Condoleezza Rice - arguably worst National Security Advisor ever (gunning for SecState nomination too)
• John Snow - worst Secretary of the Treasury since the Depression (and maybe before?)
• Tommy Thomspon Tom Ridge vs. Michael Chertoff. One of them has to be the worst HDHS Secretary ever, as they are the only two in the department's history.  My money is on ThompsonRidge.
• Margret Spellings - worst Secretary of Education?
• Harriet Miers - worst White House Counsel?
• [update] Tommy Thompson - HHS (for presiding over this)?

Care to add to the list?

Molly on W

The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck — so it's up to us. You and me, Bubba.

This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it's doubly wrong for him to send 20,0000 more soldiers into this hellhole, as he reportedly will announce next week.

I don't know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW.

What happened to the nation that never tortured? The nation that wasn't supposed to start wars of choice? The nation that respected human rights and life? A nation that from the beginning was against tyranny? Where have we gone? How did we let these people take us there? How did we let them fool us?

—Molly Invins (1944-2007) quoted at Nieman Watchdog Commentary | An appreciation: Mintz on Molly Ivins.

Sen. Jim Webb's Speech

Now that's a speech.

Full text below.

Democratic Response of Senator Jim Webb To the President's State of the Union Address

Good evening.

I'm Senator Jim Webb, from Virginia, where this year we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown – an event that marked the first step in the long journey that has made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth.

It would not be possible in this short amount of time to actually rebut the President's message, nor would it be useful. Let me simply say that we in the Democratic Party hope that this administration is serious about improving education and healthcare for all Americans, and addressing such domestic priorities as restoring the vitality of New Orleans.

Further, this is the seventh time the President has mentioned energy independence in his state of the union message, but for the first time this exchange is taking place in a Congress led by the Democratic Party. We are looking for affirmative solutions that will strengthen our nation by freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil, and spurring a wave of entrepreneurial growth in the form of alternate energy programs. We look forward to working with the President and his party to bring about these changes.

There are two areas where our respective parties have largely stood in contradiction, and I want to take a few minutes to address them tonight. The first relates to how we see the health of our economy – how we measure it, and how we ensure that its benefits are properly shared among all Americans. The second regards our foreign policy – how we might bring the war in Iraq to a proper conclusion that will also allow us to continue to fight the war against international terrorism, and to address other strategic concerns that our country faces around the world.

When one looks at the health of our economy, it's almost as if we are living in two different countries. Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.

Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them.

In short, the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table. Our workers know this, through painful experience. Our white-collar professionals are beginning to understand it, as their jobs start disappearing also. And they expect, rightly, that in this age of globalization, their government has a duty to insist that their concerns be dealt with fairly in the international marketplace.

In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy – that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today.

And under the leadership of the new Democratic Congress, we are on our way to doing so. The House just passed a minimum wage increase, the first in ten years, and the Senate will soon follow. We've introduced a broad legislative package designed to regain the trust of the American people. We've established a tone of cooperation and consensus that extends beyond party lines. We're working to get the right things done, for the right people and for the right reasons.

With respect to foreign policy, this country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.

I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night, because for more than three years my father was deployed, unable to live with us full-time, serving overseas or in bases where there was no family housing. I still keep it, to remind me of the sacrifices that my mother and others had to make, over and over again, as my father gladly served our country. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as a Marine in Vietnam. My brother did as well, serving as a Marine helicopter pilot. My son has joined the tradition, now serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues – those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death – we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm's way.

We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us – sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable – and predicted – disarray that has followed.

The war's costs to our nation have been staggering. Financially. The damage to our reputation around the world. The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism. And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.

The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military. We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq's cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.

On both of these vital issues, our economy and our national security, it falls upon those of us in elected office to take action.

Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.

Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions. He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves “as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other.” And he did something about it.

As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. “When comes the end?” asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.

These Presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

Thank you for listening. And God bless America.

I wonder how long before Webb ends up on people's veep lists?

Move Over "Truthiness" -- Here Comes "Researchiness"

Gotta hand it to the folks at Free Exchange on Campus. They know how to get their point across:

Everybody certainly now knows that "truthiness" is a fundamental tenet of politics.  How else would we be able to separate out who knows the truth in their gut and those who want to over-think everything?  But still, there are those who continue to press for evidence to support public policy positions.  Luckily, there is an answer.

Here is the problem: academics, scientists, think tank fellows, and other trouble-makers are always talking about their "methods" (I think there is even something they call the "scientific method") and their "criteria" for conducting studies--you know the ones: testing hypotheses, double-blind studies, repeatability, objectivity, etc.  But what does that get us?  Just more studies, more questions, more complexity--and really, is that useful?  Of course it isn't.  What we need is some research that helps us prove what we already believe.  Because who can argue with research, right?

I'm not talking about the kind of research with all those standards that get in the way of getting results. I'm talking about starting with a conclusion you want to support, doing a few "scientificy-looking" studies and then writing a report--a report based on what we call "researchiness."

Here is what I am talking about.  Say you want to show that professors are a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals who are obsessed with controlling the minds of all those innocent freshman entering college each year.  What better way than to randomly go through a few course catalogs, find the types of courses that you ideologically disagree with, and then write a report as if those courses represent the whole of higher education?  So much easier than actually looking at all 4,000-plus institutions and all of the courses offered--that would just take too long.  And besides we already know most colleges are one-step away from a gulag.

Or maybe you are trying to show that these crazy liberals are too concerned with seeing education as a means of creating more opportunities for all students.  Sure they call it "diversity," but we all know what that really means--keeping the rich and privileged those who deserve to go to college down!  Let's not get bogged down in any economic analysis of access to college or who benefits most from college.  Again, too much data collection--not to mention math!  Besides, Google can do all that work for you just by counting the number of times the word diversity shows up on a college website.  It is just so much easier when you know what you want to say before you start.

And of course the best part of researchiness is that you can refer to other researchiness reports as evidence of your own findings.

So, it seems unfair that there is this new report out The "Faculty Bias" Studies: Science or Propaganda (PDF) that is trying to hold a set of recent researchiness studies to scientific standards.  C'mon.  These are not supposed to be actual research studies.  They aren't looking to discover anything.  They are trying to prove what they already know! 

So, you can just go tell this Dr. John Lee to take his "social science criteria" and his "findings" and go back to wherever he came from (my bet is some university!).  These pseudo-scientists already know what they know and there are just trying to put together some baseless claims evidence to support for their predetermined positions.

But if you insist on actual research standards and are too afraid to stand up for what everyone should just know in their gut (supported by researchiness, of course), then I guess you can read the silly report (PDF).

The Conservative Crack-Up Begins

Glenn Greenwald points to an NPR essay by a New Republic stalwart -- Rod Dreher: "Hadn't the hippies tried to tell my generation this"?

Better late than later.

Testing Times for Tester Already

Senator Jon Tester's been in office about a day, and already people are fretting about whether his staff choices -- mostly DC insiders -- are going to get with the program or are going to waffle.

Left in the West :: It's Official Today, Jon -- Now How Will You Use This Opportunity? I'm writing this letter, though, because -- to be honest -- a lot of us feel pushed aside, like we're not to be trusted. It's a strange feeling when you get the impression that you can't be trusted by the campaign you gave a year-and-a-half of your life to. But that's the feeling I've been getting -- and I know, once again, that I'm not alone.

Why do I feel this way? Why do others who were among your earliest backers feel this way? Honestly, some of it is personnel decisions. It's nothing against any of them in particular, it's just that the team as a whole doesn't really share the values of the Jon I know. Early on in the campaign, we talked about fighting for the middle class and standing up on trade deals. Now your top policy person comes from a Senator who supported CAFTA, the bankruptcy bill, and full repeal of the estate tax. Last I checked, you didn't want to represent multi-national corporations, Wall Street, or the super-rich. Bridget may be wonderful. I have no idea. But I worry about anyone who spent six years with Bill Nelson.

I worry about what your team will be saying on policy. In the primary, you announced that you wanted a universal Children's Health Insurance Program. Will you be signing on to one soon? What's your big goal on energy -- you'll be on the committee and it's an issue that you care about deeply. If a bankruptcy bill comes up and we can repeal that attack on working families, will you oppose it the way we did in the campaign?

You need a staff that has people at the top who share your values and whose first concern is for you and whether they are running the office the way you would want to. That means that they share your priorities -- even if your priority isn't getting re-elected. Otherwise, on these big decisions, the fight will be non-stop between you and your staff. And while there should be disagreements on the staff and between you and the staff, I want to avoid everything being a battle for you.

You also need a staff that realizes that this race was won as much by the first 3,000 votes you got as it was by the last 3,000 votes you got. The people I know who came together early on to say you could do this are some of the smartest, hardest working people I know in this game. And, unless I'm wrong, it seemed like you enjoyed our company quite a bit, too.

You know me, Jon. I've got a lot of faith in you as a person and as a policymaker. You're now in a place I don't fully understand and that I think it'll take some adjusting to on your end. Beyond that, I hope you know that I am loyal to you -- probably to a fault. I wouldn't be writing this if I wasn't worried. And I wouldn't be writing this if I wasn't hearing from a lot of other people who worked hard for you -- making phone calls, pounding pavement -- that they are also worried.

It may sound premature, although it is far from harsh. ("The revolution eats its children"?) But from what I hear this letter -- and the fairly widespread feelings it reflects -- was sparked not only by the failure to hire any of the insurgent locals as DC staff, but also by some strange comments by Tester's new staff people denigrating his core supporters.

Incidentally, the author of the above, Matt Singer, didn't apply for a job with Tester in DC, so this isn't sour grapes.

This is Hilarious

Lieberman Party Now in Hands of Critic:

After the senator's Nov. 7 victory under the Connecticut for Lieberman Party banner, John Orman switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Connecticut for Lieberman and voted himself chairman.

Orman, a political science professor who ran briefly against Lieberman last year, said only critics, bloggers and anyone named Lieberman can join the party, which he said would be a watchdog of the senator's actions.

Who Does that Cast as Caligula?

Military considers recruiting foreigners - The Boston Globe

I don't want to sound like I'm catching creeping Spenglerism, after all this is only a trial balloon albeit one with antecedents (see #5 on this generally horrifying list), but isn't recruiting foreign legions said to be one of the (many) causes of the downfall of the Roman empire?

Yup.

The introduction of barbarians into the Roman armies became every day more universal, more necessary, and more fatal . . . As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire, they gradually learned to despise their manners and to imitate their arts. ... and though most of them preferred the ties of allegiance to those of blood, they did not always avoid the guilt, or at least the suspicion, of holding a treasonable correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his invasion, or of sparing his retreat.

And, yes, the headline may be a cheap shot, since Caligula was part of the Western (Roman) empire, and I think in in the quote above Gibbon was writing about the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire. But "Who does that cast as Diocletian?", or Theodosius I, Flavius Zeno or Justin II, would all be better questions, but wouldn't have the same zing.

Whatever Gibbon meant, given the state of things inside the Beltway and outside our borders, it's to the Byzantine and not the Roman Empire that we should be looking to for models. So here's a nice academic parlor game: Which Byzantine Emperor does W most resemble?

Creeping Spenglerism

One thing I'm seeing a lot more of these days is 'Creeping Spenglerism' -- a sense that the US is on the edge of some sort decline, even death spiral.

Now even professional humorists are doing it,

The Portland Freelancer: When young people ask me for career advice - and that's a little frightening right there - I always advise them to learn a skill they can perform to amuse the people around a campfire. Then if everyone laughs ask to share any food. I am only half kidding. America has been arrogant for too long, and it could be about to catch up with us.

This sort of talk makes me want to vote for John Edwards -- as far as I know, he's the only guy out there running a campaign of optimism.

Real Congressional Transparency

This is great. I hope we see a lot more of it.

Congress and the Benefits of Sunshine: Representative-elect Kirsten Gillibrand has decided to post details of her work calendar on the Internet at the end of each day so constituents can tell what she is actually doing for their money.

In fact, it is a quiet touch of revolution. The level of transparency pledged by Ms. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York -- down to naming lobbyists and fund-raisers among those she might meet with -- is simply unheard of in Congress. The secrecy that cloaks the dealings of lawmakers and deep-pocket special interests underpinned the corruption issue that Ms. Gillibrand invoked as voters turned Republicans from majority rule last month.

For all the worthy proposals for ethics reform being hashed out by the incoming Congress, a heavy dose of Internet transparency should not be overlooked in the effort to repair lawmakers' tattered credibility. The technology is already there, along with the public's appetite for more disclosure about the byways of power in Congress.

The Web is increasingly wielded by both campaign donors and bloggers clicking and tapping as wannabe muckrakers. Politicians would be wise to catch up. Local citizens were enlisted to track pork-barrel abuses in the last campaign by a new watchdog organization, the Sunlight Foundation, which enlisted Ms. Gillibrand's disclosure pledge. It aims to have voters use the Internet as an engine of political information.

Thin edge of the populist wedge!

Weird Senatorial Scenarios

Daily Kos peruses Senate arcana in Could Johnson's absence throw the Senate into chaos? to speculate as to various GOP strategies to prevent Democratic control.

It's well worth a read.

I just want to point out one thing: every single strategy described here, including filibustering the organizing resolution, would work equally well (or poorly) if Sen. Johnson were hale and present. So it's hard to see how they would be more (or less) justified by his illness, so long as the Senators present were still split 50-49 in favor of the Democrats.

Update: More goodies from Jonathan Singer at MyDD.

My Only Post on the Hoyer-Murtha Race

Pelosi endorsed Murtha. Hoyer won big. David Sirota spins 'Hoyer Beats Murtha' so well that I would end up believing him if I could bring myself to care about this race.

That said, it's a little eerie to contemplate that when the last Speaker to usher in a revolutionary-change-of-party Congress took office, his first act was to back a losing candidate for the #2 job: In 1994, Newt Gingrich's choice for Majority Whip, Robert Walker, was defeated by ... Tom DeLay.

Let's hope history won't repeat itself too much.

Stealth Realignment

Billmon is perplexed: how did it happen that the Reagan Democrats have started sounding like '70s left-liberals?

I suspect that it's all about betrayal. The Reagan Dems felt betrayed by the left, because it gave them disrespect (and empowered women and minorities while white guys were having status anxiety), because they blamed the Left for "losing Vietnam", and because when times weren't good Reagan promised shiny tax cuts without pain (remember the Laffer curve?).

Slow to change, slow to change back, but not stupid. The Reagan Dems are concluding that they've been betrayed (they'd say "again"), and they're mad about it. They still don't get respect, this time for having the wrong bank balance instead of the wrong sexual politics. They blame the Right for Iraq, and who wouldn't? Times if anything feel worse, but those tax cuts turned out be worth $50, raises lag medical insurance inflation, and the idea that today's tax cuts for rich folks are tomorrow's tax increases for the rest of us is starting to take hold --the checkbook metaphor is a powerful one for folks who feel economically precarious.

Meanwhile gays turned out not be so scary now that they're out of the closet and are revealed to be real folks, like the neighbor's kid. Throw in the GOP's corruption, and Reagan Democrats need a new home. The DLC is just Reagan Lite, so that's no use. Why not economic populism? The only strange thing about it is having populist leaders willing to argue for their followers' true interests...

The Democrats' Stunning Win -- What Does It Mean?

By any measure — except the inflated spin of Republican commentators who tried to move the goalposts — this is an historic victory for the Democratic party, even if they don't end up with a Senate majority. They have a real margin in the House, and picked up several governorships.

More importantly, the candidates elected to the House and Senate are by and large much smarter and more progressive than any entering class since 1994.

What does it mean? I think it means three things:

• Voters gave Democrats a mandate for change and accountability. Or to put it more bluntly, the people decided that an intervention was needed for this administration.
• The pocketbook is back as an issue: just talking about tax cuts is no longer a winning strategy. America looked in its wallet and purses, saw that the tax cuts weren’t there – and neither were any raises.
• And, post-Katrina and Iraq, people are warming to the idea that incompetent government is a bad thing – and that good government might just be worth paying for.

Quip

According to reports, Fidel Castro is alert and being briefed. And I'm thinking, why didn't we get a president like that?

A Parsimonious Theory

I had to link to this for the headline, even more than the content, Is Dick Cheney a Sith Lord?

Happy July 4, 2006

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Rebarbative

Heard an excerpt from Bush's Memorial Day address on the radio while driving around today, including the line, "In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly, because we know the costs of war."

Yes, he really said that.

There Is a Theme Here

• Grunt's-eye view: Rumsfeld to blame for 'breaking' the Army
• Hawks for Dissent
• West Point Graduates Against The War -- being sued threatened with suit for a trademark violation by the military academy! As if this wasn't classic nominative fair use as per Playboy Enterprises, Inc., v. Wells, 279 F.3d 796 (9th Cir. 2002) and Century 21 Real Estate Corporation v. LendingTree, Inc. , 425 F.3d 211 (3d Cir. 2005)! Not to mention that the chance of confusing Graduates Against the War with a military academy seems somewhat low. As for the possible dilutive effect, if any, see nominative fair use again, not to mention the First Amendment...
• Iraq today (and yesterday): Forget the hearts and minds, worry about the corrupt cops and militias
• Domestic security: planning process years behind schedule
• But don't worry, we're ready to prosecute the reporters who tell you about it
• U. Chicago Prof. Geoffrey Stone's powerful congressional testimony on why prosecuting journalists for publishing is, well, un-American
• At least the kids are all right (back home)

Good News / Bad News

1000 days to go in the current Presidential term.

ORGWare: What Tomorrow's Campaigns Need Today

If I ever have to run a political campaign, I want one of these ORGWare things that Brit Blaser is building.

'Billboard Liberation Front' Strikes

Via Boing-boing, an account of the guerilla (theater) tactics of the "Billboard Liberation Front"

The Great American (Liberal) Novel?

The Carpetbagger Report asks an interesting question:

A long-time regular, R.M., recently raised an interesting question via email. A conservative friend recommended that he read "Atlas Shrugged," which the friend thought would help open his liberal eyes and lead him to the embrace poorly-written novels contrived plots conservative thinking.

Setting Ayn Rand aside, R.M. asked a good question: If the situation was reversed, and a liberal wanted to recommend one book to a conservative, which book should he or she pick?

Some of the more recent books that came to mind are preaching-to-the-choir kind of texts, which a) have their place; and b) when it comes to Al Franken and Molly Ivins, can be fun to read, but wouldn't necessarily be the first thing I'd recommend to a conservative or politically-neutral reader.

The point isn't to pick your favorite liberal book, or the one that has had the most impact, but rather the one that can speak to a broad audience and help present a liberal ideology in a persuasive way.

Fiction or non-fiction, recent or "classic" -- which book would you pick?

For fiction, I was thinking along the lines of Grapes of Wrath, but it's a bit dated.

For non-fiction, Simple Justice? Or is that too dated too? If so, really any decent account of the Bush administration ought to do...

The Secret Is Out -- But No One Will Listen

Bob Somerby of the The Daily Howler lets slip the secret to getting things right:

Sometimes, readers ask us how we manage to get these matters so right. Folks, our secret is known as "reading." You hold the key document up to your face. Then you say all the words to yourself.

Vain Hopes Dept.

Is there any hope at all that these poll results will constitute a spine graft for Senate Democrats?

Brownshirts Without Shame

No better than modern brownshirts: The Carpetbagger Report | That Ann Coulter, what a kidder.

After all these secret service trips to investigate high school students based on what they do for class assignments, I trust a full squad of investigators will soon be giving this kook the third-degree?

Where Was This Guy Hiding During the Elections?

So Al Gore gave a great speech. It's worth reading.

I sure would like to know why he didn't do stuff like this when he was running for President.

UPDATE: The Washington Post covered the speech, which is more than most TV networks apparently did.

Sea Change in US Politics?

Daily Kos contributor "Hunter" thinks he's spotted a sea change in inside-the-beltway political discourse, one likely to have national impacts if it really exists.

[Newsweek's Howard] Fineman was remarkably blunt in his assertions that the "ethics" and other attacks on Murtha are being orchestrated by Karl Rove -- by name -- and the White House, which intends to hit Murtha with everything "necessary". He stated directly that the White House sees everything as a political operation. He was blunt in Murtha's record and leadership position in the war, and in attributing to Murtha the behind-the-scenes voices of many top Pentagon voices who are unhappy with both the state of the war effort and with Rumsfeld's planning in the specific.

In short, he made it perfectly, bitterly clear that the White House itself sees Murtha as a tremendous threat, considers itself at war with Murtha, and that Rove -- again, by name -- intends to hit him with everything at the administration's disposal.

And without betraying any secrets of the Washington press corps, I'd have to say that Fineman, for one, met the airways today genuinely either angry or disgusted with the effort.

... There is something different in the air, the past few weeks. Murtha has managed to tap a tuning fork that the whole war sounds off of -- one I'm not sure he ever intended to find.

...

Whether or not Karl Rove survives the excesses of being Karl Rove, I have to wonder if the same crass, one-note song will play, or if the audience has changed. When the only weapon the White House is capable of using is to impugn the very patriotism and Americanness of their opponents, what happens if the reactions to that attack change?

What happens if the press decides that dissent is, after all, patriotic?

Now wouldn't that be something.

Obligatory Bob Dylan reference.

Worst President Ever?

Nice sticker. But is it true?

Nominations for Presidents even worse than GWB -- if any -- are now open.

I have come around to the view that GWB is substantially worse than Nixon. And also Jefferson. But is he worse than Andrew Johnson? Than US Grant? Andrew Johnson had some principles, but they were pretty bad ones on the whole. Grant was a great general but an unabashedly awful President. And there are surely some obscurely bad Presidents that I've neglected?

Or, I suppose, this could perhaps be no more than another example of the middle-aged propensity for the jeremiad...

Herd Migration Warning

Today the GOP coalition cracks up on domestic policy.

The shape of tomorrow's (ok, maybe January's) foreign policy crackup can be glimpsed in this piece of apostasy from a conservative military-loving Democratic Congressman, Congressman John Murtha's turnabout on Iraq. Not only does it serve as prologue for the next act, but it increases the pressure...

Who Are the Six Senators?

As everyone who pays attention to politics knows, the outcome of Sen. Harry Reid's brilliant stunt the other day was a promise that a bipartisan six-Senator committee would report back by Nov. 14 -- a week from today -- as to the fate of the long-delayed Phase II of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into the creation and use of the intelligence data that the administration cited as its casus belli, or perhaps causus belli, for the invasion of Iraq.

But here's what I can't find out: who are the six Senators in this group?

Somewhere, Saul Alinsky is Smiling

How Bush Visit Became the Siege Of Howard U.

What He Said (Mark Schmitt edition)

The Decembrist: Norquist's Paradox has some wise things to say about the political meaning of the victory of Colorado"s Referendum C, suspending the state's "Taxpayer Bill of Rights" (TABOR) law which limited government spending.

Spontaneous Generation Observed in Nature (II)

Who would have guessed that we have an opposition party in the US? Yet, all of a sudden -- now that Bush appears so very very weak -- all of a sudden it appears that we do: TPMCafe || Power Shifts. And see the videos here and here.

Earlier post: Spontaneous Generation Observed in Nature (I).

$9 Billion, A Few Times Over

Kevin Hayden of The American Street offers up some quotes and links on the subject of $9 billion dollars. More than one set of $9 billion at that.

Yes, Sen. Dirksen, it's real money.[1]

And it used to be ours, too.

----

1. Did Sen. Dirksen ever say, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money"?

So True

A New Moment of Truth For a White House in Crisis:

John D. Podesta, who was chief of staff to Clinton, said Bush may be more constrained by his troubles than Clinton was by his. Noting that Clinton's approval ratings remained above 60 percent throughout the impeachment battle, while Bush's are in the low 40s, Podesta said, "When Clinton said, 'I'm going back to do my work,' people cheered," Podesta said. "When Bush says, 'I'm going to do the job I've been doing,' people say, 'Oh, no.'"

It's the gang that can't shoot (or even lie) straight. People are fairly mad at FEMA down here, although the screwups being reported are just upsetting not life-threatening.

Now *That's* An Idea

100% lifted from Stirling Newberry at The Blogging of the President just because it's such a fun idea:

Paul Krugman for Senate: I'm going to believe that Jon Corzine will win the governor's race in New Jersey. But who should be the Senator? There is one outstanding resident of New Jersey who has both demonstrated intellectual saavy, and now partisan political chops in getting the word out to the public: Paul Krugman.

If progressives want to take the mantle of "the party of ideas." This would be a sure fire way to do it: appoint Krugman to the seat that Corzine, knock on wood, will be vacating when he becomes governor.

Two Years Later

Two years later, I'm no more optimistic than I was when I wrote Rose Burawoy, Political Scientist. Less, rather.

Stuff Which Would be Much Funnier If It Had Less Truth

Sort of funny, sort of tragic.

• A rant about George of the BungleDaily Kos Diarist on Moral Decay in America

The Strategy: How the GOP Will Relaunch the Culture War With its Next Supreme Court Appointment

There are a lot of people who think that George Bush's political weakness will result in a more moderate appointment to replace Justice O'Conner to the Supreme Court.

They are deluding themselves. In fact, it's worse than wishful thinking: it's exactly backwards.

The weaker Bush gets, the more certain it is that he (or Cheney or Rove) will appoint someone certain to reverse Roe v. Wade.

Do the math. The one thing that this crew is any good at is electoral strategy. And the weaker they are, the greater the danger to the GOP ticket in congressional elections next year, not to mention the Presidential election in 2008. The Bush-Rove strategy for winning elections is simple and well-understood: it's to fire up 'the base' with culture war stuff, to distract from the environment, economic and health issues, all issues that as an abstract matter the majority of the electorate actually prefers the Democratic position to the Republican one.

Currently Cheney and Rove face two problems.

First, the failure to cope with Katerina Katrina and the issues of rebuilding will dominate the public agenda for some time. It is a debate which already shows signs of derailing additional tax cuts that only a month ago were due to be enacted by a compliant congress that treats fiscal discipline the way we used to treat levees. Only something major can displace Katerina Katrina from public consciousness -- and even Iraq isn't big enough.

Second, Cheney and Rove are deprived of their accustomed freedom to maneuver legislatively, as Congress becomes less and less willing to enact the "Bush agenda".

These problems have, however, an obvious solution.

The only effective way to retake control of the public debate and distract from Katerina Katrina is to reignite the culture war, a move which would give the GOP a reasonable shot at controlling the debate for the next election. And the best way to do that is to appoint an anti-abortion Justice such as Patricia Priscilla Owen shortly after Roberts is confirmed. Far better to have the next election be about abortion than competence, Iraq, or indeed anything to do with the way the nation has recently been governed.

From a Rovian perspective it's a win up and down the fight card. First Senatorial democrats can be demonized for filibustering. Then they can be shown to be wimps when muscular Cheney invokes the nuclear option and silences them. [If the filibuster should somehow survive, that's just as good -- it keeps alive the intransigence meme and explains to the base why it is so important to have more GOP Senators.] Any challenge will go before a Supreme Court with a chief justice who thinks little of congressional power and much of the executive’s and who will have, in familiar conservative doctrine, many avenues such as the political question doctrine available to leave the new status quo alone. Finally, the ensuing election can be framed as the war of law against obstreperous extremists seeking legislative and executive power to overturn the historic decision that returned the US to the blessed path of righteousness. (Quiet subtext: Katerina Katrina was divine chastening to ensure the right sort of appointment. Now that it has been made, we can relax.) The abortion issue will fire up the base like nothing else could any more, and even those doubtful about Katerina Katrina will come home when told they have a moral duty to do so. Some Democratic fringe group will undoubtedly cooperate by making an inept campaign commercial and a clip from it will become the Dean Scream of 2008.

While not guaranteeing a favorable result, this strategy plus a financial advantage at least creates a possibility of locking in GOP gains against what otherwise would be a renewed and nationally vigorous Democratic challenge.

Now if only I could figure out what we do about it...

It's Getting Harder and Harder To Tell Truth from Fiction

Here's a little test of your acumen. Can you tell (without clicking the links) if

A) Both I & II are true

B) Both I & II are parodies

C) I is true but II is a parody

D) I is a parody but II is true

Remember, no clicking links until you've picked one of the above.

I. Everyone is a Meteorologist Now

Dateline: Hollywood - ROBERTSON BLAMES HURRICANE ON CHOICE OF ELLEN DEGENERES TO HOST EMMYS: Hollywood -- Pat Robertson on Sunday said that Hurricane Katrina was God's way of expressing its anger at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for its selection of Ellen Degeneres to host this year's Emmy Awards.

... Robertson added that other tragedies of the past several years can be linked to Degeneres' growing national prominence. September, 2003, for example, is both the month that her talk show debuted and when insurgents first gained a foothold in Iraq following the successful March invasion. "Now we know why things took a turn for the worse," he explained.

II. They're Under the Bed Too!

There's controvery over a planned memorial to Flight 93 -- the flight hijacked 9/11 in which passengers fought back and which crashed in Pennsylvania.

A committee was formed of surviving 9/11 family members, people from the community and designers/architects. They solicited proposals for a fitting memorial to be built on the crash site and received an amazing 1100+ entries!

After several elimination rounds a winner was chosen... The stunning "Crescent of Embrace" design by Paul and Milena Murdoch, architects, of California ... will feature a "Tower of Voices, containing 40 wind chimes -- one for each passenger and crew member who died -- and two stands of red maple trees that will line a walkway caressing the natural bowl shape of the land. Forty separate groves of red and sugar maples will be planted behind the crescent, and a black slate wall will mark the edge of the crash site, where the remains of those who died now rest," according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Not everyone is pleased, however: Michelle Malkin blogs to warn about the proposed design, because it's a crescent. And bin You Know Who loves crescents.

"Is this a coincidence, an example of amazing cluelessness, or something more deliberate?" Malkin asks, approvingly quoting a blogger from Little Green Footballs. Also quoted approvingly from another source: "What next--a holocaust memorial in the shape of a swastika?"

Hints as to the answers below.

Dateline: Hollywood could be America's second-finest news source. Meanwhile America's finest news source sports this headline: "Bush: 'It Has Been Brought To My Attention That There Was Recently A Bad Storm'.

Michelle Malkin actually exists. Item II spotted via Making Light.

America's Battered Wife Syndrome

From 12thharmonic Blog, America's Battered Wife Syndrome. (thanks, SAC)

Billmon Peers Into His Crystal Ball

Billmon has seen the future and it's not pretty:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Two key U.S. senators said on Friday they will launch a bipartisan coverup of what they described as an "immense, but probably unavoidable failure" of the government response to Hurricane Katrina.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who heads the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the panel's othertop-ranking Republican, said they hope to shift as much blame as possible to lower-ranking officials and career federal employees -- ideally at an obscure government agency that few Americans have ever heard of.

There's more...

Worse Than A Crime

“Worse than a crime—a blunder” describes so many of the major decisions of this administration. It's odd, however, to see popping up on a mailing list of law professors the query as to whether the current failure to plan for or to provide disaster relief might be grounds for impeachment.

Personally, I think mere incompetence, even gross incompetence, is not a “high crime and misdemeanor” as the Constitution understands the term, so were I in office I would not vote to impeach for that. Furthermore, I have some trouble seeing what impeachment would accomplish given that the person who'd take over is probably making many of the key decisions now anyway.

On the other hand, lying to the people to take us to war…

Ouch

Painfully true jokes via Daily Kos:

The White House announced that the public would not be allowed to see the memos produced by John Roberts when he represented the United States government as a lawyer. They say this is because of the attorney-client privilege. Here's the part I don't understand: he represented the United States, we're the client, he's our lawyer. Shouldn't we be allowed see our own notes?"
--Jay Leno

"North Korea is making several demands in exchange for giving up their nuclear program, including a promise from America not to attack them. Which is a little strange because for us to attack them we would have to have `slam dunk' proof that they have weapons of mass destruction. I mean, for Gods sakes people, we're not maniacs. It would have to be an air-tight case. We wouldn't just come in there and start bombing you..."
--Jon Stewart

"It was so hot down in Florida Jeb Bush was rigging ice machines."
--David Letterman

"The White House dropped the phrase `war on terror' when polls showed no one thought we were winning it. They think they know how to make it more popular. They're going to stop calling it `war on terror' and start calling it `Shrek 3.'"
--Argus Hamilton, comedian and columnist (Via Time magazine)

Happy to be Here

I'm happy to be here, and I'll try to hold down the fort while Michael's out of town. This is the first blog I read every day; I can't really live up to Michael's standards, but I'll give it my best shot.

As Michael explained in his too-complimentary introduction, I'm a law teacher. The O'Connor resignation, though, has been reminding me of the year I spent, way back when, working for the Justice Department. Late in the year, Harry Blackmun announced his resignation, and I found myself part of an ad hoc team putting together a memo for a White House working group on the decisions of Richard Arnold, an Eighth Circuit judge then being considered for the top job. I got the gig helping to summarize Arnold's jurisprudence not because of any merit of my own, and not because I'd done anything like this before (I hadn't), and not even because I worked for a unit of the Justice Department that was concerned with such things (I didn't), but pretty much by happenstance. I thought we wrote a pretty good memo, considering that none of us had ever vetted a potential Supreme Court Justice before, and we were making up our procedures as we went along.

What I began to realize then, and came to realize much more fully later on, is that government decision-making routinely is undertaken, with the best of intentions, by people who have never been in this situation before and are making it up as they go along. I was working for the government again a few years later -- this time for the Federal Communications Commission -- and found myself part of an interagency group trying to figure out what to do about the domain name system. That was the process that brought you ICANN. And the most salient facts about it were that (1) we had the best of intentions; (2) we didn't have a lot of humility; and (3) we didn't know what we were doing. And it showed.

Don't get me wrong. I like government. Some of my best friends have been in government. And these were the good guys -- while I got a pretty good sense of the clueless and humility-free tendencies of government back then, nobody during the Clinton Administration was so hubristic and detached from reality as to pop off and invade another country at the cost of more than 1700 American lives, more than 20,000 Iraqi lives, and incalculable damage to U.S. foreign policy interests -- so far, with only quagmire in our future. (That's a matter for another post, I guess.) I did come away with the firm lesson, though, that one should never overestimate the extent to which government players (or anyone else) know what they're doing, or have done it before.

Back to Normal at the VA

I missed the news that Anthony Principi, the only member of the Bush cabinet I respected, had resigned as VA Secretary. It seems he went on to chair the base closure commission.

Meanwhile, it's back to the bad old days at the VA. Last week they revealed they are facing a $1 billion health funding shorfall, which you would think is something of crisis — two months after the new Secretary, Jim Nicholson, told Congress “I can assure you that VA does not need [additional funds] to continue to provide timely, quality service….” Now, the Washington Post reports that the VA Deputy Undersecretary told VA hospitals and clinics that their “highest priority” should be…wait for it…to make sure that Principi's picture is replaced with Nicholson's. (spotted via The Carpetbagger Report)

… we hear some officials disagreed that the photos should be their “highest priority.”

“And here we're trying to figure out where our next patient meal is coming from and what furniture to sell to buy drugs next year,” one VA official said.

Who Said It and About What?

Media Matters for America cites this great snippet from a recent book review:

This is one of the most sordid volumes I've ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn't have to suffer through another word.

Can you guess who said it, about which recent much-hyped book?

Brad DeLong Explains Why He is a Democrat

Bard DeLong explains why he is a Democrat:

I'm a Democrat, and I believe that I will always be a Democrat: Richard Nixon's decision that the appropriate reaction to Lyndon Johnson's commitment to Civil Rights was to turn the Republican Party into The Party for People Who Don't Like Black People was a sufficiently evil action to make it next to impossible for me to think of situations in which I would vote Republican (and it may well have destroyed the soul of the Republican Party). But I would be happy to build bipartisan coalitions from the center outward, based on what policies are likely to work and achieve agreed-on long-run prosperity and security. I would, that is, if there were grownup Republicans to be found…

Then he offers a thumbnail analysis of the Democrats' fortunes:

In my view, the Democratic Party is doing OK in an age of high income and wealth inequality. The rich are spending lots of money to brainwash the rest, and the Democrats have to hold on against that tide. The Democratic Party is doing OK given its extraordinary success over the past two generations in pushing social equality and liberty—for African-Americans, women, homosexuals, Hispanics… pretty much anyone who isn't white and male—faster and further than large components of the electorate are comfortable with. Twenty-seven percent of Americans still disapprove of interracial marriage. They aren't going to vote Democratic. That's a powerful Republican base.

The real catastrophe in today's America is what has happened to the Republican Party. Fixing that is job #1.

I'm more in agreement with the last paragraph than the one above it. The GOP used to have some virtues: being for a balanced budget, for example (one carried to excess, perhaps, as it failed to be at all attuned to the business cycle). Now it spends like the proverbial drunken sailor in order to give tax breaks and contracts to kleptocrats and multi-millionaires.

But that doesn't mean that the Democrats are doing OK. They have failed to understand that the GOP plays by harsher rules than it did even in Nixon's day. And that the the Fairness Doctrine — which was not without problems, I'd be the first to admit — has been replaced by an Unfairness Doctrine which is poisoning public life. And to the extent that Democrats get this, they react by running scared.

The Durbin escapade — apologizing for remarks that were accurate — is a sign of the Democrats' problem. Howard Dean — on good days — is one path out of the mire (Howard Dean on bad days is proof he couldn't have been elected President….).

Good Advice for Democrats

Via TaxProf Blog some good advice for Democrats from Prof. Deborah Geier:

Democrats should focus on the following statement: The distribution of the tax burden worsens inequality because there is less income inequality before annual tax bills are paid than after they are paid. That's the key point that should be stressed, over and over again, like a broken record (in the days of yore before CDs): The government imposes taxes in such a way that the distribution of income is more unequal than if the government imposed no taxes at all. Congressional Budget Office data discussed below shows that the gap (which is increasing) in pretax income between the very wealthy and the rest is smaller than the gap in after-tax income. Thus, the distribution of the tax burden itself is increasing inequality. I need to stress here that I am not talking about using the tax system to reduce income inequality, which is a use of the tax system that is utterly anathema to conservatives and libertarians alike. What I am saying here is that the tax system should be structured so that the distribution of the aggregate tax burden itself does not actually worsen income inequality. In other words, the government should not be intervening through the tax system to make the gap between the very rich and everyone else actually greater than it otherwise is (in the absence of tax). I think most Americans, whether Democrat or Republican (or Rockefeller Republican), would agree with that statement.

Amen to that.

Bad Times for the Republic

YATA, Afghanistan edition: In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths.

They didn't even think the guy was guilty, and they tortured him to death.

How many 'bad apples' in how many places does it take to make a pattern and practice? How many deaths by torture in how many different places does it take to get top military and civilian commanders to admit responsibility for negligence if not commission? Surely there is some number of deaths (not to mention other barbarisms) at which point we hold, say, Rumsfeld responsible? One? Ten? A hundred? Can we agree a number now, so that when we get there, we can impeach the guy? And then, I think, prosecute him.

This is not a good moment for the Republic. Ordinarily, the public is to blame if it doesn't get outraged over atrocities committed in its name. Can we justly blame the public if it is getting its news from Fox? A steady diet of lies makes it hard to see the truth.

Meanwhile, on the floor of the Senate, Senator Santorum compares Democrats to Nazis … because they filibuster judges. Don't expect to see the people who bayed at the moon about Howard Dean screaming get the least bit anxious about this one. You certainly won't see it repeated on the news several hundred times in one week, even though it is much more serious.

In this context of what people can be expected to know, it's quite significant that the GOP now wishes to fully neuter the already partly neutered staff at PBS and NPR, thus making the only non-conglomerate major broadcast media sound like the ones bought and paid for.

And, oh yes, the people who want to pack the courts with anti-consumer and (by and large) anti-civil-liberties judges…also want to unleash the FBI from judicial oversight. The draft update of the 'Patriot' Act would let the FBI subpoena records without permission from a judge or grand jury.

Yes, that's the same FBI that, it appears, has been investigating protesters on the grounds that protest is a suspicious activity.

Meanwhile, while the Senate fights about procedure, the economy is approaching a precipice.

All it would take to be fully Roman is well organized corruption (more), and orgies.

Oh. Wait.

Pat Robertson Kinda Sorta Has a Point

Pat Robertson is not someone I want to defend.

I think he's dangerous. I think he's quite probably evil. He could be nuts.

He's certainly offensive. For example, Robertson's remarks after 9/11 in which he blamed the attacks on US liberals were monumentally creepy. Or his suggestion that we ought to have a a religious test for judicial office.

But I don't think Robertson is stupid. And I suspect he may be sincere in his religious beliefs, if not always in his political tactics.¹

And in last week's Robertson flap, much as it pains me to say so, I think Robertson kindasorta had a point.

Robertson was recently flamed around the blogosphere for his televised remark on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that judges are a bigger threat to the USA than terrorists. The cudgels came out: what about 9/11, deaths, tragedy, how could he? And yet. And yet.

Are 'the terrorists' really a threat to America? Unless there's evidence they have a nuclear bomb or a fast-mutating virus, I don't think so. 'Terrorists' (a very mixed lot) do threaten many Americans but the only threat to the nation comes from the threat to our fundamental values posed by the over-reaction to the perceived threat. Thus, if 'the terrorists' are no direct threat to our basic institutions it follows that if judges are even a small threat, they're a bigger threat than terrorists.

And who, understanding the simplest principles of threat analysis could deny that the people with the power to decide cases like Dred Scott or Bush v. Gore are a greater threat to the Nation, to national institutions, than any bin Laden? OK, it's a little weird that for Robertson the issues that demonstrate the fearsome power of the judiciary are … wait for it … their power to remove school prayer and “sanction pornography.”

Despite this great oddness on the details, I think that that Robertson's fundamental point, that the terrorists are just a particularly nasty form of modern pirate — geo-political fleas — while the judiciary has enormous power to reshape our domestic institutions, is basically correct. And that's why the Senate's advice and consent role should be taken so seriously.

¹ I narrowly missed my chance to put this presumed sincerity to the test. When he was running for President in the '80s, Robertson came and spoke at Yale. I queued to ask him a question, but they cut off the questions when I was next on deck. Had I been called on, I had planned to ask Robertson whether Christians had a duty to evangelize members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Mormons were some of Robertson's big supporters that year, but my reading of his theology suggested that he did not see them as true Christians any more than he would Catholics, which is to say pretty much not at all. It followed that there was a duty to minister to them. But saying so out loud would have really hurt Robertson with a big part of his base. I was betting the theologian would win over the politician.

Tales of the Boiling Frog

How many stories of parlor-room totalitarianism does it take before it's right to be worried? How many to get very worried?

After reading Orcinus The undertow of totalism, where do we rate on the boiling frog scale? (Even if the metaphor is based on bad science.)

It's Personal Now

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's mad. Reid Calls Bush a 'Loser'. And it looks as if it has something to do with this:

Two weeks ago, Reid essentially called Bush a liar when Vice President Cheney said he agreed with Senate Republicans about changing the filibuster rule. Reid said that violated a commitment Bush had made to stay out of the fight. Reid said that it “appears he was not being honest.”

I missed that comment when it happened, although I inferred it (cf. The Telling Detail).

Actually, it's much worse than mere lying. Bush lies to us all the time, and few professional politicians take it personally, more's the pity. Politicians lie, and others live with it. But what this story is about is breaking your word, delivered eye-to-eye in private. Senators see that as much worse than lying to the public.

Texas to Require Cheerleaders to Wear Burqas

Texas cheerleaders would have to wear burqas under legislation passed by the Texas House.

Well, not really. But just about: Texas targets 'sexy cheerleading'. And who knows what the Texas Taliban plans next?

Has the Texas legislature nothing better to do? Did they conquer poverty while I wasn't looking?

The Telling Detail

This is actually yesterday's news, but it's a telling detail nonetheless. In an article by David Kirkpatrick entitled Rove and Frist Reject Democrats' Compromise Over Bush's Judicial Nominees, we learn that Bush has promised Sen. Reid that he wouldn't get personally involved in the fight over the nuclear option.

So Cheney and Rove are in the trenches (which breaks the spirit but not the letter of the promise?), but Bush will sit this one out. Or break his word. Which would make it all even more personal…

You Could Sell Tickets to This One

The Washington Post's E. J. Dionne Jr. had a fine column today about moderates and self-identified independents abandoning the GOP, using the latest Democracy Corps poll for data, but there was one tidbit that jumped out at me.

[I]n an amusing but revealing question, the pollsters asked how Americans would vote in a contest between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush if the Constitution were changed to allow them to run in 2008. Clinton beat Bush, 53 percent to 43 percent — a rather decisive judgment on our two most recent political legacies.

Go ahead, try and deny how much you'd love to watch that race. I dare you. If they put the debates on pay-per-view, it'd be worth millions.

Of Victors and Spoils

For some reason, I've been thinking a lot about this story I noted yesterday that the Bush Administration is removing U.S. delegates from the Inter-American Telephone Commission (IATC) because they gave money to John Kerry in last year's election.

Let's presume that the only way the Bush administration figured out who the Kerry donors were is by looking at the public records of the Federal Election Commission. And let's recall that the Bush administration has systematically worked to remove unions and other job protections from the federal civil service. Are we moving to a system in which administrations will be able to police loyalty with heightened efficiency? Was this effect contemplated by campaign finance reform? Should we start allowing anonymous contributions, at least up to a point?

Note also that it's only a short step from firing Kerry supporters to only allowing Bush donors.

There are many Supreme Court decisions suggesting that this sort of extortion would not be legal in the civil service. (Perhaps, arguably, diplomatic jobs are slightly different in that although extortion is out, rewarding paying friends has long been traditional.) There is also a law that makes it a serious crime to promise anyone a government job in exchange for a campaign contribution. But the workaround is obvious: just let it be known in a general but visible and effective manner that we reward our friends and punish our enemies. Don't make any specific promises or threats, just act in accordance after the election.

So that's all pretty bad, another drip in the erosion of half-decent government as we knew it.

Or is it? There reasons after all why we would want an elected official to appoint like-minded assistants. At least when the official actually got a majority of the votes actually cast, promotion of the like-minded promotes democratic control of the bureaucracy. And that, political theory tells us, should be a good thing.

What bugs me is that the IATC is a technical standards body. We'd probably like our delegates there to be the engineers and business people who best understand the technologies. Reality-based, if you'll excuse the term.

Three years, 38 weeks, 3 days and a bit more, to go.

Link-o-Rama

The “K Street Project” spreads to technical standard-making: Any Kerry Supporters On The Line? The Bush Administration punishes some Democrat backers. I guess electrons have party affiliations now.

• When Did Lying To Congress Become Okay?
• Steve Clemons, several times over, notably Another Case for the Bolton File: Did John Bolton Ever Meet Someone He Didn't Want to Have Fired? and Dick Cheney Seems to Think “Lowest Common Denominator” Approach to Getting Bolton to U.N. is OK
• Bolton Pulled by White House from Libya Team.
• Bolton and Blair

And, just for fun, an amazing Oops! (via Ann Bartow).

The Filibuster

I've received some email solicitations to sign on to the Law Professors' Letter on Judicial Nomination Filibusters. I hope the 'nuclear option' doesn't pass, because I think the judges being bottled up are by and large either unfit or such extremists as to have no place on the federal appellate bench. (Indeed, I think the Democrats' allowing DC Circuit nominee Thomas B. Griffith to be confirmed is very unfortunate as he's simply too slipshod to be trusted with a lifetime appointment.)

But I'm not going to sign this letter because I don't agree with how it frames the issue. For me, the bottom line is that the filibuster is a tainted institution. It is politically convenient now, and in service to what I think is a very very good cause, but its history is too intertwined with the fight against civil rights for me to try to wrap it in the flag. Furthermore, as a general matter, one of my main beefs with the Senate is that it is too counter-majoritarian due to the radical population imbalances between the states, many times greater than anything imagined by the Framers. The law professors' letter praises the counter-majoritarian role; I think it is quite suspect. Indeed, if the Senate were more representative by population, I don't think there would be a GOP majority. It would certainly be small at best. Recall that the House is a lopsided as it is only due to gerrymandering.

So the filibuster is convenient now. There is some virtue in not letting majorities trample impassioned minorities. But not always. I'm not sure if I have a fully worked out general metric for when filibusters are reasonable and when they are abusive. The size and permanence of the change are relevant. The passion of the minority is relevant. I'd say that the nature of the change matters too — things than enhance freedom should be less subject to it — but that's such a contestable term that I can't put much weight on it.

There are some complicated issues about how many votes, under the Senate's rules, really should be required to pass the 'nuclear option'. These aren't, however, constitutional issues, and I don't pretend to be expert in the Senate's rules of procedure. Ultimately, for me this is a political issue about how much pain the majority wishes to inflict on the minority, and how much the minority can inflict pain back, either by bringing the Senate to a halt, framing the issue as the destruction of a hallowed tradition of free debate, or stomping on the minority when the parties change roles.

Pragmatically, I think if the GOP does this, they'll rue the day, and so meanwhile will the rest of us. But that's not the argument in the letter.

The Politics of the Schiavo Bill

So much one could say about the entire Schiavo mess — How can the GOP support this anti-federalist measure without any hint of shame? How can the same GOP that says federal power should be seen through he lens of a limited Commerce Clause and shrunken 14th Amendment claim that Congress has the power to act here? How can anyone care so much more about the feeding tube in a person with a liquefied cerebral cortex than about the feeding of hungry children both at home and abroad? And what about all the people who die for lack of medical care? Is the Schiavo bill a bill of attainder? Does the insertion of the Congress into an ongoing judicial matter violate separation of powers? — but other people are asking, or will ask, all these questions.

So here's my own addition to the pile: Why didn't the Senate democrats take advantage of this bill to add a rider to it? Say, a requirement that the CIA not use any methods of torture abroad that would be cruel and unusual punishment at home? Or anything else that ought, in principle, to be uncontroversial but would cause Rovian heartburn? Why just roll over without charging a price for quick action?

Whiskey Bar Unearths the Maoists Among Us

Billmon, Whiskey Bar: Scenes From the Cultural Revolution juxtaposes the rantings of our local version of the Red Guards with the substantially similar rantings of the originals.

The Politics of the Withdrawal from the Optional Protocol to the Consular Convention

Yesterday I blogged the legal issues relating to the US's decision to withdraw from the Consular Convention. Today I want to explore the politics of it. And they're somewhat strange.

I don't of course know what the administration is thinking, and my ability to build a working mental model of the political and legal thinking of the crazed royalists in and around the White House is, I trust, somewhat limited. Nevertheless, from my perch very far outside the Beltway it seems much more likely than not that this move is primarily driven by the Medellin case and the more general problem that foreign states are bringing and winning cases in the ICJ charging failure to inform foreign nationals of their rights under the Consular Convention. These losses, most recently a very quick decision on provisional remedies, interfere with some of our states' desires to execute foreigners convicted of serious crimes, just as those states execute our own citizens.

The US's decision to withdraw from the mandatory jurisdiction of the ICJ over violations of the consular convention is a poke in the eye to the ICJ. It adds its mite to the US's increasing isolation among the civilized and cooperative nations of the world. It – quite intentionally – sets back the cause of the rule of law in the international system. These other effects were probably features, not bugs, in the eyes of the Administration. But they were, I suspect, fundamentally mere side-effects, bonuses..and it is the very casualness with which the administration tolerates such side effects which will magnify the damage they cause.

It's not hard to understand how this administration might think it scores points with the base – or even the masses – by acting in away that it can describe as both pro-death penalty and anti-world government. But in fact the act of withdrawal from the Optional Protocol (presuming it is even valid) is formally neither. The ICJ, unlike the WTO or the ICC, is about as far from world government as you can get. And were the administration committed to the rule of law domestically, the removal of the ICJ's ability to beat us over the head with words is also of almost no significance. Because our law instructs our courts (and other government officials) to beat themselves over the head when needed.

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution states that “all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land.” International customary law is also part of federal law: as the Supreme Court reminded us over 100 years ago, in the Paquete Habana case, “International law is part of our law.” And, under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, it follows that if the nation is bound to follow international law, that obligation must somehow be communicated to and adhered to by the states. The precise means by which that happens in the absence of legislation may be uncertain; the role of the President and of the federal courts in making that stick may be controversial; but it is clear that the obligation exists in some form. Taking away the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ that arises from the Optional Protocol of the Consular Convention will not change that formal obligation, nor so long as the US remains a party to the Consular Convention will our legal obligations under it be diminished in any way.

The decision to walk away from the Optional Protocol is thus revealed as being only one of three things: (1) It could be an act of simple petulance; (2) It could be a studied move of retaliation against the ICJ for other decisions in other areas, a retaliatory act whose subtlety would seem to exceed the capacity of the people who wish to make paleoconservative John Bolton our ambassador to the UN; or (3) most likely, it is an invitation to the states to take it easy on compliance with our legal obligations under the Consular Conventions, obligations which endure past our withdrawal from the Optional Protocol.

That third option is of course another poke in the eye, a destructive thrust aimed not at international system, but at the domestic commitment to the rule of law. That it emanates from people who do not, in their hearts, speech and writings really consider international law to be law in any binding way, and who see the basic sinews of international legality – the Geneva Conventions, for example – as at most annoyances, only makes it worse. And it further calls into question their belief in domestic law.

Conservative Logic

A study shows that a selected segment of the most highly educated and intelligent people, folks gifted with jobs that allow them to think deeply about the world, tend overwhelmingly to reject the Republican party. Is the rejection of the GOP by professors at California's two leading universities just maybe a sign that Republican ideas don't stand up to sustained scrutiny? No, it seems that this hypothesis isn't even on the table. Instead, it's presumptively a 'Conspiracy of Intellectual Orthodoxy'—if you're a Republican anyway. Seems to me the data is in fact utterly silent as to causes, meaning we should ask ourselves what is more likely.

(Incidentally, given the authors' tendentious manner of introducing the results, the study relied on should be viewed as presumptively suspect. Anyone who introduces a study of faculty living in California by comparing their political party registrations to the national electoral vote is someone who doesn't understand comparing like with like or who is consciously trying to bamboozle with statistics. I understand that the California state party registration patterns are not as skewed as the ones asserted for Berkeley and Standford, but if we're going to do serious work, let's do it seriously, and compare to people similarly situated geographically and by educational and financial status.)

Update: See also Intellectual Diversity at Stanford for more shocking news about narrow-mindedness ruling the halls of academe:

…my preliminary research has discovered some even more shocking facts. I have found that only 1% of Stanford professors believe in telepathy (defined as “communication between minds without using the traditional five senses”), compared with 36% of the general population. And less than half a percent believe “people on this earth are sometimes possessed by the devil”, compared with 49% of those outside the ivory tower. And while 25% of Americans believe in astrology (“the position of the stars and planets can affect people’s lives”), I could only find one Stanford professor who would agree. (All numbers are from mainstream polls, as reported by Sokal.)

This dreadful lack of intellectual diversity is a serious threat to our nation’s youth, who are quietly being propagandized by anti-astrology radicals instead of educated with different points of view. Were I to discover that there were no blacks on the Stanford faculty, the Politically Correct community would be all up in arms. But they have no problem squeezing out prospective faculty members whose views they disagree with.

Bush v. Facts

It was an amazing moment: After the introductory comments, Andrey Kolesnikov, a correspondent for the Russian business newspaper Kommersant, got up and said -- albeit not so succinctly, and not in English -- Hey, no wonder you guys see eye to eye! You're both authoritarians.

This prompted Bush to launch into a possibly unprecedented defense of himself as a democratic leader. He did it by describing his view of the country.

And while Putin didn't challenge what Bush said, there have been some news reports of late that suggest that things may not be as black and white as Bush said.

"I live in a transparent country.

• Cadre grows to rein in message; Ranks of federal public affairs officials have swelled under Bush to help tighten control on communiques to media, access to information, Newsday, Feb. 24, 2005; Administration Paid Commentator; Education Dept. Used Williams to Promote 'No Child' Law, Washington Post, Jan. 8, 2005; Groups raise concerns about increased classification of documents, GOVEXEC.com, Oct. 27, 2004.

"I live in a country where decisions made by government are wide open and people are able to call people to -- me to account, which many out here do on a regular basis.

• High Court Backs Vice President; Energy Documents Shielded for Now, Washington Post, June 25, 2004; Mr. President, will you answer the question?, NiemanWathchdog.org, Dec. 3, 2004; Bush Says Election Ratified Iraq Policy, Washington Post, Jan. 16, 2005 (in which Bush says: "We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections.")

"Our laws and the reasons why we have laws on the books are perfectly explained to people. Every decision we have made is within the Constitution of the United States. We have a constitution that we uphold.

• How U.S. rewrote terror law in secrecy; White House group devised new system in aftermath of 9/11, New York Times, Oct. 24, 2004; In Cheney's Shadow, Counsel Pushes the Conservative Cause, Washington Post, Oct. 11, 2004; Slim Legal Grounds for Torture Memos; Most Scholars Reject Broad View of Executive's Power, Washington Post, July 4, 2004.

"And if there's a question as to whether or not a law meets that constitution, we have an independent court system through which that law is reviewed.

• Recount 2000: Decision Sharpens the Justices' Divisions; Dissenters See Harm to Voting Rights and the Court's Own Legitimacy, Washington Post, Dec. 13, 2000; Scalia Won't Sit Out Case On Cheney; Justice's Memo Details Hunting Trip With VP, Washington Post, March 19, 2004.

"So I'm perfectly comfortable in telling you our country is one that safeguards human rights and human dignity, and we resolve our disputes in a peaceful way."

• Torture at Abu Ghraib, the New Yorker, May 10, 2004; Ground War Starts, Airstrikes Continue As U.S. Keeps Focus on Iraq's Leaders, Washington Post, March 21, 2003.

Al Franken Has a Way With Words

I have no particular reason to think he'd be a good Senator, should he ever choose to run, but Al Franken does have a way with words:

They don't get it. We love America in a different way. You see, they love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world.

From Chapter Five of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.

(via The Liquid List)

The Inauguration

Lots of people I know are forwarding me emails about various forms of protest centering on the high cost of the planned Bush inauguration.

I think these complaints, while very well-meaning, and fairly well-taken, are not going to have much traction.

There's no doubt that the inauguration preparations are over the top. The idea of closing off a huge part of downtown DC, not to mention the idea of trying first to stick one of the poorest cities in the US with the bill, then deciding to raid the Homeland Security piggyback to pay so-called security costs (which include building bleachers), is ugly.

But the fact is that the country likes a party. Carter didn't win many points for turning down the heat and wearing a sweater. Reagan won points for reigning regally. Bush isn't regal, but unless it's true that 9/11 changed more than the way in which we justify pointless wars and blank checks to federal contractors, I expect relatively few people will get on board this bandwagon…and those cheering the party will see it largely as sour grapes.

So, sorry friends, good luck, and thanks for thinking of me, but I'm going to keep worrying about casualties in Iraq (soldiers, civilians, our money, their infrastructure, our claims to decency, and counting), the fight over social security, and the environment — which has me increasingly worried about both pollution and systemic, tragedy of the commons, issues such as overfishing and global warming. Oh, and nuclear proliferation. And gerrymandering. And election mismanagement and irregularities. And protecting anonymity and free speech. And, sigh, about twenty other things.

David Neiwert Turns Over Rocks

David Neiwert, aka Orcinus has been turning over rocks and finding ugly things crawl out. The latest example in a depressingly long series of posts is hinterlands of Idaho and Montana, where it seems “eliminationist” rhetoric is getting a strong foothold.

I've been talking for some time about the course that eliminationist rhetoric on the right would eventually take by the force of its own nature: pretty soon we'd go from talking about liberals as traitors to overtly wishing for violence to be visited upon them and discussing locking them up, followed in due course by such violence and incarceration becoming a reality.

Well, it is now becoming a commonly spoken sentiment on the right to wish for violence against liberals and to simultaneously suggest they and all “traitors” (including Muslim Americans) should be locked away. We're firmly into Phase II now.

I would like to assure you — and myself — that Mr. Neiwert is some sort of alarmist crank, and that the attitudes he describes cannot spread.

But I can't do that.

Bush and the Republicans Plan to Abolish Social Security

I am doing my bit to advance The Plan.

They don't call it 'the third rail of politics' for no reason, after all….

Gonzales

Hire an undocumented nanny, and you are unfit to join the cabinet. Sign a memo facilitating war crimes by mis-reading the Geneva convention, or commission a memo that facilitates torture by, excuse the term, torturing the English language and the relevant judicial precedents…no problem…

That Bar Is Looking Mighty Low, Senator

Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, is quoted in today's New York Times as saying about Attorney General nominee Alberto R. Gonzales (the man who approved the Torture Memos),

“Generally, for an executive branch position the president gets the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “The general feeling on the committee is that he has probably met that lowered threshold.”

1. attempt to put a patina of legality on war crimes and
2. totally twist the Constitution to suggest the President has powers akin to Louis XIV^th's and
3. mis-state the relevant precedents to make it seem like the above have substantial judicial support when in fact the opposite is true.

As far as I'm concerned, Congress was almost as much to blame for Iraq as Bush — they wrote him a blank check, with the Gulf of Tonkin precedent sitting there in front of them. If there isn't some serious attempt in Congress to come to grips with the torture scandal in the next year, then some of the torture dirt will stick to them as well.

Followup to Vote-Rigging Program Item

Looks as if it's time to promote Wayne Masden's story about a Republican-commissioned program that changes votes out of the tinfoil category, as it seems to be breaking into the major media.

Having Democratic House Judiciary members give Clinton Curtis a platform didn't hurt (video and transcript).

Bad Deal: Snow Stays, Principi Leaves

The Cabinet lost one of its few competent members but retained one its most clueless and ineffectual (note the “and” — many are one or the other only some are both): CNN.com - Snow staying at Treasury. When does the press get to rats and sinking ships? (Although, to be fair, as political matter, pushing through an intelligence bill whatever its actual merits was good survival politics for the administration; failing to do so would have reeked of lame duckishness so hard no one could ignore it.)

How to Question Bush Better

If you are willing to endure the annoying ad required for a 'Day Pass', you can read my brother's article at Salon, Mr. President, will you answer the question?. Here's the start:

George W. Bush has held far fewer solo news conferences than any president in the modern era. And when he does meet with the press, he avoids direct answers so brazenly that there is scant little value in it anyway. It's time the White House press corps did something about it.

How? In interviews, a half dozen of the best White House correspondents of the recent past have offered up some suggestions for the reporters who will be covering Bush's second term. And one place they can start is by reminding the public of a number of important, outstanding questions left unanswered about Bush's first term.

The article gives sober advice to White House journalists about how to try to shame the White House into less infrequent press conferences, and how to ask the sort of direct questions that are harder to fog out of.

I suspect, however, that the two things are in fact contradictory: if the press starts doing less of a lap-poodle act at press conferences, there are going to be fewer press conferences, not more.

But it's a nice article.

How Low Should We Go

Consider Many Women Say Airport Pat-Downs Are a Humiliation. If this were a Democratic administration being attacked by the GOP, you can just imagine what the bloviators on TV and radio would say about how the goverment is trying to feel up America's women, and should keep its prying hands to itself.

Democrats don't usually descend to that level of demagogary, although there are of course exceptions.

Should one fight fire with fire or with water?

Trends in Leader Portraiture and Personality Cults

Over in North Korea, portraits of “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il are disappearing from offices and public places, creating a “baffling blankness”.

Meanwhile, back here in the US, billboard-sized portraits of “Our Leader” are springing up in public places, as a “public service” from Clear Channel Communications. Cult of personality, anyone?

Brand Democrat

Brand Democrat has the sort of slogans that reflect the sort of thinking that wins elections.

OK, there's one on there I don't like, the one about WWII: even if the Republican isolationists fought entry to the war, they supported winning it, so I think it's wrong to paint it in partisan colors. I'd say the same about Vietnam, which was started by Democrats but escalated then lost by a Republican.

But otherwise, there's some great stuff there.

Lest We Forget: Gonzales Appeared to Obstruct Justice in the Plame Affair

Do not forget that Gonzales — nominated to be the nation's top cop — is the guy who when the Plame investigation was bearing down on the White House ensured that the guilty parties had all the time they could want to shred everything incriminating:

Let me give a quick recap of the timeline. It started with the President's deception in his State of the Union Address in January. In his remarks, Mr. Bush stated Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. A few months later, in July, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's op-ed appears in the New York Times, questioning the President's assertion.

Then in order to discredit Wilson and “seek revenge'' on Wilson, senior administration officials leaked to the press the identity of Wilson's wife and the fact she was a CIA operative, thereby undercutting our national security and clearly violating Federal law.

This happened in early July. Let's see what happened since.

On July 24, Senator Schumer calls on the FBI Director to open a criminal investigation into the leak of a CIA operative based on that column.

In late July, the FBI notified Senator Schumer that they had done an inquiry into the CIA.

Then it appears nothing happened for 2 months.

On September 23, the Attorney General says he and CIA Director Tenet sent a memo to the FBI requesting an investigation.

On September 26, the Department of Justice officially launches its investigation.

Interestingly, it took 4 days after that “official'' launch for the Justice Department to call White House Counsel Gonzales and notify him of the official investigation. Gonzalez then asked for an extra day before the Justice Department gave the White House the official notice, which means all documents and records must be preserved.

A recent letter was sent to the President from Senators Daschle, Schumer, Levin, and Biden which also expresses concern about this break from regular procedure.

They wrote:

Every former prosecutor with whom we have spoken has said that the first step in such an investigation would be to ensure all potentially relevant evidence is preserved, yet the Justice Department waited four days before making a formal request for documents.

Interestingly, the letter goes on:

When the Justice Department finally asked the White House to order employees to preserve documents, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales asked for permission to delay transmitting the order to preserve evidence until morning. The request for a delay was granted. Again, every former prosecutor with whom we have spoken has said that such a delay is a significant departure from standard practice.

That is what has been happening—departure from standard practice.

I am also troubled that the White House Counsel's Office is serving
as “gatekeeper'” for all the documents the Justice Department has requested from the White House. Mr. Gonzales' office said he would not rule out seeking to withhold documents under a claim of executive privilege or national security.

What kind of a zoo is this outfit?

Mr. Gonzales says he can withhold these documents from this investigation on the basis of national security.

Don't care about liberal goo-goo stuff like Geneva conventions and torture? How about outing CIA agents and obstruction of justice?

Confirmation Blitzkrieg Alert

In Ashcroft exits stage right, with a controversial successor waiting in the wings, The Carpetbagger Report spreads the rumor that the White House may be thinking of White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales as the next Attorney General.

That would be the same Gonzales who is up to his eye teeth in not just the torture memos, but also the idea that the US can unilaterally decide that the Geneva convention doesn't apply to people we designate as 'terrorists' even if they are captured on a battlefield.

I find this rumor very plausible. From the White House's perspective it's a can't-lose proposition. It makes a great trial run for Supreme Court nominations on multiple dimensions.

If the Democrats lie down on this one, it signals they may be patsies on far-right Justices. And, it substantially inoculates Gonzales himself if he turns out to be the Hispanic appointee the White House is said to desire: after all, if he was kosher enough to be the AG, why all of a sudden object to him on the Court?

On the other hand, if the Democrats dare to act like an opposition party faced with the most ideological and extreme government in the history of this nation, then the GOP can try to tar them as anti-Hispanic. Plus, when they filibuster a future paleoconservative Supreme Court nominee, the fight over Gonzales can be cited as evidence that those poor benighted Democrats just don't like anyone and are being continually obstructionist.

The lesson for the Democrats seems clear to me: if you are going to take damage either way, better to be hung for a lion than a lamb. Not to mention that Gonzales's conduct in office has been immoral. To allow him to hold office requiring confirmation is to partake of his taint.

UPDATE: Kos says it's official. Here we go…..

Thought for the Day

Thought for the day:

“There is a lot of ruin in a country,”
—John Maynard Keynes¹

¹ Brad's right—Adam Smith said it first.

Phonecams and the Secret Ballot

Here's Ed Felton with a more elegant discussion of the verifiable voting problem I mentioned yesterday: see his Phonecams and the Secret Ballot.

Boing Boing MoBlogs the Vote

The plane is about to leave, so just a rushed note to see Boing Boing: Vote Save Error .

This incident is a problem on its own….but alas it also shows why we can't allow camera phones in polling places — it would allow people to prove how they voted, which makes vote selling and blackmail feasible. Which isn't the point the post meant to make.

It Can't Happen Here

• Whiskey Bar: The Future Belongs to Me
• Orcinus, Tracking the thuggery
• Orcinus: The Rise of Pseudo Fascism

My Kerry-Edwards Sign (II)

In Part One I described the first day of our ownership of a Kerry-Edwards sign. In this part two, I report the sign's untimely demise.

Orcinus reports there have been a number of violent incidents around the country in which people with the temerity to display a Kerry-Edwards sign have suffered for it. My story is much tamer: someone took the sign a day after I put it up.

I called the cops to report a theft, thinking that if this was not a unique event, it would help build a record of it. This being Coral Gables, a cop was dispatched within minutes to investigate the theft of a $5 sign. Unfortunately, we'd been out much of the day, and couldn't even tell him about what time it likely happened. The cop was very polite. I got the sense he had views about the election and was disciplining himself not to utter them; he was professional enough that when he left I wasn't even sure which side he was on. (Just in case you are thinking white male Florida stereotyped cop, forget it: this was a trim, no-accent, black man I'd guess in his 30s.) His main advice was that if we got another sign, not to put it on the swale (the strip of city-owned land between the sidewalk and the street), but rather on our property. Material on the swale, he instructed us, can be considered abandoned and thus anyone can take it. (My own opinion is that this rule does not apply to yard signs that are clearly fixed in place, even on the swale, but why believe me, I'm not a member of the Florida Bar. Anyway, it's the law on the ground that counts.)

So we went to get another sign. This was not easy as there was a national shortage of Kerry-Edwards yard signs. But we got one, put it up, and it's still there. Unfortunately, the shortage is so acute that the Kerry folks wouldn't even sell me a spare for me to give to Ms. 'Morales' across the street (see part one).

Meanwhile, however, the street has sprouted two other K-E signs … and one Bush sign.

Reality Is Not an Option Indefinitely

Here's news from a study of the differing perceptions of Bush and Kerry supporters, conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes and Knowledge Networks, based on polls conducted in September and October:

Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.

Similarly, 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions.

I don't find persistent (willful?) voter ignorance very cheerful. On the other hand, I suppose this opens a window for some good advertising.

Of the Dilbertian Pointy Headed Boss and the Next, Wonkish, Presidency

A lucid essay at the aptly named Making Light, wherin not levity but illumination. The title may be Motivation and doubt, but the topic is management style and the world view of the PHB — and what it means to have an ur-PHB in the Oval Office. (Hint: reality need not apply.) Great reading. (And, as always, the comments are good too.)

So too, in a very different way, is Stirling Newberry's The Great Silence:

Bush Wilts without the Media Light, which begins with meditations on the 'ground game' in the last weeks of the campaign, and then takes off in a flight of plausible fancy to imagine the arc of the first term of a Kerry Presidency. Rather than a PHB, suggests Newberry, it will be a wonk's Presidency—at first.

What if the Real Polls Don't Matter

One more reason polls don't matter: people who think they are registered to vote may not be. In Nevada, a GOP-financed firm purported to register voters, but secretly ripped up the forms submitted by people who wanted to register as Democrats.

There are dirty tricks in every election, but this is down there among the slimiest. Thousands of would-be voters may be effected. And it's not the only such story from this electoral cycle. See this voter fraud roundup and the one at Angry Bear.

The US doesn't have a great history on this subject, and I don't mean just the 2000 election. There's substantial evidence, for example, that JFK, LBJ and then-Mayor Daley stole the 1960 election by stuffing ballot boxes in Texas and rigging the vote in Chicago…mitigated only somewaht by some counter-evidence of GOP vote fraud that year. Arguably, Nixon's finest hour was taking that defeat relatively quietly; the counter-argument is he knew what skeletons were in his closet. (You know, this lot makes me miss Nixon. At least when Nixon and Kissinger committed a war crime, they had a somewhat plausible theory motivating it.)

This year, however, the reported evidence of fraud — not to mention the potential for rigging voting machines — leans very heavily one way, and suggests a pattern of voter intimidation (aimed at Blacks and Native Americans) and outright fraud that may continue on to election day.

How many fraud stories leaning the same way, in how many states, does it take before the validity of this election is so much in doubt that we need to ask if we still have a democracy in the real sense of the word?

And if we should conclude that we have failed Benjamin Franklin's test — a Republic, if you can keep it — then what do we do? The mind boggles. One wants to think about something else. Novels. Getting out the vote. The new Chumbawumba CDs that arrived in the mail. Work.

Is it best not to think about it until we know the result of the election? (Even if some Republicans are already laying plans to claim, as they did with Clinton, that only Republicans can be legitimately elected?) After all, it might not be close, and blowout one way would quiet criticism, espeically if it wasn't the party in power that had access to the paperless electronic voting machines.

Or, perhaps, is it already too late in the game?

Updates: Kos1 and Kos2

Were Those the Good Old Days?

Remember when everyone was all worked up about 'apathy'?

Understanding Sinclair and Getting Even

It's not news that 'freedom of the press belongs to he who owns one'. And even in this Internet age of 'everyone a publisher' the fact remains that TV remains the dominant media form in the US, and much of the world.

Sinclair media's decision to abuse its ownership of a group of stations to air a low-quality anti-Kerry propaganda film a few days before the election — to order the stations to dump network programming and run junk instead — is a classic abuse of power.

What's interesting is how Internet users are fighting back. Some, like Ernest Miller, are writing about the context — how the current regulatory climate lacks the safeguards that used to prevent such a blatant abuse of power.

Others are concentrating on how to fight back. One set of ideas comes via Kevin Hayden, suggesting a national pushback aimed at Sinclair's national advertisers. This is a good strategy if you don't live in one of the affected communities.

Another method appears via Kevin Drum, and emphasizes the local angle. I think it's a winner.

A Vote for Bush Is a Vote for Torture

Harsh words, yes, but how else to describe this atrocity?

The Bush administration is supporting a provision in the House leadership's intelligence reform bill that would allow U.S. authorities to deport certain foreigners to countries where they are likely to be tortured or abused, an action prohibited by the international laws against torture the United States signed 20 years ago. …

The provision, human rights advocates said, contradicts pledges President Bush made after the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal erupted this spring that the United States would stand behind the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Hastert spokesman John Feehery said the Justice Department “really wants and supports” the provision.

For background please see Voting Republican This Year = Voting for Torture .

Voting Republican This Year = Voting for Torture

It's not enough that Rumsfeld and probably Bush not just tacitly condoned but actively encouraged studies of optimal torture regimes, creating a climate in which undeniable and disgusting torture was used against Iraqi civilians, including children. And at Guantanamo (more). Even they at least had the hypocrisy to attempt to do the Iraq torture planning under wraps. (Hypocrisy being “the tribute vice pays to virtue”.) Meanwhile, at home, being too delicate to torture domestically, the Administration quietly subcontracted the job to Syria. (See my post almost exactly a year ago, Maher Arar Affair: What is the Pluperfect of 'Cynic'?.)

Comes now a group of Congressional Republicans who are pure vice, and are not even trying to hide it: they have proposed that US law be amended to remove protections against torture — ie to legitimate torture, to plan to torture — for people we label “terrorists” (modern unpersons). The full horrid details are at Obsidian Wings: Legalizing Torture. The key move would be to exclude “terrorists” from the protection of the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The “terrorists” could be held in secret unless they could somehow overcome (without lawyers or witnesses?) a presumption of guilt. When they failed to overcome this impossible burden they could be subject to “extraordinary rendition” which is bureaucrat for “being ported or transferred to a country that may engage in torture”—a deportation that currently would be a serious violation of US law.

Anyone who votes for people capable of supporting these policies has blood on their hands. Not to mention what they are doing to the image of the US as the 'City on the Hill', the beacon to mankind. Once we descend into the torture pit, we're just arguing about circles in Hell.

Today's Hot Links

• Eric Muller explains the sloppy mendacity reflected on the cover of Michelle Malkin’s “In Defense of Internment”. It seems you can judge a book by its cover.
• NYT discovers the absentee ballot fraud problem that I've been worrying about for weeks. As of the latest Jeb Bush revisions of the voting law, Florida has fewer safeguards against fraud of anywhere (see the chart) — and a great propensity towards it.
• WashPo on bad decision making in Iraq. And yes, the fish does rot from the head.
• How the Pentagon reports Iraq 'casualties' — it's much, much less than the number of soldiers actually hurt
• CBS document discourse has split into parallel universes. In one universe the claims the documents are modern creations are obviously bogus, while in the other universe they are proved. I was leaning towards suspicious until Safire weighed in with a typically bombastic and tactical column. It's usually a safe bet those sorts of column are wrong, so I'm leaning towards genuine again.

You Rarely See Media Bias this Blatant

Via Atrios, the unbelievable bias of the “question of the day” on the MSNBC TV Front Page. Incredible.

Update: They edited it. But you can see the original reproduced here.

Lyn Nofziger on Bush's Attack on 527's

The don't get much more Reagan Republican than Lyn Nofziger, who was sorta Reagan's Rove, only more substantive, slightly less tricksy, and far more principled. They were, to my eye, somewhat peculiar principles, but he held to them (subject, it must be said, to the 'our sonofabitch' principle of real-life party politics, where sometimes you hold your nose and work for the party's guy). So Nofziger supports Bush — if only because Nofziger hates Democrats (and immigrants, and gays, and taxes) — but he has some issues with the guy. Here's one:

George W. Bush and John McCain are turning out to be the Laurel and Hardy of the Republican party. There‘s no way they can be serious when they propose that the federal government sue to prevent their fellow Americans from exercising their constitutional right of free speech.

I‘ve forgotten who it was who said it, but these comedians need to be reminded of what the guy whose name I’ve forgotten said: “I may disagree with what you say but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it.”

McCain’s attitude perhaps is understandable; he spent a good share of his life in the military where free speech is spoken at one’s peril. John Kerry’s attitude, which is much the same, is also understandable. He’s a Democrat and Democrats think that government, not the people, knows best.

But George Bush claims to be a conservative, compassionate maybe, but still a conservative, somewhat in the mold of Ronald Reagan. Can anyone here imagine for a minute that Reagan would advocate putting limits on political speech?

Someone also needs to remind these clowns that the purpose of the first amendment was to insure the right of free political speech. These guys need to pick up and read, probably for the first time, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It might help them to put things into perspective.

What these guys are finding out, and are unhappy about, is that no matter how many laws you pass with the intent of limiting free speech, as long as the first amendment exists, smart people will find a way to get around those laws. Unfortunately, now that they are discovering this truth, they are taking the next step and trying to twist the first amendment for the purpose of limiting of free speech.

Gentlemen, it will not work. Not in the long run. Comes first the revolution.

BBC Reporter Disdains US Counterparts -- With Reason

According to CJR Campaign Desk, here's what Dusan Neumann, the BBC reporter assigned to cover the Cheney campaign, has to say about the BBC, the campaign, and US reporters:

Neumann, who grew up in Prague and who used a fake passport to defect to the U.S. in 1980, noted that the BBC proper doesn't seem interested in the election, since it's already apparently decided that it wants Kerry to win. By contrast, the press — and the public — in eastern Europe, view Bush more favorably, because the memory of totalitarianism is sufficiently recent that anyone who topples a dictator earns admiration.

As for the American news media, Neumann isn't impressed. Like many observers, especially foreign ones, he can't understand the obsession with trivia, and believes the press does a poor job at informing the public about the pressing issues of the day. He told me how he planned to begin his next written piece:

“Whilst U.S. Marines, cavalry, Air Force and Iraq's security forces were tightening a noose around al-Sadr Mahdi militia and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was hustled to Najaf, the cream of the national press core was counting apples, tomatoes, green peppers and ears of corn.”

The last is a reference to this incident.

Optimist, Meet Pessimist

The optimist — in a discussion of war crimes unfolding before our very eyes — says, John Kerry may be the single most qualified man in the entire nation to be president at this moment in history.

The pessimist — in a discussion of how American voters, especially white males, vote out of spite not ideology or interest — says, Kerry is the closest thing to Nixon that the Democrats have ever fielded (spotted via Digby), and means it as a compliment.

And the hell of it is, these two viewpoints are not incompatible.

Air Diversion

The media has decided to accept US Air's claim that it diverted a plane two hours out of its way to pick up stranded passengers in Albany as a matter of routine, and not because the two Bush daughters and secret service detail just happened to be stranded in Albany.

The public is more sceptical, as can be seen from this extraordinary posting to Dave Farber's list, quoted below.

Dave, I know you've closed this discussion, but I have something personal to add; don't worry about passing it to the list. Thought you might be interested.

I fly US Airways almost exclusively; have for about 15 years now.

I have been “stranded” by them for up to 2 days as recently as a year ago, only to be told by them that I could “sleep in the plastic seats” — my request for a hotel was denied. I was told that mechanical delays were to blame, and that if I didn't want to buy a membership in their flight club, I'd have to stay in the seating area until they could get me on a plane that did have an open seat: 23 hours later was the earliest they could give me. (I note that only that year I'd let my Club membership lapse; silly me.)

The kicker? I was wearing a full back brace, walking (with difficulty) with a cane, and all my extra pain meds were in my baggage, which they couldn't get for me. I'd broken my back and the spine was beginning to have mechanical difficulties of its own.

Since then I was stranded in Charlotte, NC, on a bereavement fare, with my father dying as I stood in the airport in tears, because my plane couldn't leave, and the next plane — the last plane of the day to go to my destination — was full — I was told to my face, in front of shocked witnesses, that I was “out of luck.” I'd have to stay “in the seats” until they found a place for me =the next day=. A very kind man gave me his seat in the plane and spent the night in the airport himself, after he saw me sobbing. The airline never apologized and instead a stewardess scolded me for “taking that man's seat from him.” I suggested they could make it up by giving him a hotel room. She said, “We don't do that for stranded passengers.”

I can cite at least 6 more times I was stranded by US Airways, all around the country, for between 4-24 hours at a pop, with no offer of even a hotel room. “We don't do that,” is the chorus.

If only I'd known then that I could get a plane diverted for me.

Yeah, right.

—Nancy who is disgusted that people believe the airline spokespeople couldn't possibly be stretching the truth to cover their asses

Archivist Update

Last April, I blogged the flap over the Bush administration's attempt to replace the Archivist of the United States, something that looks suspiciously like an attempt to have a hand-picked successor on hand next January, which when the GHW Bush administration papers become potentially open to public viewing. The Washington Post has an article on the issue, which includes a thumbnail of the proposed new Archivist's confirmation hearings. It has to be said that he doesn't sound so bad…although why the Bush people wanted to push out the incumbent early remains very mysterious.

Bravo, Larry!

Larry Lessig does a good deed.

It's Cynicism All the Way Down

This may be one of the most cynical ploys in US politics I ever read about. And I read a lot.

New York Times, White House Helps Block Extension of Tax Cuts: The White House helped to block a Republican-brokered deal on Wednesday to extend several middle-class tax cuts, fearful of a bill that could draw Democratic votes and dilute a Republican campaign theme, Republican negotiators said

In other words, the only reason Bush & Co. support tax cuts is to use them as a wedge issue. Give them the tax cuts they ask for bipartisanly, they not only lose interest, but scupper it.

Fortunately, if recent polls are to be believed, President Lincoln was a better judge of the American character than PT Barnum.

Update: Apparently, PT Barnum may never actually have said that there's a sucker born every minute.

Movies You Will Not See on TV for a LONG Time

Today's NYT “Week in Review” section has a small but remarkably clueless item by Sharon Waxman on the profusion of liberal movie/DVD documentaries being released this year. Lights, Camera, Liberal begins like this:

If talk radio is dominated by conservatives, documentaries must be the preferred medium of liberals. It’s not only “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Michael Moore’s box-office hit about the Iraq war. A number of films — all left of center — are set to be launched in the coming weeks, as the electoral season gets underway in earnest.

Why so many documentaries, and why now?

The article not only fails to explain “why now” but it fails to connect its lede with the fact it explains: the main reason why anti-Bush documentaries are going to film or DVD is that the broadcast media, largely owned and run by right-wing Republicans, won't make them and won't play them. If even a mildly hagiographic TV mini-series like the Reagan biography gets mau-maued by the right wing, who in the broadcast world is going to dare to speak truth (or anything unwelcome) to power? No one. And most of the cable news networks are overtly or covertly Republican. So that relegates centrist and especially liberal documentaries to independents working through distinctly second-best alternate distribution channels. And even that can be hard, witness the various obstacles film chains have put in the way of 9/11, a money-making film.

Politcal Music! Yay!

Sea Lion Records has made Election Day USA, a CD compilation of anti-Bush, anti-war music, free for download as .mp3s. I'm a sucker for political songs—even those I disagree with, so I enjoyed these even if they're not all musically top-notch. Besides, I agreed with most of them. And, some of them are pretty good on any terms, especially (in no particular order),

• John McCutcheon, Let’s Pretend (I actually heard this one on the radio once)
• The Positive Chi Units, Rise Up!
• Coiler, Rogue Nation
• John Kasper, Conspiracy of Silence
• Kris Penn, Coming Home No More
• Musical Graffiti, Peace Inside
• David Rovics, The War Is Over

… and then there's the Sonofa Bush rap which isn't my sort of thing, but will appeal to some.

Why does all this remind me of The Folk Song Army?

Bonus, funny, equal-opportunity-offender (from jibjab, via half the blogs in the world, which is probably why sever keeps saying it's overloaded): Jibjab does This Land

Brad DeLong Ponders Three Theories of Relations in the White Palace

In Cheney as Grand Vizier, Brad DeLong wishes that the DC Press Corps would give him enough information to choose between competing theories of Cheney:

What I am hearing from senior Republicans I talk to who talk to people who are in the administration is confused. There are three theories about what is going on:

Theory 1 is, of course, that everything is wonderful. Theory 1 is that the Republican Party by accident stumbled upon a secret of American politics: that the presidency is too big a job for anyone. In 1981, therefore, they accidently divided the presidency into two: Ronald Reagan was Head-of-State, and gave speeches, and awarded medals, and went to events, and waved at the American people; James Baker was Head-of-Government, and did the job of running the country and the administration. Things fell apart in Reagan's second term when Baker decided he was sick of having all the work and little of the glory, decided he wanted to be Treasury Secretary, and switched jobs with Donald Regan. But once you got a new and competent Chief-of-Staff—Howard Baker—in as Head-of-Government, the machine hummed once again.

George W. Bush is, on this theory, a second-rate Ronald Reagan: somebody who can do the job of Head-of-State (although he does not excel at it), and leave the running of the government to those who know policy and politics: Cheney as Grand Vizier, with Andy Card as his deputy running the White House, Donald Rumsfeld as his deputy running foreign policy, and (originally) Paul O'Neill as his deputy running domestic policy. O'Neill didn't work out and had to be replaced. Colin Powell has still not quite internalized the fact that Donald Rumsfeld is really in charge of foreign policy—holds the job of deputy to the Vice President for foreign affairs. But otherwise things have gone fine: Cheney has headed up the government apparatus and made the tough and dangerous decisions, while George W. Bush has done the meeting-and-greeting.

Theory 2 is the other side of the coin that is theory 1. It is that George W. Bush is indeed Head-of-State and that Richard Cheney is Head-of-Government, but that Cheney is not a qualified and competent administrator-policymaker but incompetent, irrational, short-sighted, and no longer up to the job: a guy whose theory of government is “who the hell knows? And this will please the base.” If only Cheney could be levered out of power, and a new Head-of-Government installed—a strong Chief-of-Staff (i.e., not Andrew Card)—things would be fine.

Theory 3 is that George W. Bush was supposed to be Head-of-State, but that those who thought he would be satisfied to let other, wiser heads run the government were guilty of wishful thinking: that George W. Bush wants to be Head-of-Government as well. When he makes decisions, he makes snap judgments based on inadequate information (i.e., that the American economy's biggest problem is “SEC overreach”), and he will not revisit a decision once it has been made. Thus the task of managing George W. Bush is a ticklish one. He's not curious enough to seek out information on his own. So you have to (a) present him with a lump of information that will push him in the direction you want him to go and then (b) get him to immediately make the decision you want him to make—all the while guarding against your bureaucratic enemies who want the decision to go the other way.

As an abstract matter, this all seems completely right, and will no doubt be a question of great interest to historians and biographers. Heck, I'm interested myself. Its practical payoff, however, only comes if Bush drops Cheney from the ticket — a choice that pits the Bush survival instinct against the never-admit-error reflex — or if one but not the other of them suddenly leaves office for some other reason. (Incidentally, I bet on the reflex over the instinct.)

Come November, I hope it all will be, well, academic.

Distributed Bush Question Generation

My brother's washingtonpost.com - Live Online discussion yesterday includes some interesting suggestions from readers about what questions they would like the press to ask GW Bush. Another good example of harnessing the power of the 'net…except that I doubt somehow that many reporters have the guts to actually ask any of them.

Dumbest FOIA Excuse Ever?

David Sklar, Justice Department's Fragile Read-Never Database. This must surely be a candidate for the dumbest FOIA excuse ever:

The Center for Public Integrity filed a Freedom of Information request to get a copy of the Foreign Agent Registration database, which includes information on activities by registered lobbyists on behalf on foreign governments.

The Justice Department said that it couldn't provide a copy of the entire database because doing so could destroy the database.

Meanwhile, you can go to the appropriate office in Washington DC and pay fifty cents a page to make copies of documents. The information is available in (expensive) page-by-page drips, but not as a whole.

I am curious to learn about the quantum database software in use that could subject the data to changes by reading it. Or perhaps the 8 inch floppies that the data is stored on would get too hot and melt if they had to spin so fast to copy entire files?

It's hard to imagine what's behind this. Terminal incompetence? Cussed desire to undermine FOIA? Halliburton provided the equipment?

Or could it be a Rovian fear that someone will cross-index the database with, say, the lists of donors to the Bush campaign?

Unsubstantiated Hearsay About Cheney's Vocabulary

The Vice President is going around saying things like he's not sure if he really swore at a Senator, but he felt better afterwards (huh?), and Yes, that's not the kind of language I ordinarily use.

Consider the following to be totally unsupported hearsay: Yesterday I received an email from a reader of this blog who said he used to be in and out of Cheney's office before he was the Veep (the email was specific, I'm being vague), and that Cheney regularly used language that was not just salty but downright radioactive.

Not that swearing matters much in my book, but lying does.

If said reader wishes to say more s/he knows how to do so, although I can understand why one view of professional obligations might counsel against it.

Pop Quiz

Guess what really prompted this: CNN.com - Cheney curses senator over Halliburton criticism. (The curse was what kids call the 'F-word'.)

A) Cheney has seen latest GOP tracking polls and things look bleak. (Maybe like this)

B) Ill health.

C) Plame investigation heats up is about to result indictments of Cheney aide or aides.

D) Aides in Plame investigation not as loyal as hoped.

E) Boss is auditioning a replacement after impending resignation for ill health.

F) Senator Leahy is on to something.

G) Cheney always talks like that, but in the undisclosed location there's no one to tell the press.

Update: There were so many typos in this one, it reminded me why I don't offer bounties

If Only Gore Had Campaigned Like This

Joho at Hyperorg has the full text of Al Gore's latest speech. It's a wow.

Govern from Strength if You Can

Mark Schmitt, the Decembrist (a blog I like a lot) has advice for John Kerry about Negotiating With the Republicans, which amounts to, 'be a centrist, divide the Republican party'.

Brad DeLong, thinking like a smart White House staffer, thinks it is Good Advice. I beg to differ: it may be good January 2005 advice but it is rotten June 2004 advice.

I suspect that Brad's political reflexes were fixed by his service in the Clinton administration. Clinton never governed like he had a mandate (arguably, because he didn't have much of one the first time). He triangulated. He fogged about. He appointed Republicans as judges, and many Democrats who might as well have been Republicans. But that's a rotten way to govern if you have a choice when the other side uses a different play book. And Presidents early in their terms often do have a choice—even if they don't have a majority in either or both houses—so long as they can persuade Congress that they have a mandate, or create political conditions such that Congresspeople are unwilling to cross the President (think about why so many Democrats voted for Bush tax cuts).

Clinton exposed the mushiness of his political spine and his inability to use what political capital he had in the first days of his Presidency when he backed down on gay rights in the military. The signal to Congress was clear—if the guys who have a legal duty to salute and obey their commander in chief could roll the guy, there was no reason at all to give him an inch. He reaped the reward in the health care debate (OK, there were other good reasons [can you say “IRA”?] why it died, too). Clinton rarely if ever punished his enemies in Congress. He wasn't good enough at rewarding his friends, either. But that doesn't have to be the script for Kerry.

Suppose Kerry wins by a landslide — it could happen. Suppose he runs a campaign which is about restoring honor and decency to the White House, about repudiation of torture, sleaze, special interests, and, say, his limited health care plan. There's no reason to compromise on whatever he makes his signature issues. Certainly there's no reason to surrender preemptively now, before the votes are counted. Plenty of time for compromises later.

That said, if there issues where Kerry genuinely has a wedge in the Republican party, such as deficit reduction, by all means campaign on it and use it. But don't give up stuff we care about—until January at the earliest.

Lying By Reflex

More depressing evidence that this administration's first response to anything that looks bad is to lie about it.

• The New York Times > International > Army Now Says G.I. Was Beaten in Role

• Tampa Bay Tribune—TIA now verifies flight of Saudis

• Administration Misled US About Number of Terrorist Attacks in 2003 [Washington Post story]

Medals Update

not only is the administration trying to lump the Afghanistan and Iraq wars under a single global ‘war against terrorism’ rubric for the purpose of campaign medals — a break with tradition — but that it also wants the backroom armchair warriors in that ‘war’ to be able to get the same medal as people who got shot at.

Looks like half of this is getting fixed: there will be separate campaign medals for Iraq and Afghanistan. Don't bet on the other half, though.

Losing the Sports Illustrated Voter

Tompaine.com was one of the early truth-squad, good-government sites, a trailblazer, which may be why it seems a little dowdy already. But they keep delivering.

Today it's A Cronkite Moment? in which Jonathan Tasini suggests that SI might be a bellweather today a bit like Walter Cronkite was 46 years ago.

In the May 3 issue of SI, Reilly, in his regular back-page column “The Life of Reilly,” wrote a piece under the headline “The Hero and the Unknown Soldier.” The hero in Reilly's column was Pat Tillman, the former star football player who was killed in Afghanistan. After 9/11, Tillman had given up a multimillion-dollar contract to volunteer for the Army Rangers. He was lionized throughout the country for his sacrifice.

The Unknown Soldier was Todd Bates. Bates drowned in Iraq. His death went virtually unnoticed except to his family and friends. The man who raised Bates, Charles Jones, refused to go to the funeral, refused to eat or relate to others; he died just four weeks after the funeral. “He died of a broken heart,” Bates' grandmother, Shirley, who also raised him, told Reilly. “There was no reason for my boy to die. There is no reason for this war. All we have now is a Vietnam. My Toddie's life was wasted over there. All this war is a waste. Look at all these boys going home in coffins. What's the good in it?” Reilly, in barely controlled rage, concludes his piece about Tillman and Bates:

“Both did their duty for their country, but I wonder if their country did its duty for them. Tillman died in Afghanistan, a war with no end in sight and not enough troops to finish the job. Bates died in Iraq, a war that began with no just cause and continues with no just reason.

Be proud that sports produce men like this.

But I, for one, am furious that these wars keep taking them.”

Reilly, in his eloquence, was expressing opinions already delivered in places like The Nation and op-ed pages around the country. But that's the point. With all due respect, The Nation,—of which I am a subscriber and supporter—and its ilk will not change the course of history because they speak to the already converted.

What's important here is that Reilly's audience is not the typical Nation reader.

Unfortunate Metaphor

My brother's White House Briefing today includes this zinger:

“I appreciate the grassroots people who are here. Listen, you've got to work hard to turn out the vote, and that's what we call grassroots. I want to thank you. I'm here to fertilize the grassroots today. I'm here to ask you to grow. (Applause.)”

Disney Blocks Anti-Bush Movie...Allegedly Because It Fears Retaliation from Bush Family

One of the signs that you live in a banana republic is that the people disappear off the streets and are held indefinitely without trial (think Padilla). Another is that shadowy people who aren’t officially there and who everyone says are not subject to ordinary authority beat up detainees (think ‘other agency’ operatives and contractors in Iraq’s prisons). Another is that the nation’s Treasury is looted to give favors to cronies of the junta. Check.

But has it come to the point where even the big fish live in fear? Apparently so. Disney is refusing to let its Mirimax subsidiary distribute a polemical anti-Bush film by Michael Moore. I have no brief for Moore, but the New York Times reports that Mirimax at least believes that Disney’s actions are not justified by its contracts with it.

Be that as it may, the shocking part is not corporate political censorship — we lost that virginity long before the first Bush — but one alleged reason for Disney’s unwillingness to have anything to do with the film: a fear of retaliation from the ruling family!

Disney Forbidding Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush: Mr. Moore's agent, Ari Emanuel, said that Michael D. Eisner, Disney's chief executive, asked him last spring to pull out of the deal with Miramax. Mr. Emanuel said Mr. Eisner expressed concern that it would endanger tax breaks Disney receives for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Mr. Bush's brother, Jeb, is governor.

“Michael Eisner asked me not to sell this movie to Harvey Weinstein; that doesn't mean I listened to him,” Mr. Emanuel said. “He definitely indicated there were tax incentives he was getting for the Disney corporation and that's why he didn't want me to sell it to Miramax. He didn't want a Disney company involved.”

Disney executives deny that accusation, though they said their displeasure over the deal was made clear to Miramax and Mr. Emanuel.

A senior Disney executive elaborated that the company has the right to quash Miramax's distribution of films if it deems their distribution to be against the interests of the company. Mr. Moore's film, the executive said, is deemed to be against Disney's interests not because of the company's business dealings with the government but because Disney caters to families of all political stripes and believes Mr. Moore's film could alienate many.

Ironically, the film is called “Fahrenheit 911”, presumably an allusion to Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a book about censorship. Moore's project, apparently, is about the Bush-Saudi connection.

Update: Jack Balkin takes Disney at its word, and argues that this exposes a new danger of media concentration, which he dubs the soft censorship of Corporate Expectations:

The soft censorship of corporate expectations suggests a generally unremarked problem with media concentration: It is often argued that media concentration can actually help foster diversity, because a monopolist will have an economic incentive to produce a diverse menu of media goods in order to capture an increasingly large audience share. But this reasoning neglects the fact that as media become vertically and horizontally integrated, they may become held responsible by politicians and advertisers for everything that they do. That leads them, all other things being equal, to avoid the kinds of attacks and controversies that will get them in hot water with politicians. Thus, although media concentration may produce products that are increasingly diverse from one perspective, they may be increasingly shallow from another. Conversely, in a world in which there are a large number of different players, the chances become higher than one of them is willing to risk the wrath of the powers that be.

This is a real danger, although it's currently too late in the evening for me to figure out whether it's new, or a more elegant formulation of the old.

Sometimes Godwin's Law Does Not Apply

One of the things I'm fairly squeamish about is comparisons of contemporary figures to Hitler. I do not go as far as those who say that this genocide was unique and superlatively horrible; Cambodia, 'ethnic cleansing', Rwanda, the 20th century has examples of horrors, each different in meaningful ways, each horrible.

Nevertheless, I am highly predisposed to dislike and distrust a statement like this one: “ Rush Limbaugh is as mainstream in America as Hitler was mainstream in Germany, circa 1932.” Trouble is, Digby got evidence, drawn from Day One of David Brock's new site Media Matters for America​.

It ain't pretty.

If there is any decency around, then decent people are going to run away from Limbaugh, despite the TLC they may wish to give this slightly repentant drug abuser.

• Limbaugh suggests that feminists are into bestiality with dogs

• “What's good for terrorists is good for John Kerry”

• “if you want the terrorists running the show, then you will elect John Kerry”

• “[Speaking about Democrats] I don't know who they are, I don't know what they believe, but I can't relate. I can't possibly understand somebody who hates this country, who was born and raised here. I don't understand how you hate this Constitution. I don't understand how you hate freedom”

• “These people have become the mainstream thought — thinkers, generators of the Democratic Party. It's who they are. They hate this country. They hate the military of this country.”

(there's quite a bit more where that came from).

IQ (and 2000 Presidential Preference) By State

When I lived in Cambridge, back in the Thatcher era, my friends — especially David Howarth, now the LibDem Propective Parliamentary Candidate for Cambridge — commonly called the Conservative Party (the Tories) the “stupid party”.

So what to make of this chart? (via Leiter)

At least Florida is only a tiny bit below average. I'm sure that when Jeb Bush gets done trashing our school system we will do worse here.

Yes, yes, I know, I know, IQ tests are a Really Lousy measure of what matters. Not only are the tests flawed, one-dimentional, and culturally biased (I recall being shocked by some of the questions on a test one of my kids took once, as it assumed things that were absolutely not part of our household) attempts to measure “intelligence”, but they don't even try to measure many things that do matter more — decency, honesty, kindness, for example.

Flowers In the Muck

Angry Bear and Brad DeLong are trying to compile a list of people who are going to get out of the Bush administration with their reputation intact. Being economists, they're naturally concentrating on those, which means mostly higher staffers and regulators, with a dash of policy and press people thrown in for good measure. It turns out that the set of people who will emerge with reputations unsullied is not empty, but by their reckoning it's pretty small.

Back in October I surveyed the Bush cabinet and found it to be a fairly sad lot. But I did find one name that I think should be added to their list. You may never have heard of him, but he's in the Cabinet.

Censorship American Style

David Farber writes to the Interesting People list,

I gather that there is a report that Sinclair Broadcast ordered its ABC affiliates to preempt tomorrow's broadcast of Nightline which will air the names and photos of U.S. military personnel who have died in combat in Iraq, saying the move is politically motivated designed to undermine the efforts of the US in Iraq.

Sinclair owns 62 US TV stations.

And so there is.

Is it legal? Probably — we impose only the loosest public interest requirements on the beneficiaries of the publicly created broadcast oligopoly, and what little I know of broadcast law this doesn't come close to violating it.

Is it in good taste? I think reasonable people might differ about the good taste involved in refusing to broadcast the show, especially if those people didn't see it as honoring the dead. (Not my view at all, but people differ.) I do think that accusing ABC (of all bodies!) of what amounts to treason (in effect the old accusing them of giving aid and comfort to the enemy) is not only not in good taste, but contemptible.

Are we not allowed to talk about the costs of this war project? Especially as the goals diminish from a free and democratic Middle East, to a free Iraq, to less violence, to getting out without humiliation?

Apparently not on Sinclair stations.

More On Civility in Politics (or its Absence)

It tends to be conservatives who push loudest for civility in public discourse. Given that uncivility is often part of a challenge to the status quo, and given that conservative politics tend to favor the interests of whoever is doing well out of the status quo, a strategy of cabining dissent to means that are less likely to disturb the status quo is a natural and sensible political strategy. (I happen to think civility is a good thing most of the time, but for other reasons; if that happens to dovetail with traditional conservativism, well, that's the breaks.) The strategy runs into some trouble when the conservative movement allies with have-not populists; and it founders when the leadership of the movement is taken over by corporatists and especially by nuts.

Witness the following elements of civil discourse:

• The Bush re-election campaign plans to begin running an advertisement on Friday that questions Senator John Kerry's commitment to American troops in Iraq.
• Senator Bill Frist, shielded from libel law by legislative immunity, accuses Richard Clarke of perjury, a charge now decisively rebutted by Sen. Pat Roberts, the Republican chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. (via Mark Kleiman, who is futilely waiting for a retraction.)
• Rush Limaugh suggests that the Clintons could assassinate Sen. Kerry if it he wins the Presidency on a ticket without Sen. Clinton.

Compare to this much more civil and effective use of ridicule.

Listening to Bush

Did I hear this wrong? If I heard right, at one point Bush says that he looks forward to the election because it will give him the chance to show the American people that he has a (secret? at least currently undefined…) plan to win the War on Terror.

UPDATE1: Here's the text of this part from the AP transcript: “I don't intend to lose my job. Because I'm going to tell the American people I have a plan to win the war on terror.”

Then a few minutes later, Bush notes that people sometimes ask if you can win the War on Terror, and says that of course it's not a war that has an end.

The two statements are of course completely consistent, but it's rare to have a politician speak so frankly about his plan to lie to the public.

I must have heard it wrong. Maybe the second one was that you can win? (Although in fact it is very very hard to win a 'war' against an 'ism'. It can be done — see e.g. 'Communism' — but it takes generations.)

Update2 I heard it wrong, although in context I also heard it right: “We are in a long war. The war on terror is not going to end immediately. This is a war against people who have no guilt in killing innocent people. That's what they're willing to do. They kill on a moment's notice, because they're trying to shake our will, they're trying to create fear, they're trying to affect people's behaviors. And we're simply not going to let them do that.

“And my fear, of course, is that this will go on for a while, and therefore, it's incumbent upon us to learn from lessons or mistakes, and leave behind a better foundation for presidents to deal with the threats we face. This is the war that other presidents will be facing as we head into the 21st century.

“One of the interesting things people ask me, now that we're asking questions, is, can you ever win the war on terror? Of course you can.”

So, the War on Terror will go on through multiple presidencies, but has an end somewhere.

One thing I know I heard right — no apologies, no suggestions that any mistakes were made. Colors nailed to mast.

To be updated as necessary once the transcript is fully online.

When Bad Taste Is Acceptable

When I was an undergraduate at Yale, more than twenty years ago, my main extracurricular activity was being a reporter for the Yale Daily News. In my second year on the news I got the coveted “Bart Beat” which made me the student responsible for covering Yale's President, A. Bartlett Giamatti, then early in his term at Yale, later Commissioner of Baseball, tragically dead far too young.

President Giamatti was a wonderful, erudite, voluble man, always very quotable. I very much enjoyed talking with him. While he often said things I might not have agreed with, there was only one subject that really seemed to make him irrational, and that was protest movements. In his heart (scarred, I thought, by his experience as a non-protestor at Yale in the late 1960's, when he had been a graduate student and aspirant member of the establishment) I suspect that 'Bart' probably did not really approve of any organized protest against the power structure of which he was pleased to be a part. Intellectually, however, he certainly recognized the legitimacy and importance of both personal and even organized protest. Bart drew the line, however, at breaches of the public norms of civility that he held to be an essential part of the academic community. To hear him tell it, one of the greater crimes in the history of Yale was committed when students gathered during the Vietnam war era and shouted obscenities at Yale and national authorities. To scream, and especially to scream four letter words, was to trash all the ideals of civilized discourse that he held dear.

I felt then, and—perhaps demonstrating that I have learned nothing in twenty years—still feel now, that Bart's rule was too encompassing. It's a good rule most of the time, but there are extraordinary circumstances, like the Vietnam War, like today, when it is proper at times to break the norms of civility because the things against which one protests are themselves so evil or even obscene.

I thought of Bart this evening because Bart's rule would forbid my linking to this painful, ugly, and true remix of a portion of George Bush's recent speech at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, for it is not a very decorous form of dissent, and will doubtlessly offend many. But we live in special ugly times, and so I commend to you—with a warning—this quicktime movie.

[Movie found via Cory Doctorow's Boing Boing (“vicious, brilliant and true”), who got it via Dan Gilmore (“slightly unfair but powerful”), who got it via Wonkette(“Zany Laff Time…helpful”).]

Goverment Regulation Run Amok

USDA Rejects Meatpacker's Mad Cow Plan:

The Agriculture Department has rebuffed a meatpacker's plan to test every animal at its Kansas slaughterhouse for mad cow disease.

The facts are simple, and the politics raw. A super-premium meatpacker wishes to inspect 100% of his animals for mad cow in order to be allowed to export to the lucrative premium beef market Japan.

USDA won't allow it. Why? Two reasons, one ignoble, one comprehensible if mistaken.

First, because the USDA isn't about safe food, or indeed about consumers at all. Nor is it even about the interests of small agribusiness. It's about keeping the Big Farm companies' (read 'bigtime Republican bedfellows') costs down. And they don't want the precedent of 100% testing because that's expensive.

Second, and less evil, is the USDA's desire to avoid setting a precedent that might weaken its hand in upcoming trade negotiations. The administrations claims, and I'm prepared to believe (although with any science claim by this adminstration you have to wonder), that there's no scientific reason to require testing of 100% of healthy looking animals. I can understand that (providing it's true…), although you'd think that even so a real free market administration, if we had one, would allow a system where people who wanted to offer extra safety at a price could do so.

But that wouldn't be this administration: under George Bush you can't get a license to offer certified, tested, mad-cow-free beef even if you want to and think there's a market for it.

Cheney Revisionism

At Explananda Chris asks, Is Dick Cheney really so powerful?:

Up until a week ago it was an article of faith for me that Dick Cheney was a powerful figure in the Bush administration: fearless and tough. I have to confess that I've been feeling pretty foolish about that recently. I mean, if Dick Cheney is so powerful and tough, then why is he afraid to appear before the Sept. 11th Commission without George W. Bush? What - does he need the President to hold his hand or something?

Frankly, this is embarrassing for all of us who have spent the last few years trafficking recklessly in conspiracy theories about the man.

See also this Luckovich cartoon on joint POTUS-Veep appearances.

Tangled Web Is Now All @#$#!! Up

OK. Now I'm completely confused. The Washington Post reports — if reporting can be used to describe a story that LEAVES ALL THE BIG QUESTIONS UNASKED much less answered — Boy Yawns, CNN Bumbles, Letterman Yelps:

Did the White House find weapons of mass destruction at the Ed Sullivan Theatre, or did CNN mess up its report on a “Late Show With David Letterman” segment poking fun at President Bush?

Monday night Letterman debuted a new bit on his show, called “George W. Bush Invigorates America's Youth.” What followed was a series of very brief clips from a recent speech in Florida in which the president said things like “it will not happen on my watch” and “we stand for the fair treatment of faith-based groups who will receive federal support for their work” to a Norman Rockwellian group of average citizens. Among them was one apple-cheeked boy of about 12 in a red baseball cap, rugby shirt and chino shorts, who is caught on camera yawning uncontrollably, twisting his head from side to side, checking his watch and otherwise looking pretty thoroughly bored, while the other people serving as background ignored him.

The folks at CNN got a kick out of it and the next morning, during “CNN Live Today,” ran the clip, crediting Letterman. CNN host Daryn Kagan quipped, “What is funnier, the kid or that everybody around him — not a single person even reacts to those high jinks?”

Then CNN cut to commercial break. Right after the break, Kagan told viewers: “All right — had a good giggle before the break, that video was from David Letterman. We're being told by the White House that the kid, as funny as he was, was edited into that video, which would explain why the people around him weren't really reacting. So, that from the White House.”

That night, Letterman struck back. He showed Kagan telling viewers that the White House said the footage had been doctored.

“Now that, ladies and gentlemen, as sure as I'm sitting here, is an out-and-out, 100 percent absolute lie. The kid absolutely was there and he absolutely was doing everything we pictured via the videotape.”

Two comedy bits later, Letterman read one of his trademark cards that he's always fiddling with, and started to laugh: “God almighty, my life just gets more and more complicated. You know, just a minute ago … I was ranting and raving about the White House. According to this, CNN has just phoned and, according to this information, the anchorwoman misspoke, they never got a comment from the White House. It was a CNN mistake.

“What good does that do me? … I've already now called them liars. I think from now on we're going to have to start looking into things,” Letterman said.

“Why start now?” his bandleader Paul Shaffer said.

“Because everything was fine, except now I've called the White House liars, and you know what that means — they're going to start looking into my taxes!”

A CNN spokeswoman told The TV Column yesterday that the network notified Letterman's show at 5 p.m. that CNN had been incorrect in attributing the suggestion of video-doctoring to the White House. Letterman's show is taped at 5:30 p.m.

“It was their choice to continue to air it,” the spokeswoman said, adding that the problem had arisen due to “a misunderstanding among staff,” but would not elaborate.

Rob Burnett, president and CEO of Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company, told The TV Column that he first received word of CNN's call during the show.

“We did not doctor the footage in any way,” Burnett said. “We don't need [special effects] to make our politicians look silly.” He also noted that CNN did not contact Worldwide Pants on Tuesday to ask whether the footage had been digitally altered.

“We're not a news show, and if we had doctored the footage for comedic effect, we would say so,” Burnett said.

Last night on his show, Letterman recapped the story and joked that he's hearing that maybe the White House did speak to CNN about “George W. Bush Invigorates America's Youth.”

OK. Deep breath. There are three families of possibilities here:

1. Letterman made it all up. Deeply unlikely.
2. CNN made it up. In which case, the Post should be asking how this happened. Putting out a libel on the air with no evidence is pretty serious. (And accusing Letterman of doctoring the tape is surely libel. Doing it with no evidence is 'reckless disregard for the truth.) Not to mention what it would prove about the ideological constraints on CNN. Calling this a staff mixup just won't do.
3. CNN did not make it up — the White House did call CNN, and now for some reason they are in Denial Mode (but why would CNN go along).

A real reporter would have called Daryn Kagan, the CNN anchor who originally repeated the film-doctoring story, and asked who on the staff wrote it. Then called that person, etc. The truth is out there — and surely it's worth someone's time to pursue? Who exactly at CNN had what sort of a “misunderstanding”? And how much will they pay Letterman in libel damages?

When We Practice To Deceive (Needs More Practice Dept.)

I suppose it is not news anymore that the White House has no shame, that its first reaction to any bad news it to tell the sort of lies you expect from a naughty six-year-old—“Did not.” Maybe I'm naive, but it's still a shock when the White House lies about trivialities, and especially when it does it so very, very badly.

Today's weirdness—the word barely does it justice—is about a video shown on the David Letterman show Monday evening. George W. Bush Invigorating America's Youth showed excerpts from a long fundraising stump speech with a boy standing in the front row behind the President, clearly bored out of his gourd while dad robotically cheers away next to the carefully posed front-row black people. It's really funny.

Then CNN picked it up, and the White House spun into Lie Mode, accusing Letterman of doctoring the tape. This made Dave mad (actually, less furious than it would make me). And making late-night comedians mad is not, one would think, an especially clever thing to do in an election year. (found via Atrios)

Update: Alternate links for original item and followup

Bruce Reed, Anthropologist

Bruce Reed — DLC honcho, former Clinton domestic policy guru, and once, very very long ago, the nice Presidential Scholar from Idaho whom I met on our joint trip to Washington, D.C. (as I lived in DC my 'trip' was on the Metro) — has written a lively, funny, account of the habits of two Washington tribes, the Wonks and the Hacks. In it he suggests that the currernt administration's major failing is that it has cast its lot with the hacks, and declared war on wonks.

It's a great piece and you should read it all, but here's the irrelevant throwaway line about one of my least favorite political operatives that made me glad I wasn't drinking coffee while I read it:

For all his faults, though, [Dick] Morris was often a useful spur to the bureaucracy, because he enabled the White House policy team to deploy our own Madman Theory: If the agencies wouldn't go along with our sensible proposals, we warned them that the president might just listen to Dick Morris. Agency productivity soared as a result.

Reality Bites Back

• Reality overwhelms worldview for a journeyman right-wing blogger.

• Facts are stubborn things, leading to a deer in the headlights moment for a Cabinet member.

• A purported al Qaeda statement says al Qaeda wants Bush to be re-elected (Well, of course they do, their entire game plan requires radicalizing the Middle East into anti-Americanism. Who better for this than GWB?)

Sen. Hatch Is Not a Gentleman

The descent of the Senate into a Hobbesian war of all against all, in which naked power is the only currency, took another large step this week. David Neiwert describes the The Hatch act that took things down yet another notch.

Update: However, not all Republicans are willing to turn their backs on the Senate's tradition of civility. Kudos to Senate Judiciary Committee members Lindsay Graham, Saxby Chambliss and Mike DeWine who signed this letter alongside of three Democrats.

Hackergate Report Released

Ed Felton has the links to Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Bill Pickle's report of his preliminary (and subpoena-free) investigation into the Senate file scandal: Part One and Part Two. I wish I had time to read these today.

Zogby's Electoral Vote Predictions

Zogby's electoral vote predicitons, found at The Big Picture: Projected Electoral College Vote, 2004, paint a surprisingly cheerful picture for Sen. Kerry.

Why Kerry Will NOT Appoint a 'Shadow Cabinet'

The blogs have been abuzz with the idea that Senator Kerry should appoint a shadow cabinet—a means of having spokespersons dog the administration on the major issues. Politically it makes sense (although it also multiplies the risk that one of them will gaffe in a way that swings the election). The idea has even crossed over to the op-ed page of the New York Times. But, as my friend John Berryhill points out in a private communication, it won't happen:

[S]hadow cabinets have not been used in the United States because Mr. Kerry would face up to two years in jail under 18 USC § 599:

“Whoever, being a candidate, directly or indirectly promises or pledges the appointment, or the use of his influence or support for the appointment of any person to any public or private position or employment, for the purpose of procuring support in his candidacy shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

I suppose if the 'shadows' were appointed by the DNC, without input from Kerry, that would avoid the legal problem…but it would blunt the political impact. And, to the extent that the appointments were really free from Sen. Kerry's influence, it creates the near-certainty of internecine disputes.

In Oil-and-Gas Speak, "Democracy" is the Dirtiest Word

Talk about arrogance and bigotry. The Mississippi Sun-Herald reports that Tempers flare over drilling legislation. Seems the oil and gas folks were angry that (1) Newspapers reported on their attempt to sneak through legislation easing drilling; (2) People — poor black people — got uppity about it.

A House vote on a bill that could result in natural gas drilling in the Mississippi Sound was postponed, and a hasty meeting to try to allay the fears and anger of some Coast lawmakers was held Thursday evening.

…

Prior to the meeting, oil and gas industry lobbyists chided the media for “stirring things up down there” by reporting about the legislation. Lawmakers over the last two days have fielded calls and messages from constituents and environmentalists concerned about drilling, an issue that has waxed and waned for years on the Coast.

“We quite frankly have not had opposition from anybody but tree huggers and Democrats,” said Marvin L. Oxley, an oil and gas geologist who's helping lobby for the law changes. “Don't use that, say, 'environmentalists.' By Democrats, I mean the blacks. Don't write blacks. Were you in the Judiciary hearing? That's most of who had questions about this.”

Tempers flared early in the Thursday night meeting, which was called by House Oil and Gas Committee Chairman John Reeves, R-Jackson, who sponsored the House legislation and pushed it through his committee earlier in the week.

Some lawmakers from Harrison, Hancock and Jackson counties had told the media they felt like they were left out of the loop on legislation “in their back yards,” which moved very quickly through committees in both the House and Senate.

Some complained that the bill's short title, which read, “Mineral Lease Commission; transfer authority to Mississippi Major Economic Impact Authority” was couched in deception.

“I read in The Sun Herald that a couple of you said this was on a fast track and you didn't know anything about it,” Reeves said at the meeting's opening. “I'm a stand-up chairman, and anything I do is in the wide open and I don't have to hide anything.”

He began to chide Coast lawmakers a little, but Rep. Michael Janus, R-Biloxi, interrupted Reeves: “That's bull-t,” Janus said. “If you want to use this meeting to waste our time, then we might as well leave. I'm free to make comments to the newspaper whenever I want to. Even the title of this bill is deceptive.”

Democracy, what a concept.

E-Voting and Trust in Democracy

Joho the Blog: Paperless democracy's test reads Ed Cone, and gets right to the meat of the one of the key issues:

Ed Cone writes about what conclusions to draw from the fact that Maryland's use of electronic voting machines on Tuesday seemed to go well: “'Election officials will think that this validates the system, that now we can all see that it works just fine - but that's not the case,' says Michael Wertheimer, a systems-security consultant…”

My favorite bit:

A sampling of voters at Lutherville, Md., on Super Tuesday showed that the systems worked well on the surface. “The machine was easy to use,” says Charlie Mitchell, 49. “The only thing I wondered about was what I had read about these machines - were the votes getting counted or not? I don't know.”

Oh, I see. Let me paraphrase: “The system worked perfectly and I was very happy with it, except for the gnawing fear that it disenfranchised me of my most basic right as a citizen.”

Of course the other key issue is that there really are serious reasons to doubt the machines are sufficiently hard to hack…

Family Ties

Family Ties. I don't even want to try to summarize this one.

Suffice it to say that as the Pentagon Inspector General's office is in the news for its investigation of possible criminal fraud by Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root (a name that resonates in US history — longtime crony capitalists, they bankrolled LBJ, and many other major Texas politicians), David Neiwert offers a glimpse into the, um, unconventional family background of the head of the IG's office.

How to Do Things With Smears

Chris Bertram of Crooked Timber has an intersting post on what speech act theory can teach us about smears:

Following the whole Max Cleland, Ann Coulter, Mark Steyn controversy the other day, I was struck by the fact that the defenders of the smearers thought it a sufficient reply to their critics to say that what was said was literally true. (Whether it was literally true is, of course, another matter.) For once, it seems to me, philosophy can be of some use in showing that such a reply is inadequate.

It's nice to see Austin's “How to Do Things With Words” applied so neatly to modern politics.

Laughter Is a Good Disinfectant

Karl Rove did a fundraiser in New York. Outside, the natives were restless.

Now in Previews, Political Theater in the Street: At one point, as hundreds of guests with invitations waited to pass through velvet barriers to enter the club, a small group of men in bowler hats and women in gowns marched up, chanting, “Four more wars” and “Re-elect Rove.”

As the group approached, a man who appeared to be a security agent of some type, was overheard whispering into a microphone: “We've got two groups. One for and one against.”

Actually, it was two against. The person was confused by a group that calls itself Billionaires for Bush, a collection of activists who use satire to make a political point. Indeed, members of the Sierra Club, who were protesting on the other side of the street were also confused and began shouting at what they thought was a pro-Bush contingent.

“We want the truth and we want it now!” the Sierra protesters shouted.

The billionaires shouted back, “Buy your own president!”

I hope we see lots more of this. Especially during the Republican convention.

Super Tuesday Comes Early

I love the idea of an Edwards-Kerry race, although the final results suggest it wasn't quite as close as some of the earlier partial results made it sound. Will everyone else drop out now, please?

Meanwhile, the Chandler result is even more exciting, because the defeated Republican, in a Republican seat, started out her campaign proclaiming she'd be a Bush robot. Then she got a bit scared and asked him not to come on down after all. The House Republican leadership came down instead and offered the district a bribe—serious pork if you elect the Republican, nada if you don't (this was a remarkably honest description of a national policy adopted in the last two years). And that failed too. Big time.

Given the advantages of incumbency and the way districts are drawn, it's hard to seriously believe the House will change hands in the next election, especially given the Texas redistricting. But I imagine that Bush will be visiting somewhat fewer Republican marginals.

Notes From the Middle Ground Between Complacency and Panic

This Administration seeks to achieve a panoply of organized and systematic changes in the civil order, a strengthening of the security apparatus at the expense of civil liberties. It is wrong, I think, to be at all complacent about these changes, which is one of the reasons I started this blog. (If you haven't read my early post about my grandmother's political advice, Rose Burawoy, Political Scientist, please do so.)

Looking around today, there are four interrelated sets of reasons to be concerned.

First, the Administration has advanced a series of legal claims that are inherently incompatible with justice. The invention or, if you prefer, extension of the category “enemy combatant” is one example. The administration claims that it can strip a US citizen of his Constitutional rights by attaching this designation to him, and it has done this on US soil, grabbing a citizen and then disappearing him into near-incommunicado detention in a military prison. The Justice Department claims that the courts' only role is to enquire if the administration really says someone is an enemy combatant. Once handed a conclusory declaration signed by an official, the Justice Department says the courts have no further role.

I am not in any way suggesting that this is the first administration to commit excesses in the name of security. The modern list is legion, from Cointelpro through Waco. What makes the current situation almost unique is that the large majority of those earlier incursions were either clandestine (because they were known to be illegal at the time), or later acknowledged (overtly or tacitly) to be errors. This Administration advances the current set of changes as either consistent with the existing legal order, or as so necessary for our security as to require changes in it. Some of these changes would systematically gut the ideas of Due Process, Speedy Trial, and Confrontation of Accusers enshrined in the Fifth¹ and Sixth² Amendments to the Constitution. That's new.

Second, this Administration seeks to set a wide range of legal precedents that allow law enforcement to operate in secret. From secret deportation hearings to Guantanamo Bay to increased use of a secret court for wiretaps that have a domestic angle, all these things together breed a culture in which, human nature and bureaucratic imperatives being what they are, it is inevitable that excess and injustice will flourish.

The intangible and attitudinal effects of the claim that substantial traditional elements of liberty must be sacrificed for the (eternal) duration of the “war” on terrorism may be as important as any change in the law. If the sole effect were an increase in law enforcement arrogance, we could cope. But if left unchecked, the combination of a government empowered to act fundamentally unjustly (whether it's to grab people off the street or just to burden the conduct of their lives by subjecting them to routine and regular questioning and, say, no-fly lists), and to do so in secret, will have corrosive consequences. In time the combination will provoke either a climate of self-censorship and fear, or a revolutionary fervor. Neither would serve democracy well.

The fourth area of concern has to do with armed intolerance. In the ivory tower where I live, one doesn't run into many death threats. However, David Neiwert, aka Orcinus, has written a number of eloquent essays suggesting that the drumbeat of increasingly violent, even eliminationist anti-liberal rhetoric on the airwaves and in other media have consequences felt in the daily lives of people living far from the ivory tower. I've explained before why I'm not persuaded that today's brownshirt-like political rhetoric is that much different than what we heard in the Nixon era, for example—“America, love it or leave it.” Even if I'm right about that, however, it's possible that with 24/7 media the rhetoric Neiwert writes about is more pervasive than before, or that contemporary conditions — economic insecurity combined with fear of terrorism — create a more fertile ground for something ugly or even violent. (And, in the event of a major economic shock …)

In looking around at today's politics, I worry about complacency, and I worry about panic. It is wrong to shout 'Nazi' at this administration. (Neo-Peronist would be closer to the truth, but doesn't quite fit either.) We do not face — and assuming the country reacts to the forthcoming Mel Gibson movie in a grownup way, are not likely to face — anything like the worst horrors of mid-20th-century Germany. While it is almost always wrong to shout 'Nazi', if 'eternal vigilance' means anything then it is never wrong to debate the ways in which some current policies and trends are and are not reminiscent of the sometimes unwitting precursors of the fascism or authoritarianism (or simple economic chaos) that have destroyed democracies elsewhere. And right now it is even less wrong than usual.

Notes

¹ Fifth Amendment.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

² Sixth Amendment

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

NYT Falls for Hoax Kerry-Fonda Photo

I think that Sheryl Gay Stolberg didn't do all her homework.

Conservatives Shine Spotlight on Kerry's Antiwar Record: And on Thursday, a new photograph of the senator and the actress began circulating via e-mail. Unlike the image Mr. Sampley bought, which shows Mr. Kerry seated several rows behind Ms. Fonda, this picture — its origins are unclear — shows them side by side, Ms. Fonda behind a microphone and Mr. Kerry, holding a notebook, to her right.

That wouldn't be this photo now would it?

Snopes.com: John Kerry

Claim: Photograph shows Senator John Kerry with Jane Fonda at an anti-war rally.

Status: False.

NYT Agrees: Long Primary Favors Democrats

You read it here first…

A hotly contested Democratic primary season that stretches to the wire — even to a brokered convention — could be either the best or the worst thing for the Democrats. It’s the best thing if a bunch of plausible and photogenic candidates suck up all the media’s time and attention bashing Bush; Bush’s negatives are already rising fast, and they’ll keep on going up as Democrats have the limelight and use it against him. Once a nominee is selected, the press attention will shift elsewhere for a while, and he’ll bounce back.

Seems the NYT agrees with me now:

Political Memo: For Kerry, More to Gain in Leading Than Winning: Conventional wisdom might hold that now is the time for Democrats to rally around Mr. Kerry, and thousands are. Yet so long as Mr. Kerry faces even nominal intramural opposition, President Bush's advisers worry that they will have a harder time getting equal attention for their political message, and Mr. Kerry's rivals seem to keep undercutting each other, not him.

…

So the prospect of continued combat with Mr. Edwards and former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont — while potentially annoying and distracting in terms of time, money and message — may be far from Mr. Kerry's worst nightmare. “Hopefully, we can do this every Tuesday,” one senior Kerry adviser said with a chuckle on Wednesday.

Another Example of Lack of Noticing That Bald-Faced Inaccuracy

Sigh. Here's Howard Kurtz of the Post, ignoring the obvious falsehood in the Bush interview:

Beat the Press: Bush “made no single mistake that could be replayed again and again with Janet Jackson-like fervor.”

I suppose that will be the press conventional wisdom. I wish this were amazing instead of predictable.

It's Not Big News When GW Bush Lies

Apparently, it's not big news when GW Bush goes on TV and makes a statement that is totally false. So false that it's not a question of opinion, but a matter of verifiable fact. And not on a trivial matter either. Nor one that could be called a accident. It's an error on a matter of sufficient importance to government that to get it wrong shows either a willingness to try the Big Lie, or a leader very serious out of touch with reality.

Bush on Meet The Press RUSSERT: But your base conservatives, and listen to Rush Limbaugh, the Heritage Foundation, CATO Institute, they're all saying you are the biggest spender in American history.

BUSH: Well, they're wrong. If you look at the appropriations bills that were passed under my watch, in the last year of President Clinton, discretionary spending was up 15 percent, and ours have steadily declined.

Angry Bear has the facts: discretionary spending went waaaay up not steadily down every year of this Administration.

Now, if “gotcha” questions like the price of eggs or the capital of foreign countries were once big news, surely voluntarily mis-stating (or not knowing) a fairly basic fact about the trend line (forget knowing the dollar figure details, we're talking trends and gross effects here) about what one's own administrations budgets are like ought to be big news, shouldn't it?

Nope. The Miami Herald (running a Dana Milbank story from the Post) buried this in the last paragraphs of the story, and did it in a way that no one will understand that what Bush said wasn't true.

Bush said critics, including conservatives, are ''wrong'' to say he has not kept control of the federal budget. ''If you look at the appropriations bills that were passed under my watch, in the last year of President Clinton, discretionary spending was up 15 percent, and ours have steadily declined,'' he said.

Federal discretionary spending has grown by more than 25 percent in the past two fiscal years, following average annual increases of 2.4 percent in discretionary spending in the 1990s, according to figures from congressional budget panels.

Note that without a lead-in like “In fact,” that second paragraph is going to be impenetrable to many readers…or at least won't jump out at them as a direct contradiction of the previous graph.

The error isn't mentioned at all in Elisabeth Bumiller's News Analysis of the speech, which is all about whether it was a good idea (isn't lying or demonstrating ignorance relevant to that?). Of course, that could be because she only read the New York Times article on the interview, in which Richard w. Stevenson doesn't mention this little detail at all.

Why isn't this issue more important than the fact that Bush re-stated many opinions we've heard before? Somehow, it's just not 'news”.

If this is the Big Lie, it's working. If this is a sign of a lack of contact with reality, this news coverage isn't going to bring reality any closer.

Return of the 'Washington Monument Ploy'

I am amazed that with all the realms of justified vitriol being poured on the Bush budget, no one has pointed out this budget revives the Washington Monument Ploy. Admittedly that's relatively traditional compared to:

• being formatted like a campaign document with promotional photos,
• cutting out projections for years 6-10 because they look so terrible,
• cooking the numbers (“the budget assumes slower economic growth than CBO for 2005, and faster growth thereafter. By pure coincidence, this has the effect of raising deficit estimates for 2005 and reducing them later on, making it easier “to cut the deficit in half by 2009”),
• projecting massive debt even in years 1-5, and leaving out masses of expenditure for Iraq and Afghanistan which are certainly capable of estimation.

The Washington Monument Ploy is an ancient device favored by executive branch budget makers. When required to meet some arduous budget number by producing cuts, the crafty bureaucrat proposes cuts to things that he knows Congress will never accept, such as closing the Washington Monument. Although this contributes nothing to good government, it does allow the executive branch to claim that the “budget-busting” comes from those irresponsible spenders in Congress.

How else to explain this?

Bush asks to cut decontamination research On the same day a poison-laced letter shuttered Senate offices, President Bush asked Congress to eliminate an $8.2 million research program on how to decontaminate buildings attacked by toxins.

Buried in documents justifying Bush's 2005 budget proposal released Monday is an Environmental Protection Agency acknowledgment that his proposed cut “represents complete elimination of homeland security building decontamination research.”

As far as I can tell, most of the stuff the Bush budget proposes to cut falls squarely in the Washington Monument category, except perhaps for the cuts that fall on the poorest Americans—there’s some chance that a Republican Congress might actually pass those.

Hackergate Claims Its First Scalp

The Senate Republicans will throw a senior aide to the wolves this week, in hopes of heading off inquiries into their personal complicity into Hackergate: Leak staffer ousted. Will it work? Much probably depends on what the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms reports when he concludes his investigation.

Wouldn't it be nicer to live in a world where the Senate's forms of civility were reflected in some reality?

What It Would Look Like if Sen. Daschle Found His Spine

If Sen Daschle, the vanishing Senate vanishing Minority Leader were to find his spine, it might look like this.

But of course instead we have to all sing along with this.

The AWOL Issue Is On the Agenda

My brother's White House Briefing column today reports that Questions About Bush's Guard Service have “become a mainstream issue.” If it wasn't before, it is after this column, and the Post's fairly tame article by Lois Romano (assisted by the notorious Ceci Connolly, traveling with Kerry—expect him to be Gore'd any day now!—and researchers Don Puhlman and Lucy Shackelford in Washington).

I think these five, count them five, Post staffers all left out one fairly central point: GW Bush could presumably clear up this entire controversy in one minute, simply by authorizing the full release of his military records—something every major party candidate who was a verteran has done for the last few decades. Every single one, except GW Bush.

Who of course has nothing to hide.

Incidentally, I'd also like to know who had access to the records over the years, in case any documents are, say, missing, or contain serial numbers suggesting they were inserted out of sequence, both of which are allegations that are floating around. I'm sure the Pentagon keeps that sort of access record.

New Flash: A Congressional Democrat Finds His Spine!

In Congressman Urges Vote-Buying Inquiry the Washington Post reports that,

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), the House majority whip, said the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct should open a probe into statements by Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) that GOP colleagues offered to funnel donations to his son's congressional campaign if Smith voted for the Medicare bill — and threatened to work against the son's bid if Smith voted against it

This is fairly nuclear, since,

His comments appear to undo an informal truce between Republicans and Democrats on ethics matters. Under a 1997 rule change, only members of Congress are allowed to make formal ethics complaints. On some occasions in recent years, the House ethics panel has acted only after criminal courts rendered judgments against members.

Of course, the Post really buried the leed, since the article contains the bombshell disclosure that the same government which can open a Breast Investigation in minutes, and promise to prosecute it quickly, can't find a Congressman to interview him even after six weeks have passed:

The Justice Department said in December that it was reviewing complaints filed by the Democratic National Committee and two independent groups about Smith's assertions. But Smith's chief of staff, Kurt Schmautz, said the congressman — who has promised to cooperate with any official inquiry — has not been interviewed by the Justice Department.

Lynn Nofziger Worries that GW Bush is Not 'One of Us'

Lynn Nofziger, retired Republican hardball political operator, sits at home and frets:

Like father, like son, maybe. Is George W. Bush following in the footsteps of George H. W. Bush and kicking away his chances of being re-elect? It sure is possible.

True, the times are different and the issues are different, but the Bushes themselves are very much alike in that both have taken substantial leads in the polls and by their own decisions and misjudgments whittled them down to nothing.

The senior Bush made three key misjudgments. He thought he could get away with a tax increase after having promised, “Read my lips. No new taxes.” He ran a terrible re-election campaign in which he terribly misjudged not only his own strength but also the strength of his opposition. And at the last minute he relied on a sulking James Baker to pull his irons out of the fire who just might have done it if he had come on the scene earlier and devoted his considerable talents to the job.

I think this president Bush is running a far better re-election campaign than did his father and perhaps that can be his salvation. Nevertheless, to counter this he is screwing up on not just one issue, but several.

He is the most profligate spender in the nation’s history even though his party is supposed to be the party that opposes deficit spending. And it isn’t just the major spending increases on medicare, education and agriculture that has his supporters irate; it’s the little spending, too, including increased spending for the hated National Endowment for the Arts, to say nothing of the pork barrel spending in nearly every one of the nation’s congressional districts.

Instead of clamping down on illegal immigration and tightening border security he is proposing what in effect is amnesty for the ten million-plus illegals, mostly Mexicans, already here.

He is badly mishandling the indications that he took this country to war in Iraq on the basis of faulty intelligence from the CIA. Instead of admitting the gross errors and moving to correct them he is defending them. What he ought to do is fire the head of the CIA, George Tenet, who is a holdover from the Clinton administration and move to correct what is obviously a bad situation. As it is he is open to continued, and at least semi-justified attacks from the Democrats.

Finally, lurking in the background is the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform law which he promised to veto but signed.

It is doubtful that his appointment of conservative judges or even the fear that a Democrat president would name liberals to the Supreme Court, or his signing of the anti-partial birth abortion measure or his tax cut measures are enough to counter what most conservatives view either as mistakes in judgment or indications that at heart he is, like his father, not one of them.

One more sign that Bush is vulnerable.

[Update: for the avoidance of doubt, I'd better explain the 'one of us' reference in the headline is not to anything Nofziger said, but rather to the late Hugo Young's perfect pitch biography of Margret Thatcher.]

Today's News Quiz

Who said it today and about what:

“I have instructed the commission to open an immediate investigation into [the event]. Our investigation will be thorough and swift.”

A) G.W. Bush about allegations that people in his employ illegally exposed CIA Agent Valerie Plame.

B) G.W. Bush about allegations that people in his employ pressured the CIA to exaggerate the Iraq WMD story.

C) Richard Cheney about allegations of war profiteering by Halliburton.

D) John Ashcoft about allegations of psychological torture at Guantanamo Bay detention camps.

E) FCC Chairman Michael Powell about something shown on TV.

Answer (E): FCC to investigate Super Bowl breast-baring. It's good our government focuses on the important things, isn't it?

Being Funny is Hard Work

I think there is something wrong about these bonding rituals in which Presdients go to formal dinners and make off-the-record funny speeches to white house correspondents and others. It's not just the elitism, although that's part of it. It feeds the press's idea of its self-importance.

That said, who knew how much work it can take to get a President to be funny in the Washington-approved way.

Biting Satire: The GW Bush C.V.

This Bush Resume thing is really making the rounds of the Internet. In addition to getting it by email, a quick Google suggests that different versions are poppping up all over.

Update (2/3). Here's a version with hyperlinks to the sources.

George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Education

Graduated from Yale University, low C average. I was a cheerleader.

Family

After graduating college I lived with my parents. One night I drove home drunk, and upon arriving home I challenged my father (WWII hero, future director of CIA and US president) to settle things outside, “mano a mano.” He kicked my ass.

My father later helped me become owner of the Texas Rangers, Governor of Texas, and President of the United States. My younger brother, Governor of Florida, helped.

Military

• I somehow got into the Texas Air National Guard after scoring in the lowest quarter on the pilot aptitude test. I joined the National Guard to avoid service in a war I supported.
• While enlisting I checked a box indicating my preference to stay in the United States during the Vietnam War. I believed this was the best way to keep the Viet Cong out of Texas.
• During my service no one remembers me showing up for duty for a year, 1972-1973.
• I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about past drug use.
• During my service the White House dispatched a flight to Washington so I could go on a date with Tricia Nixon.

Past Work Experience

• Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
• Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
• Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a deal that took land using taxpayer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.

Accomplishments in Previous Positions

• Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union.
• Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America.
• Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
• Set record for most executions by any governor in American history.
• Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my father's appointments to the Supreme Court.

Accomplishments As President

• Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
• Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history…
• Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
• Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
• First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
• First president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
• First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history.
• After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
• Set the record for most campaign fundraising trips than any other president in U.S. history.
• In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
• Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in U.S. history.
• Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
• Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in U.S. history.
• Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
• Presided over the biggest energy crises in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
• Presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
• Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans (during wartime).
• Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind. (http://www.hyperreal.org/~dana/marches/)
• Dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.
• Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history (the 'poorest' multimillionaire, Condoleezza Rice, has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).
• Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
• Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in U.S. history.
• First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the human rights commission.
• First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the elections monitoring board.
• Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
• Refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
• First president in U.S. history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. elections).
• All-time U.S. (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
• My biggest lifetime campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
• First president in U.S. history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community, predicated upon Iraqi links to Al Qaeda and presence of WMD. Neither has proven true.
• Took the biggest world sympathy for the U.S. after 9/11, and in less than a year made the U.S. the most resented country in the world.
• First U.S. president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
• Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
• Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive.'
• Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building.
• In the 18 months following the 9/11 attacks I have successfully prevented extended public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
• In a little over two years created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the U.S. has ever been since the Civil War.

Records and References

• At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).
• All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been taken to my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public view.
• All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed and unavailable for public view.
• All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed and unavailable for public view.
• Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed and unavailable for public review.

Compare and Contrast (Or, Another Reason Why the Bush Administration is Loathsome)

Compare

Administration Plan Would Alter Rules at Nuclear Sites (1/29):The Bush administration is moving to replace safety requirements at federal nuclear facilities with standards written by contractors, according to a draft regulation.

Critics contend that under the proposal government standards at more than two-dozen Energy Department nuclear weapons plants and research laboratories could become unenforceable. Department officials say the intent is to give contractors more flexibility without compromising safety.

The proposal comes in response to a directive by Congress to start fining contractors at the plants for safety violations. Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, who wrote the legislation, accused the administration this week of distorting Congress's intent with a plan that “will likely decrease worker protection.”

Assistant Secretary Beverly Cook said, “The department believes the proposed rule seeks to fully protect our workers.”

with

U.S.: Nuclear Plant Cheated During Drill ( 1/27): Security guards at the nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge stunned inspectors in June by successfully repelling four simulated terrorist attacks — a feat computer programs predicted wouldn't be done.

That apparent success was tarnished, according to the Energy Department: Employees of an outside security contractor were tipped off about the impending simulations, making the tests a costly waste of time.

A broader investigation uncovered more evidence of cheating during mock attacks at the plant over the past two decades, including barricades being set up before the test to alter the outcome and guards deviating from the established response plan to improve their performance.

I suppose if people will play politics with national security, there's no particluar reason to expect them not to play politics with workers safety at nuclear power plants…

More on Hackergate: One Staffer or Two?

A commentator[*] suggests that, contrary to my suggestion, Mr. Miranda is not a second staffer, but the first staffer in a new job. At first glance this seemed odd to me, since Sen. Hatch announced in late November that the staff member involved had been suspended, and the AP was reporting Sen. Frist's suspending Mr. Miranda as if it were new.

The AP article I linked to is silent on this question, but more research suggests that the “same staffer” theory turns out to be possible, albeit unlikely— although the it's-only-Miranda scenario has its own interesting aspects.

The New York Times suggests there were two staffers, i.e. that that Mr. Miranda had an accomplice:

Manuel C. Miranda, a former Republican Judiciary Committee staff member, whose name appeared as a recipient of one of the Democratic e-mail messages and who has been questioned by Mr. Pickle's investigators, said in an interview Thursday that he knew how the documents were obtained by Republicans. He said that a junior member on the staff of Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, had discovered a flaw in the computer system that allowed him to read some of the Democratic computer traffic.

Mr. Miranda, who is now a senior staff aide to Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Republican leader, said that the junior aide was reading the Democratic documents from about May 2002 until the early fall of 2002. The aide, who has since left the Senate, passed some of those memorandums to Mr. Miranda and other Hatch staff members, Mr. Miranda said.

“Those documents that I did read were, in my view, not obtained in any way that was improper, unlawful or unethical,” he said. He described them as “inadvertent disclosures that came to me as a result of some negligence on the part of the Democrats' technology staff.” His only obligation, he said, was to see that the Democrats were told that the computer system had a flaw that allowed Republican aides to read some of their memorandums.

“I knew our people had told their people about it,” Mr. Miranda said. “Once I knew that, I had no further obligation.”

Suppose, however, there was just Mr. Miranda. Then even more interesting questions arise:

• Was he really suspended in November at all?
• If so, when did it end and why?
• And why is he re-suspended now?

• Whether Senator Frist hired Mr. Miranda knowing about the Hackergate incident?
• If so, was it as a reward?
• And, whether or not he knew then, does Senator Frist endorse Mr. Miranda's vision of Senate collegiality and comity as set out in the NYT article above?

[*] I deleted the comment which raised this issue because it violated rules one and two of my comments policy—fortunately something I only rarely need to do. Perhaps because there are so few comments….

What So-Called Liberal Media?

Spotted at Brian Leiter's blog.

Second Staffer Fingered In Senate Hackergate Probe

Yahoo! News - Memo-Leak Probe Expands to Frist's Office:

An aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has been put on leave during an investigation into how Republicans gained access to Democratic memos concerning opposition to President Bush (news - web sites)'s judicial nominees.

Manuel Miranda, who works for the Tennessee Republican on judicial nominations, is on leave pending the outcome of the inquiry by the Senate sergeant-at-arms, Frist spokesman Nick Smith said Tuesday. In the matter under investigation, Democratic memos stored on a computer server shared by Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) members ended up in GOP hands.

Miranda told The Knoxville News-Sentinel that investigators were looking at work he performed for the Judiciary Committee before he joined Frist's office. “There was no stealing,” he said. “No systematic surveillance. I never forwarded these memos — period.”

I said previously that this wasn't a one-person show, that it went beyond the single staffer Hatch already suspended.

No way that goodies like this didn't get shared around.

They're Making Us Feel Sorry For Dr. Dean

I am not a Deaniac. I'm an ABB Democrat — anyone (serious) left in the race who can beat Bush is OK with me. I think Dean, like Kerry, Edwards and probably Clark (lack of political experience is a question mark), would make a at least a fine and perhaps a great President. Each candidate has an issue I am not totally comfortable with (for Dean it's trade). I explain this as background to the feeling that the media has been utterly unfair to Dean about his Iowa speech. It was obvious, even before he was forced to 'explain' it, that the speech was about rallying the troops after a disappointing result. And it did its job. That he should be pilloried for one yell of enthusiasm, that the same clip should be run time and again until it becomes surreal, is just nuts. [Update: Mark Kleiman seems to agree.]

Yes, the cheap shot works because it connects to something real—many folks, me included, wonder if Dean's biggest weakness isn't a tendency to shoot off his mouth. But that doesn't stop the 'Dean Goes Nuts' meme from being a cheap shot. (Or being funny sometimes (it's the “I have a scream” speech..), more's the pity.)

Which raises the question…Is this Bush vs. Dean homemade commercial a cheap shot, or fair commentary? I think it's mostly fair. Yes, the Bush behavior it points to was some time ago, but given that character is supposedly the guy's strong flight suit…

Brad DeLong Asks a Tough But Important Question

Cheney: Underbriefed, Insane, or Senile?.

We are reduced to a world in which the nicest possible answer has become “mendacious, contemptuous of democracy, and very, very cyncial.”

Hunting Where the Ducks Are

Nice to see that a couple of US Senators know how to go hunting where the ducks are. Via my brother's White House Briefing I lern that Leahy And Lieberman Query High Court On Ethics Of Scalia Vacation With Cheney. And well they should.

In a letter dated January 22, 2004, the two ranking committee members inquired about Supreme Court “canons, procedures and rules” on whether justices should recuse themselves from cases in which “their impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

“When a sitting judge, poised to hear a case involving a particular litigant, goes on vacation with that litigant, reasonable people will question whether that judge can be a fair and impartial adjudicator of that man’s case or his opponent’s claims,” the Senators wrote.

According to news reports, Scalia joined Cheney on a hunting trip for several days earlier this month just three weeks after the Supreme Court agreed to grant a petition of certiorari in a case involving the secrecy of the Vice President's energy task force and the formulation of Administration energy policy.

Senate Republicans==Dishonorable People, Possibly Thieves

Senate courtliness and comity? Bipartisanship? Nah. Try dirty tricks, dishonor and thieving. And don't think for one minute that some Senators didn't know what was going on. If only Senate Democrats had the guts to take scalps.

Infiltration of files seen as extensive. Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.

From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight — and with what tactics.

The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a website last November.

With the help of forensic computer experts from General Dynamics and the US Secret Service, his office has interviewed about 120 people to date and seized more than half a dozen computers — including four Judiciary servers, one server from the office of Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, and several desktop hard drives.

Don't let anyone tell you this is business as usual. Hacking into federal computers is usually a serious crime. Here, however, the criminal law issue is slightly murky.

Whether the memos are ultimately deemed to be official business will be a central issue in any criminal case that could result. Unauthorized access of such material could be punishable by up to a year in prison — or, at the least, sanction under a Senate non-disclosure rule.

The computer glitch dates to 2001, when Democrats took control of the Senate after the defection from the GOP of Senator Jim Jeffords, Independent of Vermont.

A technician hired by the new judiciary chairman, Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, apparently made a mistake that allowed anyone to access newly created accounts on a Judiciary Committee server shared by both parties — even though the accounts were supposed to restrict access only to those with the right password.

The Growing National Security State In the News

It's just amazing how much of the important domestic news these days is either about economic troubles (defict, declining dollar, jobless recovery) or about conflicts over the role of the national security apparatus. Here's today's first haul of the national security related news:

• Military Lawyer Blasts Tribunal Rules—more very justified complaining about the rules of engagement before the military tribunal at Guantanamo
• Easing of Internet Regulations Challenges Surveillance Efforts: the spooks are at it again. Their campaign to retain their total access to all of our communications is in danger of being frustrated by…cable modems. So they're pulling out all the stops to make them as transparent to FBI (and NSA?) intercepts as ordinary telephones.
• Meanwhile, Congress has a small case of heartburn over the renewal of certain sections of the Patriot Act. The fix to renew may be in, but Lawmakers Not Rushing to Take Up Terrorism Act…certainly not going to happen until safely after the election. Who knows, it's so unpopular that there might even be hearings to discuss the effects of the statute before Congress votes on it….
• And, Ex-C.I.A. Aides Ask Inquiry by Congress Over Leak of Name. That darn Palme case just won't go away, and the CIA won't let go of the issue. Now they are pressuring Congress in order to create pressure on the Justice department. (While I completely agree with the CIA view here, and think this is the sort of issue they have a right to go to Congress about, I always get nervous when the secret services get involved in politics….)

At least it's still newsworthy (and legal to publish).

Matthew Yglesias Does Counterfactual History

Matthew Yglesias exercises his counterfactual imagination, and it's a doozy in which he speculates about

what if Nixon had won in 1960 and had to deal with the pressures of the Civil Rights movement. At the time, the allegiances of African-American voters were roughly split. The GOP in the aggregate was more supportive of civil rights than were the Democrats, but the leading civil rights advocates in the government were northern liberal Democrats. There's a fair chance that the circumstances would have forced Nixon to become a civil rights champion (as they forced Kennedy and LBJ), no Goldwater campaign, and no southern re-alignment. You might have seen northern liberals move into the GOP which then would have become something like a European liberal party dominated by Olympia Snowe types while the Democrats became a vehicle for white class politics.

On auspicious occassions African-American Republican politicians would speak proudly of their membership in “the party of Lincoln, the party of Nixon.”

I think it must help to have been too young to be a Watergate Wallower (like I was) to come up with something so…weird and transgressive.

Second Take on Caucuses: A Chance to Dominate the Airwaves

A hotly contested Democratic primary season that stretches to the wire — even to a brokered convention — could be either the best or the worst thing for the Democrats. It's the best thing if a bunch of plausible and photogenic candidates suck up all the media's time and attention bashing Bush; Bush's negatives are already rising fast, and they'll keep on going up as Democrats have the limelight and use it against him. Once a nominee is selected, the press attention will shift elsewhere for a while, and he'll bounce back.

Of course, a hotly contested Democratic primary season that stretches to the wire — even to a brokered convention — could also be a disaster if the candidates spend all the time beating up on each other. And while one can spin Iowa to say that non-negative explains Edwards, it could also be argued that negative is what stopped Dean cold…

First Take on the Caucuses: Democratic Party Wins In Iowa

OK. Looks like Kerry, Edwards (!), Dean, Gep, Other.

Gep will drop out, removing the Democrats' least viable major candidate, as the GOP would not even had to caricature him to call him a protectionist in the pockets of the special interests (unions). I don't have a good sense of the man, who seems generally decent and honorable, so I can't predict if he'll endorse anyone. The sensible thing would be to hold off, but at moments like this personal feelings can swing it.

Kerry and Edwards get a boost to New Hampshire. Kerry can now survive a (small) loss in his back yard. Edwards gets Big Mo and a huge increase in news coverage. Dean is wounded but not fatally. Coming in anything worse than a close second in New Hampshire would be major trauma time.

The biggest loser is the GOP. Not only are they deprived of a great target, but they have to spend more on opposition research for longer as there are so many targets.

The biggest question mark is whether the non-Edwards candidates will decide that Iowa is different from the rest of the USA, or if they will read Edwards's strength as a strong lesson that it does NOT pay to go negative against other Democrats. Here's hoping.

Update: See also my second take.

Dave Barry Sinks His Teeth Into the Primaries

Dave Barry, Miami's answer to either Will Rogers or what happens when you cross a journalist with a basoon, is reporting from Iowa. Most of the article is about meat and vegtables, especially the ambulatory carrot, but some of it has Barry's inimitable political summaries. Often, after all, comedians have a better grasp on reality than pundits. (Especially if they're the Miami Herald's pundits….)

But the biggest applause came when Howard Dean, the feisty little Surgemeister himself, surged into the room and fired up the crowd by biting the head off a live puppy.

Not really! I'm making a little joke about Dean's reputation for having a temper. In fact, it was a squirrel.

NO KIND WORDS

Ha ha! But seriously, Dean did express anger at George W. Bush, as well as Washington insiders and special interest groups. In covering five national campaigns, I have yet to hear a presidential contender say a single kind word about Washington insiders or special interest groups. Every last contender swears he's going to stomp these people like ants. Yet, incredibly, Washington remains infested with them.

By the way, did I say “basoon”? I meant “baboon”. Or maybe I meant “clown”. Or something.

And then there's what has to be the worst pun of the campaign:

The big news was that John Edwards, who had been stagnant, was surging, while at the same time John Kerry — who had faltered early in the race, then surged, then re-faltered — was now surging AGAIN.

THE SURGE-IMPAIRED

This bodes badly for Howard Dean, who used to be the Lone Surger out here, as well as traditional Iowa-caucus winner Dick Gephardt, who has, frankly, been unable to surge. He is surge-impaired, and he badly needs surgification in Iowa if he is to survive New Hampshire, where, word has it, Wesley Clark, who had been faltering, is now surging like a madman. He's the Surgin' General.

'A Uniter Not A Divider' or Rather, Just A Liar

Bush Bypasses Senate On Judge. A sign that things will get worse, and worse, as the junta pulls out every stop to consolidate its power.

Jack Balkin weighs in. And even a Volokh conspirator isn't proud of this one.

Nofziger Says Bush Guest Worker Plan Will Enrage His Base

Lynn Nofziger, blogger, opines that George Bush's electorally timed guest worker plan will backfire politically.

Yes, Nofziger is nuts. But he's canny. And he knows the Republican base from the inside, because he's one of them.

Musings. The president apparently has no problem with illegal immigration or immigrants. He comes close to favoring open borders.

And he has conservatives madder than they’ve been since his father signed the infamous tax increase legislation back in l990.

The president’s proposal may be merely a political ploy designed to win the votes of Mexican Americans and the friendship of Mexico’s president, Vicente Fox.

And he may never propose legislation to support his proposal and even if he does it likely will not pass, which may be his hope.

However, with his speech he has done two things, both bad. First, his proposal at the very least will be seen by Mexicans as an invitation to come here anyway they can because this administration will shut its eyes to illegal immigrants.

Second, while, like country club Republicans, of which he is not supposed to be one, he seems to have judged that conservatives will grudgingly accept his latest “in your teeth” proposal because they have no place else to go.

If that is the case he, like his father before him, is wrong. Conservatives do have some place else to go when they get mad enough. It is called “home.”

(If you follow the link to read the whole thing, you have to scroll down. Nofziger's html is quite charmingly old fashioned.)

My Brother Wants to Hear From You

washingtonpost.com: White House Briefing. My brother writes,

The Sad Lot of the White House Correspondent

In a very long piece in this week's New Yorker (not available on the Web at all), Ken Auletta assesses the miserable state of relations between the Bush White House and the press. White House officials think of the press as just another special interest. Reporters feel they are treated with contempt. (See the fifth item in yesterday's White House Briefing and the second item in Howard Kurtz's Media Notes from yesterday's Washington Post.)

In a Q and A on newyorker.com today, Auletta says that the much-coveted position of White House correspondent just ain't what it used to be. “This is partly because the news organizations are less interested in government,” Auletta says. “It is partly because ambitious reporters are turned off by the stenographic aspects of the White House beat. And it is partly the result of having fewer standout journalistic 'stars' covering the White House.”

Your thoughts? I'd love to hear them.

Personally, I can't for the life of me see why white house beat reporters accept the 'stenographic' aspect of the job. It may serve the White House for them to be passive, but it serves no one else.

Take this story for example. Why haven't reporters been collecting the questions the White House won't answer? Or this story —how come we haven't seen a single story about what happened during what might have been an overnight shredding party?

Of course, what I'd really like to see is adoption of my Modest Proposal For Improving White House Press Conferences. But I'm not holding my breath.

Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing

Update: In a case of a mechanistic metaphor running amok, Brad DeLong says that, “It is truly a wonderful world we live in, in which someone as smart and energetic as Dan Froomkin is functioning as my personal pre-processor for White House-related news…”

Nader Demonstrates An Inability to Learn from History

Back in the last campaign, Ralph Nader called me up one day and asked me to represent him in a trademark case. He was being sued — frivolously — by MasterCard for his parody of their “priceless” commercial. I sent him to a big law firm that had the resources to handle a case of that scope on an emergency basis (I sure don't); but while he was on the phone, I suggested that his candidacy was doing Bush a favor.

Nader disagreed — 'I'll hammer Bush so bad it will help the Democrats' was the gist of his reply.

I disagreed politely.

Now Ralph Nader says he wants to run again as a third party Presidential candidate. The Independent: Nader Says a Run Would Benefit Democrats:

Mr. Nader would run this year as an independent. (The Green Party will not pick its nominee until June, too late, he says, to mount an effective campaign.) And here is how he says his running could work to the Democrats' advantage:

By hammering away at populist themes like a higher minimum wage, union rights and occupational health regulations, all of which he says have been neglected, he would force the leading Democratic contenders to move left. That, he says, would expand the party's base, drawing out more liberal voters, some angry enough at him about 2000 that they would vote for the Democratic nominee instead, and many who would vote Democratic in close House and Senate races.

One common definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

The time for polite disagreement is now long past.

Some Utterly Tactical Tax Policy Advice for Dr. Dean

The Dean campaign now faces its moment of truth as to whether to continue on the path that it began, or shift into a traditional campaign. Oddly the tax issue seems to be the possible Rubicon. Here's a four-point plan to regain the initiative on the issue.

Note: what follows is a purely tactical analysis. I make no claim in what follows as to the substantive validity of the tax policies discussed.

Almost every 'insurgent' political campaign that has hit it big in the past 50 years has gotten cold feet and gotten so cautious and mainstream that it alienated part of its base without getting much traction with swing voters. This certainly happened to the John Anderson campaign and the McCain campaign. It famously didn't happen to Goldwater or McGovern, which is why it keeps happening since then.

Personally, I think that while shifts to the center are ok, obvious pandering ones are not. Thus, any move has to be stage managed very carefully, or it ends up costing you more than you get.

The justly praised New Yorker profile of Dr. Dean suggested that Joe Trippi at least understands (understood?) this:

Last summer, Joe Trippi told U.S. News & World Report that he had given Dean a curious piece of advice: “I tell him the only way he can win is to believe in his heart he cannot win. We’ve got to act like we have nothing to lose.” That, as they say, was then. When I asked Dean, in mid-October, whether he still subscribed to the Trippi wisdom, he replied, “In part. I think the problem with the Democratic Party in general is that they’ve been so afraid to lose they’re willing to say whatever it takes it to win. And once you’re willing to say whatever it takes to win, you lose—because the American people are much smarter than folks in Washington think they are. Do I still believe it? I think you have to be ready to move forward and not just try to hold on to what you’ve got. I truly believe that if you’re not moving forward you’re moving backwards in life. There’s no such thing as neutral.”

But compare that line to the distilled conventional wisdom chatter in today's The Note [unstable link!]:

The Boston Globe's Glen Johnson and Michael Kranish elucidate the apparently evolving nature of Dean's thoughts on tax cuts. LINK

“Rival campaigns seized on the statements by Dean and his aides as evidence that he is 'flip-flopping' on his tax plans. They also said it is inconsistent with his relentless criticism of them for wanting to retain the middle-class elements of the Bush administration tax cuts. But Dean aides defended the evolving policy.”

“The governor has always said that he is going to offer a tax plan that is fair and simple for working families. He's never ruled out a middle-class tax cut. The plan is not complete yet,' Dean campaign spokesman Douglass Thornell said as Dean and his entourage flew back to Vermont from Iowa.”

Los Angeles Times' Matea Gold reports that the potential shift (or alleged shift) comes “as he has fielded criticism from some of his rivals for wanting to roll back the entire $1.7-trillion Bush tax cut package, a move opponents say would burden working people.” LINK

In a story about Dems and tax cuts, The New York Times ' Robin Toner Notes Dean's “sudden scrambling” on the issue. LINK

That doesn't sound so good.

So, here's my four-point plan as to what to do and how to spin it.

First, dump your tax plan. That quote about repealing all of Bush's tax cuts will be wrapped around your neck and other delicate parts of your anatomy.

Second, steal Gen. Clark's plan — the pundits seem to like it — with maybe some minor tweaks here and there.

Third — and this is the radical part — admit you stole Clark's plan. In fact, don't just admit, brag about it. After all, it's traditional for a nominee to pick up parts of rivals' programs for the general election. Why wait? Say that this just demonstrates what a great guy Clark is, and that it also demonstrates that you approach public policy like a doctor or scientist. When someone comes up with a better treatment for a sick patient (Bush's economy) you don't hold on to the old method just because you are used to it. You read the medical journals, you keep up with developments, you rely on peer review, you use the latest and greatest techniques.

Let the Republicans (or the Democrats!) scream “flip-flop”. Tell them you are proud of it. Unlike traditional politicians you listen. You don't have ego in your plan, you want what is best for America, and your experts have convinced you that this was better than version 1.0. Say that Presidents who are prisoners of an ideology are bad Presidents. Good ones listen and learn. To the charge that this means voters can't know what you stand for, you say it shows you stand for what is best for America, whoever thought it up. Then find something (minor!) Bush did you like and say, you even agree with Bush on some things. Wanna make something of it?

Fourth, junk your plan to announce the new tax policy in a few weeks and do it right now, before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Why now? Because there is some danger of not meeting expectations, or of having Clark exceed them, and in either case stealing his plan after the fact will look weak rather than bold.

Harsh Words About the National Reconnaissance Agency (2002)

OK, this is hardly breaking news, but it was new to me. I thought that hiding a billion dollars or so to build themselves a marble-plated office building showed bureaucratic smarts; misplacing a couple of billion on the other hand, didn't sound so smart. To hear Dave Thompson, President & CEO, Spectrum Astro tell it at the Space Technology Hall of Fame Dinner in 2002, the National Reconnaissance Agency (NRO), had “posted a sorry decline into mediocrity and aristocracy.”

Among the charges: its satellites cost more and are technologically inferior to other agencies'. They fail too often. The agency makes choices poorly, favoring friendly contractors. And the NRO has no desire to change, or to innovate to help catch Al Qaeda. (Good news for 'Ossama bin Forgotten'?)

the NRO's procurement policy could be better described in three steps. I call this the policy of the smoked filled room. Step one - get all of the graybeards into the smoke filled room. Step two - close the door. Step three - pick the club member contractor who sucked up best.

As a result the “NRO is actually moving backwards, getting less capability and fielding less capable technology for the future. You know the NRO's real slogan should be “Buying Yesterday's Technology at Tomorrow’s Prices.”

And it gets worse:

The NRO has suffered a shocking decline in the technical performance of its satellites over the past several years. They haven't told you about that because it’s been kept behind those doors.

At an unclassified level, let me describe how serious this is, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. Satellites, where the primary mission payload failed a few days after launch. Satellites - where components got so hot that they actually melted causing mission failure due to thermal analysis failures, something that we've known about since the 1960's. Satellites - which after spending billions of dollars in development cannot perform their basic housekeeping functions, which we've been demonstrating again since the 1960's. Satellites - which again, after spending billions of dollars in development, the primary payload does not meet its basic performance specifications. It's the NRO's own version of the Hubble Space Telescope. And that satellite that we spent the extra two hundred million on for the light switch, it had constant power upsets to its computer once it got in orbit. Many satellites never even got launched as they meandered their way through years of technical and program management mismanagement. Yet no one was held accountable.

I can't even describe many more technical disasters, as it would be too revealing. Everything that I just described to you, and much more, was just swept quietly under the rug.

…

Last but not least, the NRO exhibits an astounding lack of revolutionary innovation to get Al Qaeda. It's not because of a lack of good ideas. They are getting tons of good ideas thrown at them. The overrunning large programs are sucking every possible dollar out of the future cutting-edge projects. What is the NRO's staffs answer to that? “We need more money.”

Maybe things have changed in the last year and a half. But that's not the way big bureaucracies usually work…

Club For Growth "Dean Tax Calculator"

Here's a cute use of the Internet by anti-Dean forces: the Club for Growth, the folks with what sounds like a bizzaro anti-Dean TV commercial have a web site with a Dean Tax Calculator which purports to estimate, as they so sweetly put it “how much hard-earned money Howard Dean wants to steal from you.”

Dean may have stolen a march on the use of the net, but this Presidential campaign may work on Internet time….

Bush Labor Dept. Explains to Employers How to Avoid Paying Overtime

You'd think the Labor department was about helping workers, at least in an election year. But not this one. The Dept. is preparing new rules which will no longer require that employers pay millions of higher-paid employees overtime; in the future, however, 1.3 million low-paid employees (paid under $22.1K per year) who are not covered by the current overtime requirement will have to get time and half if they work over 40 hours. In a combination of chutzpah and political ham-handedness, the Bush Labor department is explaining to employers how, they can evade this new rule in order to keep down their lowest-paid workers' pay packets: they could, for example, cut hourly wages, so that with the overtime the total pay remains the same.

The AP story explaining this was in the Miami Herald, but doesn't seem to have made either the NYT or the Washington Post. It contains the most bald-faced denials of reality by a press spokesman, one Ed Frank, I've seen for a long time: Despite publishing instructions on how to avoid paying workers extra for overtime, “We're not saying anybody should do any of this.” Right. We're just explaining their options to them very carefully. Let's nominate Mr. Frank for a Ron Ziegler Award. [Sadly, Tammy McCutchen can't be included among the nominees, because she's an administrator, not a press secretary. Even though she's the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division administrator who said that making a “payroll adjustment” which lowers hourly wages but keeps the total including overtime constant, one that results “in virtually no, or only a minimal increase in labor costs,” is not a pay cut.]

In fairness, I should note that the Labor Dept. also lists raising base salary above the threshold as another way to avoid paying overtime (although for workers near the cap, this 'raise' may paradoxically reduce their total takehome when they are required to do substantial ovetime).

The Labor Department is giving employers tips on how to avoid paying overtime to some of the 1.3 million low-income workers who would become eligible under new rules expected to be finalized early this year.

The department's advice comes even as it touts the $895 million in increased wages that it says those workers would be guaranteed from the reforms.

Among the options for employers: cut workers' hourly wages and add the overtime to equal the original salary, or raise salaries to the new $22,100 annual threshold, making them ineligible.

…

A final rule, revising the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, is expected to be issued in March. The act defines the types of jobs that qualify workers for time-and-a-half if they work more than 40 hours a week.

Overtime pay for the 1.3 million low-income workers has been a selling tool for the Bush administration in trying to ease concerns in Congress about millions of higher-paid workers becoming ineligible.

But the Labor Department, in a summary of its plan published in March, suggests how employers can avoid paying overtime to those newly eligible low-income workers.

“Most employers affected by the proposed rule would be expected to choose the most cost-effective compensation adjustment method,” the department said. For some companies, the financial impact could be “near zero.”

Employers' options include:

• Adhering to a 40-hour workweek.

• Raising workers' salaries to a new $22,100 annual threshold, making them ineligible for overtime pay.

If employers raise a worker's salary “it means they're getting a raise — that's not a way around overtime,” Frank said. The current threshold is $8,060 per year.

• Making a “payroll adjustment” that results “in virtually no, or only a minimal increase in labor costs,” the department said. Workers' annual pay would be converted to an hourly rate and cut, with overtime added in to equal the former salary.

Essentially, employees would be working more hours for the same pay.

The department does not view the “payroll adjustment” option as a pay cut. Rather, it allows the employer to “maintain the pay at the current level” with the new overtime requirements, said the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division administrator, Tammy McCutchen.

Labor unions criticized the employer options.

Mark Wilson, a lawyer for the Communications Workers of America who specializes in overtime issues, said the Bush administration was protecting the interests of employers at the expense of workers.

“This plan speaks volumes about the real motives of this so-called family-friendly administration,” Wilson said.

He says cutting workers' pay to avoid overtime is illegal, on the basis of a 1945 Supreme Court ruling and a 1986 memo by the Labor Department under President Reagan.

But McCutchen disagreed. If changes were made week to week to avoid overtime, they would be illegal. A one-time change is not, she said.

“We had a lot of lawyers look at this rule. We would not have put that in there if we thought it was illegal,” she said.

“Unless you have a contract, there is no legal rule … prohibiting an employer from either raising your salary or cutting your salary,” she said. “We do not anticipate employers will cut people's pay.”

Campaign Medals for the 'War on Terror'. Really.

To this administration, nothing is above political meddling (or is that medaling?): Medals Couple Two Conflicts (washingtonpost.com) reports that not only is the administration trying to lump the Afghanistan and Iraq wars under a single global 'war against terrorism' rubric for the purpose of campaign medals — a break with tradition — but that it also wants the backroom armchair warriors in that 'war' to be able to get the same medal as people who got shot at.

“The decision not to issue separate medals seems to be the work of people who do not appreciate the importance of the values that help form a strong military culture,” added retired Army Col. John Antal, a former tank commander, who edits a magazine devoted to military history. “Politicians should be very careful when they tinker with the system that reinforces the critical values that help make our military the most capable in the world.”

But Pentagon officials say the issue is closed.

President Bush's authorization of the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, they say, is appropriate, given the nature of the worldwide battle against terrorists and in terms of precedent in previous conflicts.

Bush also authorized creation of the Global War on Terrorism Service Medalto recognize those who provided support in the conflict from outside the theater of operations and those who participated in operations to protect the homeland, called Operation Noble Eagle.

…

The defense official said there is ample precedent for awarding soldiers a single medal “for their contributions in many different locations,” citing a single decoration, the Southwest Asia Service Medal, for operations associated with the 1991 Gulf War and its aftermath. The official also cited the campaign medals awarded for service in either the Pacific or European theaters of operation in World War II, not service in particular countries. That level of service was instead denoted by individual bronze stars worn on the theater ribbon for service in particular campaigns.

Similarly, commanders in the global war on terrorism, the official said, will be authorized “to award individual battle stars for those who participate in particular combat engagements.”

But Antal said the World War II precedent does not support a single decoration for the global war on terrorism. “Imagine how silly it would have appeared in World War II,” he said, “if we did not issue European Theater of Operations and Pacific Theater of Operations ribbons but instead issued a generic 'war against fascism medal.' “

Two Great Debunkings

Mark A. R. Kleiman: Anatomy of a fake scandal writes about the creation of what appears (from all we know) to be a totally fake scandal about Howard Dean's $15K in bank stocks.. Kleiman gets it, I'd say, exactly right.

How sad to see the Wall Street Journal reporters, traditionally models of journalism, descend into the gutter with their colleagues on the NY Daily News (and WSJ editorial page…).

Meanwhile, Josh Micah Marshall elegantly and surgically takes apart the attempt by neocons to label their critics as anti-semites (yes, they really do that—truth is stranger than fiction).

Remember, the real anti-semite is here. Yet have any newspapers cancelled his column? Not likely.

Daily Howler Back From Hiatus

Yes, the incomparable Daily Howler is at last back from vacation.

Bush in 30 Seconds Ads: More Misses than Hits

The clever people at moveon.org have released the finalists in their Bush in 30 seconds contest. Entrants were asked to make a 30-second anti-Bush TV commercial.

Although impressive in many ways, overall the entries were ultimately somewhat disappointing. I think many made basic errors of playing to the choir rather than to the unconverted, and in particular would seem shrill to many voters.

Below I set out my biases going into ranking the entries, and then my (somewhat contrary) conclusion as to which one is the best.

1. It's more important for the spot to appeal to people who don't already agree Bush is a disaster than it is that it appeal to those who already see the light
   
2. Funny spots are bad unless they are perfect. There is an enormous danger of being seen to trivialize important things. Thus for example Hood Robbing wouldn't work, and even the cleverer Bush's Repair Shop just isn't quite perfect enough.
   
3. The spot absolutely must not in any way suggest the voter is anything less than noble and wonderful. Politics is about hope (or fear) but not about negative self-images. Thus, for example, Wake Up America might seem like a clever spot to those who think “America” is “asleep” but the image of the unshaven, groggy, sleeper is unlikely to appeal to those who are asked to accept its unflattering self-image.

   [Update: Alex Halavais's favorite, Imagine, also fails on this: telling people to “THINK” does not evoke IBM, it suggests that you believe they don't think unless you tell them to think (or what to think). Won't sell. Not to mention that many people like the idea of saving money for corporations, on the theory that it lowers prices; in general the focus on 'evil corporations' rather than 'Bush chums' comes off as shrill to the point of implausible. Plus the first speaker looks like Max Headroom, and the key line is spoken by a guy who looks like many fine programmers I know, but will shout, or at least mumble, “drugged out hippie liberal freak” to key parts of l'Amérique profonde.]
   

4. The spot must not even suggest the existence of any fact not in evidence. Polygraph fails on this unless there was an actual polygraph result of Bush's statements.
   
5. The spot can't be too shrill, and can't directly insult the Head of State. Bush's Repair Shop flirts with this. And, most of the 15 finalists not named here fail on this. It's easy to see how this could happen, as there's so much to be shrill about. But this is PR, folks.
   
6. The spot can't require too much thought to get the point. Among the ones that take more than one second's thought are Child's Pay, and Desktop (recall that half the country doesn't have a computer; and very few of us have Macs!).
   
7. It helps if the spot is inspiring, although in an 'attack' ad that's almost impossible.

My runners up:
Bankrupt (production values like a great movie trailer, but verging dangerously on shrill), The human cost of war (ditto), and In my country (my favorite in many ways, but I don't think it would play as well in [much of] Florida, much less Peoria; plus some viewers may tune out in the first 5 seconds — use it in urban markets only?)

And (IMHO) the winner is:
What Are We Teaching Our Children. Given what I said above, this may seem a strange choice, as this spot is pretty funny. But I think it is funny in a perfect way, and using children to make the point (with the parental reaction shots—the noble voter is above this stuff!), delivers the zing with just the right amount of sting. The spot also has great psychological resonances, as it not only pokes fun at Bush's conduct, but it surreptitiously plays on one of his weaknesses — the perception that he's a bit childlike and maybe not quite up to the job.

Hacking Is Not Politics As Usual

I've just started reading Talk Left, and mostly I like it, but I disagree strongly with the recent suggestion there that concern over the likely breaking and entering into the Democrats' Judiciary Committee computer files is just a “pointless distraction” from the selection of judges, or that the hack was politics as usual. I think that's too close to Republican spin ('ignore our crimes but your politics are treason', cf. Today's Political Vocabulary Lesson.) Also, there's reason to believe that this is a more general phenomenon that started with the breakin to the Democratic computer files on the Intelligence committee, see Second Data Point on Theft of Democratic Memos. If there is any sort of organized Republican hacking campaign into democratic Senate files, that deserves to found out and exposed and prosecuted. Hacking into private files is not — should not be — politics as usual.

And the Democrats ought to get gnu PGP ASAP.

An Odd Omission

Am I the only one who found it odd that in a long article devoted to the rise of Asian-Americans in politics, In One Suburb, Local Politics With Asian Roots, the New York Times's Patricia Leigh Brown never uses either of the words “Republican” or “Democratic”?

US Iraq Military Casualties Running Over 10%?!?

Col. David Hackworth (ret) writes in Saddam in the Slammer, so why are we on Orange?,

Even I – and I deal with that beleaguered land seven days a week – was staggered when a Pentagon source gave me a copy of a Nov. 30 dispatch showing that since George W. Bush unleashed the dogs of war, our armed forces have taken 14,000 casualties in Iraq – about the number of warriors in a line tank division.

We have the equivalent of five combat divisions plus support for a total of about 135,000 troops deployed in the Iraqi theater of operations, which means we’ve lost the equivalent of a fighting division since March. At least 10 percent of the total number of Joes and Jills available to the theater commander to fight or support the occupation effort have been evacuated back to the USA!

This is indeed a staggering statistic. The breakdown isn't much better:

Lt. Col. Scott D. Ross of the U.S. military's Transportation Command told me that as of Dec. 23, his outfit had evacuated 3,255 battle-injured casualties and 18,717 non-battle injuries.

Of the battle casualties, 473 died and 3,255 were wounded by hostile fire.

Following are the major categories of the non-battle evacuations:

Orthopedic surgery – 3,907

General surgery – 1,995

Internal medicine – 1,291

Psychiatric – 1,167

Neurology – 1,002

Gynecological – 491

Sources say that most of the gynecological evacuations are pregnancy-related, although the exact figure can’t be confirmed – Pentagon pregnancy counts are kept closer to the vest than the number of nuke warheads in the U.S. arsenal.

Ross cautioned that his total of 21,972 evacuees could be higher than other reports because “in some cases, the same service member may be counted more than once.”

The Pentagon has never won prizes for the accuracy of its reporting, but I think it’s safe to say that so far somewhere between 14,000 and 22,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have been medically evacuated from Iraq to the USA.

Although I enjoyed Hackworth's book, About Face, I thought it seriously glossed over the reasons he got into trouble in Vietnam, and have always been suspicious about the “legend in his own mind” aspect of his writing. Despite all that, I have to admit he's been one of the most diligent reporters of the Iraq War — he actually gets facts.

Spineless Press, Pointless Press Conferences

Please read this account of the latest GWB “Press Conference,” Cage Match - Matt Taibbi [link fixed]. I submit that it makes the case strongly for my modest and practical proposal for improving White House press conferences.

The NYT Gets It--Eventually

When I was a kid, I thought the New York Times was the epitome of journalism. I've learned better. By law school, I was receptive to Charles L. Black Jr.'s warning that “The New York Times is a slim reed” for the support of justice and good causes. But here's one where the NYT editorial board gets it right. OK, it's at least 2 years after everyone else figured this out….

Yet whatever the reason, some formerly reliably Republican doctrines seem to have disappeared. Federalism is a case in point. After decades of extolling state governments as the best laboratory for new ideas, Republicans in Washington have been resisting state experimentation in areas ranging from pollution control to antispam legislation to prescription drugs.

Late-20th-century Republicanism was an uneasy alliance of social conservatives — who were comfortable with government intervention in citizens' lives when it came to morality issues — and libertarians who wanted as little interference as possible. That balancing act ended on 9/11. Since then, the Justice Department has enlarged the intrusive powers of government by, among other things, authorizing “sneak and peek” searches of private homes and suspending traditional civil liberties for certain defendants. The story of the military chaplain who was arrested — apparently mistakenly — as a suspected terrorist and then wound up being publicly humiliated with a public vetting of his sex life seems like a summary of a libertarian's worst fears of an overreaching federal government.

The Republicans' newly acquired activism, however, has very clear limits. The modern party's key allegiance is to corporate America, and its tolerance for intrusive federal government ends when big business is involved. If there is a consistent center to the domestic philosophy of the current administration, it is the idea that business is best left alone. The White House and Congress have chipped away at environmental protections that interfere with business interests on everything from clean air to use of federal lands. The administration is determined to deliver on corporate America's goal of cutting overtime pay for white-collar workers. At the same time, it has been tepid in asserting greater federal vigilance over the developing scandal of workplace safety.

Republicans have always enjoyed their reputation as the champions of business. The difference now is that they no longer couple their business-friendly attitudes with tight-fistedness. Discretionary spending has jumped 27 percent in the last two years; budget hawks complain Congressional pork is up more than 40 percent. Some of that money has gone to buy the allegiance of wavering party members in the closely divided House and Senate, but much of it is directly tied to the demands of big business. Agriculture subsidies to corporate farms have swollen to new heights, while energy policy has been reduced to a miserable grab bag of special benefits for the oil, gas and coal companies. The last Bush energy bill, which passed the House but died in the Senate, seems likely to be remembered most for the now-famous subsidy for an energy-efficient Hooters restaurant in Louisiana.

The two halves of Republican policy no longer fit together. A political majority that believes in big government for people, and little or no government for corporations, has produced an unsustainable fiscal policy that combines spending on social programs with pork and tax cuts for the rich. Massive budget deficits have been the inevitable result. Something similar happened in the Reagan administration. But unlike Ronald Reagan, Mr. Bush has given no hint of a midcourse adjustment to repair revenue flow. In fact, his Congressional leaders talk of still more tax cuts next year to extend the $1.7 trillion already enacted. That would compound deficits, which could reach $5 trillion in the decade.

This, it appears, is what compassionate conservatism really means. The conservative part is a stern and sometimes intrusive government to regulate the citizenry, but with a hands-off attitude toward business. The compassionate end involves some large federal programs combined with unending sympathy for the demands of special interests. If only it all added up.

I Trust the Professional Prosecutors on This One

washingtonpost.com: Leaks Probe Is Gathering Momentum. The good news is that the professional prosecutors are getting heavily involved in the Plame Affair. The bad news is that Ashcroft isn't recusing himself. It sounds as if there is enough momentum here that if the professionals decided to prosecute there's no way Ashcroft could stop them. Worst case, he warns folks in the admnistration about what's coming down, most likely allowing damage control operations. (Very worst case, he sabotages the prosecutors by spilling beans, but I think that Justice has done all the obstruction it can get away with already, by giving the administration 24 hours to shred stuff before moving in to seal records.)

Threat Level Increases

The administration has raised the 'threat level' indicator. Note to self: Add

1. why the whole concept is asinine and
2. how the British do responsponses to terrorism so much better than we do

Do They Still Have Shame in New England?

Another example of why we need to bring back shame to politics. (Honor and decency would be better, but shame at least provides a decent simulacrum).

Having admitted he got free work on his home from contractors (bribes? kickbacks?) and from aides (theft of public services? extortion?), and then lied about it (amazingly, the press is clearly more comfortable saying this part was wrong), Connecticut Governor Roland is hanging tough: Rowland Vows to Stay On as Governor. It's not even his first offense! “Earlier this year, Mr. Rowland paid a State Ethics Commission fine for paying less than market value for vacations at home owned by people who did business with the state.”

That there is as little shame among the political class in New England as there is in California is hardly surprising. What's interesting is whether the New England public is quite as inured to this as the folks who voted for Schwarzenegger. The NYT story suggests that it might not just blow over: A University of Connecticut poll released this week showed that 55 percent of Connecticut residents thought the governor should resign. Four newspapers called for him to step aside and some lawmakers have even talked about the possibility of impeachment.”

Wouldn't it be a change to have an impeachment trial about an impeachable offense?

An Interesting Analysis of Bush Poll Numbers

Conventional wisdom will soon converge on the surprising failure of the Saddam capture to produce any long-term move US public opinion. You read it here first (don't miss the “chopped down Christmas Tree”!).

Rectitude, Where Art Thou?

Mark A. R. Kleiman nails part of the Schwarzenegger mendacity: A governor whose word is his junk bond. The other part, of course, is that (never plausible) the promise to balance the state budget and protect school funding is already inoperative.

Politicians used to have to pretend to be honest. I miss shame. How do we bring it back?

Victory Has a Hundred Press Officers

The Miami Herald | 12/10/2003 | Pentagon, press wage war over coverage is a nice but fairly conventional op-ed piece by Reuven Frank, the former President of NBC News, concerning just how tightly the Pentagon and the White House try to control news coverage coming out of Iraq. If you read papers and blogs regularly you won't learn anything new; if you don't this is a great catch-up. Its conclusion, however, is priceless:

President Kennedy said after the Bay of Pigs fiasco that victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan. In Iraq today, victory has a hundred press officers; defeat is classified.

Why Gore's Endorsement is Canny and Statesmanlike

All the bloggers I read are so busy finding deep meanings in the Gore endorsement of Dean that they don't give enough weight to the obvious aspects of the timing. The past 7-10 days of the Democratic contest have seen the candidates begin to go overtly negative about each other, even in TV ads. That helps Bush and hurts the eventual nominee whoever he is.

If you are Al Gore, the thing you want most out of this next election is for Bush to lose. Preferably to lose big. If Bush were to win, it could have some retrospective legitimating effect on the 2000 election. If Bush loses, and especially if he loses big, history will be brutal. If I were Gore that is what I would most want.

By endorsing now, Gore helps cement Dean's frontrunner status and cuts down on (nothing short of a Clinton endorsement can eliminate) the internecine sparring that is grist for the Republican mill in the general election. That's canny. It's also statesmanlike.

The only part of this I don't understand is the failure to make at least a courtesy call to Lieberman. One would think he was owed that, unless there is some hidden bad blood somewhere. Lieberman was not very helpful to Gore during the period after the election, while Florida was in doubt, and perhaps that has something to do with it?

Dean's Supporters Are What's Best About His Campaign

Stuff like this from Escapable Logic illustrate what's best about the Dean campaign.

I could be a ferverent supporter but for the fear that grips me. Not of “McGovernite” tendencies for they are largely mythical. Not of the possiblity that this or something equally false and dumb will be seized on by the Republican smear machine, because that's inevitable whoever the candidate is, that's been the Bush family M.O. at least since I was campaigning against them in the Republican primaries in Connecticut in 1980.

No, what scares me is that while the candidate has a gift for being quite inspirational, he also has excellent aim for his own feet. The current records flap is a minor example, but a good one….although (on third try) his recovery is not bad….

(Oh yeah, the trade stuff bugs me too, but you can't have everything.)

Who Supports George Bush? Not Disabled Veterans

Part of the mystery of current politics is why other than (1) rich people getting tax cuts, (2) people for whom even small shifts in anti-abortion policies are everything, (3) those for whom larger shifts in subsidies to mainstream religion are worthwhile, and (4) corporate welfare recipients, there's anyone left who supports Bush.

As Matthew Yglesias notes there's something real mysterious about the current apparent political stasis in the face of Bush's abandonment of most traditional Republican policies.

But I'm beginning to doubt the stasis thesis. Could it be that the national polls are wrong and there's a giant subterranean shift going on? Consider the latest Miami Herald poll — high headline numbers for Bush but low 'would vote for' numbers. Plus, when viewed up close, traditionally GOP groups now contain elements quite hostile to Bush. See for example this striking Letter from an Army vet posted at, of all places, Salon.com.

Note to self: do not become hopeful. This leads to pain.

Orcinus Takes On the Modern Brownshirts

David Neiwert (aka Orcinus), has some very interesting and disturbing things to say about the sad and vicious state of political discourse. Start with his The Political and the Personal, then read his summary of the many reactions. The purpose of this essay isn't to agree or disagree, so much as muse aloud in his wake.

I don't personally have a formed view as to the psychology of either the modern brownshirts or of their fellow travelers. As Sinclair Lewis brilliantly explored in his vastly under-appreciated novel It Can't Happen Here, many of the people who go along with brownshirts do so out of simple opportunism. Which is why the Republican party's actions that seek to entrench their political victories economically by taxing Democratic-voting districts and transferring money to Republican-voting ones is for me as least as worrying and cynical as anything they say. Similarly, the strategy of imposing today's costs on tomorrow's citizens (huge deficits that are not spent on investments likely to repay their costs) presents a serious problem; were there to be a serious economic repercussion — like OPEC going off the dollar, or world markets choosing to hold more Euros and sending back a chunk of the dollar overhang, then we'd see the true cost of this fecklessness.

I am not quite as persuaded as Orcinus that today's political rhetoric is that much worse than what I recall from the early 70s—or even that much more respectable than invective was then. Seems to me that I remember Nixon, Agnew, and a bunch of other politicians and commentators were fairly vicious towards Vietnam War protestors. And some people acted out then too. It was bad then, it's bad now, but what seems worse today isn't the rhetoric so much as what it covers up or distracts from.

One thing that is different today is that structural features of the media tend to favor the brownshirts' fellow travelers (few of the brownshirts themselves are rich enough to own media — they are the guests). I do think that the impact of what is sometimes called the Mighty Wurlitzer - the vast echo-chamber of the right-wing propaganda machine - remains under appreciated. (The appropriation of the term Might Wurlitzer for this is somewhat unfortunate, as it originally denoted a CIA-funded plot to hire journalists and salt their work. There is absolutely no evidence that I'm aware of suggesting that the modern equivalent of the five-minute hate campaign is funded or directed by a government agency.) Whether the modern, private, propaganda machine is self-organized, or more centrally funded and directed, is less important than the legal regime that protects and enables it and which it in turn reinforces: media concentration, abandonment of requirements that holders of valuable monopolies on public airwaves make an attempt at balance, and a reality (with many causes) in which Clinton was savaged even worse than he deserved, and candidates like Bush and Schwarzenegger can say blatantly false things and only the blogs seem to care.

If radio and TV networks and cable were really after ratings, wouldn't they direct slightly more than half of their political programming to the majority who voted for Gore (not to mention the Naderites)? Is the Republican demographic so much more valuable — or more willing to watch TV and listen to AM radio? — than the Democratic one?

Another worrying difference is the openness with which government power is deployed to stifle dissent. The Nixon folk did much of their worst in secret. We have no idea what the current lot are up to in secret—it's not pleasant to think—but what is being done in the open is quite bad enough, from coralling protestors in Newspeaked 'Free Speech Zones' where no one can see them, to the Constitution-free zone in Guantánamo, to the rights-free zone in the Navy Brig, all these are done right there for all to see. There is no shame, just triumphalism in the exercise of power.

There's a lot of ruin in a nation, and we can surely weather all this. But it would be easier if it would stop already. Or at least by next November.

Grave Threat to National Security Apprehended

Atrios reports that they have caught the Republican hacker who'd been purlioning Democratic memos at the Senate Intel committee. Recall that according to no less an august figure than the Chair of the committee, the publication of one such purloined memo compromised the war on terror.

Second Data Point on Theft of Democratic Memos

Last week it seems that Republicans managed to purloin a Democratic memo relating to the Senate Intelligence committee — either from a computer or a trash can. At the same time, someone was stealing Democratic memos relating to the Senate Judiciary committee: Apparent Theft Of Democratic Memos Probed (washingtonpost.com).

Republican hacker at large?

Robert Kagan Explains Why Dean Is No McGovern

No George McGovern (washingtonpost.com). Robert Kagan can read, and he's no prisoner of anyone's dogma but his own. So he doesn't accept the Republican spin points about Howard Dean.

On the contrary, he sees what I see: Howard Dean is no peacenick at all — he's squarely inside the somewhat militaristic consensus of the center-right foreign policy establishment. Dean just thought the Iraq war was unwise and unnecessary — and was able to say so because he had nothing to lose. (I suspect many others thought the same thing at the time but had more to lose and kept quiet.)

Kagan delivers a few jabs, but they are above the belt. The first is that Dean will disappoint the most dovish Democrats.

That's true, and it could hurt Dean in the primaries (but probably won't as campaign cognitive dissonance is setting in among his supporters), although it makes Dean more electable in the long run. As Kagan puts it, “The Bushies are planning to run against a dovish McGovern, but there's a remote possibility they could find themselves running against a hawkish Kennedy.”

The second jab is that “the rest of the world should note well … that the general course of American foreign policy is fairly stable and won't be soon toppled — not even by Howard Dean.” That's true — but only if you count Bush and the maniacally unilateralist Velociraptors at the Defense Department as outside the US foreign policy consensus. Any democrat running will return to the pre-Bush vision that our alliances are worth maintaining, the UN has a place in the world, and not every treaty (other than anti-democratic trade deals) is a mugging.

Fools and Consistency

“A fooling consistency,” Oliver Wendell Holmes Ralph Waldo Emerson [this should teach me not to blog on the road, but probably won't] famously wrote, “is the hobgoblin of little minds.” All too often abbreviated to leave out the first two words (which of course imply that much consistency is not at all foolish), the insight captures something deeply true and more than a little unsettling about the evolution of the common law. The common law does change to fit the times and to fit new circumstances. The price of this capacity to mutate is indeed some occasional illogic and some inconsistency with precedent. When things are going well, we at least manage to treat like cases alike for the moment, remaining fully conscious that our ideas of what is “like” and “different” are things we lawyers both construct and soak up from the legal and social cultures we inhabit. And we fight about which sorts of consistency are wise, and which are foolish.

I was thinking about Holmes's Emerson's aphorism this morning as I read the news about Washington and Iraq. It seems we need to reverse the aphorism to capture something more than a little true and deeply unsettling about the course of United States foreign policy. I don't mean the Bush doctrine of US supremacy and unilateralism, which is certainly consistent and arguably foolish. Rather, I mean the Bush policy towards the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq. Having said loudly and often that the US must stay the course, not cut and run, etc. etc., the Administration now shows disturbing signs of what the Brits call 'wobble'.

Item: The administration has already announced planned troop reductions at a time when violence is increasing, not decreasing.

Item: The administration has announced that Iraqi's being recruited for policing duties will be given abbreviated training and rushed into service.

Item: Amidst reports that the hand-picked Iraqi Governing Council is corrupt, slow and dysfunctional, the administration has announced that it wishes to transfer responsibility to it more quickly than originally planned.

Item: The CIA reports the US is losing the hearts and minds of (a good chunk of) the Iraqi populace.

Item: Bush poll numbers are slipping at home, especially about the conduct of the war/'peace'.

We thus face the potential that the velociraptor tendency in the foreign policy establishment will take the inconsistent position of declaring victory and running, or at least running down the US/'coalition' presence, while the opposition, and more liberal, strategists stick to the 'we broke it, we bought it' view that whatever the merits of the original intervention (if any), it would be wrong to create an anarchistic political vacuum.

The political problem this creates, of course, is that it sets up an election in which the Democrats can be portrayed, however subliminally, as wearing the millstone of wishing to perpetuate an unpopular occupation, while the Republicans claim they are the party of extrication and victory.

On the one hand, it's amazing to even imagine that Bush could start a war, abandon it, and then blame Democrtats for opposing it (“McGovernitnes!”) and not supporting his means of ending it. On the other hand, the Dem's willingness to be 'tough' on 'winning the peace' may just maybe serve to deflect the McGovernite aspersion.

And, of course, any such Bush strategy puts big hostages to fortune, for if things were to go really badly in Iraq, someone might notice, even after most troops are out and the casualties are down. In particular, a cut and run strategy would be especially vulnerable to a return of Saddam Hussein…which can only put more pressure on those special commando units that have been tasked with finding him.

I do not think that an unwillingness to cut and run is a foolish consistency. But it's not obvious that even if Holmes's Emerson's aphorism speaks to the common law, in this day of sound-bite debate it has as much to say to national politics.

White House Caves on 9/11 Documents

Yahoo! News - White House, 9-11 Panel OK Documents Deal.

Basically the White House just caved to the 9-11 investigators on this one in the face of a threat of a subpoena (and falling poll numbers…). The full Commission won't access the documents—which include the Presidential Daily Brief—instead only a sub-committee (picked by the committee) will get access. That means there's a fig leaf for the White House. But the sub-committee can share what it learns with the rest of the committee. So it's a pretty threadbare fig leaf.

The AP story gives one account of what the fuss might have been about (in addition to any administration's natural institutional reluctance to share intel with investigators), which it says is a year old, but I had never heard before:

The White House confirmed last year that one such report in August 2001, a month before the attacks, mentioned that al-Qaida might try to hijack U.S. passenger planes. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) has described the report as an analysis, rather than a warning, and said hijacking was mentioned in a traditional sense, not as it was used on Sept. 11.

How Dean Bagged 2 Unions

The Washington Post tells the official inside story of how Dean bagged the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) endorsements.

Gephardt's reaction: AFSCME “turned over the country to the Republicans for four more years.” But by the time you finish the story, you think Gephardt's wrong.

For example, there's Dean's arrogance — the good kind, the kind that wins elections:

at the beginning of their discussions, Dean was not on either union's list of likely endorsees. Last December, at one of their first meetings, Stern asked Dean if there was any way he could help him, thinking he could open some union doors to the little-known candidate. “He said, 'Well you can endorse me,' which I thought was a pretty bold, first opening comment,” Stern said. “And I said, 'Well, we're a little far away from that,' and he said, 'Well, if you endorse me, I'm going to be president.' “

And there's hard work.

The SEIU offered all the candidates the same resources: a list of their local leadership and a warning that the route to the endorsement began not in Stern's fifth-floor office on L Street NW but through the rank and file. “Everybody got the same advice,” an SEIU official said. “Howard Dean took it to heart.” No other candidate came close to Dean's outreach. “Shockingly” not close, Stern said.

And then there's this:

[AFSCME President] McEntee had also asked two top advisers, executive assistant Lee Saunders and political action director Larry Scanlon, to go out and look at the headquarters operations of the campaigns. When they got to Dean's Burlington headquarters in late October, they found energy, innovative use of technology, fundraising prowess and a clear strategy for winning.

“They were blown away in Burlington,” McEntee said.

The Administration Takes Advantage of Lie Fatigue

This story should be page one in every major paper, but as far as I can tell from a search on news.yahoo.com, the only paper in the land to carry it is the Ocala [Fl.] Star Banner: Rumsfeld retreats, disclaims earlier rhetoric: Rumsfeld denies he ever made several pre-war statements.

Think about it. The Secretary of Defense is either delusional, or a really stupid, clumsy liar. Asked about his claims that the Iraqi people would welcome us with open arms, he didn't try to argue that most of the country (by area, not population volume) welcomes the US-led invasion, but rather denied he had ever said it:

“Never said that,” he said. “Never did. You may remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. You can't find, anywhere, me saying anything like either of those two things you just said I said.”

But he had. On TV.

It used to be that brazen lying was bad for political figures (for example, Gary Hart). Is there some special reason that Rumsfeld gets a free pass? Or is the media, the nation, so saturated with Administration lies that it has stopped caring? Or is it that 'objective' journalism as practiced today doesn't allow reporters to point out lies, just to report if someone else — and it has to be a heavyweight politician, a mere web site doesn't count — tries to make an issue of the lies? (Calling Sen. Daschle's office. Calling Sen. Daschle's office. Why is the lead item on your homepage meat labeling rules???)

The Ocala Star-Banner has an average daily circulation of about 50,000.

ABC's The Note Has 18 Things To Say About Howard Dean

It looks increasingly like the two main things between Howard Dean and the Democratic nomination are…his mouth and his temper. Given that a bunch of Democratic candidates have been excoriated for wimpishness (Carter, Dukakis, Mondale, Gore but importantly not Clinton), maybe this is the risk one has to take to have a winner. ABCNEWS.com : The Note, the purveyors and shapers of conventional wisdom, have 18 interesting observations about Dr. Dean. I was especially struck by numbers 8, 9, 14 & 18:

1. Dean will raise more money in the year before the election than anyone else seeking the Democratic nomination, and that historically in the modern era is (with one exception) the iron-clad predictor of who wins in both parties.

2. Beyond money, this year Dean has dominated in message and media, two other fabu things to have.

3. None of the other candidates can overtake Dean in the fourth quarter — they can theoretically do damage to him (although, outside damage with the Chattering Class, we doubt that too), but they can't cripple him. There just aren't enough people paying attention yet.

4. What doesn't kill Howard Dean only makes him stronger.

5. Fair or unfair, the media has not held Dean to the same standards as the other major candidates. Wes Clark's entry into the race sucked up a lot of publicity and took the spotlight off of Dean at the one moment when critical mass was being reached.

6. At the same time, some of Dean's explanations for his alleged inconsistencies and flip flops are actually pretty convincing.

7. Dean's core supporters don't care about Sunday show gaffes and pratfalls, New York Times editorials, or what Terry McAuliffe or the Dingells think.

8. People actually listen to Dean talk at his events.

9. Dean's willingness to cede control to volunteers in the states for planning events and executing political activities is an act of confidence and strength, and has directly resulted in his drawing unprecedentedly large crowds and building genuine grassroots support.

10. Most Washington Democrats who are scared out of their wits about Howard Dean as their nominee have never been to a Dean event and don't have a genuine understanding of WHY he has succeeded this year.

11. Skipping the matching funds is a general election strategy, not a strategy for winning the nomination.

12. Governors do well as presidential candidates, and the members of Congress who are running against Dean still for the most part haven't learned not to talk like they are from Washington (“We CAN get Breaux-Gilchrest out of conference!!!! We can DO it!!!! And then passed by both chambers!!!”). Dean talks like a real person, and voters like that.

13. Dean is no newcomer to national politics; his work on the NGA and DGA (where he recruited ruthlessly) gives him as much applicable experience as almost anyone else running.

14. Howard Dean doesn't have cable TV.

15. Howard Dean has not developed a general-election winning message on the economy — yet.

16. Dean can theoretically win a general election race against President Bush, but not without growing significantly as a candidate and a person, including and especially in his rhetorical and symbolic relationship to faith, family, freedom, and national security.

17. All of the other five major candidates think they can and should be in the end the Dean Alternative, and each has enough hold on key state and national support that they have no incentive or desire to get out of the race and consolidate beyond one of the others. The pro-war candidates in particular are splitting a piece of the pie that is large, but it is still a SPLIT piece.

18. The people who work for DeanforAmerica have FUN, from the interns in Iowa to the senior stuff; the staffs for the other campaigns don't always remember to do that.

Just One More Step Away From Accountability

Daily Kos flags a Washington Post article on a new Bush administration tactic to avoid pesky questions from Congressional Democrats — simply announce that you will no longer answer them. Henceforth, the White House wll only aswer questions approved by (Republican) committee chairs. This ensures that nothing troubling will be asked, solving the problem of both volume and content in a single stroke.

Abstractly, you can imagine a world in which the flood of informational requests from the Congress begins to overwhelm the White House, although there is no evidence that we had reached that point. If the White House's response had been some sort of quota system, eg. N questions per representative per month get priority attention, the rest go to the bottom of the pile, I might understand that. In fact, however, the policy seems to be a response to questions about the provenance of the shipboard “Mission Accomplished” banner that Bush has been trying so hard to disown recently.

This is just dirty. And so is this White House statement, “It was not the intent to suggest minority members should not ask questions without the consent of the majority.” Right. In which case Director of the White House Office of Administration, Timothy A. Campen, should be fired quick, since he sent an email with a policy which can only be understood to do exactly that.

Given the unending stream of humiliations and provocations being visted on them, it would take saintly virtue for Congressional Democrats to refuse to retaliate in kind when, in due course, they become the majority party again. And while I tend to support Democrats more than other parties, I would not generally call them saintly.

Presidential Candidates Can Turn Feral

Presidential candidates in decline can turn feral (actually, the same is true of any politician who feels the ground sinking beneath him or her). Dean is beginning to build an inevitability meme — or at least to grow his campaign to the point where (1) even smart analysts are afraid to bet against him (I heard an analyst on NPR today refuse to say that Dean couldn't win votes in the South, noting that Dean keeps beating his expectations), and (2) the campaign dynamic begins to be 'is there anyone other than Clark to become the ABD candidate'.

As the air gets sucked out of other campaigns, we'll see their real test of character begin. Will the candidates do the decent thing for the party and stick to the high road, even though it means likely defeat for their own candidacy? Or will they do the expedient thing, and do George Bush's work for him by going nasty, mean and negative?

For no candidate is the choice as stark as for Senator John Kerry. For he has the most to lose by far from the Dean Machine: Not only does Kerry lose what's left of his (anointed within the Beltway) front-runner status, but alone of the serious candidates he has no hope of being chosen as Dean's Veep, since a Massachusetts Senator adds nothing to the ticket headed by a Vermont Governor.

Current indications are that, faced with this painful test of character, Kerry is flubbing it: Kerry Opens New Attacks Against Dean,

Democrat John Kerry accused presidential rival Howard Dean of lacking principles and flip-flopping on key issues Thursday, hoping to convert the front-runner's fumble over the Confederate flag into a sweeping indictment of Dean's policies and personality.

“I think Americans deserve straight talk. I think they ought to know who Howard Dean is,” the Massachusetts senator said.

Pity. I thought better of Kerry than that. Can't he ever throw away the consultant-driven campaign playbook?

We're Hosting the First Presidential Debate!

“The first debate will take place Sept. 30, 2004 at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla.” says this article.

Now, how do I get a ticket?

Actually, this isn't as great news as it could be, since rumor has it that U.M. will have to fork out serious cash as host institution….

More about the debate organizers.

Today's Political Vocabularly Lesson

If the administration lies to the nation about an imminent threat and drags us into a pre-emptive war that has nothing to pre-empt, then engages in denial and a cover-up, and tries to stonewall a Senatorial committee, all that is Patriotic. It is most certainly not Partisan and never, never, never even think that it might be a Plot. Oh my, no.

But suppose that Senators become concerned that the administration might be hiding something important to our national security like, maybe “misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war”. And suppose those Senators decide that the administration has no intention of ever releasing key documents, and certainly not before the next election, so they start discussing contingency plans to force the documents' release.

Well, that is not Patriotic because George Bush might not like it. No, that is a Plot by those awful Partisan, nay maybe treasonous people.

PS. Don't tell Osama, but according to the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee — who ought to know — the Global War on Terror™ is going so badly that it can be compromised by publication of a single memo. And who was it who went through the garbage to steal this document with this terrible possible effect on national security, and than ran to the media with it? It was Republicans? Oh. (Think that maybe heading off an independent inquiry is becoming an an important priority for the Republicans, who of course Have Nothing To Hide?)

Well, don't worry, children, it's still the Democrats' fault if you don't think about it too hard.

Accountability is Treason!
Stonewalling is Patriotic!
Fighting Terror Requires Unquestioning Obedience!

Nicholas Kristof Thinks 'Bush Lies' Is the Rosy Scenario

Brad DeLong has made a small industry of noting how the Bush administration lies by reflex (which is not at all the same thing as making it an art form). Sample titles:

• Is There Anything the Bush Administration Doesn't Lie About?
• Why Does the Bush Administration Lie All the Time?
• Why Are We Ruled by These Liars?

Nicholas D. Kristof has just woken up to this reality. But only partly — he blames the evil courtiers and partly exonerates the evil bosses duped by their henchmen. In Death by Optimism he recounts the following story:

Mr. Cheney has cited a Zogby International poll to back his claim that there is “very positive news” in Iraq. But the pollster, John Zogby, told me, “I was floored to see the spin that was put on it; some of the numbers were not my numbers at all.”

Mr. Cheney claimed that Iraqis chose the U.S. as their model for democracy “hands down,” and he and other officials say that a majority want American troops to stay at least another year. In fact, Mr. Zogby said, only 23 percent favor the U.S. democratic model, and 65 percent want the U.S. to leave in a year or less.

“I am not willing to say they lied,” Mr. Zogby said. “But they used a very tight process of selective screening, and when they didn't get what they wanted they were willing to manufacture some results… . There was almost nothing in that poll to give them comfort.”

Mr. Kristof is concerned by this. Not because a fish rots from the head, or because he thinks that this sort of behavior has been the G.W. Bush M.O. since at least his governorship, if not his career as a military deserter. No, Mr. Kristof thinks the Evil Courtiers are misleading that nice Mr. Bush and that clever Mr. Cheney, feeding them bad data and thus leading them down the path of self-delusion:

I wish administration officials were lying, because I would prefer hypocrisy to delusion — at least hypocritical officials make decisions with accurate information.

What evidence we have, however, suggests that the decision to invade Iraq did not depend on any data, true or false, but was a goal of the administration hawks when they took office. Bad data may have influenced the tactics, and the force levels, but there's nothing to suggest reality had much to do with the over-all strategy.

In any case, even if it were the case that the Evil Courtiers were lying to the Emperor, what creates the conditions in which this behavior is a successful strategy for the careerist courtier? Only a climate that punishes the truth.

So the scary thing is, Mr. Bush and his aides may not be lying when they look at Iraq and boast of a cheering population that a Western press sourly refuses to acknowledge. There's a precedent: Saddam Hussein.

Could anyone have imagined a year ago that Kristof or other establishment columnists would be comparing Bush to Saddam Hussein? Or that it wouldn't seem odd?

White House Isn't Handing Over Iraq Intel Documents

It seems that the Senator Paul Roberts now says he spoke too soon about the White House's willingness to cough up the Iraq Intel documents the Senate committee has requested.

Meanwhile relations between Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Intel Committee, traditionally a haven of bi-partisanship, appear to be breaking down badly. Senator Rockefeller, committee Vice-Chair, pretty much accused Republicans of going through his trash or breaking into his computer. And, for the first time that I'm aware of, the Vice-Chair gently threatened to use his subpoena power if necessary. Clearly neither side wants a fight now. But f the administration doesn't give in eventually, they may get fireworks much closer to the election.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday he spoke too hastily when he said the White House would provide his panel with the documents and interviews it is seeking for its inquiry on prewar intelligence on Iraq.

…

Roberts and Rockefeller have been at odds about the scope of the inquiry. Under Roberts' direction, the committee is examining whether intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs and ties to terrorists was properly collected and analyzed. Rockefeller and other Democrats also want to examine whether intelligence was manipulated by the administration to make the case for war.

Roberts said Tuesday a leaked strategy memo from Rockefeller's staff “exposes politics in its most raw form.”

The memo discusses strategy for “revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral pre-emptive war.” It discussed how Democrats could press for an independent investigation that has already been rejected by the Republican-led Congress or launch their own investigation.

In a statement, Roberts said that the memo “appears to be a road map for how the Democrats intend to politicize what should be a bipartisan, objective review of prewar intelligence.” The memo was disclosed by syndicated radio show host Sean Hannity.

In his own statement, Rockefeller the draft was not approved or shared with any member of the committee. He said it “was likely taken from a waste basket or through unauthorized computer access.”

He said, however, it “clearly reflects staff frustration with the conduct of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation and the difficulties of obtaining information from the administration.”

The letters to the administration agencies complained of their slowness to provide materials sought by the committee and set last Friday as the response deadline. The senators said they have received material from three of the agencies. But the White House, while saying it would work with the committee, has not agreed to comply.

On Sunday, Roberts announced on CNN that the White House had agreed to supply the requested documents and the interviews.

“I probably spoke too hastily,” Roberts said Tuesday. “When you are dealing with the White House, they want to make sure they are not getting into a precedent in regard to various documents used by the executive.”

He said a White House official, whom he declined to identify, left him with the impression last weekend the material would be provided. Asked if there was further communication after his remarks Sunday, he said, “Yeah — in the Monday Washington Post.”

He said White House comments in the newspaper distancing it from Roberts' statements “prompted meaningful dialogue between me and the White House.”

But he said he was satisfied with the outcome of the conversations. “I think we'll have a positive relationship, and I think the documents will be provided. And the interviews,” he said.

Rockefeller wasn't as confident.

“It's very hard for me to come to believe that the White House is going to cooperate on things which potentially could put them in a different light,” he said, speaking separately to reporters.

Rockefeller said if the committee doesn't receive the material it seeks, the leaders will call the department heads, “and the next step after that one considers very, very carefully the subpoena option.”

“This is not a game,” he said. “This is a question of how did we get into this war.”

Roberts said subpoenas would be a last resort. “I think we can work this out without any subpoenas,” he said.

The Tyranny of the Majority (Party)

Just a quick break from a busy day to note TOMPAINE.com - Criminal Punishment: Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.) writes, ostensibly to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor-Health and Human Services-Education, of the House Committee on Appropriations (found via Mediajunkie), about a Republian plan to discriminate against the inhabitants of districts represented by Democrats who vote against Republican legislation.

As we have discussed on repeated occasions, the decisions made last spring in the Budget Resolution and in the allocations adopted by the full Appropriations Committee forced the Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee to cut billions of dollars from the promises made in both the No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The appropriation bill that you took to the floor in July provided $8 billion less in funding for the No Child Left Behind Act than the amounts authorized for that program only two years ago, and $11.2 billion less than the amount needed to cover 40 percent of the cost of educating all disabled students, a goal widely espoused by Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. Incredibly, the bill was $1.2 billion below the amount promised for disabled education in the Budget Resolution pushed through the House by your leadership only three weeks before this bill was reported from subcommittee. The appropriation bill that you took to the floor also forced an actual reduction in research to conquer a number of dreaded diseases and it provides fewer funds for the “Meals on Wheels” program than are needed to maintain the current number of meals being served.

It was for these reasons that Democrats in the House regretfully found it necessary to oppose your appropriation measure. As we stated at the time, you produced the best product you could given the limitations imposed on you but we did not agree with those limitations. We specifically did not agree that tax cuts targeted to a small and very well-off segment of the population were more important than meeting the pressing budget shortfalls in our schools, maintaining our level of effort in fighting dreaded diseases or ensuring that our infirm elderly get enough to eat. I think you know our reasons and I think you know that they were heartfelt matters of conscience that gave us no alternative but to vote against the funding levels that you were forced to put forward.

That is why I am so deeply disturbed by the proposal attributed to you in various press accounts. They indicate that you plan to add $1 billion in various types of earmarks to this appropriation bill, with none of those earmarked funds going to the 205 Congressional Districts represented by Democrats. This, according to those accounts, is in retribution for the fact that all Democrats voted against your bill when it was considered on the House Floor.

As you know, I have repeatedly opposed the earmarking of funds in the Labor-HHS-Education bill. In the 22 years that I served on this subcommittee prior to the Republican takeover of the House, there was rarely an earmark of any kind in this bill, and on the rare occasions when earmarks did appear, they were inserted by the Senate over the strong opposition of House Democrats. During that period, I never earmarked one dime of Labor-HHS-Education funding for my district. Significant earmarks did not begin to appear in the Labor-HHS-Bill until after 1995. In the fiscal year 1996 appropriation, after the Republican takeover, $33 million was earmarked. Two years later, earmarks jumped to $97 million and the following year (fiscal year 1999) earmarked Labor-HHS funds jumped to $300 million. In fiscal year 2000 they jumped to $453 million and the following year to $911 million. In fiscal year 2002 they hit $1 billion.

As you know I repeatedly urged the conferees during those years to reduce or eliminate these earmarks for the simple reason that we were leaving too many pressing needs unmet in the bill to be able to fund a panoply of individual member concerns—a significant portion of which clearly failed on any reasonable scale of priorities to rank with teaching children to read or fighting cancer.

The argument against earmarks was made on an almost daily basis by members of your own party throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. While there was virtually no “pork” in the Labor-HHS-Education bill and far less in nearly all of the other appropriation bills than is true now, the alleged “excess of pork” in appropriations measures was exhibit A in the Republican mantra about “forty years of mismanagement.” As Ernest Istook, a member of our subcommittee, was fond of saying during that period, “a pig is a pig, even if he lives at home.”

The argument against diverting funds to lower priority purposes was a strong one even when we were in a period like the late 1990s when the fiscal condition of the federal government was rapidly improving and we were not facing the extreme budgetary constraints that have been placed on this year's appropriation. It is obviously a much stronger argument now, given the excruciating choices contained in the bill that passed the House last July.

But there is another reason that I find the proposal attributed to you deeply disturbing. What this proposal really translates into is not simply the diversion of money needed to more adequately fund critical national priorities such as reading improvement, but the use of those funds for the creation of a slush fund to intimidate members into voting against adequate funds for programs that they believe are important for the American people. The clear message is that if you support the Republican cuts in education, health research and assistance to seniors, you will get projects to help with your reelection. If you vote your conscience and support more funding for education and health you will get stiffed. This is nothing more than systematic bribery with public funds to enforce the “Robin Hood in reverse” policies of your party.

The 205 Congressional Districts represented by House Democrats contain more than 130 million American taxpayers. To tell those people that they will receive no portion of a $1 billion pot of the nation's tax dollars because they are represented by a Member of Congress who supports more money for their schools is not only in my judgment unethical but represents a fundamental corruption of the legislative process.

Apparently, we are now too far along in the appropriation process for the current year to have any significant prospect of convincing your leadership to make even moderate improvements in this year's Labor-HHS-Education bills. But there is one option left that could avoid at least some of the consequences that these bills spell out for our schools, health research and seniors programs. If the money that is planned for all earmarks is instead used to increase support for No Child Left Behind and Individuals with Disabilities Education programs and is used to ensure no cutbacks in health research and feeding programs for seniors, I would be willing to support the bill and urge my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle to do the same. This would only be conditioned on the willingness of the House conferees to accept the House-passed instruction that they recede to the Senate amendment on overtime pay.

You and I have been good friends over the years. We share many things including a desire to improve our schools and an abiding concern for the protection of our nation's parks and wilderness areas. I know that in you heart you realize that this bill does not represent what we should be doing for our schools and I hope that some how we can find a solution that is acceptable to a broad spectrum of the House and the American people, rather than to the narrow majority of House Members that now supports the House-passed bill that clearly does not meet the nation's needs.

It seems to me that this much worse than the unsavory K-Street plan. I can live with a majority party throwing a little pork to the districts of its marginal members who need re-election help, and maybe even the occasional committee chairman. It's not nice, I'd rather it didn't happen, but it doesn't break the system. On the other hand, if there really is going to be a systematic policy of spending large sums of money only in the districts of Congresspeople who vote Right—well, isn't it past time we elected some uniters instead of dividers™?

Or else we'll have to come up with a much, much more robust theory of equal protection than any of the major theories on offer at present, one that puts more power in the hands of courts than just about anyone will be comfortable with.

Of Military Voters and the Army Times Poll

One meme getting some play this week is the idea that the military vote may be up for grabs. The best exposition of this I've seen is Benjamin Wallace-Wells's article in the Washington Monthly, Corps Voters, which is well worth a read.

Dramatic confirmation of this hypothesis appears to be found in this Army Times Presidential Poll. When I visited it, the numbers were:

Bush 31%
Clark 22%
Kucinich 16% [Shurley shome mishtake -ed.]
Dean 12%
Edwards 10%
Kerry 4%
Braun 2%
Sharpton 1%
Lieberman < 1%
Gephardt < 1%

If that were right it would mean that almost 70% would choose a Democrat over Bush. And that doesn't mean the conservative Lieberman, either.

But wait! This is not a scientific poll at all. By all appearances, it's just a tally of responses from one of those horrible unscientific 'polls' on the Army Times homepage. From that page there's no way to tell whether the 'poll' is limited to people from, say, .mil addresses, or whether we all get to vote. Nor is it clear how or whether the web site has anything in place to block repeat voting.

In other words, it's totally meaningless without some evidence that the voters are only servicepeople, and that they only get to vote once each. And even then, since the results are based on a self-selected sample, they would only be suggestive at best.

[I should maybe explain the “Shurley shome mishtake” comment is reference to a British joke of sorts, originating from the disreputable but funny Private Eye magazine.]

Can Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats Go It Alone? Yes, Unless the Rules Are Changed

Since it looks as if there may be an impasse on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's access to White House documents, and the UK's Daily Telegraph is reporting that Senator Richard Durbin is threatening to invoke a committee rule allowing the Democrats to run a parallel inquiry, I thought I'd try to figure out whether this is possible under the Committee's Rules of Procedure.

Amazingly, the answer is more or less, 'Yes, this is possible.' Technically, though, it's not a parallel process — just a committee activity organized by interested Senators. Any five members can call a committee meeting even if the Chair doesn't want them to (Rule 1.5). There are eight Democrats on the committee — including John Edwards (hey, any reporters reading this? Can you ask Edwards whether he'd support Sen. Durban in an effort to hold an independent inquiry? Or do I have to wait until Edwards guests at Lessig's blog?) And, it only takes five members to initiate an investigation, which gets the staff up and running on the problem. (Rule 6).

More importantly, the Vice Chair — that's Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) — has the power to issue a subpoena. (Rule 7)

The Committe does have the power, however, to amend its own rules. (Rule 14) Although it's split 8-8 between Democrats and Republicans, the Chair is a Republican, and I presume he'd have the tie-breaking vote. So if the Democrats really got going on this, the Republicans could stop it — if they could maintain party unity. (Senator Olympia Snowe is one of the committee Republicans.)

Here are the key paragraphs from the Rules of Procedure:

1.3. A special meeting of the Committee may be called at any time upon the written request of five or more members of the Committee filed with the Clerk of the Committee.

1.4. In the case of any meeting of the Committee, other than a regularly scheduled meeting, the Clerk of the Committee shall notify every member of the Committee of the time and place of the meeting and shall give reasonable notice which, except in extraordinary circumstances, shall be at least 24 hours in advance of any meeting held in Washington, D.C. and at least 48 hours in the case of any meeting held outside Washington, D.C.

1.5. If five members of the Committee have made a request in writing to the Chairman to call a meeting of the Committee, and the Chairman fails to call such a meeting within seven calendar days thereafter, including the day on which the written notice is submitted, these members may call a meeting by filing a written notice with the Clerk of the committee who shall promptly notify each member of the Committee in writing of the date and time of the meeting.

Rule 3. Subcommittees

Creation of subcommittees shall be by majority vote of the Committee. Subcommittees shall deal with such legislation and oversight of programs and policies as the Committee may direct. The subcommittees shall be governed by the Rules of the Committee and by such other rules they may adopt which are consistent with the Rules of the Committee.

Rule 4. Reporting of Measures or Recommendations

4.1. No measures or recommendations shall be reported, favorably or unfavorably, from the Committee unless a majority of the Committee is actually present and a majority concur.

4.2. In any case in which the Committee is unable to reach a unanimous decision, separate views or reports may be presented by any member or members of the Committee.

Rule 6. Investigations

No investigation shall be initiated by the Committee unless at least five members of the Committee have specifically requested the Chairman or the Vice Chairman to authorize such an investigation. Authorized investigations may be conducted by members of the Committee and/or designated Committee staff members.

Rule 7. Subpoenas

Subpoenas authorized by the Committee for the attendance of witnesses or the production of memoranda, documents, records or any other material may be issued by the Chairman, the Vice Chairman, …

rule 14. changes in rules

These Rules may be modified, amended, or repealed by the Committee, provided that a notice in writing of the proposed change has been given to each member at least 48 hours prior to the meeting at which action thereon is to be taken.

White House Waffles on Intel Committee Push For Documents

Yesterday I wrote up an item asking whether there was a connection between Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee saying they might run their own 9/11 inquiry (with, apparently subpoena power under an obscure Intel committee rule), and an AP report of the White House's sudden willingness to turn over documents to the committee.

As the story about the Democrats came from a British paper, I noted there was a greater than average chance it might be wrong. British papers don't always get the details right in US political stories, and are anyway less obsessive about details than US papers. Now, however, it seems as if maybe it was the AP story that is missing part of the picture. Or rather, that the White House had a change of heart (or can't get its story straight, or has hung a Senator out to dry — either of which is the sign of a sinking ship…).

Today's AP story, by William C. Mann, says, Senator, U.S. Disagree on Iraq Inquiry says,

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee expects the White House to give the panel access to all materials it sought for its inquiry into prewar information on Iraq. A spokesman for President Bush indicates he shouldn't be so sure.

Both Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and White House spokesman Trent Duffy spoke Sunday of “a spirit of cooperation” regarding the documents. That's where agreement seemed to end.

Roberts said White House aides told committee staff members late Friday of acquiescence, on behalf of the National Security Council, to the committee's demands. The Pentagon also said it would cooperate, Roberts said on CNN's “Late Edition.”

The committee had set a deadline of noon last Friday.

While agreeing on a new spirit in relations with the committee, Duffy, with Bush in Crawford, Texas, said he could offer no concrete promises and refused to confirm Roberts' assertion of agreement on a turnover.

“We've had productive conversations about ways we can work with and assist the committee,” Duffy said. “While the committee's jurisdiction does not cover the White House, we want to be helpful and we will continue to talk to and work with the committee in a spirit of cooperation.”

…

Looks like this one will run for a while.

Shorter David Broder

Shorter David Broder:

• The Establishment is ready to declare that Iraq is the New Vietnam. And Bush looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

'Second Front' on the Iraq Intel Inquiry: Bearing Fruit Already?

I wonder if there is any connection between this story — Bush to Furnish All Prewar Iraq Data, Senator Says — and this story: Democrats open second front against Bush in war over Iraqi secrets.

The AP says that the White House has caved, and will turn over all the pre 9/11 documents the Intel committee was asking for. Meanwhile, the Telegraph reports that the Intel Committee Democrats will invoke an unknown-to-me rule and run their own official inquiry. Which given the history of bipartisanship on the Intel Committee is pretty amazing if true.

I see three possibilities: (1) The Telegraph is wrong — wouldn't be the first time they blew some Senator's remark out of proportion; (2) The Democrat's threat to run “a second, 'independent' investigation into the role of the White House and the Pentagon in processing pre-war intelligence on Iraq” was a bargaining chip, and it pried loose the documents; (3) It's a coincidence, and the Democrats are going ahead with their independent inquiry.

Here's the really intriguing part of the Telegraph story,

[quoting Sen. Richard Durbin] “If the Republican leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee is determined to protect the administration at any cost, we'll do the investigative job on our own.”

The inquiry, under a rule never evoked before, would have legal powers to demand documents and summon witnesses from within the administration, potentially leading to high-ranking confrontations with top Bush officials.

I never heard of such a rule. If it really exists, can the committee rescind it to block the Democrats if they want to go it alone?

Lies And the People Who Ignore Them

Mark Kleiman has assembled what he calls a very partial list of Bush lies. And while it's a good list, it is a very partial list, mixing the deadly and the trivial. The problem is that there are so very many, many lies to choose from. (Other compilations include Bushwatch, Bush-lies, Caught on Film, and Bushlies.net .)

Every so often, I get a feeling of disconnect from the body politic. I recall being stunned to discover in college (during the Iranian hostage crisis) that friends of mine, people I considered basically sensible, had taken a trip down to Washington DC in order to throw rocks at the Iranian Embassy.

I have a similar feeling of disconnect now. How can it be that about half of the voters in this country tell pollsters that they are basically happy with an administration that lies like a rug? This is surely one of the central questions of the day.

In particular, I want to know to what extent this report of (eligible) voter satisfaction is due to

1. Voters not being exposed to information about what's going on;
2. Voters exposed to the info but not reading/watching it;
3. Reading/watching it but not caring.

Why might voters accept being lied to?

A. One explanation is cynicism. If you think that politicians lie all the time, you might be more likely to just accept it as a fact of life. In this view, being told a politician lied is as meaningful to your vote as being told he takes campaign contributions. Similarly, if you think politicians are all bought and paid for, no amount of coverage of fat cat donations and sweetheart deals will move you.

B. A similar explanation is 'lie fatigue'. In this version the voters are not irredeemably cynical, but the modern version of the Big Lie — a constant policy of lies — works, because no one can really process all the mendacity.

C. Yet another theory would have it that the voters who support Bush do so despite the lies. They agree with his policies, and put up with the lying as either necessary strategic behavior to achieve desired ends, or as an unfortunate side-effect of avoiding alternative policy sets that they dislike. (This is in some ways the scariest theory—does an informed public really affirmatively support the current Administration's policies? Or is it rather a 'lesser of evils' sort of support? )

D. Intertia. In this story, voters tend to identify with a party and are loath to switch. They tend particularly to be unwilling to admit their last vote was a mistake. (Personally, I think this is by far the least likely of these alternatives. Voters seem perfectly willing to revenge themselves on people they elect when they feel disappointed.)

E. Rally 'round the flag. Perhaps voters are in 'wartime' mode. As I recall from the Vietnam era, there is a deep and powerful feeling in the land that in wartime 'my country right or wrong' and that it is almost disloyal to question, much less criticize, the Head of State.

No doubt there are still other possibilities. And they are not mutually exclusive. But anyone concerned about either the policies of this Administration or about promoting a modicum of honesty in our public life, needs to know what explains the current poll numbers. Is support shallow? Deep? And most importantly, where does it come from?

Old Fashioned Politics -- Throw Money To Your Friends

There's been a little bit of headscratching about why why the government would spend $32 million to promote the new $20 bill (noted via Eugene Volokh).

The Slate article notes the ostensible justification, “the campaign … [is] really designed to put everyone on notice that a change in currency is afoot: The new bill has some different color and design elements (to deter counterfeiters), but it's real, so don't freak out,” althought in fact free media do a fine job of that.

Funny thing is, when our city and county governments down here buy lots of ads in the local media we know exactly what's going on: they are throwing money to their friends and encouraging them to stay friendly. Naturally that could never happen at the national level.

An Unbelievably Bad Idea

Here's a trial balloon that deserves not only to be shot down, but shredded, dispersed, and probably exorcized:Pentagon wants 'mini-nukes' to fight terrorists. Imagine what happens when other nations build these and then they fall into the wrong hands. (Due to the nature of their likely uses, tactical weapons tend to be more dispersed and less well guarded than strategic ones.)

And, oh yes, might there be a moral issue about a national policy of envisioning and thus encouraging (in the sense of failing to maintain our stand against) the casual use of nukes? Or maybe a strategic cost to those of us living in a target-rich environment about undermining the international norm against the use of nuclear weaponry? Hello?

9/11 Commission Readies Subpoenas

Administration Faces Supoenas From 9/11 Panel.

Key quotes from Co-Chair Max Cleland,

“It's obvious that the White House wants to run out the clock here,” he said in an interview in Washington. “It's Halloween, and we're still in negotiations with some assistant White House counsel about getting these documents — it's disgusting.”

“As each day goes by, we learn that this government knew a whole lot more about these terrorists before Sept. 11 than it has ever admitted.”

Le plus ca change...

I'm behind — very behind — on my pile of NYRB's. In the Oct. 23 issue, already succeeded by another, there is an article by Arthur Schlesinger Jr called “Eyeless in Iraq”. In it he quotes from a letter written by Congressman Abraham Lincoln in 1848, during the US war with Mexico,

Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure…. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, “I see no probability of the British invading us” but he will say to you, “Be silent: I see it, if you don't.”

Admirable Republican Discipline

Washingtonpost.com: GOP Sees Gephardt as Toughest Rival for Bush. You have to admire the Republican ability to stick to the talking points. There is no way that Gephardt is the candidate they worry about the most in the White House, and yet “nearly two dozen Republican strategists, lawmakers and state chairmen across the country, including several close to the White House,” managed to stay on message in the hope of maybe doing a little damage to the Democrats.

Gephardt is not a fresh face. (Indeed, he violates Jonathan Rauch's rule of 14 [link will stop workig soon], leadinig Rauch to say that he he's past his elect-by date.) Gephardt's anti-free-trade message can be caricatured as unrealistic; indeed, even I — a person deeply suspicious of the small army of devils lurking in the details of recent and proposed trade agreements — can't bring myself to buy into Gephardt's protectionism.

Gephardt's health plan is not something he could get through Congress.

And even the much-vaunted union support is of limited value — the unions are being fairly cautious this year. They want a winner, and are not themselves sure that he's it. And they, like so many Democrats, will turn out for whichever of the major candidates get the nomination.

But of those major Democratic candidates, Gephardt — who they will say is bought and paid for by the unions — is surely the one the Republicans most want to run against, not the one they fear. The very unanimity of this Republican block (is not one of them the least teensy tiny bit worried about Clark or Dean or even Edwards?) demonstrates to me that the fix was in. Admirable party discipline indeed.

As for this “midwest is key to the election” stuff, well, there's some truth to it. But I think I know where the key to election is. Right here in Florida.

The Jeb Bush-Arnold Schwarzenegger Connection

The Forida Blog asks (and answers) a real good question, one which will be of particular interest to Californians and to polticial junkies everywhere, “Who is Donna Arduin? And how is it she's advising Arnold Schwarzenegger while on Florida's payroll?”.

Earlier Orlando Sentinel coverage (also via the Florida Blog) contains this jem:

Those who know Arduin predict Californians will soon be handed a conservative diet of program cuts, the use of one-time tax dollars to pay for recurring state services, the privatizing of state work, and tax cuts to stimulate the economy.

Some creative math might also be thrown in to help balance the books, as well as a few clashes with lawmakers, observers said.

So, would that be Bush-Schwarzenegger, or Schwarzenegger-Bush in '08?

Actually, if I had to bet, I'd say Schwarzenegger goes the way of Jesse Ventura.

Loving Your Opponent to Death

Not Geniuses has a pretty smart appraisal of California AG Bill Lockyer's otherwise bizzaro revelation that he voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Basically the theory is that it's a smart and cynical move,

Bill has never voted for a Republican before, he voted no on the recall, he couldn't bring himself to vote for a candidate Californians didn't like, and now he can start working with Schwarzenegger an ally? He's praying that his optimism isn't misplaced and setting up a context for Arnold to con him? He's setting up a whole [expletive deleted] storyline for Arnold to fit into if he missteps even once! And it gets better.

Arnold will [expletive deleted] up, this much is guaranteed. He may block some of Lockyer's liberal policies, thus angering Californians. He may cut services we don't want cut, he may play partisan politics, he may screw with environmental legislation, he may anger Latinos, he may fail. No matter what he does, Lockyer is going to run against him — and he is going to run against him as an experienced politician who was sucked into Arnold's aura of optimism and saw first hand that it was but a sham.

"What a powerful tool an irony-free mind can be"

Michael Kinsley nails it in Why Bush Angers Liberals. My main puzzlement is, what makes Kinsley think only liberals think like this? Or, if he's right, why do only liberals think like this?

9/11 Commission Finds Its Spine

Another story buried inside the national edition of the Times is Commission on 9/11 Attacks Issues Subpoena to the F.A.A. Here's the key part:

In a statement, the 10-member commission said it learned within the last few days that “various tapes, statements, interview reports and agency self-assessments highly material to our inquiry inexplicably had not been included” in the materials from the aviation agency. “It is clear that the F.A.A.'s delay has significantly impeded the progress of our investigation,” the statement said.

…

Government officials with knowledge of the commission's work said the panel and its staff were particularly alarmed by the discovery that they had not been provided with detailed transcripts and other information about communications on Sept. 11 between the the F.A.A. and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, the unit of the Pentagon that is responsible for defending American air space.

I've argued before that the 9/11 commission is a possible sleeper issue of serious magnitude. This latest develpment (cover-up?) is consistent with that hypothesis.

I was particularly struck by the illogic of the Republican chair's attempt to explain why they have not been issuing subpoenas until now:

The bill creating the commission provided the panel with subpoena power, although its chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, had repeatedly said that he was hesitant to use it, in part because of the delays that it might cause.

Well, that didn't work real well, did it?

The bipartisan commission also warned that it was considering subpoenas for material from other executive branch agencies and that the resulting delays could force it to extend its investigation beyond May, when it is supposed to complete its work.

The possibility of an extension is worrying to the Bush administration, since it could mean the public release of a potentially embarrassing report in the heat of next year's presidential campaign.

…

“Once this issue came to light —just in the past few days — the F.A.A. provided the commission with dozens of boxes and materials that its representatives now claim satisfy our request, and they pledged the F.A.A.'s full cooperation,” the panel said. “This disturbing development at one agency has led the commission to re-examine its general policy of relying on document requests rather than subpoenas.”

A Noble Attempt to Build Public Discourse Encounters a Major Obstacle: Fred Barnes

Monday evening I attended the U. Miami edition of The People Speak: America Debates its Role in the World which was a marquee edition of the 1000 or so related events being held around the country this fortnight.

The run-up to the meeting was not auspicious. Neither in some ways—mostly relating to the presence of Fred Barnes—was the meeting.

As I noted in my earlier entry on this subject, the national web site announcing the event listed only one speaker, conservative former state representative Carlos Lacasa, and the moderator, Ambler Moss. No 'progressive' to balance the 'conservative'. There was exactly zero publicity on campus. Not one poster. Not one announcement in the email newsletters they spam us with twice a week. The university's online web calendar's entry for today stated this:

There are currently no events posted for date(s) indicated above. Please check back soon.

So I figured it was probably cancelled. But it was a nice evening, and wasn't a long walk.

In fact it wasn't cancelled, although the turnout was light. [I have a suspicion that the lousy publicity probably was due to the consultants hired to run the event, an outfit called “Protocole”. At the reception, one of them gave me a business card with the firm's URL on it—www.protocolecorp.com, which resolves to an ad for an unrelated ISP who is probably their host. A PR firm that can't organize its own web page is highly suspect.] But it wasn't that enlightening either. Nevertheless, in several ways—ranging from interesting, to slimy, to nutty, and back again to hopeful—the debate was perhaps a fair microcosm of the national debate.

There were in fact three speakers. In addition to Mr. Lacasa, there was a second 'conservative' speaker, one Fred Barnes, who edits a magazine in Washington that I gather people take seriously. I don't know if he thought that the provinces didn't deserve the good stuff, or if he's always this awful, but his performance was basically rebarbative. The 'progressive' was George Volsky, a man with a varied resume, including a long stint as the New York Times's Florida correspondent, consulting for RAND and for the Hoover Institution, and who is currently a columnist and “cultural editor” for a tiny local paper, The Coral Gables Gazette. As it happens, I got to talking to him at the reception before the event without knowing he would be a speaker, and he seemed pretty interesting, but we didn't talk much about foreign affairs.

The speakers were supposed to address four topics, which they simplified to (1) pre-emptive invasion/Iraq; (2) humanitarian intervention; (3) foreign aid; (4) the UN [it was supposed to be international institutions and the rule of law]. The www.jointhedebate.org web site had useful materials explaining both sides of the debate questions, but these were not given to the audience. It was also unclear to what extent the panelists had read them.

Mr. Barnes went first. What follows is close paraphrase unless enclosed in quote marks. He explained that there were eight criteria (which he later said he invented that morning!) that should be satisfied before a pre-emptive strike, and that Iraq satisfied them all. The criteria were:

1. Does the country have weapons of mass destruction, or can it create them “very quickly”.
2. Has it used WMD's in the past.
3. Is it defying efforts to make it stop creating the WMDs
4. Has it attacked other nearby states
5. Does it support terrorism
6. Does the government kill its own people;
7. Is it a clear threat to other countries;
8. Is there no hope of prompt regime change without invasion

On the question of humanitarian aide, Barnes was wishy-washy. For it in principle, but lukewarm at best in practice, since it all gets stolen by the ruling classes and doesn't trickle down to the masses.

Lacasa was more middle of the road than Barnes. He was for pre-emptive strikes, but only in extreme cases; he thought the jury was still out on whether Iraq qualified. He was very much against surrendering any sovereignty to the UN. As he himself admitted, he isn't a careful student of the details of foreign affars. Indeed, like so many people in this part of the world, he was much better infomed about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Mr. Lacasa suggested at one point that as the US was clearly justified to threaten to engage in pre-emptive self defense in that crisis (and, he implied, would have been fully jusfified in attacking Castro's Cuba) it followed that at least in some cases (when the missles are staring you in the face right next door) pre-emptive attacks must be justified.

Volsky spoke third. His arguments against intervention were primarily pragmatic. He suggested that attackers usually regretted it in the long run, citing examples from biblical times to the present. He also noted that the US had lost many friends by its actions in Iraq. I'd write more about what he said, except that he was hard to hear because he didn't speak into the microphone.

There were a large number of questions from the audience, including several earnest high school students, who asked some of the best questions ('define terrorism' was one). One crazy person in the front—a man dressed in bright orange scrubs with his hair done up in Bo Derek braids with seashells attached—asked something long and rambling about trains carrying nuclear waste, which he seemed to think was at the root of the problem. He also clapped wildly, and alone, every time anyone made a remark that he liked.

One very nervous lady asked the very best question of the day: wasn't the real issue not that the US had to attack countries that frightened it, but rather that the US made other countries afraid by its policies? And wouldn't a better policy be one that concentrated on the 17,000 third world deaths per day from preventable and treatable diseases such as AIDS, malaria, and TB?

Generally, the audience questions were at least as thoughtful as the panel's answers. There was a nice variety of young and old, with some self-described foreign visitors (some of whom were quite vocal about the way in which the attack on Iraq had evaporated the US's former moral authority, which one suggested was perhaps at an all-time high after 9/11.) Indeed, listening to the high schools students made me think they could do a better job editing a certain magazine….

If Fred Barnes is what passes for informed thought in conservative Washington circles today, it's no wonder the republic is in such a mess. In response to a question about the missing WMDs, Barnes reiterated that Hussein had an arsenal including missiles tipped in aflatoxin (surely the worlds most slow-acting chemical weapon!). Then — having failed to rebut suggestions there were no nuclear weapons or near-weapons in Iraq — he suggested (quoting Condoleezza Rice) that we should be prepared to invade threatening countries before we discovered the war had begun with a mushroom cloud. Never mind that the Kay report says that all the Iraq Survey Group evidence collected to date indicates that there were not any active programs to develop or produce chemical or nuclear weapons.

Perhaps the most offensive thing Barnes said was that there were “two kinds of people: Sept. 10th people and Sept. 12th people.” The idea was that if you didn't support attacking Iraq, you were some sort of ostrich-headed wimp who was ignoring the fact that the nation was attacked (by someone other than Iraq, but don't bother us with details…). I found the waving of the (irrelevant) bloody shirt offensive, especially as even George W. Bush now admits that there is no evidence of any connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

In response to another question, Barnes was very misleading. He insisted that Bush himself had never suggested, at least before the invasion, that there was such a link. Bush certainly made the connection afterwards, notably in his famous 'victory' speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. There Bush said, “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 — and still goes on…. The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding.”

The Barnes line from the talking points conveniently elides the many ways in which (1) Bush strongly hinted at the connection, persuading many Americans that it existed and (2) Veep Cheney and other ranking administration spokespersons made the connection explicit, saying (after the invasion) that Iraq was “the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.”

Ultimately, I came away from the event with mixed impressions:

1. Surprised both that they couldn't find two progressives to balance two conservatives on a panel in Miami (although, to be fair, Rep. Lacasa ended up sounding much more middle-of-the-road than Barnes);
2. Impressed with the audience—almost none of whom were affiliated with the University due to the wretched publicity—which was often more thoughtful than the panelists;
3. Amazed that anyone takes Fred Barnes seriously.
4. Persuaded that written texts, with hyperlinks to original sources, are a better way to debate complex issues in public. Which is one good reason to blog.

The (Democratic) Politics of the Iraq Issue

Several of the Democratic presidential candidates have struggled with the Iraq issue because they are on record as having voted for the bill that permitted the invasion (the issue seems to have flummoxed Clark as well). Dean has made hay with this.

Take Senator Kerry as an example. I think he would probably be a fine President (as would several other of the Democratic hopefuls). He started his campaign as the notional front runner, and surrounded himself with consultants from the Democratic party establishment. And they ran the standard play from the Democratic playbook: if you are ahead, be cautious. Don't blow it. That might have worked against Gephardt, a very studied sort of populist, but it doesn't work against genuine populist insurgents (Dean, maybe Clark).

Caution is not such a terrible trait in a President, at least most of the time, but it proved a wasting strategy for the Kerry campaign. So, at long, long last, John Kerry has finally decided to attack Bush in his foreign policy soft underbelly. While I think that it's a good decision, it does make one wonder about the more general question of why so many of the candidates have avoided the obvious explanation for their vote: Bush lied to us.

Here's how the Washington Post described Kerry's new approach to the Iraq question:

Kerry, who voted for the congressional war resolution before the invasion, stepped up his attacks on Bush's decision to go to war in the first place. He said some of the administration's pre-war assertions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction “misled America.”

“They told us there were aerial vehicles” to deliver Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. “They weren't there,” he said, speaking on ABC's “This Week.” “They told us they had a 45-minute deployment period for weapons of mass destruction. That wasn't true. They told us they were on the road to nuclear weaponization. That was not true.”

“He ought to apologize to the people of this country because what they've done now is launch a PR campaign instead of a real policy,” Kerry said. “We need to go to the United Nations more humbly, more directly, more honestly, solicit help in a way that brings the United Nations into this effort, or you are going to continue to see bomb after bomb after bomb.”

Kerry also derided the administration's effort to portray current efforts in Iraq as international in nature. “We have a fraudulent coalition, and I use the word 'fraud.' It's a few people here, a few people there. It's basically the British, and, most fundamentally, the United States of America.”

“This administration has alienated people all across this planet,” he said. “They have, in fact, made America less safe.”

All of this is true. But, most of it was true two, three, four months ago. Only the fraudulence of the latest Bush approach to the UN (give us troops and money, no strings attached, and in exchange we offer you not even a fig leaf of even nominal control) is new.

One of the medium-sized mysteries of this campaign is that none of the Senators running for President chose the “Bush tricked us all” defense of their vote on the Gulf of Tonkin Iraq War Powers bill. I would have thought there was a lot of milage to be made by saying something along the lines of “I trusted the Administration when it told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and was on the verge of acquiring nukes. I trusted the Administration when it told us that Saddam directly threatened the USA. I certainly was not about to take chances with our security, and when the Administration said that this operation was essential to our security, I of course gave them the benefit of every doubt — what patriot would not? It pains me greatly to have to report that the evidence we have now suggests that the Administration lied to the Congress, and lied to the American people.”

There were and are three dangers in this strategy:

1. WMD's might be found, giving the administration a PR victory even if there was no credible means of delivering them to attack the US.
2. It might look 'weak' to admit someone, even the White House, fooled you. (But there's safety in numbers, ie. 'we were all fooled', and it can be spun as patriotic trust and caution.)
3. Using words like 'lied' is nastier and more personal than establishment inside-the-belway politicians like to be—especially those inside the Senate, which still has some vestigial collegiality. Plus, mean personal attacks turn off voters (which is why the imagined quote above speaks of 'the Administration” not anyone in particular).

Clearly, all the campaigns rejected this fairly obvious ploy at the time it would have been most credible. Were there other reasons besides the three hypothesized above? Given that most of the Senators have defended their vote as appropriate, is it too late to try it now, given that the press is ready for it? (Of course, none of this applies to Sen. Lieberman who appears to have no regrets for his vote.)

$87,000,000,000.00

George W. Bush wants $87,000,000,000.00 of extra deficit-funded spending for his wars (of which, amazingly, more than 10% is for a slush fund primarily designed to bribe other goverments into sending troops and acting supportive).

Here's a web site that tries to help you visualize just how much money $87,000,000,000.00 really is. It's effective.

How Do I Evaluate This Warning?

The Register has the Director of the Program on Terrorism and Trans-National Crime at the University of Pittsburgh (connected to this?) warning 'Expect terrorist attacks on Global Financial System'. Is this more likely than other terrorist activities? As likely? Or just sufficiently bad if it happens ('A successful terrorist attack on America's financial infrastructure could bring the US and global economies to a standstill, and the real surprise is that it hasn't been attempted yet.') that we should prepare for it even on a low probability threat analysis?

I wasn't able to find a copy of the paper on the web, so I can't go to the source and form my own conclusions. The article tells me very little. As a general matter, I tend to some skepticism about warnings from anti-terrorism experts Their incentive structure is to be scary, as this maximizes the demand for experts. I imagine that in this business you don't in that business get in nearly as much trouble for false alarms as you do for being asleep at the switch.

So, how to evaluate this warning (especially as the ad that happened to be served when I was reading had this graphic)?

Structural Failings in the California Election: The Case for STV Now More Than Ever

California is voting today. As a supporter of democratic institutions to the maximum extent compatible with broadly republican government – in other words, as someone who is predisposed to like the institutions of ballot initiatives and petitions, and who thinks that recalls do have a place in a well-run representative democracy, I take away two and a half lessons from the California fiasco: The two main lessons are that the bar for a recall needs to be somewhat higher, but not too high, and that if ever there was on object lesson on the virtues of single transferable vote, this is it. (The half lesson is that I need to rethink the virtues and vices of postal voting.)

The first lesson is obvious and has been noted often: it's dangerous to set the bar for recall (and perhaps for petitions) too low. In California, the state currently requires a minimum of 897,158 signatures of registered California voters to recall a Governor, that being 12% of the of the votes cast for Governor in the most recent election. I think this experience shows that this number is too low. Only 36.1 percent of the 21.5 million eligible voters in California voted in the November 2002 election. If the requirement for a recall were 12% of registered voters, that would almost have tripled the number of signatures needed. California's total population is about 35 million so ten percent of that would require 3.5 million registered voters to sign, or about four times as much as currently required.

The second lesson also seems obvious to me, but strangely got little traction. Many people have pointed out the danger that comes (if the incumbent is recalled) of allowing the replacement to be selected by a mere plurality. It's entirely conceivable, for example that 49% of the voters might choose to retain Gov. Davis, but that his replacement might have the support of only, say, 25% of the electorate. That is not a result that serves the state well.

The traditional US approach to this problem—when we deal with it at all—is to require a run-off election between the two top vote getters when no one has a majority. That would be better than what California is doing now, but I'd like to suggest that it is nowhere near the best system.

The state of California was badly served by the conduct and structure of the replacement campaign. The special election brought forth 125 135 candidates. I thought that was great. Yes, some of them were jokes—the bar to getting on the ballot was set too low—but others were real people who ought not to have been dismissed quite so quickly as possible candidates. It would be wonderful if we lived in a world in which you didn't need to be a professional politician and have millions of dollars in order to get the media to pay attention to you when running for office, a world in which you would at least get one chance to make an impact on the quality of your person and your ideas.

The solution to both the problem of the candidate with a tiny plurality and the problem of over-rapid media-driven winnowing of candidates is to have the ballot be by single transferable vote

The Single Transferable Vote is a system of proportional representation that allows voters to vote for individual candidates (as opposed to party lists) in order of preference. Voters rank the candidates in order of preference; first preference votes are the first to be looked at, and the votes are then transferred if necessary from candidates who have either been comfortably elected or who have done so badly that they are eliminated from the election.

In Googling for this item, I was pleased to discover the Center for Voting and Democracy, a group that promotes STV under the name of Instant Runoff Voting . They have a good FAQ.

STV is obviously much fairer than first-past-the-post, plurality-take-all for elections with multiple candidates and no runoffs. It produces a winner who has more real support, more visibly, and thus more legitimacy—which makes it easier for the victor to govern effectively.

I'd argue that STV is also usually superior to first-past-the-post elections with runoffs. For example, suppose there are three candidates. A and B each have their passionate supporters representing 40% of the electorate. C has 20% support but is the second choice of a substantial majority of A and B's supporters. In an STV system, C wins. In a first-past the post system with runoff he doesn't even make the final cut. [This is was a really lousy example; see the comments. A better example is this one: A is a candidate with a strong following among a minority of the electorate. He gets 30% of the first choice votes, which is more than any other single candidate, but everyone else hates him. B, C, D split the rest of the vote. As each gets eliminated their votes are redistributed to everyone except A; eventually one of them gets over 50%.] It's true that one can craft other hypothetical preference distributions in which an STV system is less likely to produce a compromise candidate. STV might in some cases reduce the pressure on candidates and parties to moderate their views to appeal the marginal swing voter, but I think European experience shows that this tends not to be the case in single-member districts. (There is something to this criticism when the elections are for candidates in multi-member districts, or for national electoral lists. But we basically don't have elections like that in the US, so for us this is a red herring.)

Many people will spin the results in California as democracy gone wild, or 'oh those nutty Californians'. For me, though, it's mostly a state let down by its electoral architecture.

Jointhedebate.org

The People Speak: America Debates its Role in the World is a program to encourage public debates about foreign policy. The idea is that events should be held all around the country, primarily between the 5th and the 18th of October (i.e. now). You know they have to be doing something interesting if they can get the simultaneous endorsement of The United Nations Foundation, The Open Society Institute, The League of Women Voters, The American Enterprise Institute, The Jesse Helms Center [!!!], and lots of other do-good groups.

They've actually put together an ideologically balanced but nonetheless meaty debate package (MS Word document). And they offer micro-grants to groups that want funds to help stage an event.

Impressive.

I learned from the Jointhedebate.org website (I sure haven't heard about it on campus) that we here at the University of Miami are hosting one of the Marquee Events. Oddly, however, they don't (yet) seem to have found a 'progressive' speaker, only a 'conservative':

Miami
Venue: University of Miami, Storer Auditorium
Date: Monday, October 13, 2003
Time: 6:30 pm
Participants:

• Moderator: Dr. Ambler Moss, Former Ambassador to Panama, professor University of Miami
• Conservative Viewpoint: Former State Representative Carlos La Casa

Indeed, of the debate sites that list speakers, Miami is the only one that lists only one side. Can it be that difficult to find a foreign policy progressive in Miami?

Iraq

I've added three items to the left column:

• A link to the military casualty count maintained by lunaville.org based on this methodology;
• [Update: Just a link to, see comments for details] A chart of civilian casualties provided by iraqbodycount.org based on this methodology;
• A dollar estimate of the cost of the war to the US from costofwar.com based on this methodology;

George W. Bush - Poetaster

Who knew that George W. Bush was an even better poet than he is leader and policy-maker?

A Modest Proposal For Improving White House Press Conferences

I have a modest and practical proposal for improving White House press conferences.

Sooner or later, probably later, there's going to be another official press conference in the White House. Past form suggests that the Administration will wait as long as it dares before having one, but sooner or later they'll do it. And, past form also suggests that the White House will have worried about nothing, because the reporters will ask softball or inane questions, and will be so caught up in their own narratives, or competitive agendas, that there will be little follow-up probing on any evasion.

So, here's my suggestion: All the White House correspondents—especially the foreign ones whose easy questions can be counted on to break the flow of any serious attempt to follow-up—should club together. They should agree a list of questions that need answering, and draft them carefully to minimize the opportunity for a fudgy answer (this can never be eliminated—a good pol knows how to spin it). Then, the whole press corps should go to the press conference with a copy of the list in hand. Everyone would agree that if called on they would either ask a followup to the question previously asked, or ask the next question on the list. And nothing else.

It's nice to dream.

It's OK to Send Them to Die in Iraq, But Please Don't Encourage Them To Vote

Now this sort of rot does make me mad. Someone named Andrew Ferguson, who is clearly an establishment journalist (“Andy Ferguson's ideas were, as usual, very subtle and secretly forceful” — Davd Brooks) and writes regularly for Bloomberg and is a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard, has written a column with the provocative title, Will the Dixie Chicks Ruin U.S. Democracy?.

Unfortunately, the title is the best part, as the article's thesis is that young people should be discouraged from voting, and that the Rock the Vote campaign, and the Two Million More in 2004 young voter registration campaign are—get this!—dangerous [sic] to democracy because they will bring out the yahoos. Mr. Ferguson, whose photo suggests he may have reached a certain age, is apparently all aflutter at the “specter of two million more children in turned-around baseball caps queuing up for the voting booth, as they nod drowsily to the thumps drilling through the earplugs of their portable MP3 players.”

“Young Americans,” Mr. Ferguson quotes the National Conference of State Legislators as concluding on the basis of a survey, “don't understand the ideals of citizenship; are disengaged from the political process; lack the knowledge necessary for effective self-government; and have limited appreciation of American democracy.'' Of course, without some comparison to other age groups we have very little idea of what to make of this fact, but never mind. (I tried to find the actual survey online, but failed. The http://www.ncsl.org/ web site was not responding.) In the end, if you really believe in democracy, that number matters when considering how much to increase the state education budget, not when deciding if you should encourage people to vote.

There are an enormous number of ways in which our democracy could be improved. Disenfranchising younger voters, or even discouraging their exercise of the franchise, is not remotely among them. If they're old enough to fight our wars, they're plenty old enough to vote.

Based on Mr. Ferguson's essay, though, I'd have say he's a pretty poor poster child for his age group's supposedly superior comprehension of democratic principles.

Update: The National Conference of State Legislators website woke up, and I found the survey. It seems voting participation rates and the belief that civic participation matters are noticeably lower for younger citizens than for older ones. Rather than blaming young people for their civic disenchantment, the National Conference blames…Mr. Ferguson and his age cohort:

The findings of this public opinion survey leave little doubt that Baby Boomers and the World War II generation have failed to successfully pass on the ideals of citizenship to the DotNet generation that is now coming of age. They have botched President Bush’s challenge “to teach what it means to be citizens.”

David Brooks, Relativist

I was going to avoid blogging anything about David Brooks's phenomenally wrongheaded op-ed, The Presidency Wars, in today's New York Times on the grounds that its deficiencies were obvious. But then ABC's influential and often sensible The Note (link updated 10/2/03) praised it, saying, “If you care even a whit about America having a civil national public discourse (during this time and forever), read every word of David Brooks' brilliant New York Times column, and thank Arthur for hiring him.” In light of that maybe there is some need to point out just how unreasonable and anti-intellectual David Brook's column really is.

It's hard to summarize an argument that isn't an argument so much as a mood. Echoing years of 'The Breaking of the President' rhetoric (a meme that I think started with David Broder), the column moans that there are players in the Presidency wars who treat disagreements about policies as fundamental issues of values, and argue that their opponents are illegitimate. The anti-Clinton crowd did this and they were wrong, Brooks argues somewhat belatedly, and the anti-Bush crowd is doing it now and they are wrong too:

To the warrior, politics is no longer a clash of value systems, each of which is in some way valid. It's not a competition between basically well-intentioned people who see the world differently. It's not even a conflict of interests. Instead, it's the Florida post-election fight over and over, a brutal struggle for office in which each side believes the other is behaving despicably. The culture wars produced some intellectually serious books because there were principles involved. The presidency wars produce mostly terrible ones because the hatreds have left the animating ideas far behind and now romp about on their own.

The warriors have one other feature: ignorance. They have as much firsthand knowledge of their enemies as members of the K.K.K. had of the N.A.A.C.P. In fact, most people in the last two administrations were well-intentioned patriots doing the best they could. The core threat to democracy is not in the White House, it's the haters themselves.

I agree that people who focus on their hatred for a person as opposed to hatred for a policy are not generally helpful. But Brooks' main point, that the Administration's fiercest critics are a bigger threat to our liberties than the Administration itself is seems offered as a matter of faith rather than something based on evidence. Can it seriously be argued that a writer for the New Republic is a “core threat” to our liberties, one greater than the lawyers who are arguing that the US Government has the power to seize any citizen anywhere and hold them indefinitely without trial?

More fundamentally, Brooks's view depends on a rejection of the idea that there is any truth out there that can be ascertained. If one believes in truth, in even an approximate way, then it is simply wrong to dismiss arguments that 'X is a liar' or 'Y is a danger to our liberties' out of hand as illegitimate, even if you go to nice dinner parties with nice people who don't seem the least bit like monsters and probably are not in fact at all monstrous in their daily life. It is theoretically possible, after all, that some of those claims of systematic mendacity and fundamentally anti-Constitutional policies are accurate. Or, they are falsifiable, in which case we should educate (or, in some cases, condemn) those who advance them. In either case, journalists owe it to their readers to provide facts. These are mostly absent from Brooks's column.

OK. Somewhat shorter David Brooks:

The core threat to democracy is never the people who are in power, it's their critics. There is no need to consider the actual facts about the current Administration's veracity in making the case for war (which if proved might substantiate claims that the Administration undermined the democratic process), nor the consequences of its economic policies for the next generation (which if substantiated might show that future generation's democratic options are being intentionally constrained for the benefit of a few today), nor the civil liberties consequences of CAPS2 and other tracking systems, nor the civil liberties implications of the Padilla case because the Administration's critics are too shrill and don't know all the nice people in Washington as well as I do.
[reformatted for clarity]

Am I the only who thinks it is odd to find that the so-called conservative position today is grounded in relativism?

Update: Just in case it wasn't clear from the above: part of what I am taking issue with Brooks's assertion of automatic equivalence. Equivalence is certainly possible, but it should not be a substitute for thinking things through first. Just because some–but not all–of Clinton's critics were absolutely loopy, and fulminated for eons about a bunch of crimes that clearly never happened (Vincent Foster was murdered, Clinton raped various people, the Clintons did something illegal in the Whitewater matter), it does not follow that people who say the current administration, or parts of it, is mendacious, evil, or dangerous must therefore be ignored without first weighing the sometimes extensive evidence they have offer.

The Dean Campaign Does Something REAL Smart

I'm impressed by Dean Campaign's new Net Advisory Net, which is nothing less than a modular, virtual, board of policy advisors which has as its first effort attracted some serious people with serious ideas. (And—very smart—the 'NAN' is set up with campaign deniability built-in in case the advisors go nuts on some issue.)

You have to had it to the Dean for President campaign. They are not only smart but they have good taste .

I almost turned myself into a Dean volunteer long before he was famous as the 'anti-war' candidate — I liked his health care plan which centered on insuring children. It was simple, straightforward, and politcally practicable and would have a big bang for the buck.

There were two things that held me back. First, even early on Dean seemed gaffe prone, and in this era of 'gotcha' media, the danger of a spectacular crash-and-burn seemed too high. I'm still not sure about that one. The second reason was that I have a rebuttable presumption against supporting governors from small states. A Jimmy Carter type comes to Washington with too few friends capable of running the country. The President ends up either with too few trusted advisors, or finds himself relying on folks who aren't up to it. The presumption is rebuttable (cf. Clinton; while he had a lot of faults, lack of high-powered friends was not one of them).

If this “Net Advisory Net” is more than PR, Howard Dean has just removed one of the two worries I had about him.

The FAQ is pretty impressive too:

The Net Advisory Net, or NAN, is a collection of advisors working with one other to frame Internet Policy issues for Governor Dean and his staff, and recommend approaches towards technology issues for a Dean Administration. The Dean Net Advisory Team will present to the Governor and his team diverse and highly-informed opinions concerning the Internet and its potential impact upon society.

Click here to read the Principles that will guide the discussion of the Net Advisory Net. According to these principles, the Internet is more than a valuable information resource. It enables people to connect directly with others, helping to fulfill the vision and ideals of democracy but it cannot exist for the unique benefit of any group or economic interest. Universal internet access should be a federal goal.

Click here to read biographies of the initial members of the broadband access working group of the Net Advisory Net.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Net Advisory Net

What is the NAN?

It's a team of smart people who are advising Gov. Dean and his team on Internet policy.

What does the NAN do?

Its task is to come up with policy options the Dean team should consider. The Governor approaches decisions as a physician: understand the facts, understand the likely short and long-term effects, and make a choice based on the facts, probable outcomes, and values.

So, the NAN presents all possible options …?

Not quite. The Dean campaign stands by a set of core Internet values, published here. The campaign is looking at policy options that support those values, although we're open to a very wide range of opinion.

How do you get onto the NAN?

You get invited.

How do you choose who to invite?

We took the “Dream Team” approach. Members are people with broad experience, have thought deeply about the issues, are passionate about preserving the value of the Internet.

Do all NAN members endorse Governor Dean for the presidency?

No. That isn't a requirement for membership.

Likewise, does the Dean campaign support every idea every member of the NAN has ever published?

Of course not. The NAN team is purposefully diverse in its thinking. That's part of its strength.

How does the NAN work?

It's divided into topical areas. Each member focuses on one topic, although she or he is free to comment on other topics as well. Each discussion group prepares policy option statements that lay out the facts supporting a particular option, the values that it supports, and assesses its likely effect short-term and long-term.

The group then meets face to face with the Dean team to go over the options.

When will these decisions be made?

When we feel confident that we are making the best decision possible.

But too frequently policy decisions are a way of closing off conversation. The issues the NAN is dealing with are important, complex and occurring with a context that will never be finished inventing itself. We intend to stay engaged in conversation even after the policy decisions are made.

How open are these discussions to the public?

We want to encourage widespread conversation with everyone who cares about the Internet, but we also recognize that some conversations do better without constant public exposure. So, we're trying to get the mix right. The NAN members will talk amongst themselves but also participate in the public conversation on the NAN site.

Is the NAN a decision-making body?

No, it's a conversation-making body. From that conversation will emerge policy decisions. And we see tremendous value in continuing conversation. In fact, some of the policy decisions may well be to engage in a Great American Conversation over issues that have no single or simple answer.

Our Terrorism-Fighting Tax Dollars At Work

The folks at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) sure have been busy. The BBC reports that US spies monitor whisky plant:

'They said they had been monitoring our webcams because the process of making something very innocuous and pleasant is close to making weapons of mass destruction, apparently.'

There's of course nothing legally or morally wrong with this government or anyone else watching a webcam feed made freely available over the Internet. But given the DTRA's mission…

'The Defense Threat Reduction Agency safeguards America's interests from weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high explosives) by controlling and reducing the threat and providing quality tools and services for the warfighter.'

…haven't they anything more productive to do?

Irony Distinguished From Chutzpah

Chutzpah, classically, is killing your parents and throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you are an orphan. Irony is John Ashcroft's Justice Department investigating this in light of this new policy.

A further irony (can it be a mere coincidence?) is that Bush's WMD scandal (like UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's scandal) is not, as a primary matter, going to be about whether he lied to the nation about whether its national survival was threatend by tons of Iraq anthrax, chemical weapons, and nuclear bombs ready to strike us on a moment's notice, but rather about leaking the name of a confidential government employee for political gain.

Update: Digby points out some connections between the Bush spin operation and the Blair spinner-in-chief Alastair Campbell, he of the 'dodgy dossier'. Maybe it's not a further irony, but just 'what goes around comes around'?

The Year That Anything Can Happen

If the Cubs can win the division title, then anything is possible (except Washington DC getting a team…). So please don't tell me the Democrats can't win a majority in the Senate. If the Cubs win the World Series, can Democrats dream of a two-house sweep, even despite the DeLay anti-hispanic redistricting in Texas?

Seriously, if senior Bush aides really outed a CIA agent for petty political pique, and the President didn't lift a finger to investigate the matter for months, this will resonate in the heartland. Add in the constant drip, drip of casualties, plus reservists serving longer tours than anyone expected without much feeling of achievement, not to mention respected commentators saying Bush is destroying the Army, and economists nearly unaninimous that Bush is destroying the economy, it is now possible to imagine an electoral dynamic in which Republican congresspeople run away from the Bush White House. And in which their opponents make hay by tying them to Bush policies.

It is no more inevitable than the Cubs winning. But never say never.

First Robin of Spring?

Methaphorically, anyway: rc3.org | Republicans in Texas revolt against Bush

Is This Why the New York Times Seems Less Interesting These Days?

I thought it was because I was getting more of my news from the Internet, but articles like Miller's Latest Tale Questioned, which recounts the behavior of a New York Times reporter who apparently shilled for the Iraq-is-full-of-WMD crowd, make me wonder if maybe the problem isn't simply that the NYT just isn't as good as it used to be.

Maybe they should bring back the old 8-column layout?

9/11 Panel Seeks More Documents From White House

While popular attention is focused on whether (or, rather, how much) George W. Bush lied to stampede the country into invading Iraq, and blogging elites are comparing notes on the Administration's bald-faced attempts to deny they ever, ever said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a much less-heralded commission is quietly fighting a bureaucratic war with the Administration. The outcome of that struggle will shape the final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States —AKA the 9/11 commission, which has just issued its second interim report .

As the Washington Post reports, the Administration is stonewalling the 9/11 Commission for all it's worth. It is not at all obvious how this one will play out, and some of the early signs are not good—according to the Post,

The slow pace in acquiring documents and testimony — along with the commission's decision to refrain from issuing findings until it is closer to completing a report — has angered many families of victims of the terrorist attacks. Representatives from one group, the Family Steering Committee, issued a “report card” yesterday awarding the commission a “D” in most areas and urging it to better inform the public.

The 9/11 commission is co-chaired by former representative Lee Hamilton, a man of integrity, so there's still hope for a fair and informative report. One to watch.

The Entire US is A Free-Speech Zone

I've been waiting for this lawsuit. I cannot conceive of a Constitutional theory that lets pro-Bush demonstrators near the President and restricts anti-Bush demonstrators to far, far away. That's called “viewpoint discrimination” and it's almost always illegal when the government does it (but almost always legal when private citizens do it).

OK. I can conceive of arguments the government might make, including something about relative chances of riots or whatever. I just can't conceive of those arguments standing up in court. What's that? The anti-Bush demonstrators are more likely to be violent or dangerous? You never saw a terrorist pretend to support something?

And calling the waaaay off-site zones to which protestors are relegated a “free speech zone” or a “protest zone” just adds insult to injury.

I Thought the Military Was Supposed to Deceive the Enemy

I thought for sure the blogosphere would jump all over this, but if so I missed it. The other day the New York Times ran an article about General Wesley Clark by Katharine Q. Seelye entitled Weighing his Run, General Was Encouraged and Praised by Clintons. Now, I'll be the first to admit that the source here is not the most reliable one. This is after all the same Katharine Seelye who so memorably and unprofessionally slanted her coverage of the last Presidential election. (Want examples to substantiate this serious charge? OK. Look here, here, and here.) Nevertheless, this was an eyebrow-raiser:

To Clark's humiliation, Clinton's Pentagon relieved him of his command. And Clinton had signed off on the plan, according to several published accounts, apparently unaware that he was being deceived by Clark's detractors.
…
The end came unceremoniously. It was July 1999, shortly after Clark had led the successful air war against Serbia. Clark was forced to retire early by top people at the Pentagon who, according to several accounts, tricked Clinton.

This is pretty amazing stuff: top military or civilian officials deceiving or tricking the President. Is this common knowledge? Substantiated? Did heads roll? If not, why not?

Of course, it makes a major difference if it was the civilians or the military.

If it was the civilian appointees, it is a sign that things were more rotten in the bowels of the Clinton administration that I'd suspected, that the mendacity of some officials involved in the Hilarycare plan was equaled elsewhere. At this point, that would be more of a historical curiosity than anything else. If, on the other hand, the deceivers wore uniforms, that would be a big deal.

Our top military officers now play political roles. General Clark's own experiences in Kosovo illustrate this, but the real proconsuls are the “CINCs”—the five regionally oriented Unified Commands (Central Command, Southern Command, Pacific Command, European Command, and Joint Forces Command). As General James T. Scott put it, CINCs “find themselves more and more relied upon to exercise 'operational diplomacy' because of the resources the CINC's possess”. That doesn't mean we want them feeling they can lie like politicians.

To avoid being misunderstood here, I suppose I should say a thing or two about my utterly unscientific view of the officer corps. I grew up in a time and place in which the military was not popular. The Vietnam war was the issue of the day, and the military was stereotyped by Gen. Curtis LeMay and Lt. William Calley. That is not my view today. I've met a number of serving and former officers, and been very, very impressed by the higher-ranking ones and some but not all of the more junior officers. The Army Captains and down I've met are a pretty mixed bag, but by the time you get to Lt. Colonels, or Navy Captains, they tend to be pretty serious people, and even more so when they have stars on their shoulders. All the more reason why I'd imagine it was the politicals, and be surprised and disappointed to find Admirals and Generals lying to the President in this way, even to one they may not have liked much.

Rose Burawoy, Political Scientist

Rose Burawoy was born in Bialystock, then a thriving metropolis with a substantial Jewish population. She told me once -- exactly once, as she never mentioned it again -- that she remembered 'the Cossacks' running through and killing people in a pogrom when she was a child. She described it as something that had happened to other people, perhaps not far away, not as an eyewitness. (And, indeed, there was a pogrom in Bialystock in 1903, more killings in the area in 1920, and a pattern of killings and other anti-Semitic incidents in the 1930s ). In the retelling at least, my grandmother seems to have been as bothered by what she saw as provincialism, and was happy to escape to the bright lights of Berlin. Her life, and marriages, would later take her to Paris, and London, where she lived when World War II began, and finally to New York, where I think she was happy to be.

This geography explains something my grandmother once said that I find myself thinking of fairly often these days. I vividly recall my grandmother -- alone in the family -- objecting when I first said I wanted to become a lawyer. Don't do that, she said. Why not be a doctor? Or a businessman, or anything else that involves a portable skill. A lawyer can only work in one country, and you can't take your skill with you if you have to leave. 'What's wrong with that?' I asked, 'I like it here.' And my grandmother, who usually treated me like a child, and who rarely said anything terribly grave about anything, much less the war -- tending to limit her political commentary to how bad it was that old people had to worry about being mugged by the hooligans on the Manhattan streets, and how /insert-conservative-politician/ was good for the Jews because he was strong on defense -- gave me a knowing, wise, slightly sad, very grownup look, that said she knew I, the American grandson, was not going to understand, and said, 'When the Nazis come to America, what will you do then?'.

I laughed, of course. The Nazis were not going to take over America. And she said, quite seriously, 'That's what we said in Germany. Germany was the freest more democratic country in the world before Hitler. You'll see.'

I still don't think the Nazis are coming. But my grandmother's question is an galling reminder that in politics, like in the securities markets, past performance is no guarantee of future results. The people who founded this country called it a great experiment. As a citizen, a lawyer, and especially as a law professor, I have the luxury to think about the rules we use to govern ourselves and each other. Periods of stress do not bring out the best in most people, and current times provide ample evidence of that.

In the past two years, our government has embarked on a course of conduct, and legal argument attempting to justify that conduct, that I find simply horrifying. According to the current Administration, our government can:

• Hold detainees in Guantanamo indefinitely without trial. Hold some of them, including children, in what amounts to solitary confinement for years. Hold them abroad, because the Administration hasn't the guts or the decency to bring them to the US, where they would have rights to a hearing, to a trial, to judicial supervision of the conditions of their confinement. The government argues it can hold them during "wartime" -- and as this war is against an ism, it could go on for ever.
• Try some detainees in Guantanamo -- the lucky ones? -- under rules of court which, while not barbaric, are sufficiently tilted against the defendants to cast doubt on the fairness of the proceeding. To subject them to a possible death penalty in a non-jury trial -- and to cut off any chance of appeal to the Article III courts we usually expect to be the defenders of liberty and justice.
• Perhaps you think that this is wartime, and the nation must protect itself. While it's possible, I suppose, to imagine a circumstance in which we could not afford fair trials, it's impossible for me to believe we are anywhere near that stage.
• Or perhaps you think, as a number of recent judicial decisions suggest, that our government's constitutional obligation to act decently applies only to its dealings with US citizens and non-citizens in the US itself. I disagree -- I think our government has only the powers that emanate from the Constitution, and I don't find the power to act unjustly to be among them. (Even if I'm wrong about that, I'm saddened that this Administration is willing to so cavalierly drain our moral capital on bad trials, rather than demonstrating that we will give a fair hearing to even those we believe to be our enemies. But that's another issue, for another day.)
• Whatever you may think, this Administration clearly believes it has the legal right to treat US citizens as badly as it treats the "detainees" in Guantanamo. And not just US citizens the government thinks its local allies captured during a foreign war. No, this Administration, this Attorney General, this occupant of the White House, argue that they have the right to scoop up any US citizen, on any street anywhere in this country, and lock them up indefinitely. We have rules about how long an arrested person can be held without charges, and without lawyers. In the case of Jose Padilla, this Administration has violated all those rules. What it did was shockingly simple: when the time came to either charge Padilla with a crime, or let him go, the government removed him from the criminal justice system and tossed him in a Navy brig. And there he sits, while the lawyers fight about whether he's entitled to be charged, and to have assistance defending himself.

When a government claims the power to grab anyone off the street and lock them up indefinitely without trial, watch out.

I still think my grandmother was wrong about the Nazis taking over in America. But I'm reluctantly coming around to believing that she was right about my complacency. Our liberty is not now something we can take for granted. While we face somewhat amorphous threats from abroad -- threats I am confident we can endure and overcome -- we face increasingly concrete threats to our liberty at home. If we do not face the Gestapo, we nonetheless face a security apparatus that has claimed the right to methods that until recently we would have called Gestapo tactics. I am not predicting a pogrom, and solitary confinement, however unpleasant is not the Final Solution.

But I do not feel safer, nor even all that safe, when anyone -- no matter how well-intentioned -- claims that they can put me in a Navy brig, incommunicado, indefinitely, without charges or trial, just because they can satisfy themselves -- and no one else -- that I deserve it.