I can almost hear the exasperation in my mother's voice. The party is about over and not only is nobody taking responsibility for the economic mess (no big surprise) but neither are they even acknowledging the very real potential for economic disaster...
None of the candidates seem to appreciate the enormity of the debt tsunami bearing down on our economy. What will the explosion in debt servicing costs stemming from the aggregated (aggravated?) Dubya Deficits do to the budget on top of Social Security trust fund IOUs coming due? ... and let's not fool ourselves, the debt rose every year of the Clinton administration too, "surplus" years or no -- http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm (gee, how did THAT happen?)
As annual debt servicing costs and those pesky IOU payments climb towards a trillion while jobs continue to float overseas, who can say what the impact will be? Given what a little economic downturn in Asia did a few years back, you might expect it to get pretty ugly just about everywhere in about ten years.
Even GOP folk are breaking ranks on this one (among other faith-based neocon initiatives).
"The Republican Party took control of Congress with the 1994 Republican Contract with America on the idea that government "is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money." Almost a decade later, with control of the White House, the Republicans in power have turned around and created the largest budget and deficits this county has ever seen. At a time when this country needs a sound fiscal policy, President Bush has led the path away from fiscal conservatism, and Republicans in Congress and across the country have followed. Conservatives have blindly followed Bush away from what used to be one of their pillars, low government spending and a balanced budget."
http://www.conservativesagainstbush.com/30july.html
"Republicans are swiftly forfeiting the perception that they are especially responsible stewards of government finances. It is surreal for a Republican president to submit a budget to a Republican-controlled Congress and have Republican legislators vow to remove the "waste" that he has included and that they have hitherto funded...
In the last year of Bush's second term, or of John Kerry's first, the first of 77 million baby boomers will begin to retire, and to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare as currently configured.
Bush, unlike Kerry, has admirably bold plans for meeting these predictable crises, which are his generation's greatest domestic challenges. But these plans involve complexities and responsibilities that the public will fathom and accept only if they are explained by a president whom the public believes speaks judiciously and knows things, including what he does not know.
Furthermore, this president's plan for reforming Social Security, which involves allowing individuals to invest a portion of Social Security taxes in approved private accounts, will have large transition costs. Large deficits of the sort currently occurring may become a reason, or at least an excuse, for further delaying reform. "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20482-2004Feb6.html
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
For Bush, It's Game Time
A classic
For Bush, It's Game Time
By George F. Will
Sunday, February 8, 2004
After this winter of his discontent, the president needs spring training. He is far from midseason form, and his accumulating errors are undermining the premise of his reelection campaign, which is: Wartime demands hard choices and sacrifices, and a president who is steady, measured and believable.
Rhetorical carelessness and overreaching began before the war, when various administration officials ignored Mark Twain's warning that the difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning bug and lightning. It would have been much better if the president and others, speaking about Iraqi weapons, had said "we believe" rather than "we know."
After the war, in May, on Polish television, President Bush said, "We found the weapons of mass destruction. You know, we found biological laboratories." No, we did not. "So what's the difference?" said the president in December about the failure to find WMDs, because "if [Saddam Hussein] were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger." Such casualness, which would be alarming in any president, is especially so in one whose vaulting foreign policy ambitions have turned his first term into Woodrow Wilson's third term, devoted to planting democracy and "universal values" in hitherto inhospitable places.
Once begun, leakage of public confidence in a president's pronouncements is difficult to stanch. This president's certitude that $400 billion "is enough to meet our commitments" for 10 years under the new Medicare prescription drug entitlement was followed by a one-third upward revision of the estimate. Especially dismaying was the fact that the president seemed not to know -- or, worse, care -- that an inherent problem with vast welfare state expansions is that no one can know crucial variables, such as, in this instance, the number of people choosing to participate and the coming menu of new drugs.
Republicans are swiftly forfeiting the perception that they are especially responsible stewards of government finances. It is surreal for a Republican president to submit a budget to a Republican-controlled Congress and have Republican legislators vow to remove the "waste" that he has included and that they have hitherto funded.
The president does indeed propose killing 65 programs and substantially curtailing 63. But even if Congress fully complies, which it won't, the savings would be just $4.9 billion -- a rounding error in a $2.4 trillion budget. That $4.9 billion would pay less than six days' interest on the national debt.
Two post-1945 elections -- one a landslide, one a cliffhanger -- produced dramatic spending surges. Lyndon Johnson's 1964 rout of Barry Goldwater created in Congress the first liberal legislating majority since 1938. Pent-up liberal demands produced, among much else, Medicare. There is no such obvious explanation for the spending surge since 2000, other than the possibility that deficits are one way "compassionate conservatism" defines itself.
One reason for wanting Bush to win a second term is that the 22nd Amendment, by precluding third terms, makes some matters "second term issues" -- those too difficult to address while seeking reelection. In the last year of Bush's second term, or of John Kerry's first, the first of 77 million baby boomers will begin to retire, and to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare as currently configured.
Bush, unlike Kerry, has admirably bold plans for meeting these predictable crises, which are his generation's greatest domestic challenges. But these plans involve complexities and responsibilities that the public will fathom and accept only if they are explained by a president whom the public believes speaks judiciously and knows things, including what he does not know.
Furthermore, this president's plan for reforming Social Security, which involves allowing individuals to invest a portion of Social Security taxes in approved private accounts, will have large transition costs. Large deficits of the sort currently occurring may become a reason, or at least an excuse, for further delaying reform. So far, the president's difficulties have been partially obscured by the sheer silliness of the Democrats seeking to replace him, all of whom want to run William Jennings Bryan's fourth campaign. Bryan lost three times, but today they are all prairie populists, even the fellow from Boston's Beacon Hill, inveighing against "special interests." That category, although capacious, does not encompass trial lawyers, teachers unions and hundreds of other Democratic clients, including Iowa beneficiaries of ethanol subsidies.
But if the president is to win a second term, and if it is to be worth winning, he must begin again to speak plainly and accurately, not just less foolishly than the make-believe Bryans.
georgewill@washpost.com
В© 2004 The Washington Post Company
For Bush, It's Game Time
By George F. Will
Sunday, February 8, 2004
After this winter of his discontent, the president needs spring training. He is far from midseason form, and his accumulating errors are undermining the premise of his reelection campaign, which is: Wartime demands hard choices and sacrifices, and a president who is steady, measured and believable.
Rhetorical carelessness and overreaching began before the war, when various administration officials ignored Mark Twain's warning that the difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning bug and lightning. It would have been much better if the president and others, speaking about Iraqi weapons, had said "we believe" rather than "we know."
After the war, in May, on Polish television, President Bush said, "We found the weapons of mass destruction. You know, we found biological laboratories." No, we did not. "So what's the difference?" said the president in December about the failure to find WMDs, because "if [Saddam Hussein] were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger." Such casualness, which would be alarming in any president, is especially so in one whose vaulting foreign policy ambitions have turned his first term into Woodrow Wilson's third term, devoted to planting democracy and "universal values" in hitherto inhospitable places.
Once begun, leakage of public confidence in a president's pronouncements is difficult to stanch. This president's certitude that $400 billion "is enough to meet our commitments" for 10 years under the new Medicare prescription drug entitlement was followed by a one-third upward revision of the estimate. Especially dismaying was the fact that the president seemed not to know -- or, worse, care -- that an inherent problem with vast welfare state expansions is that no one can know crucial variables, such as, in this instance, the number of people choosing to participate and the coming menu of new drugs.
Republicans are swiftly forfeiting the perception that they are especially responsible stewards of government finances. It is surreal for a Republican president to submit a budget to a Republican-controlled Congress and have Republican legislators vow to remove the "waste" that he has included and that they have hitherto funded.
The president does indeed propose killing 65 programs and substantially curtailing 63. But even if Congress fully complies, which it won't, the savings would be just $4.9 billion -- a rounding error in a $2.4 trillion budget. That $4.9 billion would pay less than six days' interest on the national debt.
Two post-1945 elections -- one a landslide, one a cliffhanger -- produced dramatic spending surges. Lyndon Johnson's 1964 rout of Barry Goldwater created in Congress the first liberal legislating majority since 1938. Pent-up liberal demands produced, among much else, Medicare. There is no such obvious explanation for the spending surge since 2000, other than the possibility that deficits are one way "compassionate conservatism" defines itself.
One reason for wanting Bush to win a second term is that the 22nd Amendment, by precluding third terms, makes some matters "second term issues" -- those too difficult to address while seeking reelection. In the last year of Bush's second term, or of John Kerry's first, the first of 77 million baby boomers will begin to retire, and to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare as currently configured.
Bush, unlike Kerry, has admirably bold plans for meeting these predictable crises, which are his generation's greatest domestic challenges. But these plans involve complexities and responsibilities that the public will fathom and accept only if they are explained by a president whom the public believes speaks judiciously and knows things, including what he does not know.
Furthermore, this president's plan for reforming Social Security, which involves allowing individuals to invest a portion of Social Security taxes in approved private accounts, will have large transition costs. Large deficits of the sort currently occurring may become a reason, or at least an excuse, for further delaying reform. So far, the president's difficulties have been partially obscured by the sheer silliness of the Democrats seeking to replace him, all of whom want to run William Jennings Bryan's fourth campaign. Bryan lost three times, but today they are all prairie populists, even the fellow from Boston's Beacon Hill, inveighing against "special interests." That category, although capacious, does not encompass trial lawyers, teachers unions and hundreds of other Democratic clients, including Iowa beneficiaries of ethanol subsidies.
But if the president is to win a second term, and if it is to be worth winning, he must begin again to speak plainly and accurately, not just less foolishly than the make-believe Bryans.
georgewill@washpost.com
В© 2004 The Washington Post Company
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Noonan breaks ranks -- not
Watching our Fearless Leader on Sunday, I was fairly certain that the audience reaction would split fairly evenly along the national polarization boundary. The half that still approved of his performance would not be particularly dismayed at his inarticulate, meandering responses; the half that don't would be further convinced of his mediocrity. I was surprised to hear that such a luminary as Peggy Noonan was breaking ranks and pointing out the dearth of the emporer's Sunday apparel.
The president seemed tired, unsure and often bumbling. His answers were repetitive, and when he tried to clarify them he tended to make them worse. He did not seem prepared. He seemed in some way disconnected from the event. When he was thrown the semisoftball question on his National Guard experience--he's been thrown this question for 10 years now--he spoke in a way that seemed detached. "It's politics." Well yes, we know that. Tell us more.
That particular paragraph has already traveled far and wide. What has been largely ignored is the dozen paragraphs of "but, so what" that followed, e.g.:
Mr. Bush is as bright as John Kerry, just as Mr. Reagan was as bright as Walter Mondale, who was very good at talking points. They all are and were intelligent. Yet neither Mr. Bush's interviews and press conferences nor Mr. Reagan's suggested anything about what they were like in the office during a crisis: engaged, and tough. It's something else.
Bottom line, nobody seems to have changed their mind last Sunday.
Nor does anyone seem to understand what the explosion in the debt from the aggregated Dubya Deficits on top of Social Security trust fund IOUs coming due is going to do the budget. As debt servicing starts climbing towards a trillion a year, it won't be pretty here. It may get pretty ugly everywhere else.
The president seemed tired, unsure and often bumbling. His answers were repetitive, and when he tried to clarify them he tended to make them worse. He did not seem prepared. He seemed in some way disconnected from the event. When he was thrown the semisoftball question on his National Guard experience--he's been thrown this question for 10 years now--he spoke in a way that seemed detached. "It's politics." Well yes, we know that. Tell us more.
That particular paragraph has already traveled far and wide. What has been largely ignored is the dozen paragraphs of "but, so what" that followed, e.g.:
Mr. Bush is as bright as John Kerry, just as Mr. Reagan was as bright as Walter Mondale, who was very good at talking points. They all are and were intelligent. Yet neither Mr. Bush's interviews and press conferences nor Mr. Reagan's suggested anything about what they were like in the office during a crisis: engaged, and tough. It's something else.
Bottom line, nobody seems to have changed their mind last Sunday.
Nor does anyone seem to understand what the explosion in the debt from the aggregated Dubya Deficits on top of Social Security trust fund IOUs coming due is going to do the budget. As debt servicing starts climbing towards a trillion a year, it won't be pretty here. It may get pretty ugly everywhere else.
Sunday, February 08, 2004
The Dangers of Public Economic Illiteracy
Economists are alarmed that ordinary people do not understand how
their economy works. How can the country operate the right economic
policies, they ask, if most voters systematically have the wrong ideas? A
survey taken at the height of the long economic boom asked the same
questions of economics PhDs and a cross-section of the public. They agreed
on hardly anything, except that people needed to save more and that
inadequate education and training were damaging the economy.
The public was convinced that the economy
was suffering from high taxes, excess public spending, too much foreign aid,
too many immigrants, and having too many people drawing welfare benefits.
Economists did not rate any of those much of a problem.
The public saw high business profits, executives paying themselves too much,
technology displacing people and companies restructuring as detrimental to
the economy. To the economists, none of these were bad and some were good.
Ominously, the public said that freer trade costs American jobs while
economists are convinced that it creates more. Worst of all, ordinary people
were convinced that they had become worse off over the previous two decades
while the income and output statistics relied on by the economists showed
precisely the opposite.
Bryan Caplan, of George Mason University, has analysed why voters and economists are at odds. It is not because economists have safe, well-paid jobs. Other wealthy folk agree with the rest of the public. Nor is it that the economists are all free market
ideologues. Most are left of center.
Sheer ignorance and prejudice is to blame, the professor concludes. Surely
it is no coincidence that the average American thinks anything involving
foreigners hurts the economy.
per http://www.mercatus.org/pdf/materials/32.pdf
their economy works. How can the country operate the right economic
policies, they ask, if most voters systematically have the wrong ideas? A
survey taken at the height of the long economic boom asked the same
questions of economics PhDs and a cross-section of the public. They agreed
on hardly anything, except that people needed to save more and that
inadequate education and training were damaging the economy.
The public was convinced that the economy
was suffering from high taxes, excess public spending, too much foreign aid,
too many immigrants, and having too many people drawing welfare benefits.
Economists did not rate any of those much of a problem.
The public saw high business profits, executives paying themselves too much,
technology displacing people and companies restructuring as detrimental to
the economy. To the economists, none of these were bad and some were good.
Ominously, the public said that freer trade costs American jobs while
economists are convinced that it creates more. Worst of all, ordinary people
were convinced that they had become worse off over the previous two decades
while the income and output statistics relied on by the economists showed
precisely the opposite.
Bryan Caplan, of George Mason University, has analysed why voters and economists are at odds. It is not because economists have safe, well-paid jobs. Other wealthy folk agree with the rest of the public. Nor is it that the economists are all free market
ideologues. Most are left of center.
Sheer ignorance and prejudice is to blame, the professor concludes. Surely
it is no coincidence that the average American thinks anything involving
foreigners hurts the economy.
per http://www.mercatus.org/pdf/materials/32.pdf
OK, Dems, time to wake up and think:
Which ad theme is going to appeal to swing voters:
"Bush lied, Americans died"
-or-
"Think about what was going on in Iraq a year ago with people being tortured, rape rooms, mass graves, gross corruption, a country that has used chemical weapons against its own people"
Despite what appeals to the party faithful voting in the primaries, come November I think more swing voters will accept the second. Granted the first makes a better sound bite, but it is actually possible to underestimate the intelligence of the average American. When pressed, he has been known to actually exercise critical thought on major issues. In these cases, simplistic slogans will turn him off.
Better strap in, kids -- it's gonna be a long year.
"Bush lied, Americans died"
-or-
"Think about what was going on in Iraq a year ago with people being tortured, rape rooms, mass graves, gross corruption, a country that has used chemical weapons against its own people"
Despite what appeals to the party faithful voting in the primaries, come November I think more swing voters will accept the second. Granted the first makes a better sound bite, but it is actually possible to underestimate the intelligence of the average American. When pressed, he has been known to actually exercise critical thought on major issues. In these cases, simplistic slogans will turn him off.
Better strap in, kids -- it's gonna be a long year.
Friday, February 06, 2004
The CIA bends over to please
"Last year Laurie Mylroie published a book titled "Bush vs. the Beltway: How the C.I.A. and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror." Ms. Mylroie's book came with an encomium from Richard Perle; she's known to be close to Paul Wolfowitz and to Dick Cheney's chief of staff. According to the jacket copy, "Mylroie describes how the C.I.A. and the State Department have systematically discredited critical intelligence about Saddam's regime, including indisputable evidence of its possession of weapons of mass destruction."
Currently serving intelligence officials may deny that they faced any pressure - after what happened to Valerie Plame, what would you do in their place? - but former officials tell a different story. The latest revelation is from Britain. Brian Jones, who was the Ministry of Defense's top W.M.D. analyst when Tony Blair assembled his case for war, says that the crucial dossier used to make that case didn't reflect the views of the professionals: "The expert intelligence experts of the D.I.S. [Defense Intelligence Staff] were overruled." All the experts agreed that the dossier's claims should have been "carefully caveated"; they weren't.
And don't forget the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, created specifically to offer a more alarming picture of the Iraq threat than the intelligence professionals were willing to provide.
Can all these awkward facts be whited out of the historical record? Probably. Almost surely, President Bush's handpicked "independent" commission won't investigate the Office of Special Plans. "
Currently serving intelligence officials may deny that they faced any pressure - after what happened to Valerie Plame, what would you do in their place? - but former officials tell a different story. The latest revelation is from Britain. Brian Jones, who was the Ministry of Defense's top W.M.D. analyst when Tony Blair assembled his case for war, says that the crucial dossier used to make that case didn't reflect the views of the professionals: "The expert intelligence experts of the D.I.S. [Defense Intelligence Staff] were overruled." All the experts agreed that the dossier's claims should have been "carefully caveated"; they weren't.
And don't forget the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, created specifically to offer a more alarming picture of the Iraq threat than the intelligence professionals were willing to provide.
Can all these awkward facts be whited out of the historical record? Probably. Almost surely, President Bush's handpicked "independent" commission won't investigate the Office of Special Plans. "
Where the hell did these deficits come from!?
"The fiscal 2005 budget report admits that this year's expected $521 billion deficit belies the rosy forecasts of 2001. But the report offers an explanation: stuff happens. 'Today's budget deficits are the unavoidable result of the revenue erosion from the stock market collapse that began in early 2000, an economy recovering from recession and a nation confronting serious security threats.' Sure, the administration was wrong - but so was everyone.
The trouble is that accepting that excuse requires forgetting a lot of recent history. By February 2002, when the administration released its fiscal 2003 budget, all of the bad news - the bursting of the bubble, the recession, and, yes, 9/11 - had already happened. Yet that budget projected only a $14 billion deficit this year, and a return to surpluses next year. Why did that forecast turn out so wrong? Because administration officials fudged the facts, as usual.
I'd like to think that the administration's crass efforts to rewrite history will backfire, that the media and the informed public won't let officials get away with this. "
www.nytimes.com/2004/02/06/opinion/06KRUG.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fPaul%20Krugman
... don't hold yer breath, Paul.
The trouble is that accepting that excuse requires forgetting a lot of recent history. By February 2002, when the administration released its fiscal 2003 budget, all of the bad news - the bursting of the bubble, the recession, and, yes, 9/11 - had already happened. Yet that budget projected only a $14 billion deficit this year, and a return to surpluses next year. Why did that forecast turn out so wrong? Because administration officials fudged the facts, as usual.
I'd like to think that the administration's crass efforts to rewrite history will backfire, that the media and the informed public won't let officials get away with this. "
www.nytimes.com/2004/02/06/opinion/06KRUG.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fPaul%20Krugman
... don't hold yer breath, Paul.
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Why the 9/11 Investigation Must Go Forward
[Bush believes if you stall long enough people will lose interest. I haven't. I am a patient man...]
Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush
by Gail Sheehy
This concerns the refusal of the country's leadership to be held accountable for
the failure to execute its most fundamental responsibility.
This column ran on page 1 in the 8/25/2003 edition of The New York Observer.
http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/story.asp?ID=7816
In mid-June, F.B.I. director Robert Mueller III and several senior agents in the
bureau received a group of about 20 visitors in a briefing room of the J. Edgar Hoover
Building in Washington, D.C. The director himself narrated a PowerPoint presentation that summarized the numbers of agents and leads and evidence he and his people had collected in the 18-month course of their ongoing investigation ...
After the formal meeting, senior agents in the room faced a grilling by Kristen
Breitweiser, a 9/11 widow whose cohorts are three other widowed moms from New Jersey.
"I don't understand, with all the warnings about the possibilities of Al Qaeda
using planes as weapons, and the Phoenix Memo from one of your own agents warning that Osama bin Laden was sending operatives to this country for flight-school training, why didn't you check out flight schools before Sept. 11?"
"Do you know how many flight schools there are in the U.S.? Thousands," a senior
agent protested. "We couldn't have investigated them all and found these few guys."
"Wait, you just told me there were too many flight schools and that prohibited you
from investigating them before 9/11," Kristen persisted. "How is it that a few hours
after the attacks, the nation is brought to its knees, and miraculously F.B.I. agents
showed up at Embry-Riddle flight school in Florida where some of the terrorists trained?"
"We got lucky," was the reply.
Kristen then asked the agent how the F.B.I. had known exactly which A.T.M. in
Portland, Me., would yield a videotape of Mohammed Atta, the leader of the attacks. The agent got some facts confused, then changed his story. When Kristen wouldn't be pacified by evasive answers, the senior agent parried, "What are you getting at?"
"I think you had open investigations before Sept. 11 on some of the people
responsible for the terrorist attacks," she said.
"We did not," the agent said unequivocally.
[They LIED...]
A month later, on the morning of July 24, before the scathing Congressional report on
intelligence failures was released, Kristen and the three other moms from New Jersey
with whom she'd been in league sat impassively at a briefing by staff director
Eleanor Hill: In fact, they learned, the F.B.I. had open investigations on 14 individuals who had contact with the hijackers while they were in the United States. The flush of pride in their own research passed quickly. This was just another confirmation that the
federal government continued to obscure the facts about its handling of suspected terrorists leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks.
...
Kristen and the three other housewives who also lost their husbands in the attack on
the World Trade Center started out knowing virtually nothing about how their government worked. For the last 20 months they have clipped and Googled, rallied and lobbied, charmed and intimidated top officials all the way to the White House. In the process, they have made themselves arguably the most effective force in dancing around the obstacle course by which the administration continues to block a transparent investigation of what went wrong with the country's defenses on Sept. 11 and what we should be doing about it. They have no political clout, no money, no powerful husbands-no husbands at all since Sept. 11-and they are up against a White House, an Attorney General, a Defense Secretary, a National Security Advisor and an F.B.I. director who have worked out an ingenious bait-and-switch game to thwart their efforts and those of any investigative body.
[...but WHY did they lie? is it just second nature or are they hiding something even more embarrassing than what we already knew?]
The Mom Cell
The four moms-Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Mindy Kleinberg and Lorie van
Auken-use tactics more like those of a leaderless cell. They have learned how to deposit
their assorted seven children with select grandmothers before dawn and rocket down the Garden State Parkway to Washington. They have become experts at changing out of pedal-pushers and into proper pantsuits while their S.U.V. is stopped in traffic, so they can hit the Capitol rotunda running. They have talked strategy with Senator John McCain and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. They once caught Congressman Porter Goss hiding behind his office door to avoid them. And they maintain an open line of communication with the White House.
...
Last September, Kristen was singled out by the families of 9/11 to testify in the
first televised public hearing before the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry (JICI) in
Washington. She drew high praise from the leadership, made up of members from both the House and Senate. But the JICI, as the moms called it, was mandated to go out of
business at the end of 2003, and their questions for the intelligence agencies were
consistently blocked: The Justice Department has forbidden intelligence officials to be
interviewed without "minders" among their bosses being present, a tactic clearly meant to intimidate witnesses. When the White House and the intelligence agencies held up the Congressional report month after month by demanding that much of it remain classified, the moms' rallying cry became "Free the JICI!"
They believed the only hope for getting at the truth would be with an independent
federal commission with a mandate to build on the findings of the Congressional inquiry
and broaden it to include testimony from all the other relevant agencies. Their fight
finally overcame the directive by Vice President Dick Cheney to Congressman Goss to "keep negotiating" and, in January 2003, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States-known as the 9/11 Commission-met for the first time. It is not only for their peace of mind that the four moms continue to fight to reveal the truth, but because they firmly believe that, nearly two years after the attacks, the country is no safer now than it was on Sept. 11.
...
The Investigation
Lorie was the network's designated researcher, since she had in her basement what
looked like a NASA command module; her husband had been an amateur designer. Kristen had told her to focus on the timeline: Who knew what, when did they know it, and what did they do about it?
Once Lorie began surfing the Web, she couldn't stop. She found a video of
President Bush's reaction on the morning of Sept. 11. According to the official timeline
provided by his press secretary, the President arrived at an elementary school in
Sarasota, Fla., at 9 a.m. and was told in the hallway of the school that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. This was 14 minutes after the first attack. The President went into a private room and spoke by phone with his National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, and glanced at a TV in the room. "That's some bad pilot," the President said. Bush then proceeded to a classroom, where he drew up a little stool to listen to second graders read. At 9:04 a.m., his chief of staff, Andrew Card, whispered in his ear that a second plane had struck the towers. "We are under attack," Mr. Card informed the President.
"Bush's sunny countenance went grim," said the White House account. "After Card's whisper, Bush looked distracted and somber but continued to listen to the second
graders read and soon was smiling again. He joked that they read so well, they must be
sixth graders."
Lorie checked the Web site of the Federal Aviation Authority. The F.A.A. and the
Secret Service, which had an open phone connection, both knew at 8:20 a.m. that two planes had been hijacked in the New York area and had their transponders turned off. How could they have thought it was an accident when the first plane slammed into the first tower 26 minutes later? How could the President have dismissed this as merely an accident by a "bad pilot"? And how, after he had been specifically told by his chief of staff that "We are under attack," could the Commander in Chief continue sitting with second graders and make a joke? Lorie ran the video over and over.
"I couldn't stop watching the President sitting there, listening to second
graders, while my husband was burning in a building," she said.
Mindy pieced together the actions of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He had
been in his Washington office engaged in his "usual intelligence briefing." After being
informed of the two attacks on the World Trade Center, he proceeded with his briefing
until the third hijacked plane struck the Pentagon. Mindy relayed the information to
Kristen:
"Can you believe this? Two planes hitting the Twin Towers in New York City did not
rise to the level of Rumsfeld's leaving his office and going to the war room to check
out just what the hell went wrong." Mindy sounded scared. "This is my President. This
is my Secretary of Defense. You mean to tell me Rumsfeld had to get up from his desk and look out his window at the burning Pentagon before he knew anything was wrong? How can that be?"
"It can't be," said Kristen ominously. Their network being a continuous loop,
Kristen immediately passed on the news to Lorie, who became even more agitated.
Lorie checked out the North American Aerospace Defense Command, whose specific
mission includes a response to any form of an air attack on America. It was created to
provide a defense of critical command-and-control targets. At 8:40 a.m. on 9/11, the F.A.A. notified NORAD that Flight No. 11 had been hijacked. Three minutes later, the F.A.A. notified NORAD that Flight No. 175 was also hijacked. By 9:02 a.m., both planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, but there had been no action by NORAD. Both agencies also knew there were two other hijacked planes in the air that had been violently diverted from their flight pattern. All other air traffic had been ordered grounded. NORAD operates out of Andrews Air Force Base, which is within sight of the Pentagon. Why didn't NORAD scramble planes in time to intercept the two other hijacked jetliners headed for command-and-control centers in Washington? Lorie wanted to know. Where was the leadership?
"I can't look at these timelines anymore," Lorie confessed to Kristen. "When you
pull it apart, it just doesn't reconcile with the official storyline." She hunched
down in her husband's swivel chair and began to tremble, thinking, There's no
way this could be. Somebody is not telling us the whole story.
The Commission
The 9/11 Commission wouldn't have happened without the four moms. At the end of
its first open hearing, held last spring at the U.S. Customs House close to the
construction pit of Ground Zero, former Democratic Congressman Tim Roemer said as much and
praised them and other activist 9/11 families.
"At a time when many Americans don't even take the opportunity to cast a ballot,
you folks went out and made the legislative system work," he said.
Jamie Gorelick, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, said at the same
hearing, "I'm enormously impressed that laypeople with no powers of subpoena, with
no access to insider information of any sort, could put together a very powerful set of
questions and set of facts that are a road map for this commission. It is really quite
striking. Now, what's your secret?"
Mindy, who had given a blistering testimony at that day's hearing, tossed her
long corkscrew curls and replied in a voice more Tallulah than termagant, "Eighteen months of doing nothing but grieving and connecting the dots."
Eleanor Hill, the universally respected staff director of the JICI investigation,
shares the moms' point of view.
"One of our biggest concerns is our finding that there were people in this country
assisting these hijackers," she said later in an interview with this writer. "Since the
F.B.I. was in fact investigating all these people as part of their counterterroism
effort, and they knew some of them had ties to Al Qaeda, then how good was their
investigation if they didn't come across the hijackers?"
President Bush, who was notified in the President's daily briefing on Aug. 6,
2001, that "a group of [Osama] bin Laden supporters was planning attacks in the United States with explosives," insisted after the Congressional report was made public: "My administration has transformed our government to pursue terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks."
Kristen, Mindy, Patty and Lorie are not impressed.
"We were told that, prior to 9/11, the F.B.I. was only responsible for going in after
the fact to solve a crime and prepare a criminal case," Kristen said. "Here we are, 22
months after the fact, the F.B.I. has received some 500,000 leads, they have thousands
of people in custody, they're seeking the death penalty for one terrorist,
[Zacarias] Moussaoui, but they still haven't solved the crime and they don't have any
of the other people who supported the hijackers." Ms. Hill echoes their frustration. "Is
this support network for Al Qaeda still in the United States? Are they still operating,
planning the next attack?"
Civil Defense
The hopes of the four moms that the current 9/11 Commission could broaden the inquiry beyond the intelligence agencies are beginning to fade. As they see it, the
administration is using a streamlined version of the tactics they successfully employed to stall and suppress much of the startling information in the JICI report. The gaping hole of 28 pages concerning the Saudi royal family's financial support for the terrorists of
9/11 was only the tip of the 900-page iceberg.
"We can't get any information about the Port Authority's evacuation
procedures or the response of the City of New York," complains Kristen. "We're always told we can't get answers or documents because the F.B.I. is holding them back as part of an ongoing investigation. But when Director Mueller invited us back for a follow-up
meeting-on the very morning before that damning report was released-we were told the F.B.I. isn't pursuing any investigations based on the information we are blocked from getting. The only thing they are looking at is the hijackers. And they're all dead."
It's more than a clever Catch-22. Members of the 9/11 Commission are being denied
access even to some of the testimony given to the JICI-on which at least two of its
members sat!
This is a stonewalling job of far greater importance than Watergate. This concerns
the refusal of the country's leadership to be held accountable for the failure to
execute its most fundamental responsibility: to protect its citizens against foreign
attack.
Critical information about two of the hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf
al-Hazmi, lay dormant within the intelligence community for as long as 18 months, at the very time when plans for the Sept. 11 attacks were being hatched. The JICI confirmed that these same two hijackers had numerous contacts with a longtime F.B.I. counterterrorism informant in California. As the four moms pointed out a year ago, their names were in the San Diego phone book.
What's more, the F.B.I.'s Minneapolis field office had in custody in August
2001 one Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national who had enrolled in flight training in
Minnesota and who F.B.I. ag ents suspected was involved in a hijacking plot. But nobody at the F.B.I. apparently connected the Moussaoui investigation with intelligence
information on the immediacy of the threat level in the spring and summer of 2001, or the illegal entry of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi into the United States.
How have these lapses been corrected 24 months later? The F.B.I. is seeking the death
penalty for Mr. Moussaoui, and uses the need to protect their case against him as the
rationale for refusing to share any of the information they have obtained from him. In
fact, when Director Mueller tried to use the same excuse to duck out of testifying
before the Joint Committee, the federal judge in the Moussaoui trial dismissed his argument, and he and his agents were compelled to testify.
"At some point, you have to do a cost-benefit analysis," says Kristen. "Which is more
important-one fried terrorist, or the safety of the nation?" Patty was even more blunt
in their second meeting with the F.B.I. brass. "I don't give a rat's ass about
Moussaoui," she said. "Why don't you throw him into GuantГЎnamo and squeeze him for
all he's worth, and get on with finding his cohorts?"
The four moms are demanding that the independent commission hold a completely
transparent investigation, with open hearings and cross-examination. What it looks like they'll get is an incomplete and sanitized report, if it's released in time for the
commission's deadline next May. Or perhaps another fight over declassification of
the most potent revelations, which will serve to hold up the report until after the 2004
Presidential election. Some believe that this is the administration's end game.
Kristen sees the handwriting on the wall: "If we have an executive branch that holds
sole discretion over what information is released to the public and what is hidden, the
public will never get the full story of why there was an utter failure to protect them
that day, and who should be held accountable."
Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush
by Gail Sheehy
This concerns the refusal of the country's leadership to be held accountable for
the failure to execute its most fundamental responsibility.
This column ran on page 1 in the 8/25/2003 edition of The New York Observer.
http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/story.asp?ID=7816
In mid-June, F.B.I. director Robert Mueller III and several senior agents in the
bureau received a group of about 20 visitors in a briefing room of the J. Edgar Hoover
Building in Washington, D.C. The director himself narrated a PowerPoint presentation that summarized the numbers of agents and leads and evidence he and his people had collected in the 18-month course of their ongoing investigation ...
After the formal meeting, senior agents in the room faced a grilling by Kristen
Breitweiser, a 9/11 widow whose cohorts are three other widowed moms from New Jersey.
"I don't understand, with all the warnings about the possibilities of Al Qaeda
using planes as weapons, and the Phoenix Memo from one of your own agents warning that Osama bin Laden was sending operatives to this country for flight-school training, why didn't you check out flight schools before Sept. 11?"
"Do you know how many flight schools there are in the U.S.? Thousands," a senior
agent protested. "We couldn't have investigated them all and found these few guys."
"Wait, you just told me there were too many flight schools and that prohibited you
from investigating them before 9/11," Kristen persisted. "How is it that a few hours
after the attacks, the nation is brought to its knees, and miraculously F.B.I. agents
showed up at Embry-Riddle flight school in Florida where some of the terrorists trained?"
"We got lucky," was the reply.
Kristen then asked the agent how the F.B.I. had known exactly which A.T.M. in
Portland, Me., would yield a videotape of Mohammed Atta, the leader of the attacks. The agent got some facts confused, then changed his story. When Kristen wouldn't be pacified by evasive answers, the senior agent parried, "What are you getting at?"
"I think you had open investigations before Sept. 11 on some of the people
responsible for the terrorist attacks," she said.
"We did not," the agent said unequivocally.
[They LIED...]
A month later, on the morning of July 24, before the scathing Congressional report on
intelligence failures was released, Kristen and the three other moms from New Jersey
with whom she'd been in league sat impassively at a briefing by staff director
Eleanor Hill: In fact, they learned, the F.B.I. had open investigations on 14 individuals who had contact with the hijackers while they were in the United States. The flush of pride in their own research passed quickly. This was just another confirmation that the
federal government continued to obscure the facts about its handling of suspected terrorists leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks.
...
Kristen and the three other housewives who also lost their husbands in the attack on
the World Trade Center started out knowing virtually nothing about how their government worked. For the last 20 months they have clipped and Googled, rallied and lobbied, charmed and intimidated top officials all the way to the White House. In the process, they have made themselves arguably the most effective force in dancing around the obstacle course by which the administration continues to block a transparent investigation of what went wrong with the country's defenses on Sept. 11 and what we should be doing about it. They have no political clout, no money, no powerful husbands-no husbands at all since Sept. 11-and they are up against a White House, an Attorney General, a Defense Secretary, a National Security Advisor and an F.B.I. director who have worked out an ingenious bait-and-switch game to thwart their efforts and those of any investigative body.
[...but WHY did they lie? is it just second nature or are they hiding something even more embarrassing than what we already knew?]
The Mom Cell
The four moms-Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Mindy Kleinberg and Lorie van
Auken-use tactics more like those of a leaderless cell. They have learned how to deposit
their assorted seven children with select grandmothers before dawn and rocket down the Garden State Parkway to Washington. They have become experts at changing out of pedal-pushers and into proper pantsuits while their S.U.V. is stopped in traffic, so they can hit the Capitol rotunda running. They have talked strategy with Senator John McCain and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. They once caught Congressman Porter Goss hiding behind his office door to avoid them. And they maintain an open line of communication with the White House.
...
Last September, Kristen was singled out by the families of 9/11 to testify in the
first televised public hearing before the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry (JICI) in
Washington. She drew high praise from the leadership, made up of members from both the House and Senate. But the JICI, as the moms called it, was mandated to go out of
business at the end of 2003, and their questions for the intelligence agencies were
consistently blocked: The Justice Department has forbidden intelligence officials to be
interviewed without "minders" among their bosses being present, a tactic clearly meant to intimidate witnesses. When the White House and the intelligence agencies held up the Congressional report month after month by demanding that much of it remain classified, the moms' rallying cry became "Free the JICI!"
They believed the only hope for getting at the truth would be with an independent
federal commission with a mandate to build on the findings of the Congressional inquiry
and broaden it to include testimony from all the other relevant agencies. Their fight
finally overcame the directive by Vice President Dick Cheney to Congressman Goss to "keep negotiating" and, in January 2003, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States-known as the 9/11 Commission-met for the first time. It is not only for their peace of mind that the four moms continue to fight to reveal the truth, but because they firmly believe that, nearly two years after the attacks, the country is no safer now than it was on Sept. 11.
...
The Investigation
Lorie was the network's designated researcher, since she had in her basement what
looked like a NASA command module; her husband had been an amateur designer. Kristen had told her to focus on the timeline: Who knew what, when did they know it, and what did they do about it?
Once Lorie began surfing the Web, she couldn't stop. She found a video of
President Bush's reaction on the morning of Sept. 11. According to the official timeline
provided by his press secretary, the President arrived at an elementary school in
Sarasota, Fla., at 9 a.m. and was told in the hallway of the school that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. This was 14 minutes after the first attack. The President went into a private room and spoke by phone with his National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, and glanced at a TV in the room. "That's some bad pilot," the President said. Bush then proceeded to a classroom, where he drew up a little stool to listen to second graders read. At 9:04 a.m., his chief of staff, Andrew Card, whispered in his ear that a second plane had struck the towers. "We are under attack," Mr. Card informed the President.
"Bush's sunny countenance went grim," said the White House account. "After Card's whisper, Bush looked distracted and somber but continued to listen to the second
graders read and soon was smiling again. He joked that they read so well, they must be
sixth graders."
Lorie checked the Web site of the Federal Aviation Authority. The F.A.A. and the
Secret Service, which had an open phone connection, both knew at 8:20 a.m. that two planes had been hijacked in the New York area and had their transponders turned off. How could they have thought it was an accident when the first plane slammed into the first tower 26 minutes later? How could the President have dismissed this as merely an accident by a "bad pilot"? And how, after he had been specifically told by his chief of staff that "We are under attack," could the Commander in Chief continue sitting with second graders and make a joke? Lorie ran the video over and over.
"I couldn't stop watching the President sitting there, listening to second
graders, while my husband was burning in a building," she said.
Mindy pieced together the actions of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He had
been in his Washington office engaged in his "usual intelligence briefing." After being
informed of the two attacks on the World Trade Center, he proceeded with his briefing
until the third hijacked plane struck the Pentagon. Mindy relayed the information to
Kristen:
"Can you believe this? Two planes hitting the Twin Towers in New York City did not
rise to the level of Rumsfeld's leaving his office and going to the war room to check
out just what the hell went wrong." Mindy sounded scared. "This is my President. This
is my Secretary of Defense. You mean to tell me Rumsfeld had to get up from his desk and look out his window at the burning Pentagon before he knew anything was wrong? How can that be?"
"It can't be," said Kristen ominously. Their network being a continuous loop,
Kristen immediately passed on the news to Lorie, who became even more agitated.
Lorie checked out the North American Aerospace Defense Command, whose specific
mission includes a response to any form of an air attack on America. It was created to
provide a defense of critical command-and-control targets. At 8:40 a.m. on 9/11, the F.A.A. notified NORAD that Flight No. 11 had been hijacked. Three minutes later, the F.A.A. notified NORAD that Flight No. 175 was also hijacked. By 9:02 a.m., both planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, but there had been no action by NORAD. Both agencies also knew there were two other hijacked planes in the air that had been violently diverted from their flight pattern. All other air traffic had been ordered grounded. NORAD operates out of Andrews Air Force Base, which is within sight of the Pentagon. Why didn't NORAD scramble planes in time to intercept the two other hijacked jetliners headed for command-and-control centers in Washington? Lorie wanted to know. Where was the leadership?
"I can't look at these timelines anymore," Lorie confessed to Kristen. "When you
pull it apart, it just doesn't reconcile with the official storyline." She hunched
down in her husband's swivel chair and began to tremble, thinking, There's no
way this could be. Somebody is not telling us the whole story.
The Commission
The 9/11 Commission wouldn't have happened without the four moms. At the end of
its first open hearing, held last spring at the U.S. Customs House close to the
construction pit of Ground Zero, former Democratic Congressman Tim Roemer said as much and
praised them and other activist 9/11 families.
"At a time when many Americans don't even take the opportunity to cast a ballot,
you folks went out and made the legislative system work," he said.
Jamie Gorelick, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, said at the same
hearing, "I'm enormously impressed that laypeople with no powers of subpoena, with
no access to insider information of any sort, could put together a very powerful set of
questions and set of facts that are a road map for this commission. It is really quite
striking. Now, what's your secret?"
Mindy, who had given a blistering testimony at that day's hearing, tossed her
long corkscrew curls and replied in a voice more Tallulah than termagant, "Eighteen months of doing nothing but grieving and connecting the dots."
Eleanor Hill, the universally respected staff director of the JICI investigation,
shares the moms' point of view.
"One of our biggest concerns is our finding that there were people in this country
assisting these hijackers," she said later in an interview with this writer. "Since the
F.B.I. was in fact investigating all these people as part of their counterterroism
effort, and they knew some of them had ties to Al Qaeda, then how good was their
investigation if they didn't come across the hijackers?"
President Bush, who was notified in the President's daily briefing on Aug. 6,
2001, that "a group of [Osama] bin Laden supporters was planning attacks in the United States with explosives," insisted after the Congressional report was made public: "My administration has transformed our government to pursue terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks."
Kristen, Mindy, Patty and Lorie are not impressed.
"We were told that, prior to 9/11, the F.B.I. was only responsible for going in after
the fact to solve a crime and prepare a criminal case," Kristen said. "Here we are, 22
months after the fact, the F.B.I. has received some 500,000 leads, they have thousands
of people in custody, they're seeking the death penalty for one terrorist,
[Zacarias] Moussaoui, but they still haven't solved the crime and they don't have any
of the other people who supported the hijackers." Ms. Hill echoes their frustration. "Is
this support network for Al Qaeda still in the United States? Are they still operating,
planning the next attack?"
Civil Defense
The hopes of the four moms that the current 9/11 Commission could broaden the inquiry beyond the intelligence agencies are beginning to fade. As they see it, the
administration is using a streamlined version of the tactics they successfully employed to stall and suppress much of the startling information in the JICI report. The gaping hole of 28 pages concerning the Saudi royal family's financial support for the terrorists of
9/11 was only the tip of the 900-page iceberg.
"We can't get any information about the Port Authority's evacuation
procedures or the response of the City of New York," complains Kristen. "We're always told we can't get answers or documents because the F.B.I. is holding them back as part of an ongoing investigation. But when Director Mueller invited us back for a follow-up
meeting-on the very morning before that damning report was released-we were told the F.B.I. isn't pursuing any investigations based on the information we are blocked from getting. The only thing they are looking at is the hijackers. And they're all dead."
It's more than a clever Catch-22. Members of the 9/11 Commission are being denied
access even to some of the testimony given to the JICI-on which at least two of its
members sat!
This is a stonewalling job of far greater importance than Watergate. This concerns
the refusal of the country's leadership to be held accountable for the failure to
execute its most fundamental responsibility: to protect its citizens against foreign
attack.
Critical information about two of the hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf
al-Hazmi, lay dormant within the intelligence community for as long as 18 months, at the very time when plans for the Sept. 11 attacks were being hatched. The JICI confirmed that these same two hijackers had numerous contacts with a longtime F.B.I. counterterrorism informant in California. As the four moms pointed out a year ago, their names were in the San Diego phone book.
What's more, the F.B.I.'s Minneapolis field office had in custody in August
2001 one Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national who had enrolled in flight training in
Minnesota and who F.B.I. ag ents suspected was involved in a hijacking plot. But nobody at the F.B.I. apparently connected the Moussaoui investigation with intelligence
information on the immediacy of the threat level in the spring and summer of 2001, or the illegal entry of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi into the United States.
How have these lapses been corrected 24 months later? The F.B.I. is seeking the death
penalty for Mr. Moussaoui, and uses the need to protect their case against him as the
rationale for refusing to share any of the information they have obtained from him. In
fact, when Director Mueller tried to use the same excuse to duck out of testifying
before the Joint Committee, the federal judge in the Moussaoui trial dismissed his argument, and he and his agents were compelled to testify.
"At some point, you have to do a cost-benefit analysis," says Kristen. "Which is more
important-one fried terrorist, or the safety of the nation?" Patty was even more blunt
in their second meeting with the F.B.I. brass. "I don't give a rat's ass about
Moussaoui," she said. "Why don't you throw him into GuantГЎnamo and squeeze him for
all he's worth, and get on with finding his cohorts?"
The four moms are demanding that the independent commission hold a completely
transparent investigation, with open hearings and cross-examination. What it looks like they'll get is an incomplete and sanitized report, if it's released in time for the
commission's deadline next May. Or perhaps another fight over declassification of
the most potent revelations, which will serve to hold up the report until after the 2004
Presidential election. Some believe that this is the administration's end game.
Kristen sees the handwriting on the wall: "If we have an executive branch that holds
sole discretion over what information is released to the public and what is hidden, the
public will never get the full story of why there was an utter failure to protect them
that day, and who should be held accountable."
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Bush was AWOL, factcheck.org blows the story.
Editor@FactCheck.org
Reviewing the facts you've cited in refutation of the claims of Bush's desertion, you fail to point out that the facts cited not only do not refute the claim that he was AWOL, they actually SUPPORT the claim that Bush was AWOL for at least 7 months!
Look at these beauties --
"...Records are lacking for that period. However, The Associated Press quoted two friends who worked with Bush in the Blount campaign as saying they recall him attending Air National Guard drills in Alabama. Joe Holcombe, described as a former Republican county chairman in Alabama, was quoted as saying, "It was pretty well-known that he was in the Guard while we worked on the campaign." And Emily Martin, who said she had dated Bush during the campaign, was quoted saying, "He told us that he was having to do his Guard duty in Alabama while he worked on the campaign."
--- note that neither friend says anything about SEEING him report for duty, just that Bush said he was ASSIGNED there.
Further on, you quote other news organizations' conclusions. None of those quotes cite any evidence Bush reported for duty during the missing months. In fact, the NYT shows Bush was IN FACT not present for 7 months straight:
"...A review by The Times showed that after a seven-month gap, he appeared for duty in late November 1972 at least through July 1973." Excuse me, ARE WE ALL READING THE SAME STORY HERE?
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=131
Who's in charge of editing these pieces? This one smells of old whitewash.
... do you think he'll respond?
Reviewing the facts you've cited in refutation of the claims of Bush's desertion, you fail to point out that the facts cited not only do not refute the claim that he was AWOL, they actually SUPPORT the claim that Bush was AWOL for at least 7 months!
Look at these beauties --
"...Records are lacking for that period. However, The Associated Press quoted two friends who worked with Bush in the Blount campaign as saying they recall him attending Air National Guard drills in Alabama. Joe Holcombe, described as a former Republican county chairman in Alabama, was quoted as saying, "It was pretty well-known that he was in the Guard while we worked on the campaign." And Emily Martin, who said she had dated Bush during the campaign, was quoted saying, "He told us that he was having to do his Guard duty in Alabama while he worked on the campaign."
--- note that neither friend says anything about SEEING him report for duty, just that Bush said he was ASSIGNED there.
Further on, you quote other news organizations' conclusions. None of those quotes cite any evidence Bush reported for duty during the missing months. In fact, the NYT shows Bush was IN FACT not present for 7 months straight:
"...A review by The Times showed that after a seven-month gap, he appeared for duty in late November 1972 at least through July 1973." Excuse me, ARE WE ALL READING THE SAME STORY HERE?
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=131
Who's in charge of editing these pieces? This one smells of old whitewash.
... do you think he'll respond?
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
a confederacy of dunces
Has there ever been a confederacy of dunces deeper into denial than the fiscal conservatives of the GOP? I mean, c'mon guys! You have to draw the line SOMEWHERE! We're gonna be forking over TWO HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR JUST TO PAY THE INTEREST ON DUBYA'S DEFICITS! If he were a Democrat, we'd be drafting the articles of impeachment by now.
I know I'm repeating myself, but as Friedman (no raving libber he) notes:
"The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit is expected to total some $2.4 trillion over the next decade — almost $1 trillion more than the prediction of just five months ago. That is a failure of intelligence and common sense that threatens to make us all insecure — and people also feel that in their guts...
"Is your future better off now than it was four years ago — now that you are saddled with these large new liabilities and the higher taxes that must eventually accompany them?' "
...expose what the shameful coalition of Karl Rove-led cynics, who care only about winning the next election; voodoo economists preaching supply-side economics; and libertarian nuts who think that by cutting tax revenues you'll shrink the government — when all you do is balloon the deficit — is doing to our future."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/opinion/01FRIE.html
I know I'm repeating myself, but as Friedman (no raving libber he) notes:
"The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit is expected to total some $2.4 trillion over the next decade — almost $1 trillion more than the prediction of just five months ago. That is a failure of intelligence and common sense that threatens to make us all insecure — and people also feel that in their guts...
"Is your future better off now than it was four years ago — now that you are saddled with these large new liabilities and the higher taxes that must eventually accompany them?' "
...expose what the shameful coalition of Karl Rove-led cynics, who care only about winning the next election; voodoo economists preaching supply-side economics; and libertarian nuts who think that by cutting tax revenues you'll shrink the government — when all you do is balloon the deficit — is doing to our future."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/opinion/01FRIE.html
Monday, February 02, 2004
Academic Failure - International Test Scores - Poor TIMSS Results
Academic Failure - International Test Scores - Poor TIMSS Results: "In short, the tests showed U.S. fourth-graders performing poorly, middle school students worse. and high school students are unable to compete. By the same criteria used to say we were 'average' in elementary school, 'we appear to be 'near the bottom' at the high school level. People have a tendency to think this picture is bleak but it doesn't apply to their own school. Chances are, even if your school compares well in SAT scores, it will still be a lightweight on an international scale.
By the time our students are ready to leave high school - ready to enter higher education and the labor force - they are doing so badly with science they are significantly weaker than their peers in other countries.
Our idea of 'advanced' is clearly below international standards.
There appears to be a consistent weakness in our teaching performance in physical sciences that becomes magnified over the years.
Participants This study included primarily the industrialized countries of Europe but also the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Asia. So-called third world countries that have a higher literacy rate than the U.S., like Costa Rica, and others that contribute a significant number of U.S. advance degreed immigrants, like India , were not part of this study; therefore, the results in terms of world competition are worse than portrayed in these charts.
http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-scores.htm
http://nces.ed.gov/timss/
By the time our students are ready to leave high school - ready to enter higher education and the labor force - they are doing so badly with science they are significantly weaker than their peers in other countries.
Our idea of 'advanced' is clearly below international standards.
There appears to be a consistent weakness in our teaching performance in physical sciences that becomes magnified over the years.
Participants This study included primarily the industrialized countries of Europe but also the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Asia. So-called third world countries that have a higher literacy rate than the U.S., like Costa Rica, and others that contribute a significant number of U.S. advance degreed immigrants, like India , were not part of this study; therefore, the results in terms of world competition are worse than portrayed in these charts.
http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-scores.htm
http://nces.ed.gov/timss/
Academic Failure - International Test Scores - Poor TIMSS Results
Academic Failure - International Test Scores - Poor TIMSS Results: "In short, the tests showed U.S. fourth-graders performing poorly, middle school students worse. and high school students are unable to compete. By the same criteria used to say we were 'average' in elementary school, 'we appear to be 'near the bottom' at the high school level. People have a tendency to think this picture is bleak but it doesn't apply to their own school. Chances are, even if your school compares well in SAT scores, it will still be a lightweight on an international scale.
1. By the time our students are ready to leave high school - ready to enter higher education and the labor force - they are doing so badly with science they are significantly weaker than their peers in other countries.
2. Our idea of 'advanced' is clearly below international standards.
3. There appears to be a consistent weakness in our teaching performance in physical sciences that becomes magnified over the years.
Participants This study included primarily the industrialized countries of Europe but also the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Asia. So-called third world countries that have a higher literacy rate than the U.S., like Costa Rica, and others that contribute a significant number of U.S. advance degreed immigrants, like India , were not part of this study; therefore, the results in terms of world competition are worse than portrayed in these charts.
http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-scores.htm
http://nces.ed.gov/timss/
1. By the time our students are ready to leave high school - ready to enter higher education and the labor force - they are doing so badly with science they are significantly weaker than their peers in other countries.
2. Our idea of 'advanced' is clearly below international standards.
3. There appears to be a consistent weakness in our teaching performance in physical sciences that becomes magnified over the years.
Participants This study included primarily the industrialized countries of Europe but also the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Asia. So-called third world countries that have a higher literacy rate than the U.S., like Costa Rica, and others that contribute a significant number of U.S. advance degreed immigrants, like India , were not part of this study; therefore, the results in terms of world competition are worse than portrayed in these charts.
http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-scores.htm
http://nces.ed.gov/timss/
Budgets of Mass Destruction (Friedman)
"It should be clear to all by now that what we have in the Bush team is a faith-based administration. It launched a faith-based war in Iraq, on the basis of faith-based intelligence, with a faith-based plan for Iraqi reconstruction, supported by faith-based tax cuts to generate faith-based revenues. This group believes that what matters in politics and economics are conviction and will — not facts, social science or history.
Personally, I don't believe the Bush team will pay a long-term political price for its faith-based intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Too many Americans, including me, believe in their guts that removing Saddam was the right thing to do, even if the W.M.D. intel was wrong.
The Bush team's real vulnerability is its B.M.D. — Budgets of Mass Destruction, which have recklessly imperiled the nation's future, with crazy tax-cutting and out-of-control spending. The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit is expected to total some $2.4 trillion over the next decade — almost $1 trillion more than the prediction of just five months ago. That is a failure of intelligence and common sense that threatens to make us all insecure — and people also feel that in their guts.
As Peter Peterson, the former Nixon commerce secretary and a longtime courageous advocate of fiscal responsibility, puts it in "Running on Empty," his forthcoming book: "In the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan galvanized the American electorate with that famous riff: `I want to ask every American: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?' Perhaps some future-oriented presidential candidate should rephrase this line as follows: `I want to ask every American, young people especially: Is your future better off now than it was four years ago — now that you are saddled with these large new liabilities and the higher taxes that must eventually accompany them?' "
While in his book Mr. Peterson equally indicts Democrats and Republicans as co-conspirators in the fiscal follies of our times, the Democrats should still follow his lead and make this their campaign mantra: "Is your future better off now than it was four years ago?" That's what's on people's minds. It should be coupled with the bumper sticker: "Read My Lips: No New Services. Bush Gave All the Money Away." And it should be backed up with a responsible Democratic alternative on both taxes and spending.
That is the only way to expose what the shameful coalition of Karl Rove-led cynics, who care only about winning the next election; voodoo economists preaching supply-side economics; and libertarian nuts who think that by cutting tax revenues you'll shrink the government — when all you do is balloon the deficit — is doing to our future. And please don't tell me the tax cuts are working. Of course they're working! If you put this much stimulus into our economy — three tax cuts, loose monetary policy and out-of-control spending — it will produce a boom. Eat 10 chocolate bars at once and you'll also get a rush. But at what long-term cost?
"Quite simply," argues Mr. Peterson, "those bell-bottomed young boomers of the 1960's have fully matured. The oldest of them, born in 1946, are only six years away from the median age of retirement on Social Security (63). As a result, our large pension and health care benefit programs will soon experience rapidly accelerating benefit outlays. . . . Thus, at a time when the federal government should be building up surpluses to prepare for the aging of the baby boom generation, it is engaged in another reckless experiment with large and permanent tax cuts. America cannot grow its way out of the kinds of long-term deficits we now face. . . . The odds are growing that today's ballooning trade and fiscal deficits, the so-called twin deficits, will someday trigger an explosion that causes the economy to sink — not rise."
The same Bush folks who assured us Saddam had W.M.D. now assure us these budgets of mass destruction don't matter. Sure. "During the Vietnam War," notes Mr. Peterson, "conservatives relentlessly pilloried Lyndon Johnson for his fiscal irresponsibility. But he only wanted guns and butter. Today, so-called conservatives are out-pandering L.B.J. They must have it all: guns, butter and tax cuts."
This is so irresponsible and it will end in tears. Remember, says Mr. Peterson, long-term tax cuts without long-term spending cuts are not tax cuts. They are "tax deferrals" — with the burden to be borne by your future or your kid's future.
If this isn't the election issue, I don't know what is.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/opinion/01FRIE.html
... As long as interest rates don't rocket up and take out everyone living on their home equity loans, we'll be fine. For now.
The problems lie too far down the road for the ignorami to see (and Lord knows, our schools are turning them out in record numbers) but the $521B deficit for 2004 alone will require about $36B every year in perpetuity just to finance the interest. It's a disaster at a glacial pace. People need to realize that although they can outrun the glacier, their house can't.
Personally, I don't believe the Bush team will pay a long-term political price for its faith-based intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Too many Americans, including me, believe in their guts that removing Saddam was the right thing to do, even if the W.M.D. intel was wrong.
The Bush team's real vulnerability is its B.M.D. — Budgets of Mass Destruction, which have recklessly imperiled the nation's future, with crazy tax-cutting and out-of-control spending. The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit is expected to total some $2.4 trillion over the next decade — almost $1 trillion more than the prediction of just five months ago. That is a failure of intelligence and common sense that threatens to make us all insecure — and people also feel that in their guts.
As Peter Peterson, the former Nixon commerce secretary and a longtime courageous advocate of fiscal responsibility, puts it in "Running on Empty," his forthcoming book: "In the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan galvanized the American electorate with that famous riff: `I want to ask every American: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?' Perhaps some future-oriented presidential candidate should rephrase this line as follows: `I want to ask every American, young people especially: Is your future better off now than it was four years ago — now that you are saddled with these large new liabilities and the higher taxes that must eventually accompany them?' "
While in his book Mr. Peterson equally indicts Democrats and Republicans as co-conspirators in the fiscal follies of our times, the Democrats should still follow his lead and make this their campaign mantra: "Is your future better off now than it was four years ago?" That's what's on people's minds. It should be coupled with the bumper sticker: "Read My Lips: No New Services. Bush Gave All the Money Away." And it should be backed up with a responsible Democratic alternative on both taxes and spending.
That is the only way to expose what the shameful coalition of Karl Rove-led cynics, who care only about winning the next election; voodoo economists preaching supply-side economics; and libertarian nuts who think that by cutting tax revenues you'll shrink the government — when all you do is balloon the deficit — is doing to our future. And please don't tell me the tax cuts are working. Of course they're working! If you put this much stimulus into our economy — three tax cuts, loose monetary policy and out-of-control spending — it will produce a boom. Eat 10 chocolate bars at once and you'll also get a rush. But at what long-term cost?
"Quite simply," argues Mr. Peterson, "those bell-bottomed young boomers of the 1960's have fully matured. The oldest of them, born in 1946, are only six years away from the median age of retirement on Social Security (63). As a result, our large pension and health care benefit programs will soon experience rapidly accelerating benefit outlays. . . . Thus, at a time when the federal government should be building up surpluses to prepare for the aging of the baby boom generation, it is engaged in another reckless experiment with large and permanent tax cuts. America cannot grow its way out of the kinds of long-term deficits we now face. . . . The odds are growing that today's ballooning trade and fiscal deficits, the so-called twin deficits, will someday trigger an explosion that causes the economy to sink — not rise."
The same Bush folks who assured us Saddam had W.M.D. now assure us these budgets of mass destruction don't matter. Sure. "During the Vietnam War," notes Mr. Peterson, "conservatives relentlessly pilloried Lyndon Johnson for his fiscal irresponsibility. But he only wanted guns and butter. Today, so-called conservatives are out-pandering L.B.J. They must have it all: guns, butter and tax cuts."
This is so irresponsible and it will end in tears. Remember, says Mr. Peterson, long-term tax cuts without long-term spending cuts are not tax cuts. They are "tax deferrals" — with the burden to be borne by your future or your kid's future.
If this isn't the election issue, I don't know what is.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/opinion/01FRIE.html
... As long as interest rates don't rocket up and take out everyone living on their home equity loans, we'll be fine. For now.
The problems lie too far down the road for the ignorami to see (and Lord knows, our schools are turning them out in record numbers) but the $521B deficit for 2004 alone will require about $36B every year in perpetuity just to finance the interest. It's a disaster at a glacial pace. People need to realize that although they can outrun the glacier, their house can't.
North Korea's gulag -- Stalin had nothing on these bastards
get the children out of the room ...
"Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag
A series of shocking personal testimonies is now shedding light on Camp 22 - one of the country's most horrific secrets
Antony Barnett
Sunday February 1, 2004
The Observer
In the remote north-eastern corner of North Korea, close to the border of Russia and China, is Haengyong. Hidden away in the mountains, this remote town is home to Camp 22 - North Korea's largest concentration camp, where thousands of men, women and children accused of political crimes are held.
Now, it is claimed, it is also where thousands die each year and where prison guards stamp on the necks of babies born to prisoners to kill them.
Over the past year harrowing first-hand testimonies from North Korean defectors have detailed execution and torture, and now chilling evidence has emerged that the walls of Camp 22 hide an even more evil secret: gas chambers where horrific chemical experiments are conducted on human beings.
Witnesses have described watching entire families being put in glass chambers and gassed. They are left to an agonising death while scientists take notes. The allegations offer the most shocking glimpse so far of Kim Jong-il's North Korean regime.
Kwon Hyuk, who has changed his name, was the former military attachГ© at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing. He was also the chief of management at Camp 22. In the BBC's This World documentary, to be broadcast tonight, Hyuk claims he now wants the world to know what is happening.
'I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber,' he said. 'The parents, son and and a daughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.'
Hyuk has drawn detailed diagrams of the gas chamber he saw. He said: 'The glass chamber is sealed airtight. It is 3.5 metres wide, 3m long and 2.2m high_ [There] is the injection tube going through the unit. Normally, a family sticks together and individual prisoners stand separately around the corners. Scientists observe the entire process from above, through the glass.'
He explains how he had believed this treatment was justified. 'At the time I felt that they thoroughly deserved such a death. Because all of us were led to believe that all the bad things that were happening to North Korea were their fault; that we were poor, divided and not making progress as a country.
'It would be a total lie for me to say I feel sympathetic about the children dying such a painful death. Under the society and the regime I was in at the time, I only felt that they were the enemies. So I felt no sympathy or pity for them at all.'
His testimony is backed up by Soon Ok-lee, who was imprisoned for seven years. 'An officer ordered me to select 50 healthy female prisoners,' she said. 'One of the guards handed me a basket full of soaked cabbage, told me not to eat it but to give it to the 50 women. I gave them out and heard a scream from those who had eaten them. They were all screaming and vomiting blood. All who ate the cabbage leaves started violently vomiting blood and screaming with pain. It was hell. In less than 20 minutes they were quite dead.'
Defectors have smuggled out documents that appear to reveal how methodical the chemical experiments were. One stamped 'top secret' and 'transfer letter' is dated February 2002. The name of the victim was Lin Hun-hwa. He was 39. The text reads: 'The above person is transferred from ... camp number 22 for the purpose of human experimentation of liquid gas for chemical weapons.'
Kim Sang-hun, a North Korean human rights worker, says the document is genuine. He said: 'It carries a North Korean format, the quality of paper is North Korean and it has an official stamp of agencies involved with this human experimentation. A stamp they cannot deny. And it carries names of the victim and where and why and how these people were experimented [on].'
The number of prisoners held in the North Korean gulag is not known: one estimate is 200,000, held in 12 or more centres. Camp 22 is thought to hold 50,000.
Most are imprisoned because their relatives are believed to be critical of the regime. Many are Christians, a religion believed by Kim Jong-il to be one of the greatest threats to his power. According to the dictator, not only is a suspected dissident arrested but also three generations of his family are imprisoned, to root out the bad blood and seed of dissent.
With North Korea trying to win concessions in return for axing its nuclear programme, campaigners want human rights to be a part of any deal. Richard Spring, Tory foreign affairs spokesman, is pushing for a House of Commons debate on human rights in North Korea.
'The situation is absolutely horrific,' Spring said. 'It is totally unacceptable by any norms of civilised society. It makes it even more urgent to convince the North Koreans that procuring weapons of mass destruction must end, not only for the security of the region but for the good of their own population.'
Mervyn Thomas, chief executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said: 'For too long the horrendous suffering of the people of North Korea, especially those imprisoned in unspeakably barbaric prison camps, has been met with silence ... It is imperative that the international community does not continue to turn a blind eye to these atrocities which should weigh heavily on the world's conscience.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,1136483,00.html
"Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag
A series of shocking personal testimonies is now shedding light on Camp 22 - one of the country's most horrific secrets
Antony Barnett
Sunday February 1, 2004
The Observer
In the remote north-eastern corner of North Korea, close to the border of Russia and China, is Haengyong. Hidden away in the mountains, this remote town is home to Camp 22 - North Korea's largest concentration camp, where thousands of men, women and children accused of political crimes are held.
Now, it is claimed, it is also where thousands die each year and where prison guards stamp on the necks of babies born to prisoners to kill them.
Over the past year harrowing first-hand testimonies from North Korean defectors have detailed execution and torture, and now chilling evidence has emerged that the walls of Camp 22 hide an even more evil secret: gas chambers where horrific chemical experiments are conducted on human beings.
Witnesses have described watching entire families being put in glass chambers and gassed. They are left to an agonising death while scientists take notes. The allegations offer the most shocking glimpse so far of Kim Jong-il's North Korean regime.
Kwon Hyuk, who has changed his name, was the former military attachГ© at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing. He was also the chief of management at Camp 22. In the BBC's This World documentary, to be broadcast tonight, Hyuk claims he now wants the world to know what is happening.
'I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber,' he said. 'The parents, son and and a daughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.'
Hyuk has drawn detailed diagrams of the gas chamber he saw. He said: 'The glass chamber is sealed airtight. It is 3.5 metres wide, 3m long and 2.2m high_ [There] is the injection tube going through the unit. Normally, a family sticks together and individual prisoners stand separately around the corners. Scientists observe the entire process from above, through the glass.'
He explains how he had believed this treatment was justified. 'At the time I felt that they thoroughly deserved such a death. Because all of us were led to believe that all the bad things that were happening to North Korea were their fault; that we were poor, divided and not making progress as a country.
'It would be a total lie for me to say I feel sympathetic about the children dying such a painful death. Under the society and the regime I was in at the time, I only felt that they were the enemies. So I felt no sympathy or pity for them at all.'
His testimony is backed up by Soon Ok-lee, who was imprisoned for seven years. 'An officer ordered me to select 50 healthy female prisoners,' she said. 'One of the guards handed me a basket full of soaked cabbage, told me not to eat it but to give it to the 50 women. I gave them out and heard a scream from those who had eaten them. They were all screaming and vomiting blood. All who ate the cabbage leaves started violently vomiting blood and screaming with pain. It was hell. In less than 20 minutes they were quite dead.'
Defectors have smuggled out documents that appear to reveal how methodical the chemical experiments were. One stamped 'top secret' and 'transfer letter' is dated February 2002. The name of the victim was Lin Hun-hwa. He was 39. The text reads: 'The above person is transferred from ... camp number 22 for the purpose of human experimentation of liquid gas for chemical weapons.'
Kim Sang-hun, a North Korean human rights worker, says the document is genuine. He said: 'It carries a North Korean format, the quality of paper is North Korean and it has an official stamp of agencies involved with this human experimentation. A stamp they cannot deny. And it carries names of the victim and where and why and how these people were experimented [on].'
The number of prisoners held in the North Korean gulag is not known: one estimate is 200,000, held in 12 or more centres. Camp 22 is thought to hold 50,000.
Most are imprisoned because their relatives are believed to be critical of the regime. Many are Christians, a religion believed by Kim Jong-il to be one of the greatest threats to his power. According to the dictator, not only is a suspected dissident arrested but also three generations of his family are imprisoned, to root out the bad blood and seed of dissent.
With North Korea trying to win concessions in return for axing its nuclear programme, campaigners want human rights to be a part of any deal. Richard Spring, Tory foreign affairs spokesman, is pushing for a House of Commons debate on human rights in North Korea.
'The situation is absolutely horrific,' Spring said. 'It is totally unacceptable by any norms of civilised society. It makes it even more urgent to convince the North Koreans that procuring weapons of mass destruction must end, not only for the security of the region but for the good of their own population.'
Mervyn Thomas, chief executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said: 'For too long the horrendous suffering of the people of North Korea, especially those imprisoned in unspeakably barbaric prison camps, has been met with silence ... It is imperative that the international community does not continue to turn a blind eye to these atrocities which should weigh heavily on the world's conscience.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,1136483,00.html
Friday, January 30, 2004
Administration never explains, always complains
George Bush promised to bring honor and integrity back to the White House. Instead, he got rid of accountability.
Surely even supporters of the Iraq war must be dismayed by the administration's reaction to David Kay's recent statements. Iraq, he now admits, didn't have W.M.D., or even active programs to produce such weapons. Those much-ridiculed U.N. inspectors were right. (But Hans Blix appears to have gone down the memory hole. On Tuesday Mr. Bush declared that the war was justified — under U.N. Resolution 1441, no less — because Saddam "did not let us in.")
So where are the apologies? Where are the resignations? Where is the investigation of this intelligence debacle? All we have is bluster from Dick Cheney, evasive W.M.D.-related-program-activity language from Mr. Bush — and a determined effort to prevent an independent inquiry.
True, Mr. Kay still claims that this was a pure intelligence failure. I don't buy it: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has issued a damning report on how the threat from Iraq was hyped, and former officials warned of politicized intelligence during the war buildup. (Yes, the Hutton report gave Tony Blair a clean bill of health, but many people — including a majority of the British public, according to polls — regard that report as a whitewash.)
In any case, the point is that a grave mistake was made, and America's credibility has been badly damaged — and nobody is being held accountable. But that's standard operating procedure. As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths. And administration officials have consistently sought to freeze out, undermine or intimidate anyone who might try to check up on their performance. "
www.nytimes.com/2004/01/30/opinion/30KRUG.html
Just think of the vitriol the Wadical White Wing of the Weapublicans would be spewing at a Gore administration--whew! Dodged a bullet there, my friends ! I guess 1-party rule means never having to say you're sorry.
... or is it "Never explain, always complain" ?
Surely even supporters of the Iraq war must be dismayed by the administration's reaction to David Kay's recent statements. Iraq, he now admits, didn't have W.M.D., or even active programs to produce such weapons. Those much-ridiculed U.N. inspectors were right. (But Hans Blix appears to have gone down the memory hole. On Tuesday Mr. Bush declared that the war was justified — under U.N. Resolution 1441, no less — because Saddam "did not let us in.")
So where are the apologies? Where are the resignations? Where is the investigation of this intelligence debacle? All we have is bluster from Dick Cheney, evasive W.M.D.-related-program-activity language from Mr. Bush — and a determined effort to prevent an independent inquiry.
True, Mr. Kay still claims that this was a pure intelligence failure. I don't buy it: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has issued a damning report on how the threat from Iraq was hyped, and former officials warned of politicized intelligence during the war buildup. (Yes, the Hutton report gave Tony Blair a clean bill of health, but many people — including a majority of the British public, according to polls — regard that report as a whitewash.)
In any case, the point is that a grave mistake was made, and America's credibility has been badly damaged — and nobody is being held accountable. But that's standard operating procedure. As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths. And administration officials have consistently sought to freeze out, undermine or intimidate anyone who might try to check up on their performance. "
www.nytimes.com/2004/01/30/opinion/30KRUG.html
Just think of the vitriol the Wadical White Wing of the Weapublicans would be spewing at a Gore administration--whew! Dodged a bullet there, my friends ! I guess 1-party rule means never having to say you're sorry.
... or is it "Never explain, always complain" ?
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Another wacko appointment slides thru back door
"A quiet battle is raging over the Bush Administration's plan to appoint a scantily credentialed doctor, whose writings include a book titled As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now, to head an influential Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel on women's health policy. Sources tell Time that the agency's choice for the advisory panel is Dr. W. David Hager, an obstetrician-gynecologist who also wrote, with his wife Linda, Stress and the Woman's Body, which puts "an emphasis on the restorative power of Jesus Christ in one's life" and recommends specific Scripture readings and prayers for such ailments as headaches and premenstrual syndrome. Though his resume describes Hager as a University of Kentucky professor, a university official says Hager's appointment is part time and voluntary and involves working with interns at Lexington's Central Baptist Hospital, not the university itself. In his private practice, two sources familiar with it say, Hager refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women.
Hager was chosen for the post by FDA senior associate commissioner Linda Arey Skladany, a former drug-industry lobbyist with longstanding ties to the Bush family. Skladany rejected at least two nominees proposed by FDA staff members: Donald R. Mattison, former dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, and Michael F. Greene, director of maternal- fetal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Despite pressure from inside the FDA to make the appointment temporary, sources say, Skladany has insisted that Hager get a full four-year term. FDA spokesman Bill Pierce called Hager "well qualified."
www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,361521,00.html
... Gosh darn it. I'm beginning to take an active dislike to these people.
"A quiet battle is raging over the Bush Administration's plan to appoint a scantily credentialed doctor, whose writings include a book titled As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now, to head an influential Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel on women's health policy. Sources tell Time that the agency's choice for the advisory panel is Dr. W. David Hager, an obstetrician-gynecologist who also wrote, with his wife Linda, Stress and the Woman's Body, which puts "an emphasis on the restorative power of Jesus Christ in one's life" and recommends specific Scripture readings and prayers for such ailments as headaches and premenstrual syndrome. Though his resume describes Hager as a University of Kentucky professor, a university official says Hager's appointment is part time and voluntary and involves working with interns at Lexington's Central Baptist Hospital, not the university itself. In his private practice, two sources familiar with it say, Hager refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women.
Hager was chosen for the post by FDA senior associate commissioner Linda Arey Skladany, a former drug-industry lobbyist with longstanding ties to the Bush family. Skladany rejected at least two nominees proposed by FDA staff members: Donald R. Mattison, former dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, and Michael F. Greene, director of maternal- fetal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Despite pressure from inside the FDA to make the appointment temporary, sources say, Skladany has insisted that Hager get a full four-year term. FDA spokesman Bill Pierce called Hager "well qualified."
www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,361521,00.html
... Gosh darn it. I'm beginning to take an active dislike to these people.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
McNamara's 11 Lessons
In 1995, former U.S. secretary of defence Robert McNamara published In Retrospect, the first of his three books dissecting the errors, myths and miscalculations that led to the Vietnam War, which he now believes was a serious mistake. Nine years later, most of these lessons seem uncannily relevant to the Iraq war in its current nation-building, guerrilla-warfare phase.
1. We misjudged then -- and we have since -- the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries . . . and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.
2. We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience. . . . We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.
3. We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values.
4. Our judgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.
5. We failed then -- and have since -- to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces and doctrine. . . . We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
6. We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement . . . before we initiated the action.
7. After the action got under way and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course . . . we did not fully explain what was happening and why we were doing what we did.
8. We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people's or country's best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.
9. We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action . . . should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.
10. We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions. . . . At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.
11. Underlying many of these errors lay our failure to organize the top echelons of the executive branch to deal effectively with the extraordinarily complex range of political and military issues.
1. We misjudged then -- and we have since -- the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries . . . and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.
2. We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience. . . . We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.
3. We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values.
4. Our judgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.
5. We failed then -- and have since -- to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces and doctrine. . . . We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
6. We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement . . . before we initiated the action.
7. After the action got under way and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course . . . we did not fully explain what was happening and why we were doing what we did.
8. We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people's or country's best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.
9. We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action . . . should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.
10. We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions. . . . At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.
11. Underlying many of these errors lay our failure to organize the top echelons of the executive branch to deal effectively with the extraordinarily complex range of political and military issues.
Monday, January 26, 2004
Britain entering new ice age
News: "Global warming will plunge Britain into new ice age 'within decades'
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
25 January 2004
Britain is likely to be plunged into an ice age within our lifetime by global warming, new research suggests.
A study, which is being taken seriously by top government scientists, has uncovered a change 'of remarkable amplitude' in the circulation of the waters of the North Atlantic.
Similar events in pre-history are known to have caused sudden 'flips' of the climate, bringing ice ages to northern Europe within a few decades. The development - described as 'the largest and most dramatic oceanic change ever measured in the era of modern instruments', by the US Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, which led the research - threatens to turn off the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe's weather mild.
If that happens, Britain and northern Europe are expected to switch abruptly to the climate of Labrador - which is on the same latitude - bringing a nightmare scenario where farmland turns to tundra and winter temperatures drop below -20C. The much-heralded cold snap predicted for the coming week would seem balmy by comparison."
... If you've ever seen "The Shipping News" you get the general idea
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
25 January 2004
Britain is likely to be plunged into an ice age within our lifetime by global warming, new research suggests.
A study, which is being taken seriously by top government scientists, has uncovered a change 'of remarkable amplitude' in the circulation of the waters of the North Atlantic.
Similar events in pre-history are known to have caused sudden 'flips' of the climate, bringing ice ages to northern Europe within a few decades. The development - described as 'the largest and most dramatic oceanic change ever measured in the era of modern instruments', by the US Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, which led the research - threatens to turn off the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe's weather mild.
If that happens, Britain and northern Europe are expected to switch abruptly to the climate of Labrador - which is on the same latitude - bringing a nightmare scenario where farmland turns to tundra and winter temperatures drop below -20C. The much-heralded cold snap predicted for the coming week would seem balmy by comparison."
... If you've ever seen "The Shipping News" you get the general idea
SCOTUS Upheld Political Money Law (but for how long?)
In December '03, the court narrowly upheld the soft money ban. To most people, it was a no brainer. The potential for corruption vastly outweighs the 1st Amendment consideration. But not so to the Wadical White Wing of our One-Party Government...
Supreme Court Upholds Political Money Law (washingtonpost.com): "'The idea that large contributions to a national party can corrupt or create the appearance of corruption of federal candidates and officeholders is neither novel nor implausible,' the majority said. 'There is substantial evidence in these cases to support Congress' determination that contributions of soft money give rise to corruption and the appearance of corruption.'
The court said Congress also has power to act against all or any 'circumventions,' of campaign laws, whether in the form of 'soft money' or sham 'issue ads.'
The justices rejected as 'unpersuasive' arguments that the new provisions intrude on constitutionally protected rights of free speech and free political association. They similarly rejected claims that the soft money restrictions cut too deeply into the prerogatives of the states to regulate elections.
On the main provisions of the law, Stevens and O'Connor were joined by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist dissented from the primary holdings, as did Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. "
... Look at the 4 dissenters -- if this landmark legislation had come up after the next Bush appointment, it would have been struck down without a doubt.
Supreme Court Upholds Political Money Law (washingtonpost.com): "'The idea that large contributions to a national party can corrupt or create the appearance of corruption of federal candidates and officeholders is neither novel nor implausible,' the majority said. 'There is substantial evidence in these cases to support Congress' determination that contributions of soft money give rise to corruption and the appearance of corruption.'
The court said Congress also has power to act against all or any 'circumventions,' of campaign laws, whether in the form of 'soft money' or sham 'issue ads.'
The justices rejected as 'unpersuasive' arguments that the new provisions intrude on constitutionally protected rights of free speech and free political association. They similarly rejected claims that the soft money restrictions cut too deeply into the prerogatives of the states to regulate elections.
On the main provisions of the law, Stevens and O'Connor were joined by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist dissented from the primary holdings, as did Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. "
... Look at the 4 dissenters -- if this landmark legislation had come up after the next Bush appointment, it would have been struck down without a doubt.
Sunday, January 25, 2004
Did Clark Fail to Salute?
Wes Clark won a war, but ran afoul of his Pentagon masters and lost his job. Here's how.
A NEWSWEEK exclusive By Evan Thomas and T. Trent Gegax
Newsweek Feb. 2 issue -
One of the most damning charges against retired Gen. Wesley Clark has also been the vaguest. After Clark entered the Democratic race last September, Gen. Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that Clark had been sacked as commander of NATO forces after the 1999 Balkans war because of 'integrity and character issues.' Shelton has refused to comment further, and Clark's civilian boss, the then Defense Secretary William Cohen, has also remained silent.
The doubts raised by Clark's own bosses have cast an uneasy pall over his presidential candidacy. What really happened? According to a knowledgeable source, Clark ran afoul of Cohen and Shelton by being less than totally forthcoming in morning conference calls during the Kosovo war in the spring of 1999. From his NATO headquarters in Brussels, Clark wanted to wage the war more aggressively, but back in the Pentagon, Cohen and Shelton were more cautious. They would give Clark instructions on, for instance, the scale of the bombing campaign. "Clark would say, 'Uh-huh, gotcha'," says Newsweek's source. But then he would pick up the phone and call [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair and [Secretary of State] Madeleine [Albright]." As Clark knew full well, Blair and Albright were more hawkish than Shelton and Cohen. After talking to the State Department and NATO allies, Clark would have a different set of marching orders, says the source, who has spoken about the matter with both Cohen and Clark. "Then, about 1 o'clock, the Defense Department would hear what Clark was up to, and Cohen and Shelton would be furious."
Was Clark going around them? Not really. As NATO commander, Clark says, "I wore two hats." He reported to Washington, but also to America's European allies. And within the U.S. government, he was within his authority to seek guidance from the State Department and certainly from the White House, as well as from his nominal bosses at the Pentagon.
"I was forthcoming," Clark insisted. "If [Cohen and Shelton] gave me an instruction, I did it. I would never have not done what they told me to do. But the truth is, they weren't in touch with the situation well enough to tell me everything to do. It's why you have the title supreme allied commander... The buck usually stopped on my desk... I had, by necessity, a certain independence. Yet no matter how many times I tried to bring Hugh Shelton and Washington to understand the allied side, it didn't compute. They just didn't see it." General Shelton, Clark's aides are quick to note, is now listed as an unpaid adviser to the John Edwards campaign.
http://www.newsletters.newsweek.msnbc.com/id/4052506/
A NEWSWEEK exclusive By Evan Thomas and T. Trent Gegax
Newsweek Feb. 2 issue -
One of the most damning charges against retired Gen. Wesley Clark has also been the vaguest. After Clark entered the Democratic race last September, Gen. Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that Clark had been sacked as commander of NATO forces after the 1999 Balkans war because of 'integrity and character issues.' Shelton has refused to comment further, and Clark's civilian boss, the then Defense Secretary William Cohen, has also remained silent.
The doubts raised by Clark's own bosses have cast an uneasy pall over his presidential candidacy. What really happened? According to a knowledgeable source, Clark ran afoul of Cohen and Shelton by being less than totally forthcoming in morning conference calls during the Kosovo war in the spring of 1999. From his NATO headquarters in Brussels, Clark wanted to wage the war more aggressively, but back in the Pentagon, Cohen and Shelton were more cautious. They would give Clark instructions on, for instance, the scale of the bombing campaign. "Clark would say, 'Uh-huh, gotcha'," says Newsweek's source. But then he would pick up the phone and call [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair and [Secretary of State] Madeleine [Albright]." As Clark knew full well, Blair and Albright were more hawkish than Shelton and Cohen. After talking to the State Department and NATO allies, Clark would have a different set of marching orders, says the source, who has spoken about the matter with both Cohen and Clark. "Then, about 1 o'clock, the Defense Department would hear what Clark was up to, and Cohen and Shelton would be furious."
Was Clark going around them? Not really. As NATO commander, Clark says, "I wore two hats." He reported to Washington, but also to America's European allies. And within the U.S. government, he was within his authority to seek guidance from the State Department and certainly from the White House, as well as from his nominal bosses at the Pentagon.
"I was forthcoming," Clark insisted. "If [Cohen and Shelton] gave me an instruction, I did it. I would never have not done what they told me to do. But the truth is, they weren't in touch with the situation well enough to tell me everything to do. It's why you have the title supreme allied commander... The buck usually stopped on my desk... I had, by necessity, a certain independence. Yet no matter how many times I tried to bring Hugh Shelton and Washington to understand the allied side, it didn't compute. They just didn't see it." General Shelton, Clark's aides are quick to note, is now listed as an unpaid adviser to the John Edwards campaign.
http://www.newsletters.newsweek.msnbc.com/id/4052506/
Saturday, January 24, 2004
America as a One-Party State
America as a One-Party State, by Robert Kuttner
America has had periods of single-party dominance before. It happened under FDR's New Deal, in the Republican 1920s and in the early 19th-century "Era of Good Feeling." But if President Bush is re-elected, we will be close to a tipping point of fundamental change in the political system itself. The United States could become a nation in which the dominant party rules for a prolonged period, marginalizes a token opposition and is extremely difficult to dislodge because democracy itself is rigged. This would be unprecedented in U.S. history.
In past single-party eras, the majority party earned its preeminence with broad popular support. Today the electorate remains closely divided, and actually prefers more Democratic policy positions than Republican ones. Yet the drift toward an engineered one-party Republican state has aroused little press scrutiny or widespread popular protest.
We are at risk of becoming an autocracy in three key respects. First, Republican parliamentary gimmickry has emasculated legislative opposition in the House of Representatives (the Senate has other problems). House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas has both intimidated moderate Republicans and reduced the minority party to window dressing, rather like the token opposition parties in Mexico during the six-decade dominance of the PRI.
Second, electoral rules have been rigged to make it increasingly difficult for the incumbent party to be ejected by the voters, absent a Depression-scale disaster, Watergate-class scandal or Teddy Roosevelt-style ruling party split. After two decades of bipartisan collusion in the creation of safe House seats, there are now perhaps just 25 truly contestable House seats in any given election year (and that's before the recent Republican super gerrymandering). What once was a slender and precarious majority -- 229 Republicans to 205 Democrats (including Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who votes with Democrats) -- now looks like a Republican lock. In the Senate, the dynamics are different but equally daunting for Democrats. As the Florida debacle of 2000 showed, the Republicans are also able to hold down the number of opposition votes, with complicity from Republican courts. Reform legislation, the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), may actually facilitate Republican intimidation of minority voters and reduce Democratic turnout. And the latest money-and-politics regime, nominally a reform, may give the right more of a financial advantage than ever.
Third, the federal courts, which have slowed some executive-branch efforts to destroy liberties, will be a complete rubber stamp if the right wins one more presidential election.
Taken together, these several forces could well enable the Republicans to become the permanent party of autocratic government for at least a generation."
... Is he exaggerating? Take a close look at the particulars.
Friday, January 23, 2004
Total Debt as % of GDP
www.comstockfunds.com/html/2b.gif
Notice how it shot up under the wise tutelege of the pre(?)-Alzheimer's Reagan, leveled out with Billy Blowjobs in the Oval Office, and took off like a scalded dog again with W at the helm of the ship of state?
If they'd been Democrats, the Pubs would have screamed for their impeachment. Screamed I tell ya!
http://forums.craigslist.org/?ID=11867783"
Thursday, January 22, 2004
scoring SAT scores (again)
over at Volokh ...
SAT scores: Cathy Seipp properly criticizes an anti-SAT piece in the L.A. Times. I'm not an expert on the SAT, but to the best of my knowlege the Times op-ed has still more problems. Just for starters,
SAT scores: Cathy Seipp properly criticizes an anti-SAT piece in the L.A. Times. I'm not an expert on the SAT, but to the best of my knowlege the Times op-ed has still more problems. Just for starters,
- Considering GPAs instead of SATs risks favoring students who go to schools where there's a great deal of grade inflation.
- Letting in the top 10% of each high school will let in students who are quite academically weak, but went to a high school where the other students are weaker.
- The result is not only bad for the intellectual quality of the college, but is also no service to the weaker students who will now find themselves at the bottom of the class, competing against others who are much more prepared for college.
- The SATs coupled with GPAs are actually quite good predictors of college performance, for all the criticism that the SAT has drawn, and to my knowledge are much better predictors than GPAs alone.
- That "white students score 206 points higher on average than nonwhites" on the SAT isn't a sign of bias in the SAT -- I am told that it actually slightly overpredicts college performance by black and Hispanic students -- but rather a sign of the unfortunate underpreparedness of many black and Hispanic high school graduates. This is a problem that needs attention, but letting in underprepared students into demanding college programs is probably not a solution.
Support the troops, doggie style
"The recycled Pentagon types now merrily selling their “expertise” to the weapon-makers and the rest of the current crop of shakers and takers who make up today’s military-industrial-congressional greed machine are as usual sucking up big bucks, while many of our vets continue to get the shaft. Also as usual.
Wesley Clark summed up what’s going down in a recent campaign speech: “We've got veterans hospitals closing; we’ve got people who have to drive six hours to get a checkup; we’ve got veterans that are waiting six months to get an appointment ... that’s not health care."
If elected, Clark promises to add $2 billion to the vet health-care budget. “We’ve got to fix the veterans’ issues here in America,” he said. “We're going to put the full funding we need to get the Veterans Affairs to meet our ... former service members’ needs.”
Since 1996, the VA’s workload has increased from 3 million to 7 million vets without a comparable increase in operating funds. There’s presently neither the money nor the infrastructure to take care of all those who paid the hard price when Uncle Sam said, “I want you.” Which is why the enrollment of thousands of eligible vets in the category designated as Priority Group 8 – non-service disabled vets and those with incomes higher than $24,000 a year – were dropped like a live grenade last year.
www.hackworth.com/archive.html
...or just keep screwing vets and see what happens to enlistments. Brrrrrr! Anybody else feel a draft?
Wesley Clark summed up what’s going down in a recent campaign speech: “We've got veterans hospitals closing; we’ve got people who have to drive six hours to get a checkup; we’ve got veterans that are waiting six months to get an appointment ... that’s not health care."
If elected, Clark promises to add $2 billion to the vet health-care budget. “We’ve got to fix the veterans’ issues here in America,” he said. “We're going to put the full funding we need to get the Veterans Affairs to meet our ... former service members’ needs.”
Since 1996, the VA’s workload has increased from 3 million to 7 million vets without a comparable increase in operating funds. There’s presently neither the money nor the infrastructure to take care of all those who paid the hard price when Uncle Sam said, “I want you.” Which is why the enrollment of thousands of eligible vets in the category designated as Priority Group 8 – non-service disabled vets and those with incomes higher than $24,000 a year – were dropped like a live grenade last year.
www.hackworth.com/archive.html
...or just keep screwing vets and see what happens to enlistments. Brrrrrr! Anybody else feel a draft?
Iowa derails Dimmocrats' poster boy
Friedman gets it...
"It was a good night for the [Tony] Blair Democrats in Iowa," said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute. By "Blair Democrats," Mr. Marshall was referring to those Democrats who voted for the Iraq war, and conveyed "a toughness and resolve to face down America's enemies," but who believe the Bush team has mismanaged the project. This is so important because there has been no credible opposition to the Bush foreign policy since the Iraq war. Democrats have been intimidated either by Mr. Bush or by Mr. Dean. ...
To be successful, Democrats will need a candidate who understands three things (which Messrs. Kerry, Lieberman, Clark and Edwards do):
First, this notion, put forward by Mr. Dean and Al Gore, that the war in Iraq has diverted us from the real war on "terrorists" is just wrong. There is no war on "terrorism" that does not address the misgovernance and pervasive sense of humiliation in the Muslim world. Sure, Al Qaeda and Saddam pose different threats, Mr. Marshall notes, "but they emerge from the same pathology of widespread repression, economic stagnation and fear of cultural decline." Building a decent Iraq is very much part of the war on terrorism.
Second, sometimes smashing someone in the face is necessary to signal others that they will be held accountable for the intolerance they incubate. Removing the Taliban and Saddam sent that message to every government in the area.
Third, the Iraq war may have created more hatred of the U.S., but it has also triggered a hugely important dialogue among Arabs and Muslims about the necessity of reform."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/22/opinion/22FRIE.html
... I'd like to see more evidence of that last one reported in the media.
"It was a good night for the [Tony] Blair Democrats in Iowa," said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute. By "Blair Democrats," Mr. Marshall was referring to those Democrats who voted for the Iraq war, and conveyed "a toughness and resolve to face down America's enemies," but who believe the Bush team has mismanaged the project. This is so important because there has been no credible opposition to the Bush foreign policy since the Iraq war. Democrats have been intimidated either by Mr. Bush or by Mr. Dean. ...
To be successful, Democrats will need a candidate who understands three things (which Messrs. Kerry, Lieberman, Clark and Edwards do):
First, this notion, put forward by Mr. Dean and Al Gore, that the war in Iraq has diverted us from the real war on "terrorists" is just wrong. There is no war on "terrorism" that does not address the misgovernance and pervasive sense of humiliation in the Muslim world. Sure, Al Qaeda and Saddam pose different threats, Mr. Marshall notes, "but they emerge from the same pathology of widespread repression, economic stagnation and fear of cultural decline." Building a decent Iraq is very much part of the war on terrorism.
Second, sometimes smashing someone in the face is necessary to signal others that they will be held accountable for the intolerance they incubate. Removing the Taliban and Saddam sent that message to every government in the area.
Third, the Iraq war may have created more hatred of the U.S., but it has also triggered a hugely important dialogue among Arabs and Muslims about the necessity of reform."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/22/opinion/22FRIE.html
... I'd like to see more evidence of that last one reported in the media.
Fair & Balanced: Cato goes after W
with 2 themes -- (1) Bush Hate is no more warranted than Clinton Hate (and no less), but anger is; (2) his policies rarely intersect with with conservatism
The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush
THEME 1: Hate is stupid but criticism is not, and resentment of that criticism is shamefully hypocritical...
"Hatred of Bill Clinton never made sense. In contrast, anger was fully justified.
...Similarly, though George W. Bush is very different from Bill Clinton, hatred makes no sense. But anger is appropriate.
Much of the liberal case against President Bush is barely short of silly. His election was not illegitimate. Whether or not the candidate with the most votes should win, that's not what the U.S. Constitution says. Blame the Founders, not George W. Bush.
Complaints about Bush's fabled inarticulateness and privileged background are superficial. More worrisome are his partisan focus, demand for personal loyalty, and tendency to keep score, but these are hardly characteristics warranting hatred...
The tendency to hate, really hate, opposing politicians surely is not good for American democracy. It is not rational to hate George W. Bush, just as it was not rational to hate Bill Clinton. But after spending eight years hating Clinton, conservatives who complain about the Bush-haters appear to be hypocrites.
THEME 2: But this president deserves to be criticized. Sharply. By anyone who believes in limited, constitutional government.
First, George W. Bush, despite laudable personal and family characteristics, is remarkably incurious and ill read. Gut instincts can carry even a gifted politician only so far. And a lack of knowledge leaves him vulnerable to simplistic remedies to complex problems, especially when it comes to turning America into the globe's governess.
Second, despite occasional exceptions, the Bush administration, backed by the Republican-controlled Congress, has been promoting larger government at almost every turn.
...Third, President George W. Bush has made Woodrow Wilson the guiding spirit of Republican foreign policy. A candidate who criticized nation building is now pursuing global social engineering. "
216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:beHllF-UurwJ:www.cato.org/research/articles/bandow-031211.html+cato+%22bush+haters%22+december+2003&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
..."Ironic, isn't it, Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election. Yet if I were to have them killed, I'd be the one sent to jail! That's democracy for you."
The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush
THEME 1: Hate is stupid but criticism is not, and resentment of that criticism is shamefully hypocritical...
"Hatred of Bill Clinton never made sense. In contrast, anger was fully justified.
...Similarly, though George W. Bush is very different from Bill Clinton, hatred makes no sense. But anger is appropriate.
Much of the liberal case against President Bush is barely short of silly. His election was not illegitimate. Whether or not the candidate with the most votes should win, that's not what the U.S. Constitution says. Blame the Founders, not George W. Bush.
Complaints about Bush's fabled inarticulateness and privileged background are superficial. More worrisome are his partisan focus, demand for personal loyalty, and tendency to keep score, but these are hardly characteristics warranting hatred...
The tendency to hate, really hate, opposing politicians surely is not good for American democracy. It is not rational to hate George W. Bush, just as it was not rational to hate Bill Clinton. But after spending eight years hating Clinton, conservatives who complain about the Bush-haters appear to be hypocrites.
THEME 2: But this president deserves to be criticized. Sharply. By anyone who believes in limited, constitutional government.
First, George W. Bush, despite laudable personal and family characteristics, is remarkably incurious and ill read. Gut instincts can carry even a gifted politician only so far. And a lack of knowledge leaves him vulnerable to simplistic remedies to complex problems, especially when it comes to turning America into the globe's governess.
Second, despite occasional exceptions, the Bush administration, backed by the Republican-controlled Congress, has been promoting larger government at almost every turn.
...Third, President George W. Bush has made Woodrow Wilson the guiding spirit of Republican foreign policy. A candidate who criticized nation building is now pursuing global social engineering. "
216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:beHllF-UurwJ:www.cato.org/research/articles/bandow-031211.html+cato+%22bush+haters%22+december+2003&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
..."Ironic, isn't it, Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election. Yet if I were to have them killed, I'd be the one sent to jail! That's democracy for you."
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Top 10 trends for 2003
-- how much will they carry over?
1. The U.S. made awesome gains in productivity
2. The U.S. began to massively export white-collar jobs
3. India emerged as a great economic power
4. Spam, worms and viruses threaten the Internet.
5. Hostile powers showed signs of softening to escape the U.S. hit list.
6. Japan on the rise.
7. Europe on the decline.
8. Republicans on a roll.
9. Mutual funds fell from grace.
10. Life expectancy continued to rise dramatically.
cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?siteid=mktw&dist=nwtpf&guid=%7B117B3490%2DDDE7%2D415D%2D8435%2D774E3AE9B0AC%7D
"
Sunday, January 18, 2004
Islam needs a 12-step program
Why are Islamic societies still staggering in the cultural dark ages?
The US wears the mantle of Most Benevolent Superpower in History, primarily by virtue of being the most recent democracy to achieve that status (Britain's 19th Century empire providing the first case of superpower democracy and certainly the most benevolent superpower up til then).
As western civilization becomes more, well, civilized, each successive western superpower (I assume the US will not be the last) should continue the trend.
Islam continues to fail because Islam has not established self-correcting democracies. I think that's not an accident of history. Muslims have and continue to play the blame game. Where westerners in adversity often at least entertain the thought 'what did I do wrong?' Muslim culture will always find a way to pin their problems on someone else. The Culture of Victimization is a self-inflicted wound, and we know those are always the most painful.
As Muslim refusenik Irshad Manji writes, "Since Sept. 11, folks have been asking me, “What does it take to whip a human being into the kind of frenzy that makes him a suicide bomber for God?” Because I’ve never equated fundamentalism with faith, I don’t understand it. Neither do most Muslims I know. But instead of acknowledging that there’s a serious problem with the way our religion is practiced, even in cosmopolitan Canada, we romanticize Islam. The peer pressure to stay on message – the message being that we’re not all terrorists – seduces us into avoiding the most crucial of jihads: introspection."
Acknowledging and accepting responsibility for your problems is the first step in recovery.
Polarization pisses off paleocons
More unhappy campers with the neocons driving the GOP bus ...
'Each year the evidence becomes more striking that the center is falling out of American politics, at least in Congress, where Democrats increasingly reflect the party's more liberal wing and Republicans increasingly represent their party's most conservative tendencies.
Christie Whitman offers compelling arguments for the importance of rebuilding 'The Vital Republican Center' (NYT Op-Ed, Jan. 12). In particular, progressive, market-based environmental policies of the sort championed by President Bush's father remain a quintessential moderate Republican approach.
Why should Republicans abdicate responsibility for environmental protection and cede this potentially powerful political issue to Democrats? This makes as much sense as Democrats' sometime willingness to turn over the Bible and the American flag to their Republican rivals.
ROBERT N. STAVINS
Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 13, 2004
The writer is professor of business and government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
... Things fall apart, the center will not hold.
The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
'Each year the evidence becomes more striking that the center is falling out of American politics, at least in Congress, where Democrats increasingly reflect the party's more liberal wing and Republicans increasingly represent their party's most conservative tendencies.
Christie Whitman offers compelling arguments for the importance of rebuilding 'The Vital Republican Center' (NYT Op-Ed, Jan. 12). In particular, progressive, market-based environmental policies of the sort championed by President Bush's father remain a quintessential moderate Republican approach.
Why should Republicans abdicate responsibility for environmental protection and cede this potentially powerful political issue to Democrats? This makes as much sense as Democrats' sometime willingness to turn over the Bible and the American flag to their Republican rivals.
ROBERT N. STAVINS
Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 13, 2004
The writer is professor of business and government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
... Things fall apart, the center will not hold.
The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
Saturday, January 17, 2004
The bottom line on unions
Unions are the result of robber baron capitalism oligopolies.
They have generally outlived their usefullness in the US, as evidenced by the continued decline in enrollments. Workers today have far more rights and choices than their forebears, and are as likely to end up as stockholders in the companies they work for as pensioners.
It can be argued that we still need unions or the threat of unions to keep the worst employers in line, but the real battle is primarily one of splitting the pie with foreign competition. For that, the only weapon is productivity.
Why does the innuendo about Clark outweigh the innuendo about Dubya?
I'd like the mudslingers to tell my why Clark's early retirement is more important than Bush's "AWOL for a year" record.
Clark is a wounded decorated combat veteran. He accomplished what his superiors had said was too risky to try, i.e. take on the Serbs and win without losing a man.
I can understand disagreeing with his policies, but the hypocritical slander is just beyond me.
Clark is a wounded decorated combat veteran. He accomplished what his superiors had said was too risky to try, i.e. take on the Serbs and win without losing a man.
I can understand disagreeing with his policies, but the hypocritical slander is just beyond me.
A House Divided
Yellow Alert: Polarity Index over 3
The ratio of poll respondents who reply with extremely good or extremely bad versus somewhat good or bad in their opinion of the President is the Polarity Index.
Readings historically are almost always in the 0.5 -1.0 range.
The Zogby poll this week has jumped from 1.4 in December to an astronomical 3+.
By comparison, Clinton's was 0.9 in September 1998.
www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=782
Bush started with 0.8 in January '01.
...When it gets to 5, start stocking up on ammo. "
The ratio of poll respondents who reply with extremely good or extremely bad versus somewhat good or bad in their opinion of the President is the Polarity Index.
Readings historically are almost always in the 0.5 -1.0 range.
The Zogby poll this week has jumped from 1.4 in December to an astronomical 3+.
By comparison, Clinton's was 0.9 in September 1998.
www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=782
Bush started with 0.8 in January '01.
...When it gets to 5, start stocking up on ammo. "
FL2K redux
OnPolitics (washingtonpost.com): "During the November 2000 presidential election in Florida, restrictive statutory provisions, wide-ranging errors and inadequate and unequal resources in the election process denied countless Floridians the right to vote. The disenfranchisement of Florida's voters fell most harshly on the shoulders of African Americans. Statewide, based upon county-level statistical estimates, African American voters were nearly ten times more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected in Florida. On a statewide basis, while African Americans comprised about 11% of all voters in Florida in the November 2000 presidential election, African Americans cast about 54% of the ballots that were rejected in the election. Before and during the election state and county officials were aware of several key factors that ultimately contributed to the disenfranchisement of qualified voters."
Friday, January 16, 2004
IDF murderer arrested, leaders fess up
"The Israeli sniper who shot activist Tom Hurndall brain dead has been arrested. The army leadership has now admitted that its initial accusations of Tom being armoured and in camouflage, as well as its claim that the soldier was returning Palestinian fire, were lies.
The arrest is particularly important as opening fire on activists in Palestine is becoming increasingly regular for the Israeli army. Last Friday Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition into a non-violent action [photos]. Gil Na'amati, an Israeli from the Anarchist Movement Against the Wall, and an American woman of the International Solidarity Movement were seriously injured. On 1 January the Israeli army fired over 100 rubber bullets aimed at people's heads during another demonstration. Approximately ten people were taken to the hospital and deportation orders were issued against four activists, including a Swedish MP.
Tom was shot in Rafah (Gaza, Palestine) in April last year while pulling away children out of the way of a tank. He is currently on life support in a London hospital. "
www.indymedia.org.uk/
...Boy, how many times we gotta tell ya? NOT IN FRONT OF WITNESSES!
The arrest is particularly important as opening fire on activists in Palestine is becoming increasingly regular for the Israeli army. Last Friday Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition into a non-violent action [photos]. Gil Na'amati, an Israeli from the Anarchist Movement Against the Wall, and an American woman of the International Solidarity Movement were seriously injured. On 1 January the Israeli army fired over 100 rubber bullets aimed at people's heads during another demonstration. Approximately ten people were taken to the hospital and deportation orders were issued against four activists, including a Swedish MP.
Tom was shot in Rafah (Gaza, Palestine) in April last year while pulling away children out of the way of a tank. He is currently on life support in a London hospital. "
www.indymedia.org.uk/
...Boy, how many times we gotta tell ya? NOT IN FRONT OF WITNESSES!
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Single-Issue Advocate of the Year
---------------------------------
Finalists: Michele Malkin, Joel Mowbray, William Safire, Andrew Sullivan.
And the winner is... Paul Krugman.
in Britain they have a parliamentary opposition but here we don't need that; we have Krugman.
Columnist of the Year
---------------------
Finalists: David Brooks of the Times, Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune, William Kristol of the Weekly Standard.
And the winner is... Thomas Friedman.
A better award is rarely given... He tells about recently asking the editor of Ha'aretz why they run his column. "You're the only optimist we have," the editor replies.
Blogger of the Year
-------------------
The finalists:
: Mickey Kaus, "a pioneer blogger who helped set the tone for the medium: sly, wry, knowing, and head of the news."
: Gawker, "a snarky New York-centric blog that snipes at big shots in media, politics, and showbiz -- has reinvigorated the stale art of gossip."
: Volokh, "a libertarian collective that excels at analyzing legal, political, and academic trends."
: Winds of Change, "always thoughtful, thorough, and full of links to things you'd probably never see on your own."
: And the winner for Blogger of the year is... Joshua Micah Marshall, author of TalkingPointsMemo.
http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2004_01.html#005865
---------------------------------
Finalists: Michele Malkin, Joel Mowbray, William Safire, Andrew Sullivan.
And the winner is... Paul Krugman.
in Britain they have a parliamentary opposition but here we don't need that; we have Krugman.
Columnist of the Year
---------------------
Finalists: David Brooks of the Times, Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune, William Kristol of the Weekly Standard.
And the winner is... Thomas Friedman.
A better award is rarely given... He tells about recently asking the editor of Ha'aretz why they run his column. "You're the only optimist we have," the editor replies.
Blogger of the Year
-------------------
The finalists:
: Mickey Kaus, "a pioneer blogger who helped set the tone for the medium: sly, wry, knowing, and head of the news."
: Gawker, "a snarky New York-centric blog that snipes at big shots in media, politics, and showbiz -- has reinvigorated the stale art of gossip."
: Volokh, "a libertarian collective that excels at analyzing legal, political, and academic trends."
: Winds of Change, "always thoughtful, thorough, and full of links to things you'd probably never see on your own."
: And the winner for Blogger of the year is... Joshua Micah Marshall, author of TalkingPointsMemo.
http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2004_01.html#005865
Guess who's a unilateralist?
text of Howard Dean's letter to President Clinton on the conflict in Bosnia, dated July 19, 1995.
The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
After long and careful thought, and after several years of watching the gross atrocities committed by the Bosnian Serbs, I have reluctantly concluded that the efforts of the United Nations and NATO in Bosnia are a complete failure.
I think your policy up to this date has been absolutely correct. We must give, and have given, this policy with our allies and with the United Nations every opportunity to work. It is evident, however, that the cost in human lives in allowing this policy to continue is too great. In addition, and perhaps more importantly for the United States, we are now in a position of ignoring, as many did in the 1940s, one of the worst crimes committed in history. If we ignore these behaviors, no matter where they occur, our moral fiber as a people becomes weakened. As the Catholic Church and others lost credibility during the Holocaust for not speaking out, so will the United States lose credibility and our people lose confidence in themselves as moral beings if the United States does not take action.
[here it comes...]
Since it is clearly no longer possible to take action in conjunction with NATO and the United Nations, I have reluctantly concluded that [...wait for it...] we must take unilateral action.
[...ahhhh!]
While I completely agree with you that no ground troops should be committed for other than humanitarian purposes in Bosnia, I would ask that you take the following steps in Bosnia. First, lift the arms embargo as it applies to the Bosnian government. Second, enforce a full embargo of the sort that is now in effect in Iraq on the Bosnian Serbs and upon Yugoslavia. Third, break off diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia. Fourth, commit American air power to support the Bosnian government until the situation is stabilized and the civilian murders and atrocities by the Bosnian Serbs have been stopped.
I understand the risks of this policy and their implications for the NATO Alliance and the future success of the United Nations. Surely, however, as you watch and read about the huge amount of unwarranted human suffering, particularly of children, you would agree that our current course must now be changed.
I urge you to make these changes as soon as possible, and I look forward to supporting your policy fully to the best of my ability.
Sincerely,
Howard Dean, M.D.
The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
After long and careful thought, and after several years of watching the gross atrocities committed by the Bosnian Serbs, I have reluctantly concluded that the efforts of the United Nations and NATO in Bosnia are a complete failure.
I think your policy up to this date has been absolutely correct. We must give, and have given, this policy with our allies and with the United Nations every opportunity to work. It is evident, however, that the cost in human lives in allowing this policy to continue is too great. In addition, and perhaps more importantly for the United States, we are now in a position of ignoring, as many did in the 1940s, one of the worst crimes committed in history. If we ignore these behaviors, no matter where they occur, our moral fiber as a people becomes weakened. As the Catholic Church and others lost credibility during the Holocaust for not speaking out, so will the United States lose credibility and our people lose confidence in themselves as moral beings if the United States does not take action.
[here it comes...]
Since it is clearly no longer possible to take action in conjunction with NATO and the United Nations, I have reluctantly concluded that [...wait for it...] we must take unilateral action.
[...ahhhh!]
While I completely agree with you that no ground troops should be committed for other than humanitarian purposes in Bosnia, I would ask that you take the following steps in Bosnia. First, lift the arms embargo as it applies to the Bosnian government. Second, enforce a full embargo of the sort that is now in effect in Iraq on the Bosnian Serbs and upon Yugoslavia. Third, break off diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia. Fourth, commit American air power to support the Bosnian government until the situation is stabilized and the civilian murders and atrocities by the Bosnian Serbs have been stopped.
I understand the risks of this policy and their implications for the NATO Alliance and the future success of the United Nations. Surely, however, as you watch and read about the huge amount of unwarranted human suffering, particularly of children, you would agree that our current course must now be changed.
I urge you to make these changes as soon as possible, and I look forward to supporting your policy fully to the best of my ability.
Sincerely,
Howard Dean, M.D.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Rubin raises the alarm
Now HERE is your basic Threat Level Orange...
"....Argentina, once a showpiece for the new world order, quickly became a byword for economic catastrophe. So what? Those of us who have suggested that the irresponsibility of recent American policy may produce a similar disaster have been dismissed as shrill, even hysterical. (Hey, the market's up, isn't it?) But few would describe Robert Rubin, the legendary former Treasury secretary, as hysterical: his ability to stay calm in the face of crises, and reassure the markets, was his greatest asset. And Mr. Rubin has formally joined the coalition of the shrill.
In a paper presented over the weekend at the meeting of the American Economic Association, Mr. Rubin and his co-authors — Peter Orszag of the Brookings Institution and Allan Sinai of Decision Economics — argue along lines that will be familiar to regular readers of this column. The United States, they point out, is currently running very large budget and trade deficits. Official projections that this deficit will decline over time aren't based on "credible assumptions." Realistic projections show a huge buildup of debt over the next decade, which will accelerate once the baby boomers retire in large numbers.
All of this is conventional stuff, if anathema to administration apologists, who insist, in flat defiance of the facts, that they have a "plan" to cut the deficit in half. What's new is what Mr. Rubin and his co-authors say about the consequences. Rather than focusing on the gradual harm inflicted by deficits, they highlight the potential for catastrophe.
"Substantial ongoing deficits," they warn, "may severely and adversely affect expectations and confidence, which in turn can generate a self-reinforcing negative cycle among the underlying fiscal deficit, financial markets, and the real economy. . . . The potential costs and fallout from such fiscal and financial disarray provide perhaps the strongest motivation for avoiding substantial, ongoing budget deficits." In other words, do cry for us, Argentina: we may be heading down the same road.
Lest readers think that the most celebrated Treasury secretary since Alexander Hamilton has flipped his lid, the paper rather mischievously quotes at length from an earlier paper by Laurence Ball and N. Gregory Mankiw, who make a similar point. Mr. Mankiw is now the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, a job that requires him to support his boss's policies, and reassure the public that the budget deficit produced by those policies is manageable and not really a problem.
But here's what he wrote back in 1995, at a time when the federal deficit was much smaller than it is today, and headed down, not up: the risk of a crisis of confidence "may be the most important reason for seeking to reduce budget deficits. . . . As countries increase their debt, they wander into unfamiliar territory in which hard landings may lurk. If policymakers are prudent, they will not take the chance of learning what hard landings in [advanced] countries are really like."
The point made by Mr. Rubin now, and by Mr. Mankiw when he was a free agent, is that the traditional immunity of advanced countries like America to third-world-style financial crises isn't a birthright. Financial markets give us the benefit of the doubt only because they believe in our political maturity — in the willingness of our leaders to do what is necessary to rein in deficits, paying a political cost if necessary.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0106-04.htm
"....Argentina, once a showpiece for the new world order, quickly became a byword for economic catastrophe. So what? Those of us who have suggested that the irresponsibility of recent American policy may produce a similar disaster have been dismissed as shrill, even hysterical. (Hey, the market's up, isn't it?) But few would describe Robert Rubin, the legendary former Treasury secretary, as hysterical: his ability to stay calm in the face of crises, and reassure the markets, was his greatest asset. And Mr. Rubin has formally joined the coalition of the shrill.
In a paper presented over the weekend at the meeting of the American Economic Association, Mr. Rubin and his co-authors — Peter Orszag of the Brookings Institution and Allan Sinai of Decision Economics — argue along lines that will be familiar to regular readers of this column. The United States, they point out, is currently running very large budget and trade deficits. Official projections that this deficit will decline over time aren't based on "credible assumptions." Realistic projections show a huge buildup of debt over the next decade, which will accelerate once the baby boomers retire in large numbers.
All of this is conventional stuff, if anathema to administration apologists, who insist, in flat defiance of the facts, that they have a "plan" to cut the deficit in half. What's new is what Mr. Rubin and his co-authors say about the consequences. Rather than focusing on the gradual harm inflicted by deficits, they highlight the potential for catastrophe.
"Substantial ongoing deficits," they warn, "may severely and adversely affect expectations and confidence, which in turn can generate a self-reinforcing negative cycle among the underlying fiscal deficit, financial markets, and the real economy. . . . The potential costs and fallout from such fiscal and financial disarray provide perhaps the strongest motivation for avoiding substantial, ongoing budget deficits." In other words, do cry for us, Argentina: we may be heading down the same road.
Lest readers think that the most celebrated Treasury secretary since Alexander Hamilton has flipped his lid, the paper rather mischievously quotes at length from an earlier paper by Laurence Ball and N. Gregory Mankiw, who make a similar point. Mr. Mankiw is now the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, a job that requires him to support his boss's policies, and reassure the public that the budget deficit produced by those policies is manageable and not really a problem.
But here's what he wrote back in 1995, at a time when the federal deficit was much smaller than it is today, and headed down, not up: the risk of a crisis of confidence "may be the most important reason for seeking to reduce budget deficits. . . . As countries increase their debt, they wander into unfamiliar territory in which hard landings may lurk. If policymakers are prudent, they will not take the chance of learning what hard landings in [advanced] countries are really like."
The point made by Mr. Rubin now, and by Mr. Mankiw when he was a free agent, is that the traditional immunity of advanced countries like America to third-world-style financial crises isn't a birthright. Financial markets give us the benefit of the doubt only because they believe in our political maturity — in the willingness of our leaders to do what is necessary to rein in deficits, paying a political cost if necessary.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0106-04.htm
Monday, January 12, 2004
I guess Novak can't hold a candle to O'Neill
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: January 11, 2004 - January 17, 2004 Archives: "Number of days between Novak column outing Valerie Plame and announcement of investigation: 74 days.
Number of days between O'Neill 60 Minutes interview and announcement of investigation: 1 day.
Having the administration reveal itself as a gaggle of hypocritcal goons ... priceless.
-- Josh Marshall "
Number of days between O'Neill 60 Minutes interview and announcement of investigation: 1 day.
Having the administration reveal itself as a gaggle of hypocritcal goons ... priceless.
-- Josh Marshall "
Army War College Study Blasts U.S. War on Terrorism
Yahoo! News - Army War College Study Blasts U.S. War on Terrorism: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iraq (news - web sites) invasion was 'an unnecessary preventive war of choice' that has robbed resources and attention from the more critical fight against al Qaeda in a hopeless U.S. quest for absolute security, according to a study recently published by the U.S. Army War College.
The 56-page document written by Jeffrey Record, a veteran defense expert who serves as a visiting research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College, represents a blistering assessment of what President Bush (news - web sites) calls the U.S. global war on terrorism.
Pentagon (news - web sites) officials on Monday said Record was entitled to his opinion, but reiterated Bush's view that Iraq is the 'central front' in the war on terrorism.
Record urged U.S. leaders to refocus Bush's broad war to target Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America, and its allies. Record said the Iraq war was a detour from real anti-terrorism efforts.
Record criticized the Bush administration for lumping together al Qaeda and President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s Iraq 'as a single, undifferentiated terrorist threat.'
'This was a strategic error of the first order because it ignored critical differences between the two in character, threat level and susceptibility to U.S. deterrence and military action,' Record wrote.
'The result has been an unnecessary preventive war of choice against a deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland against further assault by an undeterrable al Qaeda,' R"
here is the link to the report < hpp > 01/12 14:42:27
"The author examines three features of the war on terrorism as currently defined and conducted: (1) the administration's postulation of the terrorist threat, (2) the scope and feasibility of U.S. war aims, and (3) the war's political, fiscal, and military sustainability. He believes that the war on terrorism--as opposed to the campaign against al-Qaeda--lacks strategic clarity, embraces unrealistic objectives, and may not be sustainable over the long haul. He calls for downsizing the scope of the war on terrorism to reflect concrete U.S. security interests and the limits of American military power."
www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/2003/bounding/bounding.htm
The 56-page document written by Jeffrey Record, a veteran defense expert who serves as a visiting research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College, represents a blistering assessment of what President Bush (news - web sites) calls the U.S. global war on terrorism.
Pentagon (news - web sites) officials on Monday said Record was entitled to his opinion, but reiterated Bush's view that Iraq is the 'central front' in the war on terrorism.
Record urged U.S. leaders to refocus Bush's broad war to target Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America, and its allies. Record said the Iraq war was a detour from real anti-terrorism efforts.
Record criticized the Bush administration for lumping together al Qaeda and President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s Iraq 'as a single, undifferentiated terrorist threat.'
'This was a strategic error of the first order because it ignored critical differences between the two in character, threat level and susceptibility to U.S. deterrence and military action,' Record wrote.
'The result has been an unnecessary preventive war of choice against a deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland against further assault by an undeterrable al Qaeda,' R"
here is the link to the report < hpp > 01/12 14:42:27
"The author examines three features of the war on terrorism as currently defined and conducted: (1) the administration's postulation of the terrorist threat, (2) the scope and feasibility of U.S. war aims, and (3) the war's political, fiscal, and military sustainability. He believes that the war on terrorism--as opposed to the campaign against al-Qaeda--lacks strategic clarity, embraces unrealistic objectives, and may not be sustainable over the long haul. He calls for downsizing the scope of the war on terrorism to reflect concrete U.S. security interests and the limits of American military power."
www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/2003/bounding/bounding.htm
Friday, January 09, 2004
Pals were booted off their land. Boo-hoo.
Folks weren't too kind to the redskins here either but that was then and this is now.
Blowing up Israeli children won't bring peace and prosperity to Pals. They should open casinos in Gaza and move on.
http://forums.craigslist.org/?ID=11503672"
Blowing up Israeli children won't bring peace and prosperity to Pals. They should open casinos in Gaza and move on.
http://forums.craigslist.org/?ID=11503672"
Thursday, January 08, 2004
Why We Shouldn’t Sweat Global Warming
In a briefing for congressional staff and media on November 5, sponsored by the Cooler Heads Coalition, Dr. Patrick Michaels debunked many of the global warming myths that have made their way into public debate over the last decade. Climate models have consistently overestimated climatic warming, and new research has proved that mild warming will likely be beneficial to human beings and the planet, according to Dr. Michaels, Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia
'The warming we are seeing is largely confined to the areas of Siberia and northwestern North America, and the vast majority of that occurs during the winter months,' Dr. Michaels explained. Accordingly, the most likely result of a predicted 1.5-degree increase in temperatures over the next 100 years will be slightly milder winters in Siberia and Northern Canada, hardly doomsday effects.
The current, rather mild, warming projections come from many of the same researchers that made the apocalyptic warming predictions of a decade ago. Climatologists around the world have been progressively revising their predictions downward as their models improve. 'It appears that the people who were the so-called �small band of skeptics’ must have had a point,' Dr. Michaels commented.
http://www.globalwarming.org/sciup/sci11-11-99.html
Fundraiser
Mr. Rumsfeld, 44,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are fighting without life-saving ceramic body armor that can stop bullets from an assault rifle, forcing some family members to buy the body armor themselves and send it to the troops.
I'm holding a bake sale to buy body armor for our troops. Is there an address at DoD where I can send the proceeds and be sure it is all applied to that purpose?
I'm holding a bake sale to buy body armor for our troops. Is there an address at DoD where I can send the proceeds and be sure it is all applied to that purpose?
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Bush wins easily
Come November:
The economy will be roaring along nicely and voters will give Bush the credit for stimulating the recovery.
Iraq will continue tottering towards democracy and policing themselves. At least one US division will be on boats for home. Voters will credit Bush for having accomplished a Good Thing, even if he backed into and for all the wrong reasons.
And Bush will have outspent his opponent by $100M.
Game over
The economy will be roaring along nicely and voters will give Bush the credit for stimulating the recovery.
Iraq will continue tottering towards democracy and policing themselves. At least one US division will be on boats for home. Voters will credit Bush for having accomplished a Good Thing, even if he backed into and for all the wrong reasons.
And Bush will have outspent his opponent by $100M.
Game over
More Supreme Fucknuggetness From The Paleosimians Displaced Arabs
Once again, the charities Splodeydopes For AllahпїЅ front organizations in the Occupied Won-Fair-&-Square-In-An-Arab-Instigated-War Terror-toriesпїЅ show their true colors...
'Palestinian (aka Displaced Arab) Groups Refuse U.S. Aid Because of Anti-Terrorism Pledge
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Palestinian aid groups have refused to accept money from the U.S. government because of a requirement they sign a pledge the money would not be used for terrorism, organizers said Monday.
..."How DARE you filthy pig-dog Zionist lap-dogs demand that we promise not to give the money, that you're giving us for free, to terrorists??!! That's OUTRAGEOUS!!' "
http://nicedoggie.net/
'Palestinian (aka Displaced Arab) Groups Refuse U.S. Aid Because of Anti-Terrorism Pledge
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Palestinian aid groups have refused to accept money from the U.S. government because of a requirement they sign a pledge the money would not be used for terrorism, organizers said Monday.
..."How DARE you filthy pig-dog Zionist lap-dogs demand that we promise not to give the money, that you're giving us for free, to terrorists??!! That's OUTRAGEOUS!!' "
http://nicedoggie.net/
Monday, January 05, 2004
Sharon kisses off Likud, does the right thing
'TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, confronting jeering rightist hard-liners in his Likud party, vowed on Monday to pursue a unilateral plan to quit some occupied land and shorten security lines against Palestinians.
Die-hard rightists repeatedly disrupted Sharon's address to a party convention, furious both with the plan and his stated preference for a negotiated solution to the Middle East conflict via a U.S.-backed 'road map' plan for Palestinian statehood.
'My disengagement plan is the best plan for our security. This is my plan and I will see it carried out,' Sharon declared to the raucous gathering of Likud's Central Committee.
He reiterated that Palestinians would wind up with much less territory if Israel enacted the separation measures than if they halted suicide bombings and other violence and negotiated permanent peace through the road map.'
... attaboy, Ariel. "
Sunday, January 04, 2004
Here's how to rescue American jobs:
1. prepare to compete with Habib, Wong, and Mahatma -- Educate the workforce (our HS grads rank behind almost all industrial nations, right in there with Nigeria)
2. Keep productivity gains coming. At the end of the day, it's productivity that determines how much a corporation can afford to pay you.
Of course sustained low interest rates make it much easier for companies to invest in those productivity enhancing plants and equipment.
"
Saturday, January 03, 2004
PopQuiz: Democrats in the White House
1. In the last half century, how many Democrats have been elected president?
2. Of these, how many were from the South?
2. Of these, how many were from the South?
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