The Bell

Tea and Biscuits

2012-01-26T12:59:00.001-05:00

Our Outrage Over America’s Inability to Compete with Cheap Foreign Labor Is Misplaced

The New York Times recently ran a story about globalization that focused on the use of factories in China by Apple Corporation. Today, the Times followed up with a story about unsafe working conditions in those factories. As recently as ten years ago, Apple based most of its manufacturing in the U.S. Today, most of its manufacturing takes place overseas. For example, Apple does not produce a single iPhone domestically. At a business summit last year, President Obama asked the late Steve Jobs, “What would it take to make iPhones in the United States?” Jobs’s reply was candid to the point of brusque – “Those jobs aren't coming back.”

Many conservative economists and politicians blame two factors for the permanent exodus of manufacturing jobs. First is the high wages paid to U.S. workers, as demanded by labor unions. Second is the excessive regulation of industry by the federal government. These twin pressures drive Apple’s costs too high, forcing them to seek relief elsewhere. There is truth to these charges but they oversimplify why Chinese factories meet Apple’s needs so much better than American ones.

Rural workers rescued from an unsafe

factory in the village of Linfen in N.E.

China. They might have gotten tea

and bisuits (insert) at an Apple factory.

While wages for Chinese factory workers are only ten percent of their U.S. counterparts, Jordan Weissmann, financial editor for The Atlantic, points out that direct labor costs represent only ten percent of the full retail price for the cheapest iPhone 4S. He quotes a former high-ranking Apple executive that factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have surpassed what's in the U.S.” It is as much about flexibility as it is cheapness. And the chief product savings come from removing all those pesky worker benefits and protections.

In an example that Apple executives love to cite, the company made a sudden, last minute iPhone design change. Their Chinese factory received the new plans in the middle of the night. It immediately roused more than eight thousand workers from their dormitories, giving each worker a cup of tea and a biscuit, and set them to work retooling to meet the new specs. Within four days, the factory was producing over ten thousand iPhones per day.

Tea and biscuits? Dormitories? Yes, dormitories.

China builds multiple factories, each complementing the other, to create large industrial complexes that become cities unto themselves. Rather than have homes, workers are housed in dormitories. The factory provides food, shelter, and medical attention for workers. The Chinese government underwrites the construction of these factory cities.

We celebrate the rise of free market capitalism in China. Yet if the U.S. did what China has done in order to compete, most Americans – and certainly most conservatives – would revile the practice as socialism and the intrusion of big government into private enterprise. The idea of workers as citizens within their company/factory has a creepy Orwelian quality to it.

The federal regulations cited as excessive in this country are largely missing with the Chinese government. However, keep in mind the intent behind most U.S. regulations is ensuring worker safety and generally providing a decent, dignified working environment that is often lacking in Chinese factories.

When confronted with conditions at Apple’s Chinese factories in 2010, Jobs feigned bewildered innocence. “It’s a factory, but, my gosh, I mean, they’ve got restaurants and movie theaters and hospitals and swimming pools, and I mean, for a factory, it’s a pretty nice factory.” In spite of this, “Most people would still be really disturbed if they saw where their iPhone comes from,” contends one former one former Apple executive.

Chinese workers who will talk to reporters say they routinely work under harsh conditions, including excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week. Their jobs require them to stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers are common. All activity takes place under wall banners that warn, “Work hard on the job today or work hard to find a job tomorrow.” Oh, and factory dormitories sometimes contain as many as twenty people stuffed into a three-room apartment.

Worse still, Chinese factories display systematic disregard for workers’ health. Improper disposal of hazardous waste and falsified records have resulted in serious injuries and death from poisoning and fires/explosions. Apple insists that it conducts audits and requires corrections when it finds problems. However, a consultant at Business for Social Responsibility, which Apple has retained twice for advice on labor issues, finds that claim disingenuous. “They don’t want to pre-empt problems, they just want to avoid embarrassments.”

That may be too harsh. Some former Apple executives insist management would genuinely like to improve conditions within oversea factories but faces constant push back for fast delivery of new products and maximizing profits. Then again, Apple just reported one of the most lucrative quarters of any corporation in history, with over $13 billion in profits. It could have made even more, executives said, if its overseas factories had been able to produce more. Could Apple not use a little more of it to ensure livable working conditions for Chinese laborers?

The amoral nature of capitalism and free markets is exactly what makes them so efficient at producing the highest quality products at the lowest cost. It also has caused many to realize that government regulation of them is necessary and just. Sometimes consumers are the ones demanding improvements, as they did against Nike and The Gap, when western media exposed appalling conditions at those companies’ Chinese factories.

Unfortunately, American appetite for evermore innovative and cheap shiny electronic gadgets has not placed the same pressure on Apple or other high tech companies employing overseas workers, such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Lenovo, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, and Toshiba.

As one Apple executive cynically summed up, “You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories or you can reinvent the product every year, and make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards. And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.”

The twin forces for globalizations and technological advancement demand changes to the U.S. model if we are to regain competitiveness. Nevertheless, the Chinese model is no basis for a return to American exceptionalism. Rather it represents a descent to an infamous era that authors like Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser once chronicled.

“If Apple was warned [about Chinese factory conditions], and didn’t act, that’s reprehensible,” fumes Nicholas Ashford, a former chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health. I agree. For all his innovative brilliance, I once noted that Steve Jobs was also noteworthy for being something of an asshole.

Many wish the U.S. would do more to condemn the Chinese government for its human rights abuses. It seems quite a few U.S. companies deserve the same scorn for their business practices. Instead, we condemn U.S. workers as too fat, lazy, and pampered as well as unions and government for acting as their advocates. If we follow the Chinese model, our grandchildren may have jobs but ones without dignity, decent working conditions, or healthcare. On the other hand, there will be no shortage of iPhones . . . or tea and biscuits.

Vultures In Quiet Rooms

2012-01-13T11:15:00.003-05:00

Romney Won’t Convince Voters He Isn’t One by Refusing to Talk About It

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney scored a striking precedent by co-winning the Iowa Caucuses and then winning the New Hampshire Primary by a substantial margin. Romney’s fellow candidates continue looking for barbs to jab at him and the somewhat hapless Rick Perry seems to have found one that sticks. It has to do with Romney’s tenure as CEO at the venture capital firm Bain Capital.

“I understand the difference between venture capitalism and vulture capitalism,” Perry told a crowd in South Carolina. “I happen to think companies like Bain Capital could have come in and helped these companies if they were truly venture capitalists, but they're not. They're vulture capitalists . . . They’re vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick, and then they swoop in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that and they leave the skeleton.”

Vulture Capitalists – watercolor
by Canadian-born artist and
illustrator Anita Kunz, 2001

Newt Gingrich, still holding a vendetta against Romney attack ads that sank his chances in Iowa, was quick to agree. “I think there’s a real difference between people who believed in the free market and people who go around, take financial advantage, loot companies, leave behind broken families, broken towns, people on unemployment.” A super PAC backing Gingrich plans to spend $3.4 million in South Carolina airing a documentary that rips Romney as “more ruthless than Wall Street.”

Romney’s initial reaction to such criticisms has been to condemn them as unfair to him personally but also for placing “free enterprise on trial.” Other conservatives are equally uncomfortable with the larger implications behind this line of attack against Romney and jumped to his defense. “It is bad enough for Barack Obama to blame folks in business for causing problems in this country,” bemoaned Rick Santorum. “It’s one other thing for Republicans to join him.”

“That is the miracle of free-market capitalism,” explains Washington Post conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin. “The pursuit of profits – by creating real value – benefits the rest of society through better products and services . . . and jobs and higher incomes.” Her colleague Kathleen Parker asks, “Since when in a free, capitalist nation is it a sin to buy a company and turn a profit?”

It is true that some of the criticisms against Romney on this score have been over-the-top and even dishonest. In particular, the much cited Romney quote, “I like being able to fire people” was taken completely out of context. The candidate was clearly not expressing his economic/business preferences but rather advocating choice in selecting healthcare providers. The Obama campaign will come to rue any attempts to make mileage out of this quote in the general election.

However, Romney has also been over-the-top at times about his business acumen, particularly as a job creator. During his 2008 candidacy, Romney tended to focus on his tenure as Governor of Massachusetts. However, that period of Romney’s career is verboten in 2012 because it invites unwanted comparisons between Obamacare and Romneycare. Therefore, Romney has chosen to stress his private sector experience, including his time at Bain, this time around.

By doing so, Romney “invited voters to look at what he did there and determine if they believe it was both (a) admirable and (b) germane to the Presidency,” as Jonathan Last points out in the Weekly Standard.

The presumption that experience as a CEO translates to Presidential competency is questionable. Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post believes “Romney better understands – and identifies with – business” than President Obama.” However, he concedes, “Whether this becomes a political advantage is unclear.” New York Times columnist David Brooks concurs. “If you look back over history . . . there’s little correlation between business success and political success.”

Brooks’s colleague, Paul Krugman, attempts to define the crucial difference. “Even giant corporations sell the great bulk of what they produce to other people, not to their own employees – whereas even small countries sell most of what they produce to themselves.”

While Romney misleads by portraying himself at Bain as some superhuman job creator, his critics equally overstep categorizing him as a job-killing vulture. “Private equity doesn’t consciously strive to create jobs,” admits Samuelson. “But it’s also true that employment practices at companies backed by private equity don’t differ dramatically from other similar non-private-equity-owned companies.”

The intensity of the pushback against criticisms of Romney’s time at Bain derives from recognition by Republicans that this charge could come to haunt their likely nominee. Conservative blogger Erick Erickson at RedState acknowledges far-left liberals are not the only ones who view venture capitalism as a colossus of greed “There are, frankly, a lot of Republican primary voters who view it that way too.” The Wall Street Journal’s Fred Barnes calls the attacks “an explosive issue . . . the greatest threat to [Romney’s] quest for the Presidency.”

Free markets are, by their nature, messy things. There will always be room in their margins for venture capital firms, like Bain, to perform necessary and useful cleanup. The key term here is “margins.” In the recent past, such firms have moved out of the margins to become center stage players. They generate vast amounts of wealth not by creating products (and value) but often by gaming around the rules under which markets operate – rules often put in place by the federal government they claim to want to shrink and whose regulations they wish to curtail.

As E.J. Dionne observes in the Washington Post, “Capitalists of Romney’s sort never want to acknowledge how much their ability to make money depends on what government does.”

In many ways, Romney is lucky to have this issue raised now and by his fellow conservatives. It should blunt the force of the charge when Democrats raise it again in the general election. However, this assumes he uses the opportunity to develop a politically viable defense. His initial efforts at condemning critics as anti-capitalist are unimpressive.

During an interview on NBC’s Today Show, host Matt Lauer challenged Romney whether he genuinely felt any questioning of Wall Street and financial institutions, as well as the growing U.S. wealth gap, were out of bound. What about basic fairness?, Lauer questioned. Romney refused to budge. “You know, I think it is about envy. I think it’s about class warfare,” he replied. “I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and tax policy and the like. But the President made it part of his campaign rally.”

Quiet rooms?

During the height of the Iraq War and its counter-protests, many argued that dissenters should get off the streets and into quiet rooms. They insisted that criticizing the war was tantamount to a lack of patriotism, dishonoring the troops, and providing aid and comfort to terrorists. The latest mantra from conservatives seems to be that calling bad capitalist practices into question is synonymous to questioning capitalism. It is the politics of fear and jingoism all over again. Personally, I do not think Romney is a vulture. Romney’s practices at Bain bother me far less than his current contention that they are not legitimate topics for discussion and raising them is essentially un-American in nature.

Perry has backed off the term “vulture.” However, he refuses to concede the matter as a non-topic. He told FOX News, “This process is about winnowing out individuals and testing whether or not they're a flawed candidate or not. And I will tell you when people can point to where you made a quick profit and kicked people out of their jobs, that is an issue that has got to be addressed.” Gingrich adds, “Criticizing specific actions in specific places is not being anti-free-enterprise. And raising questions about that is not wrong.”

As Romney’s defenders point out, capitalism is not a pretty thing sometime. Neither is democracy, for that matter. So what is the harm in discussing them frankly? American exceptionalism holds little value if gained by sweeping its limitations and weaknesses under a rug or by hiding its vultures in quiet rooms.

The Candidate Who's Near

2012-01-05T10:22:00.006-05:00

Mitt Romney Can Win Iowa But Not Republican Hearts

My heart's in a pickle,
It's constantly fickle
And not too partickle, I fear.
When I'm not near the girl I love,
I love the girl I'm near.

One of the characters in the whimsical Broadway musical Finian’s Rainbow is a leprechaun named Og, whose pot of gold is stolen by the show’s title character. Og is anxious to get his gold back because its absence is transformational, literally changing him from magical creature to mortal being. He fears losing his powers and identity. Unfortunately for Og, his burgeoning humanity stirs romantic impulses and he falls hopelessly in love with Finian’s vivacious daughter, Sharon.

At least somebody loves him –
GOP Presidential candidate Mitt
Romney is hugged by his wife
after co-winning the Iowa Caucuses

Yet by the end of the story, Og has settled down with Susan, a mute girl so reserved and bland she was largely unnoticed by all. The reason for the switch is that Sharon does not reciprocate Og’s feelings. Caught up in her own problems, she pays him little heed. That leaves no eligible girl around but “Susan the Silent.” Therefore, in a combination of pragmatism and desperation, Og forsakes the girl he loves in order to love the girl who is available and marriageable. He explains his predicament and adopted solution in the song, When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love.

Og seems a fine metaphor for Republican voters. They want to regain the White House after losing it in 2008. They see this as a transformational moment, with America’s descent from a world power into socialism hanging in the balance. In order to do so, they must commit to a GOP candidate as their nominee. Much like Og, they keep falling in love only to find rejection.

Republicans have just completed the Iowa Caucuses, the first formal step in their 2012 Presidential Primary season. The result was a virtual tie between erstwhile frontrunner Mitt Romney and a surging Rick Santorum, with a surging Ron Paul a close second. Actually, Santorum and Paul are but the latest is a long line of GOP surgers.

The first sweetheart was Michele Bachmann, who GOP voters hoped could work a little Sarah Palin north woods magic again. Alas, she was all nowhere and no bridge. Then voters swooned over Rick Perry’s executive experience, Christian values, and big hair. Sadly, he proved unable to defend his own positions among his peers and had too many “senior moments” for a man of only sixty-one years.

Next, voters flirted with Herman Cain, drawn to his bad-boy outsider status and CEO experience. They left in droves when he proved better cast in Felini’s 8½ than his own 9-9-9. He just wasn’t the kind of candidate you brought home to meet mother . . . unless you wanted him to date her. Finally, voters returned to an old flame in Newt Gingrich. He was a legitimate GOP elephant, rather than a RINO, but he had too much trunk (i.e. baggage).

Given all this, one might think Santorum and/or Paul are the “candidate who’s near” – a fickle Republican electorate’s latest passion. However, the key is the key here is that Santorum and Paul, like the others before them, inspire actual passion in voters’ breasts. It is actually the lackluster but omnipresent Romney cast in this role. Voters like him, they just don’t “like” like him. Even his Mormonism is un-exotic – he is Donny Osmond with less charisma (if that is imaginable).

Voter polling by NBC News and other groups confirms this phenomenon. Romney did best among affluent non-Evangelical moderates over forty-five years old, especially senior citizens. In short, he appealed to the same traditional Republican establishment that long has been his base. He did not make necessary in-roads among other Republicans. Santorum took the far right and social conservatives. Paul won young Republicans, poor Republicans, and libertarians.

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus got similar results when informally talking with voters in Johnston Iowa. Those backing Santorum, Paul, and Gingrich used words like “prefer,” “heart,” “excitement,” and “change” when describing reasons for backing their candidates. Romney supporters were more likely to mention “most electable” and “most likely to win” for their reasons.

There is some good news for Romney out of Iowa. In 2008, he invested huge amounts of time and money in the state, only to finish a disappointing second that virtually knocked him out of the race. In 2012, he gave it far less attention and drew the same percentage of the vote for a first place tie. This suggests he has created a well-established brand among voters if not necessarily a growing one.

The other good news for Romney is that if he prevails in the primaries, he will face a candidate in the general election who is far less beloved by his Democratic base than in 2008. Obama is also the “candidate who’s near” for many liberals. This is even truer for Independent voters, likely to play a key role once again in choosing a Presidential victor.

However, this is where Iowa has bad news for Romney again. Paul was the big winner among self-described Independents and first-time voters (including Democrats participating in Republican caucuses), garnering forty-three percent of this group. Romney is never going to win the Republican nomination and the Presidency by being a consensus candidate about whom everybody is apathetic.

Romney picked up an endorsement yesterday from 2008 Republican candidate Senator John McCain of Arizona. This seems a mixed blessing at best. For many archconservatives, McCain is the poster boy for what can go wrong when they place electability above purity and principles. In today’s Wall Street Journal, columnist Daniel Henninger declares, “The Republican divider is the Party's frontrunner, Mitt Romney.” It cannot be a pleasant position for Romney and it cannot be a pleasant situation for Republican voters either.

Og the leprechaun ultimately gave up attempting to retrieve his gold, deciding that being human is not so bad after all. Of course, that is because he was willing to settle. Republicans seem poised to settle too. They just do not seem to be especially willing. And Romney waits quietly in the wings as the candidate who's near.

For Sharon I'm carin',
But Susan I'm choosin'
I'm faithful to whos'n is here.
When I'm not near the girl I love,

I love the girl I'm near.

Class War Ahead

2011-12-14T12:21:00.001-05:00

It Just Might Work This Time

A study of real income growth over time recently appeared in the prestigious Journal of Economic Literature. It found that the richest Americans, the “one percent” so frequently criticized by Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protestors, garnered an impressive fifty-eight percent of all income growth experienced over the past thirty-five years. During the Clinton Administration years, noted for an economic boom as well as attempts at federal government fiscal discipline, the top earners only captured forty-five percent of income growth. During the years of the George W. Bush Administration, their share skyrocketed to sixty-five percent of all growth.

This study is rather like the climate change studies I wrote about last time. It documents a trend with factual certainty. Exactly what the numbers indicate/portend and what to do in response is a little less clear.

A sign left behind by Occupy
Wall Street protestors in New
York City's Zuccotti Park

President Obama traveled to Osawatomie Kansas where he gave a major policy address that even his own supporters concede was also a major partisan political speech in his re-election campaign. In it, Obama laid heavy responsibility for the nation’s current economic distress, as well as our seeming inability to recover from it, on the wealthy, both individuals and businesses, for failing to play by the rules and pay a larger share as justified by their larger rewards.

Obama maintained, “This is not class warfare. It’s math . . . I will not support any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans. And I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare . . . We are not going to have a one-sided deal that hurts the folks who are most vulnerable.”

The Republican response was swift and unanimous – the President was indeed waging class warfare in an irresponsible, dangerous manner. Conservative pundits joined the chorus. “This is populism so crude that it channels not Teddy Roosevelt so much as Hugo Chavez,” sniped Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer in a savage deconstruction of Obama’s speech. “According to Obama, anyone who opposes his common sense solution for banks is just evil,” fumed Dan Gainor, Boone Pickens Fellow, on FOX News.

Their response was unsurprising. Thomas Frank, author of What’s The Matter With Kansas, expounds on the ability of conservatives to counter complaints against Wall Street and big business by branding critics as elitists, out of touch with the traditional values of mainstream Americans. It is an argument that “resonated powerfully among white swing voters crucial to the ascendance of the Republican Party over the last four decades,” adds Thomas Edsall in the New York Times.

Unfortunately for them, this argument has lost appeal in recent years, contends Michael Kinsley, writing at Bloomberg View. “Because of the financial crisis of 2008, the scandals that went with it, and growing income inequality, financial class war arguments are gaining more traction and the cultural class war has almost disappeared.” Likewise, exhortations by Republican GOP hopefuls that Americans just need an opportunity to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps fall flat because they “fail to address the anxiety and anger of those millions of Americans who suddenly find themselves with no job, no health insurance and no money to pay the mortgage,” Edsall rues.

No matter how you may feel about the practice, poll after poll suggests that the rhetoric labeled “class warfare” by conservatives is finally shifting political fortunes back toward Obama and the Democrats. It comes after a long drought of good news following the 2010 midterm elections. A November Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found respondents favored Democratic policies (i.e. elimination of tax breaks for the wealthy and tougher regulation of banks and corporations) over Republican policies (i.e. spending cuts, minimize regulations, and reject all tax increases) by a two to one margin.

An ABC/Washington Post poll found more than three fifths of respondents said the wealth gap had grown larger. Respondents favored the federal government “pursue policies that try to reduce the gap between wealthy and less well-off Americans,” again by a two to one margin.

An October CBS/New York Times poll found only twelve percent of respondents believed Obama Administration policies favor the rich, while sixty-nine percent believed Republican policies did. A more recent Washington Post poll found forty-seven percent of respondents agreed the GOP represents the interests of the nation’s rich – lower but still larger than those who said the same about Democrats.

A recent Gallup Poll found sixty-six percent of respondents favor increasing taxes on individuals earning over $200,000 per year. Seventy percent want to end corporate tax deductions to pay for Obama’s proposed American Jobs Act.

Perhaps most disturbing for conservatives, apparently Obama achieved this increase in populist sentiment without voters viewing him as a divisive figure. A FOX News poll found fifty-six percent of respondents believed Obama was pursuing his campaign strategy to bring Americans together. This included fifty-three percent of Independents and sixty-eight percent of moderates. It also included fifty-eight percent of individuals who earn over $50,000 annually.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz recently addressed the Republican Governor’s Association, where he told them he is “scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death.” He warned the group that OWS and other populist movements are “having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.” He suggested conservatives carefully spin their arguments, taking care to avoid certain buzzwords that are currently harmful to them (i.e. “pay for performance” versus “bonus”).

However, some of Luntz’s suggestions hold chilling reminders for conservatives as to how badly the tone of the debate has shifted against them. He recommended using the phrase “taking from the rich” over “taxing the rich” because “Americans actually do want to tax the rich.” He also recommended they assert their desire to defend “hardworking taxpayers” rather than “the middle class” because “Americans don’t trust Republicans to defend [the middle class].”

Luntz even recommended avoiding the term “capitalism” because “The public . . . still prefers capitalism to socialism but they think capitalism is immoral.” It comes back to an admonition I offered anti-government conservatives in June 2010. Even if they realized complete success in the mid-term elections, I warned, they were “in for a shock by how little confidence this same public has in their own panacea to all problems – free market capitalism,” whose “luster has dimmed considerably for most Americans in recent years.”

Conservatives have long claimed that private enterprise, even at its worst, is always more effective and efficient at running anything than government is. It became almost cliché because people accepted it as obvious. Nowadays, such claims carry far less credibility. I believe this is the principal reason why Obama is having such success without the usual elitist backlash often suffered by Democrats.

During his Osawatomie speech, Obama assured, “Now, unless you’re a financial institution whose business model is built on breaking the law, cheating consumers, or making risky bets that could damage the entire economy, you have nothing to fear from these new rules.” Conservatives counter this does not mean the President is against banks that do not play by the rules; they assure it means Obama and Democrats are against all banks and capitalism. This has been effective strategy for them in the past. So far this campaign, not so much.

As the OWS camps are slowly giving way to local ordinances and winter cold, both supporters and critics have been asking, “Now what?” of a movement whose goals were never especially clear. At least one Republican pollster seems to think they have already exerted political impact. Personally, I doubt they were the catalyst for Obama’s new boldness but it is likely they provide supporting comfort for him in its execution. The signs of things to come are there to read in the detritus left behind from their occupation stage – Class War Ahead.

Climate Of Skepticism

2011-12-07T15:40:00.001-05:00

Both Sides in the Global Warming Debate Need to Back Down from Claims of Absolute Certainty

Reuters, the BBC, and other news organizations have run stories lately about a “drought” in snowfall at several prominent Swiss ski resorts. There has been no heavy snowfall since October, forcing several resorts to push back the start of the season. The stories include grim photos of snow-free slopes. Doctor David Stephenson, head of climate research at England’s Reading University, warns that in fifteen years time many Swiss resorts at lower elevations could have no snow at all. If snow-free Swiss Alps are not proof that something is amiss, what will serve to convince climate change doubters?

Unfortunately, global warming supporters pushing such stories are part of the problem. Doubters point to unrealized dire predictions as justifying their views. Much like the doubters, the supporters in this case falls into the trap of mistaking weather, the day-to-day meteorological conditions affecting a specific place, with climate, the long-term prevalent meteorological conditions of a region or larger area. Even extreme changes in weather ultimately have low impact because they are short lived. Conversely, even minute changes in climate have substantial impact because they persist.

Skiers overlook snow-free slopes at
the Swiss ski resort of Verbier

For the record, I am a supporter of global warming/ climate change and I also feel it is likely that human activities play some role in the observable trend. However, supporters must adhere to the same standards must as doubters. If a cool summer in a warm climate somewhere does not disprove global warming, a snow-free autumn in Switzerland equally fails to prove it. Meteorologists are already predicting December snows will break the drought.

A more relevant recent story is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2011 Arctic Report Card, which states “a new normal” for the Arctic, consisting of “less ice, thinner ice, younger ice.” The report has mentioned similar conditions in the past but this is the first time it declares them as enduring rather than transitory.

Even more germane are the recent findings release by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) study. The project was established by University of California physics professor Richard Muller, an ardent doubter prior to his role in the study. Muller openly expressed suspicions that past studies, including those by NASA, the Hadley Center, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, had “concealed discordant data.” Among his funding source were the Koch brothers, who have donated large sums to organizations lobbying against human-caused global warming.

BEST reviewed and assessed the accuracy of existing land temperature data from fifteen previous studies, amounting to some 1.6 billion records dating back to the year 1800. The warming of the Earth about one degree Celsius since the 1950s, their primary finding, almost exactly matched the findings of the earlier studies. BEST verified that global warming was real and disproved claims that climate scientists proposing it were engaged in an elaborate hoax/fraud.

However, this is far from definitive proof by supporters. First, while BEST’s results are the biggest, most comprehensive, and impartial study to date, their results are only as good as their data. Muller has said, “The [land based] temperature station quality is largely awful.” At least seventy percent of the stations have the potential for error between two to five degrees. “The margin of error for the stations is at least three times larger than the estimated warming,” Muller concludes.

Libertarian scholar, Peter Ferrara, writing in Forbes, takes exception with almost everything about the study. While BEST attempted to debunk criticisms of “urban heat island effect,” Ferrara points out the data still comes “from temperature stations on land, which covers less than thirty percent of the earth’s surface.” However, he is only warming up to his topic.

Ferrara notes that weather satellites show no warming in the upper atmosphere since their record began in 1979. Weather balloons independently confirm their results. The UN’s climate models project human-made global warming would result in a “hotspot” in the troposphere, about six miles above the Earth’s surface, in tropical areas. However, weather balloons and satellites actually show a slight cooling there.

Ferrara also holds the UN model’s assumptions up to doubt. Atmospheric temperature data from NASA’s Terra satellite demonstrates much more heat escapes back out to space than is assumed captured in the atmosphere by greenhouse effects under the UN’s climate models. A major experiment by the European Organization for Nuclear Research suggests the sun’s cosmic rays, resulting from sunspots, have a much greater effect on Earth’s temperatures than assumed by the UN’s model.

Mueller admits BEST’s warming trend is not uniformly constant but a majority decision, with fully one-third of all land-based stations reporting global cooling. Moreover, Ferrara argues their records do not show persistent warming following persistent growth of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Rather, it shows an up and down pattern of temperatures, more consistent with natural causes.

Ferrara’s questioning, while providing healthy skepticism to the debate, comes not from a dispassionate skeptic but a lifelong global warming denier. He engages in elaborate spinning of data to reinforce predetermined bias. Because error could exist, it must exist. If there is any room for doubt, dismiss the concept as worthless. There are a lot of babies lying next to bathwater on the ground at the bottom of Ferrara’s ivory tower. He accuses climate change supporters of “religious orthodoxy” and a “fading catechism” but smugly concludes that global warming is not merely over-hyped but entirely imaginary.

Daniel Botkin, president of the Center for the Study of the Environment and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, deplores the absolutism this topic inspires in the scientific community. “Not only is it poor science to claim absolute truth but it also leads to the kind of destructive and distrustful debate we've had in last decade about global warming,” he writes in the Wall Street Journal.

Botkin has been warning about the possibility of human-induced global warming since the 1970s. However, he raised hackles with colleagues in 2007, when concerns over global warming were at their height of popularity, by insisting, “Global warming doesn't matter except to the extent that it will affect life – ours and that of all living things on Earth. And . . . the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.”

I differ with Botkin, finding the impact more noticeable than him. However, I concede his take is more reality-based than frantic warnings issued by some ardent supporters. Despite disturbing trends, the polar ice caps have not melted, polar bears are not extinct, and New York City is not sitting under ten feet of water.

A new study funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation stresses global warming is real and will have multiple serious impacts. However, it also warns that severe estimates, such as those put forth by a 2007 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), are unlikely. For example, the UN IPCC report estimated that Earth surface temperatures could rise from four and a half to eleven and a half degrees Fahrenheit. The new study suggests four degrees is actually the upper limit of the potential rise.

If climate change supporters want to build credibility with doubters, we need to be our own best skeptics and critics. Dire predictions are causing us to lose credibility and shore up the scoffing of global warming deniers. We need to end cherry picking data to find egregious but isolated examples of unseasonal warming. Likewise, no more doomsday prophesizing geared more toward eliciting donations than knowledge. On the other hand, doubters need to end cherry picking data to find examples at odds with models and stressing them exclusively as disproving the model.

What is needed is a climate of true skepticism, in which data trends are recognized as valid but not definitive. Science works best when all attempt unbiased analysis of an issue from the same vantage point, instead of taking sides around it. Unfortunately, there is as little of that in the air right now for climate change as there is snow in Switzerland. What is more, given this topic’s controversial and often combative past, the chance of any developing sometime soon has about the same chance as a snowball in hell.

Out Of The Smoke

2011-11-16T15:51:00.000-05:00

Will Gingrich Turn Out To Be the Anti-Romney, Romney-Lite, or Hyper-Romney?

As Herman Cain’s popularity declines in the wake of multiple sexual harassment allegations, GOP Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney finally finds himself . . . now in a tie with Newt Gingrich. After a disastrous campaign kickoff, Gingrich recently experienced a surge in the polls, triggered by Cain’s deterioration and a string of solid debate performances. His former spokesperson, Rick Tyler, predicted this outcome back when many political commentators were pronouncing Gingrich dead on arrival.

“Surely they had killed him off . . . But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.”

Current Republican Presidential
hopeful and former individual
mandate advocate Newt Gingrich

It is yet another indication that the conservative core simply cannot bring itself to embrace Romney. Their distrust centers on Romney’s moderate-to-liberal past and nothing is more anathema to them than the fact that Obama based his federal healthcare reform law, so despised by them, upon Romeny’s own program in Massachusetts, with its dreaded individual mandate. They fear Obama will be able to campaign effectively against Romney in the general election on this basis alone.

Romney has been walking a tightrope, defending his record to the right delicately balanced against assurances to the right that he opposes the individual mandate. There were things he would do differently in Massachusetts, given the benefit of hindsight, he concedes. Moreover, even things that worked for his state will not necessarily translate to the federal level.

Neither potential GOP voters nor his Republican challengers are buying it. During a recent appearance on FOX News, Michele Bachman fumed, “We have candidates that are compromised on the individual health care mandate, which is Obamacare.” She damned Romney not only for implementing it in Massachusetts but insisted, “It was [his] idea.” Romney received a challenge along the same line during a GOP debate at the Western Republican Leadership Conference.

It is unsurprising that Romney’s denials resound so weakly. His connection to and endorsement of individual mandates goes back a long way.

Romney first endorsed the individual mandate on NBC’s Meet the Press in 1993, long before it was a controversial topic. “I am for people, individuals – exactly like automobile insurance – individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance.”

A decade later, he collaborated with then Senator and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to promote a more centrist solution to healthcare reform than her doomed attempt at a single-payer system. A July 2005 article in Hotline about one of their joint appearances described Romney as endorsing not just state-based mandates but “some federal mandates” as well. A New York Sun article about the same event reported, “Both politicians appeared to endorse proposals to require all individuals to have some form of health coverage.”

Romney’s writings also betray his true feelings. In 2005, he wrote, “You have a responsibility to buy insurance . . . We need some significant changes to ensure that every American is insured, but we should make it clear that a 21st Century Intelligent System requires everyone to participate in the insurance system.”

In a June 2007 op-ed piece for the Des Moines Register, Romney wrote, “Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it.”

Again, in 2008, he wrote, “We should insist that everyone above a certain level buy coverage (or, if they are opposed to insurance, post a bond).”

Despite his efforts to distance himself from past rhetoric, Romney continues to contradict himself occasionally regarding individual mandates. As recently as May 2011, he told Meet the Press, “I’ve said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond or in some way you indicate you’re going to be held accountable.” When asked by the show’s host if this constituted a mandate, Romney characterized it as “a variation on it.”

Little wonder then that the far right continues to recoil from Romney. It is also unsurprising they would turn back for a hard second look at Gingrich. No straight shooter like Newt is going to be unclear about his opposition to Obamacare . . .

. . . except their hard second look is going to discover that every quote and cited writing above came not from Mitt Romney but from Newt Gingrich. And if such sentiments and history make Romney unattractive to the Republican base, it seems unlikely that Gingrich will get a pass for them either.

This scrutiny has already started. Dana Millbank of the Washington Post judges Gingrich as a potential anti-Romney and finds him wanting. “His problem . . . is that he is entirely too moderate . . . The ideas that made him a conservative revolutionary in 1994 make him squishy in 2012.”

Gene Healy of the Cato Institute is even more caustic. In an op-ed piece for the Washington Examiner, Healy groans, “Has it really come to this? Newt Gingrich as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney? . . . Yet a look at his record reveals that Newt is hardly the ‘anti-Mitt’ – he's Mitt Romney with more baggage and bolder hand gestures.”

In fairness, Gingrich vigorously contends he has changed his mind about the individual mandate. Of course, Romney does too and this hasn’t gotten him very far to date. It is reasonable to expect Obama’s handlers to hammer Gingrich hard about this, if given a chance in the general election. For that matter, none other than Romney will probably run the issue into the ground during the primaries.

Gingrich’s attacker on this subject during the debate was Romney. “Actually, Newt, we got the idea of an individual mandate from you,” he told Gingrich.

“That’s not true. You got it from the Heritage Foundation,” replied a flustered Gingrich.

“And you never supported them?” Romney countered.

“I agreed with them,” Gingrich conceded.

“Oh, okay,” Romney coolly corrected. “That’s what I’m saying. We got the idea from you and the Heritage Foundation.”

“Okay. A little broader,” said Gingrich, mollified although undoubtedly still unhappy with the exchange.

Ross Douthat of the New York Times believes this issue is unlikely to sour the conservative base on Gingrich because his appeal lies elsewhere. “[Gingrich] is less a traditional conservative than he is a kind of right-wing futurist . . . But whereas most right-wing futurists tend to be libertarians who take a somewhat jaundiced view of partisan politics, for Gingrich civilization itself hangs in the balance in every election cycle. The glittering future he descries can only be won through a confrontation with the enemies of progress – namely, liberal Democrats.”

Somewhat in line with this analysis, Gingrich argues, plausibly, that his past attraction to the individual mandate was because it seemed a saner alternative than the even more draconian (i.e. “socialist”) measures advocated by Hillary Clinton in the 1990s.

However, conservative thinker Peter Sunderman addresses why this could be a weakness for Gingrich too. “Republican party leaders have had a hard time addressing health policy issues over the last few years," he writes in the Libertarian journal Reason. Rather than make a prolonged case for health policy that does not involve endless expansion of entitlements and insurance subsidies, the GOP has instead focused primarily on reacting to Democratic proposals.”

If Gingrich is poised to become the next conservative darling of this Presidential election cycle, then the question remains as to exactly what kind of a darling he really is. Is he the anti-Romney, Romney-lite, or hyper-Romney? Gingrich needs to get a credible answer to this question soon. Otherwise, scrutiny by the Republican core may find that the man who emerged out of the smoke of disaster did so from smoke that he was blowing.

B.M.O.C.

2011-11-10T10:06:00.001-05:00

Joe Paterno’s Shameful Failure Provides a Teachable Moment

According to the Urban Dictionary, a big man on campus (B.M.O.C.) is “a highly respected person, or someone in a position of authority (e.g. ‘You gotta check with the B.M.O.C. before you make that move’.)” In the comic strip Peanuts, one of Snoopy’s personas, Joe Cool, is a B.M.O.C., if only in his own mind. Another college Joe – Paterno, in this case – and B.M.O.C. was summarily fired by the Penn State Board of Trustees on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Paterno announced his intention to retire as Penn State’s head football coach at the end of the current season.

Both announcements were part of the fallout from the indictment of former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky on forty counts of sexual abuse against eight underage boys over a fifteen year period. Sandusky founded a charity, called Second Mile, which provides programs for disadvantaged youth. He used the organization to find troubled, vulnerable boys on whom to prey. He is, simply put, a monster.

Two campus Joes - Snoopy (left) as Joe Cool still hangin'
around while Joe Paterno (right) heads into ignominy

The university and local police became suspicious of Sandusky as early as 1998. It seems hard to believe Paterno was unaware of the rumors. Regardless, Mike McQueary, a graduate assistant coach reported to Paterno in 2002 that he personally witnessed Sandusky having anal sex with a boy he assumed to be about ten years old in the showers of the Penn State locker room. The next day, Paterno referred the matter to his boss, Athletic Director Tim Curley, and then . . . did nothing more. Curley also ignored the report.

When the story first broke, Paterno issued a statement in which he insisted, “I did what I was supposed to with the one charge brought to my attention.” This is absolutely true. Moreover, there is no evidence Paterno was complicit in any sexual abuse against children. He is not a monster. He is, simply put, an abject failure as a coach, a leader, and a B.M.O.C. Sandusky’s sins were driven by some sick compulsion that he obviously could not control and well may not understand; Paterno’s failing go to the very heart of his job responsibilities and the persona he portrayed.

In his retirement statement, Paterno conceded, “With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.” He also claimed his decision was solely with the school’s best interests at heart. “The Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status . . . I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can.” A cynic might conclude Paterno was simply attempting to save himself from further scrutiny, firing, or worse. However, even taking him at his word, it was woefully too little and far too late.

Attempting to pass himself off as middle management rendered powerless by university bureaucracy is particularly galling. The person committing the crime (Sandusky) was a former player under Paterno; so was the person (McQueary) reporting the incident to him; so was the person (Curley) to whom Paterno passed the buck. The B.M.O.C. in this situation was clearly Paterno. Curley had previously tried to force Paterno to retire – twice – back in 2004 but lacked the clout to do so.

Paterno recently became the most winning NCAA Division 1 coach of all time. I do not agree with FOX Sports columnist Jason Whitlock that “There should be an asterisk next to JoePa’s 409 victories.” Paterno’s successes on the football field are incontestable. However, much of Paterno’s reputation derived from his reputation as a straight shooter, a decent guy, a proud molder of the “young men who have been entrusted to my care,” to use his own words. The motto of his football program was “Success with Honor.” This incident has permanently stained that reputation deeper than any asterisk and just as incontestably.

Yet even in his nadir, Paterno provides a teachable moment for those whose success or failure means far more than a winning or losing football season.

Prime Minister George Papandreou of Greece and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy both were fired this week, although they would probably prefer to insist they chose retirement. Both are B.M.O.C.’s for their respective countries and governments. Both were once popular figures, beloved in spite of their foibles and sometimes because of them.

Both now face scorn at home and by the international community because their nations teeter on the brink of economic collapse. Neither was solely or even primarily responsible for the problem but both saw it coming and did nothing substantial to stop it. As a result, they lost trust with their Parties, their people, and the rest of the world. Once they lost that trust, they were finished.

Then there is President Obama, the big man on our own national campus. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds an impressive seventy-six percent of those surveyed feel the current economic structure of the country unfairly favors a small proportion of the rich over everyone else. Fifty-three percent believe in significantly cutting the national debut by reducing spending and the size of government. Forty percent agree with both of these principles. What is more, half of all respondents poll identify (strongly) with Occupy Wall Street or the Tea Party.

These numbers cause MSNBC’s First Read to conclude, “Heading into 2012, America is looking for a populist . . . There's an angry electorate out there, ideologically spread across the political spectrum.” Obama began his term as a champion for the working and middle class with large legislative packages, such as his economic stimulus and healthcare reform. However, these both were watered down as a kind of peace offering to conservatives who opposed them. This was to no avail for a GOP uninterested in compromise.

In early 2010, I predicted Obama would turn toward a more populist approach with financial reform. Instead, he seemed to become even more passive and willing to allow opponents to co-opt issues and direct the political conversation. He has been adopting a fighting tone of late but many are skeptical this is nothing more than empty re-election campaign rhetoric.

Papandreou nearly scuttled the Greek bailout deal with the European Union by a cynical populist attempt to subject it to a public referendum. Likewise, Berlusconi has thrown Italy into even greater instability by a cynical populist insistence on elections instead of an interim government. In both cases, these leaders seem transparent in attempting to buy time and save their political hides rather than making tough/unpopular choices in their countries’ best interests.

The United States has a way to go with its own economic problems before it reaches the same degree of crisis faced by Greece and Italy. However, the unappealing vibe I get too often from Obama is that he is so obsessed with keeping his legacy untarnished as to prohibit him from doing the dirty work required to build an actual resume. He may win a second term and prove himself more Clinton than Carter. However, even Clinton’s Presidency – for all its admitted right-center accomplishments – is as easily viewed a disappointment for the progressive reforms it never realized.

“No guts, no glory,” is what Paterno might tell Obama if the President played for him. Obama certainly entered his Presidency with a reputation for being Joe Cool. However, as Paterno illustrates, he could leave it with a far less desirable reputation. And once a B.M.O.C. losses trust, his aura of coolness . . . he is finished.

The Penn State Board of Trustees has sent Paterno to the showers. Whatever treatment he receives there is likely to be better than that received by the ten year old boy whose welfare he ignored. As for Obama, he has a year in which to prove to voters that he is more than the average Joe.

Goldfish Syndrome

2011-11-07T15:23:00.001-05:00

Maybe the Lack of Leadership We Perceive Is Due to a Lack of Followers

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou will be leaving office, following a no-confidence vote in parliament. The affair has thrown his already beleaguered nation into even more chaos. The vote resulted from Papandreou’s startling decision to subject a bailout deal negotiated with the European Union to a public referendum, followed by his equally abrupt decision to withdraw the referendum. These twin moves were like political shock and awe on the Greek parliament, Greece’s EU neighbors, and the world economy.

“We are like goldfish, waiting with our mouths open,” lamented writer Petros Tatsopoulos on Greek television, about the ongoing drama.

Carassius auratus auratus –
the common goldfish

Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson sees it as a microcosm of poor leadership in response to harsh economic realities across the planet. “The global economy is faltering and no country has assumed leadership in organizing recovery. There is a loss of control, a vacuum of power,” he frets. “Time was when the United States automatically assumed the leadership role . . . [but] America’s capacity and desire to lead have flagged.”

In many ways, Papandreou’s ill-advised maneuver was not surprising to me. Last Sunday, the center-left Greek newspaper To Vima reported that a majority of Greeks viewed the EU bailout deal negatively. Papandreou was making a desperate populist bid to save his political hide. It failed because different concerns motivated parliament, including his own Socialist Party, than those motivating the public.

When politicians are out of sync with the public, conventional wisdom usually puts the blame on politicians. In this case, the Greek public is out of sync with reality. The EU bailout is not so much an escape as sufficient forgiveness of Greek loans as to allow that country to solve its debt problems with hard work. However, the Greek public has made it abundantly clear they do not want to undertake that hard work and they hate the EU for making them face it.

It is unlikely that the European Union hates Greece any less than Greece hates it at this point. However, the EU is in sync with reality and appreciates a default by Greece would prove far too damaging in today interconnected world. In contrast, the Greek people cannot see beyond the fishbowl of their own selfish concerns. They float at the top of that bowl, mouths agape, watching national events that seem almost alien to them and unwilling to participate in any solution beyond griping about government.

Some might argue that government has imposed the fishbowl upon them and Greece would do much better in the wild (i.e. free markets and default). The real problem, in my opinion, is isolation. Carp are a naturally gregarious species, as far as fish go. Fond of schooling, they seldom fight or compete in ways that harm one another. Goldfish may still retain these qualities but get little chance to practice them when swimming alone in their small bowls.

The situation is no different here at home than in Greece. Both Parties agree unemployment is a huge problem facing this country. Two job stimulus bills proposed by President Obama have died in the Senate. The latest failed, in part, because Senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, felt their personal conservative principles could not allow them to vote with the rest of the Party they normally caucus. Fifteen jobs bills passed by the Republican House have died in the same Senate because Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada places partisanship above negotiation and compromise.

If you hope for salvation from a Third Party, the current candidates are uninspiring. Occupy Wall Street is a fledgling movement that is still too preoccupied over its outrage about problems to construct and offer solutions. Its lack of leadership is a point of pride for its members. The Tea Party is a more mature movement but stresses small government and individual liberties so absolutely that they seem to see constructing metaphorical fishbowls as the solution to most national or global problems.

David Brooks summarized the situation nicely in the New York Times. “The United States is a country that has received many blessings, and once upon a time you could assume that Americans would come together to take advantage of them. But you can no longer make that assumption.”

In this sense, I agree that we suffer from a lack of leadership but not necessarily from a lack of leaders. There is a plethora of idea offered from both sides of the political spectrum. What we appear to be suffering from, in my opinion, is a dearth of followers. The latter is just as critical an input for leadership, after all.

Great leaders inspire others to follow them. In this case, Samuelson notes how “leaders can emphasize policies that encourage recovery and reject policies that retard it. Demonstrated leadership instills confidence that accelerates economic expansion.” Yet I wonder how easily any familiar leader – contemporary or historical – would fare with most modern Western societies.

The old saw runs that a leader without followers is just a guy out taking a walk. Conversely, I maintain that a school of carp that can not/will not swim together is nothing but a lot of goldfish in fishbowls. Our desire for results and benefits combined with our lack of will to commit, bear burdens, and even endure hardships leaves me thinking that far too many of us, like the Greeks, suffer from goldfish syndrome. Perhaps the time has come for us to stop waiting, shut our mouths, and learn to start swimming together again.

Learning To Owe

2011-10-31T11:59:00.000-04:00

The Cost of Education Is Crushing the Opportunity We Mean It to Provide

The Occupy Wall Street movement has no formal goals but several consistent memes have emerged among the crowd demonstrations in various cities across the country. Most of these have to do with the concentration of wealth and the collusion/corruption between big business and government. However, a more selfish trend also has surfaced among the demonstrators – many want their college student loans forgiven.

A small, informal survey among New York protestors last week by equity research analyst David Maris found ninety-three percent of them advocated student-loan clemency. This idea actually is neither original to OWS nor unique among its members.

Sign bewailing large student loan debt
from one Occupy Wall Street protestor

New York University Professor Andrew Ross recently proposed a radical solution to student loan debts the he calls “A Pledge of Refusal.” The idea requires those who owe to sign a pledge to stop making payments on their student loans once the pledge garners a million signatures. Meanwhile, an online petition supporting student loan forgiveness has collected over a half million signatures.

President Obama announced a plan last week to provide student loan relief. First, he is reducing the maximum repayment on student loans from fifteen percent of discretionary annual income to ten percent. Second, he will allow borrowers to combine loans from the Family Education Loan Program with direct government loans, with a lower consolidated interest rate. Obama plans to use his Executive authority to bypass Congress for this program.

Democratic Representative Hansen Clarke of Michigan wants to go even further. He has introduced legislation (H.R. 365) that includes creating incentives for banks to negotiate with distressed lenders, providing tax credits for education expenses and student loan debt, and making more private student loans eligible for discharge in bankruptcy proceedings.

Both Obama’s and Clarke’s solutions fall short of general clemency but protestors are unlikely to obtain this remedy. A Rasmussen poll found only twenty-one percent of American adults in favor of blanket forgiveness as contrasted to sixty-six percent opposed. Many feel clemency would be unfair to lenders as well as those borrowers who repaid their student loans. At worst, they write off OWS protestors and other advocates for loan forgiveness as spoiled, lazy slackers who expect a free ride.

Such epithets are unfair, counters conservative columnist Nicholas Kristoff this week in the New York Times. “While alarmists seem to think that the movement is a ‘mob’ trying to overthrow capitalism, one can make a case that, on the contrary, it highlights the need to restore basic capitalist principles like accountability.” Kristoff goes on to deplore how “some financiers have chosen to live in a government-backed featherbed. Their platform seems to be socialism for tycoons and capitalism for the rest of us . . . they can privatize profits while socializing risk.”

Representative Clarke concurs that most protestors “are not asking for [a bailout]. They are simply asking for a system that is not rigged against them.” When big bankers and investment firms can make poor decisions without suffering obvious consequences, then the motivation for individuals requesting similar absolution may not be admirable but it is understandable.

While the current crop of students and recent graduates may be whining about the problem more than past generations, they face an objectively bigger problem. This year, the average borrower graduating from a four-year college left school with roughly $24,000 of student debt, with ten percent facing debt of $40,000 or more, according to the College Board. Total student loan debt will exceed $1 trillion this year and it now exceeds outstanding credit card debt, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Only seven percent of graduating bachelor’s degree holders come from the bottom quarter of income earners, as compared to twelve percent back in 1970. Intended as relief and opportunity for the distressed poor, student loans have become an unavoidable middle class reality. In addition, a series of laws passed by Congress last decade have increased the difficulty of discharging debt, including student loans, through bankruptcy.

The website College Scholarships reports on several programs that forgive or reduce student loan debt for graduates willing to work in high need/disadvantaged areas. The problem is such programs are limited to highly targeted professions, such as nurses, attorneys, and teachers. What is more, they often require a minimum of five years experience. Traditionally, graduates take such jobs immediately after graduation to acquire experience, when they are most inclined to social activism and less acclimated in their lifestyles to larger salaries.

I attended college for six years, ultimately earning a master’s level degree in 1984. I won several scholarships, based on merit; qualified for several grants, based on need; and I worked. In spite of this, I fell short of the necessary money for tuition and books on a couple of occasions. I took out a couple of federal student loans to make up the difference that I was able to repay within a few years of graduation.

Contrast my experience with that of Robert Applebaum, who graduated from Fordham Law School in 1998 with about $65,000 in debt. After going to work as an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn, his salary forced him to put his student loans in “forbearance,” which prevents default but allows continued accrual of interest. Applebaum began repaying his loans upon leaving the DA’s office in 2004 but remains $88,000 in debt today.

Tommaso Boggia is an MPA candidate at Presidio Graduate School and an advocate for student loan clemency. He writes at the website Triple Pundit, “Regardless of work ethic, more and more middle class families are slipping into poverty, in part because of the heavy debt burden of house ownership and of pursuing a higher education degree . . . A whole generation is seeing their plans and ambitions shackled by the extra weight of their student loan payments. These young people are unable to buy a home, start a family, or do the socially important but underpaid jobs in the social services sector.”

In the post-World War II era, a college education was the chief means by which children from working poor families could leapfrog into the middle class or even affluence. Increasingly, however, the cost of this requirement is becoming the very thing holding them back from the opportunities promised by the American Dream.

The most cited reason for exploding debt is the ever-increasing cost of college. Average in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges rose an additional eight point three percent in 2001 alone, passing $8,000/year ($17,000/year with room and board). In addition, the American Council on Education notes that budget cuts and other austerity measures have reduced state appropriations to higher education by eighteen percent over the last three years.

Richard Vedder, Director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and author of the book Going Broke by Degree – Why College Costs Too Much, maintains that we are looking at the problem exactly backwards. Writing in the National Review, he argues that just as an abundance of easily obtainable, low interest mortgages spurred the housing bubble that caused the 2008 financial crisis, “Arguably, federal student financial assistance is creating a second bubble in higher education.”

Vedder also points out that government doles out loans without discrimination to a student’s prospects of success in college, despite the fact that over forty percent of those pursuing a bachelor’s degree fail to receive one within six years, or chances of success after college, regardless of whether a student’s field of study offers poor versus good job/career availability. During a 2011 PBS NewsHour appearance, Vedder argued American society must “open up opportunities for people to consider a variety of different options after high school, one of which is college, but there are many others.”

Most of us may not agree with those advocating total clemency for student loan debt. While this solution may be overly simplistic and impractical, it seems clear that some reforms are necessary – whether the efficiencies proposed by Obama, the incentives proposed by Clarke, or Vedder’s more draconian measures toward higher education in general. It also means we need to give OWS protestors and other loan forgiveness advocates more credit for identifying a real, substantive, and systemic problem beyond their selfish interests.

If we value an education for our children as much as we claim, our society has to find a way to re-engineer it back from the crushing burden it has become to more of the opportunity we aspire it to be. Right now, the main thing we are teaching our kids is learning to owe. This is neither opportunity nor American exceptionalism.

A Deficiency Of Sunlight

2011-10-20T13:02:00.001-04:00

Whether We View the Shalit Exchange as a Good Deal for Israel Depends on What We Decide We Value Most

Gilad Shalit finally returned home this week. Hamas militants captured Shalit inside Israel during a 2006 cross-border raid and imprisoned him in a secret underground location within the Gaza Strip for the past five years. Crowds in his hometown of Mitzpe Hila cheered his return. Initial exams indicated Shalit was in stable medical condition but still suffered from untreated shrapnel wounds received during his capture as well as complications from a deficiency of sunlight.

Israel had been negotiating with Hamas for Shalit’s release since his imprisonment. Egypt finally brokered a deal that exchanged him for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. On one side, Shalit’s family had spent years doggedly pushing for his release. On the other side, families of victims of the released Palestinians attempted to block the deal, arguing it thwarted justice. The Israeli supreme court decided to block the challenge, opening the door for Shalit’s return.

Freed soldier Gilad Shalit (center) is greeted by
Prime Minister Netanyahu upon his arrival in Israel

Cheering crowds in Gaza and the West Bank met the Palestinians exchanged for Shalit. The Arab world was thrilled, not only for their return but because it feels Hamas won big on this deal. “Israel was forced to pay the price,” crowed Khaled Mashaal, supreme leader of Hamas. In contrast, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu grimly called the swap, “the best possible agreement that we could have obtained.”

The deal certainly was lopsided in terms of sheer numbers. In exchange for a single soldier of its own, Israel agreed to release over a thousand Palestinians – four hundred forty-seven immediately and another five hundred fifty in two months from now.

More galling, many of those released were far worse than innocent bystanders rounded up by Israeli security forces for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Among those already released was Yehya Al-Sinwar, a Hamas militant given three life sentences and an additional thirty years for killing Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel. Others include Nasser Yatayma, involved in the 2002 suicide bombing of the Park Hotel in the city of Netanya that killed thirty people, and Ahlam Tamimi, involved in a 2001 Jerusalem pizzeria suicide bombing that killed fifteen people.

In fairness, the Palestinians also backed off from some of their initial demands. As a result, several terrorist architects, such as Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah ringleader of the savage Second Intifada, and Abbas Sayyad, organizer of the 2002 Passover attack on the Park Hotel, remain behind bars.

Before turning him over to Israeli officials, Egypt forced Shalit to do a controversial – some would say outrageous and disgusting – television interview, in which he was surrounded by many of the militants who had held him prisoner. At one point during the interview, Shalit said, “I really hope that this deal advances peace and not more military conflicts and wars between Israel and the Palestinians.” The Obama Administration also has expressed this wan hope.

However, all fear what Rainer Sollich, Middle East Bureau Chief for Deutsche Welle, recently wrote as the most likely outcome. “The opposite could happen. Hamas feels as if it is the victor in this unequal deal. Its militant course is being strengthened and encouraged . . . It wins back fighters. It gains political significance – and popularity.” An editorial in today’s Washington Post judges the deal will only “inject more poison into an already bitter standoff.”

A poll carried out by the Dahaf Institute and published Monday in the daily Yediot Ahronot showed an overwhelming seventy-nine percent of Israelis support the deal. Yet few are happy about it, beyond Shalit’s return. Many conservative Jews, inside and outside Israel, view it as anathema.

“One must sympathize with the Schalit family and the agony it endured ,” concedes Steven Goldberg, a Los Angeles trial lawyer in Frontpage Magazine. “Prime Minister [Netanyahu] and his Cabinet, however, have a more profound responsibility,” he goes on to reprimand. “They were obligated to resist emotional appeals and instead safeguard the people of Israel as a whole. They have failed abysmally . . . [This deal] will now mark our craven surrender to evil, to the shame of Israel and the entire Jewish nation.”

His colleague, Steven Plaut, an Associate Professor of Business Administration at the University of Haifa, goes even further in his condemnation. “It was a symbolic acquiescence by Israel to the terrorist point of view that has always insisted, much like the German Nazis, that murdering Jews is legitimate because Jewish life just ‘does not count,’ because Jews are sub-human.”

Nonsense, counters Hirsh Goodman, long-time Israeli journalist in the Jerusalem Post. “This is not about price . . . What it is about is that Israel never leaves a wounded soldier in the field, that its service men and women know – even if they are kept in the darkest dungeon, deep underground, no matter where – at home no effort will be spared to get them back.”

American jurist and political commentator Alan Dershowitz agrees. Writing at both Newsmax and the Huffington Post, he notes, “An important goal of terrorists is to force democracies to surrender their humanistic values.” Israel was not appeasing terrorists with this deal but courageously standing up for a cherished value, even at great political cost.

It is true that this deal may embolden Hamas to kidnap more Israelis. However, P. David Hornik, a freelance writer and translator in Beersheva Israel, shrugs that such “danger is inherent in being a Jewish, non-Muslim state in the Middle East, and fundamental to coping with it is a solidarity that goes to the deepest level of Israel’s ethos of survival in a hostile environment.”

Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain recently got himself into some hot water over the Shalit affair as the result of an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Blitzer posed a hypothetical in which freeing an American soldier held captive for five years by terrorists meant, “ya gotta free everybody at Guantanamo Bay . . . could you see yourself as President authorizing that kind of transfer?” While stipulating he would have to consider the situation carefully, Cain replied, “I could see myself authorizing that kind of transfer . . . I can make that call if I had to.”

Fellow candidates Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachman piled on Cain for his remarks during their debate in Las Vegas. Cain was flustered and began backpedaling. “I would have a policy that we do not negotiate with terrorists. We have to lay that principle down first . . . Now, then you have to look at each individual situation and consider all the facts.”

Then, in a post-debate interview with Anderson Cooper, Cain stated he had misspoken. He insisted he would always have a policy of not negotiating with terrorists and therefore would never swap a captured American soldier for Gitmo detainees.

Hirsh would lump Cain as part of “the real problem,” along with Moshe Ya’alon, Israel’s Minister for Strategic Affairs and former career military officer, who was one of only three cabinet ministers voting against the Shalit exchange. He wonders what message this sent to Israel’s other soldiers. “Somehow I’m more worried about that, than not having to feed 1,000 terrorists three times a day,” he wryly concludes.

Faisal Al Qasim, a Syrian journalist, makes a similar argument. He refers to the Palestinians released in exchange for Shalit as “Shallots,” a colloquial Arabic word meaning “cheap shoes” and applied as a metaphor for things with little or no value.

“Why have the whole world including many Arab leaders been so busy trying to free Shalit when there are tens of thousands of Arab 'Shalloots' languishing in Israeli and other prisons unnoticed?” he opines in Gulf News. “Why are they so cheap and unimportant? . . . Have you ever seen an Arab government organizing a campaign to release one of its nationals from a foreign jail? . . . Have you ever seen an Arab government trying to get one of its citizens out of Guantanamo Bay camp? Not really. Have you ever seen an Arab regime trying to get its captives out of Israeli prisons? Forget about it.”

With this deal, Israel’s government sent the message that the life of one soldier was worth a thousand lives to them. In return, Hamas and Fatah sent the message that the lives of a thousand soldiers were worth nothing to them beyond the political hegemony they could buy. In a region where recent Arab Spring demonstrations suggest the common people desire and demand governments that respect their basic dignity, this deal may not be the complete triumph the Palestinian leadership wants to spin.

What implications does all this hold for the U.S. with our all-volunteer military? We expect soldiers to climb and stand guard atop the wall that separates us from our enemies. That climb might be all whole lot easier if each soldier knew their country was willing to sacrifice nearly as much for them as they are for it. Or is the message we mean to send that what we value most are martyrs to the justice of our cause? Because this sounds an awful lot like what the terrorists preach.

We all love democracy and we all support our troops but maybe this needs to be brought out into the glare of scrutiny to determine what these things really mean what we really value most. It is just possible that right now it is suffering from a deficiency of sunlight.

The Flavor of Nuance

2011-10-18T10:34:00.000-04:00

Cain versus Romney on Boldness, Simplicity

Mitt Romney said something in last week’s GOP debate that I liked very much. Romney, of course, is the candidate many Republican voters seem to agree has the experience and competence to be President but around whom the hard-right core cannot bring itself to coalesce. They doubt the authenticity of his conservative credentials. It is not Romney’s head that gives them trouble nor even his Mormon soul (saving some Evangelical Christians); it is his heart and gut.

As a result, other Republican hopefuls keep generating all the attention, at least temporarily. First, Michele Bachman raised Tea Party hopes high but simply seemed to wither away into irrelevance. Next, Newt Gingrich self-destructed before he could even get started. Then, Rick Perry exploded onto the scene, leapfrogging over Romney in the polls. He too quickly faded under media scrutiny and attacks from his rivals.

Hermain Cain (left) holds forth as
Mitt Romney (right) listens at the
GOP debate in New Hampshire

The new aspiring champion for the far right is former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, Herman Cain. Always appreciated for his bluntness and non-political background, Cain seemed on the verge of implosion after he criticized Perry for frequenting a Texas hunting camp with a racially “insensitive” appellation.

However, Perry’s fading reputation and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s decision not to run appears to have driven conservatives into Cain’s arms. First, a PPP poll showed Cain leading Romney in Iowa, thirty percent to twenty-two percent. Then a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll placed Cain atop the GOP field, with twenty-seven percent, as compared to twenty-three percent for Romney and a dismal sixteen percent for Perry. Finally, an IBOPE Zogby poll declared Cain with an astonishing twenty point lead over Romney.

Among Republican voters responding to the Zogby poll, thirty-eight percent said they would vote for Cain, versus eighteen percent for Romney, if their primary were held tomorrow. The same poll shows Cain edging out Obama in the general election by a two-point margin, whereas Romney loses to Obama by a one-point margin.

Thus, the focus was all on Cain when the Republican candidates met to debate last week at Dartmouth College in Hanover New Hampshire. Much of the debate centered around Cain’s 9-9-9 plan to revive the economy and stimulate employment. And no one raised the topic more than Cain himself.

The core tenet of 9-9-9 is virtually scrapping the entire current federal tax system and replacing it with a nine percent national sales tax, nine percent corporate tax rate, and nine percent personal income tax rate. All deductions and exemption are gone. A number of economists and budget groups have criticized 9-9-9, saying it does not raise enough income and shifts the tax burden from affluent to middle and lower class payers. Cain rejects such analyses as “incorrect” because they proceed from different assumptions than his own.

Cain likes his 9-9-9- plan because it is bold. He used the word “bold” to describe it seven times during the debate. He also likes his plan because it is simple, using that term in conjunction with it on three occasions. I get the impression, listening to him, that Cain inextricably connects boldness and simplicity in his mind.

“Therein lies the difference between me, the non- politician, and all of the politicians,” he asserts. “They want to pass what they think they can get passed rather than what we need, which is a bold solution.” Much of the boldness of 9-9-9 lies in its simplicity, according to Cain. “I can explain it in a minute!”

After scrutiny of Cain’s plan throughout much of the debate, Cain used a session in which candidates could ask questions of each other to go after Romney’s plan. “The 9-9-9 plan that I have proposed is simple, transparent, efficient, fair, and neutral,” he avowed. “My question is to Governor Romney. Can you name all fifty-nine points in your 160 page plan, and does it satisfy that criteria of being simple, transparent, efficient, fair, and neutral?”

The implications were obvious. Cain was offering a bold and simple plan that would get things done and would be understandable by all. Romney’s plan, in contrast, would be yet another law that legislators would need to vote for without truly comprehending or possibly even fully reading. Simple = good, complex = bad. This is a message that resonates powerfully and positively with many hard right Republican voters.

In response, Romney said something I liked very much. He did not attempt to evade the question, despite its potentially damning inference with the GOP core. Instead, he replied, “Herman, I have had the experience in my life of taking on some tough problems. And I must admit that simple answers are always very helpful, but oftentimes inadequate. And in my view, to get this economy going again, we're going to have to deal with more than just tax policy.”

As Gail Collins of the New York Times describes it, Romney then “whipped out the seven pillars of Romneyism, which support the fifty-nine points and can, therefore, be packed into one thirty second response.”

I do not mean to suggest that I think Herman Cain is stupid or naïve as a political candidate. As a new piece in The Atlantic points out, this is actually Cain’s second political race. He first ran in Georgia's 2004 Republican Senate primary. He ultimately lost that race to current Senator Johnny Isakson but he put up a surprisingly tough fight as a battling political outsider.

Stuart Stevens, a current Romney advisor who served as a consultant to Isakson in 2004 admits of Cain, “He scared the heck out of us.” Atlanta-based Republican strategist Tom Perdue concedes Cain entered that race “naive about politics” but grew much shrewder politically as a result.

I also do not mean to argue that Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is doomed to failure or Romney’s fifty-nine point plan is genius and clearly better. However, I definitely appreciate Romney’s nuanced view of tax policy and governance in general over Cain’s bold and simple approach.

Cain is correct that legislators are often wrong in settling too quickly for legislation just because it can pass and/or will not hurt them politically. On the other hand, what struggling Americans do not need right now is more easy-to-read legislation that cannot possibly pass Congress.

Maximizing simplicity is a virtue but not if done at all costs. You can explain nuclear physics sufficiently well in non-technical language to allow many workers without advanced engineering degrees to help run a nuclear power plant. However, this does not mean that nuclear physics or power plants are inherently simple. These are not areas in which unchecked boldness is desirable.

Cain asked Romney a leading question. Romney replied with a brave, thoughtful, grown-up answer. Cain counter response – “So, no, it is not simple, is what you are saying?” – would be quite the zinger on a high school junior varsity debate team but seems a little juvenile in Presidential politics.

Over the weekend, Cain finally gave in to evaluations by the Wall Street Journal and other sources by admitting, “Some people will pay more” under his plan. However, he refused to address concerns about the effects of his national sales tax when combined with similar state and local consumption taxes, arguing this was “muddying the water.”

As he attempts to avoid the fate of Bachman, Gingrich, and Perry, Cain deflects queries about himself as the latest GOP craze by joking, “No, there's a difference between the flavor of the week and Häagen-Dazs black walnut because it tastes good all the time.” The implication is that Cain is venerable black walnut. Unfortunately, ABC News did a little fact-checking and discovered Häagen-Dazs no longer makes black walnut ice cream. Cain is not the flavor of the week; he is a non-existent flavor.

Cain needs to eschew his fondness for the flavors of boldness and simplicity. While the opposite of simplicity can be (unnecessary) complication, “simple” is also the opposite of “intelligent,” “sophisticated,” “scrupulous,” and “mature.” These latter are not such bad qualities in a President. Cain’s audacity to take big bites from his political ice cream cone does carry the risk of accompanying brain freeze. More to the point, he needs to train his palate to appreciate the flavor of nuance.

One Man's Mob, One Man's Democracy

2011-10-13T09:37:00.000-04:00

Revolution or Not, Let the Occupy Wall Street Protestors Holler

What is one to make of Occupy Wall Street? The demonstrations began in New York City’s Zuccotti Park and subsequently spread to over seventy cities across the United States. Proponents hail them as a spontaneous, grassroots, populist revolution – the left’s version of the Tea Party, the U.S. version of the Arab Spring. Critics call them disorganized mobs, dupes, socialists, and un-American.

The movement began as the brainchild of the Adbusters Media Foundation, a left-wing Canadian organization. During the summer of 2011, they suggested peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate influence on democracy, the growing wealth gap, and the lack of repercussions/reforms for some of the largest perpetrators in the global financial crisis and subsequent economic downturn.

Occupy Wall Street protestors
in New York City

Other leftist groups pitched in to provide funding and infrastructure support. US Day of Rage, an Internet-based concern spread the initial word. Anonymous, another cyber-based collective promoting civil disobedience, subsequently did the same. MoveOn.org has provided financial backing. The NYC General Assembly, an assortment of activists, artists, and students, did most of the organization and planning on the ground in New York. However, the bottom line is that the movement remains highly decentralized and disjointed, with no one person or group in charge.

That incoherence extends to the groups goals/demands. According to Adbusters, the “one demand” of the protests is for President Obama to “ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington.”

Not unexpectedly, additional demands have arisen that are as diverse as each demonstration site and individual protestor – including those running the gamut from inane to offensive. However, several serious demands have emerged as trends among demonstrators, including raising taxes on the rich and corporations, ending corporate welfare, support for union, and protecting Medicare and Social Security benefits.

Influential supporters likening the protests to the Tea Party include Vice-President Joe Biden and former Democratic Senator from Wisconsin Russ Feingold, who stated, “This is like the Tea Party – only it’s real . . . By the time this is over, it will make the Tea Party look like . . . a tea party.”

Such judgments are hopelessly premature. If Occupy Wall Street is the left’s version of the Tea Party, it is akin to that movement in its earliest stages of angry rallies and town hall meetings. It is also far from spontaneous. Just as Tea Party funding and other support can be traced back to traditional right wing organization, so traditional left-wing organization and funding catalyzed and maneuvered this movement.

On the other hand, much like the Tea Party, the organizers would not have met with success, in terms of turnout and durability of the demonstrations, if they had not tapped into some type of grassroots, populist sentiments. And much like the Tea Party’s sponsors, the instigators behind Occupy Wall Street have already found their creation evolving into something beyond their initial vision and subsequent ability to control.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Republican Presidential aspirant Herman Cain forwarded an accusation expressed by others that the protests were “planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama Administration.” Cain conceded he “[didn’t] have facts” to back up this charge.

Even if true, the reality is that demonstrators bear little resemblance to an Obama political rally. A survey conducted by New York Magazine found sixty-two percent of protestors expressed sentiments ranging from frustration to outright disappointment in the President. Over a quarter said they “never believed in him” as compared to only one percent who backed him unequivocally.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor articulated a common theme by expressing concerns about protestors as “growing mobs” who condoned “pitting Americans against Americans.” Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney characterized the occupations as “dangerous” and “class warfare,” while Herman Cain termed them “anti-capitalist.” While the New York Magazine survey found a third of the protestors considered capitalism “inherently immoral” and beyond saving, a plurality believed it to be fundamentally good but requiring better regulation.

As journalist and commentator Roland Martin opined on CNN, “Conservatives call this an assault on capitalism. No, Occupy Wall Street is about trying to bring some decency and honesty back to an industry that used to have some.”

Personally, I do not side with those that suggest the movement must gain a more coherent message in order to survive. While some tightening up is preferable and probably inevitable, the underlying concern(s) are already clear.

“Anyone who says he has no idea what these folks are protesting is not being truthful,” asserts media theorist Douglas Rushkoff, also on CNN. “Whether we agree with them or not, we all know what they are upset about and we all know that there are investment bankers working on Wall Street getting richer while things for most of the rest of us are getting tougher . . . [they aim] to force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the current economic system is broken.”

When Herman Cain derided protestors as misguided, scolding them, “Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself,” he drew an admonishment from fellow Republican Ron Paul. “The system has been biased against the middle class and the poor . . . the people losing jobs, it wasn't their fault that we've followed a deeply flawed economic system.”

I also cannot agree with characterizations of demonstrations as unruly mobs. Reuters recently reported, “One of the hallmarks of the protests has been the relative lack of violence . . . the uprising has been relatively tame compared to the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999 or the Free Trade Area of the Americas protests in Miami in 2003.”

While I agree with those who argue Occupy Wall Street must find still more sources of non-corporate funding to perpetuate and grow, I suggest it needs to add age to its ranks at least as much as it does cash to its coffers. Youth is a demographic that traditionally seldom commands attention/influence or demonstrates protracted commitment. The initial protestors were largely young adults who had often never voted. Diversity has increased but it remains too early to decide if it can/will reach a critical mass that ensures viability.

Others have expressed the legitimate concern that Occupy Wall Street’s agenda, such as one exists, does not address some of the root causes of the financial meltdown. David Brooks of the New York Times expressed surprising frustration with the demonstrators in his October 11 column, arguing they were essentially sweating the small stuff, causing a political circus and once again resulting in missed opportunity for attempts at serious reforms. He terms the demonstrators “milquetoast radicals” for this reason.

I say “surprising” because if this movement has anything in common with the Arab Spring demonstrations that Brooks so admires, it would be the way protestors are attempting to express, albeit imperfectly, “universal aspirations for dignity, for political systems that listen to, respond to and respect the will of the people.” It will come about in this case by disentangling government from the corrupting influence of big money.

Peter Cohan, venture capitalist and author, argues in Forbes that Occupy Wall Street could have important and long-reaching impacts. “To limit corporate malefaction, we must limit the reach of corporate cash. If OWS inadvertently achieves that aim, society will continue to enjoy the benefits of the corporate state with fewer of its costs.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, responded to what he termed Eric Cantor’s “hypocrisy unbound” for disdaining Occupy Wall Street while celebrating the Tea Party. “I can't understand how one man's mob is another man's democracy,” said Carney. “I think both are expressions that are totally consistent with the American democratic tradition.”

I am highly skeptical that Occupy Wall Street will become the social revolution its progressive masterminds desire. Yet I see no reason to fear it as such either. At best, protestors are lighting the first small candles against a very big and inky darkness. If this is the case, let them shine! At worst, protestors are just cursing against the darkness. If this is the case, let them holler!

If protestors – whether Tea Partiers or Occupy Wall Street “hippies” – are really the start of a revolution, then the wisdom of former President John Kennedy in a 1962 White House speech comes to mind. “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Let them holler!

The Tyrants of Goodness

2011-10-10T10:15:00.000-04:00

Jobs and Shuttlesworth Remind Us That Results Come at a Price

The deaths of two men were in the news last week. Everybody has heard of one of them. Steve Jobs, a co-founder of Apple Computer and its long time CEO, died at age fifty-six from pancreatic cancer. The other is less known. Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and long time civil rights demonstrator, died at age eighty-nine from old age and declining health resulting from a stroke suffered four years earlier.

There would not seem to be much in common, at first glance, between the white, middle-aged techno-wonk and elderly African American activist. Yet they had many qualities in common. Both were courageous visionaries, transforming whatever they touched. They were fearless and tough champions who earned respect from both colleagues and opponents. And both were widely regarded as being . . . well, assholes . . . a lot of the time.

The late Steve Jobs, Apple CEO and
inventor, and the late Reverend Fred
Shuttlesworth, civil rights activist

Shuttlesworth was a pastor his entire adult life, starting in 1953 at the Bethel Baptist Church of Birmingham Alabama, his hometown. In 1961, he moved to my hometown of Cincinnati Ohio, where he was pastor at Revelation Baptist Church and later Greater New Light Baptist Church until his retirement in 2006. He was an important leader in the early civil rights movement against segregation in the Old South, although he was eventually eclipsed by others, most notable the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

He often rubbed people the wrong way. He routinely used confrontation, antagonizing officials and even breaking what he felt were unjust laws in order to draw attention to problems. He endured attacks and beating numerous times in the early years of his activism and hundreds of jailings during his life. This not only earned him the enmity of white separatists but also troubled those who cherished propriety, including many in the black middle class.

Shuttlesworth repeatedly invited – some would say, “hounded” – King to visit Birmingham because of its repressive police force. King finally did and was subsequently arrested in the March on Birmingham. This was exactly according to plan. Shuttlesworth was the architect behind Project Confrontation, commonly known as Project C. This initiative stressed staged sit-ins, the release of politically charged manifestos, and other tactics to garner national awareness about racial injustice.

In his 1963 book, Why We Can't Wait, King hailed Shuttlesworth as “one of the nation's most courageous freedom fighters . . . a wiry, energetic and indomitable man.” Yet Shuttlesworth’s aggressiveness also aggravated King and he routinely strove to keep him at arm’s length. When he traveled to accept his Nobel Peace Prize one year later, Shuttlesworth was not included in his entourage, although King later insisted this was an oversight.

Shuttlesworth said his move to Cincinnati was an attempt to escape controversy but he continued his confrontational ways. He almost immediately began fighting with the congregation at his first ministry that led to a church split a few years later. He later immersed himself in a labor dispute between local grocery retailer Biggs and its employees. Shuttlesworth criticized the company for keeping out union organizers and providing weak 401(k) retirement and health insurance benefits.

He became president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which he had helped found, in 2004. The organization's board suspended Shuttlesworth without comment a mere three months later after a dispute over a longtime official fired by him.

Shuttlesworth responded to criticisms against him by criticizing right back. He remained cheerfully unrepentant and unconcerned over any feathers he ruffled by his words and deeds. “Confrontation is not bad,” he once reflected. “Goodness is supposed to confront evil.”

Steve Jobs was as famous for being obnoxious as he was for being brilliant. That brilliance resulted in credit for him as “co-inventor” on over a hundred high-tech patents. Jobs was the “idea guy” in an industry filled with other highly educated, dazzling intellects. He pushed his designers and engineers to create products whose final use only he could fully envision. He often said he was as proud of his decisions to scrap products as his decision to champion his successes to market. His mood swung as frequently and broadly as his decisions.

When he announced his resignation as Apple CEO earlier this year, journalist Joe Nocera penned an appreciation in the New York Times that, in addition to numerous glowing accolades, described Jobs as “arrogant, sarcastic . . . paranoid . . . He was not a consensus-builder but a dictator who listened mainly to his own intuition. He was a maniacal micromanager . . . He could be absolutely brutal in meetings.”

Les Chapman, a New Zealand engineer who worked at Apple in the late 1970s and early 1980s, agrees Jobs was a “difficult bugger to work with.” A 2008 profile of Jobs by CNN-Money natters, “He oozes smug superiority . . . No CEO is more willful, or more brazen, at making his own rules, in ways both good and bad.”

Stanford Management Science Professor Robert Sutton, who discusses Jobs in his 2007 book, The No Asshole Rule, contends, “The degree to which people in Silicon Valley are afraid of Jobs is unbelievable. He made people feel terrible; he made people cry.”

Another portrait of Jobs, this one in Fortune magazine, suggests fear of him was prevalent inside Apple as well, quoting employees who understandably wished to remain anonymous. “No one greets him or says hi to him . . . I remember him walking around the campus one time and groups of people in his way would just split and let him walk through . . . Employees are careful what they do. They know some mistakes are not forgivable.”

Shuttlesworth and Jobs not only survived but flourished despite their infuriating manners for several important reasons. They had phenomenal instincts and an annoying tendency to be on the right side of important arguments. They had a kind of charisma that won them loyalty from some even as it won them resentment from others and drove still others away. Most important, they were not just highly competent leaders but game-changers, capable of transforming their respective fields and bringing glory not only to themselves but also to those around them.

Shuttlesworth’s insistence on confrontation in Birmingham certainly helped reduce the violence suffered by young black demonstrators in that city. However, its images of water hoses, attack dogs, and riot stick beatings provided graphic illustrations of just how terrible Jim Crow law enforcement could be. King’s arrest and jailing led him to compose his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. While King’s reputation already flourished, this essay helped crystallize his message and defined the entire civil rights movement.

Jobs’s designs for Apple II and Macintosh pushed the ideas that personal computers should be powerful but also affordable and easy to use. He continued that work with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, forcing ever-widening connectivity into ever-shrinking, flexible devices. He also managed to revolutionize the music recording, publishing, telecommunications, and Internet industries along the way. He launched a series of successful films as head of Pixar Studios that helped drive the entire movie industry away from scale modeling, makeup, and other traditional special effects and toward highly realistic computer animation.

In light of this, it is understandable why so many tolerated and even venerated two such petulant characters. Palo Alto venture capitalist Jean-Louis Gasse, a former Apple executive, once observed about Jobs, “Democracies don't make great products. You need a competent tyrant.” This seems true of Shuttlesworth in his field too.

Jobs and Shuttlesworth were two tyrants of goodness. They never set out principally to offend; they just did not care if it was a by-product of their true intentions, which was to make the world a better place. They both succeeded in their missions.

I shudder at a world in which every leader was like Shuttlesworth and Jobs. Consensus building and compromise are still the way modern society gets the thing done. Few of us do our best when operating constantly outside of our comfort zones.

On the other hand, these two recently departed leaders remind us that sometimes the system works best when we allow the occasional irascible iconoclast to go around it. The results Jobs and Shuttlesworth achieved came at a price but mostly to themselves and, in the right doses, a price worth paying by the rest of us for the advances they provided. They will be missed. Good assholes are not easily found.

When the Messenger Shoots the Message

2011-10-06T11:40:00.000-04:00

The Disconnect Between Obama and Obama’s Ideas Among White Voters

An old proverb suggests it is rash and unwise to shoot the messenger just because we strongly dislike the message they bear. Yet what if we strongly dislike the messenger, whatever our reasons? If we shoot too frequently and too broadly, we could end up destroying the message along with the despised courier – a message that might just as easily contain good news as bad news. The National Journal thinks this might be what white voters are doing to President Obama.

As evidence, the magazine cites its most recent United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection survey. This poll, like many others, shows Obama’s overall approval rating among white voters at a dismal thirty-five percent or lower. Whites believe Obama worsened the economy, rather than improving it, by almost a three-to-one ratio. Likewise, white voters say, also by substantial margin, that they trust Republicans over Obama to handle deficits and the economy in general.

President Obama's popularity is less
than half that of some of his proposed
policies among white voters

On the other hand, when asked to rate five Obama proposals to control deficits and create jobs against five Republican ideas, white voters displayed a clear preference for Obama’s policies, scoring four of them in the top five.

Obama’s proposals to give tax cuts to businesses hiring new employees and/or paying raises to existing ones as well as giving funds to state and local governments to prevent teacher and public safety layoffs both garnered seventy percent approval or higher. Two other proposal to assist struggling homeowners refinance at lower rates and increased federal spending to rebuild public schools and transportation infrastructure both earned sixty percent plus approval.

Top Republicans ideas were not just less popular – at times, they bordered on unpopular. A GOP proposal to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was their only one in the top five. Proposals to extend the Bush tax cuts for all earners and cut corporate tax rates just managed to win majorities of approval. Proposals to require regulators to cut at least one existing regulation for every new one passed and repealing healthcare reform received less than fifty percent approval.

Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz argues this is bad news for Republicans because it demonstrates that white voters are souring on the GOP at least as fast as they are on Obama. I agree with him on this point. However, I feel skeptical toward his further contention that 2012 will defy conventional political wisdom, with voters looking forward, rather than backward, when judging Obama as the incumbent.

Instead, I am more inclined to agree with Republican pollster Glen Bolger, who predicts preferences toward his policies will not help Obama at the ballot box if significant improvements to the economy remain unperceived by Election Day 2012.

Even if it is only an interesting side note, the question persists as to why the divide between white voters’ fondness for Obama policies versus their mistrust of him as a politician and a leader?

The answer is not racism, anti-intellectualism, or anti-elitism on the part of white voters. Neither is it because Obama’s “increasingly ill-concealed expressions of contempt” toward those who disagree with him have promoted “increasingly widespread counter-contempt” from the public, as Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal neatly concludes. Nor is it because Obama is a Democratic candidate from a traditional blue state and therefore lacks “a feel for how people in the other Party think,” as the normally sensible David Brooks weirdly surmises in the New York Times.

Racism, anti-intellectualism, and contempt are still around in modern U.S. culture. However, they are but extreme examples of a larger, subtler fear and disillusionment on the part of many white Americans. Whites feel increasingly disconnected, apathetic, and even hostile toward government because they increasingly find it harder to connect with the people now running this country.

The problem is not that Barack Obama is black or raised by a single mother. The problem is that his father was from Kenya and/or that he spent a short period during his youth living in Indonesia and being educated in an Islamic madarasaa. On the Republican side, recent demurrals to run by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin leaves conservatives facing a frontrunner in Mitt Romney who is from the liberal Northeast and a Mormon.

There is nothing wrong with any of these things in their own right – they just are not what we commonly see in Presidential candidate biographies.

White voters feel increasingly marginalized and pushed out of power. Again, this is not racism. However, it is one thing for them to learn/practice tolerance toward traditionally discriminated minority groups. It is quite another thing to accept serenely new status as a minority group themselves.

Terry Nelson, an experienced high-ranking Republican operative, concedes that while support for Obama among lower-income, less-educated white voters – never high to being with – has dropped since 2008, “The truth is, Obama needs fewer white voters in 2012 than he did in 2008.” Nelson continues, “The country is changing. In every election cycle, every year, every day, this country becomes more ethnically diverse.”

There is precedent for Obama riding this trend to victory. In 2010, Democratic Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado prevailed as a first-time candidate against a Tea Party-backed opponent by assembling a coalition of Latino voters, college-educated transplants to Colorado, and Independents.

The rise of the largely white and conservative Tea Party, with its unconcealed hostility toward government and its desire for a return to “the Founders” and the past is rooted in (subconscious) fear among white voters that government is progressively no longer theirs to choose and control in this country.

Yet there is another side to this equation. Obama’s current unpopularity is also a creature of his own breeding. Polls show a majority of voters still do not blame him for the bulk of our current economic woes. However, two and half years into his Presidency earns him significant culpability for failure to fix or improve conditions.

His missteps included drifting right to avoid charges his ideology was too left, too much trust in the opposition working with him for the good of the nation, and too much trust in the legislators of his own Party to rise above partisan posturing and pork barrel boondoggling when drafting legislation he favored. His disconnection and cool passivity dismayed his liberal base, left Independents first confused and then disenchanted, and allowed his worst critics to define most debates.

It has been some time since his re-election bid was the President’s race to loose. Sometime during the faltering economic recovery this past summer, Obama hit a new critical mass politically, such that his re-election chances passed largely, if not entirely, beyond his control and became Republicans’ race to lose.

Hence, the National Journal’s reported disconnect between the (un)popularity of Obama versus Obama policies with white voters. Always alienated from this particular messenger to some degree, his failure to improve their lives and build trust that he understood their problems/shared their values caused many whites to start firing so frequently and so broadly at Obama that they are taking out his good ideas with him. What is more, the disrespect Obama experiences is so often self-inflicted that this may well be an instance when the messenger gets shot for shooting the message.

There is much I like about Obama but I feel confident the U.S. will get along just fine without him past 2012 if things work out that way. I am less sanguine of our chances without some of his good ideas passed into law.

He Who Hesitates Stays Safe

2011-10-03T10:48:00.001-04:00

Some Recent Examples Demonstrate Why Christie Might Not Reconsider

GOP politicos are abuzz that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is reconsidering whether to throw his hat into the ring as a Republican Presidential candidate. Christie repeatedly demurred earlier this year to exhortations that he run, citing his unreadiness to be President as well as work left undone in New Jersey.

If the rumors are true, it is easy to understand why Christie might find the present moment tempting. A summer of particularly bad economic data and record low approval numbers has left President Obama looking highly vulnerable. Moreover, conservative voters continue to express dissatisfaction with the current crop of declared Republican candidates. Many GOP political analysts and big-money donors are agog over Christie as a shiny avatar with the intelligence and political shrewdness of a Mitt Romney combined with the tough-talking populism of a Tea Partier.

Republican New Jersey Governor,
Chris Christie, speaking at the
Reagan Presidential Library

Elected Governor in 2009, Christie has built a sterling political reputation over the past couple of years. His popularity within New Jersey remains high. A Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll released in September shows him with fifty-four percent approval. Although unpopular when Christie first proposed it, voters in his state have come to respect Christie’s tough measures to deal with a $2.2 billion budget deficit in 2010. Indeed, the time seems so ripe for him to run for President that some find themselves flabbergasted and dismayed by Christie’s reticence.

Christie recently traveled to California, where he gave a major address at the Ronald Reagan Library. In it, he bashed Obama for what he called a “lack of leadership,” while touting his own accomplishments in New Jersey. Yet it was a moment during a question and answer session following the speech that caught all the media sound bites.

“I really implore you,” begged a woman in the audience, “as a citizen of this country to reconsider . . . Do it. Do it for my daughter. Do it for our grandchildren. Do it for our sons. Please, sir, we need you. Your country needs you to run for President.”

In the presence of so much positive reinforcement and desperate pleading, it is surely hard for Christie to avoid the lure of his own Presidential ambitions. I will not be surprised if he shortly announces his candidacy. At the same time, I also will not be surprised if he holds fast and refuses. Some recent political examples provide him an illustrative warning of how quickly the sweet taste currently in his mouth could turn sour.

Example one – Barack Obama. Four years ago, Obama, like Christie, was two years into his term in his first office with national exposure. He was a rapidly rising star within his Party. He was highly popular, with many Democratic voters fantasizing over him running. The Republican opposition was unpopular and viewed as ineffective. The Democrats had an early frontrunner in Hillary Clinton but nobody the base was truly excited about.

Party leaders and insiders convinced him that now was the time to make his move. Many shrewd advisors felt following conventional wisdom and waiting to gain experience and gravitas would work against Obama’s chances – he was better off running at an opportune moment than as a more seasoned politician. He won in the end but constantly fighting against that conventional wisdom such that, even today, his critics insist two and a half years experience actually being President still leaves him too inexperienced to be President.

Example two – Sarah Palin. Three years ago, she was a rapidly rising GOP star, recently elected to her first office with national exposure, when John McCain tapped her as his Vice-Presidential running mate. She gave a speech at the Republican Convention that electrified the hard-right base. Political observers were left wondering if McCain had truly pulled off a game-changing move.

Several interviews and further media scrutiny resulted in consternation by the Republican establishment and downright fear and loathing among moderates and Independents. Rather than augmenting and shoring up McCain’s shaking image with hard-core conservatives, she actually detracted from his reputation among them. She opened herself to attacks on her intelligence/basic competence and some genuinely vile attacks against her family. By the time of her defeat in the 2008 election, she had become a comic caricature of the promise she once represented.

However, perhaps the most germane example to give Christie’s current ambitions pause is Rick Perry. Only about a month ago, he vaulted over Mitt Romney in Republican polling immediately after entering the race. He appeared to be a true shining Southern star and a bona fide economic and social conservative. He was charismatic and his state had amassed a reputation for creating jobs rather than the healthcare reform system from which sprang Obamacare.

A couple of disastrous debate performances in Iowa and Florida, in which his opponents used his own published words to flay him, left Perry looking distinctly less shiny. He lost his frontrunner status almost before he could enjoy it. Voters looked askance on his policies as too liberal on illegal immigration and too draconian on Social Security reform. He suffered the twin humiliations of losing to Herman Cain in a Florida straw poll and hearing his wife defending him to vouchsafe he was “going to get better.”

There are other, practical concerns working against Christie. Recent announced intentions by Florida and other states to move up their primaries and caucuses only shortens a campaign season to which he would be a latecomer. Then there is scrutiny by the press and possible derision by popular culture. Christie likes to joke self-deprecatingly about being overweight. He may soon find many laughing at him and not with him on this topic.

“The new normal” in this country may apply to more than cautious investment on the part of banks and business. Politicians need only look around to see risk-taking with almost zero chance of growth. Politicians whose shine voters initially thought emanated from an internal glow have turned out to possess mere glare when placed in the spotlight. Christie has a good thing going for himself in New Jersey and throwing it away for a shot at the Presidency may not strike him as wisdom for good reason.

Rather than the adage “He who hesitates is lost,” the new normal promotes the philosophy, “He who hesitates stays safe.” Alternatively, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, “Better to remain in Trenton and be presumed an overweight savant with certainty than take your show on the road and raise doubt you are nothing but a fat fool.”

Another Bridge to Nowhere

2011-09-28T09:48:00.000-04:00

Brent Spence and Obama Have Much in Common These Days

Boy, I bet you thought – and probably hoped – you were never going to hear the phrase “a bridge to nowhere” associated with a politician again. However, this time the span in question is not the Gravina Island Bridge in Alaska and the politician is not former Alaskan Governor and Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Instead, the politician is President Obama, who also happens to be the current Democratic Presidential candidate.

Obama was in my hometown of Cincinnati Ohio last Thursday to give a speech ostensibly promoting his latest piece of signature legislation, the American Jobs Act, aimed at reducing unemployment. The bill has almost zero chance of passing Congress, at least in anything remotely resembling its current form, for two reasons. First, it is chock-full of spending measures of a type that are anathema to most Congressional Republicans at the moment. Second, Obama is politically weak and Republican leaders, smelling blood in the water, are in frenzied attack mode.

President Obama speaking in Cincinnati Ohio
in front of the Brent Spence Bridge

In order to combat this, Obama has taken his show on the road, striking a fighting populist pose wherever he goes. His Democratic base has taken (faint) heart from his newfound aggressiveness for the first time in a very long while. Republicans have denounced the bill and this speech as “buying votes” and “political theater” respectively.

Obama set his speech in Cincinnati in order to stand beside one of our many bridges – the Brent Spence Bridge. Owned by the state of Kentucky, built in 1963, and named after a U.S. Representative from the Bluegrass State who long ago faded into obscurity, it is the viaduct over the Ohio River for Interstate 75, the second most traveled highway in the U.S. interstate system. Local leaders have been talking about replacing it with a newer, larger bridge for several years now.

“We used to have the best infrastructure in the world . . . How can we sit back and watch all these countries in Europe and Asia build newer airports and faster railroads and stronger bridges?” Obama bemoaned in his speech. “Tell Congress to pass this jobs bill right away,” was his unsurprising solution. “It will lead to jobs for concrete workers . . . jobs for construction workers and masons; carpenters and plumbers; architects and engineers,” he continued. “If you want construction workers rebuilding bridges like this one – pass this jobs bill.”

His particular choice of bridge, which Obama assured, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, was “sheer coincidence,” runs between Ohio, the home of Speaker of the House John Boehner and Kentucky, the home of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, “the two most powerful Republicans in government.” This is the chief source of the charge that Obama was engaged in pure politics. The fact that Ohio has been a pivotal swing state in recent Presidential elections does not hurt either.

Doubtless, the President’s trip and remarks related to his re-election bid and this is hardly scandalous. Any speech by any sitting politician is part re-election bid by definition. Moreover, there is a long and sometimes illustrious history of Presidents using their office as a bully pulpit to advance their Party’s partisan philosophies and/or their own political fortunes. However, those benefits should always be incidental to effective policy promotion. There is much to suggest this was not the case with Obama in Cincinnati.

First, the Brent Spence Bridge project is not mentioned anywhere in the American Jobs Act. Second, even if the federal government allocated funds for it, this is far from a shovel-ready project. Stefan Spinosa, an engineer employed by the Ohio Department of Transportation confirms replacing the Brent Spence is on his organization’s docket but it is only one of a dozen such infrastructure improvements. It is in the preliminary engineering and environmental clearance phase, with no hiring of construction workers until anywhere from 2013 to 2015.

Third, even with federal funding, local money is also required. Spinosa confirms Ohio has allocated about $27 million to date for the project. However, Chuck Wolfe, a spokesperson for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, reports his state has nothing set aside yet. On this basis and more, McConnell dismissed Obama’s entire pitch, saying, “I don't think he's fooling anyone.”

Obama got little buy-in from our local newspaper. The Cincinnati Enquirer’s headline on the day of his visit proclaimed, “Obama Visit Won't Build New Bridge.” In fairness, the next day its editorial board opined the President’s visit was worthwhile even if it created no jobs in the short-term because it drew attention to a project that has been slow at best getting started. They termed it a “fresh start to a long-term, $2.4 billion project that . . . is only going to become more expensive the longer we wait to take the first steps to actually build it.”

While infrastructure spending is both important and woefully under-funded in recent decades, the question remains if the Brent Spence Bridge is a credible poster child for the cause. The Federal Highway Administration does not consider it “structurally deficient,” meaning it is safe to drive on. Instead, they rate it “functionally obsolete,” meaning it is too narrow for the volume of traffic using it.

There is no doubt the Brent Spence has outgrown it original design of eighty-five thousand vehicles per day. It is already running at more than twice this capacity and expected to top two-hundred thousand vehicles per day within two years. Although crashes occur five times more frequently on the bridge than the surrounding highways, it ranks in the middle for crashes among functionally obsolete interstate bridges and fatalities are few.

The Brent Spence is a two-tier bridge, with southbound traffic carried on its upper deck and northbound traffic on its lower deck. It experienced its first structural problem in June of this year, when concrete from the upper deck fell onto the lower deck. However, the incident resulted in no injuries and the bridge was open for business as usual by the next day. A major construction project in 1986 expanded the Brent Spence from three lanes to four lanes on each deck.

Bottleneck situations are arguably the bridge’s biggest problem, with even minor mishaps causing backups extending seven miles or more. Commercial traffic often re-routes itself to avoid the Brent Spence, incurring additional time and expense for those employing a conduit that moves four percent of the nation’s GDP annually.

One of the honored guests at Obama’s speech was Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear. He was undoubtedly present to petition for funds to repair or replace the Sherman Minton Bridge, connecting Louisville Kentucky with New Albany Indiana. Opened in 1962 and named after a now-forgotten Supreme Court Justice from Indiana, a runaway fifteen container coal barge struck this bridge’s central pier back in 2009. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels closed it to all traffic just this month when construction crews discovered cracks in the same structure.

The subsequent traffic nightmares on both sides of the Ohio River resulting from the closure are far more severe than anything the Brent Spence experiences. In fact, the closest it came is when all of its lanes temporarily shut down as a result of . . . yeah, you guessed it . . . the President’s speech.

The Sherman Minton Bridge seems a far better setting for Obama’s remarks than the Brent Spence. At least it actually is structurally deficient, along with seventy thousand other U.S. bridges. Unfortunately, Sherman Minton is located between two states highly likely to vote red in the 2012 Presidential election. Equally unfortunate, Obama chose political theater over effective policy promotion in selecting the location for his remarks. Neither his political reputation nor his bill’s chances of passage improved as a result.

Obama has done slightly better of late in attempting to get both this nation and his Presidency moving forward again. He needs to avoid off ramps and detours of the sort he took in Cincinnati. Otherwise, the country will continue suffering its current unemployment woes as it travels on a bridge to nowhere and Obama will suffer the inglorious fate of Sherman Minton and Brent Spence – he may not be gone after 2012 but he will be already forgotten.

Panderers

2011-03-04T10:42:00.003-05:00

Reverend Phelps’s Speech Is Protected But Still Pornography

The Reverend Fred Phelps, pastor of the tiny far-right Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas is not a happy man. He and his followers believe (relative) tolerance of homosexuality within the United States displeases God so much that U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq represent divine punishment for our sins.

As a demonstration of their outrage, the Westboro congregation pickets military funerals. They hold signs and shout out slogans, such as “Thank God for dead soldiers,” “You're Going to Hell,” “God Hates the USA,” and “Thank God for 9/11.” They are scrupulous about obtaining permits and following all rules/restrictions imposed by local authorities.

Two pornographers: Larry Flynt, Hustler
magazine publisher (left) and Fred
Phelps, Westboro Baptist pastor (left)

In 2006, Phelps and his faction showed up in Westminster Maryland for the funeral of Matthew Snyder, a Marine Lance Corporal who died in a non-combat related vehicle accident in Iraq. Westboro kept a thousand feet away, as required, but they drew passionate counter-demonstrations as well as the usual media circus. As a result, heavy police presence was required to maintain order and the funeral procession ultimately needed to be re-routed.

Subsequently, Albert Snyder, Matthew’s father, inadvertently came upon a poem on the Westboro Church website attacking his wife and himself for having raised their son immorally. The poem taunted that Matthew as suffering in Hell as a result. That was too much for Snyder. He filed a lawsuit accusing Phelps of intentionally inflicting emotional distress. A federal district judge agreed, awarding Snyder $11 million for his pain and suffering.

However, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed this decision, ruling that Phelps’s First Amendment Rights trumped Snyder’s distress. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court agreed. Its 8-1 ruling in Snyder v. Phelps is consistent with its position on free speech over recent decades. Nonetheless, it is destined to go down as one of its most unpopular. Snyder spoke for a large chunk of the nation’s populace when he told reporters, “My first thought was, eight Justices don't have the common sense God gave a goat. We found out today we can no longer bury our dead in this country with dignity.”

Forty-eight state Attorney Generals, forty-two U.S. senators, and numerous veterans filed amicus briefs urging the Court to shield funerals from Westboro’s “psychological terrorism.” In his vigorous dissenting opinion, Justice Alito felt it was more than clear that Phelps was guilty of conduct “so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” The resulting distress to Snyder was “so severe that no reasonable man could be expected to endure it.”

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts argued that Westboro’s demonstration, although repugnant in content, met three important standards for protected speech. First, it occurred in a public space. Second, it was done peaceably (by Westboro) under the restrictions imposed by local authorities. Third, and perhaps most important, the group’s presence at many other funerals and public events characterized that day’s demonstration not as a specific attack on Matthew Snyder but part of ongoing public discourse over homosexual rights/tolerance within this country.

“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable,” Roberts quoted from the Court’s 1989 decision in Texas v. Johnson. “Speech is powerful,” he concluded, able “as it did here – [to] inflict great pain.” Andrew Cohen, legal analyst for The Atlantic, maintains Americans should find this decision “reassuring, not depressing.”

“If we all liked everything about what the Constitution promised, or required, or even permitted, it would be a greeting card or an anthem instead of a touchstone.”

Americans seem unconvinced. Many are livid about the intrusion of privacy that Westboro’s demonstrations impose, particularly into something as solemn as funerals and ones for heroic soldiers at that. Some liberal free speech advocates, while applauding the correctness of the decision, are skeptical of Roberts’s motives. They speculate that he and other Court conservatives were sympathetic to Phelps as a right-wing Christian attacking the harmful influence of homosexuality on mainstream American culture. They wonder whether the Court would have been so friendly to left-wing extremists.

In fact, they already have done so. In the 1988 case Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, the Court ruled 8-0 (Justice Kennedy recused himself) that a parody of Reverend Jerry Falwell by publisher Larry Flynt, which Falwell found offensive and hurtful, was protected speech. Roberts used it as a basis to establish the First Amendment could serve as a defense in suits for intentional infliction of emotional distress and referenced it repeatedly in his opinion. Perhaps he found some perverse pleasure in doing so but he was appropriate and well within his rights citing it.

Indeed, I tend to see Phelps less as a metaphorical terrorist and more along the lines of a pornographer, such as Flynt. Both men are highly political, both are attention whores, and both gained fame by distributing materials objectifying the sanctity/beauty of human life/bodies. They pander to an all-too-human weakness that draws us to perverse vulgarity even as we express moral outrage over it.

It is understandable that so many might feel the Court is in violation of common sense and common decency with their decision. Law exists to protect rights as much as promote them and Snyder seems the one in need of protection in this case. Yet what the Court was trying to do, hard as it may be to accept, is protect Snyder’s right to denounce the position of Phelps and his clan in the same specific, graphic, and unflattering terms that Westboro used during his son’s funeral, if so desired.

As Roberts wryly observed, “Westboro believes that America is morally flawed; many Americans might feel the same about Westboro.” This is why Law sometimes needs to protect us from our own “common sense.” Too often, opinions/views/ theories denounced by the majority as “obviously wrong” have subsequently proven perfectly logical and accurate if highly unpopular at the time. Unfortunately, tolerance means even pornographers sometimes receive legal protection.

It is one reason why democracy is hard, even painful sometimes. However, the answer is not to tear down the Law but to recognize pornography, while protected, as exactly what it is. By attempting to sue Westboro and losing, Snyder not only cost himself monetary expense but also gave Phelps and his lawyer daughter the opportunity to wrap themselves in the American flag as some sort of emblem for democracy.

In 2007, Phelps and his congregation traveled to York Pennsylvania and picketed the funeral of Army Private First Class Zach Clouser, after he was killed in Iraq. His mother, Deb Etheridge, found their message disgusting and hurtful. Yet she decided the best way to honor Clouser’s memory was to send a friend who thanked the them for exercising rights her son believed in and died for. The Westboro protestors responded by trampling an American flag in order to show their belief in God’s disdain.

There was no question that day over who the patriot was and who the pandering pornographer was. It is clear in my mind the Supreme Court made the right decision on Wednesday, protecting Snyder even in the midst of his immediate pain and outrage. However, it is equally clear to me that Phelps is a vile piece of shit. I thank God I live in a country where the Law protects my right to say so to as many as possible.

The Anti-Buddha

2011-02-23T11:00:00.002-05:00

Wisconsin Governor Walker Is Not a Wise Grasshopper

Some conservatives have taken to dubbing President Obama the “anti-Reagan” of late, as opposed to those branding him the Antichrist for some time now. They mean to mock suggestions by some that Obama is moving toward the center as he enters the second half of his Presidential term. I tend to agree with their evaluation. Obama strikes me as consistent in his politics and leadership style, albeit a consistency sometimes difficult to label.

However, if we are trotting out “antis” for consideration, I believe there is a new one emerging on the conservative side. I nominate Republican Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin as the “anti-Buddha” because of his intentions to limit severely the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions. It is not so much what Walker wants to achieve that earns him this sobriquet from me as the manner that he has gone about doing it.

Republican Governor Scott
Walker of Wisconsin

Walker says Wisconsin needs to do this – and I take him at his word – because of the state’s looming budget deficit. It is but part of $1.0 billion in cuts he will likely propose for next year’s budget. Walker warns fifteen hundred state workers could lose their jobs by July if the Wisconsin legislature fails to adopt his proposal.

Walker wants affected workers to accept an eight percent pay cut on average as well as significant increases to the portion of their pensions funded by themselves. Union leaders have agreed to these concessions, acknowledging the state’s dire financial straits. However, this is not good enough for Walker. He demands Wisconsin’s need to invalidate the collective bargaining agreements already in place with its public sector unions and limit their bargaining rights in the future to modest salary increases.

Walker rejected union concessions repeatedly, as well as one Wisconsin Republican Senator’s alternate plan to suspend collective bargaining rights temporarily for only two years. He maintains the bargaining process is too complicated and slow for the rapid, flexible responses necessary to solve Wisconsin’s problems. He insists this is not a political power play and his only desire is to return his state to economic sanity.

However, critics quickly find numerous ways in which his actions fail to match his words. Even as he calls on unions to share sacrifice for budget deficits, he ignores the primary reasons for their sudden burgeoning size are his recent tax cuts. In addition to limiting bargaining rights, Walker’s bill requires unions to face a vote of membership every year to remain formed and allows workers to opt out of paying dues. Most notably, he has focused his cuts on unions traditionally friendly to Democrats, such as teachers, while exempting those friendly to Republicans, such as firefighters and police.

In fairness, many conservative pundits argue convincingly that public sector unions need to concede more than pay cuts and require basic infrastructure changes. David Brooks of the New York Times, Richard Cohen and Michael Gerson of the Washington Post, and Jonathan Rauch of the National Journal have all argued recently or in the past that state and local governments are so indebted to union workers, particularly over generous pensions, it has become impossible for them to pay for critical services.

However, rather than bargain in earnest with state unions over this new reality, using legislation to outlaw collective bargaining as leverage, Walker pursued its forced reduction/elimination from the onset. This was his primary mistake, in my opinion. But why does this make him the anti-Buddha?

It is because of an underlying principle in Buddhist teachings that runs, “Learn the ways to preserve rather than destroy. Avoid rather than check, check rather than hurt, hurt rather than maim, maim rather than kill.” In the old Kung Fu television program, the main character’s Shaolin master was fond of this adage. It may sound like non-violent transcendental silliness but it is rooted in practicality, readily conceding that extreme actions are sometimes necessary.

It is also rooted in science; namely Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which states that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. Buddhism wisely concludes that when under attack by an opponent, it is usually less painful – certainly to oneself and often to one’s opponent as well – to avoid, misdirect, or deflect their force rather than attempting to meet it head on. This is the nature of Walker’s error. He needed to bring a carrot and stick to his dealings with unions. Instead, he brought a sword and came out swinging.

Whether this was a mistake on Walker’s part or he sincerely believed cost reductions are only possible by limiting the political power of unions, he was disingenuous when insisting his bill is strictly a cost-cutting measure. He and possibly Republicans in general are also likely to suffer negative political blowback from his overreach, even if they successfully pass the measure, which still seems likely to me, and even if ultimately motivated by good intentions.

In this, they may potentially share the same fate as Obama and Congressional Democrats over the passage of healthcare reform. Like Obama in that instance, Walker appears to remain serene in the wake of a “shellacking” by organized labor and other protestors. This cannot be easy. Walker and Republican Wisconsin lawmakers must feel as though descended upon by a plague of locusts. However, this is what happens when you are not a wise grasshopper.

Re-Peeling the Banana

2011-02-15T09:58:00.002-05:00

The Tea Party and the Patriot Act Create a
Conservative Clash

We have heard much lately about how Tea Partiers, like other Republican members of Congress, want to repeal healthcare reform, arguing the new law is, among other things, an unwarranted intrusion of government into private lives. Their dissatisfaction centers on its “individual mandate,” which requires people to buy health insurances from a private carrier or pay government penalties.

If Tea Partiers object to a government intrusion forcing them to buy something geared toward protecting them from financial ruin in the event of catastrophic health problem(s), then it seems as though they would object even more to government intrusions geared toward violating their privacy and possibly sending them to prison with limited Constitutional rights. As Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio recently challenged Tea Partiers on the House floor, “How about the Patriot Act, which has the broadest reach and the deepest reach of government to our daily lives?”

A cartoonist's take on the Patriot Act

Last week, a handful of freshman Tea Party legislators rose to the challenge. The House was voting on a bill to extend, for nine months, three aspects of the Patriot Act that are due to expire on February 28. The first permits court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones. The second, known as the “library records provision,” gives the FBI court-approved access to “any tangible thing” relevant to a terrorism investigation. The third, known as the “lone-wolf” provision, allows secret surveillance of non-U.S. individuals not known to be affiliated with a specific terror organization.

The House Republican leadership was so confident of passing the extension that they brought it up for vote using an expedited procedure that required a two-thirds majority for passage. The final vote of 277-148 fell just short of the necessary total, resulting in the measure’s defeat and considerable embarrassment for the GOP. About two-thirds of House Democrats voted against the measure. However, twenty-six Republicans, including seven freshman lawmakers backed by the Tea Party movement, joined them in dissent.

Winning the vote of just those seven Tea Partiers would have been enough to provide the necessary two-thirds majority for passage. The Tea Partiers objected to the Patriot Act as an unwarranted intrusion on everyday life.

The Obama Administration backed the extension. In fact, it favors extending all three provisions for three years. However, it was willing to settle for nine months as a buffer period allowing “new lawmakers to get up to speed on the issue and . . . discuss fully the usefulness of the techniques.”

President Obama has failed to deliver on a number of campaign promises and I find that I can accept most of them without significant qualms. However, I must agree with Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Constitution-Journal that Obama’s “most disappointing decisions have revolved around national security issues and his insistence on retaining [former President Bush’s] oppressive policies on terrorism.”

I have written many time in the past that I can understand need for the types of provisions that were up for vote, in order to allow law enforcement officials the flexibility and swiftness to apprehend and detain terrorism suspects before they could do harm. My chief objection to the Patriot Act, as currently written, lies with the lack of independent judicial review it provides. Simply put, the people who investigate, arrest, and jail suspected terrorists should not also be the same people who sit in judgment over them.

Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder attempted to deal with this by pushing for trials of terrorism suspects in civil courts on U.S. soil. Unfortunately, opponents used invective to stoke the public’s existing fears over this matter. Coupled with the Administration’s often half-hearted and ineffective attempts to promote the practice, Obama had already lost this battle almost before he began.

This is one reason I have become increasingly convinced that all aspects of the Patriot Act require resistance and diminishment whenever possible. I also believe the most likely reason a civilian court might reach a different outcome than a military tribunal is rejection of illegally gained intelligence/evidence by the former. It seems giving law enforcement greater leeway leads to abuses and sloppy casework far often rather than building solid cases after detainment.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently completed a study, using data collected through Freedom of Information Act requests, which concludes the FBI has committed over forty thousand intelligence violations since the September 11 attacks. It further uncovered instances of the FBI “lying in declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain grand jury subpoenas, and accessing password-protected files without a warrant.”

The recent failure to pass an extension of three provisions may be an embarrassment for Republican leaders and the White House but it is hardly a death knell for the legislation. The GOP has already re-introduced the bill under regular procedures and passed it with a simple majority. Meanwhile, the Senate has introduced multiple bipartisan bills to make the provisions permanent.

Russ Feingold, the former Democratic Senator from Wisconsin combined canny understanding for the seductive appeal of the Patriot Act with equal acumen for its potential abuses when he was the lone Senator to vote against its initial passage in October 2001. “Of course, there is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists . . . But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. And that would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America.”

Feingold was defeated last November by Republican Ron Johnson, a Tea Party-backed candidate. During the campaign, Johnson called healthcare reform “the greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime” and vowed to repeal it. I can only hope he will show the same integrity as his seven House colleagues when attempting to reconcile Senate bills extending the Patriot Act provisions with the House version.

I certainly hope he does better than President Obama. As a Senate candidate in 2003, Obama said he would vote to repeal the Patriot Act, calling it a “shoddy and dangerous law.” Now he justifies his preference for a three-year extension of some of its abuses by arguing, “This approach would ensure appropriate Congressional oversight by maintaining a sunset but the longer duration provides the necessary certainty and predictability that our nation's intelligence and law enforcement agencies require.”

I have recently argued that some nations, such as Egypt, may not be ready for abrupt, dramatic change – even change as desirable as democratic rule. The United States, on the other hand, is a well-established democracy that can survive sudden shocks. While Obama’s desire for stability is understandable, I feel it misplaced in support of a law that does so much to gut civil liberties and the Bill of Rights.

The Patriot Act is a bad banana, pure and simple. However, hope of repeal is as unlikely in this case as it for Republican seeking a total repeal of healthcare reform, even if Obama showed greater desire to try. Any banana once peeled is impossible to re-peel. The only practicable strategy at present is to continue using every opportunity to resist extending the law’s provisions and drawing attention to its liabilities. At present, this seems limited to a group of freshman Tea Party Representatives.

Demobcracy

2011-02-03T11:13:00.003-05:00

The Desire for Democracy Is Universal and Eternal; The Competence to Govern Democratically Is Not

What, oh what, should the United States do about Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak? Events unexpected in their timing and rate of progress, if not necessarily their likelihood of occurrence, have transformed him, almost overnight, from a right-wing strongman effectively quashing organized dissent for thirty years to an old man teetering on the precipice of forced removal by a popular uprising. Should the Obama Administration be doing more to support the anti-government protestors and encourage Mubarak to vacate office immediately?

The consensus among many pundits of differing ideological stripes is that it should. They argue against past prevailing wisdom that Mubarak, for all his faults, brought stability to Egypt following the assassination of Anwar Sadat as well as welcome moderation to the Arab world, particularly in his willingness to treat peacefully with Israel. Likewise, they argue Mubarak’s loyalty to America, in exchange for massive economic aid, has done little to increase our safety.

Egyptian anti-
government protestors

In fact, author Lawrence Wright postulates in his Pulitzer-prize winning work The Looming Tower that Mubarak’s harsh treatment of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood radicalized this group, pushing several of its leaders beyond national politics into global jihad.

David Brooks of the New York Times cites compelling numbers to suggest the U.S. is fighting the tide of modern history by doing anything other than encouraging the toppling of non-democratic regimes – one hundred nations experiencing popular uprisings, the fall of more than eighty-five authoritarian governments, and the establishment of about sixty-two new democracies over the past twenty years. “Autocracies are more fragile than any other form of government, by far,” Brooks chides those championing repressive governments as stable.

The problem for many is not some great personal love for Mubarak but fear over where Egypt ends up in his absence. Ross Douthat, also of the Times, notes, “even if post-Mubarak Egypt doesn’t descend into religious dictatorship, it’s still likely to lurch in a more anti-American direction.” Others counter this dreadful pending vacuum directly results from our toleration, indeed our reward, of Mubarak’s dictatorial style.

Michael Gerson of the Washington Post remembers a 2005 trip to Egypt with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that left him unimpressed with that country’s collection of opposition leaders. His disdain remains today. “This is the Mubarak legacy. In the name of weakening Islamism, he undermined all legitimate opposition, often forcing dissent into the radical mosque. If the alternatives to Mubarak’s rule are poor, it is because he did his best to make it so.”

Francis Fukuyama, writing in the Wall Street Journal, agrees. Mubarak’s strategy was “gutting liberal opposition and permitting the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood to operate just enough to scare the United States and other Western backers.”

Others worry about bad blood toward the U.S. on the Arab street. Reporting from Tahrir Square in Cairo, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times reports himself “intoxicated” by the “yearning and hopefulness” of ordinary Egyptians risking their safety to call publicly for democracy. However, he worries, “One thing nags at me. These pro-democracy protesters say overwhelmingly that America is on the side of President Mubarak and not with them.”

The Washington Post’s Marc Thiessen conveys the ire of one protestor that “We believe America is against us.” He fretfully predicts, “The resentment could last for generations.” While I cannot help but wish that guys like Thiessen and Kristof had shown greater apprehension over discontent in the Arab street when it opposed the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq, this does not make their concerns over its reaction toward our non-involvement in the current Egyptian troubles any less valid.

There is no question that the U.S. made a mistake continuing its political and economic support of Mubarak’s anti-democratic policies. It is but one in a series of post-World War II foreign policy blunders backing regimes that ultimately caused more problems than they resolved. Yet our reactionary rushes to judgment, all for the desirable goal of promoting stability, only increases my reticence at doing exactly the same thing for the equally desirable goal of promoting democracy.

Moreover, I question whether demanding Mubarak’s immediate departure is likely to move Egypt closer to democracy in any significant way. I share the sentiments expressed by thinkers like Brooks and Fukuyama that there is an innate desire for democracy – what they define as “desire for dignity” from government for the governed – that crosses all geographic and cultural boundaries.

However, I believe it is dangerous to conflate this desire with competence for democratic governance, which is highly conditional upon time, place, culture, and other factors. Brooks sanguinely generalizes, “Most countries that have experienced uprisings end up better off,” although he concedes Iran as a glaring exception. Fukuyama points out numerous former Soviet republics that embraced democracy to initial cheering then subsequently “disappointed their hopeful early backers by not producing effective democratic governance.” He argues the same is true for Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Democracy does not magically spring to life once the dictator is gone or even after the first free and fair election has taken place,” Fukuyama admonishes. My chief concern over true democracy in Egypt is not that it has come too slowly to that country but that we may, attempt to force it to come too quickly once again. I agree with Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, who asserts that Egypt “lacks the civic and political institutions that are necessary for democracy.”

“I care about democratic values,” Cohen adds, “but they are worse than useless in societies that have no tradition of tolerance or respect for minority rights.” The Egyptian protestors are heartening in their aspirations and their courage but, without intending discouragement of their intentions, I counsel caution regarding their actions. What we have in Egypt right now is more “demobcracy” than democracy. It is very different from democratic governance, let alone Western-style secular democratic governance.

If the protestors in Tahrir Square are budding Founding Fathers, then they are standing closer to their equivalent of a non-lethal (so far) Boston Massacre or Tea Party than they are a Constitutional Convention. While some of the same individuals in our nation’s history may have been involved with both events, fifteen-plus years separated them. The Founders learned many important lessons over this period. Most notably, the disastrous Articles of Confederation taught them that democratic governance by a largely powerless central government was both unmanageable and unsustainable.

Amr Bargisi, a senior partner with the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth, reports that many of the middle class young men in the streets of Cairo over the past several days are not protestors but rather standing guard in front of their houses and stores to protect them from looting. They fear unrest and instability from the mob more than they resent limitations on liberty by Mubarak.

Bargisi fear the most likely outcome from whatever individual or group assumes power in Mubarak’s wake will be “a contract between the state and the frightened middle classes to make sure no similar uprising ever happens again.” In other words, even greater repression of free expression and other rights necessary for the genesis of true democratic government.

I would be happy to see the Obama Administration say/do more to support and protect the anti-government protestors in Egypt. However, I think we would stray from the path of wisdom in encouraging Washington to help oust Mubarak as expeditiously as possible. Americans often disdain reactive policies but a go-slow approach may actually strengthen rather than weaken Egypt’s pro-democracy movement in the end.

The plan proposed by Mubarak himself on Tuesday – to remain in power for now but not seek re-election – will give non-radical opposition groups critical necessary months to establish legitimacy and power bases. A mob is a sudden and capricious creature, even when inspired by noble goals. It will take some time for demobcracy to evolve into democracy in a nation and a culture where it has languished under repression for so long.

Children of Tragedy

2011-01-14T10:33:00.002-05:00

Which Face Will Be Our Face?

Pundits and politicians from both sides of the ideological divide were quick with partisan reactions to the tragic shooting last Saturday in Tuscon Arizona. A man shot and critically wounded U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and killed U.S. District Judge John Roll, along with five other people, during an informal townhall meeting by the Congresswoman.

Many liberals condemned right-wing rhetoric for inspiring the attack. Paul Krugman of the New York Times was among the most outspoken. “There isn’t any place [in a democracy] for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary . . . Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance – it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right.”

Jared Loughner (left), the Tuscon
Arizon shooter, and Christina Green
(right), his youngest victim

For their part, conservatives furiously denied any political connections or motivations for the shooting. The Wall Street Journal editorial board maintained, “On all available evidence, [the shooter] is a mentally disturbed man who targeted Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and anyone near her in Tucson on Saturday because she was prominent and they were tragically accessible . . . Whatever confused political motives he expressed seem merely to be part of the maelstrom of his mental sickness.”

Conservatives pushed back at liberals, insisting the latter were disgusting in using a tragedy to promote their agenda. “I understand the desperation that Democrats must feel after taking a historic beating in the midterm elections . . . [but they] demonstrate precious little actual concern for America's political well-being when they seize on any pretext, however flimsy, to call their political opponents accomplices to murder,” wrote University of Tennessee Law Professor Glenn Reynolds in a Journal op-ed piece.

The truth lies somewhere between these two biased viewpoints, as it so often does. Considerable examples of his writings gleamed from the Internet as well as evidence seized from the shooter’s PC and home suggest that Jared Loughner was a deeply disturbed young man. Especially since 2005, he had been concerning family, friends, and classmates with his erratic and sometime violent statements and behavior.

One former fellow student at Pima Community College described Loughner as “an emotional cripple or an emotional child . . . He lacked compassion, he lacked understanding and he lacked an ability to connect.” Another student said Loughner “didn't have social intelligence” despite abundant academic intelligence.

A former high school friend posted on Twitter that the Loughner she knew was “left wing, quite liberal and oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy.” She noted that alcohol and drugs had left him ruined and ostracized.

Yet much of what Loughner posted and talked about in recent years had more of a right-wing flavor, even if he did not intend it as such. In particular, he was passionately distrustful of big government. He seemed to be a sucker for conspiracy theories and wild accusations. He labeled his planned attack on Giffords as an “assassination.”

So while it is disingenuous to suggest that Loughner’s motivations were primarily political, it is equally insincere to assert that he was completely unaware of or insulated from some of the sentiments and insinuations raised in current political debate. The anti-government rhetoric that may have helped reinforce Loughner’s twisted beliefs rests mostly with conservatives. This does not mean they intended to incite violence or even that it necessarily incited violence in Loughner.

Nonetheless, Loughner demonstrates to all of us the tragic consequences when passion overrides reason. He serves as a caution to politicians and pundits alike about the importance of restraint and non-inflammatory rhetoric in public discourse.

Ross Douthat of the New York Times sums it up best. “When our politicians and media loudmouths act like fools and zealots, they should be held responsible for being fools and zealots. They shouldn’t be held responsible for the darkness that always waits to swallow up the unstable and the lost.” However, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post contributes an important counterpoint. “We must now insist with more force than ever that threats of violence no less than violence itself are antithetical to democracy.”

Some politicians expressed it well too. “An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve,” said House Speaker John Boehner. But my favorite comes from Republican Representative Trent Franks of Arizona. On NBC’s Meet the Press, he declared this tragedy “an attack not only on freedom and the country itself; it’s an attack on humanity.”

Among the things that obsessed Loughner was language and grammar. A frequent theme in his writings and rants is the question, “What is government if words have no meaning?” It is a good question, even if he clearly meant it rhetorically. Loughner was sure that government and just about everything else was meaningless. He may well have regarded his violence as just one more casual act in a random existence.

Our Constitution and the other laws of our land are words on paper. They would be nothing more than that but possess meaning because they are living words, lived each day by ordinary and extraordinary Americans. Their devotion gives our government its legitimacy to impose rules and defend rights.

I think of Giffords, a government official who placed herself in harm’s way because she believed in the importance of connecting with the people she represented. I think of Roll, killed on his way home from church because he wanted to stop and shake the hand of a fellow public servant and friend.

I think of Dorwin Stoddard, who died by throwing himself between his wife and a bullet. A pastor at Mountain Avenue Church of Christ, he died demonstrating the Christian ideal that no person can show greater love than by willingly laying down their life for another.

I think of the courageous men and women in the crowd who wrestled Loughner to the ground and grabbed his ammunition as he paused to reload. I think of equally courageous men and women in that same crowd who frantically sought to aid and comfort the dying and wounded.

I think of Christina Green, the nine year old girl killed when she attended a political event. Just elected to her elementary school’s student council, she wanted to see democracy in action. Born on the day of the September 11 attacks, she considered herself a symbol of hope for our nation.

I think of John Green, Christina’s father, who put aside a parent’s crushing grief long enough to utter an almost unbelievably brave assertion of citizenship. Interviewed on NBC’s Today Show, he avowed, “In a free society, we are going to be subjected to people like [Loughner]. I prefer this to the alternative.”

Those who believe words are more real, in some arcane way, than our actual lives are insane. Those who use words to stir up fear and manipulate the lives of others are the problem and the threat. Those who attempt to live the words we profess to hold as our ideals are the hope and the heroes.

The faces of Jared Loughner and Christina Green stare out at us. The first is an emotional child, stunted by his own demons and self-hatred. The second is a bright promise that will now never realize her potential. Both faces have a kind of innocence – one twisted, the other pure. They are the children of this tragedy.

The challenge for the rest of us lies in choosing which one will be the face of our democracy as we seek to grow beyond this moment. The words we choose to use and the meaning we choose to honor will directly influence what our government is in the future.

Leaking Credibility

2010-12-01T09:26:00.000-05:00

When Divulging Secrets Devolves into Merely Tattling

People have labeled the recent divulgence of more than a quarter million classified U.S. State Department documents by the website WikiLeaks in terms ranging from criminal, bordering on cyber-terrorism, to another triumph by the free press. We tend to think about leaks as dangerous portents requiring rapid plumbing to protect ourselves from a damaging deluge. In the case of information, however, there is considerable debate whether the cataract is actually safer out in the open rather than behind safe and solid but opaque walls.

Kevin Marsh, an editor at the BBC, makes the classic case for the usefulness of leaks. “They can be irritating and embarrassing for those in positions of power . . . Leaks are a constant reminder to those we allow to govern us that we want to know what they’re really doing in our name [and] not just what they choose to tell us.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
(insert) and his creation

To this end, I am skeptical when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declares the revelations from WikiLeaks “tear at the fabric of responsible government.” Likewise for statements by the White House that WikiLeaks “has put at risk not only the cause of human rights but also the lives and work of individuals,” such as diplomats and intelligence professionals, as well as endangering the lives of people who live under “oppressive regimes.”

WikiLeaks undoubtedly broke the law by obtaining these documents. However, there is something bizarre about disparaging the candid dissemination of information as contradictory to “promoting democracy and open government.” At the same time, I am equally dubious when WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claims his intent was providing evidence of serious “human rights abuse and other criminal behavior” by the U.S. government. I somewhat agree with a statement by the website that these document expose the “hypocrisy and venality” of U.S. diplomats.

Yet while embarrassment to power is a common aspect of leaks, it should be an incidental by-product and not their primary purpose. The motivation behind leaks is to introduce hitherto unknown facts that might sway public understanding/opinion about a situation as well as the response to it by authorities. In this case, WikiLeaks has confused salaciousness with salience.

The problem is not that the target was diplomatic rather than military secrets. As David Brooks of the New York Times points out, “The fact that we live our lives amid order and not chaos is the great achievement of civilization . . . This order is tenuously maintained by brave soldiers but also by talkative leaders and diplomats . . . We depend on those human conversations for the limited order we enjoy every day.”

Certainly, this cache of secrets contains some legitimately interesting, albeit not particularly surprising, factual revelations. Perhaps the most widely quoted is urgings from the Arab world – Saudi Arabian King Abdullah as well as officials in Jordan and Bahrain – to stop Iran's nuclear program by any means, including military attack by the United States.

However, the bulk of the documents appear to consist of blunt, unflattering subjective characterizations of foreign leaders by U.S. diplomats. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev “plays Robin” to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s “Batman.” Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi called “feckless, vain and ineffective as a modern European leader.” French President Nicolas Sarkozy deemed “thin-skinned and authoritarian.” Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai dismissed as “an extremely weak man who did not listen to facts” and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as a “crazy old man.”

And, hey! What about the “voluptuous blonde” Ukrainian woman who travels everywhere with Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi and introduced as his (wink, wink) “nurse.” Did we stumble upon the National Enquirer website by mistake? This is not your father’s Pentagon Papers; it’s more like the Playboy from under your teenage son’s mattress.

There are some positives from perusing all this Foggy Bottom gossip. An editorial in the New York Times goes mining for cloud silver and concludes, “What struck us, and reassured us, about the latest trove of classified documents released by WikiLeaks was the absence of any real skullduggery . . . much of the Obama Administration’s diplomatic wheeling and dealing is appropriate and, at times, downright skillful.”

Slate magazine’s Fred Kaplan agrees, “Within the narrowing realm in which the United States (or any country) can influence others in the post-Cold War world, the Obama Administration has been playing the game fairly well.” If nothing else, the sometimes inspired, albeit catty, wording of the dispatches caused Dana Milbank of the Washington Post to wryly observe, “On the bright side, the leaks have shown the world that somewhere within the U.S. diplomatic corps lurks literary genius.”

On the not-so-bright side, Milbank’s colleague Anne Applebaum frets that forcing hyper-transparency on private government communiqués will come at the price of less honest, more taciturn government officials. “Diplomatic cables will presumably now go the way of snail mail. Oral communication will replace writing, as even off-the-record chats now have to take place outdoors, in the presence of heavy traffic, just in case anyone is listening.”

Conservative commentator Marc Thiessen of the American Enterprise Institute believes that even if foreign leaders and diplomats forgive our snide remarks, America may lose prestige, even appearing “powerless,” because of our inability/unwillingness to stop the leaks or punish the perpetrators.

If Assange and WikiLeaks was out to uncover diplomats performing illegal activities or even performing diplomacy badly, this leak might be worth the (temporary) pain and embarrassment. However, Assange’s target appears to be diplomacy itself. Being polite to people with whom our nation disagrees or even despises might be hypocritical but, as Brooks notes, it provides a civil means of settling difference compared to perpetual enmity and warfare.

Now we know that diplomats can be just as snarky as the rest of us when talking behind the backs of the people with whom they often deal face to face. The question is what we gained from it and the answer, from my perspective, appears to be not much.

WikiLeaks is a paradox that has the potential to be genuinely beneficial even as it remains officially illegal and potentially dangerous – sort of the medicinal marijuana of journalism. In this case, however, it is suffering from a contact high. Assange may like to believe he is telling Truth to Power but his latest effort has devolved from divulging secrets to simple tattling, in which the tattler enjoys a completely selfish feeling of faux power by his or her ability to cause discomfort to others.

He may consider his latest batch of secrets worthwhile and significant but the only thing Assange and his website have leaked lately is credibility. That is one of the bad kinds of leaks.

Illuminated

2010-11-17T13:07:00.006-05:00

Scientists Are Making Mysterious Dark Matter Less Mysterious But Others Still Fail to See the Light

In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
– Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Current accepted scientific theory states that our Universe sprang into being through a sudden expansion known as the Big Bang. As the energy from this intensely hot beginning cooled, it formed matter. The distribution of matter was not uniform, so it began clumping together, eventually forming stars, planets, and everything else we can see throughout the vastness of space. The largest structures to form were galaxies and galaxy clusters. Here, astrophysicists ran into a problem.

Observable matter did not contain sufficient mass – and, thus, sufficient gravity – for galaxies to hold their colossal shapes. They ought to break down fairly quickly. Since they clearly do not, scientist theorized there must be something out there besides visible matter with sufficient mass to provide the necessary gravitational glue binding galaxies together. They called this invisible stuff “dark matter.” What is more, there had to be a lot it – about six times as much as ordinary visible matter – to square with observation.

The dark matter detected in
galaxy cluster Abell 1689 is
shown in light blue

Scientists did not know anything about dark matter. It was more than merely invisible and did not interact with ordinary matter in any way. However, they stubbornly insisted it must exist because factual observation demanded it and scientists regard empiricism as the highest form of human thinking. Some religious people did not think it was fair that they could not make up God to explain the unexplainable while scientists could make up dark matter to explain gravity.

Quite a few practical people – people who believe that common sense, as opposed to empiricism, is the highest form of human thinking – agreed. It proved to them that advanced degrees from universities did not make scientists smarter than they were. The practical people believe they would be better scientists than those trained to do so but they are too busy with practical concerns, such as making money or waging wars, to waste time over pointless matters like how the Universe holds itself together. They just accept that it does so and regard it as part of their natural rights.

The practical people realized scientists were cooking up dark matter in the pot of imagination. Luckily, the practical people were too smart to fall for it. They knew the source of gravity was either the same Supreme Being who can allow an infinite number of angels to dance on the head of a pin or natural, long-term climate shifts. “It stands to reason,” they said. This is something the practical people always say when they want to end a discussion and just get on with things.

Unfortunately, the scientists, some of whom actually did stand to reason whereas other preferred to do their reasoning while sitting down, refused to let go of the problem. They decided, in typically impractical fashion, that if they looked at what appeared to be nothing hard enough and long enough, they might actually see something. This demonstrates no common sense whatsoever and is probably the main reason why it worked. The trick lay in figuring out what not to look for.

The November 10 issue of Astrophysical Journal contains the observations of a group of astronomers, led by Dan Coe of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and Edward Fuselier of West Point. The group pointed the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys at Abell 1689, a massive galaxy cluster located 2.2 billion light years distant in the constellation Virgo. Abell 1689 contains about a thousand galaxies, representing trillions of stars. However, none of these galaxies interested the astronomers. Instead, they focused on the galaxies behind the cluster.

Abell 1689 is so massive that it acts as a gravitational lens, distorting the light passing by it from the galaxies behind it. The astronomers found that, massive as it is, Abell 1689 did not have enough mass to explain the degree of distortion seen. The difference was the gravitational impact of dark matter. By measuring the distortions in many different places and then translating it as light blue coloration superimposed on the Hubble image, they were able to “see” the dark matter within Abell 1689 and how it was distributed.

They discovered dark matter, much like ordinary matter, distributed irregularly through space, forming massive, dense clumps found at the heart of galaxies as well as close around them. Another group of researchers, led by Meghan Gray of the University of Nottingham and Catherine Heymans of the University of British Columbia got exactly the same results pointing Hubble at the Abell 901/902 galaxy supercluster. They published their findings in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

So now that we can see dark matter, what is it exactly? Astrophysicists think the most likely candidates are gauginos, hypothetical particles predicted by gauge theory combined with supersymmetry. Gauginos carry opposite spins from the particles making up ordinary matter (i.e. anti-matter). Like Standard Model particles, some carry a charge while others, called neutralinos, do not.

Neutralinos are likely dark matter candidates because they interact with other particles only through gravity and the weak nuclear force. The lack of electromagnetic and strong nuclear interactions makes them difficult to detect. Calculations demonstrate their possible thermal production in the early hot universe, with approximately the right amount remaining after cooling to account for dark matter.

Neutrinos are the only type of likely dark matter particles detected in the laboratory to date but have almost zero mass. However, the lightest type of neutralino predicted, called the photino, would be both stable and heavy enough to qualify as a WIMP (weakly interactive massive particle) making up dark matter. Interestingly, neutralinos and anti-neutralinos are identical, meaning any two pieces of dark matter colliding would self-destruct like any other interaction of matter and anti-matter.

The result of such explosions would be a stream of particles called positrons, the anti-matter counterpart to electrons. A 2009 article in the journal Nature describes the findings of PAMELA (Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light nuclei Astrophysics), an Italian satellite designed to measure radiation in space. PAMELA found a much higher number of positrons than expected, suggesting that dark matter collisions, although rare, do sometimes occur.

Such explosions would also produce gamma rays. Yet another team of researchers, led by cosmologist Dan Hooper from the University of Chicago, used the Fermi space telescope, NASA’s gamma ray observatory, and found an abundance of gamma rays emanating from the core of our own Milky Way galaxy. We now know galactic cores are clumping points for dark matter.

One problem is that the gamma radiation measured by Hooper’s team points to WIMPs only eight to nine times heavier than protons. This is lighter than expected for dark matter particles. On the other hand, the astronomical surveys of the Abell clusters found a slightly higher amount of dark matter present than expected, so perhaps it all evens out.

The practical people are not going to like this dark matter/anti-matter connection. Anti-matter is scary stuff. The annihilations it produces are so devastating they may well be the only force in the Universe powerful enough to get Bristol Palin voted off Dancing with the Stars. The practical people have no time for annihilation. After all, what is the point of permanently ending/extending the Bush tax cuts or repealing/saving healthcare reform when two foreign, possibly Muslim, particles could meet at any point and time, wiping out everything within parsecs of the event?

On the other hand, it is estimated that if one could somehow bottle anti-matter and sell it, a price of about $62.5 trillion a gram (i.e. $1.75 quadrillion an ounce) would be fair market value, although I am talking auction estimate here as opposed to retail. This would be enough to pay off the entire U.S. national debt. Luckily, scientists have dedicated themselves to continue looking at nothing. A project called CLASH (Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble) plans to survey twenty-five galaxy clusters over the next three years.

This might be enough for the practical people finally to start seeing the light. They are not so good actually coming up with ideas, preferring to outsource this to the scientists they otherwise disdain, but they are highly skilled at exploiting useful ones. Once there is money to make or power to gain from it, dark matter will suddenly start making a whole lot of common sense to them.

It stands to reason.

The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.
– Douglas Adams

Mandate Up

2010-11-09T10:17:00.002-05:00

Their Promised Approach to Governance Didn’t Work Out So Well for the Last Guys

During one of their debates, Nevada Tea Party Senatorial candidate Sharon Angle famously told Majority Leader Harry Reid to “Man up!” meaning he needed to toughen up in the face of adversity and take responsibility for his actions and their consequences. As it turned out, Reid apparently manned up sufficiently to become one of the relatively few Democrats avoiding rejection by voters last Tuesday.

Republicans, the big winners in this election, were quick to see their victory as a justification to mandate up. Their victory moved Representative John Boehner of Ohio, the likely next Speaker of the House, to tear of relief because he believed his Party now could save the American Dream. “I think that it's a mandate for Washington to reduce the size of government and continue our fight for smaller, less costly and more accountable government,” he told reporters.

John Boehner and Mitch McConnell believe they have
been given a mandate to undo Obamacare and Obama

Boehner also believes Republicans have a mandate to repeal healthcare reform as passed by Democrats, calling it a “monstrosity” that “will kill jobs in America, ruin the best healthcare system in the world, and bankrupt our country.”

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who will remain Minority Leader because candidates like Angle did not prevail, was even more belligerent. He argued Republican lawmakers should vote to repeal healthcare reform, over and over if necessary. Then McConnell took it a step further, maintaining that merely opposing Obama’s policies was insufficient.

Republicans top goal for the next two years should be doing anything and everything possible to deny the President a second term. McConnell reasons the only way for Republicans to undo everything is “to put someone in the White House who won't veto any of these things.”

For his part, Obama was chastened by the “shellacking” his Party suffered but unapologetic about his agenda, although he conceded he was so eager about what needed to be done he had forgotten how he promised to do it (i.e. outreach to Republicans and greater civility/bipartisanship). “I do believe there is [still] hope for civility,” he avowed.

Boehner and McConnell flatly stated they would accept Obama’s help only as far as it coincided with their mission.

They say the size of their victory demonstrates the American publicly has roundly rejected Democratic progressivism and this rejection cuts across all demographics and ideologies except for the extreme loony Left. Election results and exit polls tell a different story, however.

For starters, one might assume – given the extent to which Republicans used Obama as a proxy against Democratic contenders – that Democrats who voted with the President would suffer the worst loses while those who distanced themselves and voted against him would do better. In fact, of the thirty-three House Democrats running for re-election who voted against healthcare reform, two-thirds were defeated. About the same was true among the forty-two who voted against Cap and Trade. In comparison, only two Senate Demorats who voted for both the stimulus and healthcare reform lost.

CNN exit polls reject the oft-insisted conservative claim that this election was a referendum against Obamacare. Only seventeen percent of voters considered healthcare reform their top issue and more half voted for Democrats. Likewise, only thirty-seven percent said their vote meant “expressing opposition to Obama.” Even given continuing high unemployment and slow recovery, in the sixteen Democratic-represented Congressional districts hardest hit by the economy, only one flipped Republican.

There is no question that Republicans received a loud and clear mandate from a cadre of energized conservative voters. However, far from representing all Americans, this group was both whiter and, especially, more elderly than the population as a whole. Republicans continued to lose eighteen to twenty-nine year olds by seventeen points. As Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post observed, “There was absolutely a Republican wave on Tuesday, but it looks more like the wave of the past than the wave of the future.”

Republicans won with this cadre and Independent voters, who broke for the GOP in 2010 by about the same margin they went for Obama and Democrats in 2008. They were sending a mandate too but one less about ideological preference and more about results.

The Washington Post’s David Broder explains, “There will be a temptation to interpret the Democrats’ loss of their House majority and of at least six Senate seats as a rejection of Obama's first-term agenda . . . American voters are not that flighty or unsettled . . . The biggest problem by far was the economy . . . The worst mistake would be for [Obama] to abandon or reject his own agenda for government.”

Broder’s conservative colleague Charles Krauthammer disagreed, arguing the rejection was so complete that neither Obama nor any future Democratic can or would wish to govern from a progressive philosophy ever again. However, he concurred on this key point – “Republicans [should not] over-interpret their Tuesday mandate. They received none.”

Some pundits argue Obama’s fatal mistake was in overreaching while others maintain he was not nearly aggressive enough. Actually, Obama’s mistake was overestimating how long Americans would be patient over a sluggish economy from which the middle class had failed to benefit long before the recession. Republicans benefited as the only available alternative. They are also next in line for the boot if they fail to deliver. Moreover, nothing suggests voters have grown more patient.

To this end, Republicans must focus on economic growth and creating jobs in the private sector. They must press for reforms but be willing to compromise on details. While attempting to repeal healthcare reform is a gesture owed to their most ardent constituents, they must present viable conservative alternatives to its most unpopular components. This is not my policy prescription but that of Karl Rove, writing in the Wall Street Journal.

Boehner and McConnell may choose not to heed these admonitions. They may insist they have a mandate that represents the broad will of the American People. They may insist this election represented a permanent seismic shift to the ideological right by this country. They may insist compromise is a dirty word and only total repeal is sufficient. They may insist voters have seen the error of their ways and will patiently wait two years or more for them to build the majorities and power bases necessary to do things the right way. They may insist they only way they will not be successful is if the defeated Party is obstructionist.

Of course, they insisted in the run-up to this election that these are exactly the same mistakes made by the Democratic leadership after 2008. As chief of the defeated, Obama noted in his press conference, “Ultimately, I’ll be judged as President as to the bottom line, results.” The same is true for Boehner, McConnell, and the rest of the Republicans swept into office last week.

It is time for them to quit mandating up and start manning up. They have the acting tough part down pat. Now it is time to work on the taking responsibility part. Otherwise, it will quickly become clear nobody was listening to the American People this election.

Strong or Weak Tea?

2010-11-05T10:27:00.002-04:00

The Tea Party Produces a Strange Initial Brew

The Tea Party prides itself as a spontaneous, grassroots movement with no formal organization, infrastructure, or leadership. Tuesday’s midterm elections presented the first chance to see how this approach fares on a national scale. Its strength was evident but so were its weaknesses.

Tea Party candidates Marco Rubio and Rand Paul won
their Senate elections while Christine O'Donnell and
Sharon Angle were defeated

The movement’s raw numbers are legitimately impressive. One hundred and thirty-five candidates officially backed by the Tea Party won election, including five Senators. They scored wins in twenty-four states, demonstrating genuine nationwide viability. Places where they experienced highest success included Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Wisconsin.

However, Tea Party candidates suffered loses in thirty-two states. Some of their worst performances were predictable, in such liberal places as California, Massachusetts, and New York. However, they also did poorly in purplish states with hard economic times. They won only one race and lost three in Pennsylvania, while Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio proved toss-ups, with multiple wins and losses. Perhaps most surprisingly, they lost four races in Texas, a solid red state, to a single victory.

Even where conservative voter turnout was strong, establishment GOP Senate candidates consistently fared better and won by larger margins than their Tea Party compatriots. For all their “authenticity,” angry, impulsive candidates did not necessarily inspire voter confidence, even in the year of the angry voter. Yet in Senate races, the Tea Party achieved an impressive fifty percent winning percentage, albeit for a much smaller set of races, than the thirty-one percent victory margin they realized in House races.

The Tea Party must realize two important mitigating factors about the ability of its winning candidates to influence Washington as well as its own ability to achieve success in future elections.

First, the relatively large number of Tea Party wins was due to the sheer volume of candidates it backed. Moreover, many Republican politicians were eager for a Tea Party endorsement to demonstrate their anti-big government credentials. However, conservative voters celebrating victories may come to realize they have replaced much-maligned RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) with TINOs.

For example, I live in Ohio’s 1st Congressional District. On Tuesday, Republican challenger Steve Chabot, who was officially backed by the Hamilton County Tea Party, unseated one-term Democratic incumbent Steve Driehaus. However, the Hamilton County Republican Party also backed Chabot. In fact, he was the seven-term Representative beaten by Driehaus in 2008. He is unquestionably conservative but hardly a Beltway outsider, serving throughout the former Bush Administration and faithfully supporting all of its spending initiatives.

Second, one reason for the Tea Party’s success in this particular election may have had much to do with the demographics of those voting this year. Compared to 2008, voters in 2010 consisted of more whites and fewer African Americans and Hispanics. Likewise, it consisted of significantly more voters aged sixty-five and older and significantly fewer under the age of thirty. I could not find percentages related to income. Otherwise, however, these demographics align neatly with how Tea Party membership differs from the U.S. population in general.

I do not wish to detract from the Tea Party’s accomplishments in these midterms, which frankly were impressive for its first foray on a national scale. Unlike unsuccessful Third Parties of the recent past, which tended to place their initial emphasis on a single Presidential candidate, the Tea Party has established a legitimate power base at the Congressional level from which it can build. However, it does suffer from limitations that seem structurally inherent rather than ancillary.

The Tea Party’s disdain for career politicians has already cost it several key elections – experience and competence do not necessarily equate with corruption. What is more, even its most novice winners are going to have to learn how to cooperate and compromise in Washington. The assumption that everyone else in government is going to obey and get out of the way for fear of “suffering the wrath of the People” is simply naïve in its underestimation of Beltway cynicism and hypocrisy.

In much the same way, Tea Party disdain for formal leadership only serves to curb its effectiveness. The spontaneous leaders that have emerged so far have been little more than provocateurs at best, sometimes doing more harm than good.

Finally, the Tea Party’s freewheeling spirit, born of frustration with government, may be genuine and even admirable but is nonetheless unsustainable. If its elected candidates do not become effective change agents in Washington, despondency will set in, much as it did for many Democratic supporters this year. Alternatively, success by its candidates will diffuse anger among Tea Party voters (you cannot be angry and happy at the same time) and the push for change will diminish with it.

This tempest in a teapot proved it could help bring about political tsunami in this country. However, the tea it has produced so far has proven a strange brew, with a strong initial flavor but weak aftertaste as one sips it.

Taken In Context

2010-10-26T10:17:00.006-04:00

Nobody Is Really a Villain in the Juan Williams Incident; Everybody Is a Hypocrite

People living hundreds or even thousands of miles away may soon feel the causal results of the earthquake that occurred off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia Monday morning in the form of tsunamis. Likewise, a wave that formed as an aftershock from Bill O'Reilly pissing off Whoppi Goldberg swept away Juan Williams’s career at National Public Radio a few days later. The NPR journalist has frequently appeared on FOX News in recent years as a liberal adversary to its bevy of conservative pundits and analysts.

Juan Williams (insert) has
frequently appeared on FOX
News in recent years

Williams turned up last week on O'Reilly’s program in this very role and took him to task for generalizing Islamic extremism to include all Muslims. O'Reilly had previously caused Goldberg to walk off the set of The View by opining, "Muslims attacked us on September 11," to justify his opposition to the so-called Ground Zero Mosque. Then, desiring to concede everyone makes mistakes, he attempted to throw O’Reilly a bone that boomeranged.

“Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

Williams’s remark caused uproar in various circles. However, it was nothing to the reaction that followed his dismissal by NPR for the offense. Virtually everyone agreed the organization had overreacted. This included Williams. “Obviously, I feel that I should have had the opportunity to supply NPR with the entirety of the context of the statement to make sure they understood,” he told the Associated Press.

I have to agree with those holding that Williams’s opinion – while perhaps poorly expressed, perhaps even downright stupid in some aspects – was not a fireable offense. I also agree with Williams that context is key in this matter, although perhaps not in the same way he meant it.

First, everyone is focusing on the part about “If I see people who are in Muslim garb [on a plane] . . . I get nervous,” as the objectionable aspect of Williams’s statement. I agree with those who maintain many Americans in a similar situation would react the same. It is understandable but not necessarily rational.

As numerous conservative commentators – Reuel Gerecht, author and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and columnist Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic to name two – have pointed out, the September 11 hijackers dressed in Western garb to blend inconspicuously with other passengers. It is likely that future Islamic terrorists will do the same, regardless of venue. If Williams had acknowledged his nervousness to those in Muslim clothing as natural but irrational, I would join his most ardent defenders in declaring him blameless.

However, he did not do this. In fact, he took it to the next level with the phrase I find most offensive in his characterization of anyone wearing traditional Muslim garb “identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims.” It well may be a (big) part of the wearer’s identity but Williams conflates it to primary religious/ideological/political expression. And lest “first and foremost” be dismissed as a casual choice of words, Williams uses this exact phrase again in an op-ed piece he posted the next day at FOX News, in which he defends himself and blasts his former employer for politically correct intolerance.

In this context, Williams appears guilty, albeit unintentionally/subconsciously, of the same thing he harangued O’Reilly about earlier and urged listeners not to do in the next breath. He is no Islamaphobe but it is also understandable how his comments could be negative perceived by many Muslims.

Second, there is widespread acknowledgement that NPR fired Williams less for his specific comment and more for a mounting dissatisfaction with him by its management over his evolving role at FOX. Williams said exactly this on ABC’s Good Morning America. For its part, NPR management insisted it had warned Williams repeatedly for violating its ethical code against journalists expressing controversial opinions on the air.

“Juan has a First Amendment right to say whatever he wants. He does not have a First Amendment right to be paid by NPR for saying whatever he wants,” explained one NPR executive. He characterized Williams’s latest pronouncement, “the last straw.” While this may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, NPR picked a poor straw over which to exhibit a fragile vertebra.

Williams insisted during a phone call with NPR CEO Vivian Schiller that he would have said the same thing on an NPR program that he said on FOX. However, there are considerable examples of a tendency by Williams to concede or even endorse right-wing talking points while on FOX. NPR asked FOX to stop using its name in connection with Williams after he commiserated with conservative FOX colleagues over First Lady Michelle Obama’s “blame America instinct.”

In this context, NPR had every right to fire an employee whose other professional associations had made him an embarrassment/irritant to their organization. However, this should have been the reason provided for the firing. It was despicable of NPR to conflate a poorly worded/stupid statement into hate speech in order to vilify Williams and thus dismiss any culpability on their part for his release.

Third, many liberals have criticized NPR for the draconian nature of its response, even if they do not necessarily agree with/approve of what Williams had to say. Conservatives have also flocked to Williams and trashed NPR. Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina announced he is introducing legislation to end federal funding for public radio and television. Republican Representative Doug Lamborn of Colorado is introducing similar legislation in the House.

“These programs should be able to find a way to stand on their own,” contends DeMint. “There's simply no reason to force taxpayers to subsidize a liberal programming they disagree with.” However, conservative disgust with NPR has little to do with their love of free speech or support for Williams. Lamborn already submitted legislation to cut funding for public broadcasting after fiscal year 2012 that has been languishing in committee for some time. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich wanted to “zero out” public broadcasting in the federal budget back in the 1990s but never could muster the necessary votes to do so.

Conservatives have long targeted NPR, arguing it is a mouthpiece for liberal propaganda or, at the very least, gives insufficient times/support for conservative viewpoints. Frankly, they might not have a bad idea. NPR only receives somewhere between two percent to fifteen percent of its annual budget from direct taxpayer money, depending on how exactly this term is defined. The time may have come for it to cut its apron strings to government altogether.

In this context, conservative politicians have every right to oppose public funding for broadcasting with which they disagree. However, much like NPR, they are using this incident to make their stance appear more principled and less dogmatic than it really is.

FOX announced it just signed a contract with Williams that is worth over $2 million. This is undoubtedly more than NPR paid him or ever could afford to pay him. While publicizing the deal, FOX chief Roger Ailes sanctimoniously intoned that Williams’s right to free speech “is protected by FOX News on a daily basis.” It will be interesting to see how long this continues.

So, to sum up, in an effort to prove his reasonableness to one of his employers, Williams said something more stupid than bigoted. His other employer pounced on that statement as a politically correct guilt-free excuse to fire him. Conservatives rushed to his rescue as justification for their long-standing desire to end public funding for something with which they disagree politically. Nobody is really a villain here but everybody is a bit of a hypocrite.

In this context, Williams paid a price but also received a reward. He can cast himself as a truth-telling victim, yet is going home with a bigger paycheck for doing so. Ultimately, he will get what he earned and deserves. The only difference between how liberals and conservatives view Williams and this incident is that many liberals now consider him merely an idiot whereas conservatives regard him as a useful one.

A Dragon Market

2010-10-22T12:06:00.000-04:00

The Chinese Learned Free Market Capitalism From the West; Now What Can We Learn From Them?

Whether you believe globalization has been ultimately good or bad for the United States, everyone can surely agree that China benefited greatly from it. China reaped these benefits because the Chinese government began promoting economic liberty for its people, following the dismal failure of Mao Tse Tung’s communistic Cultural Revolution. The explosive growth that resulted and continues today leaves China poised to become the world’s largest economy by 2020.

China is poised to
become the world's largest
economy by 2020

China’s economic success story demonstrates the obvious and comprehensive superiority of free market capitalism for many Americans. It leaves conservative thinkers speculating why President Obama and the Democratic Party seem determined to take this country in the seeming opposite direction. If, as conservatives imply, Chinese leaders are so much smarter than are the people currently running this country, it might be instructive to see how they are handling their triumph.

China’s basic strategy up to this point relied on an abundance of cheap, unskilled labor, permitting them to undercut Western goods with higher production costs while simultaneously improving the income/quality of life of its own workers. It resulted in a mass migration of people from rural areas to urban centers, paralleling the Twentieth Century American experience. This approach has not been without costs, however.

Explosive double-digit growth has created a burgeoning wealth gap, environmental concerns, widespread government corruption, rising inflation/sluggish domestic consumption, and foreign pressure to properly value the yuan. Many here at home say such is the price of success. One might think China is resolved to re-double its efforts.

The Chinese see things a little differently. They are thrilled with growth but fear they are growing too fast and out of control. Back in March, Premier Wen Jiabao described his country’s expansion as “unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable.” The Chinese are opting for long-term stability over short-term profitability.

What is more, they are putting their money where their mouth is. This Wednesday, the People's Bank of China, the government central bank, raised its key lending rate by 0.25 points. It was the first hike since the recent global economic crisis and explicitly aimed at slowing growth, inflation, and domestic credit. China has prospered by selling its goods cheaply oversea and it wants that to continue. However, it also wants to promote domestic consumption.

While the Chinese model has brought wealth and upward mobility into the middle class for people moving from rural areas to cities, those remaining in the countryside continue living on subsistence wages. Rural workers also face more obstacles to healthcare and other benefits as well as endure the worst of environmental damage by industry. Meanwhile, urban laborers are pushing for higher wages, more benefits, and cleaner/safer working environments.

Many in this country commonly decry such social concerns are job killers. Chinese leaders realize they need to create tens of millions of new higher-value, higher-skilled jobs. This means stressing innovation and improved higher education, even at the risk of introducing more freedom of thought and pro-democracy ideas among the educated. The risk appears to be paying off. China's global patent applications are growing five times more quickly than those of the U.S. In addition, the number of papers appearing in international journals authored by Chinese researchers has increased.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman reports a recent conversation with Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. Mahbubani was incredulous the U.S. Congress balked at an initiative proposed by President Obama to create separate research centers to solve the eight biggest energy problems in the world because the $200 million price tag was deemed too high during a time of high deficits.

Singapore recently invested more than a billion dollars to promote itself as a biomedical research center. Likewise, the Chinese government responded to the global recession with a four trillion yuan (i.e. $586 billion) stimulus package to promote research and development.

Sometimes more notable than what the Chinese government does is what it chooses not to do. Traditionally, the Communist Party has come down hard and fast on any type of labor unrest. However, the Economist noted in July that the government treated a recent strike with far greater leniency. The Chinese surmise a (slightly) stronger labor movement would give workers more money to spend and boost domestic consumption.

When the Chinese government talks about growth that is “unbalanced,” it refers to growth not experienced by all segments of its society. It wishes to spread the wealth to all its citizens, preferring moderate gains by everyone to meteoric gains by a relative few. Unsurprisingly, a Communist regime sees government as one of the best tools to do this. To be sure, so much money funneling through government has led to corruption among officials, including bribes, graft, and embezzlement. The government has introduced a series of economic reforms to deal with such problems.

Some Western observers insist economic reform will drive political reform in China, forcing it to become more democratic. Gordon Redding and Michael Witt, two senior fellows at the Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires, disagree. In their book The Future of Chinese Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 2008), the two explain that different parts of China are trying different things to find the best formula.

They believe the South Korean chaebol model is the type of capitalism most likely to emerge in China. Chaebols are powerful conglomerates owning numerous international enterprises. Ownership is not limited to the founding group or “family” but it retains tight control over the enterprise. Samsung, Hyundai, and LG are all examples of chaebols that have become well-known international brand names with aggressive governmental support and finance.

Many Westerners dismiss such possibilities. They point to the historical superiority of free market capitalism over the dismal failures of past and current communist states. Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post characterizes European experiments with socialism as “unraveling,” a common conservative charge of late, in his column today. However, the data does not bear out all this indulgent smugness.

The website Econompic Data analyzed data on average wealth per citizen for various countries, as gathered by financial giant Credit Suisse. The study defined “wealth” as all assets, including real estate, minus debt. A decade ago, the U.S. ranked number two in the world for this category, second only to Switzerland. Despite a twenty-three percent increase over the past ten years, numerous other countries, including Norway, Australia, Singapore, France and Sweden, have since outpaced us.

There is little question the Communist Party in China is a totalitarian and frequently repressive regime. We express self-satisfied assurance there is a big difference between the Chinese and us. Nowhere does this seem truer than recent economic performance and our respective ideas for dealing with the future.

The Chinese favor long-term, stable wealth creation; we worship short-term profits. The Chinese understand wealth creation among its citizens is the best way to stimulate domestic consumption; we prefer maximizing wealth for our largest corporations and richest citizens, with the hope it will trickle down, as ordinary Americans purchase more and more through debt. The Chinese are investing in innovation; we obsess over deficit reduction.

The Chinese are turning to appreciate the value of stronger labor; we talk about busting more unions. The Chinese understand the value of a superior education; we stigmatize intellectuals and universities as elitist. The Chinese use regulation to police the worst aspects of business and are starting to use it to self-police government; we deny the problems exist or insist lower taxes and smaller government are the panacea for all our problems. The Chinese middle class is growing despite a wealth gap; our middle class is in decay as our wealth gap mushrooms ever larger.

There really is a big difference between the Chinese and us. The Chinese seem to know how to manage a vibrant, growing capitalist economy, while us . . . not so much. We live or die on market fortunes. Soon, we will no longer have to worry about bull or bear markets. The future is on course toward a dragon market unless we smarten up. With the yuan in its talons, this beast has the world wrapped around its tail and it is starting to squeeze.

A Stain on Intelligence

2010-10-15T10:44:00.001-04:00

The American Middle Class Is Devolving, Thanks to Anti-Intellectual Populism

In a society where adults gather nightly about a glowing box in their living rooms to watch other adults squirm at the rigors of pitting themselves against the vast storehouses of knowledge represented by fifth graders, laments about Americans growing continually stupider are legion to the point where they have become cliché. In recent years, however, we have seen a rise – or, more accurately, a reoccurrence of unprecedented proportions – of disdain for education and intellect itself. Calling someone intelligent is still a compliment; yet calling that same person an intellectual would fall more in the category of stigmatization.

The Devolution of Intelligence

“The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself,” Ralph Waldo Emerson observed in 1837. “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public,” H.L. Mencken wryly concurred in the 1920s.

However, it was Richard Hofstadter’s 1963 seminal work, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, which first formally identified a tendency among Americans to distrust, resent, and even feel moral revulsion toward intellectuals. Hofstadter argued this phenomenon reasserts itself in cycles, prodded on by factors such as religious fundamentalism, populism, the veneration of common sense over academic knowledge, the pragmatic values of business and science, and admiration for entrepreneurship and self-made successful persons. The American sociologist Daniel Bell affirmed this thesis, predicting the rise of an anti-elite-education populism in 1972.

In 2008, journalist and author Susan Jacoby’s The Age of American Unreason maintained that American anti-intellectualism is at an all-time high, resulting from the influence of junk science, fundamentalism, celebrity-obsessed media, identity politics, urban-gang culture, political correctness, declining academic standards, moral relativism, political pandering, and the weakening of investigative journalism. She also believes information/communication sources have barraged our sensory input to the detriment of focus and critical thinking skills.

In the 1950s, the Ivy League purposefully began to shake loose from its old traditions as bastions of wealth and privilege. Its schools sought for diversity based on merit rather than family connections and largely succeeded. However, as New York Times columnist David Brooks points out, “The sorts of people who become stars in an information economy and a hypercompetitive, purified meritocracy” ultimately become “as elitist as the old [Ivy Leaguers], just on different grounds.”

Journalist Anne Applebaum, writing in the Washington Post and Slate magazine, maintains the rise of meritocracy described by Brooks is driving the current wave of anti-intellectual populism. “The old Establishment was resented . . . because its wealth and power were perceived as undeserved,” she writes. “Those outside could at least feel they were cleverer and savvier . . . they could blame their failures on ‘the system’.” Under a meritocracy, she counters, ordinary Americans face the unpleasant attribution of their own failures/shortcomings for their lack of success.

Politicians have exploited this discomfiture over the decades by recasting the highly intelligent and well educated as snobbish elites and, recently, ineffectual Ivory Tower academics, whose brilliance lacks common sense allowing them to implement solutions in the real world. This has led to a rise of candidates who play up their lack of accomplishment and genius, insisting that the intricate difficulties and challenges facing our country all have simple solutions – usually smaller government and lower taxes.

The GOP’s far right, increasingly the GOP’s mainstream, as well as the Tea Party embrace this philosophy. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman snickers that their motto should be, “Think small and carry a big ego.” Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post contrasts them with the conservative Tories that just came to power in Great Britain and concludes, “[It] is the difference between rational conservatism and magic-wand conservatism.”

Marcus’s colleague, Eugene Robinson, is incredulous. “Two years ago, with the nation facing a host of complex and difficult problems, voters put a bunch of thoughtful, well-educated people in charge of the government. Now many of those same voters, unhappy and impatient, have decided that things will get better if some crazy, ignorant people are running the show? Seriously?”

I was part of the first generation in both my mother’s and father’s families to attend college. My parents and grandparents were pleased and proud of this and taught me to be the same. The same was true for my wife. Today, calls to pull kids out of universities to avoid brainwashing by liberal educators or burning books to stop the spread of dangerous socialist ideas are becoming more common and viewed as less extreme fringe.

The American Dream is predicated on the notion that our offspring can achieve more than we did. Wealth is a common standard for measuring this. Today, Americans are decrying economic conditions that threaten this promise for our children and grandchildren, even as they stand poised to sweep candidates into office whose policies will continue to chip away at middle class viability.

However, there are types of worth that have nothing to do with money. My generation once heard our education and intellectual pursuits/accomplishments were what set us above the crowd. Now the message is to view it as a potential source of embarrassment, something we should deny or at least suppress to ensure we fit in with the least common denominator – a standard getting lesser and more common every day.

As Applebaum muses, “If working hard, climbing the education ladder and graduating from a good university only wins you opprobrium, then you might not bother.” The American middle class is under attack from multiple directions. We are devolving, even as conservative candidates assure us that moving backwards to simpler times with traditional values will cure all that ails us.

The New York Times posits this morning that Tea Party candidates conceivably could win as many as thirty-three seats in Congress, making them a caucus with real potential influence. The GOP is almost certain to reclaim control of the House and possibly the Senate. They will do so as the result of Democratic mistakes in governance as well as a continuing anemic economy. However, they will also do so because a wave of anti-intellectual populism successfully placed a stain on the very names of education, intelligence, and merit.

Hicks and Hardhats

2010-10-11T12:51:00.001-04:00

So Much for the Hope of “Grass Roots” Conservative Governance

A few embarrassing bumps were felt last week in the GOP’s anticipated return to power after the November midterm elections. The Tea Party and other conservative grassroots initiatives have many Republicans boasting the American Heartland is returning to them after flirting with Democratic progressivism. Republicans tout themselves as the Party most aligned with the values and concerns of these “everyday, ordinary Americans,” the ones who best understand their current pain.

West Virginia "Hicks" in Raese's
Senatorial ad

Yet when it comes to finding spokespeople to endorse them, it appears as though the GOP is more comfortable with Hollywood than Heartland. Two Republican candidates got into hot water when Democrats learned paid actors represented constituents in Republican ads. There is nothing new about using actors to play voters in political ads. The chagrin came when details emerged about the qualities Republicans and their advertisers accepted and even looked for when portraying the everyday Americans with which they boasted such empathy and understanding.

The first incident surfaced in West Virginia, where Democratic Governor Joe Manchin is running an unexpectedly close race against Republican industrialist John Raese for the late Robert Byrd’s Senate seat. A seeming disconnect between Raese and the state he hopes to represent is Manchin’s most effective argument. Although Raese maintains a residence in West Virginia, the New York Times reports he has at least three homes across the U.S. and his wife lives primarily at the couple’s Palm Beach home.

Raese decided to hit back by tying Manchin to President Obama, who is extremely unpopular in the state. The result was an ad appearing to feature three rural West Virginian voters sitting in a diner. The men agree Manchin did okay as Governor but needed to be kept home and away from Washington, so he will not succumb to Obama’s bad influence.

Raese’s problems began when Democrats learned the three natives depicted in the ad were not natives at all but professional actors. The ad’s true location was not in West Virginia but Philadelphia. The truly damning part, however, came from the wording used in the casting call. “We are going for a ‘Hicky’ blue collar look,” it read. “Think coal miner/trucker looks.”

Manchin was quick to jump on the blunder, calling on Raese to apologize. “John Raese and his special interest friends have insulted the people of West Virginia and need to immediately apologize,” he said in a statement. “Not only have they been spending millions to try and buy this election with lies and distortions, we can now see once and for all what he and his friends really think of West Virginia and our people.”

Both Raese and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) reacted angrily, accusing Manchin of being far phonier in his stated political views than actors in a commercial. However, action often proves more telling than words and the NRSC has already pulled the ad.

The second embarrassment came in my home state of Ohio, where John Kasich, a former U.S. Representative and FOX News Channel commentator, had been enjoying a sizable lead as the Republican candidate for Governor over Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland. Kasich’s chief advantage has been Ohio’s dismal economy during Strickland’s four-year term, with unemployment above the national average.

Ohio "Steelworker" in Kasich's
Gubernatorial ad

Strickland cut into this lead of late by playing up Kasich’s connection to Lehman Brothers. Kasich served as a Managing Director within the failed financial giant’s Investment Banking division from 2001 until the firm’s collapse in 2008. He even went so far as to pitch Lehman personally to the Ohio State Pension Fund Board, although his solicitation went thankfully unheeded.

Kasich retaliated by hitting Strickland once more over the economy and unemployment. His team created an ad featuring what appears to be an Ohio steelworker or blue collar factory worker of some type. The worker wears a plaid flannel work shirt and holds a hardhat in his hands. He appears to be standing in a dark, closed, and deserted factory. After noting the exodus of jobs during the past four years, the worker then charges, “Strickland destroyed Ohio jobs when he busted the budget and raised our taxes to help pay for his mistakes.”

The ad appeared effective at first glance but then it surfaced that, as in the West Virginia case, the spokesperson was not an actual Ohio blue collar worker but a Florida actor, named Chip Redden. Even worse, a normally right-leaning Ohio blog, operated by Matt Naugle, tore into Kasich because the actor in question had a “colorful” past, consisting of appearances in a Girls Gone Wild-style sex videotape and a string of felony and misdemeanor charges, including battery.

The Kasich campaign defended itself, saying the ad never identifies the actor as a steelworker but rather representative of all unemployed Ohioans. It points to the common use of actors in political ads. “This is being attacked because they don’t like the message. So [they] kill the messenger,” said Kasich Press Secretary Rob Nichols.

However, Democrats have successfully pounced on the revelation and exploited it. “The majority of our workforce, they’re well acquainted with Governor Strickland because he's been here for us. He wouldn't have to pay us to speak on his behalf like apparently Kasich needs to pay people to speak on his behalf,” said Scott Rich, president of steelworkers IAM Local 1943 in Middletown Ohio.

“When we saw Congressman Kasich’s ad, we wondered why any Ohio steelworker, whose job has been threatened by the unfair trade deals Kasich supported in Congress, would be willing to appear in his commercials,” agreed USW Local 1238's John Saunders. “As it turns out, when Congressman Kasich couldn’t get a real steelworker to do his dirty work, he did what any Congressman from Wall Street

would do – he paid someone.”

Strickland’s campaign notes he has never hired an actor for an ad. State Democrats smirk that despite all his talk about creating Ohio jobs, the only job Kasich has created so far is for one Florida ex-con.

Even before the disclosure, the Columbus Dispatch took the ad to task for playing loose with the facts. The claim that Strickland “raised taxes” comes from a proposed delay of the final four percent cut in a five year, twenty-one percent state income tax cut passed in 2005. Strickland proposed the delay to close an $851 million hole in the current two-year budget, created when a plan to add video slot machines at Ohio horseracing tracks fell through. The Republican-controlled Ohio Senate approved the delay.

Likewise, the Dispatch is skeptical about claims of Strickland “busting the budget.” It feels the deficit’s main source was lack of revenues, resulting from the 2005 GOP tax cut mentioned earlier. It goes on to explain, “The suggestion here seems to be that Strickland raised taxes instead of cutting spending or choosing a better option. But Strickland whacked the state payroll by more than five thousand jobs and did cut state spending for the first time in several decades.”

Finally, the claim that Strickland “destroyed Ohio jobs” also fails to hold water. Even if the tax cut delay is a tax increase, as Kasich insists, Ohio actually added over thirty-two thousand jobs since its passage.

Kasich characterized Democratic complaints about this ad as “whining” but he has lost the battle over it. His campaign announced the commercial is set to stop running “very soon.”

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, then-candidate Obama angered many rural and blue collar voters in places like Ohio and West Virginia when he told supporters at a dinner in San Francisco that working-class voters, frustrated over economic conditions, “. . . cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

In the end, Obama was attempting to explain America’s Heartland to liberal urban voters – it was an insightful gesture of empathy, albeit a cavalier one. Yet if this is frustrating from Democrats, what should these same voters make of a Party that treats them as manipulable hicks and hardhats, best portrayed by actors manifesting clichéd and insulting stereotypes?

There is real anger throughout the country over a bad economy and slow recovery. As the Party in power, Democrats will suffer losses, perhaps overwhelming losses, in Congress these midterm elections. Likewise, the conservative groundswell this election is genuine and grass roots in nature. Apparently, the same cannot be said for the vast majority of Republican candidates it is about to sweep into power – indeed, quite the reverse.

Can of Worms

2010-10-07T12:25:00.000-04:00

Stuxnet Is the First Bullet in a Completely New Type of Cyber-Warfare

You have the biggest-ever worm loose in the net and it automatically sabotages any attempt to monitor it . . . There's never been a worm with that tough a head or that long a tail!

– John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider, 1975

When somebody establishes a new paradigm in warfare, we tend to notice. The atomic bombs exploded over Japan at the end of World War II were highly conspicuous. And we all watched terrorists drive two jet planes into the World Trade Center. Yet most of us are largely unaware that someone fired the first bullet in cyber-warfare, true cyber-warfare, over the past year. The slug in question is an ingenious and nasty piece of computer code, called Stuxnet.

The Stuxnet worm enters networks
through an infected USB flash drive

Stuxnet is a type of malware known as a worm. Unlike, its more celebrated cousin, the computer virus, a computer worm need not attach itself to another existing program. Instead, it can run independently, including replication and distribution of itself to multiple locations within a network. Traditionally, hackers use worms to gather information or steal data from systems. Alternatively, they may simply make a nuisance of themselves by eating up bandwidth and slowing down network traffic.

A computer security firm based in Belarus discovered Stuxnet in June 2010. Extensive investigations of the code by the U.S. firm Symantec suggest initial deployment was as much as a year earlier. It is unusual for a worm to stay hidden for so long. Yet this was only the first of many unusual things about Stuxnet.

The worm runs on the Microsoft Windows operating system. It enters a network from an infected USB flash drive connected to one of the system’s computers. It then uses four previously unknown flaws in the Microsoft code to propagate. Unlike other worms, it is highly selective, seeking out Siemens’s Simatic WinCC/PCS 7 Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition software – specialized code for running programmable logic controllers (PLCs) within factories. PLCs monitor, adjust, and run complicated machinery.

Stuxnet is even more discriminating, possessing the ability to identify which networks it infects with great precision. It appears to be looking for particular systems to destroy at specific times in specific ways. Once it infects a network, it performs a check every five seconds to determine if the system meets its parameters for launching an attack.

It embeds itself within the PLC software, reprograms it, and hides its changes, making it the first PLC rootkit ever developed. Stuxnet sets certain address in memory to specific values but the effect of such changes depends on the nature of the machinery controlled by the infected PLC. It might render the equipment in question non-functional but it also might force a kind of overload that would cause machine components to break down or even explode.

Stuxnet is both unusually large and complex for typical malware. Its ability to stay hidden for so long was due to its use of authentic cryptographic certification keys, stolen from the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers RealTek and JMicron, to validate itself within networks.

The Symantec researchers and other experts are convinced these factors point not to a lone hacker but a top-notch, well-funded team of programmers, sponsored by a national government. They are also convinced Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program was Stuxnet’s primary target, particularly the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant or, most likely, the Natanz uranium enrichment facility.

Reports abound that Iran began having tremendous difficulty running their centrifuges at Natanz, causing a sudden fifteen percent reduction in production, about the time of Stuxnet’s activation. Other anonymous sources leaked word of a more serious nuclear accident at Natanz. Stuxnet could reprogram the PLCs running centrifuge arrays to exceed RPM safety limits or shut down lubrication or cooling systems. Centrifuges can easily explode if they become unstable.

Iran has over sixty percent of the worldwide documented Stuxnet infections. Even Iranian officials admit to thirty thousand infected computers. However, not everyone agrees with Iran as a primary target. Stuxnet showed up in India, Indonesia and Russia before reaching Iran. Eric Chien, technical director of Symantec Security Response, concedes the incidence of infection within Iran could merely indicate that country is less diligent about using security software to protect its systems.

The researchers are also convinced Israel’s Unit 8200 cyber-warfare operation is the source of Stuxnet. In addition to Iran as the target, they base this conclusion on a discovery recently reported in the New York Times. Myrtus, Latin for “myrtle” is the name of one of the files comprising the Stuxnet code. In the Old Testament Book of Esther, Queen Esther’s original Hebrew name was reportedly Hadassah, the Hebrew word for “myrtle.” The Book of Esther is the story how captive Jews in the Persian (i.e. Iranian) court used subterfuge to preempt a plot against the nation of Israel.

The theory of Israel as culprit gained endorsement from Yossi Melman, who covers intelligence for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, as well as Richard Falkenrath, former Senior Director for Policy and Plans within the Office of Homeland Security.

Other experts disagree, citing the U.S. and NATO as more likely culprits. They dismiss the “myrtle” connection or label it a red herring, designed to lead researchers astray. John Pescatore, Vice-President for Internet Security at Gartner Group posits a large corporation or even citizens’ interest group could have funded Stuxnet to discredit Siemens’s software rather than attack specific governments. The Christian Science Monitor notes “myrtus” could simply be an acronym for something like “my remote terminal units.”

What everyone agrees upon is the seriousness of this software. An entire session, entitled Stuxnet – An In-Depth Look, headlined at the Virus Bulletin Conference in Vancouver Canada last week. European digital security company Kaspersky Labs released a statement describing Stuxnet as “a working and fearsome prototype of a cyber-weapon that will lead to the creation of a new arms race in the world.” Rodney Joffe, senior technologist at Neustar, calls Stuxnet a “precision guided cybermunition.”

“In the worst case, we would have seen power plants explode or dams burst,” said Derek Reveron, a technology specialist at the Naval War College. If a piece of software capable of turning any nuclear power station into Three Mile Island or Chernobyl is not worrisome enough, there is also the danger of blowback. Now that it is in the public domain, variants on Stuxnet could reappear in even more dangerous forms. Cyber-criminals typically do not worry about collateral damage from their attacks because only virtual harm results.

The ability of Stuxnet to affect physical equipment in the real world changes all that. Imagine the PLCs that drive ATMs re-programmed to distribute money to waiting criminals at certain places/times. Imagine a version of Stuxnet that controlled alarm systems, access controls, and doors, giving criminals egress to bank vaults or foreign spies seemingly valid admission to top-secret U.S. facilities. The F-Secure Corporation’s blog reports the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico included some Siemens PLC systems. It is conceivable that a Stuxnet-infected controller rendered the supposedly infallible blowout preventer non-responsive, resulting in the fatal explosion and massive oil spill that followed.

Stuxnet is truly the first bullet in a completely new type of cyber-warfare. However, describing it as a mere “bullet” is like calling a nuclear warhead, “just another bomb” or the jetliners that brought down the Twin Towers, “just another couple of 747s.” Science fiction once again has become science fact. Stuxnet is big. It really does change everything about the potential of Internet terrorism.

Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is to use a larger can.
– Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving System Dynamics

Pledge of Aggrievement

2010-09-24T09:53:00.004-04:00

The Real Polarization in Politics Today Isn’t Policy or Ideology but Demonizing the Opposition

House Minority Leader John Boehner and the Republican Party released a Pledge to America on Wednesday. Anticipating gains in House and Senate seats rivaling or even exceeding the “Republican Revolution” of 1994, the GOP hoped to seal the deal by parroting Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America from that election. They intended to reassure voters fed up with Washington how Republicans will lead them.

Despite plenty of patriotic jingo, the document feels less like a Pledge of Allegiance about restoring America to greatness and more like a Pledge of Aggrievement, carping about everything changed and changing in America.

As the Associated Press reports, “The plan steers clear of specifics on important issues, such as how it will ‘put government on a path to a balanced budget.’ It omits altogether the question of how to address looming shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare, which account for a huge portion of the nation's soaring deficit, instead including a vague promise – ‘We will make the decisions that are necessary to protect our entitlement programs’.”

In contrast, the document is quite specific about what it will undo. Republicans promised to repeal healthcare reform and end all economic stimulus programs. They pledged to forbid allowing the Bush tax to expire, making them permanent instead. They swore to cut spending back to 2008 levels, with the exception of defense, and freeze the tax code for two years. They assured they would prevent any form of carbon tax. They vowed to keep terrorist trials off U.S. soil and in military tribunals.

They also promised to continue their opposition to abortion and embryonic stem cell research. They implied a promise to prevent gays and lesbians from serving in the military or marrying openly, at least until such time as the institutions currently discriminating against them voluntarily decided to reverse their positions.

The Pledge to America is, in short, a justification of and paean to everything Republicans have said “no” to over the past two years. It seeks, in no uncertain terms, to paint their opposition as heroism in the face of a dangerous regime. “Our government has failed us,” declared Republican House Chief Deputy Whip Kevin McCarthy of California. By “government,” McCarthy meant “Democrats,” characterized by the Pledge as “arrogant,” “out-of-touch,” and “self-appointed elites.”

The conventional wisdom runs that our nation’s two major political Parties are each growing more extreme and polarized. While this is unquestionably true, I assert it is also exaggerated. The Democratic Party’s core is more than its loony far left. The sum total of the GOP is more than its fanatic far right. The extremism and polarity lie less in specific policy or general ideology and more in both Parties’ practice of demonizing of the opposition.

While Republicans have been the most egregious offenders, in my opinion, especially in recent years, Democrats bear plenty of culpability too. If the GOP’s Pledge is short on fixes and long on complaints about what is wrong, so the Democratic response to it avoids defending their record of the past two years in favor of dire warnings about the eight years that preceded it. “Republicans want to return to the same failed economic policies that hurt millions of Americans and threatened our economy,” announced a spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The temptation to demonize opponents has long existed in American politics. Just as it is usually easier to tear down than build up, so it is easier to scoff at the solutions proposed by others than offer viable solutions of one’s own. Traditionally, partisans mitigated this urge by realizing they and their opponents shared a common love of country or, at minimum, realizing too much demonizing left themselves open to charges of placing politics before country.

The clever but unfortunate solution to removing this restraint was to portray the opposition as beyond merely misguided but also dangerous and perhaps even malicious and unpatriotic. In light of such villainy, playing politics was synonymous with placing country first and justifiable.

Republican political operative Karl Rove understands this very well. He wrote to his fellow conservatives in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday about the importance of the Pledge in this regard. “What's brought Republicans so close to victory are their deep differences with Democrats. Now's the time to emphasize those policy disagreements in every way possible.” Except the document is not about policy differences but proclaiming, “Oooo, Democrats . . . scary!” thus leaving Republicans as sane and safe by contrast.

For their part, Democrats have been too quick to handle those disagreeing with them by hanging offensive and provocative labels on them, such as “facists,” “racists,” and “Islamophobes.” Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson notes that for many conservatives, “Obama has become the object of their fear and rage that their America is being lost.” Yet much the same is true for George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan among liberals.

Heartening evidence exists that ordinary Americans remain more honest and decent than the political spin machines give them credit. Ruth Marcus, another Washington Post columnist, viewed focus groups conducted by Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. The groups consisted of about thirty women each. All were from American’s heartland, all had some college and family incomes under $100 thousand, and all experienced negative impacts from the recession. They split equally between 2008 Obama and McCain voters and all were likely to vote in the fall midterms.

Even 2008 Obama voters were unwilling to give the President an unqualified endorsement for re-election in 2012. Words used to describe him varied from “disappointment” to “scares me.” In spite of this, both Marcus and the pollster were amazed at the amount of tolerance and sympathy for all the women toward what Obama was trying to do. Everyone shied away from blaming him for the current state of affairs.

“Poor Obama comes in and people expected him just to fix it all. People expected too much,” said one woman from Saint Louis. She was a McCain voter, by the way.

These women reserved their real anger, the anger that so many politicians have been trying to tap into lately, for members of Congress – the opposition Party as well as their own. In Marcus’s words, they were “exasperated by Washington lawmakers seemingly incapable of learning to get along.” Words used to describe them included “juvenile,” “boneheads,” “poison,” and “far removed from the working middle class.”

Some of the Republican ideas about healthcare reform, government spending, and taxes are good. I hope for their incorporation into legislation over the next two years and that Democrats will not obstruct them, as Republicans were so often guilty. At the same time, even if Republican sweep into a Congressional majority, I hope they do not shut out good Democratic ideas altogether, as Democrats too often did to them.

We need allegiance, not aggrievement, between the two Parties over the next two years. Sadly, each side will likely remain too dedicated to playing politics and winning partisan battles to let this occur. In doing so, they act not only against the country’s best interests but also their own. In order to win the “permanent majority” that Rove once envisioned for itself, either side must win over the souls of the opposition. The first step to doing that is conceding their opponents have souls in the first place.

Still Some Gas Left in This Old Clunker

2010-09-22T11:12:00.003-04:00

Obama’s Stimulus and Auto Bailouts Were Expensive, They Also Successfully Saved Us From a Far Worse Economy

The pendulum of political momentum is swinging hard toward the right in my home state of Ohio. Polls show incumbent one-term Democratic Governor Ted Strickland likely to go down to his Republican challenger. In the race to fill the Senate seat vacated by George Voinovich, former Democratic Attorney General and current Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher once enjoyed a commanding lead in the polls. Today, Republican candidate Rob Portman, a former Bush Administration official, commands a similar advantage.

Democratic voters in Ohio’s big cities are unenthusiastic. Republican voters in suburbs, small towns, and farms are angry and animated. Independents are flocking back into the GOP’s tent. Portman explains why, using a popular talking point employed by Democrats since the early days of President Obama’s tenure.

“Independent voters in Ohio always make a difference,” said Portman. “They gave the [Obama] Administration a chance and saw all their hopes disappointed . . . A stimulus package that not only didn’t work, it didn’t work and spent too much.”

The idea of the stimulus as a failure resonates well with voters in a state with unemployment running above the national average. Plenty of economists at conservative think tanks pronounce it a fiasco. Other economists call such charges patently false.

The latter got some validation this Monday, when the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) announced the recession, which officially began in December 2007, officially ended in June 2009 with the beginning of an expansion. "The recession lasted eighteen months, which makes it the longest of any recession since World War II,” according to the bureau.

Alan S. Blinder, a Princeton professor and former Vice-Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, published a paper in July entitled, How the Great Recession Was Brought to an End. Using quantitative models, they empirically prove the turnaround was a direct result of the Wall Street bailout, the bank stress tests, the emergency lending and asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama Administration’s fiscal stimulus program.

Blinder and Zandi demonstrated the nation’s gross domestic product would be about 6.5 percent lower this year lacking these programs. What is more, job losses would run over sixteen million as compared to the eight and a half million actually experienced. Finally, the economy would experience ruinous deflation instead of low inflation.

Republicans were also quick to criticize bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, calling them unjustifiable and rewards to labor unions for supporting Obama in the 2008 election. Others bewailed the program as propping up out-of-touch management’s greed and incompetence. Detractors were equally derisive regarding the Administration’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, incenting Americans to trade in old cars for newer, more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly models.

Obama defended bailouts at the time, arguing U.S. auto designers were still capable of creative innovation and autoworkers still hard working and quality conscious. Of course, that seemed hard to reconcile with the concurrent program encouraging us to cast off their old products and characterizing them as “clunkers.”

Two years later, it appears Obama’s faith in the domestic auto industry is paying dividends – literally. This week, GM CEO Daniel Akerson announced plans to issue shares of preferred stock that will pay dividends and convert to common shares in 2013. Likewise, Chrysler and Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said last week he expects an IPO by his company in the second half of next year.

After receiving bailout money, GM underwent an aggressive reorganization. The new General Motors is selling cars, making money, and repaid $6.7 billion of the $50 billion loaned to it. Its less valuable assets, including dilapidated Detroit factories, became a separate subsidiary, named the Motors Liquidation Company. This company has filed a bankruptcy reorganization plan detailing how it will sell off these assets.

As a result, GM will announce on Friday it is recalling four hundred laid-off workers to make four-cylinder engines at a plant in Spring Hill Tennessee. This is in addition to nearly seven thousand jobs restored by the company since the bailouts, including twelve hundred at a plant making small cars in Lordstown Ohio, near Cleveland. Even two of the closed assembly plants have found buyers and a third in Shreveport Louisiana will continue making cars until its shutdown in 2012.

AutoPacific, an automotive research firm based in Tustin California, just issued its 2010 New Vehicle Satisfaction Survey, which rates how satisfied owners are with forty-five aspects of their cars as well as what they would like to see improved. The best car overall was the Suzuki Kizashi. However, some interesting and highly encouraging results emerged when AutoPacific founder and president, George Peterson, crunched the numbers to determine which vehicles have most improved and most declined over the past five years.

The five most improved vehicles were all American models. The Ford Taurus moved to 4th position in 2010 from 192nd position in 2006, the Ford Escape moved to 31st from 191st, the Ford F-150 moved to 11th from 163rd, the Chevrolet Suburban moved to 39th from 147th, and the Chevrolet Equinox moved to 36th from 133rd. In all cases, the improvements resulted from Detroit listening to customers and retooling to create more desirable interiors/exterior as well as improved fuel economy/engine performance.

At the other end of spectrum, the five vehicles with the greatest decline were all Japanese. The Toyota Tacoma dropped to 221st position in 2010 from 63rd position in 2006, the Suzuki Grand Vitara dropped to 179th from 58th, the Subaru Tribeca dropped to 183rd from 70th, the Honda Element dropped to 199th from 94th, and the Nissan Quest dropped to 164th from 59th. All suffered from quirky designs that eschewed customer input for gimmickry and reliance upon brand reputation.

Love him or hate him, while Obama’s economic policies might have been more effective, less costly, shown quicker results, or just simply different, there is no question they had a significant positive impact on an economy teetering at the brink of disaster when he entered office. Dissatisfaction over the slowness of the recovery is understandable and perhaps justified but without the stimulus, we might have had no recovery at all.

Even impatience with the recovery’s pace may be unrealistic. “Economic activity is typically below normal in the early stages of an expansion and it sometimes remains so well into the expansion,” the NBER noted in its announcement. Furthermore, unemployment usually continues rising after a recession ends. For example, it took no less than nineteen months for unemployment to peak after the 2001 recession, which was far less severe than the most recent one.

Portman and other Republicans are currently riding the voting public’s frustration with Democrats’ inability to handle the economy, much as Obama rode to victory two years earlier from voters’ displeasure with the GOP on the same topic. Their seeming fickleness is only human – unemployment lends itself to impatience with big plans and long cycles. However, some of the tales Portman and his cohorts are telling voters to convince them their anger is not only reasonable but also fact-based are just not true.

Voters may well give up on Obama just as many Republicans insisted it was finally time to give up on Detroit two years ago. Obama’s faith proved justified in the latter case. Maybe voters will come to see the same about him over the next two years if a Republican Congressional majority proves equally unable to jumpstart the economy.

Perhaps Americans will find there is still some gas left in this old clunker after all.

The Pith And The Pendulum

2010-09-17T13:13:00.005-04:00

Republicans, Tea Partiers, and Democrats All Need to Come Back to Reality . . . But Mostly Democrats

pith (noun) – important or essential, significant or weighty, forceful or vigorous

The surprise win by Tea Party-backed candidate Christine O’Donnell over the mainstream GOP’s choice of moderate Mike Castle in the Delaware Senate Republican primary has both Parties claiming victory and disputing the other side’s interpretation of events.

Democrats gloat O’Donnell’s extreme and sometimes ridiculous positions/statements has turned what appeared a close race into a sure win. Polling data agrees with this assessment. Even Rasmussen has moved Delaware from “Leans Democrat” to “Solid Democrat.” Republicans insist O’Donnell will close her current eleven-point deficit by November, just as the much-maligned Sharon Angle has pulled neck-and-neck with Senator Harry Reid in Virginia.

A weak but growing optimism has sprung up among Democrats that the Tea Party will prove an anchor around the neck of the nascent Republican comeback. They predict the gaffes and reactionary views of Tea Party candidates will drive voters away from the Republican brand and back to them. Republicans counter a grass roots movement is afoot to reject failed Democratic policies, insisting progressives “just don’t get it.”

Both sides need to be brought back to reality and the pundits were busy this morning attempting to convince their own that nothing is foolproof in politics, especially these days.

Conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer insists the populist surge that brought O’Donnell victory in Delaware is pure debacle. “The very people who have most alerted the country to the perils of President Obam’s social democratic agenda may have just made it impossible for Republicans to retake the Senate and definitively stop that agenda.”

On the other hand, moderate columnist David Brooks of the New York Times contends Tea Party rhetoric has not scared away heartland Americans from the Republican ticket, including all-important Independent voters. He cites pollsters Charlie Cook, Peter Hart, Associated Press-Gfk, and the Pew Research Center to back up his claim that Americans currently “feel philosophically closer to the Republicans than to the Democrats.”

Back at the Washington Post, liberal columnist Eugene Robinson unhappily agrees that Tea Party histrionics will not translate into a backlash against Republicans. “Try as it might, the GOP probably can’t defeat itself. Not this year, anyway.”

The reason, according to Brooks, ought to be obvious. “It doesn’t matter that public approval of the GOP is now at its all-time low. It doesn’t matter that the Tea Party rhetoric is sometimes extreme . . . The economy and the Democrats are handing the GOP a great, unearned revival. Nothing, it seems, is more scary than one-Party Democratic control.”

The 2008 election was not an ideological shift, despite leaving Democrats firmly in control of the Legislative and Executive Branches. Instead, it reflected dissatisfaction with Republicans over languishing prosperity enjoyed disproportionably by the wealthy, foreign wars that were too expensive in both dollars and lives, and coddling of corporate greed that led to financial markets melting down.

Likewise, regaining control of the House and/or Senate in 2010 will not represent ordinary Americans rejecting President Obama’s attempts to move the country toward socialism. Instead, it will reflect dissatisfaction with Democrats over an agonizingly slow recovery and woefully insufficient job creation.

The pundits are divided, along surprising lines, over the of wisdom of bringing Tea Partiers into the Republican tent by former Alaskan Governor and Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, as well as other far-right populists. The mainstream Republicans who went along with such invitations “now have to worry about being devoured,” jokes Robinson.

Brooks, also in a facetious mood, posits Palin is surely a “Democratic double agent . . . [leading] large sections of the GOP into an intellectual cul de sac.” Krauthammer is less jovial, denouncing her endorsements as “reckless and irresponsible.”

Conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan does not think Tea Partiers are in the GOP tent at all. She believes while mainstream Republicans argued over invitations, “a virtual third party was being born.”

However, Paul Goldman, a political strategist and a former chairperson of the Virginia Democratic Party, considers Palin underestimated by the opposition and underappreciated by her peers. Writing in the Washington Post, he calls her “the best asset the GOP has right now,” precisely for keeping Tea Partiers – and their votes – inside the Republican tent. “She remained strong and stood by her Party. She has become a bridge between the old Republican guard and the growing right-wing dissatisfaction.”

I agree with Goldman. A few far-right wing nut candidates might lose Republicans some seats this fall but this is nothing compared to scores of such candidates running as the third party Noonan envisions and effectively splitting the conservative vote. Granted, extremist candidates and officeholders could hurt Republicans down the road but Republicans need to win with what they have, just as Democratic progressives needed but sometimes have regretted attracting conservative Bluedogs into their tent.

The most relevant admonishment for both Parties comes from Noonan. “This fact marks our political age – The pendulum is swinging faster and in shorter arcs than it ever has in our lifetimes.”

The pendulum swung away hard from Republicans in 2006 and 2008, thrust in that direction by voter economic distress. It is about to swing away from Democrats, propelled by the same sources of discontent.

The caveat for Tea Partiers is that the pendulum’s arc is likely to continue as swiftly for them as it has for anybody else. The caveat for Republicans is that the pendulum is not swinging toward them so much as it is swinging away from anything perceived to be the status quo. The worst mistake they can make it to interpret the shift as a desire for a (permanent) return to normalcy, including "normalcy" as they tend to define it.

However, the greatest caveat remains for Democrats, especially those still in denial or those now trying to convince themselves the pendulum is out-of-control and doomed to flatten conservatives waiting for it with open arms. The pendulum is real, its swinging is real, the swing in under control, and it has pith – it is significant, weighty, and vigorous.

Democrats need to wake up to the new reality awaiting them for the next two years. As Robinson sternly concludes,
“Counting on the Republicans to self-immolate may be the Democrats’ hope, but it's not a plan.” Lacking a plan, Democrats will discover a pendulum that is out of control for them. They will awaken to unspeakable horror as the main characters in a story, entitled “The Pith and the Pendulum.”

Fear Itself And The Fearful Who Fear It

2010-09-15T14:23:00.004-04:00

Our Over-Reactions to the Threat of Terrorism May Come to Endanger Other Cherished Freedoms

French authorities evacuated the Eiffel Tower yesterday after the Parisian landmark received an anonymous bomb threat. The threat turned out to be a hoax but French police were already on alert. The French legislature voted yesterday to ban Muslim women wearing burqas in public. Al-Qaida and several other Islamic extremist groups had vowed violent retaliation if the law passed.

The Western world now views Islamic terrorism and Islam in general with extreme apprehension and misgiving, flinching reflexively at its possible displeasure. This is certainly true right here in America, where we just observed the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

We launched a war in Afghanistan to find those responsible for that atrocity and bring them to justice but our response was not limited to overseas. The federal government revamped security at airports and on airplanes that remains strictly enforced. Congress passed an array of measures, known as the Patriot Act, giving law enforcement and the Executive Branch broad powers to deal with terrorism. These stripped virtually all legal/civil rights from those accused of such crimes and potentially curtailed the civil liberties of every American – all in the name of safety.

Such law passed and receive renewal/extension because our leaders at the time began assuring us al-Qaida was plotting other large-scale attacks before the smoke and ash from September 11 had cleared away. Our leaders further assured us that al-Qaida was a large, global, active organization, posing a substantial and imminent threat to U.S. security.

As it turned out, al-Qaida has not successfully carried out any other large-scale attacks on American soil. Yet the people fearing further attacks in the aftermath of September 11 insist the danger is as urgent as ever. Former Vice-President Dick Cheney fretted on the political talk show circuit back in 2009 that moves by the Obama Administration to relax/repeal some of the measures put in place by the Bush Administration was “making America less safe.”

As recently as this week, Marc Thiessen, a former Bush Administration senior official and currently a visiting fellow with the American Enterprise Institute), wrote the following classic argument from ignorance in the Washington Post. “There is no evidence that al-Qaida’s intent to replicate or exceed the destruction of September 11 has abated . . . Is it really safe to assume it is not planning something equally staggering for the 10th anniversary?”

Nobody doubts al-Qaida’s continued existence or plotting against America. I have argued many times that we are not significantly safer today than we were before September 11. However, I think many are overstating just how unsafe this makes us and we are grossly overreacting in our response tactics to this threat.

A new study issued by the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center and chaired by former Republican Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey and former Democratic Representative Lee Hamilton of Indiana, also co-chairs of the September 11 Commission, promotes this same reasoning. The report says the U.S. intelligence community was wrong about al-Qaida intentions of “matching or besting the loss of life and destruction” it caused on September 11.

“The threat that the U.S. is facing is different than it was nine years ago,” the report concludes. “It is now clear that militants see operational value in conducting more frequent and less sophisticated attacks, which are harder to detect and require less high level coordination.”

In light of such growing evidence, Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek asks, “Have we gone too far? Is the vast expansion in governmental powers and bureaucracies – layered on top of the already enormous military-industrial complex of the Cold War – unwarranted?”

He answers in the affirmative goes on to fret, “It has become an article of faith that we are gravely threatened by vast swarms of Islamic terrorists, many within the country. [It] has fueled a climate of fear and anger. It has created suspicions about U.S. Muslims . . . Ironically, this is precisely the intent of terrorism.”

ABC News anchor and commentator Ted Koppel explains this last part further. “The goal of any organized terrorist attack is to goad a vastly more powerful enemy into an excessive response,” he writes in the New York Times. The worst possible excess response is blind panic, causing society and government’s normal structure and operations to descend into chaos. This was never even remotely a concern for the U.S. following September 11.

However, as Koppel notes, “The insidious thing about terrorism is that there is no such thing as absolute security. Each incident provokes the contemplation of something worse to come.” Another excessive response is one completely out of proportion to the threat. The U.S. has been guilty of this type of overreaction repeatedly. The result, Koppel grimly concludes, is “a swollen national security apparatus” and an America “so absorbed in our own fury” that we are “oblivious to our enemy’s intentions.”

Yet those like Cheney and Thiessen continue to peddle their fear, arguments from ignorance, and forebodings over what might happen to attentive audiences. They point to numerous uncovered plots and thwarted/failed attempts by terrorists since September 11 as proof of the continuing danger, never acknowledging that a planned attack is not the same as an executed attack nor an unsuccessfully executed attack the same as a successful one.

The reason behind their appeal is simple. If the neocons have no other shining legacy for conservatives, it is their success at ingraining a mindset in the American collective consciousness that the threat from terrorism is overwhelming and imminent. Moreover, they have convinced us that surrendering liberties to ensure freedom is neither lazy nor cowardly but rather an act of wise pragmatism by a democratic society.

A McClatchy-Ipsos poll this past January found fifty-one percent of Americans agreed, “It is necessary to give up some civil liberties in order to make the country safe from terrorism.” Only thirty-six worried, “Some of the government’s proposals will go too far in restricting the public's civil liberties.”

The usual bromide to quote here is Benjamin Franklin’s admonition, “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” However, I find myself drawn to the famous opening lines of FDR’s first inaugural address. “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Of course, Roosevelt was not talking about the threat of Islamic extremist violence. He was referring to the potential greater dangers resulting from the economic crisis we came to call the Great Depression. Yet this makes the comparison even more compelling, in my opinion.

The same “anti-socialism, protect individual liberties, return to the traditional values of the Founding Fathers, take back this country” conservatives who deride big government in virtually every other instance are most often the staunchest supporters of things like the Patriot Act and other measures that trade freedom for safety. However, there are other types of safety besides physical safety from terrorist attacks.

There is economic safety, for example, and we are still limping out of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. Now convinced that surrendering civil liberties to be safe from terrorism is not only acceptable but prudent, how willing might certain politicians find Americans to give up other rights and protections for, say, job security? How even more willing might we be to see certain types of people – such as immigrants, illegal or otherwise – lose their rights and protections altogether? We could always invent a new term to avoid squeamish legal and ethical questions, such as “enemy workers.”

The very reason many big corporations give for not investing the billions of dollars they are known to be sitting on to create new jobs is their fear over what Obamacare and other Democratic policies might bring. How far would business-friendly Republicans go to assuage Wall Street's fears?

When conservatives flock to voting booths, intent on returning control one or both houses of Congress to Republicans and Tea Partiers after the midterm elections this fall, they had better think twice about the beliefs and motives of the representatives they are choosing. They might also consider how far and how easily the “safety over freedom” mindset, which they have helped give precedence and legitimacy, is subject to potential abuse.

To paraphrase FDR, we have nothing to fear but fear itself . . . and the fearful who fear it.

Mosque and Quran

2010-09-10T11:13:00.006-04:00

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

One of these things is not like the other,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the other
By the time I finish my song?

I am willing to believe Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s motives were good when he decided to build an Islamic community center near Ground Zero. However, fact remains that the vast majority of non-Muslim Americans to whom he intended outreach saw it instead as an act of (unintentional) offense and provocation. Naturally, they expressed their disapproval. Some of their reactions were also (unintentionally) offensive and provocative.

Enter the Reverend Terry Jones. I am even willing to believe that when he organized a Quran book burning – I consider any book burning vile by its very nature – he meant well, no matter how misdirected his motives. Once again, the vast majority of Americans he intended to champion objected to his gesture as offensive provocation.

Some conservatives who opposed the so-called Ground Zero mosque, such as Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Haley Barbour, and Pat Robertson, managed to condemn Jones without a need to draw parallels between him and Rauf. Others could not resist the temptation.

FOX News commentator Glenn Beck proclaimed, “It’s just like the Ground Zero mosque plan. Does this church have the right? Yes. Should they? No. And not because of the potential backlash or violence. Simply because it is wrong.”

Author and commentator Ann Coulter concurs, “The reason not to burn Qurans is that it's unkind – not to jihadists, but to Muslims who mean us no harm. The same goes for building a mosque at ground zero – in both cases, it's not a question of anyone's ‘rights,’ it's just a nasty thing to do.”

I do not have a problem with people objecting to Rauf or Jones or both. There are some obvious parallels between the two beyond their unpopularity. Rauf began by reaching out to Christians in a bid for peaceful coexistence. Jones began by taking a stand against what he saw as an inherently violent religion. Overwhelming criticism has reduced both to defiant positions of self-defense. Even if they prevail, the diminution of their aspirations cannot render their results as anything other than abject failures.

Likewise, both men have conceded they could be wrong. Rauf admitted in an interview with CNN that he might have chosen a different location if he had anticipated the backlash it would create. “If I knew this would happen, if it would cause this kind of pain, I wouldn't have done it,” he said. Jones told reporters he continues to pray over whether he is interpreting God’s will correctly. He now says the burning is on hold but not canceled.

Nevertheless, I draw the line at arguments of equivalence between the two situations. Rauf’s project is essentially constructive in nature, while Jones’s bonfire is nothing but destructive. Rauf never set out to offend anyone. Jones intended to offend Muslims – his whole point was to shake them up in some way. Rauf claims no objections to Christianity as a religion, whereas Jones most certainly has problems with Islam.

Granted, all this proceeds from my assumption that both men sincerely meant to do good by their actions. Many of Rauf’s critics have suggested the Imam’s true motives are far more nefarious than he claims. They suggest the Ground Zero mosque’s developers intend it as a kind of war memorial, celebrating a great Islamic victory over the West on September 11.

If Rauf does build, I am sure extremist Islamic agitators will present it in this manner and some in the Arab/Islamic world will celebrate it as such. On the other hand, if Rauf decides not to build, I am equally sure those same agitators will spin that outcome as proof of widespread bigotry and hostility against Islam in the United States – such is the nature of propagandists. Our choice, therefore, comes down to whether we want handfuls of Muslims dancing in the street over a false victory or hordes of Muslims rioting in the streets, storming our embassies, and attacking our troops over a perceived insult.

President Obama has called the Quran burning a “recruitment bonanza for al-Qaida.” I think the same is true for forcing the mosque elsewhere. Stories about an Islamic September 11 war memorial may cause some Muslim hearts to swell with jingoistic pride but terrorists will not convince many poor, disillusioned young people to strap explosives to themselves and detonate in a crowd for a cause already won. That kind of sacrifice comes most readily when the enemy appears overwhelmingly strong, unreasoningly hateful, and continued survival of the bomber’s family, nation, and faith is on the line.

In this sense, terrorists hope Jones burns Qurans more than they hope he repents or caves into pressure. Likewise, they hope Rauf repents or caves into pressure more than they hope he builds. Supporting Rauf and opposing Jones goes the longest way toward thwarting the terrorists and keeping Americans safe.

Others, including Jones, argue that safety in this situation is not acumen but appeasement. “When do we stop? How much do we back down? How many times do we back down?” Jones asks. “Instead of us backing down, maybe it’s time to stand up. Maybe it’s time to send a message to radical Islam that we will not tolerate their behavior.”

I agree that radical Islam is dangerous and we sometimes have to take stands to contain its aggressions. I further agree that mainstream Islam could and should be doing more than it is today to police its extremist elements. However, forbidding Muslims to build mosques in places “too sacred” to us and, certainly, burning Qurans strikes me as foolishly reckless – the equivalent of sticking one’s nose up in the face of an unrestrained Hannibal Lecter and daring him to “Bite me!”

Actually, Jones drew another distinction yesterday. He temporarily claimed he was calling off burning Qurans because Islamic leaders had promised him they would cancel the Ground Zero mosque or move it to an alternate site. Jones reversed himself when the Muslims he met with subsequently denied they made any such promise. However, if Rauf really gave up his mosque, Jones said he would interpret it as a “sign from God” not to proceed.

Now I see why Jones and some other Christian fundamentalists insist the Allah of Islam is not the same deity as the Judeo-Christian God. The fundies say Allah is nothing but a murderer. Jones, on the other hand, explains that God is something more along the lines of an extortionist.

If any conservative is correct about what we ought to be doing with Qurans, it is columnist Michelle Malkin. “Instead of burning the Quran, Americans need to be reading it, understanding it, and educating themselves about the Quran passages, Islamic history, and jihadi context,” she writes.

Granted, Malkin thinks that, by doing this, Americans will come to realize that Jones is right and Islam is an intrinsically violent religion. I certainly concede that, much like the Judeo-Christian Bible, the Quran is full of confusing, seemingly contradictory, and even disturbing passages. However, whether they love or loathe what they read, at least Americans will make a slightly more informed decision regarding Islam than based on propagandist rubbish from both sides of the debate.

Attempting to guess which thing is not like the other is a pretty easy game with only two things involved. Let’s just consider this “Sesame Street for Dummies.” The trick lies in correctly determining which thing doesn’t belong.

Those drawing equivalence between Rauf’s mosque and Jones’s Quran burning are mostly off the mark. Even if a majority of Americans oppose its construction today, a chance still exists that the Ground Zero mosque could someday become the place of goodwill and healing that some envision. The aftermath of Jones’s bonfire will never be anything but lingering pain, resentment, and retribution. The hardest place to build anything is atop an ash pit – something anyone who has visited or just looked at pictures of Ground Zero should understand very well.

Did you guess which thing was not like the other?
Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong?
If you guessed this one is not like the other,
Then you're absolutely . . . right!

Dog Days

2010-09-09T09:22:00.003-04:00

The President Is Getting What He Deserves, Americans Are Getting What We Needed

Back in January, I posted that President Obama’s best chance to reverse his falling polling number and shore up Democratic losses in this year’s midterm elections was to sound populist themes whenever possible. I reasoned the President needed to repackage his considerable legislative victories during his first year not as the move toward socialism declared by his political opponents but rather an attempt to use government as a champion for middle class families.

His poll numbers have declined even further and the possibility of a Republican tsunami in November seems even more probable. In spite of this, Obama used a union Labor Day picnic in Milwaukee to continue pushing a populist agenda. He proposed a $50 billion investment in the nation’s transportation infrastructure. While the nation’s roads and bridges will benefit from the improvements it will bring, the main point of the plan was to create jobs at a time of record unemployment.

“It doesn’t do anybody any good when so many hard-working Americans have been idle for months, even years, at a time when there is so much of America that needs rebuilding,” Obama told the crowd.

Columnist Bob Herbert of the New York Times loved the speech, calling it “rousing, inspirational and, at times, quite funny . . . If [Obama’s] goal was to demonstrate that he genuinely cared about the struggles of the people in the audience and those watching on television . . . he largely succeeded.” Yet, particularly in comparison to his Oval Office address on the end of combat operations in Iraq, the speech left Herbert scratching his head and wondering, “Where has this guy been for the past year and a half?”

Herbert’s colleague, Frank Rich, agrees, calling the Iraq speech “bloodless.” So does Richard Cohen of the Washington Post. Cohen writes, “[Obama] should have had something momentous to say. In fact, he had almost nothing to say.”

Congressional Republicans predictably lambasted the infrastructure investment proposal as simultaneously too expensive and insufficient at stimulating permanent job creation by private enterprise. Pundits disliked this speech too but could not seem to agree as to why.

Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post portrayed Obama as “doing cartwheels to get attention.” She particularly disliked his attacks against Republican negativity, accusing him of “banging pots at a bogeyman that doesn't exist.” At the opposite end of the spectrum, her cohort Dana Milbank viewed Obama as engaging in “the political equivalent of hiding under the bed.”

The public indisputably perceives Obama as failing to address their needs and concerns. Yet somebody – possibly everybody – is mistaken as to exactly what he is doing wrong.

During his speech, Obama departed from his prepared remarks to complain about those attacking his policies, his religious faith, and his birthplace. “They talk about me like a dog,” he declared.

In response, Milbank smiles that Obama is not a dog but a cat – “solitary, finicky and independent.” On a serious note, Cohen frets, “Obama has allowed others to define him . . . [in some cases] people on the edge of insanity.” The result, Cohen sadly concludes, is the “downsizing” of Obama’s approval/mandate over the past two years; what he calls “The Incredible Shrinking Presidency.”

Cohen appears to agree with House Minority Leader John Boehner that Obama needs to fire his subordinates and handlers. “His staff ill-serves him so that he presents a persona at odds with his performance.”

For Parker, however, Obama’s faults lie not in his Administration’s would-be policy stars but squarely in himself. The President is “out of touch with the American people” she states bluntly. Rich concurs and marvels how “a candidate so attuned to the nation’s pulse . . . has grown tone deaf in office.”

For my part, I reject most of the conventional wisdom regarding the source of Obama’s popularity problems. Unquestionably, the tepid economic recovery, particularly the slowdown this summer, plays a major role but it is hardly the sum total of the dissatisfaction. The fact remains that Obama, much like George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and even Ronald Reagan, generates consistent, intense partisan dislike among certain voters. We know from the 2008 elections this runs as high as thirty-five to forty percent. These folks will criticize him no matter what he does.

The critical twelve percent or so that mark Obama at the height of his popularity versus his current nadir represent mostly Independents and some conservative Democrats who fear Obama has pushed too radical an agenda and, to a lesser extent, liberal Democrats who fear he has not been sufficiently aggressive. So what caused this shift?

I disagree with the argument made by some that Obama does not know how to be President and/or has never shifted out of campaign mode. He has consistently moved toward what he promised with general success. In some cases, such as closing Guantanamo Bay, he remains committed to his principles but found his original timetable was too optimistic. In other cases, such a winding down combat operations in Iraq, he proved spot on. In still other cases, such as troop levels in Afghanistan, his initial assumptions proved wrong and he evolved new ones.

Many contend he misread both voters and harsh realities by focusing some much time and effort on healthcare reform versus the economy and job creation during his first year in office. Again, I disagree. Just as our national economy survived the Bush tax cuts and paying for two overseas wars, so it will survive Stimulus II, bank/auto bailouts, and ten percent unemployment. Meaningful healthcare reform, on the other hand, while far from a desirable finished product, had to begin now or it may have never happened.

Voter dissatisfaction with Obama comes from a President who has spent the last two years making difficult choices in trying to do exactly what they elected him to do. Some disillusion was inevitable when the excitement of “hope and change” met limited resources and Beltway gridlock. Granted, this does not make the dissatisfaction any less real.

Moreover, it is fair to say that Obama owns some of these problems due to his governance style, which has been considerably lower key than his campaign. Whatever else Obama has done well as President, he has been truly abysmal in the role of de facto partisan head of his Party. Democratic candidates of all stripes are likely to feel this November what Obama is feeling now because of this failing.

Obama is right; we are talking about him a lot like a dog these days. Americans love dogs, valuing their loyalty, enthusiasm, and tireless devotion. These things are just what we want when we are ready to play. However, nothing is easier to ignore than the family dog when things become tenser, partly because of the dog’s very nature. In this sense, Obama was bound to dim in our perceptions despite some legitimate accomplishments. Slow and steady may win the race but it seldom wows the grandstand.

In the matter of healthcare reform, Obama steadfastly held to his guns and sold us what he thought we needed – namely, reliable but boring insurance. Being Americans, we knew we needed this but what we really wanted was a cheap, quick-acting pill. Now, as Obama finally starts to get serious about the economy and job creation, his proposals once again under whelm us. Even his big infrastructure fan, Bob Herbert, admits, “The plan won’t help Democrats in November. It’s already too late for that.”

Labor Day traditionally marks the end of summer and the dog days. However, labor – or, more specifically, the lack of gainful employment – will make the dog days drag out for Obama through the fall. He is garnering the negative consequences from accomplishing much of what he wanted to accomplish. So are we. It is probably a good thing, the right thing for us in the end but we do not like it now. So we do what any American does in such frustrating times – we kick the dog.

Beck to the Past

2010-09-01T08:55:00.002-04:00

The Weekend Rally Demonstrated Both What Is Good and Bad in Contemporary Populist Conservatism

FOX News commentator Glenn Beck held a rally on the National Mall in Washington DC this past weekend. Exact numbers varied but the size of the crowd it attracted was huge and impressive by any standard. Beck insisted the event was apolitical but parallels between it and Tea Party rallies were obvious. In this sense, the rally demonstrated both what is good and what is bad about the populism gaining traction within contemporary conservative philosophy.

The size of the crowd demonstrated irrefutably for anyone who did not believe so already that the Tea Party, in all its various forms, as well as other conservative grassroots activists, are not a small band of far-right fringe fanatics. Instead, they are the most vocal contingent of widespread dissatisfaction with the country’s recent economic performance and the inability of the federal government to address it adequately.

Whatever questions still need answers about the motives of those organizing and funding these rallies, the vast majority of the people turning out to support them are both genuine and sincere. Whether one agrees with what all the things said at the rally, it was a beautiful example of democracy in action, carried out through our right to peaceably assemble and speak our minds.

The first good thing about this populist gathering was the lack of any possible openings for opponents to raise criticisms of racism, thereby forcing conservatives to defend themselves or counterattack in response. This was important since the crowd, as with Tea Party rallies, was predominantly white. The counterdemonstration organized by the Reverend Al Sharpton and others proved unnecessary and felt overwrought.

Many expressed skepticism over Beck’s choice of the anniversary and location of Martin Luther King Jr.’s immortal “I Have A Dream” speech for his own venue. However, Beck and the organizers treated King’s memory with the utmost respect and honor. Clarence Jones, King's personal attorney and speechwriter, said he believed King would be “pleased and honored” by the event.

MLK Jr. was a great black American and a hero to most of his race. However, he has become not simply a black American hero but an American hero to all Americans over the years. It is completely acceptable – as well as in line with the doctrine Doctor King preached – that any group of Americans should be able to gather and honor him without requiring significant African American participation/leadership to make the celebration legitimate.

The second good thing about Beck’s rally was its general tone, which felt energized and expressed dissatisfaction plainly but far less angrily and unattractively than have some past Tea Party rallies. The advance request by Beck to all those attending not to bring signs/posters helped to prevent the inflammatory, hateful, and sometimes even violent examples of dissent on which past media coverage have focused.

Such restraint and self-policing are exactly what the NAACP and other groups called upon the movement to do earlier this summer. Beck and other organizers deserve praise for a commonsense approach along these lines.

The third good thing about the rally – and probably the main reason for the first two – was its focus more on joint views in which a majority of attendees believed rather than a disjointed and occasionally incoherent litany of reasons for their anger. I hope the success of the rally and its generally upbeat portrayal in the media will convince more confrontational conservatives that positive campaigning can be just as effective as negative attacks.

In spite of these good things, the rally still carried reminders of the bad things I see in conservative populism. The first of these is its in-your-face piety. While its agitators, such as Beck, love denouncing “liberal intelligentsia elites,” conservatives routinely practice sanctimoniousness on issues they believe themselves the exclusive owners.

For Beck last weekend, one such topic was faith and traditional religious values. Warning the crowd, “For too long, this country has wandered in darkness,” Beck implored, “I ask, not only if you would pray on your knees, but pray on your knees with your door open for your children to see.”

Calling on Americans to follow our own values is a far better message than incendiary complaints over the building of an Islamic community center with a prayer room too near Ground Zero as an act of effrontery by an inherently violent, evil religion. Nor do I object to parents engaging in religious/moral instruction with their children.

Yet I cannot help but contrast Beck’s “open door” prayer policy with the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus admonished his followers specifically, “When you pray, enter into your room and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father in secret.” In contrast, Beck seems rather like “the hypocrites, [who] love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.” For some conservatives, this seems to be as true for their patriotism as it is for their piety.

Again, I have no objection to pride in this country or its occasional heartfelt expression. However, I get the feeling sometimes that too many conservatives wear the flag on their sleeves as a kind of shibboleth. When speakers like Beck or Palin repeatedly feel the need to insist nothing beyond love of country motivates them, I find it hard to avoid skeptically question whether something else might indeed be motivating them.

The other bad thing I see in contemporary conservatism is the aura of degeneration it projects. Despite a promise by Beck, “Today we are going to concentrate on the good things in America . . . and the things that we can do tomorrow,” the very themes of the day – restoring honor, turn back to God, a return to traditional values – were retrogressive, reflecting a backward-looking, rather than forwards-looking, mindset.

This is not surprising, considering the Republican Party’s core audience these days – an audience whose demographics contain many similarities with Tea Party participants. Ross Douthat of the New York Times characterized the rally as “a long festival of affirmation for middle-class white Christians.” His colleague, Paul Krugman, adds affluence to the mix, noting, “Nobody is angrier these days than the very, very rich.”

I re-emphasize this is not the supercilious anger of racism. Instead, it is frustration from recognition that cultural/religious conservatives are losing their place as the majority constituency within the U.S. population as well as their past dominance of its leadership positions. In fairness, they have legitimate fears over the current economy and state of the country in general as well as valid criticisms of government’s inability to deal with those problems.

Mixed in with it, however, is disconnection with government and other powerful institutions resulting from their inability to recognize themselves in these institutions to the same degree they so long enjoyed. Little wonder their distrust. Little wonder their embrace of ever narrowing definitions of what it means to be a “real American” and defending that narrowness with zealous unwillingness to compromise or concede. Little wonder their preference for a fuzzily safe past over uncertain future progress.

The anger and frustration currently giving it momentum strike me as symptomatic not of hopeful upward battle but rather desperation over increasingly inevitable diminution. It is like the howl of an abandoned pet dog at the now-empty house where it and its owners once lived. For all the anger and anguish in its bay, this beast is more likely to inspire our pity than our fear.

Tea Partiers and the far right in general are still a considerable force – the rally turnout proved this true. They will continue to be able to exert considerable influence on elections and government policy for some time to come. In the long term, however, they have already reached their critical tipping point and all trends align against them.

Their anger and desire for a return to a “better” (i.e. more comfortable, more familiar) America is understandable but ultimately misguided. The rally shows their greatest strengths lie in their numbers and unity; their greatest weakness lies in their choice of leadership and the direction they are following. Beck reassures them the only way forwards to the future is back to the past. It is a dead end; an approach ultimately doomed to failure.

Eleemosynary Capitalism

2010-06-22T09:27:00.005-04:00

Those Anticipating a Return to Power Are Going to Find Out That They Are Merely Next in Line

Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat believes President Obama’s recent Oval Office address regarding the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was a tipping point or catalyst in which U.S. liberals begin turning against him. “Many liberals look at this White House and see a Presidency adrift,” he postulates.

His liberal colleague, Frank Rich, seems to provide confirmation. Rich urges Obama to act more proactively and forcefully than he had done to date in reaction to the spill. “It’s not just the future of the Gulf Coast, energy policy, or his Presidency that’s in jeopardy. What’s also being tarred daily by the gushing oil is the very notion that government can accomplish anything.”

“Liberals had hoped that Obama’s election marked the beginning of a long progressive era,” Douthat explains. Now they are panicking, fearful their dominance may last a mere two years before Americans opt for conservative reactionary retrenchment. Their growing contempt for Obama, Douthat continues, draws it source not from any demonstrated incompetence on his part but their fear that “liberalism itself may be running out of time.”

All this leaves many on the right celebrating gleefully. Conservatives understood George W. Bush “blew it” in his second term and they feared an extended period of power for Democrats as well. They believed a Democratic fall was inevitable but cannot believe their luck that the tide is turning so quickly.

Many conservatives, the smart ones at least, are not so naïve as to believe their return to power will cool the anger pervading this country. However, they also believe they will succeed where Obama and the Democrats have failed because unproven extremist theories drive the latter, whereas they operate on sound, common sense conservative principles.

They may well be correct that, rightly or wrongly, a majority of Americans now see liberal Democrats as too extreme to be comfortable leaving them in charge. However, this intolerance with extremism may doom them just as much as the public’s impatience for results. Nothing is hurting Obama more than a lack of public confidence in government but anti-government conservatives are in for a shock by how little confidence this same public has in their own panacea to all problems – free market capitalism.

This is not an essay on the death of capitalism, which is alive and well both in this country and throughout the world. Nor is it an attempt to argue that government control is a superior solution to free markets. Rather, it is an observation that capitalism’s luster has dimmed considerably for most Americans in recent years. Obama’s failure to turn his progressive vision into government success stories may have leveled the playing field between government and capitalism but it has not returned capitalism to its former unassailable reputation.

In the past, conservatives’ best and frequently employed argument against what they saw as the insidious forces of creeping socialism was to roll their eyes and observe that private enterprise, even at its worst, is always more effective and efficient at running anything than government. It became cliché because people accepted it as obvious. Nowadays, such claims carry far less credibility. Voters – from Tea Partiers to Independents – may be angry but they are not stupid.

Agree or disagree with Obama’s stimulus, Americans understand that greed and corruption by loosely regulated private financial institutions led to the need to pull back an economy perceived as on the brink. Regardless of Obamacare’s popularity, most Americans still want some type of healthcare reform precisely because private caregivers and insurers made such a mess of the current system. Even if the Obama Administration reacted too slowly or insufficiently, Americans place the bulk of the blame for the Gulf spill on BP and an all-too-cozy relationship between Big Oil and federal inspectors.

The loss of faith in capitalism as the solution arises from the same source that conservatives blame for loss of faith in government – the rise of extremism within each. This extremism has resulted in what I am going to call “liberal capitalism.” By this, I do not mean some variation on Bush’s “compassionate conservatism.” It does not refer to capitalism that welcomes regulation or seeks to promote social welfare. Instead, I refer to the other meaning of “liberal” – overly generous, unconstrained, unrestricted, even licentious.

For much of this nation’s history, we practiced a conservative form of capitalism. Companies created good and services that brought demonstrable values to consumers; investors demanded nothing less before placing their money at risk. Growth occurred slowly and carefully over time; wealth acquisition was protracted but sustained. Reward followed from hard work and more than a little bit of luck.

Industrialization and technology brought about mass production, allowing entrepreneurs to gain massive wealth based on the labor of thousands. These players used part of their wealth to dominate the free market and avoid its natural competitive restrictions. The economy adjusted by allowing government to regulate business when it would not police itself and/or free market forces proved insufficient.

However, after the economic recession and malaise of the 1970s, conservatives advanced a new theory under Ronald Reagan. They insisted limitations on unrestrained greed were not common sense conservatism but radical socialist impediments holding down wealth creation. Democratic government was no longer the partner of capitalism but its most bitter enemy. The economic upturn of the 1980s and boom of the 1990s solidified this belief in the minds of many in a manner the shaky economy experienced since 2000 could not dilute.

Financial analysts no longer judged companies by the value of their products or the solidity of their assets but solely by their quarterly bottom lines. Investors forsook creation of sustained wealth for quick profits. Financial gurus promised that wealth could be created by wealth itself and the whole system could continue growing at ever-increasing rates forever. Risk was virtually non-existent. It was liberalism run wild.

The whole thing was a pipe dream, of course. The bursting of the high tech bubble threatened the dream but business executives found ways to cook their books and government responded by ordering regulators to look away as well as offering bailouts, tax breaks, subsidies, and other forms of corporate welfare. The housing bubble was even larger and its bursting threatened the entire economy. The stimulus offered by government in response, while necessary, angered Americans not only for its size but because it basic approach was all too familiar and frustrating.

Ultimately, capitalism is an attempt to manage limited resources. While fossil fuels are a topical prime example, the fact is that all resources are finite and, thus, so is the wealth they generate. Liberal capitalism has failed to acknowledge this difficult Truth. As a result, it has increasingly morphed into eleemosynary capitalism, requiring the charity of government and much of society to continue filling the pockets of a dwindling privileged few.

The almost unbelievable comments of politicians like Rand Paul and Representative Joe Barton of Texas, defending BP over the Gulf oil spill and criticizing the Obama Administration for attempting to hold the company accountable, reflects how squarely the Republican Party endorses government’s role as chief apologist for capitalism’s excesses. The vast majority of those angry today will discover that placing the GOP back in charge will fail to lower their blood pressures or increase the long-term worth of their portfolios.

Moreover, those who have sold their souls to liberal/ eleemosynary capitalism – sincerely but mistakenly believing it to be the only true form of capitalism – are going to discover that if time is running out for liberalism, they are next in line. Their return to power will last only as long as the vast but still finite wealth and resources of their benefactors holds out.

The Man on the Beach

2010-06-01T12:19:00.003-04:00

Obama Has Lead Us to the Shore; It Is Up to Us to Decide What Government’s Role Will Be There and Elsewhere

President Obama and the federal government garnered widespread criticism for failing to act quickly enough and do enough to staunch the flow of crude oil spewing from a BP drilling site nearly a mile below the Gulf of Mexico’s surface. Republican opponents quickly labeled it “Obama’s Katrina.”

David Brooks of the New York Times takes another tack, arguing, “The real parallel could be the Iranian hostage crisis.” His cohort, Frank Rich, frets, “It might not only wreck the ecology of a region but capsize the principal mission of the Obama Presidency.” Rich goes on to define that mission as turning around American distrust of government and portraying it as a (potential) force for good in our lives.

So, last Friday, Obama traveled to Louisiana to stand on one of its beaches and examine the spill’s effects for himself as well as hold a press conference to reassure the public once again everything that could be done was being done. By all accounts, he was not particularly successful.

“I take responsibility,” Obama said. “It’s my job to make sure that everything is done to shut [the well]. The federal government is fully engaged, and I’m fully engaged.”

This was a good start, according to Newsweek’s Howard Fineman, but it still fell short of what was necessary. The problem was not the message or even the messenger but the lack of passion in its delivery. Per Fineman, “Voters expect [Obama] to convince them that he cares, that he's focused . . . He didn't inspire any confidence, especially in contrast to those pictures from the Gulf.”

Brooks expands on this expectation but questions its validity. “[Americans] demand that the President ‘take control.’ They demand that he hold press conferences, show leadership, announce that the buck stops here and do something. They want him to emote and perform the proper theatrical gestures so they can see their emotions enacted on the public stage.”

Obama’s mea culpa certainly failed to impress his many critics on the matter. The President said he was wrong to trust BP so much, both in terms of estimating the size of the leak and the company’s ability to contain it quickly and effectively. “That's not a self-critique at all but classic passive-aggressive behavior,” sneered James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal.

Yet while some conservatives saw the federal government placing its foot on BP’s neck as an insufficient a response, others disparaged this approach for exactly the opposite reason. Rand Paul, Republican Senatorial candidate from Kentucky and Tea Party darling, caused eyebrows to rise nervously within GOP circles when he blamed Obama for being too harsh on BP.

“I think [Obama] sounds really un-American in his criticism of business,” Paul told an Associated Press reporter. “And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be somebody's fault instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky acted quickly to pull Paul out of the limelight and Republicans angrily denounced the media for taking advantage of the new candidate.

On the other hand, columnist Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post is no political ingénue and his latest column makes it clear Paul’s sentiments are not a misstep but an unfortunate revelation into conservative thinking. Krauthammer blames the disaster on “environmental chic,” reasoning that rabid conservationists drove oil companies off land and near-shore drilling into deep water. The problem might have been avoided had unrestricted drilling been permitted in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Then Krauthammer espouses his own “accidents happen” philosophy.

“There will always be catastrophic oil spills. You make them as rare as humanly possible but where would you rather have one – in the Gulf of Mexico, upon which thousands depend for their livelihood, or in the Arctic, where there are practically no people? All spills seriously damage wildlife. That's a given. But why have we pushed the drilling from the barren to the populated, from the remote wilderness to a center of fishing, shipping, tourism and recreation?”

Conservatives keep insisting Obama “just doesn’t get it” and perhaps he does not. Yet the fundamental dichotomy at the heart of their criticisms suggest maybe they do not get it either; perhaps the whole nation does not.

Brooks sums up the problem. “[Americans] want to hold [Obama] responsible for things they know he doesn’t control. Their reaction is a mixture of disgust, anger, longing and need. It may not make sense. But it doesn’t make sense that the country wants spending cuts and doesn’t want cuts, wants change and doesn’t want change. At some point somebody’s going to have to reach a national consensus on the role of government.”

Brooks posits such irrational demands flow from a growing nervousness over “America’s inability to take decisive action in the face of pervasive problems.” Bob Herbert, also writing in the New York Times, suggests this helplessness is self-inflicted.”

“For a nation that can’t stop bragging about how great and powerful it is, we’ve become shockingly helpless in the face of the many challenges confronting us . . . The American public [needs] to begin coping in a serious and sustained way with an energy crisis that we’ve been warned about for decades. If the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history is not enough to bring about a reversal of our epic foolishness on the energy front, then nothing will . . . When are we going to stop behaving so stupidly?”

Last year, Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana and rising GOP star, responded to Obama’s first address to Congress by, among other things, belittling research into environmental and other dangers from volcanoes as ridiculous and unaffordable. When oil from the BP leak began threatening his state’s shores, he started begging the federal government to spend and act without limits.

Republicans and too many Americans in general do not seem to see any more hypocrisy in this than they did opposing “socialistic” healthcare while simultaneously screaming over potential cuts to Medicare. They criticize Obama for failing to fix the BP leak but when faced with a disaster that resulted from far-too-cozy relationships between Big Oil and federal regulators, they argue for less regulation and “Drill, Baby, Drill!” They claim to embrace risk-taking associated with entrepreneurial capitalism but when they and their families are the ones at risk, they expect government protection.

As E.J. Dionne noted in the Washington Post, “Deregulation is wonderful until we discover what happens when regulations aren't issued or enforced. Everyone is a capitalist until a private company blunders. Then everyone starts talking like a socialist, presuming that the government can put things right because they see it as being just as big and powerful as its Tea Party critics claim it is. But the truth is that we have disempowered government and handed vast responsibilities over to a private sector that will never see protecting the public interest as its primary task.”

It is the attitude of “not in my backyard” on a national scale. Unfortunately, the Gulf of Mexico is the nation’s backyard and, as Dionne concludes, the current mess there is ultimately “the product of our own contradictions.” During his press conference, Obama related how his older daughter, Malia, poked her head in the bathroom while he was shaving that morning and asked, “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?”

In many ways, she speaks for a generation of Americans so immature as to demand a birthright of abundance without the slightest desire to make sacrifices even approaching those of the forbearers who earned that birthright for them.

Krauthammer and other conservatives have cast Obama in the role of King Canute of England, who once had his throne placed at the sea’s edge and commanded the waves to cease, only to have them continue lapping about his ankles. The BP leak, they say, reveals Obama’s hubris in declaring his election “was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

They overlook two important things. First, Canute did not engage in spectacle because power and success blinded him to his own mortality. Instead, he wished to provide a lesson to his over-confident subjects about the limitations of even the greatest leaders to do great things alone. Second, Obama jubilant declaration began with the proviso, “If we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it . . .”

Obama did not go to Louisiana expecting the tides to obey him. He simply went to the disaster and offered to do his best to lead us in dealing with it. It is our choice whether we want to give the man on the beach the tools, support, and assistance needed to begin addressing the problem or whether we will continue asking him to make everything better at no cost and then jeering at him when he proves unable to walk on water.

Establishing the Tea Party's Anger

2010-05-26T10:19:00.007-04:00

The Old Guard Is Frustrated by the Growing Reality That They Are No Longer the Ones in Charge

Critics of President Obama – not limited to but most certainly exemplified by Tea Partiers – insist they represent a genuine grassroots movement among the American mainstream fed up with what they describe as “socialist big government.” Some liberals question the movement’s wholesomeness in rejoinder. They point to different incidents at conservative gatherings or remarks by conservative orators which they feel smack of racism. Conservatives respond that liberals are playing the race card in desperation from the unpopularity of their policies.

I do not believe Obama’s critics are racist, certainly not in the sense of the vicious and sadistic congenital racism of the segregated Old South. At the same time, I am equally skeptical that the very real anger driving some conservatives is limited to disagreement with Democratic economic and social polices or even apprehension over record deficits. Something else is at play.

Two surveys conducted in April by POLITICO/TargetPoint and the Pew Research Group attempted to define demographics for the discontented. Both found that those who considered themselves Tea Party members or sympathizers were more likely to be older, white, college educated, affluent, male, married, and (disaffected) Republican than Americans in general. These factors do not say “racist” to me. Instead, they depict the individuals who once ran this country with unquestioned authority – what youthful protestors sometimes called “the Establishment” in the rebellious 1960s.

In his seminal work The Protestant Establishment, academic E. Digby Baltzell, coiner of the acronym “WASP,” warned as early as 1964, “A crisis has developed in modern America largely because of the . . . Establishment's unwillingness or inability to share and improve its upper-class traditions by continuously absorbing talented and distinguished members of minority groups into its privileged ranks.”

This flaw appears to have returned to haunt them in Obama’s America. It is not simply that the United States has become more populous and diverse; those most enjoying the new wealth generated in the 1980s and 1990s – and the power, prestige, and influence associated with it – are more diverse as well.

Eighty-three percent of our nation’s population growth last decade came from non-whites. Nearly one out of four Americans under age eighteen have at least one immigrant parent. A survey by Pew Research found only twenty-one percent of Protestant Establishment families have incomes over $100,000, compared with forty-six percent for Jewish families and forty-two percent for Hindus.

Pew also documents the percentage of Protestants in Congress has dropped to fifty-five percent from seventy-four percent in 1961. And, of course, Protestant representation is about to drop to zero percent on the U.S. Supreme Court if Elena Kagan is confirmed.

“The fact that we're going to zero Protestants in the Court may not be as significant as the fact that her appointment perfectly reflects the decline of the Establishment,” remarks David Campbell, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.

In light of this, it is hardly surprising to see growing distrust in government and other powerful institutions from a constituency wider than just the Tea Party. Likewise, it is unsurprising that a faction from within all conservatives would target that distrust with particular vehemence against Obama.

The POLITICO survey found the common thread tying all discontents together is anger over what they see as excessive government intrusion into personal lives. “I’ve never liked having to ask permission to do anything,” declared one Tea Party attendee. “I stayed within the rules of the law, treated society right and the government’s intruding more and more and more.”

New York Times columnist David Brooks argues this perceived disconnect between effort and reward is deep at the roots of anger for many in the Establishment. Brooks posits that for many years, the Establishment was satisfied because it believed “America is fundamentally a just society . . . people who work hard can usually overcome whatever unfairness is thrust in their way.”

Brooks argues the Establishment’s confidence was shaken when its members saw “People in Congress were caught up in a spoils system in which money was taken from those who worked and given to those with connections. Money was taken from those who produced and used to bail out the reckless.”

Francis Cianfrocca, a noted conservative financial commentator, believes the true focus of Tea Party anger is about “primarily government corruption, more than anything else. It is less a revolt about the bigness of government than it is about the wrongness of government.”

Ben Domenech, Editor-In-Chief of the conservative New Ledger, takes this mindset a step further. “These are normal people, pragmatic voters polarized by Obama’s domestic policies, and fed up with what’s happening in Washington . . . They think the government is a childish bully – that it doesn’t work, thinks it knows what’s best, and that it’s stealing from them to boss them around more.”

Such a mindset is hardly surprising from a group that no longer recognizes itself in powerful institutions. The old Establishment was surely never so naïve to believe that Wall Street and the Beltway were ever entirely free from corruption. Yet whether blue blood bankers or blue collar workers, they could go to sleep each night know that those who held power not only looked like them but also shared much of the same educations, experiences, and values as themselves.

Their contemporaries no longer recognize this connection. Tea Partiers and their sympathizers see themselves squeezed between undeserving lower class poor, especially illegal immigrants, on one side and meritocratic but out-of-touch intellectual elites on the other side.

Railing against immigrant poor is nothing new – the Establishment has been doing this since our nation’s founding. The fear and anger comes when globalization results in leaders of government, corporations, and labor unions whom the Establishment does not trust to place their interests first (i.e. some animals are no longer created more equal than others).

I do not mean to suggest that this is the single, driving catalyst behind Obama’s critics or that reasons cited by them for their anger with government are totally without merit. However, I do feel a disconnect from power, combined with the realization their glory days are not returning anytime soon, exacerbates their discontent with nearly all aspects of modern America.

The Census Bureau's American Community Survey suggests future political conflicts are likely between those regions of the country growing in population, diversity, and educational attainment versus those in decline. However, the survey also predicts conflicts between younger versus aging populations, even within growth areas.

Howard Fineman of Newsweek posits the Tea Party occasionally runs into trouble, such as eliciting charges of racism, because it driven more by emotional resentment than a logical political ideology. He writes its rapid rise to prominence comes from “a seething anti-federal message – that Washington is spending too much, controlling too much, and taxing too much, and is doing it Unconstitutionally.”

Fineman argues that what Tea Partiers forget in their zeal is the repeatedly proven importance of a strong federal government as the protector of individual rights and freedoms. When it applies its anti-federal message here – such as newly minted Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul questioning the intrusiveness of the 1965 Voting Rights Act – it opens the door to easy demonizing by liberals.

For all their intensity and momentum, some fear recent movements of dissent are already doomed to failure, in terms of bringing about lasting change.

Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat writes of the liberal groundswell that brought Obama to power, “Look through these anti-Establishment theatrics to the deep structures of political and economic power and suddenly the surge of populism feels like so much sound and fury . . . . The economic crisis is producing consolidation rather than revolution, the entrenchment of authority rather than its diffusion, and the concentration of power in the hands of [those] that presided over the disasters in the first place . . . And all the legislation we’ve passed, has only strengthened the symbiosis.”

Brooks holds the same pessimism for the conservative counter-reaction to Obama. “[It’s] going to find that the outsiders [it] sent to Washington just screamed at each other at ever higher decibels. [It’s] going to find that [it] unwittingly [helped] create a political culture in which compromise is impermissible, in which institutions are decimated by lone-wolf narcissists who have no interest in or talent for crafting legislation. Nothing will get done.”

Brooks’s worries are likely correct. Republicans may win back Congress in 2010 and/or the White House in 2012 but the growing diversity among those holding power as well as making up the bulk of the electorate is fundamental, widespread, and permanent. The once mighty Establishment will never again enjoy the influence it experienced during our country’s first two hundred years because it will never again represent the majority of Americans.

Tea Partiers, much like the Establishment before them, often regard themselves as the only “real” Americans. They bewail the loss of U.S. wealth, prestige, and power within the world as the beginning of the end for our nation. They might want to consider that one reason for the decline of other historic democracies was their need to dominate and reign, rather than simply to co-exist and endure.

Argument from Ignorance

2010-05-19T10:21:00.004-04:00

Senator Sessions Should Consider the Evidence Against Himself Before Damning the Lack of Evidence Supporting Kagan

A man is sitting inside a warehouse that has a tin roof and no windows. Tin roofs are notorious for making lots of noise inside a building when it rains outside. The main in the warehouse cannot see outside, so he cannot tell directly if it is raining at a given time. But he can infer it indirectly, using, for example, the following argument – If it were raining now, I would know it by the noise. However, I do not hear any noise. Therefore, it is not raining now.

So begins the book Arguments from Ignorance by Douglas Walton, published in 1996 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. The hypothetical example above is an example of an argument from ignorance – a logical fallacy in which an individual claims a premise is proven true only because it has not been proved false or proven false only because it has not been proved true. Such reasoning often provides useful heuristics in uncertain situations. However, as Walton points out, this very reasonableness is exactly what makes arguments from ignorance so dangerous when applied as definitive substantiation.

“Such an argument might discourage us from proceeding to look for positive evidence to prove a hypothesis. Even worse, it might be used to deflect criticism away from one’s failure to provide such positive justification for a claim one has made. The requirement for fulfilling the burden of proof for a claim one has made is a fundamental principle of argument.”

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking minority member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, stands charged with providing advice and consent on President Obama’s choice of Elena Kagan as the next Supreme Court Justice over the next several months. This will likely prove troublesome for me, as Sessions is clearly a man sitting in a warehouse with a tin roof, listening with a tin ear.

If convention wisdom is correct, the GOP will not filibuster Kagan. Instead, it will attempt to make as much political hay as possible by criticizing Kagan’s controversial decision while Dean of Harvard Law School to bar military recruiters on campus over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and then confirm her.

Republicans failed at using the recruitment affair to derail Kagan’s confirmation as U.S. Solicitor General last year. However, Session’s colleague, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, explains the gravity of a lifetime federal judicial appointment sets a higher standard than that for a temporary political appointee. In fact, Inhofe takes it a step further. “If I believe someone is not qualified for a lower position, like a district level, how could that person be qualified for the United States Supreme Court? I don't think they could. The bar has to go up as you go up the courts.”

Now comes the part where Sessions enters the tin-roofed warehouse. His initial reaction to Kagan’s nomination was to release a statement that read, “Ms. Kagan’s lack of judicial experience and short time as Solicitor General, arguing just six cases before the Court, is troubling.” He fears what he does not know about her will end up hurting the nation. “What record does she have to demonstrate that she has been able to put aside her strongly held political views?” Session asks.

Since her lack of a record makes it impossible for Kagan to disprove she is a radical judicial activist, intent on gutting the Constitution, Session equates this to proving it is exactly what she intends to do. Her personal testimony is insufficient to allay his fear. After meeting privately with Kagan, Sessions told reporters, “I did ask her . . . She indicated she would be faithful to the law but of course every nominee says that.”

Interestingly, when former President Bush nominated Harriet Miers, his White House Counsel, for a Supreme Court vacancy in 2005, Sessions had no qualms with her lack of a judicial record. He released a statement the including the following – “It is not necessary that [Miers] have previous experience as a judge in order to serve on the Supreme Court. It’s perfectly acceptable to nominate outstanding lawyers to that position.”

Granted, Miers’s experience was mostly practical whereas Kagan’s has been primarily academic. Still, it is unclear why practitioners gain such increased competence and trustworthiness over those who gave them the knowledge and background to practice in the first place. The real problem in Sessions’s mind is probably the lack of an audit trail.

Sessions knows firsthand how dangerous audit trails can be. In 1985, he was serving as a U.S. Attorney when former President Reagan nominated him to be a federal district judge. Sessions had the backing of Republican Senator Jeremiah Denton of Alabama but hit a snag during his confirmation hearings, when four fellow Department of Justice lawyers all testified that he had made various racist statements.

One lawyer, J. Gerald Hebert, testified that Sessions had referred to the NAACP and the ACLU as “un-American” and “Communist-inspired” because they “forced civil rights down the throats of people.” He said Sessions also called a white civil rights lawyer a “disgrace to his race” for litigating voting rights cases. Herbert said the incidents he described were not isolated, characterizing Sessions as tending to “pop off” on such topics frequently.

Thomas Figures, an African-American Assistant U.S. Attorney who worked under Sessions, testified that Sessions said he “used to think [the Ku Klux Klan] were okay” until he found out some of them smoked pot. He further testified Sessions once forcefully remarked, “I wish I could decline on all” civil rights cases. Figures said that Sessions routinely referred to him as “boy” and once warned him to “be careful what you say to white folks” after he overhead Figures reprimand a secretary.

Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts asked Figures if he had ever voiced objections to Sessions over his behavior. Figures replied, “Senator, I felt that if I had said anything or reacted in a manner in which I thought appropriate, I would be fired. I always felt that my position was very tentative around Mr. Sessions.” Then he added, “In all fairness to Mr. Sessions, however, I should make clear that the problems which existed in the area of civil rights were not present in other aspects of my case assignments.”

When it came his turn to testify, Sessions denied he was a racist. “I'm often loose with my tongue,” he admitted but insisted he was joking or misunderstood in the instances cited. Then he went on to say that the NAACP and ACLU could be construed as un-American when “they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions” in foreign policy. And he stood behind a statement he once made describing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a “piece of intrusive legislation.”

The Judiciary Committee ultimately voted ten to eight not to recommend Sessions and then voted nine to nine not to send his name to the Senate floor for a vote without a recommendation. Sessions was only the second nominee to the federal judiciary in forty-eight years whose nomination died in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Reagan had already received confirmation on over two hundred other equally conservative judicial candidates.

Republicans outnumbered Democrats on the Judiciary Committee by two votes but Republican Senators Charles Mathias of Maryland and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania crossed over. Also voting against Sessions was Democratic Senator Howell Heflin of Alabama. Heflin had initially backed his fellow Alabaman but concluded Sessions’s ability to be fair and impartial was distinctly suspect, at least for civil rights cases. “My duty to the justice system is greater than any duty to any one individual,” said Heflin.

Sessions went on to become Attorney General of Alabama and ultimately won Heflin’s Senate seat upon his retirement. These were positions, unlike a judgeship, for which he only had to demonstrate popularity rather than competence. He eventually won a place on the Judiciary Committee, alongside some of the same Senators who had voted against him. With typical understatement, Sessions called that a “great irony.”

When turned down by the Senate, Sessions expressed the opinion that politicians were occasionally insensitive to the rights and reputation of judicial nominees. This has not kept him from voting “nay” on at least one judgeship nomination, in both the Judiciary Committee and on the floor for every year since he has been in the Senate. He has been particularly tough on nominees for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which he labels “the furthest-left [court] in the American judiciary.”

Sessions will get to ask his questions about Kagan but I have some questions of my own. If the lack of definitive evidence in Kagan’s favor as a fair judge is so damning, what to make of the overwhelming evidence condemning Sessions’s own fairness? Furthermore, to borrow from Senator Inhofe, how is Sessions qualified to conclude that Kagan is fit to be a Supreme Court Justice when his fellow Senators once found him unfit to be a federal district judge – you know, the one with a lower bar?

Sessions will get to ask his questions and then make his arguments against Kagan. However, for those of us capable of thinking outside the warehouse, any argument from Sessions about this or anything else is bound to be an argument from ignorance.

Leaves No Wake

2010-05-13T13:13:00.003-04:00

Kagan Is Qualified And No Radical But an “Organization Justice” Is Not Going to Cut It

President Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to serve as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court comes as no great surprise. Always a leading candidate, if not the prohibitive frontrunner, many believe the Obama Administration has been grooming her for such an opportunity since taking office.

Kagan combines two aspects necessary for successful confirmation by the Senate. First, she has a relatively thin paper trail. Second, her current position proves she can pass the confirmation process – the Senate confirmed her as Solicitor General by a vote of sixty-one to thirty-one, including seven Republican votes.

Virtually all of her former and current colleagues like and respect Kagan for her intellectual brilliance as well as her willingness to engage in dialogue. Almost everyone agrees her confirmation is a foregone conclusion. Democrats still control the Senate with fifty-nine votes and Republicans show no appetite to filibuster her.

In spite of this, senior political analyst Howard Fineman of Newsweek predicts Obama and Kagan can expect to hear Republican opposition “far nastier than the relatively polite treatment accorded Sonia Sotomayor last year.” As proof, he cites the following initial reaction from the office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – “A third of the Senate said just last year that she wasn’t qualified to argue in front of the Court, much less sit on it.”

Edward Whelan, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a former clerk to Justice Scalia, sums up the Republicans’ arguments against Kagan.

“[Kagan will] rubber-stamp [Obama’s] massive effort to transform the relationship between government and the American people and continue the liberal judicial activist project of inventing Constitutional rights that entrench the policy positions of the left,” accuses Whelan.

Charges of radical extremism are as likely to fall as flat against Kagan for Republicans as they did against Sotomayor. The far left has criticized Kagan’s selection with equal vociferousness because they feel she is too conservative, pointing to a series of positions she has taken arguing on behalf of the Obama Administration before the Court. In fairness, Eva Rodriguez of the Washington Post points out, “Kagan's work as Solicitor General should be critiqued on the quality of the argument and the integrity of the legal reasoning and not as a glimpse into her own legal psyche.”

“Just as surgical experience provides the best training for being a master surgeon, judicial experience provides the best training for being a Supreme Court Justice – at least, that is, if one were looking for Justices who are adept at interpreting the law dispassionately rather than imposing their own subjective sense of empathy,” continues Whelan.

For every critic of Kagan’s lack of judicial experience, other observers tout it as a benefit, arguing she will help to shake up a Court whose other eight Justices are all products of the federal appellate system.

History certainly suggests that lacking judicial experience is not a fatal flaw. Highly respected Justices, such as Louis Brandeis, William O. Douglas, Robert Jackson, Felix Frankfurter, and Joseph Story had no judicial backgrounds prior to their elevations. The same is true of several famous Chief Justices, including William Rehnquist, Earl Warren, Harlan Stone, Roger Taney, and even John Marshall – the man who literally defined the Court’s role as ensuring adherence to the Constitution.

Republicans bemoaning Kagan’s lack of judicial experience have nobody but themselves to blame. Late in his second term, former President Clinton nominated Kagan for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. However, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee stalled in order to give the pick to incoming President Bush and Kagan never got an up-or-down vote.

“[How could anyone not] look askance at kicking military recruiters off a college campus while U.S. soldiers are risking their lives abroad to defend us,” demands Whelan. Kagan did just that while Dean of the Harvard Law School, citing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy as discriminatory.

As Clive Crook details in The Atlantic, Kagan’s “position was more moderate and above all more pragmatic than the bare facts might suggest.” Robert Clark, Kagan’s predecessor at Harvard, wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal defending her decision, explaining Kagan “basically followed a [university] strategy toward military recruiting that was in place [since 1979].”

Replies received by the latter piece suggest many in America’s heartland beyond fervent Tea Partiers sympathize with Republicans on this matter. One typical response in disagreement with Clark stated, “It's a crying shame the military can't simply tell Harvard to defend itself the next time American freedom is threatened and young Americans are called to fight and die to defend Harvard's arrogance. Despicable elitism.”

“It is difficult to see how Elena Kagan's career in the elite world of legal academia could be further removed from the real-life experiences of most Americans,” agrees Wheelan. Perhaps most interesting about this line of attack is that if Kagan could be more easily portrayed as empathetic to “real” Americans, conservatives would have attacked her on this basis as well.

Yet their complaints cannot be dismissed quite so easily. Beyond her gender, Kagan brings little in diversity to the Court, an observation made by both Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post as well as Jonathan Turley, Professor of Law at George Washington University, in an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times. Like her prospective female colleagues, Ginsberg and Sotomayor, Kagan was born and raised in a New York City neighborhood. Moreover, as with all of the other Justices, she is a product of the Ivy League.

However, perhaps the most telling critique against Kagan is that, even lacking a judicial record, she has managed to rise so far and so rapidly to widespread acclaim with almost no indication of her values, beliefs, and ideas. Next to her, Obama – also frequently accused with the sin of enigma – seems like an open book.

“Whether by ambitious design or by habit of mind,” notes a New York Times editorial, “Ms. Kagan has spent decades carefully husbanding her thoughts and shielding her philosophy from view” and hopes that Senators grilling her will force Kagan to “open up a little.”

The Washington Post’s Michael Gerson ups the ante. “The most prominent thing about Kagan is her extraordinary ability, while holding high-profile jobs in the legal profession, to say nothing on the major issues of the day . . . Kagan has been a leader in the field of law without having a distinctive legal voice. She has been a leader in academia without having left a discernible academic mark.”

David Brooks says that Kagan reminds him of a type of over-achiever that he dubs “Organization Kids.” The problem with these people, Brooks frets, is that they “often have a professional and strategic attitude toward life. They are not intellectual risk-takers . . . They are prudential rather than poetic.” Brooks finds such tendencies to be “kind of disturbing.”

When I was young Manager at my former employer, many years ago, I worked for a Director who had been with the company for many years and risen through the ranks to his current position. It had just been announced that our area was coming under the control of a new Vice-President. This man came to our company with a sterling resume at the executive level and had already headed up several different areas over a short time.

I asked my boss his opinion of our new VP. My boss was a would-be sailor, fond of sailing analogies. He smiled, shrugged, and said, “Moves fast and leaves no wake.”

In a dialogue with another pundit, Brooks conceded, “My own view of Kagan is that she’ll probably be a very good Justice, and is almost certainly the sort of open-minded pragmatist I would like to see on the Court.” My guess is that she will be a fine Justice as well but I think the Court needs more than just this.

As I posted last month, an intellect and courage capable of standing up to the Court’s conservative faction is far more important in any successor to Justice Stevens than matching or exceeding his liberal ideology. By all accounts, Kagan has the tools to do this but it remains unclear whether she will finally allow herself to act on her inner jurisprudence as much as exactly what those principles entail.

Her episode with the military at Harvard suggests she is not afraid to be controversial but even in this case, she allowed the waves from the initial splash she made to quickly flow away. The Court needs a passionate advocate, not an instigator, to counter the force of Roberts and Scalia. I fear my former boss would label Kagan “leaves no wake.”

The Court faces too many serious challenges in the coming years for this to be good enough. An “Organization Justice” is not going to cut it. Whatever sort of Justice she is going to be, Kagan needs to be more of it than she has been to date.

Jihads and Mortgages

2010-05-10T14:44:00.002-04:00

Emerging Information About the Times Square Bomber Demonstrates the Limits of a Purely Military Response to Terrorism

In some ways, Faisal Shahzad very much fits the profile of what many Americans envision when they hear the word “terrorist.” Of Pakistani descent, Shahzad was a Muslim who had traveled back to his native country multiple times, where he apparently learned the art of bomb making from the Pakistani Taliban. Ultimately, he drove an SUV rigged with explosives into New York City’s Times Square with the intention of detonating it there to harm innocent civilians.

On the other hand, Shahzad was a naturalized U.S. citizen. He had chosen the United States for his education and employment. The child of affluent middle-class parents back in Pakistan, he rose to the same economic class in this country, once owning a house in the suburbs worth over a quarter of a million dollars. He was married with two small children. He worked in the heart of the capitalist corporate world.

Both President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder characterize Shahzad as part of a “terrorist plot” and say he attempted to commit a “terrorist act.” At the same time, Obama pledged, “As Americans and as a nation, we will not be terrorized. We will not cower in fear, we will not be intimidated. We will be vigilant and we will protect and defend the country we love.”

Most political observers took this to mean American would not repeat the national security buildup that followed September 11. It was a condemnation of those supporting violence to bring about political change rather than criticism of Islam. “We will not tolerate any bias or backlash against Pakistani or Muslim New Yorkers,” agreed New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“Authorities responded to the attempted Times Square bombing about as well as anyone possibly could – proving, once again, that viewing terrorism exclusively in a military context is wrong. It's a police matter, too . . . So maybe this will silence those who scream ‘military tribunal’ after every domestic terrorist attempt,” fumed Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post.

Well, no.

Many refuse to see anything other than the former side of Shahzad. They see it as proof that America is under attack by radical Islam and must respond to it solely through military means. They view those who even acknowledges the latter side of Shahzad as apologists, deniers, and soft on national defense.

The fact is that while forces moved Shahzad to attempt a monstrous crime, there was little about him that suggested a monster. He was the poster child for the type of U.S. citizen who was never a radical but becomes a targeted convert for radicals; one who would do their dirty work for them.

Shahzad attended Southeastern University in Washington D.C. and, later, the University of Bridgeport Connecticut. He earned a B.A. in computer science and engineering and then an M.B.A. in 2005. Upon graduation, he entered the corporate world, working as an accountant for Elizabeth Arden and a financial analyst for Affinion Group.

Shahzad met and married his wife, a U.S. citizen born in Colorado of Pakistani heritage, who held an accounting degree. The U.S. government granted him a green card in January 2006. Shahzad bought a two-story colonial home in a suburban neighborhood of Shelton Connecticut in 2004. It cost $273,000 and he paid twenty percent down on it. He became a U.S. citizen in April 2009.

U.S. Immigration officials report “no derogatory information” on Shahzad in any databases – no ties to Islamic radicals or terrorist organizations, no violent outbursts, no tirades against U.S. imperialism or Western decadence. Everyone from former teachers to neighbors to co-workers uniformly regarded Shahzad as a quiet, ordinary, unimpressive person.

The sole potential red flag comes from a real estate broker who said Shahzad once talked about former President Bush and the U.S. war in Iraq with unusual vehemence.

Like many Western terrorist recruits, Shahzad was a product of two cultures who felt he did not belong to either. Globalization, particularly enhanced communication through the Internet and other media, makes the assimilation of immigrants more difficult than in the past.

What is more, Muslim and Middle East immigrants are particularly vulnerable to alienation in America in recent years. “Other minorities didn't perceive that the United States was at war with them,” notes Geneive Abdo, Director of the Iran Program at the Century Foundation. In this sense, the material success enjoyed by immigrants like Shahzad only enhanced feelings of guilt over alleged suffering of their native brethren.

These feelings grow and slowly begin blinding them to the genuine benefits of capitalism and democracy as well as the shortcomings of Islamic society. Then they become fodder for the true radicals, who twist legitimate concerns into outrage and justification for violence.

“Most Americans don't see this – that every day something happens to underscore the extremely anti-Muslim sentiment in this country," says Muqtedar Khan, a University of Delaware political scientist. “You can’t abuse Muslims while you try to assimilate them.”

It is not a small problem. Since September 11, one hundred and forty-six American Muslims have been publicly accused of planning or carrying out extremist violence, according to a study by Duke University. Another study by the New York University Center on Law and Security found eight hundred and four people from around the world charged with terrorism in U.S. federal court since September 11. Two hundred and seventy-three of them were U.S. citizens – almost triple the number from any other nation.

Analysts at the National Counterterrorism Center have been predicting a switch from attacks by highly organized terrorist cells to home grown, lone wolf terrorists for several years. This is partly due to success on the part of the U.S. at containing and destroying the senior leadership of al-Qaida and other groups. The lone wolves tend to be sloppier and less deadly when they attack but they are also harder to detect.

“The real key to minimizing the damage such people can accomplish is to keep these disaffected individuals from making connections with larger networks,” according to Michael Sheehan, former Deputy Commissioner for Counterterrorism with the New York Police Department and Director of the Madison Policy Forum.

David Schanzer, an anti-terrorism expert from Duke University agrees. “The more we distance Muslim-Americans from the mainstream of society and make them feel like outcasts or discriminated against, in some ways we're in a self-perpetuating cycle. We're increasing the likelihood of individuals from that community being alienated.”

However, another crisis occurred in Shahzad’s life that may have driven him over the edge and it was neither religious nor ideological but economic in nature.

In February 2009, Shahzad took out a $65,000 equity loan. By June, he stopped paying the mortgage and other bills. He began selling off his expensive home’s furnishings. When the bank finally threatened foreclosure, Shahzad had abandoned the property and much of its contents. He moved his family to a smaller house in a less prosperous neighborhood of Bridgeport Connecticut.

Maybe Shahzad was abandoning a lifestyle he had already rejected as corrupt. Alternately, maybe the downfall of Shahzad’s own American dream – so common in the past months of economic crisis and recession – were enough to turn him against America and back to his roots where agitators with warped motives awaited his disillusionment.

It is still more evidence that one need not be the product of prolonged poverty to be rocked to the core by a sudden and extreme downturns in economic fortune. Those who see terrorism as a wholly military problem scorn local police and social welfare solutions, calling them both unaffordable and insufficient. In fact, the link between economic security and national security may be closer than they think – as is the link between jihads and mortgages.

Spill, Baby, Spill

2010-05-05T08:43:00.004-04:00

Rather Than Kill Cap and Trade, the Current Disaster in the Gulf Should Be What Ensures Its Passage

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded on April 20 and began leaking crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico apparently failed due to a piece of equipment known as a “blowout preventer.” Designed to seal off a well if it detects a leak, it simply did not work on Deepwater Horizon.

BP is playing up the technological failure angle to defend itself from charges of mismanagement and malfeasance, arguing that it is doing all it can to make things right. BP’s CEO deployed thirty-two ships, two rigs, five airplanes and over a thousand people at the first report of trouble. The company announced it would pay “all necessary and appropriate cleanup costs . . . BP takes responsibility for responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. We will clean it up.”

Far less toxic than the sludge from their rig is the negative publicity and political poison leaking from BP on BP. As an op/ed piece in MIT’s newspaper The Tech ruefully concludes, “The ongoing Gulf of Mexico spill will surely smear [BP’s] green, floral logo.”

“The oil that is still leaking from the well could seriously damage the economy and the environment of our gulf states and it could extend for a long time,” warned President Obama during a visit to the region. “It could jeopardize the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who call this place home.”

And he had an even sterner reproach for the well’s operators. “BP is responsible for this leak – BP will be paying the bill,” Obama said flatly, suggesting the U.S. government, not BP, would decide what constituted “necessary and appropriate” cleanup efforts/costs.

Obama was engaging in a bit of cleanup of his own. He moved up the timetable for his visit when numerous environmental groups, as well as the New York Times editorial board, rebuked his Administration for responding too slowly to the disaster.

The Department of Homeland Security waited until BP upped its estimate of the leak to five thousand barrels per day, from an initial mere thousand, to declare the incident “a spill of national significance.” This, in turn, delayed Homeland Security’s request to the Department of Defense for a more aggressive response.

In fairness, Admiral Thad Allen, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, defended how his team dealt with the leak. “While it may not have been visible to the public, from the very start, we have been working this very hard,” he said. “We have never tried so many different methods for a large spill on the surface as we have during this and I have been doing oil spill response for thirty years.” Retired Rear Admiral Robert North, also of the Coast Guard, agrees with this assessment, saying, “It doesn’t appear that federalizing would bring in any more resources.”

It is also notable that the initial federal response focused on attempting to find and rescue Deepwater Horizon crewmembers, including eleven now presumed dead from the initial oil rig explosion.

More perceptive and disturbing are criticisms of the federal government’s over-reliance on BP to estimate the extent of the damage as well as formulate an effective counterstrategy. “Here you have the company that is responsible for the accident leading the response to the crisis,” explained Tyson Slocum, Director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program. “There is a problem here, and the consequence is clear.”

Yet this observation also shows why the party with the most to lose in all this remains BP. Even its tactic to focus blame on a freak technical glitch fails to save it much face, when it previously testified to the U.S. government that the technology was literally foolproof.

“The oil industry spent forty years building a story line that it knew what it was doing underwater and because it knew what it was doing we could allow it to turn our most sensitive coastline into oilfields,” fumes Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope. “We've now been reminded once again that oil and water do not mix.”

The other problem for Obama is that he recently announced his intention to expand offshore drilling along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Alaskan coasts as a concession to draw conservative support for his Cap and Trade energy/environment bill. Now some politicians that previously supported offshore drilling are suddenly singing a different tune.

“This is the resurrection of the clean energy argument without a doubt in my mind,” Independent (nee Republican) candidate for the Florida Senate, Charlie Crist, told reporters. “You've got to have solar. We've got to move more rapidly to develop wind and nuclear, as well. If this does not make the case that we've got to have energy resources that are clean, that don't disrupt our environment, I don't know what is.”

Two Democratic Representatives and both Democratic Senators from New Jersey have threatened to pull their support for Cap and Trade if offshore drilling is included in the legislation. “I think [the bill is] dead on arrival,” pronounced Democratic Senator Bill Nelson of Florida.

I hope this does not happen. Obama’s concession made for a more balanced, comprehensive bill. Reactively withdrawing even the possibility of future drilling altogether would be a mistake.

At the same time, Republicans and conservatives of all stripes who continue chanting, “Drill, baby, drill!” in response to this situation would be wise to reconsider their position. Neocons used September 11 as well as wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to condition many Americans to place national security and safety concerns above all else. This disaster reminds us there are other threats to our shores beyond an imminent immigration of Islamic jihadists.

Sarah Palin has continued espousing a viewpoint begun during her 2008 Vice-Presidential campaign that oil rigs and drilling leave “little footprints” at worst in any environmental setting. Her claims flow from her faith in the now disproved technological safeguards touted by the oil industry.

“Americans are now less worried about a series of environmental problems than at any time in the past twenty years,” according to a recent Gallup poll. This is partly due to the successes the conservation movement has achieved in cleaning up some of the most egregious examples of air and water pollution from yesteryear.

However, as Paul Krugman of the New York Times observes, it is also the result of a sustained campaign by the far right to “construct a narrative in which advocates of strong environmental protection were either extremists – “eco-Nazis” – or effete liberal snobs trying to impose their aesthetic preferences on ordinary Americans.” Krugman concedes that in some cases, such as efforts to block construction of a wind farm off Cape Cod, liberals have “played right into that caricature.”

Yet when Rush Limbaugh appears to speculate seriously with his audience over conspiratorial leftist sabotage at Deepwater Horizon, he proves a conservative can be just as extreme and disconnected from the mainstream as any former hippie anarchist is capable. “I want to get back to the timing of the blowing up, the explosion out there in the Gulf of Mexico of this oil rig . . . What better way to head off more oil drilling and nuclear plants than by blowing up a rig.”

“Everything the [environmental] advocates warned about is happening,” admonishes Susan Glickman of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “The legislators who stood in the way of moving to clean renewable energy are going to have something to answer for. It's no longer an abstract conversation and now we're seeing the results.”

Rather than spinning this environmental and economic tragedy as another opportunity for short-term political gain, both Republicans and Democrats need to work together – and compromise – to achieve a sane energy policy for the Twenty-First Century. Rather than serving as the final nail in the coffin for Cap and Trade, BP’s blunder ought to be what opens the Pandora’s Box on which Big Oil has sat for far too long. Let the colors that fade to black and smear over this mess be shades of green and not red, white, and blue.

(Gay) Love Letters

2010-04-30T12:19:00.004-04:00

What Happens When the Irresistible Force of Conservative Judicial Activism Meets the Immovable Object of Conservative Strict Construction?

Back when you were in middle school – we called it “junior high” in my day – if there was a boy or girl you liked and you wanted to find out if they liked you too, the standard procedure was to send one of your friends to ask him/her what they thought about you. Included was a note to give the other person if his/her response was positive. As your friend departed on their errand, they typically carried instructions from you not to tell the other person that you liked him/her or that you were the one really asking.

It was an attempt to make something happen that you wanted while remaining anonymous; you could reap the rewards if your crush said yes but you might avoid painful humiliation if they said no. Whether you were the petitioner, the object of affection, or the intermediary, it was all rather silly and embarrassing.

Even though we are adults now, things like this sometimes still happen in politics and government. The Supreme Court enters the picture as Vice-Principal in charge of discipline. The Justices need to decide whether, when somebody notices this clandestine note passing between amorous conspirators, they can read the missives too and maybe even share them with the rest of the class.

The case in question is Doe v. Reed.

In 2009, the state of Washington’s legislature passed a law significantly expanding legal rights and protections for gay couples. Fearing this as a springboard to legalizing gay marriage, a group called Protect Marriage Washington submitted petitions, signed by 138,500 Washington residents, calling for repeal of the new law to be placed on the ballot and subjected to a public vote.

Gay-rights activists asked to review the collected signatures in order to check for fraud. They cited Washington's Public Records Act, passed in 1972, as giving them the right to do so.

Protect Marriage Washington sued to block disclosure, contending that petition signers were entitled to anonymity under the Constitution. They pointed to harassment and threats against those who organized for Proposition 8 repealing gay marriage in California as well as one gay blogger in Washington, who called for names posted on the Internet to encourage the new law’s supporters to have “uncomfortable conversations” with petition signers.

A federal district judge issued a broad ruling barring the state of Washington from releasing the names of signers in this or any other petition drive. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed this ruling. It reasoned that collecting signatures already occurs in public and free access to information is more in the public interest than protecting the privacy of certain political speech under the First Amendment.

Protect Marriage Washington appealed to the Supreme Court, which stepped in and temporarily blocked release of the names. As a result, the initiative to repeal the law went on the ballot with the identities of petitioners remaining private. The Supreme Court then granted review of the case at the first opportunity and expedited its hearing on the docket to assure a ruling during the current term.

Those supporting disclosure find claims of possible persecution from gay activists to be disingenuous. “Given our small numbers and the disadvantages we have faced over the years, and the decades and decades of harassment, and even death, it is more than ironic that petitioners would take the position that somehow it is they who are the victims and they who need protection,” says gay-rights activist Anne Levinson. She points to Justice Department statistics showing a consistent rise in hate crimes against homosexuals.

On the other hand, Larry Stickney, who served as campaign manager for Protect Marriage Washington, reports opponents bombarded his home with emails, telephone calls, and letters containing obscenities, threats, and other serious harassments.

“Mandatory disclosure laws don't inform voters; they squelch speech,” according to Dick Carpenter, Director of Strategic Research at the Institute for Justice. He conducted a survey in 2007 of more than two thousand citizens in six states, including Washington. He concluded that forcing people to comply with disclosure rules in order to exercise their First Amendment rights might result in many staying silent or uninvolved.

Carpenter found that while most people support mandatory disclosure in general, their support wanes when forced to consider personal costs. Fifty-six percent disagreed that disclosure of their identity should be a condition of signing a petition or donating to a ballot issue committee. Opposition grew to seventy-one percent when personal information disclosed included details such as name of employer.

The Supreme Court heard Reed this Wednesday. The conventional wisdom ran that conservative Justices were eager to flex some activist muscle again, just as they did on Citizens United, and the Court would overrule the Ninth Circuit, probably by a five-to-four vote.

Things seemed to shape up that way during oral arguments, with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito sympathizing with lawyer James Bopp, representing the defendants, on the need for privacy and imagining all sort of slippery slope horrors resulting from public disclosure.

Grilling Bopp from the other side, liberal Justice Ginsberg crisply pointed out that Protect Marriage Washington sometimes sells its list of signatures for fundraising purposes. “So that would be the end of a person's privacy,” she concluded and wondered why this type of disclosure is Constitutional if the Washington Public Records Act is not.

Justice Stevens, after hearing Bopp’s argument that maintaining anonymity is in the public’s interest to ensure voter participation, asks, “Isn't there another possible public interest? Would it be legitimate public interest to say, ‘I would like to know who signed the petition, because I would like to try to persuade them that their views should be modified?’ Is there public interest in encouraging debate on the underlying issue?”

Stevens’s take on the matter seems wholly in line with the Washington Public Records Act’s statement of purpose. “The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created.”

However, if the Court ultimately upholds the Ninth Circuit or at least finds that names of petition signers, although not necessarily contact information and other details, may be made public, it will be due to support from a seemingly unexpected figure – conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

Bopp bewailed the results of public disclosure could include, “We’re all going to have to stand in public and announce who we're voting for and whether or not we're voting yes or no on this initiative. That's the way tyrannical governments control and do phony elections.”

Scalia countered him with a history lesson. “For the first century of [the United State’s] existence, even voting was public – you either did it raising your hand or by voice . . . So the country was acting unconstitutionally for a whole century before we adopted the Australian secret ballot? Do you really think that?”

Then Scalia takes it a step further. “The First Amendment does not protect you from criticism or even nasty phone calls when you exercise your political rights to legislate . . . You can't run a democracy this way, with everybody being afraid of having his political positions known . . . Running a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage!”

Finally, Scalia asks Bopp a question that seems aimed in equal parts at his own Chief Justice. “Do you have any case in which we have held that the First Amendment applies to activity that consists of legislating or of adopting legislation? . . . [You] are asking us to enter into a whole new field where we have never gone before.”

It seems that Roberts, the conservative judicial activist, has finally dragged Scalia, the conservative strict Constructionist, somewhere he is unwilling to go – even in the name of opposition to gay marriage. And I might add that conservatives everywhere ought to be glad if Scalia holds the line on the continued Constitutionality of public disclosure laws in the twenty plus states that have adopted them.

Last November, Washington voters overwhelmingly rejected repeal of the new gay rights law, even with the petition signatures protected. If liberals pursue the next step and attempt to place legalizing gay marriage on the ballot, liberal groups along the lines of ACORN will collect those petitions. Given the deliberate fraud in which many conservatives believe such groups engage, a ruling by the Supreme Court on Reed protecting petitioners’ privacy in political speech today could make it all that much harder for conservatives to uncover liberal mischief tomorrow.

Wars consist of many battles and you have to be sure you do not seek to outlaw a weapon or strategy used against you in one battle that you might be able to use to your advantage in another. This is true in both love and politics/government.