The Grot Shop

Nobel Ironies

2009-10-11T16:01:00.003-04:00

Well, someone has finally come out with a suggestion for an alternate 2009 Peace Prize recipient -- the Washington Post editorialized that the prize should have gone to Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman killed during the Iranian uprising.

They seemed to forget that Nobels are not awarded posthumously.

Not to mention the fact that she died after the nominations closed.

Thing is, this suggestion would bring up the same objections as the Obama award -- it would not be a prize for accomplishment. Rather bizarre, especially because the editorial starts out by complaining that Obama's award was supposedly all prospective, not for any actual accomplishments.

I think that's clearly wrong -- there are concrete accomplishments to point to. Mark Kleiman gave a good summary of them.

Others make a more reasonable argument -- that the accomplishments aren't numerous enough yet, and that the award would be more fitting later. But it seems to me that these awards often go to works in progress. Human rights in Burma, ending apartheid, peace in the Middle East, fighting famine, ending global warming -- all of these causes were recognized by Peace Prizes long before the goals had been accomplished (indeed, most of them still haven't been accomplished). Still others complain that the changes haven't come as quickly or as sweepingly as they should have. I have a lot of sympathy for that viewpoint, but we have to remember that we aren't a dictatorship -- and sometimes leaders have to recognize limits on their powers.

These objections are quite different from the unhinged craziness coming from the right, which is nothing less than we should expect from them.

But still they are a bit surprising coming from the center and the left. I don't recall such complaints when Gore shared the Peace Prize, and that award was just as "aspirational", if not more so, than Obama's.

I think Obama's award is being held to a higher standard than previous Peace Prize awards. And that's sad.

Peace Prize Premature?

2009-10-09T07:58:00.003-04:00

I think criticisms that the Peace Prize for Obama is coming too soon don't take into account the committee's own standards. See especially the highlighted bit. They're both rewarding him for turning the aircraft carrier and trying to make it easier for him to complete the turn.

And I think they're also rewarding the risks he took. A few international rebuffs could have seriously damaged his presidency, but he took the risk that they might happen anyway. I can't believe that the committee didn't take that into account.

Taken from (emphasis added):

The Nobel Peace Prize: From Peace Negotiations to Human Rights

by
Francis Sejersted
Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Commitee, 1991-1999
26 April 2001

I have cited the general clause in Nobel's will saying that the prizes should be given to those who "in the preceding year have conferred the greatest benefit on makind." With regard to the Peace Prize, Nobel defined this as having "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." The most difficult stipulation to live up to has undoubtedly been "in the preceding year." This is now understood to indicate the most recent contributions in the various cultural fields to which the will refers. Where the Peace Prize is concerned, the wording has been seen as opening up opportunities to engage in processes which have not yet reached a conclusion, but where there has been clear evidence of progress, as in the democratisation process in South Africa or the peace process in the Middle East, for which the Peace Prizes were awarded in 1993 and 1994. The Prize awarded in 1998 to John Hume and David Trimble of Northern Ireland can be seen in the same light. The Prize, in other words, is not only for past achievement, although that is the most important criterion. The committee also takes the possible positive effects of its choices into account. Among the reasons for adding this as a criterion is the obvious point that Nobel wanted the Prize to have political effects. Awarding a Peace Prize is, to put it bluntly, a political act – which is also the reason why the choices so often stir up controversy.

...

One interesting bit about the CIA IG report

2009-08-26T07:34:00.002-04:00

There's a section starting on page 78 titled "Abuse [redacted] at Other Locations Outside of the CTC Program".

The section reveals two incidents, one of which resulted in the death of a detainee. That takes about a page, with lots of gaps. Then there are three pages totally blacked out -- the rest of the section.

The blacked out part of the heading could easily contain the words "and Torture".

Did the IG say flat out that the CIA committed torture?

Blair's comments to the CIA about torture

2009-04-26T15:48:00.004-04:00

For several days various right-wingers have been claiming that Admiral Blair's memo to CIA staff justifies the Bush Administration's use of torture. I think Blair's comments are being overblown. He said this: "High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa'ida organization that was attacking this country"

I don't read that as a claim that attacks were thwarted or that lives were saved. I read that as a claim that the "high value information" was all or mostly background. A "deeper understanding" could justly be described as "high value", but it is decidedly not what those pushing for torture claimed that torture was needed to provide.

Let's not forget, this was a memo to CIA staff, and so we can expect that he would not directly attack the people who work for him. Given that, I read the statement as the most positive spin possible to put on the facts -- and presumably he is in a position to know if somebody gave up information that thwarted an attack as a result of being tortured.

I find another of his statements revealing, too -- the one that "... I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given." Since we know that interrogators frequently exceeded even the wide latitude that the torture memos allowed them, this looks to me like a statement that he would not oppose prosecutions of those who didn't keep to the letter of the memos.

Torture CYA?

2009-04-18T10:47:00.003-04:00

Hilzoy makes another valuable contribution to the discussion of the torture memos, and observes that "not a single one of the cases in which the United States has prosecuted people for waterboarding turns up in these memos".

There's also some interesting CYA going on in the footnote on page 44 of the PDF that cites Hilao v. Estate of Marcos, a civil suit. First, there's the weaselly, "The court reached no conclusion that the technique by itself constituted torture." But the footnote continues, "However, the fact that a Federal appellate court would even colloquially describe a technique that may share some [of the] characteristics of the waterboard as 'water torture' counsels continued care and careful monitoring in the use of this technique."

Clearly, this is a "don't come crying to me if you get dinged" warning.

But the case cited is interesting. A description of the case begins: "The district court instructed the jury that it could find the Estate liable if it found either that (1) Marcos directed, ordered, conspired with, or aided the military in torture, summary execution, and 'disappearance' or (2) if Marcos knew of such conduct by the military and failed to use his power to prevent it. The Estate challenges the latter basis for liability ... ". Certainly the memo constitutes at least aiding the CIA in the practice of waterboarding. And it does not take very much to conclude that it constitutes conspiring with them to evade the law. Could Bradbury have felt a bit nervous about his possible personal civil liability if any of the victims managed to gain access to the courts? Could he have been attempting to establish a pre-emptive "they didn't heed my warnings" defense?

Making lemonade

2009-04-16T18:15:00.001-04:00

Let's hope that the granting of immunity from prosecution for war crimes to CIA operatives leads to some serious investigation of exactly what happened in those black sites and in Gitmo. Because if you can't be prosecuted, you can't refuse to cooperate with an investigation.

Bill Ayers and John McCain

2008-10-15T08:40:00.005-04:00

The right-wing hyperventilating about Bill Ayers is clearly counterproductive -- we don't need today's NYT poll results to tell us that. Most people know instinctively that the attacks on Obama for knowing and working with Ayers are simply bullshit.

But the attacks keep on coming, in part because of the strong right-wing need to divide sheep from goats. Over and over we see the need, from the right side of the spectrum, to create pariah classes. Various Red Scares are prime examples, especially the blacklisting fad of the 1940s and 1950s. Then drugs became the new Communism, especially with the adoption of expensive and useless (for their ostensible purpose) drug testing regimes among employers. Then it wasn't your political associations that made one an outcast, it was the contents of one's urine.

Now we're back to associations again, with Sarah Palin's "palling around with terrorists" line.

But Ayers' journey really illustrates some of the best features of American society.

After a decade underground, Ayers surfaced, turned himself in, and faced the legal consequences of his acts. It certainly isn't his fault that the FBI and the Nixon Administration screwed up any chance the government had of prosecuting him under the law. Nor is that a fault in the system -- indeed, it's one of the system's strengths, as we know all the more clearly today, when we look on the actions of a government willing to ignore those laws.

And Ayers has led a law-abiding life ever since, by all accounts. He has become nationally known as an education reformer and done significant work in his community. People around the country have no problem with him personally or with the work he has done in recent decades. It is possible in America to reenter the society and to do constructive work within it (on the less hopeful side, it certainly helps things to have a family with money, and it hurts when you don't).

But a few people are unable to see the entire man and his entire life -- they prefer to focus exclusively on a few years and a few acts (which didn't cause any serious injuries or deaths -- the most the right wing can try to pin on Ayers is the accidental deaths of his own comrades when he wasn't even present). A lot of these people claim to be guided by religion, yet they have a significant problem with recognizing amends and offering forgiveness. The need to declare someone an outcast takes precedence, even when the object of their scorn has clearly done more good than harm over a lifetime.

If McCain is stupid enough to invoke Ayers at tonight's debate, the pettiness of his position will become much clearer.

Ironically, the right makes Ayers the anti-McCain. Ayers is supposed to be fully defined by a short period of his life when he broke the law. McCain is supposed to be fully defined by the short period of his life when he was a prisoner of war (had you heard he was a POW?). Neither is to be judged by the totality of his life so far -- only by a tiny segment of it.

And while Ayers has grown, McCain has shrunk. The reality never even came close to the myth, but over the course of the last few months McCain has thrown away most of what he has claimed to believe in. He has made common cause with the people who maligned him in 2000. He has abandoned a lot of long-held positions. I guess McCain has to hope that people do only remember one or two facts about a man's life -- because there's a lot he needs us to forget. Too bad that his worst time, like Ayers' best, is recent.

Update: Thomas Frank weighs in.

McCain on Palin

2008-10-02T11:47:00.002-04:00

The man has no shame at all.

He gave an interview on NPR yesterday, and here's a bit of it:

Q. Given what you've said, senator, is there an occasion where you could imagine turning to Gov. Palin for advice in a foreign policy crisis?

McCain: I've turned to her advice many times in the past.

Jesus H. Christ! Aside from a short encounter at the National Governors Association meeting in February, he has only been in touch with her for a bit over a month! Does he really expect us to believe that he turns to her for _foreign policy_ advice at all, much less "many times"?

And, take note, he was talking about foreign policy advice, because his very next words are:

McCain: I can't imagine turning to Sen. Obama or Sen. Biden, because they've been wrong. They were wrong about Iraq, they were wrong about Russia. Sen. Biden wanted to divide Iraq into three different countries. He voted against the first Gulf War. Sen. Obama has no experience whatsoever and has been wrong in the issues that he's been involved in.

Good grief.

A Tale of Two Bridges, Indeed

2008-09-10T16:06:00.006-04:00

Delroy Murdock takes on the Obama/Biden votes on the Bridge to Nowhere:

Obama and Biden had an excellent opportunity to do the right thing. Just seven weeks after Hurricane Katrina, Senator Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) proposed to transfer $125 million from the notorious Bridge’s budget and instead devote it to rebuilding the Interstate 10 Twin Spans Bridge between New Orleans and St. Tammany’s Parish. The storm chopped up the bridge.

“We have the largest natural catastrophe we have ever seen in our history,” Coburn said on the Senate floor on October 20, 2005. “It is time we reassess the priorities we utilize in this body as we think about our obligations at home.”

Coburn’s amendment failed 15-82. Obama and Biden were among the “nays.” They and 80 other senators preferred to protect the earmarking tradition than to assist Katrina’s tempest-tossed citizens.

Obama and Biden put pork first and people second. While the residents of New Orleans and southern Louisiana endured perhaps their greatest challenge since the Civil War, Obama and Biden both turned their backs on these embattled Americans.

Well, let's take a quick look at the debate on that amendment (well, to be fair, let's look at the entire debate on the amendment) [Congressional Record, October 20, 2005, page S11636]:

AMENDMENT NO. 2165, AS MODIFIED
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, the purpose of my amendment does not have that much to do with Alaska as it does with priorities in our country. We put forward $600 billion of debt to our children last year ending September 30. We have a war going on. We have the largest natural catastrophe we have ever seen in our history. We have a hurricane coming on Florida. We are at war. It is time we reassess the priorities we utilize in this body as we think about our obligations at home.
The purpose of my amendment is to move $125 million out of above-the-line money--not program money, not formula money--to be used for this. I understand there is going to be another amendment. My hope is the American public will see how we are spending money and encourage us to spend it in a way that is more frugal and consistent with the heritage we have in the country, and that is making sacrifices today for the future of our country and for the next generation.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I do not have a better friend than my colleague from Oklahoma, but it does not mean we always agree with each other. I have had a policy in voting for amendments on bills that I have adhered to for a long time, and it is if a Senator has a bill or an amendment that takes authority from an elected official and places it in the hands of an unelected bureaucrat and it does not save money, then I think it is not good policy. Unfortunately, I think that is what this does.
My good friend Senator Coburn and I have talked about this. I know it is a difficult thing for a lot of people to understand. Many people are watching this. I happen to be the person with the No. 1 most conservative rating in the Senate and yet I am not about to put myself in a position where I am going to take authority away from someone who has to stand for election in a particular State and give it to someone who does not have to stand for election, period.
I do not think that is a good idea. If it were something that saved money, I would have a different position on it, but in that respect I will oppose this.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. How much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. One minute 11 seconds.
Mr. COBURN. Was Senator Inhofe's time taken from my time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. It was not.
Mr. COBURN. I would say to my friend, whom I love dearly as a friend and a brother, this amendment is about changing the priorities in this country. We can reject that or we can accept it. I gave a speech this morning about the rumble that is out there in this country. We need to listen to that rumble. The rumble is the American people want us to start doing a better job of prioritizing how we spend money. I respect his position on this. I have no ill feelings that he will oppose me on this amendment.
This is an amendment that is good for the country.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, the Senator from Oklahoma who has just spoken, who is the author of this amendment, has indicated we need to be making sacrifices. I do not think anyone in the State of Alaska feels we should not be contributing, but we do not feel in the State of Alaska that it should be coming entirely from one State. This amendment puts the sacrifice on one State.
I urge rejection of this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. STEVENS. How much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska has 1 minute remaining.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I would add to my colleague's comment to say this concept is a concept that every State should think about because if it can be done on a bridge, why not do it on any type of event where a Senator would like to have money for their State, but they say take it from another State because they do not need it. I made a statement earlier today that in my 37 years I have never seen this. I have never seen a request that money for a disaster be taken solely from a project in one State to help a disaster in other States.
We are a disaster-prone State. We have more disasters than any other State in the Union. Remember our 1964 earthquake. We have tsunamis. We have all types of disasters. But we have never tried to take moneys from other States to meet our costs.
I urge the Senate not to start this process.
I yield back the time.
Mr. BOND. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to Coburn amendment No. 2165, as modified.
The yeas and nays have been ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. MCCONNELL. The following Senator was necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. MCCAIN).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Corzine) and the Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 15, nays 82, as follows:
[roll call follows]

Much as I hate to admit it, Stevens made a decent point with "Mr. President, I would add to my colleague's comment to say this concept is a concept that every State should think about because if it can be done on a bridge, why not do it on any type of event where a Senator would like to have money for their State, but they say take it from another State because they do not need it."

But that's not the most interesting thing here.

Here's something more interesting, a US Department of Transportation press release:

DOT 127-05
Contact: Brian Turmail
Monday, September 12, 2005
Tel.: (202) 366-4570

Repairs Begin Today on I-10 Twin Span Bridge in New Orleans

Work began today to repair the hurricane-damaged Twin Span Bridge that carries Interstate 10 traffic between New Orleans and Slidell, LA, U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said.

"Restoring this critical eastward link for New Orleans will speed recovery of the city and the entire Gulf region," Secretary Mineta said. "Every day we're getting road work started to reconnect the region and help people rebuild."

On Friday, a contract was awarded to Boh Brothers Construction of New Orleans to repair damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina. In order to quickly restore two-way traffic, the eastbound span will be repaired first, providing one lane of traffic in each direction, Mineta said. The contract requires work to be completed within 45 days. The second phase of the work will result in repair of the westbound span which, along with the eastbound span, will provide two-lane traffic in each direction within 120 days.

The contract includes a $50,000 per-day incentive to complete the work ahead of schedule, as well as penalties if the repairs are not done on time, Mineta added.

Work also began Friday on a temporary replacement road for U.S. 90 in Mississippi, to be completed within 90 days. Parts of the road will be opened as work progresses, with full completion of the highway from Pass Christian to Biloxi scheduled for Dec. 9.

Wait a minute. This says that construction on the bridge was already under way weeks before the amendment was considered!

But there's more -- a press release from the Louisiana Department of Transportation:

Eastbound “twin span” on Interstate 10 to open on Friday

Contact: MARK LAMBERT, (225) 379-1221
October 13, 2005

Louisiana DOTD Secretary Johnny B. Bradberry announced that one of the Hurricane Katrina-damaged twin spans that crosses Lake Pontchartrain on I-10 between New Orleans and Slidell will open to two-way traffic on Friday afternoon, well ahead of schedule.

“Governor (Kathleen) Blanco directed that we restore traffic on this vital route as quickly as possible,” Bradberry said. “We are happy to get traffic moving again on I-10 17 days early at a substantial savings to the state.”

Storm surge from Katrina caused extensive damage to both spans of the bridge, knocking 435 concrete segments out of alignment.

All interstate traffic between Slidell and New Orleans has been routed onto the U.S. 11 bridge since Katrina struck on Aug. 29, causing long traffic delays. Reopening one span of the I-10 bridge “should give everyone a little breathing room,” Bradberry said. “Even though it’s just two-way traffic for now, we hope opening this span will help drivers move a little faster.”

To accommodate two-way traffic on the I-10 bridge, a traffic crossover has been constructed to allow I-10 westbound traffic in Slidell to move onto one lane of the repaired span. Another crossover on the New Orleans side of the bridge will allow those westbound drivers to transfer back to the regular westbound interstate lanes.

Boh Brothers, a Louisiana contractor, was awarded the contract on Sept. 9 with a low bid of $30.9 million. Contract specifications call for Boh Brothers to receive a bonus of $75,000 for each day traffic flow is established ahead of the 45-day deadline, with a 15-day cap. Even with the bonus included, the state will realize substantial savings from the estimated project cost of $53 million.

Phase II of the contract includes establishing traffic on the westbound span of the bridge by mid-January. Because the eastbound span was repaired with several undamaged concrete segments from the westbound span, Boh Brothers will use temporary bridge panels to complete the traffic lanes.

Once the westbound span is reopened, interstate traffic will be restored to its pre-Katrina configuration.

DOTD plans to take bids in spring 2006 for a replacement bridge. That structure will be an elevated, six-lane twin span bridge that should take approximately three years to build.

So one span of the bridge had been open for a week when the Senate debated the amendment.

Is it any wonder they voted it down?

Hmmmmmmmmmm. That vote, especially the lopsided result, looks a little different now.

By the way, there was a contract to replace the bridge entirely, but that wasn't let for more than another year (planned for Spring 2006, but not actually done until November).

And, as of October 5 (two weeks before the Senate vote) the state was announcing that the "entire repair project is being financed 100 percent by the Federal Highway Administration"

Good grief!

2008-08-29T09:13:00.005-04:00

At least they got the caption on the sale page right, if not the actual inscription:

Shouldn't they at least give it back to the student after the election?

Update: fixed a few hours later. Must have found an English student.

Barack Obama should be ashamed of himself

2008-06-26T18:14:00.003-04:00

I can guess what his reasoning must be for his otherwise inexplicable position on Kennedy v. Louisiana. He is envisioning attack ads painting him as a defender of child molesters, leaving helpless children at the mercy of sexual predators, and does not want to expend the energy to confront such slime. Also, it's consistent with what he has said in the past:

"While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes - mass murder, the rape and murder of a child - so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment," he wrote in his book "The Audacity of Hope."

But he should still be ashamed by his position.

He does not seem to have considered that it will make these molesters harder to convict, or even catch, and will likely make recovery a lot harder for the victim.

A lot of this happens within family units, or with trusted adults. That makes it hard for the victim to point out the abuse, and often for the rest of the family to accept the truth of the accusations. How much more difficult would it be if a life hangs in the balance, and not just jail time? And how much harder will it be for the victim to know that they have been the cause of the death of a family member or close friend? How does this affect the support that the victim is definitely going to need from other members of the family?

How much more likely that the family simply reacts with denial, leaving the molester to continue to prey? As many already do.

That's my objection to Obama's position--by making things easier for himself, he has said that it should be harder for the victim. Even though his position will have no real-world influence (the laws are unconstitutional), the moral dimension of his position is abhorrent.

Nearly the entire country has abolished capital punishment for child rape. Proponents of the policy have had to resort to specious reasoning to justify it.

This wasn't an issue where he faced a significant risk of damage. This was an issue where he could have helped to teach the country something about politics and reason. Instead, he capitulated to unreason. Satisfying public outrage is the worst reason I can think of for making a rape victim's trauma even worse.

He had a teaching moment there and he blew it.

Fraud, and certainly abuse

2008-06-16T18:58:00.005-04:00

The Cato Institute gets its knickers in a knot about Medicare fraud, citing a report that puts health care fraud at over $60 billion per year.

Let's put this number in a bit of perspective:

Medicare actually lost about seven cents of every dollar spent to fraud, waste and mistakes in 1998, government auditors said earlier this month.

That amounts to more than $12 billion -- but it's only about half of what was lost by the government's health insurance program for the elderly and disabled just two years ago.

Yep, a fivefold increase in less than a decade.

Let's see, what happened in that decade?

Oh, yes, the administrators at the top changed.

You don't send Republicans to do a man's job.

Update: Medicare reduces costs for providers, it turns out. I guess the Bush League couldn't fix that.

New Heights in Crackpot Hackery

2008-05-22T10:23:00.012-04:00

The Laffer Curve has found a cousin--Hauser's Law. Once again, a simplistic idea that tells conservatives what they want to believe (because more rigorous analysis doesn't).

A Wall Street Journal op-ed (raise your hand if you're surprised) is the source of this new fun fact.

Apparently, tax rates don't matter, because revenues remain at about the same percentage of GDP no matter what we do. But look at what is offered as proof:

Yep, a comparison of nominal (not even effective) top marginal individual income tax rates, with revenue from all sources (individual income tax, corporate income tax, payroll taxes, excise taxes, and so forth) as a percentage of GDP.

As is this weren't nutty enough, the claimed "law" holds only for the postwar United States--never mind that many nations around the world manage to persist for long periods with significantly higher tax revenues as a percentage of GDP (Wikipedia has a table for 2005).

Also, as a moment at the Statistical Abstract web site can tell you, Federal receipts as a percentage of GDP over the postwar period have ranged from 14.4 percent in 1950 to 20.9 percent in 2000--a wide range that the restricted axis of the graph obscures (wasn't that in a very early chapter of How to Lie with Statistics?). Of course, you do have to download the Excel file to get those data.

Fortunately, it didn't take long for Zubin Jelveh ("Lying With Charts: WSJ Edition") to notice that individual income tax receipts have in fact been trending up slightly as a percentage of GDP, and also that corporate tax revenues have declined dramatically and payroll tax revenues have increased significantly. In case we didn't already know, evidence that the burden has been distributed down the income scale.

Jelveh's conclusion: "Hauser's Law, which is really the Laffer Curve by another name, depends on very Democrat-friendly programs for its validity. " I would add, for very small values of valid.

The supposed point of all this is that raising tax rates won't increase revenues. From Hauser's chart, though, they won't decrease them, either! There is no decrease in revenue on Hauser's graph for the period in the 1990s when the top marginal rate was increased. So they have to add another article of faith--that higher taxes reduce GDP. Only there's a small problem with that article of faith--if the revenues from those higher taxes are spent on goods and services, or for that matter on paying down domestic debt, then that adds to GDP just as much as individual consumption would.

It's all just a restatement of the right-wing tenet most recently voiced by Lawrence Kudlow: "This idea of rewarding work instead of wealth is just insane.", deftly caught by Ezra Klein.

And any old drivel will serve to support it.

Why do they hate John so much?

2008-02-02T09:36:00.000-05:00

Josh Marshall's point that "the only serious opposition to McCain within Republican circles appears to be from people with active personality disorders (admittedly a non-trivial number of people, but a reality nonetheless)" is well-taken (Coulter is especially entertaining, as is the Freeper attack on Nancy Reagan), but I think it still doesn't satisfactorily answer the "Why?".

There are a number of reasons, of course, but to my mind the most important one is the torture issue. Over and over during Republican debates, McCain stood out in his opposition to the use of torture. He had credibility on the issue, too--not only because his stand was consistent with long-standing (albeit regularly ignored in the past) American ideals, but because of his first-hand experience as a prisoner of war.

It was, notably, a principled stand--perhaps the only principled position McCain has left to his name.

And it had the additional virtue of exposing advocates of torture as the macho poseurs that they are. No doubt this was especially galling to them because most torture advocates are at some level uncomfortable with the practice (shown by their eager embrace of such arrant nonsense as ticking bomb scenarios).

Furthermore, he held on to it under pressure. Pundit types who are used to jerking political strings don't like that. Even though McCain's self-humiliation in sucking up to the Bush League and the religious right in order to become more palatable to them was the stuff of legend. Even one principled stand is too many.

Contrast Mitt Romney, who seems to be the new darling. He couldn't fold faster if he were perforated. He has totally reinvented himself, dropping support for abortion rights and suddenly showing reverence for Saint Ron that was invisible in past years. No fears there that he will stand up to pressure on any issue (although if this is their thinking, I suspect they are making a mistake--pressure comes from many directions).

The irony is that McCain has tried to do the same thing, going so far as to promise to oppose his own legislation (especially ironic because he did have an extremely conservative voting record and is probably the most enthusiastic supporter of idiot military adventures in the party) but that is what went down the memory hole, while Romney's past is conveniently forgotten.

So what happens when, as seems likely, McCain becomes the nominee? My guess is that he will say or do something that can be spun as repentance, and the current opposition gets flushed (in John Holbo's wonderful words, "We have always been at peace with McCainia").

Meanwhile, it's entertaining, to be sure.

A Remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still"???

2007-12-21T12:24:00.000-05:00

Klaatu barada stinko.

Inside information?

2007-12-11T11:28:00.000-05:00

Now we hear from a retired CIA employee that abu Zubaida was tortured at the order of the highest officials. But, although he participated in the early interrogation, he apparently has no firsthand information about the torture and its outcome--so his claims that it yielded valuable information must be taken with a grain or two of salt (he may trust those who told him this, but we don't necessarily have to).

After contrasting Suskind's account with Kiriakou's, Steve Benen says, "At this point, I have no idea who’s right about this. Either Zubaydah was an unstable schizophrenic who had no useful intelligence at all, or Zubaydah was a valuable al Qaeda asset who offered key information that saved lives."

Could be both. It is possible that even a mentally ill man may know one or two facts that could be of use--in among the mountains of fantasy. He could also have been presented with questions like "Do you know XXX?", with a positive response taken as confirmation of what the questioner already "knew".

We do know that the years after 9/11 produced a stream of valueless alerts, based on "credible intelligence".

Erasing the evidence (updated)

2007-12-07T09:46:00.000-05:00

So, the CIA videotaped interrogations and then destroyed the tapes. They claim that they had to destroy them for "security".

The security claim is obviously bunk, but I think there's more here than just the torture being recorded.

Abu Zubaydah is the key. It was quickly apparent that he was a couple of cans short of a six-pack, but despite this knowledge Bush bragged about how they had captured a central Al Qaeda figure.

As Ron Suskind wrote in "The One Percent Doctrine" (this description from the Washington Post review):

"I said he was important," Bush reportedly told Tenet at one of their daily meetings. "You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" "No sir, Mr. President," Tenet replied. Bush "was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind writes, and he asked one briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?" Interrogators did their best to find out, Suskind reports. They strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board, which reproduces the agony of drowning. They threatened him with certain death. They withheld medication. They bombarded him with deafening noise and harsh lights, depriving him of sleep. Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety -- against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. With each new tale, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each . . . target." And so, Suskind writes, "the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."

I think what they were most afraid of revealing was the fact that their interrogations yielded utter trash. That's why the tapes had to be destroyed.

Update: I see Kevin Drum has come to the same conclusion.

The dogfight begns

2006-11-14T07:36:00.000-05:00

Andrew J. Bacevich mulls the fight about who lost Iraq:

As the endgame in Iraq approaches, the score-settling promises to get downright ugly. Those who observe this spectacle will need a strong stomach.

Still, whatever their political inclinations, Americans should welcome this debate. At a bare minimum, the eruption of blame and backstabbing will offer considerable entertainment value. To read (on the Vanity Fair website) that neoconservative David Frum, former White House speechwriter and author of a fawning tribute to Bush, has discovered that "the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas," is simply a hoot.

More substantively, the purging of political elites infesting Washington always has a cleansing effect. Figuring out "who lost Iraq?" ought to provide the occasion for throwing out more than a few rascals who hold office and discrediting others -- a process that will no doubt get a kick-start with today's midterm elections. With luck, those surviving will be at least momentarily chastened, perhaps giving rise to an Iraq syndrome akin to the Vietnam syndrome, and which at least for a while will save us from another similar debacle.

One thing we can expect (especially over the long term) is the continuation of the "other Vietnam syndrome"--the claim that the opponents of the war are really the ones responsible for its loss (because, of course, a bunch of demonstrators have more power than the entire US military). This will involve more than just the Bush hard-liners Bacevich mentions--it will become folklore. Since it helps people avoid changing their minds, it will be popular. We've already seen the folks who change their minds and then claim that they were against the war all along, despite the evidence. What I don't see is any appreciation of the truth--that it was wrong to go to war in the first place and that it never could have been won in any meaningful sense. As I remarked even before the invasion, a truly democratic Iraq would look like--Iran. And so it does (more than one person has commented that Iran really won the war). That alone gives the lie to the claims that the neos "really" wanted to democratize Iraq (the excuse trotted out after the WMD excuse failed them).

This should involve a long national soul-searching, including the realization that this war involved the complicity of officials all the way up to the top in war crimes--deliberately and with malice aforethought. But I doubt that the nation has the courage for that much introspection.

Tip of the hat to Laura Rozen

2008

2006-11-08T08:30:00.000-05:00

The Senate will have 12 Democrats up for re-election, and 21 Republicans. That's a huge opportunity, if they don't blow it in the next two years.

On NPR this morning, Robert Reich says that the Dems should concentrate on passing legislation and not investigating the crimes of the last six years, because people are sick of "mud-slinging".

That's what happens when one side adopts a policy of outrageous lying in order to make the public cynical about any bad news. It would be suicidal to let that strategy work. We need careful investigations into what has been swept under the rug all these years, and a dispassionate accounting of the facts. The country deserves it.

At the same time, the Dems need to pass strong legislation that works for the broad middle class (and helps bring more people into it)--a minimum wage increase, fixing the AMT, protecting civil liberties, rolling back the tax giveaways of the past few years, fixing NCLB, doing something serious about Medicare drug coverage, extending health care to the uninsured, reforming labor laws, making more financial aid available for higher education, serious job creation, and dozens of other things.

And they shouldn't be too eager to pass a diluted bill that will have the opposite of its intended effect--like NCLB--or allow various giveaways to be attached to it--like with the minimum wage bill a while back. Far better to pass something in one house that makes sense and will work and then fix the blame for its stall right where it belongs. In fact, it's time to grow some vertebrae and pass those politically impossible but realistically necessary bills in order to highlight the problems that need fixing (labor law reform is a good example of that). There's a danger of being tarred as "do-nothing" if that results in few bills passed, but that's better than doing the wrong things. An active Democratic House ought to be able to point to a whole pile of worthwhile bills and say, "We did our job!".

It's not an either-or choice--they can do both and they have to do both. And if the media prefer to concentrate on the more sensational stories, then it's up to the rest of us to read past the front page and emphasize the positive agenda.

That carefully-timed verdict . . .

2006-11-07T16:06:00.000-05:00

. . . even though the official document wasn't ready (the Saddam Hussein verdict of course) is really evidence of how effectively he had been defanged. The massacre for which he was condemned took place two dozen years ago--wouldn't such a dangerous tyrant have something more contemporary to be tried for? Furthermore, the massacre took place only a few months after the US removed Iraq from the State Department's list of sponsors of terrorism, and began shoring Saddam up in his war with Iran by giving aid and selling weapons (the year before the famous Rumsfeld handshake photograph). How wise is it to condemn him for something he did while he was our ally?

Not too unwise, apparently--the media seem to have missed it entirely.

Election Prediction

2006-11-07T16:04:00.000-05:00

Just a retread from 2004--if the Democrats win big, prepare for a massive East Coast power failure caused by the drain of thousands upon thousands of paper shredders.

When did we lose the "War on Terror"?

2006-09-30T19:24:00.000-04:00

When we had the opportunity to look to George Washington when a crisis arose, we chose instead to emulate Pol Pot.

It wasn't a gift--it was a con

2006-06-28T08:22:00.000-04:00

Anonymous Liberal makes the point that the bin Laden "October Surprise" of 2004 was really a benefit to Bush, and that the Bush campaign knew it. I would add one observation--bin Laden got what he wanted, too--a much richer ground for recruiting terrorists. Bush fell right in with his goal. Did nobody in the administration wonder why they had been handed a gift like this?

Update 6-30: Apparently not.

Catch-22

2006-05-31T13:43:00.000-04:00

...was supposed to be a novel. Not any more.

The worst aspect of this decision is described here:

After Ceballos, employees who do know what they are talking about will retain First Amendment protection only if they make their complaints publicly without going through internal grievance procedures. Although the Court suggests that its decision will encourage the creation and use of such internal procedures, it will probably not have that effect. Note that if employees have obligations to settle disputes and make complaints within internal grievance procedures, then they are doing something that is within their job description when they make complaints and so they have no First Amendment protections in what they say. Hence employees will have incentives not to use such procedures but to speak only in public if they want First Amendment protections (note that if they speak both privately and publicly, they can be fired for their private speech). However, if they speak only publicly, they essentially forfeit their ability to stay in their jobs, first because they become pariahs, and second, because they have refused to use the employer's internal mechanisms for complaint (mechanisms which, if they used them, would eliminate their First Amendment rights). In short, whatever they do, they are pretty much screwed. So the effect of the Court's decision is to create very strong incentives against whistleblowing of any kind. (Another possible result of the case is that employees will have incentives to speak anonymously or leak information to reporters and hope that the reporters don't have to reveal their sources)

Those of us who have actually been in a position where a government employer was acting stupidly, illegally, or against the public interest, and have suffered consequences for speaking out, can appreciate how bad this decision is. Apparently, five members of the Supreme Court haven't got a clue.

Standards are vital--let's have lots of them

2006-05-27T11:05:00.000-04:00

A brief dose of reality, in the form of a rant. Those who whine about media bias should consider it (after all, it can happen to their side), but won't. Indeed, the complaints about media bias exist in order to justify the sort of things Foser is complaining about, and inoculate their side. Like complaints about the uncivil treatment of graduation orators, they use standards of behavior as weapons, not guides.