Me: Frank Lynch

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Iraq is just so, well, you know, BORING. That must be it: CNN seemed to feel that having mentioned the deadly bombing in Iraq in its 1 o'clock hour and its 2 o'clock hour, that anyone who tuned it at 3 PM was plain out of luck. CNN decided that the following stories were far more important to 3 o'clock viewers:

1. Lebanon's change in government;
2. The White House's policy on Iran;
3. The Pope's health;
4. A storm heading up the eastern seaboard;
5. A missing girl in Florida;
6. Michael Jackson's trial;
7. A suspected serial killer in Kansas.

All of these stories were mentioned in the 3:00-3:30 slot, but not a single word about the deadliest act of terrorism in Iraq since President Bush's declaration that major combat operations were over. If you tuned in between 1 and 3 you were OK, but if you didn't tune in to accommodate CNN's concept of when news should be covered, you didn't get.

It was all so "been there, done that." How fatiguing it must be for Americans, to confront the news about Iraq. (And on NBC's Nightly News, it was mentioned, but not until nine minutes into the program.) It's as if all of a sudden, with an election having taken place, Americans don't — or won't — attach any significance to the deaths of Iraqis. Heck no, we just care about supporting our troops. American lives are more valuable, right?

I don't necessarily think that Americans feel this way, really, but for CNN to spend 20 minutes air time on a press conference with the father of the missing girl, and not even mention what happened in Iraq during the 3-3:30 slot, is just a horrible news decision.
Link | | | 8:40 PM | Home

A horrible, horrible act. In case you haven't heard, an insurgent in Iraq murdered over 120 people today with a suicide bomb in his car. Can you imagine anyone hating Bush's implanted order so much as to kill so many fellow Iraqis? Tomorrow I will talk about whether or not the optimism immediately after the elections was justified; today I am sad and angry.
Link | | | 1:09 PM | Home

With no tongue in cheek. Over at Power Line, Hindrocket expresses his admiration for an online dialog between Mark Steyn and Austin Bay, occurring in the comments of a post of Bay's.

There are many excellent sources in the mainstream media, of course, including, frequently, bloggers like us. But the interactivity of the blogosphere gives it an edge that conventional media just can't duplicate, certainly not with the same speed or verve. A case in point: Mark Steyn argued in a Daily Telegraph column a few days ago on the future of Europe that the the idea of "the West" is dead. Austin Bay, an equally perceptive (if less funny) analyst, disagreed in a well-argued post, in the course of which he wrote:

Great writing absolutely brilliant writing BUT, wrong conclusion, unless you're like the French and you think "Europe" is another word for "France."

So far, so good. But here's the part I love: Steyn responded to Bay in a comment on Bay's site, with a collegial, constructive reply that clarified his position and extended the argument further. To which Bay in turn responded.

This is the kind of sophisticated, high-level debate that we need across a broad range of foreign and domestic policy issues. You can find it in the blogosphere, but don't hold your breath waiting for this sort of give and take in the New York Times.

While I disagree with Hindrocket's gratuitous grenade towards the New York Times, I agree that the blogosphere is great for offering this. And I'd have told him so in his comments... Except, Power Line doesn't accept comments.

If you think the inconsistency is due to the blogosphere, then your memory isn't long enough to recall Hind Rocket's impatient, fiery response to an email regarding Jeff Gannon. We all have our failings, and we all know we can do better, but I'd feel better if someone praised an ideal to which they themselves aspired.
Link | | | 9:22 PM | Home

What did he commit, and when did he commit it? There seem to be questions regarding when Tony Blair committed a UK alliance with the US in an Iraq invasion: a new report out of the UK suggests it may have been as early as April of 2002. That date point is of course well before Bush and Blair issued a joint statement in September 2002 declaring Iraq a threat with WMDs, and therefore calls into question the independence and open-mindedness with which the UK evaluated the intelligence it was receiving. And of course, seeing as how it was the January 2003 State of the Union address in which Bush declared that "British intelligence has learned...," this is starting to look like one big circle jerk. Who didn't feel as if the threat was a wee bit more credible since Tony Blair — that is, the world leader who got along so well with Clinton — seemed to have reached the same conclusion?

Does this mean that both Bush and Blair were wearing blinders when the inspectors reported back on Iraq and asked for more time? Was this group think going on in the Coalition of the Willing? Sure looks like it, doesn't it?
Link | | | 7:57 PM | Home

The differences in the two chambers of Congress. I'd always thought that the House of Representatives was set up so that it would be more responsive to the will of the people than the Senate — not that members of either chamber could afford to completely ignore its constituents, but that because Senators are up for reelection only once every six years, compared to two for members of the House, that members of the House had to keep their ears closer to the ground and Senators could think with greater principle. At least that's what I thought. But Josh Marshall has been reporting about case after case where Republicans in the House have failed to take advantage of the recess to listen to their constituents about Social Security. His latest example, Dan Mica, serves a district that has the 12th highest number of retirees in the nation (out of 435). Josh has been posting about a number of these instances, but so far as I know he hasn't gotten any explanations as to why so many Republicans aren't holding any town hall events. To be fair, Republicans aren't complete no-shows; but unlike Johnson's dog on its hind legs, here we don't wonder that it's done at all, we have to demand that it be done more. How else do these people hear what their constituents think? Are they conducting reliable opinion polls, or relying on a convenience sample of close friends?
Link | | | 8:18 AM | Home

The class trip to the Met was great... Bamboozle the teachers at lunch ("I can't believe you picked the one McDonald's in Manhattan without table service..."), count heads with every subway change and every new room in the museum... The format was wonderful: the kids have each been studying different Renaissance artists, and instead of the teachers leading discussions about the paintings, a different kid or two was called on with each artwork. I thought it was a very effective way of involving the kids in the discussions, both as presenters and audience.

Thanks to all for your well wishes, by the way, and thank you to the two people (one person?) who ordered items from my amazon wish list. I'm looking forward to their arrival, and a good 48.

Not much to write about in the news, though (I've looked and looked) and I don't think I have much to add.
Link | | | 10:54 PM | Home

48. And I'm spending the day in a really fine way, providing additional coverage for my daughter's class trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All by way of saying, 1, expect no posting (a late day post is a possibility, but not a priority), and 2, if you feel generous and expansive, I do have an Amazon wish list.
Link | | | 7:53 AM | Home

Rebranding "The Daddy Party." Calling the Republican Party "The Daddy Party" is nothing but crap these days. It used to be that Republicans could argue that they were fiscally responsible, but that's not the case any more. It hasn't been the case for at least ten years, when Clinton balanced the budget without a single Republican vote to support him. Not a one.

And what did Clinton want to do with the budget surpluses? He wanted to funnel them into Social Security. What did the Republicans want to do? They wanted to spend the money on programs.

And in the 2000 Presidential debates, what did Democratic candidate Al Gore say about the surplus?

I will balance the budget every year. I will pay down the national debt. I will put Medicare and Social Security in a lockbox and protect them.

And what did Bush want to do with the surplus? (Same debate...)

I want to take one-half of the surplus and dedicate it to Social Security. One-quarter of the surplus for important projects, and I want to send one-quarter of the surplus back to the people who pay the bills.

So Bush wanted to compromise on paying future obligations from the start, by creating tax relief. But as I've pointed out elsewhere, since the obligations don't really go away, all you're doing is protracting the obligations instead of dealing with them. Grown-ups deal with their problems.

What else?

Recently, Bush has been talking about the Social Security Trust Fund as if it's "not there." Because the Trust Fund holds U.S. Treasury Bonds (which the U.S. Treasury is obliged to redeem — there would be no question about this responsibility of Democrats were in charge), he wants to blame Social Security for the deficit spending patterns of government. It's not Social Security which incurred the financial obligations of these bonds, it's the U.S. government. To foist the inconvenience off on Social Security is reprehensible, it's blaming your brother for your transgressions. It's reprehensible, and it's time the real parents stepped in.

When you have pundits like David Frum referring to the obligations as if they're merely an accounting mechanism, you have pundits arguing for lowered expectations instead of responsibility. This is not how any party pretending to be "Daddies" could ever behave. And we cannot allow them to get away with it. This is an effort to foist off the lowered morality of Enron executives on the American people: it must not pass.

And we cannot allow this slimy effort to welch on obligations to be used as a lever to change the fundamental structure of Social Security. Changes in Social Security must be argued on their own merits, and not conflated with the debt obligations of the U.S. government.

Henceforth, everyone who hears any one denegrate the Social Security Trust Fund should fire back, with words to this effect: "I'm sorry if you're not ready and willing to step up to the plate; let the Democrats take care of it, WE are now the Daddies. Go to your room."
Link | | | 10:21 AM | Home

Good reading over at Think Progress. A 160 page playbook from Republican pollster/focus group moderator Frank Luntz has fallen into the right hands, and they're taking a close look at it.
Link | | | 3:59 PM | Home

Robert Benchley's presentation tips. In the Fred Astaire movie The Sky Is The Limit someone is being celebrated at a banquet, and Robert Benchley takes a clueless walk through some charts that are meant to display the honoree's accomplishments. Benchley looks with befuddlement at a bar chart, for instance, and says something like "well, I'm not really sure what these are, but you can see how they got bigger."

So what to make of this Social Security chart from the White House? (Click image or here for a larger version.) It can be found embedded in a page at the White House web site on Social Security, with no explanation for what this chart represents, so far as I can tell. By the title of the chart, we're led to believe that if nothing is done ("cost of inaction") starting around 2020 something very red (we're not sure what, from the chart) will occur. Black goes to red. Oh my! From the words on the red section, you figure it has something to do with cash deficits.

The label on the y axis isn't much help: all it says is dollars, in billions. So whatever this red is, it's in the billions!

This is why I started off with Robert Benchley: we have a chart here without explanation, where the web site visitor is left to his or her own resources to make an interpretation.

What the chart doesn't tell you — and the White House doesn't want to make very apparent — is that the black and red have nothing to do with balances in the Social Security Trust Fund. For much of that red area, Social Security will still be in the black; it will merely be drawing on its reserves. It has a negative cash flow, but not a negative balance. Up to 2018, it's been saving money and buying U.S. Treasury Bonds with the surplus money that it's been taking in. Starting in 2018 it starts to use some of those reserves. Those reserves won't be depleted until 2042 (or 2052, depending on whose estimate is used).

Now that we understand the chart, and that it's not as dire as it seems without any explanation, let's take it for what it is. Yes, it's a call to action. But privatization won't solve the problems represented in this chart. To solve the negative cash flow and depletion of funds looming in 2042/2052 will take either benefits cuts or some form of tax increases. How big a problem is it? Well, the drug benefit problem for Medicare is much more costly, and Bush has already told Congress not to touch it. So that gives you an idea of the priorities.

UPDATE: A poster in the comments has pointed out that the relevant information for the chart is on the White House web page. He's correct, the information is there. But I'm arguing that the visual connection between that information and the chart is so weak that it's as if it's not there by the time you look at the chart. The words are in the first column, and the chart is in a second column, separated by a hard vertical line. The words and the chart aren't at the same height on the page, either. The words on the chart ("cost of inaction," "cash deficits") aren't in the discussion of the data, so a reader can't make the connection easily. In my former life as a marketing researcher, it would be like me talking about data set C while I had data set A on the screen, and by the time my Powerpoint projector started showing data set C my talk had moved on and you had no idea what you were supposed to conclude from the chart with data set C.
Link | | | 3:45 PM | Home

Comeuppance for the prosecutor. From a Wall Street Journal editorial on Ken Starr:

A wiser prosecutor than Mr. Starr might well have come to this same conclusion and shut down the probe. But like so many "special" counsels who have only one case to prosecute, Mr. Starr seems to believe he'll be a failure if he doesn't charge someone with something. Thus his overzealous pursuit...

Oh, mercy me, I've made a mistake, it's actually James Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the Valerie Plame case who the WSJ editors have decided is wasting the people's time. The WSJ doesn't think a crime was committed, and not being privy to what Fitzgerald knows, is content to have the case dismissed and forgotten. (I replaced Fitzgerald's name in the quoted paragraph with Starr's in order to dramatize the shoe-on-the-other-foot.)
Link | | | 1:59 PM | Home

Rules of engagement for the press, part 2. Last month I linked to a Washington Post account of how a reporter's activities at an inaugural ball were closely monitored, and how he wasn't allowed out of a press corral without a volunteer chaperone. Via a Romenesko link, I learn that the procedure was in place during the campaign. In a column about how unlikely it is that James Guckert (aka "Jeff Gannon") just happened to slip into the White House on a perpetual string of daily passes, Charlie Madigan writes about very close supervision at a Bush campaign rally, and concludes there's just no way Guckert/Gannon was a chance occurrence initiated by GOPUSA without any inside help. But again, read his story about how he was monitored when he was out in the crowds, and recognize that it's the same phenomenon as was reported by the WaPo.
Link | | | 1:43 PM | Home

Suppressing the good news out of Iraq. Here we have proof positive that good news out of Iraq is being held back, because in the context of other news of bombings and so on, it would otherwise erode the credibility of the organization. You expect that from that America-hating liberal media, but from the White House? It must be worse than we all thought...

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino dismissed the excision as insignificant, saying the chapter may still be published in some form in the future. The piece dealt with the development of the Iraqi banking system, financial markets and other economic institutions after the end of Saddam Hussein's rule. It painted a positive portrait of Iraq's emergence as a potential free-market bulwark in the Arab world.

Perino said the chapter did not belong in the Economic Report of the President. "A decision was made not to include a chapter on Iraq's economy in the report, as the Economic Report of the President is an analysis of the American economy," she said.

Administration officials and economists who read the chapter said that was only part of the story. Against a steady drumbeat of suicide bombings, assassinations, sabotage and mile-long gasoline lines, some White House staff members believed that such a positive take on the Iraqi reconstruction would undermine the White House's credibility.

You'd expect them to want to get it out ASAP, wouldn't you?
Link | | | 8:42 AM | Home

Why is Brit Hume staring at you from the front page of this blog? Well, it's because he twisted FDR's words to suggest that FDR favored privatized Social Security accounts. FDR did not. Hume has yet to apologize, in spite of the criticism he's received; therefore, he has to resign. Click the picture and follow the links for email addresses, petitions, and so on. And get your friends to do the same. And tell your parents, too, if they're alive.
Link | | | 3:04 PM | Home

Further drops in the value of the dollar. Korea has decided to limit the risk associated with holding dollars, and is investing in other currencies. Of course, it doesn't help when you have the President of the United States saying that the U.S. Treasury Bonds which are held by the Social Security Trust Fund are worthless IOU's. If Korea is listening to him, then Bush is helping drive up the cost of foreign goods for any American who buys them. Rich, poor, in the middle, it doesn't matter.
Link | | | 2:37 PM | Home

A reprehensible ad hominem attack. How best to counter the AARP on its arguments against privatizing Social Security? How about a cogent argument? No? Then, how about baselessly suggesting that the AARP is against the troops and in favor of gay marriage? That's what some on the right are doing, running ads on their web sites which no responsible news outlet would accept. (I couldn't find anything on gay marriage at the AARP's site... and even if they were in favor of it, it has nothing to do with Social Security.) More details here.

UPDATE: Apparently someone thought twice about this.
Link | | | 8:42 AM | Home

The pain of being a man. Regrettably, Hunter Thompson decided to end it all. He'll be sorely missed: I first encountered him with his "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" when I was in high school in the early 70's (I even had it in hardcover), and soon devoured the two other books he had out at that point (Hell's Angels and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). A stunningly talented writer, and I'll miss him.
Link | | | 1:29 PM | Home

David and Goliath. On March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a Ten Commandments case regarding a Ten Commandments display just outside Texas State buildings in Austin. The case was originally brought by a homeless man who's a former attorney, and recognized that his lack of public stature meant he could afford the risks associated with filing an unpopular brief. It should be an inspirational story about what an individual can do, given the ability and the motivation.
Link | | | 12:36 PM | Home

Dick Morris. Atrios makes connections I've been meaning to make, comparing the enthusiasm with which the press and media wrote about Clinton aide Dick Morris's prostitute scandal, and the total lack of consideration of "should the press really be doing this?" Of course, one could always say the Press has grown up since then, but that defense only goes so far, and assumes that the Jeff Gannon story is all about sex: it's not, it's about lax White House procedures and perhaps extra efforts that were made in order to stick a conservative voice in the press room. There may have been a prior connection between Gannon and Rove, you know.
Link | | | 12:04 PM | Home

Taxes being raised under Bush. In the past, I've written that when federal spending increases, a tax increase is implicit, because the spending must be paid for someday by somebody — and that therefore Bush can't really claim to have cut taxes: he's merely postponed them or shifted them downward to middle and lower income people. Today's New York Times warns of how people are going to see their federal tax bills balloon because of changes in the alternative minimum tax:

The impact is about to mushroom. Barring a change in the law, almost 19 million taxpayers will be subject next year to the alternative minimum tax, or A.M.T., up from roughly 3.4 million this year and 1.3 million in 2000, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research group whose calculations on this issue are widely accepted.

...

About half the people paying the alternative minimum tax in recent years live in one of four states — California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York — accounting for almost a quarter of the nation's population.

...

The tax falls hardest on states that are overwhelmingly Democratic, including Connecticut, Maryland and Oregon. Some Dermocrats say the uneven effect is one reason that the provision has not yet been changed.

So there: like everything else he says, Bush has cut taxes.
Link | | | 11:47 AM | Home

Cranks on the Internet who distort the tone of the debate. Via my daily email from GOPUSA.com, I learned of a conservative blogger who calls himself Cavalier. He has a post from the other day arguing against giving voting rights back to felons, and does it in the most despicable way, setting ridiculously high standards for getting the right back ("they should have to go twenty years without so much as a parking ticket before that right is restored to them"), and concluding his post in this way:

In addition to becoming known as the party of hate, racism, appeasement, abortion and the anti-war party, do the Democrats now "aspire" to become known as the party of lawbreakers?

There's a bit of shortsightedness there — the first being that these lawbreakers have in general served their time and repaid their debt to society. (Two states, Vermont and Maine, allow inmates to vote.) Now of course his conclusion is one of the most divisive pieces of text I've ever read, but let's take a look at that charge of racism. It's especially off-base in the context of restoring voting rights, because according to The Sentencing Project, "1.4 million African American men, or 13% of black men, are disenfranchised, a rate seven times the national average." So on the face of it, wanting to maintain a state where so many blacks are disenfranchised while calling Democrats racist, is, uh, you get the picture.

But my larger point, I guess, is that his post is so stupidly extremist and unreasonable that it really hurts the discourse. If you spend enough time on the Internet, you know that he's not alone, not on the right nor on the left. If I were a moderate Republican, I'd be vilifying this guy every way from Sunday, because really hurts furthering any cause.

(As an aside, I'd like to point out this quote from Alabama Republican Party Chairman Marty Connors: "As frank as I can be ... we're opposed to [restoring voting rights] because felons don't tend to vote Republican.")
Link | | | 11:06 AM | Home

Live blogging alert. Just so you know, I'll be live-blogging Nancy Grace's appearance on Larry King Live tonight. The whole hour is Larry interviewing Nancy. So far as I know, no one else will be doing this.

UPDATE: My wife says it's over already, before I even posted this. Damn. Greatness was within my grasp.
Link | | | 10:19 PM | Home

Talking "Minnesota." (Via Atrios) How do you think the folks at the conservative blog Powerline responded to a challenge about how they were treating the Jeff Gannon story? Don't stop, go read. It's enough to make you boycott wild rice and root for the Twins over the Braves Braves over the Twins while watching your old World Series tapes. Actually, in all seriousness, if this email exchange is true, it's a bad sign for humanity, seeing as how these Powerline dudes (now charged as being cretins) get so much traffic.
Link | | | 10:11 PM | Home

What's a transition? Stop me if you've heard this one before, but over at CJR Thomas Lang explains how the White House gets its low transition cost estimate for switching Social Security to a privatized system. It happens because the White House talks about "the next ten years": Bush's outline doesn't have it starting for another five years, so five of the next ten are a non-issue, and "the next ten years" is a deceptively heart-warming context. Much happens after the next ten years. (Imagine a banker giving you a thirty year mortgage, and emphasizing how little you'll be paying in the next ten years. I betcha there are banking laws that disallow that sort of discussion.)
Link | | 9:36 AM | Home

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