10.10.2009 | A Nobel gesture

The last time a sitting president won a Nobel prize was 90 years ago. Woodrow Wilson won in 1919 at a time when America was rising on the world stage to end a bitter global conflict. His Fourteen Points, especially "peace without victory," set forth the principles that would allow America to carry out the Marshall Plan post-WWII, in sharp contrast to the steep reparations that were levied on Germany for World War I.

Now in 2009, as another president who rocketed to prominence on the world stage seeks to bring the world together after a divisive period, the principal question being debated in the media is what President Obama did to deserve the prize—as if he needed to have fielded an army in Europe or negotiated a groundbreaking treaty to deserve the award. The committee's critics charge that the prize is politically motivated, a cheap shot at the outgoing president, with the nomination having been completed only two weeks after the president was elected.

Tommy De Seno of Fox News put it thusly: How to Win the Nobel Peace Prize In 12 Days. (Mercifully, an editor's note at the beginning explains that the selection process takes a year.) Seen on an Internet forum, one commentator noted, “All you really have to do to qualify as a world-renowned humanitarian is to replace George Bush in office.”

Surprise and sarcasm over, it's time to figure out why the Nobel committee would have made the decision it did. I'm going to operate on the assumption that—understanding that it might face charges of politicization—the committee nevertheless believed that its selection would fulfill its founder's mission of promoting peace. Alfred Nobel, inventor of trinitrotoluene (TNT, or dynamite)—a mild explosive by today's standards—created the foundation that awards the prizes that bear his name as a matter of regret for having brought such a weapon of war to the world. Robert Oppenheimer, inventor of the nuclear weapon, died with similar regrets.

So the key fact that's been missing from the discussion over Obama's meriting the prize, the one that has been sorely overlooked, the one that makes the award completely consistent with the committee's founding principles and aims, is Obama's tireless work toward nuclear disarmament. Not only did he dismantle the Bush-era missile defense system that restarted a nuclear arms race between the U.S. and Russia and partially led to a war in Georgia last summer, but as Senator he worked to pass nonproliferation legislation. Beyond nonproliferation, Obama's explicitly stated goal of zero nuclear arms (nuclear disarmament) creates a bold new framework for agreement as U.S. and Russia enter negotiations on the START I missile reduction treaty that is shortly coming up for renewal. (Obama's predecessor, by contrast, withdrew from the START II treaty agreed in 1997 that explicitly banned missile defense systems.)

So we come to the supposed "cheap shot"—which I would argue, far from cheap, is both a politically and historically important message key to the promotion of peace in the 21st century. Perhaps because of the politically charged nature of the debate, this historical perspective has been most sorely missing from the media coverage of Obama's win.

The doctrine of unilateral preemption espoused by Obama's predecessor represented the most significant threat to international stability since World War II. By taking the bold political stand that the committee has done, it has fulfilled its mission to promote world peace by ensuring that policy does not stand without repudiation. Without that repudiation, it would have stood as valid precedent, a green light with strong temptation for future presidents to repeat.

While it's too early in Obama's term to know what he will or won't accomplish, and we can't know if a peace prize will be enough to stop future presidents with an itchy trigger finger, we can know what the award was trying to do. In response to a policy of pre-emptive war, we have an act of pre-emptive peace—an attempt to help Obama politically in the moment to restore diplomacy as a primary means of resolving international disagreement, and a message to future presidents that this is the right way to go about things.

As ridiculous as it might have been to award Obama with a peace prize less than a year into office, the only thing more ridiculous would be to repeat the eight years of foreign policy that preceded him. And that's a prize-worthy statement.

7.07.2009 | Democrats' supermajority dilemma

Al Franken was sworn in today. But now that Democrats have their magic number of 60 Senators, they don't. Power's a funny thing like that. And — by way of the Alanis Morrisette I heard playing on the radio on the way home this evening — so is life:

"Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right"

— Alanis Morrisette, "Ironic"

"Democrats now hold 60 seats, enough to block filibusters — but only if every Democrat and two independents show up, and they all vote together. The chamber's most senior members, Robert Byrd and Edward M. Kennedy, are ill and haven't voted in weeks. Without them there, Democrats need the support of at least two Republicans."

— Associated Press, "Democrats wave Franken as trophy over limping GOP"

It took Franken so long to get seated that two of the Democrats' oldest — and most powerful — Senators aren't even around to help keep the majority together. And Lieberman and Sanders aren't even technically Democrats. So can we really call it a supermajority?

In a body like the Senate where even one senator can keep legislation from passing, the job of majority leader will always be one of herding cats. And thanks to the way our country's founders set it up, there will always be a fragile tension in the balance of power.

11.06.2008 | Race over, a question of race

For all the talk of reaching across party lines during the presidential election, I'm sure Democrats in the New York state house didn't have this in mind: four rogue Democratic state senators in Albany are putting Democrats' control of the house in jeopardy by threatening to vote for a Republican majority leader, potentially spoiling the first chance Democrats have had of controlling the state house and governorship since the New Deal (that's about 80 years, give or take a few). So those are the stakes.

Why the mutiny? Three of the four senators are Latino, and the incoming majority leader is African-American. While none of the rebel senators claims to be angling for the majority leader post, in the words of Rubén Díaz (representing the Bronx):

"There’s a concern that we have a black president, a black governor and we have a concern that we have to be sharing power."

Excuse me? I'm all for striving for the ideal of racial balance, but can you honestly say that because there are people in power of one race, the interests of the other won't be represented?

Despite Democrats' best intentions to embrace diversity, this could be one area where the Affirmative Action mentality needs discarding. Especially in an election with this historic scope, people elected Democrats in record numbers to move the country in a different direction. Here four senators are ready to hand power back to the minority party, against the will of the voters, to push a racial agenda.

Why am I talking about a state house in Albany? Because what happens there could happen in Congress. With a woman as Speaker of the House and an African-American in the White House, I'm worried about racial or gender angst hindering the mandate of either of these people, or members of any race in positions of power in the future. (Though I have to admit: compared to where this nation has been, that's a pretty good worry to be having.)

Let's govern a nation of people, not races. There may be a valid argument in business for hiring equally qualified minorities to address lingering economic inequality, but in government everyone is equal before the law.

Obama's victory in traditionally red states is in itself evidence that white voters are moving past race in their voting decisions. So why the hangup among these Latinos? What can one race possibly do in power that the other one wouldn't do? Maybe I need an education here. Help me out.

9.15.2008 | Comic relief

What do you get when you cross one YouTube video hit with a controversial moment in a televised interview about a political figure previously unknown to the national stage?



Room for satire.

But of course, SNL does it best:

Hey, Democrats. Let's talk.

Joe Biden. Really? Joe Biden? I know he's the one that all the analysts were predicting. He's old; he's white; he knows about foreign policy. But look at that Sarah Palin over there, all the cameras on her. That could have been you getting all that attention.

Remember Bill Richardson? No one paid much attention to him in the primaries, but boy would he have been an answer to the GOP talking up Palin's executive experience and energy-cum-national-security cred. So she's been governor of a state for 2 years that has a bunch of oil. Richardson was Secretary of Energy under Clinton and called for an Apollo plan for energy independence before Al Gore got all the attention for it. This is supposed to be your issue.

He's a governor, too. The last pair of Senators to win office on a ticket was half a century ago — JFK and LBJ, 1960. We know them by their initials. What's Biden's middle name?

And oh yeah, he's Hispanic. You had a chance to make history, but instead you repeated it (LBJ was pretty boring too at first). So much for all those voters in New Mexico and Florida that might have been as excited about the Democratic ticket as all those lipstick-wearing pitbull hockey moms are for Palin (did Obama call them pigs?). And you let that Massachusetts guy, Mitt Romney, tell us that the sun will rise in the West against the Eastern elites! Who says regional balance is dead?

Did I mention he was our ambassador to the U.N.? There's your foreign policy experience. Boom, a trifecta: executive, energy, foreign P. Instead we've got old blue eyes over there with a seat on some obscure Senate committee talking about how to divvy up Iraq between the people fighting over there — which is great, except nobody gets it.

You need to jazz him up a bit. Tell his story. What's he been doing in the Senate for 30 years? How will his plan for Iraq mean victory? And didn't he get some bipartisan support for it too?

And Obama, you with the negative ads. What's that about? "Change we can believe in" is suddenly "change we need" — and boy do we need it because we sure can't believe in it anymore, what with the FISA crap and the McCain-bashing. "Vote for me because McCain can't send an e-mail" — there's a message that will get those senior voters in Florida off their walkers.

What you need to do is tell the American people what you can do for them. I know JFK said ask not what you can do, but we weren't heading off an economic cliff in 1960. Tell them how clean energy can get Americans working again, building roads, bridges, schools. How cutting earmarks means cutting jobs, and how 80 percent of Americans will benefit from a hefty Obama tax cut and energy credit to get the economy going again — or at least keep us on our feet. Not to mention all that stuff you did in Illinois.

And you know, the same people who told you to make the safe choice with that white guy are going to tell you to go negative, hit back hard. They love distorting the truth and making the other guy look evil and bad. McCain's got that cartoon character of your face plastered up there next to the slimy messages — why not put your face next to the good stuff about your plans? Images, man. That's how you fight back. People won't read, but they sure do remember those images in the voting booth.

And the thing is you know the negative campaigning doesn't work, that it turns people off politics. It's why we can't sit at a dinner table and have a decent conversation about the country. It's why you won the nomination in a fair fight. Don't let the wonks make you fall for McCain's trap. He's got the positive side of the story. You need to tell yours.

Said it once, I'll say it a thousand times: only a Democrat could lose this election.

5.15.2008 | Everything’s going to be OK … eventually

McCain: Keeping hope alive

As our nation's problems continue to mount, it seems Reagan's "morning in America" has reached full noon.

After a speech today that paints a rosy picture of America's future over the next four years, Senator McCain seems to have joined Barack Obama as pretender to the title of the candidate of hope and optimism for the future (Obama has expressed admiration for Reagan's tone in the past).

So now both leading candidates for the presidential nomination are competing to become the focal point of America's optimistic spirit. Obama has "hope"; McCain foresees strong economic growth and troops out of Iraq in four years — or, as one satirical image put it, whatever your heart desires.

It's interesting to note that McCain made his promises in terms of a four-year window, not eight, perhaps a choice that, consciously or otherwise, gives deference to his age (if Obama can be criticized for being too young, then it's only fair to bring up the opposite about McCain).

But McCain was not alone in his optimism today. His sentiment seemed to be echoed by President Bush, who — in Israel marking the nation's 60th anniversary — predicted that in the next 60 years there will be "free and independent societies” across the region. “Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, where today’s oppression is a distant memory.” Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas “will be defeated.”

White House spokesman Gordon D. Johndroe defended the comments as being realistic, pointing out that "If you don’t set out a goal for what the region should look like, then what’s the point in anyone sitting down to talk at all?"

We all hope flowers will bloom across the Middle East, but they have to be cultivated first.

McCain had a similar response to a reporter who called his speech a "magic carpet ride," saying "I don’t think it has anything to do with fantasy; I think it has everything to do with setting goals and achieving."

Well yes, have lofty goals. But to predict that they will be reached is getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, isn't it? (Along with Hillary Clinton's "Yes we will," that may be a running theme these days.)

If nothing else, we would hope for a detailed explanation of how to get there. We all hope flowers will bloom across the Middle East, but they have to be cultivated first.

4.27.2008 | McCain speaks out for the poor

Taxes: Who's getting shafted?

And in the same breath he speaks out for the "100 million Americans" — less than one-third — who would be affected by a capital gains tax increase under Barack Obama's economic proposal. So as the Republican nominee McCain is carrying the mantle of supply-side conservatism (or, as Bush put it in 2000, calling the elites "his base"). That's understood.

But what caught my breath was seeing McCain refer to Obama's stance on the gas tax as being "defined by special interests." (For the record, McCain proposed a summer gas tax holiday, while Obama is against.) Now, it seems to me lower gas taxes might mean more gasoline sales for oil companies, which would mean more profits for them. What special interest could possibly stand to gain from lower gas sales figures?

Obviously Sen. Obama does not understand that this would be a nice thing for Americans, and the special interests should not be dictating this policy.

— Sen. John McCain on a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax, currently fixed at 18.4 cents a gallon

The only "special interest" I could find pushing for a higher gas tax was in Minnesota — home of last summer's I-35W bridge collapse — where the state's association of counties wanted more revenue. But with crumbling infrastructure around the country, tight state budgets and mounting national debt, if government itself has become a special interest in McCain's dictionary, we're in for a more topsy-turvy campaign season than I expected.

And if this is what the national debate looks like, God forbid what might happen if anyone were to suggest increasing the tax.

4.15.2008 | McCain's economics lesson

Aptly enough, John McCain chose today, April 15th (tax day), to unveil his economic stimulus package (original speech here) after having been the subject of attack by his two Democratic rivals. Like him, I've never understood economics very well, so my interest is not so much in the substance of his proposals as his style – the way he chose to present them.

Seeking perhaps to reassure us that he understands economics, Sen. McCain had the exceptional insight to point out that "Economic policy is not just some academic exercise, and we in Washington are not just passive spectators. We have a responsibility to act. And if I am elected president, I intend to act quickly and decisively."

Wonderful! So apparently the economy is something the president should do something about. I'm reassured. Do go on.

"In all of this, it will not be enough to simply dust off the economic policies of four, eight, or twenty-eight years ago. We have our own work to do. We have our own challenges to meet."

Now this is interesting, because in one sentence McCain — or his speechwriters — has at once dismissed the approaches of his predecessor (also a Republican), his predecessor's predecessor (President Clinton, the one whose experience the current Senator Clinton is running on), and — here's the kicker — Barack Obama's.

How is Obama's policy one of twenty-eight years ago? Very simply, Obama has been on the campaign trail criticizing the economic policies of Republicans and Democrats over "the last 25, 30 years" — the same policies that he says have made people bitter, and the same policies McCain and Hillary accuse him of being "elitist" and "out of touch" for criticizing.

It's a tantalizing hint as to how McCain will combat Obama's message of "change" as the fall approaches. All he has to do, it seems, is remind voters of who was in office before Reagan. I'm predicting here and now he will try to compare Obama to Jimmy Carter. It will be up to Obama to show how he will be able to do better.

4.12.2008 | A bitter pill to swallow

The latest kerfuffle from the campaign trail involves Obama's use of the word "bitter." Not as in the kind of discourse we've seen between the candidates, and no, not to describe Hillary's attitude toward Obama's lead in pledged delegates racked up in "undemocratic" caucuses (and, to be fair, the attitude Obama's supporters will probably have if superdelegates reverse the results of those caucuses).

No, the bitterness in question here is that of working-class Americans who have seen their wages decline and their jobs shipped overseas over the last couple of decades. Because if that happened to me, I know I would be shouting to the hills for joy. Enough irony, though; here's the substance of what Obama said (the offending word highlighted for our benefit):

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them ... And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion ... as a way to explain their frustrations."

And Clinton's response:

I saw in the media that its being reported that my opponent said the people of Pennsylvania who faced hard times are ‘bitter.’ Well, that’s not my experience as I travel around Pennsylvania I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic who are positive who are rolling up their sleeves.

So for once, Hillary takes on the role of the wide-eyed optimist, Obama the pragmatic realist (or, if you would believe his opponents, "elitist").

But the difference is that while Obama inspires optimism about the future and our ability to solve problems, it seems Hillary wants people to feel good about themselves even as economic opportunities disappear around them. We'll see which approach wins at the ballot box in the weeks and months ahead.

4.06.2008 | Civility on the campaign trail

Back in January, President Bill Clinton said that if his wife and Senator John McCain "wound up being the nominees of their party, it would be the most civilized election in American history, and they're afraid they'd put the voters to sleep because they like and respect each other."

"She and John McCain are very close. They always laugh that if they wound up being the nominees of their party, it would be the most civilized election in American history, and they're afraid they'd put the voters to sleep because they like and respect each other."

— President Bill Clinton, January 2008

The most civilized election in American history. Hillary certainly seems to believe that the primary season has been civil thus far, so we can only imagine what flowers are waiting to bloom between whenever the nomination contest is settled and November should she become the nominee.

But you have to wonder about this civility thing. After Hillary tried to revive the scandal surrounding Barack Obama's ties to Reverend Wright, Obama responded by saying that it was "fair game" to do so.

John McCain, on the other hand, recently said Barack Obama would be "absolutely qualified" to be president, while when given the chance to compare herself to McCain, Hillary left Obama out in the cold.

Two points I want to make here: One, it is a good thing that this election season so far is even allowing us to contemplate who is being the most civil (instead of who is reaching lowest in the bag of political tricks). Two, I'm not sure all the candidates are equally displaying the potential for civility that exists. I'd love to be proven wrong.

4.04.2008 | The cheese stands alone

"The cheese stands alone. The cheese stands alone!" So says loveable loser Carter Doleman in the 2003 flick Scorched, a movie in which a group of small-town bank employees working dead-end jobs individually decide to take action to improve their lives by robbing their employer. Carter, the only one whose idea of success is to land a job at the bank, yells this realization in a moment of self-empowerment before deciding to get dressed up for his interview.

And so we have President Bush staring blankly into the camera, alone, in the midst of world leaders at Thursday's group photo at the NATO summit in Bucharest. The photo waa seized upon by the German publication Der Spiegel to suggest that he looked like "a defiant child with his head against the wall." Certainly it has echoes of Bush's adventure with a locked door in China in 2005, but perhaps he was just more eager than his counterparts to get the thing over with.

All this serves as pretext, then, for a new New York Times/CBS poll, which has asked since the early 1990s whether Americans believe America is "on the right track." For the first time since the poll was taken, 81 percent of us have said "no," including a majority of Republicans. With all the headlines that have greeted us about the falling Dollar, rising oil prices, job losses, etc. this might sound like a reasonable thing.

But not to a talk show host I found on the radio dial this morning, who mocked The New York Times for declaring that "the sky is falling" and said that "wrong track" is "pretty strange language for a poll" (perhaps it was so strange to him he didn't realize "wrong track" doesn't mean "end of the world" — it's the start of a process). He then took his first caller, who happily declared that he wasn't worse off than he was four years ago, and that people should just "go to a restaurant" (assuming people can afford one these days).

Pessimism such as that displayed by The New York Times, the host argued, "becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," and he declared himself proudly to be one of the one in five Americans who believe everything is going just fine and dandy, thank you very much. The caller told us Ronald Reagan showed us optimism is key to addressing our problems. While it helps to face them with a sense of optimism that we can solve them, it certainly doesn't help to pretend everything is going just fine to the point that it prevents us from identifying problems to be solved.

Caller and host agreed on a bumper sticker slogan — "Annoy a liberal — work hard, raise a family and be happy." I prefer to remember the lesson of Voltaire's Candide, in which the eternal optimist Professor Pangloss refused to make any judgments about his own hanging — or in Sondheim's dramatization, praised the design of the rope even as it was being drawn around his neck.

4.03.2008 | Has NATO lost its way?

Uneasy alliance? After today's meeting, NATO's path from West to East seems less certain. To those less in the know, NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (you might be forgiven for not knowing it exists). The image above is based on the organization's flag, a white four-point compass on a blue field.

It's a question that's stayed in my mind — and indeed many others — since the end of the Cold War. With the threat of Soviet domination gone, why do we need a transatlantic military alliance? To many, the answer is obvious, and they are not necessarily wrong in thinking so: the new global, non-state threat of radical Islamic terrorism has replaced the old totalitarian Soviet bloc.

But as today's meeting of the 60-year-old alliance revealed, there is a larger question at stake in the future of NATO. Though its members are generally supportive of combating terrorism (France has committed new troops to Afghanistan, par exemple), they are less certain about expanding the membership of NATO eastward. In his attempt to bring the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine into the fold, President Bush ran into resistance from France and Germany, who wanted to avoid antagonizing Russia.

“Georgia's and Ukraine's membership in the alliance is a huge strategic mistake which would have most serious consequences for pan-European security.”

— Alexander Grushko, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister

While Albania and Croatia were extended formal invitations — the former of which should be eyebrow-raising as Serbia chafes over the recent independence declaration by majority-Albanian Kosovo — Georgia and Ukraine were put on hold for now, (though they have been promised closer relations of some kind). The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was rejected outright after objections from Greece, who chafed at posters recently on display in Macedonia's capital depicting Greeks as Nazis.

Combined with U.S. plans to install a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe (which NATO backed at the meeting), Russia's skittishness about an American military alliance reaching into its sphere of influence should be understood. It may even be just a point of pride, as former Warsaw Pact members (NATO's old Soviet equivalent) fall away from the old Soviet influence and embrace the West (Bush has been particularly keen to reward Eastern European allies for their participation in Iraq). Perhaps not coincidentally, today's meeting was held in the capital of Romania, a former Warsaw Pact member.

“The Cold War is over and Russia is not our enemy.”

— U.S. President George W. Bush

But as NATO invites each new member into the fold, it invites new possibilities for military intervention in the future — each member of the alliance is pledged to defend the other in the event of an attack. I can't help but recall how the world wars showed us how entangled alliances can be troublesome — something that couldn't have been far from France's and Germany's national memories as they raised their objections.

While it is admirable to seek to bridge the gap that was carved between Europe's East and West during the Cold War, Macedonia, Georgia and Albania each have their own simmering disputes and political baggage to carry with them. As NATO seeks to expand, it should tread carefully, and watch out for the Russian bear in the woods.

4.02.2008 | A turn of phrase

Perhaps a sign of the times in which we live, a phrase made popular four years ago seems to be making a comeback. Or "turning a corner," if you will.



Made popular in modern times by President Bush's attempts to describe progress in Iraq, especially on the campaign trail in 2004 (and afterward), the phrase made a surprise appearance more recently when Senator Clinton used it to describe her campaign's fortunes after her (arguably) pyrrhic victories in Texas and Ohio. But since then, I've seen the phrase pop up in a quote from a midwesterner in this BBC article about the world's opinion of America, which told me something must be up.

Maybe it's just me, but I remember more definite turns of phrases, like "light at the end of the tunnel," or "turning things around" (as long as we're going to turn something). But since it's been used to describe American progress in Iraq, however incremental it might be, it can't help but carry a connotation that there's a much longer and involved process afoot. And there are no shortage of problems in America today that might need such an approach for solving them.

And then there are the Yoko Ono lyrics to the song of the same name:

I turned a corner,
It didn't seem that was wrong,
I was just having a laugh.
But suddenly my friends are gone
And I didn't know that life would be so long.

I guess more than a question of how many corners we'll have to turn, it's what's around the corner (or what isn't) when we get there that counts.

2.26.2008 | In their own words

Tonight's debate between Senators Clinton and Obama dived deep into substance, and that's a good thing (18 pages' worth of goodness, if you care to read it, over at NYTimes). But I couldn't help but notice one aspect of Hillary's style that confirmed for me the criticism that she represents the old guard of politics:

MR. RUSSERT: I want to ask both of you this question, then. If we — if this scenario plays out and the Americans get out in total and al Qaeda resurges and Iraq goes to hell, do you hold the right, in your mind as American president, to re-invade, to go back into Iraq to stabilize it?

SEN. CLINTON: You know, Tim, you ask a lot of hypotheticals. And I believe that what's —

MR. RUSSERT: But this is reality.

SEN. CLINTON: No — well, it isn't reality. You're — you're — you're making lots of different hypothetical assessments.

Contrast that with the last time I remember hearing a response like that from someone in power when a journalist asked a pretty reasonable question about the consequences of our actions:

JIM LEHRER: Let's cut to the crunch on this question. If in fact this team does not find any weapons of mass destruction, do you believe that would do serious harm to the credibility of the president and this administration and particularly on the… in the long run and when history looks back on this?

DONALD RUMSFELD: I mean, the intelligence that our country had— has— was over a sustained period of time, it was validated by other intelligence services. I have to believe it was reasonably correct— obviously not perfect. No intelligence is ever perfect. And that as the reports come out, they will find evidence of the kinds of programs that Secretary Powell presented to the United Nations. That's my… yes, I mean that's what I believe.

JIM LEHRER: But if they don't? Is that a problem?

DONALD RUMSFELD: I don't do hypotheticals.

JIM LEHRER: You don't do politics; you don't do hypotheticals.

DONALD RUMSFELD: I don't. I don't. Why? I can't speculate.

One of the necessary qualities of leadership is looking ahead to the possibility that plan A may not work as you thought it would. I don't know about you, but when someone running for president today, knowing what we know now, refuses to engage in hypotheticals, I'm a little bit worried.

But maybe I'm wrong. Can anyone out there on the Internets think of a time where it would be a good thing to avoid hypothetical questions?

Scratch that. I think I found one …

1.03.2008 | Victory of reason (redux)

Sanity prevailed over fear in the midterm elections. This time idealism is king. The come-from-behind victories of the aw-shucks governor from Arkansas and the skinny kid with Kenyan roots (not to mention the second-place finish of the son of a millworker) are signs that the country is ready not only for change, but for humble leadership. For the first time in about seven years, I have hope for the country.

11.16.2007 | GOP Congressmen demand withdrawal

Democrats' report: Inconvenient truths?

— not from Iraq, but of a report issued by the Democratic members of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee seeking to estimate the "hidden costs" of the Iraq war.

The call comes from Senator Sam Brownback and Representative Jim Saxton, the ranking Republican members of the Joint Economic Committee, who claim that the report is "defective" and riddled with "factual errors," though the specific examples they gave have been corrected in the online version of the report.

It's all well and good to demand accuracy, but calling for the report's withdrawal?

While telling us to stand strong in the face of hardship in Iraq and asking our soldiers to continue to shoulder the necessary sacrifices, it seems to me these Republicans have found an enemy more formidable than the terrorists in Afghanistan or the insurgents in Iraq — a differing point of view.

Go ahead and call the report "defective," go ahead and tell us where the Democrats erred — even better, issue your own report in response. That's the beauty of open academic debate. But to tell the opposing side to take back what they said is the intellectual equivalent of cut and run.

Read the report for yourself (PDF, 400KB) and decide whether it makes a rhetorical leap too far.

But as for the Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is opposing any talk of a timetable — for charging Bush administration officials with contempt of Congress.

8.27.2007 | When public isn't private

Craig and Allen: In bad company

It should sound obvious, but I've heard too many stories of politicans getting caught trying to solicit sex (or at least appearing to try to do so) in public restrooms — and yes, two is too many. First it was State Representative Bob Allen of Florida, a co-chair of John McCain's presidential campaign, who was caught trying to offer an undercover police officer $20 for oral sex. Now we hear that Idaho's U.S. Senator Larry Craig, also a Republican, was caught playing footsie in an airport bathroom stall, and he had to leave the Romney campaign.

Look, I don't care if politicians look for some fun on the side; that's part of their private life (a big point of contention during the Clinton impeachment proceedings was that pretty much all politicians have had mistresses; it's only recently that the press started caring about it). But please, senators, representatives, (presidents?) if you need somewhere to look for casual sex, don't do it in a public restroom.

But even better, if you're going to get married, why not just keep the oath you took in the first place?

8.25.2007 | Equal distribution of ...

Chavez: Timeless?

Fill in the blank. I'll give you a hint: one word, it's what Venezuela's socialist leader Hugo Chavez is attempting to achieve for his citizens, and it's something we all wish we had more of. Give up?

Sunlight.

You were thinking wealth, right? Well, technically equal wealth is only achieved with a communist system, and even then, as Geroge Orwell pointed out in Animal Farm, some are more equal than others. What a government can do, apparently, is to ensure equal distribution of sunlight among its citizens.


Venezuela standard time?

In moving Venezuela's time zone back 30 minutes, Chavez says he wants "a more fair distribution of the sunrise," which he believes will help poor children go to school as they now wake up before dawn. And, according to the New York Times, it reverses a decision made in the mid-1960s to move Venezuela's time 30 minutes ahead to fall in line with its neighbors.

The decision places Venezuela in a small club of countries that place their time zones in fractional increments away from Greenwich Mean Time. That list, again according to the Times, is Afghanistan, India, Iran, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Nepal.


A little bit of history repeating

The Times article in question casts Chavez's time zone decision, together with his recent attempt to change the country's constitution, in both historical and symbolic lights — symbolic of Chavez's growing reach and influence, historical because it has happened before.

Chavez is close to Fidel Castro today, but at one time Venezuela was ruled by another Castro called Cipriano. From the beginning of his rule in 1899, there are many parallels to the types of changes Chavez is trying to bring to Venezuela key parallels between what Cipriano Castro did then and what Chavez is trying to do now: eliminate term limits, restore the Bolivarian unity between South American republics, and so on. For this pithy quote, the Times called on a professor of Latin American studies at Wesleyan University:

The good news for anti-Chavistas is that Castro stayed in power only until 1908. The bad news is that he was replaced by his vice president, Juan Vicente Gómez, who remained in power until 1935.

The Times also accuses Chavez of lobbying OPEC to cut production, contributing to today's higher oil prices. But as long as we are dependent on oil imports to fuel our cars, Venezuelan-owned Citgo stations remain neighborhood fixtures all over America.

8.15.2007 | Rove’s departure

So Rove left the White House. What does it all mean? One analyst called it "the end of the Bush presidency," but that sounded like a bit much, so I looked to what I had hoped would be a more reliable source: Rove himself. His reason, according to the New York Times:

Mr. Rove cited a desire to 'start thinking about the next chapter in our family’s life.'

— which only served to bring me back to another NYT article from December 2006, in which executives at large companies say they are leaving to "spend more time with family," only to take jobs a few months later with just as many, if not more, responsibilities. Only time will tell what happens in Mr. Rove's case.

8.13.2007 | A trip down memory lane

How many of you remember what you were doing in 1994? For these two Republican political figures, it was saying things that could be used against them later. Consider these:

If we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone … There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq … Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? … It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

— Vice President Dick Cheney explaining why the first President Bush decided not to go on to Baghdad in 1991

That one made it into a YouTube video that went from 100 to over 200 thousand views in the same day. Now this second quote is a bit more interesting because it involves a current presidential candidate. At the time, mayor Rudy Giuliani was talking about getting tough on crime in New York. But now, some are afraid the same philosophy could apply to terrorism and the debate over civil liberties. If you Google freedom and Giuliani, here's what you'll find:

What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

For this latter quote, one creative Digger rephrased that sentiment as "Freedom is slavery," a reference to part of the slogan of the English Socialist Party in George Orwell's 1984. But we don't know if that's a fair interpretation unless we get an answer from Giuliani himself how he feels today. And in Cheney's case, certainly there must have been some kind of evolution in his philosophy that caused him to take a different tack on the Iraq war today.

Hopefully some journalist out there reading this now has an idea of what question he needs to ask when he next sits down for an interview with either of these politicians — assuming he can get a straight answer.

8.11.2007 | In case you missed it ...

Yugoslavia: History, like the car.

… and I know I did, which is unusual for me because I consider myself a follower of world affairs — Yugoslavia no longer exists.

Already worn down by the intense conflict of the 1990s, Yugoslavia had been hanging on to a thread as a federation of two of the country’s former remaining states — Serbia and Montenegro. In 2003, the name “Yugoslavia” was dropped altogether, leaving the country named after its two remaining constituents. Finally, in June 2006 (while I was on vacation, so that’s probably how I missed it), Montenegro declared its independence. Serbia followed suit, and the last union remaining from the former Yugoslavia disappeared off the map.

Sad, because elsewhere in Europe unions are growing stronger under the European Union — or at least they’re supposed to be. An anthropology professor I had for a couple of courses at VCU described the situation as paradoxical and hopeless — an attempt to achieve international integration while disintegration is happening within the member nations’ own countries (see Kosovo, Basque country, Muslim immigration, etc.). The only successful unification in Europe, it seems, was that of East and West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and even the wounds from that haven’t completely healed yet.

So, as Europe loses another of its federations (the last being Czechoslovakia, gone in 1994), and even Scotland may be on the verge of withdrawing from the United Kingdom, I can’t help but wonder how many more times the list of countries in this world will continue to grow in the decades ahead (East Timor comes to mind). And instead of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, we now have the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia (but not Serbia and Montenegro). Did I miss one? If so, that’s just one more reason I miss the old federations.

So, here’s a riddle for you: If even Europe can’t hold its countries together, what makes us think we can keep the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites together in Iraq?

6.02.2007 | Written on the subway wall

In what I can only assume is a PR battle ahead of a scheduled pro-Palestinian rally in Washington, DC, while entering the Metro I found one ad communicating the Palestinian perspective (advertising the rally, of course), as well as two pro-Israel ads seemingly posted in response (pictures below). One, fair enough, says that teaching children to hate will never lead to peace. But the other, more tenuous, says that Palestine, "a society that targets Israel" does so "because Israel shares America's values." This sounds eerily similar to the "they hate our freedom" argument that the Bush acolytes raised in the aftermath of 9/11.

Now I am not delusional; I know that there are Muslim extremists out there that believe it is necessary to kill innocent people to fight for a society where, among other things, women cannot expose any part of their body in public. But to paint the Palestinian people with the same brush seems more than a little suspect. The war there has been going on for so long now, and there are so many grievances, that I don't think either side can claim an absolute footing on moral high ground. Israel needs our support to remain a free state, but I'm not sure how we can keep every last Palestinian from preaching hate as long as they have no hope of achieving the same.

Instead of demonizing the other side, let's look at ways to build bridges of understanding. Instead of looking for the "partner for peace" that may or may not come along, Israel should find ways to engage in diplomatic dialogue with the democratically elected Palestinian government. Impossible, you say? Even the Bush administration has begun dialogue with Iran. Both sides have suffered enough without looking for excuses to continue the cycle of violence that has continued for too long.

5.16.2007 | A republic, if you can keep it

With the revelation yesterday that the president may have intervened directly to keep a domestic surveillance program going despite threats of resignation from two top administration officials – then-Attorney General John Ashcroft of the Justice Department and director Robert Mueller of the FBI – we now have a basis for impeachment, a sentiment echoed by constitutional scholar John Turley in the video below:

It's not just the high officials invovled; it's the fact that the president knew what he was doing when he ordered the program to continue, and that the law involved is so clear.

This isn't the first time that the executive branch has tried to make an end run around the law. We last saw this in the Iran-Contra scandal, when the defense then that allowed Reagan off the hook was ignorance. Supposedly, he had no knowledge of the illegal actions that were taking place, a strategy called "plausible deniability" (a far cry from "The buck stops here"). The testimony offered by the Bush administration's own former deputy attorney general yesterday dashes even that defense to bits.

Unlike other critics of the Bush administration (and some Republicans in the Clinton era), I don't take impeachment lightly, and I don't believe it should be used as a political tool. As much as I disagreed with the president's decision to go to war in Iraq, and as much as his administration bungled the occupation afterwards, I don't believe that being quick on the trigger or the monumental mismanagement of a war alone makes for an impeachable offense.

I do believe, though, that if Congress allows a program that exists outside the law to continue to exist without consequences for the administration and its officials, we have a template for future presidents to follow with impunity. I do not consider this a partisan issue; I consider it a patriotic issue. The rule of law is what distinguishes a democracy from a dictatorship, a republic from the reign of royalty. Our very system of government is at stake.

Benjamin Franklin, when asked what form of government the founders had come up with at the end of the constitutional convention, said, "A republic – if you can keep it." These are trying times, and our republican form of government needs defending now more than ever.

5.15.2007 | Frontline: Spying on the Home Front

How far is the government going in spying on its own citizens? That's the question posed by Frontline's latest insightful documentary on our government's inner workings. But the bigger question should be: how far is the government allowed to go, constitutionally speaking? The issue centers over two possible readings of the Fourth Amendment, which states rather simply:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Under one reading (mine included), the government cannot violate a person's privacy without getting a warrant first. But a new, more interpretive reading advanced by the Bush administration and its supporters says that any search can be conducted without a warrant as long as it's reasonable. Not only that, but a former Bush administration lawyer argued that the president's constitutional duties as commander-in-chief can override acts of Congress (i.e. the law).

This insidious shift in how our governing document is interpreted is not only risking our privacy. It seems a minor consideration compared to the even greater – and graver – risk to our fundamental system of checks and balances. Instead of going to Congress to authorize a new surveillance system after September 11 (and remember, this was when Congress and the president were of the same political party), the president decided he could change the status quo at will. If we were at war it would be one thing, but Congress only authorized the use of force when we went into Afghanistan after 9/11. Legally speaking, we are not in a state of war.

These are uncharted legal territories. Not only are we fighting a different kind of enemy, but we have unprecedented potential to use technology to pry into various aspects of people's lives. What is privacy, if it exists, and to what degree can the government violate it, how, and when? The answer to these questions will determine our future as a constitutional republic. Without appropriate safeguards against abuse, our rights are in danger.

Whatever is decided, precedent is already being written, and court decisions may end up defining the answers where Congress has remained silent. What's missing from all this is the voice of the people, a vigorous public debate about the balance between liberty and safety we will strike in a new age of terror. It's up to us to help change that by writing letters to newspapers and our members of Congress.

Benjamin Franklin said that those who would give up essential liberty for even a little temporary safety deserve neither. Let's hope that in the coming days, weeks and years that our country can live up to the better part of those words.

5.11.2007 | Gonzo v. Gonzo

What happens when you take the House and Senate testimony of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales from this month and last and play them side-by-side? TV magic, that's what happens. (From Countdown with Keith Olbermann – 5/10/07)

4.24.2007 | Facing down the GOP attack machine

Have Democrats learned nothing from Kerry's 2004 swiftboat debacle? As Democrats try to do what they were elected to do and bring the Iraq war to a close, they are letting the Republicans once again set the tone of the debate. In remarks made after a GOP policy meeting, Cheney accused the Senate majority leader of (gasp!) playing politics.

Sen. Reid himself has said that the war in Iraq will bring his party more seats in the next election. It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage.

The fact that Cheney himself is exercising the definition of cycnicism in his comment aside, what about the fact that what gets you votes is in fact the will of the people? You know, a government that's of the people, by the people, for the people? Or at least it's supposed to be.

Even more depressing than Cheney's comment is that it went unchallenged by Democrats, at least in this Associated Press article. Senator Reid's response (if it could be called one):

I'm not going to get into a name calling match with the administration's chief attack dog.

That's a response? It's not enough to say you're being attacked; you have to fight back.

Democrats seem to remain unfamiliar with the new media-driven environment of soundbites, sticking with the old demure way of dealing with things when every article published is a fight for Americans' hearts and minds. And when they do try to go on the attack (calling the Iraq war "lost"), they end up letting themselves be the subject of further attacks (note to Democrats: if Republicans have been using the troops as a political platform for four years, it's time to get out in front of that debate).

Even policy analysts have begun using colorful metaphors in their interviews to capture the country's attention. Democrats need to take a page from their book, or else we're going to let swiftboating continue to define this country's political debate. And surprise, surprise, the GOP is readying radio ads that are going to accuse Democrats of using the troops as a "political football." They would know a little something about that.

11.08.2006 | Victory of reason

This is a day that will be remembered for when reason triumphed over fear, moderation over extremism, democracy over tyranny. It will be up to the president and the new Democratic majority to find a way to work together over the next two years. The future is full of possibility.

10.06.2006 | A more pragmatic apporach to immigration

Sure, I hate hearing "press 1 for English" as much as anyone else. And the quixotic mission of the Minutemen to guard what parts of the Mexican border they can is, in a word, adorable. But no matter how much we dislike it or how much we complain to our elected officials, the flow of migrants across the border is inexorable. This became clear to me as I was reading a feature article in this month's Mother Jones magazine about the struggles faced by illegal immigrants as they make their way north.

Before you make any assumptions – even I did because M. Jones is a liberal publication – the article I read was not a passionate defense of migrant rights. It was not full of rhetoric and propaganda. Far from it, it was a dispassionate analysis of both sides of the immigration struggle. The only purpose this article served was to awaken me to the reality on the ground. It put together bits and pieces of information I've heard over the years into one complete portrait.

Basically, the situation as it now stands is something like this: originally from Mexico, immigrants are increasingly coming from points further south in Central and South America. They hitch rides on so-called "death trains," clinging to the tops of freight trains and sometimes falling to certain injury – or death. After taking whatever transportation they can to the border, they face a miles-long journey through searing desert and punishing landscape. Getting caught by the border patrol is the least of their worries. It is a matter of sheer survival.

What went through my mind after seeing what these people have to go through to get here is this: if they can travel thousands of miles from home and risk their lives in a barren landscape, what difference will a wall on the border make? This is not to say that we shouldn't try to secure our border. I think that it is worth the effort to do so. But I think that even despite our best efforts, people will still find way to get through. In computer terminology, it is the ultimate firewall hack. You have a border thousands of miles long with millions of people trying to get through. It's like putting your finger in an open water spigot: some will still leak out on the sides.

So what do we do? We must face reality. Any immigration reform this nation undertakes must take this reality into account to be effective. While focusing on feel-good measures like walling off the border may be politically popular, we ignore the reality behind illegal immigration at our peril. One of the primary complaints of those who oppose illegal immigration (a complaint I share) is that they don't learn to speak English. Unlike previous immigrants to our country, they are not assimilating; they are maintaining their native culture.

Many people who criticize the migrants' insistence on their own culture, however, forget one key aspect about previous immigrants: they were forced to assimilate by "Americanization" classes, a predominant anti-immigrant atmosphere, and more recently under legal immigration the requirement to learn English and American history to become U.S. citizens. As a country that recognizes multiculturalism, I don't think we should "Americanize" immigrants necessarily, but it does seem that as long as we do nothing, these immigrants will continue to remain largely isolated and hold to themselves as a separate community.

In writing this, it seems to me that the "path to citizenship" argument makes the most sense in this regard. By providing the incentive of achieving U.S. citizenship status, we will provide a way for people to choose to assimilate without discriminating. They will learn English; they will learn about our history as a nation. Otherwise, I can see no way that the immigration problem will be solved. It is neither practical nor humane to round of 30 million plus migrants for deportation. It is not practical to rely on securing the border alone. It is practical, however, to provide migrants with an opportunity to participate in the American landscape as true Americans. This way we get to keep our country; English will continue to unify our nation; and migrants get the economic opportunity they've been looking for.

4.10.2006 | Watergate redux

The latest dispatches from the Republican culture of corruption...


Phone-Jamming Records Point to White House

WASHINGTON (AP) - Key figures in a phone-jamming scheme designed to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in 2002 had regular contact with the White House and Republican Party as the plan was unfolding, phone records introduced in criminal court show.

The records show that Bush campaign operative James Tobin, who recently was convicted in the case, made two dozen calls to the White House within a three-day period around Election Day 2002 — as the phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out and then abruptly shut down.

Repeated hang-up calls that jammed telephone lines at a Democratic get-out-the-vote center occurred in a Senate race in which Republican John Sununu defeated Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, 51 percent to 46 percent, on Nov. 5, 2002.

Virtually all the calls to the White House went to the same number, which currently rings inside the political affairs office. In 2002, White House political affairs was led by now-RNC chairman Ken Mehlman. The White House declined to say which staffer was assigned that phone number in 2002.


Bush acknowledges declassifying intelligence

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Monday that he had declassified intelligence documents in 2003 to help explain his administration's reasons for going to war in Iraq.

Court papers released last week said that a former aide to Dick Cheney, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, testified before a grand jury that the vice president told him in 2003 Bush had authorized the release of portions in the National Intelligence Estimate.

Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, is charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to FBI agents investigating the exposure of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame Wilson. Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a critic of the Iraq war.

Patrick Fitzgerald, prosecutor in the Libby case, wrote in the court papers that there was an effort by "multiple" White House officials to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of the Iraq war -- a reference to Wilson.

The court documents do not suggest Bush approved the leaking of the agent's identity.

In 2003, Wilson publicly questioned Bush's assertion in a State of the Union address that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapons program.

The administration later acknowledged that U.S. intelligence did not back up the assertion and that it should not have been included in the president's speech.

Some U.S. intelligence at the time bolstered Wilson's position that the uranium claim was not supported by evidence. But the information that the White House released, selected from the National Intelligence Estimate, supported the administration's stance.

Some Democratic critics have said the president approved leaking sensitive intelligence for political reasons despite repeated public pronouncements that he would punish anyone in his administration found to have leaked classified information.

3.06.2006 | Merger Mania: AT&T's bid for Bell South

Wow. We've come a long way from the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was designed to increase competition between local and long-distance telephone providers. Here is a list of the major companies that existed then:

- Bell Atlantic
- Nynex
- Ameritech
- Southwestern Bell (SBC)
- Pacific Telesis
- Bell South
- U.S. West (Qwest)
- GTE

Now, Bell Atlantic, NYNEX and GTE are Verizon.

Pacific Tel, Ameritech and Southwestern Bell, once merged to form SBC, are now part of "the new AT&T" since SBC acquired AT&T within the last few months. Verizon has acquired MCI as well. The point of the 1996 act was to foster competition between long-distance and local companies for each others' access, but now they have merged.

Why? A regulatory ruling by the Bush administration's Federal Communications Commissions ruled that local companies no longer had to lease their lines to competitors at reduced rates; a key measure of the 1996 act that made competition possible. After this ruling was issued, AT&T exited the local telephone market, and the merger between SBC and AT&T happened. It's interesting because these companies were once mortal enemies – SBC arguing for higher line lease rates and AT&T joining a coalition called Voices for Choices that argued for the 1996 subsidies. A television advertising battle in the nation's capital ensued. But now that the merger is closed, voicesforchocies.com is most certainly offline.

The only untouched companies are Qwest and Bell South, companies with a strong regional interest. No longer.

SBC, the new AT&T, has made a $67 billion bid to acquire Bell South. The country's local telephone companies would go from four to three. Also interesting is how Cingular is involved, as it was a joint venture between Bell South and SBC, but would now become part of the new AT&T. AT&T Wireless, a spinoff of the old AT&T, was just acquired by Cingular last year.

Where does this leave the consumer? Well, it does leave Qwest as the country's only independent local telephone provider. But competition from cable, and perhaps power companies in the future, may make telephone competition a thing of the past as companies act to consolidate infrastructure. As one Associated Press article put it, it's one step away from recreating the "Ma Bell" monopoly of the 1980s.

I don't know what to think. I know I do like the idea of SBC and Bell South coming together to provide Cingular wireless services under the AT&T brand. But I wonder what the prognosis is for long-term communications competition, especially since it seems the mergers are far from over. If Bell South can be bought, it's just going to be a question of who will pay for Qwest – it already sold of its wireless assets to Verizon within the past year or so. We'll be left with only two regional providers – AT&T and Verizon. How can that be good for the consumer?

2.27.2006 | Wal-Mart needs our help!

Apparently the world's largest retailer, a company with somewhere on the order of $10 billion in profits a year, can't afford to pay for health care for its employees! States already pick up the slack for Wal-Mart's low wages and benefits by providing affordable housing and Medicaid benefits, but Wal-Mart's CEO is asking governors to do more. If Wal-Mart can't afford to pay for its employees' health care, who can afford health care anymore?

2.17.2006 | Checks and balances, baby

White House Ordered to Release Spy Papers

WASHINGTON - A federal judge ordered the Bush administration on Thursday to release documents about its warrantless surveillance program or spell out what it is withholding, a setback to efforts to keep the program under wraps.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060217/ap_on_go_co/eavesdropping

Accountability's a bitch, ain't it? Maybe there is hope after all.

2.06.2006 | Priorities

The new Bush budget: While giving no new aid to Katrina survivors, it seeks to keep in place the huge tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy.

Update (2/10/2006): Apparently, tax cuts are also more important than feeding the elderly poor, among 140 other programs.

Update (2/17/2006): After a conversation with a friend, I realized that – along with the elimination of the Social Security survivors' death benefit – this can quite literally be called stealing money out of the hands of widows. Social Security is supposed to be a guarantee, and President Bush is betraying that promise.

2.04.2006 | New, Improved Democrats – Now with backbone

One of the aspects about President Bush's State of the Union address earlier this week that bothered me most was how he decided to cast his opponents as being of a "pre-9/11 mentality." I wasn't the only one who noticed.

In this Daily Kos guest post, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin (D) relates his shock and dismay that so many of his colleagues in Congress would stand and applaud the president for going around Congress and exceeding his authority. Instead of a pre-9/11 mentality, Feingold boldly proposes that these members of Congress have a "pre-1776 mentality" and don't understand why we have the Bill of Rights to protect American citizens. Definitely worth reading no matter what side you're on in this issue.

More notable than the arguments in the post, however, is how this Senator was able to boil down a complex argument into what is basically a two-word phrase. Well done, Senator. Well done.

2.03.2006 | Checks and balances – remember those?

Gearing up for November's Congressional mid-term elections, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has put together an excellent (though admittedly highly partisan) Web site explaining why checks and balances are a good thing in our system of government. When President Bush announced in his State of the Union Tuesday that he was going to continue ordering wiretaps without any sort of Congressional oversight, the majority party stood up in unison to applaud him. We need to have a group of lawmakers in Congress who are going to enforce the rule of law and hold the president to account.

Time and time again this Republican Congress has put loyalty to the president above the nation's best interests. In one case, the now notoriously confusing, expensive and ineffective Medicare prescription drug plan was passed by one vote because the House Majority Leader (pictured above, who is now facing money laundering charges in his home state of Texas) held open the vote by 15 minutes while promising the last swing vote to do some political favors for his son. This is what our government has been reduced to. In the ten years since Republicans first took office and promised reform, they have brought themselves to the point it took Democrats 70 years to reach.

We need some real change and real reform this November. As a former independent, I will tell you first: always vote for the best candidate. There are (be they few) reform-minded Republicans out there. But if it's a split decision, vote Democrat. A Democratic majority in just one house of Congress will bring the system of checks and balances back to our government that has been the pillar of our democracy since its founding.

2.01.2006 | Grading the State of the Union

I'm no fan of Bush, but I have to admit, his speech was pretty good. Though I disagreed with half of what it had to say, Bush stayed on message, and his intended theme of optimism was resnonant. I was pleased to see him concede the issue of dependence on Middle East oil, though his emphasis on "technology" seems to lack environmental considerations (the issue of hydrogen, for example is promising, but the issue of hydrogen leakage is a problem that will need to be addressed up front).

My one problem with the speech was how he painted positions in the war on terror in stark terms (as he tends to do – remember "with us or against us"?), a black-and-white view of the world that doesn't reflect the reality on the ground. When he said there is a force in Iraq that grows every day more capable of defeating the enemy, I wasn't sure if he was talking about the American-trained Iraqi security forces or the insurgents. And "second-guessing is not a strategy?" – maybe if he had listened to people who had guessed correctly the first time that Iraq didn't have WMDs we wouldn't be in this mess.

Bush also failed to address many domestic issues, including healthcare (sorry, folks, but lawsuits aren't the reason the cost of healthcare is going up, and it's not the reason rural areas are having a hard time recruiting doctors). The priceless moment of this year's speech was when Democrats stood and applauded President Bush's statement that Congress didn't pass his Social Security "reform." His response was equally priceless – that spending on entitlement programs was "is not is a problem that is not going to go away." Apparently, so are his English skills.

But despite my problems with the speech (and Bush's problem with the English language), the speech overall left me reassured that, even if I disagree with him, we have a leader who's at least able to tell us what he thinks is going on (even if he does do it with a teleprompter). So, here are my grades:

Foreign Policy	C+
Domestic Policy	D
Optimism	A
Quality of speech	B+
Overall	B+

1.20.2006 | The end of Independence Air

Update: As of 1/22/06, it appears the Independence Air Web site is no longer online.

I flew Independence Air once in 2000 when it was still known as Atlantic Coast Airways, a feeder for United Express service on the East Coast. I flew from Dulles to Indianapolis, and it was one of the best domestic flight experiences I ever had on a small plane. It was a regional jet, not a turboprop, so the cabin was quiet, and the flight was very smooth, and most importantly, non-stop. This is the kind of freedom Independence Air offered when it broke away from United in 2004 to start its own (independent) service – plenty of non-stop flights from Dulles, but with lower fares.

Now that independence is gone, and the giants of the Washington market like United are free to raise fares again. Under bankruptcy United has largely restructured itself in the model of a low-fare airline. With the exception of "Economy Plus" seats added for more legroom, seats have become narrower and the same planes are carrying fewer passengers, a model pioneered by Southwest Airlines, the original low-fare carrier in the 80s. Legroom is fine, but it's difficult to navigate eating a meal or typing on a laptop without the necessary elbow room.

In any case, the collapse of Independence Air shows the final result of airline deregulation begun in the 1980s: a decline in the quality of airline service in a race to the bottom to provide the lowest fares. That is the inevitable result of laissez faire capitalism, as we have seen with Wal-Mart and the like providing lower prices, but inferior goods.

The middle class is disappearing in this country as cheap Chinese TV sets flood the market, but the quality sets sell for more than the average American can afford. The same principle applies to airline seats: narrower seats for the coach class, and ever-increasing amenities for those who are willing to pay a premium by flying first class.

Not only that, but airlines have stopped offering meals on board. People always used to complain about airline food, but for a while in the 90s United was using gourmet chefs. In a campaign called "United Airlines rising," it admitted the bad state of airline food and showed what it was doing to improve. Now all that's gone, meals replaced with "snack packs," sandwiches and wraps. The flying experience has been reduced to a lunch line, all for the sake of deregulation and the resulting race to the bottom for the lowest fare.

On cheap Chinese TV sets:

On the race to the bottom for low fares:

With the departure of Independence Air, though, opportunites have opened up for competitor JetBlue, which is going to start offering service to Boston, a small consolation prize. Better service is actually available from Richmond because it files from there to JFK, the airline's hub, allowing connections to more destinations on par with what Independence Air was able to offer.

So why did Independence Air fail? As I mentioned in the first paragraph, it used smaller planes. These smaller planes, the majority of FlyI's fleet, presented a significantly higher cost per mile per passenger than the rest of the industry, and it couldn't sustain its low-fare business without switching to bigger planes. It never quite made the switch, and so it went bust. As it turns out, FlyI ended its service to the West Coast in November 2005 before it went out of business completely this year. I didn't know when I visited San Francisco this summer that it would be the last time I would see a D.C.-based airline on the West Coast.

Alas, poor Independence Air, I knew ye well.

1.19.2006 | Don't spy on me

So let’s put this all together. You probably heard over the last few weeks that the government has been spying on its citizens – without warrants.

That might sound bad enough on its own, but it isn’t just that this was going on without our knowing it; it’s that our president lied to us about it not just once or twice, but on several occasions. Not only that, but he misled the American public at a time when he was trying to get re-elected. (“That woman” from the Clinton years doesn’t seem like such a breach of trust in the executive anymore.)


The story

In defending the Patriot Act in 2004, President Bush said repeatedly on the campaign trail that wiretaps under the act require a court order. “Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires – a wiretap requires a court order,” he said on Apr. 20, 2004 in Buffalo, New York. “Nothing has changed, by the way,” he continued. “When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so.”

Bush seemed to go out of his way to reassure the public that things were always what they were before. But in fact he had signed a secret executive order in 2001, still in effect, that bypassed these court requirements entirely. Not only that, but he authorized the program personally, according to one Associated Press article, more than three dozen times since then.

Even in December, when Bush was forced to admit the existence of the eavesdropping program, he called it “limited, and I repeat limited,” saying it only affected overseas calls between known or suspected al-Qaeda members. Wrong again, as a New York Times article Dec. 24 reported the surveillance affected all Americans, with the cooperation of America’s telecommunications companies. Worse yet, Bush has said he doesn’t intend to end the program, or at least suspend it while there are questions over its legality.

Only after the fact are we hearing arguments that bypassing courts and Congress in conducting searches on American citizens is OK. It makes you wonder why the New York Times, which sat on the story for more than a year, waited to break this news to us until long after the 2004 election. Even now, the media has merely questioned whether it is an “overreach of executive power.” That’s putting it mildly.

Since the founding of our republic, warrants have been a textbook example of the system of checks and balances between our branches of government. The executive branch, which enforces the law, always had to seek approval from the judicial branch, which issues warrants, before being able to search people’s homes, tap their telephone calls or otherwise invade the privacy that is guaranteed them under the Fourth Amendment.


No defense

Defenses of the president’s actions have ranged from self-serving and fear-mongering to the utterly absurd. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Dec. 19, for example, that “speed” was an issue in bypassing the courts. But the fact is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of Congress of 1978 set up a court specifically for approving foreign intelligence requests. The court, in a reflection of its specialized purpose, rejects very few requests and approves them with deliberate speed.

Another defense of President Bush is that in a time of war, he has powers as commander-in-chief that allow him to go outside the law. Abraham Lincoln, for example, once suspended the right of habeas corpus during the Civil War. But this is the first time such a wide breach of law has been conducted behind the scenes – without public pronouncement or a chance for debate. It is the very definition of unchecked power, a situation that goes completely against the kind of government our founders intended.

In a Dec. 23 article, Washington Post Op-Ed columnist Charles Krauthammer tried to defend the administration’s actions by pointing out that “In 1972 the Supreme Court required the president to obtain warrants to eavesdrop on domestic groups but specifically declined to apply this requirement to snooping on foreign agents.” While that may be true, Bush’s program treats all American citizens as foreign agents, a presumption of guilt that also goes against our nation’s tradition of the rule of law.


It doesn't work

Finally, there is a more practical argument against mass surveillance. An article by Jennifer Granick for Wired News argues that “People with something to hide are adept at speaking in codes. Teenagers tell their parents they are ‘going to the movies’ when they are going to drink beer.” Criminals also know to misspell victims’ names to avoid detection.

Even when spying technologies work, Granick notes, they “inevitably produce an unacceptably high number of false positives” and catch innocent people in their snare. Remember when Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens, was blocked from flying to the U.S. because his name was found in the no-fly database (it was later found to be a typo)?


The question

We are in a time of war, but it is an undeclared war with an indefinite objective and an unknowable end. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether we are willing to surrender our basic civil liberties until a time in the future that we may or may not live to see, and whether the power to suspend those liberties should lie in one man.

Most Americans understand the values their country stands for and have sided with the law. An AP-Ipsos poll released Jan. 7 showed that 56 percent of Americans believe wiretaps, even for suspected terrorists, require a warrant. A Jan. 16 poll shows that Americans may even favor the “I” word – impeachment – by a margin of 52-43 percent (a similar poll six months ago found a reverse result at 42-50).

On Dec. 18, 2000, Bush once joked after a meeting with congressional leaders that “If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.”

No one’s laughing now.

Click here to hear my reasoning behind this article:

12.26.2005 | Making a list, checking it twice

Let's see, what has Bush done to put him on the naughty list this year?

• Lying to the American people. In 2004 ("for years," according to this AFP article) Bush said that in fighting the war on terror, when it came to wiretaps, they were not performed without warrants. He insists today that he is protecting American civil liberties, but suddenly warrants (and the Fourth Amendment) aren't necessary anymore. Charles Krauthammer argued in a Dec. 23 Washington Post Op-Ed that the Supreme Court in a 1972 ruling effectively allowed monitoring of "foreign agents" without a warrant. Yet what he doesn't address is that the monitoring the Bush administration has done is on U.S. citizens. This isn't to say monitoring isn't necessary. But even Bush's defenders have admitted getting a warrant isn't exactly difficult.

• Making propaganda. In January 2005, we learned that Bush paid a conservative commentator using taxpayer dollars to spread his conservative "No Child Left Behind" agenda. This came after 2004 revelations that Bush's Department of Health and Human Services also illegaly used taxpayer dollars to fund a public relations campaign promoting the Bush Medicare agenda in an election year.

• Waiting to provide aid. In the January 2005 Indian Ocean tsunami, we only raised our amount of aid to stricken countries after we saw other countries surpassing our contribution. With Hurricane Katrina in August, aid came only after we saw unnecessary suffering at the hands of a crippled FEMA in the wake of a Homeland Security reorganization that was supposed to make Americans safer. Say what you want about state and local responsibility; in the past FEMA was there with support.

• Still more lying – Bush promised to fire anyone involved in the Valerie Plame scandal. Karl Rove still has his position, and only Scooter Libby resigned after being indicted.

And all this is on top of how America was misled into war in 2003. Another year, another list of misdeeds. Hopefully the Bush administration can turn itself around for the sake of the American people, but from my standpoint it seems high time for new leadership. For the sake of improved checks and balances, I'm hoping for a Democratic majority in at least one house of Congress in 2006. Any change in Washington – from either party – cannot come too soon.