Copyright © 2005 Frank Lynch.
Copyright © 2005 Frank Lynch.
Me: Frank Lynch Home These are my mundane daily ramblings. Email: |
One does NOT simply WALK into Mortor. (Thanks Mike.)
His funeral procession can't be more biased in his favor. If you remember back to Reagan's death, you'll remember that the first few days were full of encomia and that it took a while for the news outlets to allow honest criticism to enter into the obituaries: the initial coverage was all about his amiability and overcoming a supposed malaise gripping America during the Carter years; if you slept for a long time you wouldn't have missed anyone talking about Iran-Contra or any of the other scandals, their mention was still to come. Media Matters has put up a superb demonstration of the bias surrounding Bush's inauguration; it's as if all the progressives and Democrats had been sent up on that probe of Saturn's moon, because they weren't on the inaugural beat. This is not a popular President, in a relative sense; certainly, he received more votes than Kerry did, but his margin of victory was the slimmest ever for an incumbent President; and when you add in the context that, as a war president, he should have received an additional halo, it's clear to anyone that Bush still has a long way to go to keep support up for the next four years. But who was there on the panels to talk about the hurdles? The obstacles the programs would face? If conservatives genuinely fear a media they see as liberally-biased, do they really think that their conservatives could fairly speak on the behalf of the liberals who were, face it, in all practical terms excluded from the coverage? What will the coverage be like when it's time to bury him?
It's because Old Media gets it so
wrong that the world needs New Media, like the folks at NRO's
The Corner, as a corrective force. Read Matthew Yglesias's explanatory note for more. (You'll
be glad you clicked, honest.)
The Anti-Saddam bandwagon hits a speedbump. No question about it, I would not have wanted Saddam Hussein to lead my kid's Girl Scout Troop. But last year, as people were continuing to ask questions like "why didn't he use his WMDs on our troops?" and it was becoming more and more difficult to explain the difficulty finding the stockpiles that we were warned about (and even told "we know where they are" by Rumsfeld), the arguments started to emphasize other reasons for the invasion more and more. Not that the humanitarian issues never existed beforehand, they just got played louder. In the reverent spirit of "screw the Pope, we don't need his approval to go to war against Saddam," stories of abuses during the Saddam Hussein regime started appearing in the press. One of the stories concerned Jumana Michael Hanna, who told about her own rape by the authorities, as well as her husband's execution. It got a lot of notice in July, 2003. The Washington Post filed the first report. "Hung from a rod and beaten;" "electric shock was applied to Hanna's vagina;" it was an excruciating story, and Bernard Kerik told us we should pay attention: "For two months I've been here and heard the rumors about what happened to women, but no one came forward," said Bernard B. Kerik, the senior policy adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and former police commissioner in New York City. "This is the first case where someone has given us information that appears to be credible and that we can corroborate and act on. A lot of Iraqi women will see that we are serious. This is an event that will lead to closure for a lot of people -- and justice." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz saw a silver lining in her case when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ten days later: There is a positive aspect in the distressing story of Jumana Michael Hanna, that is her courage in coming forward to offer U.S. officials what is very likely credible information, information that is helping us to root out Ba'athist policemen who routinely tortured and killed prisoners. The world heard, loud and clear. Who wouldn't have been moved? A year and a half later, though, there's a problem: her story is unraveling. This angers me on several levels, one of which is that it makes you suspicious — perhaps overly — of the other stories that have come out. It's unfair to the legitimate victims. Secondly, it angers me because as was evident from both Kerik's and Wolfowitz's remarks, we were expending resources to chase down those she accused. Obviously, those resources could have been put to better use (maybe chasing real thugs), and maybe even those she accused were innocent (I have no idea). Another way it angers me is it's an example of how evidence that's consistent with your predispositions doesn't get thoroughly examined. And that's the WMD intelligence fiasco, redux before your eyes in the form of this woman. And that's what bandwagons do.
Don't you know dissent is not on the agenda? Andrew Card was unhappy that Democrats — any Democrats — might not contribute to a more perfect coronation:
If you so much as fail to immediately rubber-stamp the
President's edicts, you will be considered as playing petty
political tricks.
The courts exist to protect us. It's
called "checks and balances." It's why our government has
three branches. It's pretty fundamental. And surprisingly,
Bork doesn't get it. Of course, he's probably fine
and dandy with the President we have, and doesn't see how Bush is
a threat.
Democracy in portraiture. I've been wanting to write about this for a few days, and it's slow enough now for me to do so... Last Sunday we went to an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art of John Singer Sargent portraits, specifically focusing on his portraits of children. It was the exhibit's last day, and it was fairly crowded. Now, I'd been to Sargent exhibits in the past, but this one's focus seemed special enough to make the effort. (I say effort only because of the crowds I expected, not because it's difficult to get there, we're walking distance away, as you might have gathered by all the photos I post from the museum grounds; I'm not that fond of crowds, and would have enjoyed a less-crowded exhibit of William Merritt Chase at least as much.) What I thought was really worth telling you about, though, was an exhibit that was grafted onto the Sargent rooms. As you can imagine, Sargent didn't paint just anybody: like Reynolds, he worked on commission, and when you look at Sargent paintings you're seeing a certain strata of society. But the room adjoining the exhibit was completely different, because on weekends they were taking digital portraits of people who had just gone through the Sargent rooms and acquainted themselves with posing. They had a curtain backdrop, a little furniture, and manned cameras on tripods. Ringing around the room were the results of sittings from I would guess a thousand or so visitors at that point, each with a note attached from those who sat. As we went around the room it was nice to see humanity enjoying the flattery of having their pictures taken. While some of the people might have been able to afford having their portraits painted, doubtless that would have been the minority of those whose photos were displayed. It reminded me of an exhibit which has stuck hard in my
memory. The Historical Museum in Berne (Switzerland) has a
wonderful collection of portraits from the 18th century, where an
artist (or a town, I'm not sure) made a conscious effort to paint
everyone in the town: not just the upper-crust who might have
been able to afford to commission a painting, but even down to
the poor. You can look at Reynolds portraits all you want, but
you won't get anything close to a comprehensive perspective of
humanity. But the portraits in Berne are the real thing. If
Switzerland is in your vacation plans, check it out. It's
humanity, life and life only.
What a country. Well, here we are: there were more pea-brained voters than smart ones, by an ever so slight margin, and we now start four more years where we have to reach deep down inside ourselves and find every way we can to resist the mold that is in danger of eating away at our country and Constitution. I didn't need to learn that there were no WMDs in Iraq to know this guy couldn't be trusted; and when the invasion started and the "God Bless America" signs started cropping up on front lawns, I kept looking for someone to market "God Help America" versions, daring anyone to be so arrogant as to think a request for his help was unnecessary. We should not look to God for a rubber stamp, which is what I thought most people were doing with their signs; they seemed to think they could speak for him and stamp for him and pronounce the righteousness of the cause. Just because.
These are not thinking people: they would fiddle while Rome burns, and find further kindling in their glee. Bush has nominated a man for the law enforcement slot of Attorney General who sought to justify torture, and every Senator who votes for him will be saying that torture is OK. Bush nominated for his new Secretary of State a woman who cooperated in efforts to diminish the role of the UN, and lied to the American public about the threat which Saddam Hussein represented, and then had the audacity to question Barbara Boxer for impugning her integrity. Condoleezza Rice is, face it, a reprobate, who will presumably ascend to a position where she will try to convince the rest of the world to believe her. Bush's choices in these nominees are indicative of a complete and utter lack of morality, at a time when we need to convince the world that we have learned the lessons of our policy mistakes. We so dearly need the world to join with us in the fight against terror, yet what country will wholeheartedly join with a country that itself acts like a thug? Bush himself is of course without a compass. This past weekend he was interpreting his slim victory as the voice of the American people saying everything in Iraq was dandy, no need to change. This is of course morally shallow, and the idea that that Rumsfeld schmuck isn't being cashiered as a result of his mangling of the war and complete failure to plan for the post-war is testament to how our country is edging towards a swamp. Bush, the compassionate conservative, is hell bent on demolishing Social Security and taking away the guarantees which it represents. He has no compassion, and it's not clear to me that he's a conservative, either, what with all the constitutional tuning he wants to enact. God, help America; we pray for the resolve to resist.
Lincoln Chafee's position as a moderate
Republican has long been as quixotic as Zell Miller remaining
a Democrat, and the idea of Chafee switching parties has
frequently been raised. The Carpetbagger Report has a good
focus on Chafee, noting that as a Republican (even if the
most liberal Republican) in a blue state, his tenure is
not guaranteed and in fact is being threatened by the unhappiness
of Rhode Island Democrats. Carpetbagger notes that Chafee seems
to have thrown himself in even more strongly with the
Republicans, and I myself can't help but wonder whether Rhode
Islanders feel like their senator is like the leaders
of a past French government.
Regrets, I've had a few... I'm too considerate of your bandwidth to automatically load Blue Eyes, and anyway, it wouldn't be quite appropriate. Dick Armitage has regrets, but I don't think he'd claim it was done his way. Armitage has always struck me as a mixed bag; as a Powell supporter, he didn't always toe the Bush line, and if you read Woodward's book you know that at times he was Powell's conscience. Still, when he went on TV he knew what administration he worked in. And he did trumpet that very flawed report in 2003 claiming terrorist acts had gone down — not that he'd produced the report, but he wasn't sufficiently skeptical, and he had greater access to the internals than you or I did (to round out the point, that report was very flawed, and a reevaluation showed terrorist attacks were higher in 2003 than in 2002.) All that context having been laid, I want to remind you of my predilection to separate the message from the messenger (or maybe, in this case, suggest that context adds to the sincerity?), and send you, immediately, to this. (Hat tip to Atrios.) UPDATE: Genius is not always unique. Kevin Drum also
caught the My Way feeling.
A glass more full than empty, I think. I want to be clear, I don't speak for gays, and off the top of my head I can't imagine how "they" feel (as if "they" were monolothic, which they're not), but my initial reaction to a judge's refusal to force Florida to recognize a gay marriage from Massachusetts is a plus for gays and a plus for Massachusetts. Now, I recognize I may not have considered all the angles, and could be persuaded to think otherwise, but here's what I'm thinking right now...
That's my thinking in a nutshell. Short term individual costs, long term growth. My sources in the White House don't tell me that W is going to come out for an amendment in favor of gay marriage, so this route may be the best we have until such time as there's a major tectonic shift. Now, like I said at the outset, I don't pretend to know all
the angles on this, and I'm open to persuasion. It's open mic
time.
Not JUST the last refuge of a scoundrel. If you've been here long enough and explored the larger site within which this blog sits, you know of my fondness for Samuel Johnson; you may also know that he famously quipped that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." But there's more in his writings on patriotism which make us really want to look askance at Bush & Co., not just over Iraq but also over Social Security. In the decade when Johnson made his pronouncement, he also wrote a pamphlet called The Patriot, on the opposition elements who were draping themselves in patriotism and sounding false alarms. Within it, there's this admonition: To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion. Now, it's fair to say that in some respects Johnson was an elitist, but since our founding fathers wanted to limit suffrage to property holders, that's not enough to indict the basic concern he expresses here about needlessly roiling public sentiment for political purposes. I urge you to go and re-read Bush's 2002 speech in Cincinnati from start to finish; sometimes I've highlighted parts for emphasis, but I think it's really important to read it all, in its full context, and remember that this was his first major argument for throttling Saddam Hussein. The theme, of course, is consistently WMDs, that he has them, and the threat we might face based on his other actions. When you take WMDs out of the picture, you're of course left with far less; and while no one would really argue that Saddam Hussein's regime wasn't abusive, without WMDs it becomes a question of whether or not the war we engaged in was worth all the costs to the Iraqi people and to us. There have been estimates that perhaps 100,000 innocent Iraqis have died as a result of the war. Early on, Human Rights Watch (the source frequently cited for reports of the regime's abuse) issued a statement declaring that humanitarian reasons cannot justify the war. (Unfortunately it wasn't issued until January, 2004, well after the war started; yet if Bush had been looking for moral guidance, he could have turned to the Pope, who rejected the war's justification beforehand. Yet Bush would not turn to the Pope until he was pursuing his reelection and trying to use the abortion issue to pry Catholic voters away from John Kerry. Presumably scoundrels have other refuges besides patriotism.) We know from the Duelfer report that there were no weapons of mass destruction when we invaded, and that the search for them has been abandoned; the full Duelfer report is also supposedly going to lend no credence to the dwindling string clutched by the right that weapons were moved out before the war began. We are left with the glaring reality that had the inspectors been given the additional time which they asked for, which the many on the left asked for, which France and Russia asked for, that over 1,600 Americans would not have lost their lives, as well as the tens of thousands of Iraqis. Not to mention our international standing, the promotion of terrorism, and the long term financial costs. These are the implications of needlessly roiling the public with visions of mushroom clouds, conflating Saddam Hussein's hypothetical threat with the events of September 11, and playing the Colin Powell card at the UN: a population which was scared shitless and ready to march in lockstep every time an acorn fell on the President's head. Now, of course, Bush is trying to repeat his persuasive success over Iraq with a similar attack on Social Security. I'm hopeful that the press will exert greater skepticism over Social Security pleas than they did over Iraq, since the relevant information isn't halfway around the world. Bush himself, I recently reminded, talked about Saddam Hussein in terms of "fool me once," and we can hold Bush to the same standard. (Paul Krugman also mentioned Bush's "fool me once" within the last week.) So again, needless roiling of the public. Perhaps we can have even greater effectiveness in the Social Security debate if we are all clear that Bush's peddling of inaccuracies and lies didn't begin with Iraq, but that Iraq was just part of a continual pattern of deceit. Before the war, he had lied to us about his tax plan receiving the endorsement of a blue chip panel of economists and prior claims that he'd allowed for the possibility of deficits in his 2000 campaigning with his trifecta joke. During the course of the war, he claimed that we needed the tax cuts to ensure that returning soldiers would have their jobs (not true: employers are required by law to give Guardsmen their jobs back on return, and active military personnel work for the military, which shouldn't have been affected by any tax cuts). So actually, now that I write this, we can see that Bush was again needlessly roiling the public in order to achieve his tax cuts. I'm not going to say the President isn't patriotic, but let's
be careful to see that he is prone to false alarms, and when he
starts to drape his agenda in the guise of patriotism, let's call
him on it.
Prancer: Saddam was a reindeer or something? Condoleeza Rice, to Barbara Boxer yesterday, regarding Saddam Hussein: We knew that he was an implacable enemy of the United States, who did cavort with terrorists. Cavorted? Cavort:
(From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.) There are no other connotations listed. It's an interesting
image, as a reason for war.
And yet, some of the war mongers are
still on the Rice bandwagon, not only suggesting that Rice is
rungs above Boxer, but abusing Dr. Johnson in the process.
Johnson knew a scoundrel draped in a flag, sad that these war
bloggers don't.
Rice's balderdash when questioned by Senator Barbara Boxer may be a case for psychological analysis. Have you read or heard what Rice had to say? "Senator, I have to say that I have never, ever lost respect for the truth in the service of anything. It is not my nature. It is not my character." Oh, yeah? What about that appearance on Wolf Blitzer's show when she knowingly lied about the certainty of conclusions that the aluminum tubes could "only, really" be used for uranium enrichment? What about that Dr. Rice? This is not your nature? Were you being controlled by forces? And this diatribe, regarding the danger she thinks Saddam Hussein represented:
Yeah, well, the fact is that we had inspectors on the ground in 2002-03 whom the Bush administration wanted there only for the most token of reasons, as a necessary predecessor to claiming that "we tried the inspections;" Cheney showed the true face when he said inspections would never work, and then was hushed up because he'd tipped the hand. Rice's blithe statement that we didn't go to war because of aluminum tubes is a shallow attempt to deflect her culpability in the beating of the war drums. It doesn't work with me, and I hope it doesn't work with you. Saddam Hussein was not a threat to the region: the Duelfer report shows that the sanctions were working. All Rice et al had to do was listen to the inspectors. But noooo, intellectual arrogance had already set in, and now some thirteen hundred sixty some Americans have lost their lives needlessly. Rice should be ashamed of herself; sadly, I doubt she ever
will be.
Try to contain your surprise: the world feels less safe with Bush's reelection. So much for optimism about getting them to go along...
A fundamental misunderstanding of the job. In her opening statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State nominee Condoleezza Rice said: The work that America and our allies have undertaken and the sacrifices we have made have been difficult and necessary and right. Now is the time to build on these achievements to make the world safer and to make the world more free. We must use American diplomacy to help create a balance of power in the world that favors freedom. The time for diplomacy is now. Although Senator Biden had a sharp response — that the time for diplomacy was overdue — this doesn't go nearly far enough. Why? Because there was never a time when it wasn't time for diplomacy. It's prominence relative to war may have waxed or waned, but it was always required. Remember all these events when diplomacy was necessary?
This was just surrounding Iraq. I haven't even touched on the diplomatic efforts that have gone on surrounding Israel, Iran, North Korea... Just where does she come off with such a mirabile
dictu "The time for diplomacy is now"? Nothing has changed:
it was always necessary. As Secretary of State, she's
going to have to remember that it will frequently be more
necessary than the President realizes, and it will be her job to
speak up.
Consumer Tip: WD40 is not to be taken internally. But bar owners in the UK are spraying it on toilet seats to inhibit using them as a surface for cocaine snorting. That does it for me, never again.
That cold wind was Rick Santorum's sigh
of relief. You may have thought it was an arctic
front, but Pennsylvania's senator Rick Santorum — who had
once warned that allowing consensual sex to be legal would send
us down a slippery slope, towards approving incest, polygamy,
anything — is doubtless relieved by the news that the
Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from a gay soldier who was
convicted for having sex with a 15-year old boy. So society is safe,
the slippery slope didn't happen. Santorum probably won't be
happy with it, though, because now he has to find other reasons
to resist homosexuality.
Another Iraq parallel in the campaign to sell Social Security "reform"? Last week I noted that Bush's language in describing the perceived urgency of change before it's urgent paralleled language he'd used in his 2003 State of the Union address. (See the quotes towards the end of this post.) Well, here's another parallel perhaps. The initial calls Bush was making seemed to emphasize privatization, now he seems to emphasize solvency more. This parallels the way in which rationalization for invading Iraq shifted over time, until it ultimately became just "in my opinion it was worth it." So, my guess is that depending on whatever they hear in their
focus groups, there are more reasons still to come in the
campaign to disable one of the most successful government
programs ever. Watch and see, but argue in the meantime.
Efforts to remake Social Security frequently use the euphemism "reform" in describing ways to dismantle it. And as this article from yesterday's New York Times magazine lays out, the effects aren't so much as to protect or improve benefits as it is to maintain solvency through the method of reducing benefits. Here is a key passage, for your consideration... (Emphases mine)
So, why are we really doing this? If Conservatives continue to play the card of solvency (rather than dismantling), privatization won't help significantly unless the country incurs huge costs to buttress benefits. Privatization only looks good if benefits are cut; without those cuts (or increases in taxes, somehow), solvency isn't achieved. Of course, all the projections are based on estimates of
growth, immigration, life expectancy and so on, and the writer
argues that no one is completely sure about anything, and
projections in the past have often been wrong. But cutting
benefits without increasing taxes (somehow) looks like a turkey
of a plan. I do recommend you read the whole thing, it's
very worthwhile.
A small note for the sake of accuracy. I'm just now starting to wade through a couple articles from today's New York Times about Social Security, but one item bears correcting before we get too far... Just a little something you can use to show how truly erudite you are. In "Social Security Bashing: A Historical Perspective," Daniel Gross writes, "Social Security taxes now sop up 12.4 percent of payrolls." Not true, thanks to the preposition "of." Social Security taxes are equal to 12.4% of the employee's payroll, but they don't sop up 12.4% of payrolls. Why? Well, the employee has 6.2% taken out of his payroll. The employer pays an additional 6.2% on top, so the 12.4% is actually out of a pie consisting of the employee's 100% plus an additional 6.2% from the employer; the size of the pie is 106.2%, not 100%. And of that 106.2% pie, Social Security takes 12.4 percentage points, or 11.7%. Not 12.4%. So go impress your friends. I, meanwhile, am going to read not
only the article I linked above but also this
one. It's not short, so, see you tomorrow. That is, if I
have access to the computer, Ab is working from home.
Though he lost, John Kerry was a singular voice for all that was wrong with the Bush presidency. Singular in the sense that whenever he spoke out against Bush during the campaign, it would get coverage, not in the sense that Bush's problems were his singular theme. As long as he was talking, Bush's problems got coverage. And when the election happened, a lot dropped off the radar screens without Bush doing a damn thing. (When was the last time you heard mention of the munitions missing from al Qaqaa, for instance?) So now Kerry's gone. Should we care that Bush's approval ratings improved in December? President Bush's approval rating has risen to 53%, according to the latest TIME poll conducted January 12 and 13. His approval rating is up 4 points from his Dec. 13-14 approval rating of 49%. The President's approval numbers have improved across a variety of issues, including his handling of the economy (51% approve, up from 40% approve in September), his handling of the situation in Iraq (45% approve, up from 41% approval in September), and his handling of the war on terrorism (56% approve, up from 49% in September). Even though it stands to reason that they'd go up once the
opposition candidate sits down, it's cause for concern. It
demonstrates how it's not enough to have a thousand points of
light in the dark, pointing to the truth: we need some beacons.
We really need party leaders to start granting more interviews,
writing more op-ed pieces, giving more speeches. The thought of
this razor-thin victory turning into a "honeymoon" makes me want
to retch.
Time to highlight a comment here... In a thread last night, "Sam" (I'm guessing it's not his/her real name) noticed that the President had an interesting turn of phrase in yesterday's radio address. The President said, If we do not act now, government will eventually be left with two choices: dramatically reduce benefits, or impose a massive economically ruinous tax increase. Leaving our children with such a mess would be a generational betrayal. I spoke about other generational betrayals Bush had gladly committed, but Sam noticed, "Presumably there is a point somewhere between 'now' and 'eventually' where the choices will not be so "drastic," Mr. President?" Just another aspect of the intellectual dishonesty emanating
from the Administration which was supposed to bring back honor
and dignity to the WH.
Bush to the Christian Right: the election wasn't about moral values. Well, he didn't say that, but that's a logical extension of what he must feel from these lead paragraphs:
In all seriousness, isn't it amazing how he can apply a razor- thin margin of victory as if it were a mandate about everything? And isn't it also amazing that he thought it appropriate to
wait until the November elections to figure out if anyone in his
administration deserved to be cashiered? Presumably, he never
read the PIPA study results which showed how many of his
supporters were confused about reality; otherwise he should know
that he shouldn't be listening to the outcome of elections to
determine the need for reform.
Of generational betrayals. In today's weekly radio address, our President was quite the melodramatist about the state of Social Security, saying... If we do not act now, government will eventually be left with two choices: dramatically reduce benefits, or impose a massive economically ruinous tax increase. Leaving our children with such a mess would be a generational betrayal. Now, before we get into the nuts and bolts, does anyone remember him talking about a generational betrayal when he introduced deficit increasing tax cuts for the rich? No? You there in the back, logging in from Grand Rapids: do you remember? You, from Newark, do you remember? Hmm. No one remembers. Now let's talk about the choices he's insisting are our only ones, and point out that They. Are. Not. our only choices. Increasing the cap beyond which people pay into Social Security from its current $90,000 — how many people would that effect? OK, even if it hits the middle class hard, maybe it could kick back in on all additional dollars after, say, $200,000? How about a means test? Would that be so dramatic, to deny social security pay outs to people like Bush and Ken Lay? El Prez has said he doesn't want to negotiate with himself,
and in that spirit he's avoided talking about specifics (maybe he
can't wrap his head around specifics?) Well, until such
time as he can, why not just shut up, Mr. President? You're the
alarmist without an answer.
So far I haven't said word one about blogger-gate, the scandal which is threatening to undermine our Constitution, societal values, and the underpinnings of the internal combustion engine. I have a reason, which I'll get to in a moment, but I'm surprised (no, make that shocked — shocked) to have received so few emails asking that I chime in, which I gather means that all readers of every blog assume every blogger is on the take and making money hand over fist. (A quick comment to bring others up to speed, it was revealed this week that the driving forces behind DailyKos and MyDD received money from the Howard Dean campaign while it was active.) Now, just to be in full disclosure, I haven't commented yet because I still think it would be cool to receive a lucrative deal from the Trash Can Sinatras to, like, mention them or their CD's (weightlifting) every fourth word (happy pocket) or so. You know (I've seen everything), the kind of (cake) thing I'd just (On A B Road) do naturally anyway. Never (go see them!) mind that the (one of the best) band recently pulled (obscurity knocks) themselves out of bankruptcy (hayfever), I'm sure the bucks will flow shortly. (How can I apply?) The bloggers in question have acquitted themselves nicely: Daily Kos bore an announcement about the relationship, described as technical consulting; over at MyDD the blog was taken down while the financial relationship was active. And in spite of how the right may claim ignorance, it also made it into the press while it was going on. Should bloggers take money from political campaigns? Don't ask me, I'm not an ethicist; ask Randy Cohen (the Ethicist at the New York Times). But you can ask me about Randy Cohen, and (FULL DISCLOSURE we've met, emailed each other, and he listed me in the acknowledgments of one of books) and he's a nice guy so far as I can tell. Although he's not so well off that his life couldn't be improved by owning a copy of the Trash Can Sinatras' latest CD, Weightlifting, which made a number of top ten lists for 2004. (Maybe he should get the extended version which includes a couple additional tracks and a DVD, just to be an even more well-rounded person, for a penny more as I write this.) In all seriousness, this is nothing compared to what the Department of Education did with Armstrong Williams, and the right is trying to pull off some kind of moral equivalence thing to get the dogs off Williams and DOE Secretary Rod Paige. Williams never disclosed, for one thing, not a single clue; it's against the law for the DOE to funnel money to promote itself as it did; and it was taxpayer money. Efforts to distract from Armstrong Williams (and whether other commentators are under government pay) might be successful if we don't stay on message; this is like the Dan Rather thing: Bush went AWOL, and that bigger point was lost over the veracity of some documents. So face it, the bloggers did right. Now, as for Armstrong
Williams...
The solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund. In the Powerline post I linked to yesterday, there's a comment about the Social Security Trust Fund which I didn't address: And, of course, this doesn't even begin to get into the fact that the Social Security "trust fund" contains no assets, so that "dipping into the trust fund" means either reducing benefits or raising taxes. This seems to be a common misunderstanding, and there's even a press release that's just been put out by Allen W. Smith which claims that the Treasury bonds which are held by the trust fund have no market value: "They are not marketable, they have no cash value, and they are not real assets." Smith's skepticism isn't something which Social Security Administration shares, however. According to the FAQs on the SSA web site,
So Smith's charge doesn't stick, unless he's got more proof he hasn't shared. The burden of proof is on Smith and similar accusers, and so far they haven't borne it. (Smith is the author of a book, "The Looting of Social Security," has a Ph.D. in economics and has taught economics at the university level for 30 years, according to a similar press release which came out last May in support of the publication of his book.) As best I can tell, the only way these bonds would have no value would be if the US government decided to start defaulting on them. And there's no way that will happen, because then all our other bonds would start to look like junk bonds, requiring exorbitant interest rates to make them attractive. And there's no way the government will do that. As for how the US could redeem any special "unmarketable" bonds being held, it's easy to figure that one out: since these bonds schedules are well-known, their dues dates have been planned for already, and are considered into all calculations of the national debt; at time of the due date, the US government will either pay them off or sell bonds into the market in order to do so. To say these bonds have no asset value is just plain silly.
The Social Security rhetoric ratchets up. Over at Powerline, Hindrocket alerts us to a charge from one of their readers, that Molly Ivins claimed Bush lied about Social Security without having hr facts straight. (The Powerline post is here, the Molly Ivins column is here, for now anyway.) The gist of the complaint is that Ivins wrote: President Bush says "the crisis is now" and Social Security will go into the red as of 2018. Eeek, just 13 years from now -- we might actually live that long. Except ... nobody else says that. The Social Security trustees, paid to be professional gloom-mongers on this subject, say it's good until 2042, and the conservative estimate by the Congressional Budget Office is 2052 -- not before Social Security goes broke, but before Social Security has to dip into its trust fund. Get a grip. It's pointed out that in 2019 Social Security outlays will start to exceed what the program takes in, and that in truth therefore the program will be in the red. Even though the Social Security Trust fund is there to cover the difference (that's what it was created for, so it will be doing its job), and the program won't be bankrupt at that point, technically one could say the program is in the red. (See this definition of the phrase "in the red," : "Operating at a loss; in debt.") The program will not be in debt (thanks to the trust find), but it will be operating at a loss. (Oddly, no one ever really looks at it as a profit center, so I'm not sure how much the cash flow matters at a single point in time, so much as the balance sheet, but I'm digressing from my larger point.) If you focus merely on the operating at a loss portion of the definition, Molly Ivins was wrong. If you include the "in debt" portion, she was right. Because the balance sheet will still be positive in 2018, and for many years after that. What everyone needs to do in this debate is look hard at the facts, and not get caught up in opportunities to wag fingers. Molly Ivins' larger point — that Bush was Chicken Littling Social Security this week — is spot on. The White House has extended the time horizon for its projections beyond 75 years (a point beyond which actuaries start to laugh) into infinity. A silly notion, of course, since the earth goes cold long before then. Complaining about Molly Ivins' not using the connotation of red which you prefer is kind of like getting lost on whether or not Bush actually used the word "imminent" in describing the threat which Iraq might represent. Oddly, listen to these words which the President used the other day: Now, I readily concede some would say, well, it's not bankrupt yet; why don't we wait until it's bankrupt? The problem with that notion is that the longer you wait, the more difficult it is to fix. You realize that this system of ours is going to be short the difference between obligations and money coming in, by about $11 trillion, unless we act. And that's an issue. That's trillion with a "T." That's a lot of money, even for this town. Is it me, or does that construction remind you of this? Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option. Now, you're surely aware that the hunt for WMDs in Iraq is officially finally over, right? Repeat after me, gang: fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again. You've got to understand the nature of the regime we're dealing with. This is a man who has delayed, denied, deceived the world. I do hope we're a wiser nation this time around.
Refreshing candor from the right. Mike Minton of Talon News (a a wing of GOPUSA.com) writes today about the White House's acceptance of the end of the hunt for WMDs in Iraq:
Catch that? How often does the so-called liberal media correct
White House statements?
Perpetually dissatisfied? Newsday's James Pinkerton is unhappy about the outcome of the CBS News- Texas Air National Guard story. Not because it distracted from the broader truth that Bush didn't fulfill his service in Alabama (apparently not even when he transferred to Harvard, either — he was supposed to report in Massachusetts and didn't report there, either); and not because it reveals that CBS holds people accountable while the Bush Administration doesn't . No, he's upset because in his view Rather hasn't apologized:
Got that? Rather has to apologize using Pinkerton's exact formula or it's not an apology. (And in some parallel universe, Rather undoubtedly did use these words, only to have the parallel Pinkerton demand a different formula.) It's an odd riff on the Knights Who Say "Nee," demanding another shrubbery, or cut down the forest with a herring, or something. It's just mindless. Remember how John McLaughlin (then acting head of the CIA) responded to a Senate report which was critical of the CIA's information gathering with the short "We get it"? Did Pinkerton come up with a specific apology formula then? Oddly, Pinkerton understood the importance of the National
Guard service questions in a column he wrote last February, but now he seems to have
lost site of the bigger picture in favor of a rant.
Iraqi elections just to show that they could? Whuh? According to Robin Wright and Jim VandeHei at the Washington Post, the Bush Administration is now more interested in the January 30 elections as a demonstration rather than a specific, progress producing result. Says the article,
While a sanguine perspective might see progress in the fact that the administration is aware it needs to do considerable backpedaling, this is just another way of noting that the administration is again moving the goal posts. They of course did it continually over the reasons for invading Iraq, until Bush was left spouting something which you can't prove him wrong on, that in his opinion it was worth it. (You can prove it wasn't worth it, but you can't say Bush isn't entitled to his opinion.) I do like the Administration waking up to reality, it's something I've asked for many times, and with Allawi having conceded that several areas of the country are too unsafe for voting, it would be difficult to disregard him — remember, that's something they toasted John Kerry for, disregarding Allawi. Now, you may disagree, but I think the Administration's
re-characterization of the meaning of the elections is a stepping
stone towards what I predicted in early
December: that with the Ukraine re-vote as a precedent, Bush
and Allawi will call a do-over for these Iraqi elections, at a
date they won't commit to any time soon. You watch.
Liberal blogs under your radar. Sure, we know about Atrios and Talking Points, but there are many which might deserve more of your attention. Wampum's Koufax Awards (named after that great left-handed pitcher, for those of you reading from outside the US) has a list of nominees for blogs most deserving wider recognition. You might want to check it out (I'm on the list, and if you voted for me I wouldn't complain), but even if you don't it's a great way to learn about other voices. "Most deserving wider recognition" is a funny category to try to vote in if you don't know the recognition one already gets. I will tell you that I'm glad to be linked where I am (the major places are This Modern World, Altercation, and Cursor); I'll also tell you I get about 200 visits a day to this portion of the site, and that includes visitors who only come to look at pictures, not for the commentary. (It doesn't include people who come to samueljohnson.com as a whole, looking for information on the Good Doctor or what he might have said — that portion gets about 800 visits a day.) Anyway, pop by
and see what else is out there. And yes, vote for someone,
anyone, help put a feather in someone's cap.
The varying potential of web logs. I
think it's sad that so much of the focus on blogs is spent on
political dimensions. Blogs ain't always that, and the press
attention is warped. They can be about anything, since
they're so easy to set up. I imagine that if you really wanted
you could set up a blog completely devoted to pushing the
envelope on haggis, and since we're approaching Burns' birthday
that would be AOK with me. Neighborhoods are another opportunity:
why wait for your precinct sergeant to set up a blotter? Well, me
being a resident of Park Slope's little sister, Prospect Heights,
I think it's time for a shout out to our
neighborhood blog. Go ahead, click
through, see what goes on in my little world beyond Bush and
the kid's school. (And I just know that all you ex au
pairs will want to bookmark it.) If you think about it,
this is the potential of the Internet: bringing
information you can't get in print right to your door.
How typical. Isn't it time that the White House and its appointees got a crash course in ethics? Ridge spent the night at a lobbyist's home just as the department of Homeland Security was starting up; later his host received lucrative contracts. (Wally, are we having fun yet?) Press corps, it's time to get all over this: start examining
all of the contracts since January 2001, start building the
matrices. This should have been done before November, do it.
The "hunt" for Osama has gotten so complacent that even an NRO contributor is trying to sound alarms:
Oh, tish tosh, says the Prez.
Pro-life Republicans are being called upon by the Bull Moose to do something about infant mortality rates, which are rising in the US. Does being pro-life end at birth, or is it an ongoing obligation? Mr. Moose asks: When was the last time that you heard fervent conservative pro-lifers decrying the sad state of maternal health care in America? Have you heard the voices of stalwart supporters of "the culture of life" such as Dr. Dobson, Reverend Falwell, Senator Santorum or President Bush promoting the extension of health care benefits for children? If we don't do something about infant mortality, where will we
get our next generation of soldiers from? (Sorry, residue anger
from my first post this morning, certainly not directed at the
Bull Moose.)
Coalition of the no accountability.
The US is releasing an Australian citizen, Mamdouh Habib, from
detention in Guantanamo. Habib says he was tortured in Egypt
before delivery to Guantanamo, and wants compensation for his
three years' internment, seeing as how he's being released. Not
even an apology, says Howard, whose government "always
indicated that it was happy for the US to handle the cases of Mr
Habib" and another Australian.
Deceit complete, reelection secured, the WMD hunt in Iraq has been abandoned. (Warning: very furious post ahead.) This quiet, operational concession was made just before Christmas, when inspectors returned to Langley. (Glad some people made it home for Christmas, aren't you?) And if you want to say all the WMDs were moved out before the war, the WaPo also has this: Bush has expressed disappointment that no weapons or weapons programs were found, but the White House has been reluctant to call off the hunt, holding out the possibility that weapons were moved out of Iraq before the war or are well hidden somewhere inside the country. But the intelligence official said that possibility is very small. "Bush has expressed disappointment." Aw, shucks, no photo ops
of him in a protective suit standing next to Yeah, let's be nostalgic, and remember Bush's text of his 48 hour deadline to Saddam Hussein and how often it mentioned WMDs. Was it for humanitarian reasons? BS. Weigh up the coverage Bush gave to humanitarian reasons vs. WMDs and tell me what he seemed to care about. (And even if he did think it humanitarian, the Pope disagreed, as did Human Rights Watch.) Spread democracy? Even David Brooks didn't sound very positive the other day, seeing a "plausible path to success" (how could we ever let ourselves get into a situation where that would be in doubt?) Over 1,300 Americans have died since the war began (they will not be coming home for Christmas, of course). Over 10,000 have been wounded, and because of improvements in procedures that have reduced the number of deaths, many of these wounded are bearing the weight of serious, life-altering injuries such as losses of limbs. Our international standing has been hurt, not only screwing up alliances, but hurting our ability to negotiate agreements and maintain cooperation in the war on terror. (As Chuck Hagel pointed out early in 2003, we need to look beyond Iraq and not use all our bargaining chips on one venture.) Let's be clear. Bush is a mad man. I don't mean he has blood pouring out of his mouth or that he eats babies, but one definition of "mad," according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is "Lacking restraint or reason; foolish." This couldn't be clearer: because several other countries recommended restraint in dealing with Saddam Hussein (give the inspectors more time; keep the sanctions in place, and so on), but he was insistent on keeping to his singular, uh, vision (Son of Sam had visions, too... no, wait, that was "voices"), but Bush repeated his meaningless stock lines from bad movies (maybe he really does think he's Reagan?), like "time is running out." We actually had all the time in the world, since we know now that sanctions were working; if the inspectors had been given a couple more months, Bush might have been revealed to the world as the naked emperor. So all you war bloggers who were so anxious to confuse prudence with Neville Chamberlain, let's just be clear: you helped feed the fires of the war machine with your war mongering and chicken-little-ism. American deaths are partly your responsibility, along with the deaths of an estimated 100,000 Iraqi innocents, for a people that Brooks thinks might not be ready to bear the burden; for the mad vision of a two-bit politician from Texas who appears to have had sweetheart deals handed to him all his life; for staggering debt; for a distraction from the war on terror. Next time you pull out your Orwell, Burke, and Johnson for gratuitous quotations in an effort to cloak yourselves in an appearance of wisdom, just don't. They don't need your smears on their reputations any more than our dead needed your fuel added to the war fires. I honestly hope you never experience the anguish of burying your own child; too many others have. Thank you very much. (Hat tip to Atrios.)
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55 million voters — or at least a
significant proportion thereof — couldn't be bothered to
investigate the truth about the Bush Presidency, the lies told
leading us into Iraq, and the complete failures they've exhibited
here and abroad in a trumped-up claim that they are keeping us
safe from terrorism. Bush, we know, ignored CIA warnings that
Iraq was a quagmire before we ever went in; this past summer, he
ignored CIA estimates that the situation was likely going to
continue gloomy, when he made rosy pronouncements about progress;
and just in the past fortnight, when the CIA talked about how our
efforts had increased terrorism, White House spokesman Scott
McClellan dismissed it as speculative.