South Dakota Politics

Barack's Amateur Hour 2: Biden Time!

For a while there they managed to keep Joe Biden wrapped up tighter than a store-bought burrito.  And then, God bless 'em, the Vice President spoke out loud about (flu name to be designated later).  From ABC:

At a news conference Wednesday evening, President Obama said Americans who may be sick should avoid airplanes and "any system of public transportation where you're confined," but the vice president today took it one step further.

"I would tell members of my family -- and I have -- I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not that it's going to Mexico in a confined aircraft where one person sneezes, that goes all the way through the aircraft," Biden said on NBC's "Today" show.

So Vice President Biden just issued his own no travel alert (not to mention, no elevators alert).  This caused some understandable concern on the part of the travel industry, already struggling from the recession.  I am guessing it probably panicked more than a few would be travelers.  Of course, it was the right thing to say if it was true.  But the Administration moved quickly to shut down the whole idea. 

We already know something very important about Joe Biden.  He often speaks about things he knows nothing about.  That's not unusual for politicians.  But most of the latter are shrewd enough to speak in vague generalities and platitudes.  Biden does something very different: he just starts inventing facts and ideas out of thin air.  See my earlier post Joe Biden's True Knowledge for examples.  The facts he conjures up are often pretty specific, and as in this case, they may be the kind of facts that one should act on if they were true. 

This is the man who is one heartbeat away from the Presidency.  Let's hope that the host of Barack's  Amateur Hour remains healthy. 

Herseth-Sandlin Votes for Deficits...Again

Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin has sided against Republicans and most conservative Democrats by voting for the conference report on the Obama budget.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill will create $9.3 trillion in debt over the next ten years.  See here for how Democrats are abusing the budget system to ram through nationalized health care.  On that matter, it seems like a "pox on both houses" is in order as Republicans have performed similar shenanigans. 

Update: Tim Johnson votes for deficits, too.  Thune votes no. 

Penn Avenue Amateur Hour! with Host Barack Obama

Act I.  This must have seemed like such a great idea!  Send Air Force One (2) to buzz lower Manhattan, with an F-16 chasing it.  Inform the FAA and the NYPD that you're going to do this, but give them strict orders not to tell anyone.  Pssst!  Don't tell the Mayor!  Let's make sure it's a big surprise!  That way, in addition to a picture of the plane with the Statue of Liberty in the background (almost as good as the photo the White House already has), we can also get live footage of New Yorkers scattering in panic.  From the WaPo:

A plane used as a backup for Air Force One and a fighter-jet escort swooped low in the sky over New York on Monday as part of a government photo op, panicking workers, forcing evacuations and prompting an outcry from lawmakers.

Here's the story from MSNBC:

 

So what was their second best idea?  Sending a fully armed SWAT team unannounced into Columbine High School?  Parking a Rider truck in front of a Federal Building and yelling "run for your lives!"  The guy who is taking the heat for this one is Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office.  It's all his idea, he is saying, and let's hope that this is true.  Then at least we diagnose the problem.  The White House Military Office

provides military support for White House functions, including food service, Presidential transportation, medical support and emergency medical services, and hospitality services.

This is not an insignificant business, including as it does the transportation of the President.  In the past it has always been run by a military officer.  President Obama broke precedent and made a political appointment.  Caldera was a career bureaucrat and Secretary of the Army under Bill Clinton.  He is also, apparently, an idiot.  How could one not see how this would play out?  How can it be that, when they were planning this thing, no one raised his or her hand and said:  "ah, boss, maybe this isn't such a good idea"?  Caldera should be fired.  If he isn't, that tells us something about the White House.

Act II.  Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, had no sooner apologized for her agency's Report on Rightwing Extremism in the United States, which offended the nation's veterans while managing to be empty of any useful information, than she offended the entire nation of Canada.  From the Canadian National Post:

Can someone please tell us how U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano got her job? She appears to be about as knowledgeable about border issues as a late-night radio call-in yahoo.

Good question.  In an interview broadcast Monday on the CBC, Ms. Napolitano attempted to justify her call for stricter border security on the premise that "suspected or known terrorists" have entered the U. S. across the Canadian border, including the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack.

That's the part that got her in trouble.  It is a simple matter of fact that none of the known 9/11 perpetrators entered the country from Canada.  You might expect a Secretary of Homeland Security to know this.  Of course, anyone can make that kind of mistake at a bad moment, even if she knows the real facts.  Better is this, brought to us by Jack Kelly at Real Clear Politics:

A few weeks earlier, in a speech to the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Ms. Napolitano said: "One of the things that we need to be sensitive to is the very real feelings among southern border states and in Mexico that if things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border."

This is not a simple mistake about facts.  It is garden variety stupid, as Kelly points out.  How many millions of Canadians are pouring across the U.S. border and remaining here illegally?  How many Canadian drug gangs are shooting it out in Winnipeg, killing mounties, and sneaking across the border to kidknap U.S. citizens?  I doubt very much that people living along the southern border, on either side, are worried that the Canadians are being favored.  I think that this is all Secretary Napolitano's idea, and it shows that the person in charge of securing the U.S. against attacks from abroad is innocent of the simplest distinctions. 

This is all amateur hour follies.  But these are important offices.  It is significant that President Obama is content to fill them with clowns. 

Protest This!

My latest in the American News, assults on the English language and all:

The so-called “tea-parties” that took place around the nation on April 15, tax day, represent to some a laudable protest movement against increased government taxation, while to others they represented a collective rant by a right-wing fringe.

Some commentators, like CNN's Anderson Cooper, resorted to on-air vulgarity to disparage the protesters. Others, such as actress Janeane Garofalo, denounced the protesters as ignorant racists. Many, including CNN reporter Susan Rosegen, disparaged the protesters as mere tools of the Republican Party and Fox News.

Sinking to vulgarity and insult is the sign of bigotry mixed with self-righteousness. The likes of Cooper and Garofalo are likely quite proud that “we” are so much more sophisticated than “those people.” Rosegen is apparently unaware that there is this thing called the Internet, and that's how most protesters heard about the event. From what I observed, the hero of the protesters is dissident Libertarian-Republican Ron Paul, hardly the darling of the GOP establishment.

The better criticism of the protesters came from those with a little knowledge of history. The original Boston Tea Party was protesting taxation without representation, hardly the issue in our day. Also, most protesters were actually receiving an income tax cut under current policy, not an increase.

One could point out that if one is a smoker, the current administration has already raised your taxes. Also, the Obama cap-and-trade energy plan will, by their own admission, cause significantly higher energy prices for everyone, a kind of indirect tax.

Still, one must grant that while the coming Obama budget means much higher taxes for a few, for most Americans it means modestly lower taxes. This is why the protesters would have been far wiser to aim their invective at budget deficits, not taxes. Currently the federal government is $11 trillion in debt. In our current fiscal year we will run up $1.85 trillion more debt, about four times the previous record for a one-year deficit.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, President Obama's plan will create $9.3 trillion in debt over 10 years, or about $900 billion a year. Our long-term debt, future projected outlays minus expected revenue, is currently $56 trillion according to David Walker, former top accountant for the United States. That's $184,000 for every single American.

If we do nothing, in 40 years we will be able to afford interest on the debt and some, but not all, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. As Walker puts it, the rest of the federal government will be out of business.

Matt Miller, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center For American Progress and an Obama supporter, argues that Obama will have to eventually raise taxes on everyone to pay for all the spending he is engaging in now.

It is our children and grandchildren who are being taxed without representation. Due to deductions and credits, 40 percent of all tax filers actually have no income tax liability. That will increase to 50 percent under the Obama budget. We must raise taxes on everyone, which the tea partiers won't admit. Our leaders of both parties buy us off, promising generous benefits and tax cuts while leaving the bill to today's wealthy and future generations. Now that's worth protesting.

Slumdog Millionaire

I have heard it said that if you want to know what the British Army was like in the Nineteenth Century, take at look at the Indian Army in the Twentieth.  Well, if you want to get back in touch with your inner Charles Dickens, watch Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, a tale of two young men surviving on their own wits in modern Bombay. 

It's a splendid movie: well written and acted, and visually captivating.  Without giving too much away, the main character appears on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"  He is stunningly successful and this leads to his immediate arrest on suspicion of cheating.  In a rather brutal interrogation, he is asked to explain how he knew the answers to each of the questions, despite the fact that he was a former street urchin, with no education.  His answers and memories are the device with which the movie tells its story.  Though that story is a rather simple fairy tale, it is a Dickensian fairy tale and that creates a powerful resonance.  There were moments in the movie when I half expected someone to belt out a number from Oliver! 

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the story is that its protagonist, Jamal Malik, is a person of almost perfect honesty.  In explaining to the police chief how he knew the answers to the quiz questions, he ends up confessing to any number of petty crimes.  Why do you do this, the incredulous officer asks?  "When someone asks me a question," Jamal replies, "I give him the answer."  The police officer lets Jamal go because he realizes that the young man is simply incapable of lying. 

That honesty has some connection to the fact that Jamal is someone in whom love never, ever dies.  But the story is not naive.  Jamal survives only by the protection of his older brother, who shares none of Jamal's scruples, and is far more aggressive. 

Slumdog Millionaire is not one you want to miss. 

Chris Nelson For Congress?

I have this to add to the news that Secretary of State Chris Nelson is considering a run against Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin for Congress.  Perhaps this is an obvious point, but one of the best tools to read the political tea leaves is to look at candidate recruitment.  If one looks at candidates as entrepreneurs, then they decide to seek office when they calculate they have a solid chance of winning.  One reason you knew Democrats were going to do well in 2006 and 2008 is that everywhere you looked quality Democrats were stepping up to challenge Republicans whereas quality Republican candidates were deciding not to challenge potentially vulnerable Democrats.  As circular as this reasoning may be, Chris Nelson's very entry into the race will be evidence that Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin is vulnerable. 

Chris Nelson represents a quality challenger to Herseth-Sandlin.  The main case to make for his quality as a candidate is the fact that he has already demonstrated the ability to win statewide races.  Granted, running for Secretary of State is not the same as running for Congress, but it's not nothing.  Nelson's name recognition is certainly below the congresswoman's, but it won't be as long a ride to increase that name recognition to where it needs to be as it was for the likes of Bruce Whalen and Chris Lein. 

Should Nelson choose to run, the proof will be in the money pudding.  He's got to raise enough money to make Herseth-Sandlin sweat, something she hasn't had to do for a while.  \

Of course this is all speculation right now.  Let's wait until someone actually files papers to start the serious discussion. 

Brokaw Update

An email from reader Roger on my post about Tom Brokaw's dissatisfaction with local rule:

Reading your article on Brokaw in today’s South Dakota Politics, I am reminded of his autobiography about growing up in South Dakota, “A Long Way From Home”.  I will have to paraphrase as I don’t have the book here at work, but he said something to the effect of “I like having grown up in South Dakota, but I would not like to return to live.”  That may be a telling phrase in his opinion of how the rural community should change to reflect his ideas of what life should be like.  I grew up in Tyndall and only wait for my retirement from this eastern metropolis to return to South Dakota and the life with all institutions being closer to the people.
 

Environmentalism is bad for the Environment

 If we can sum up the current push for environmental legislation, we need to penalize carbon producing industries, including the energy sector (with a cap and trade regime, or something), and invest in "alternative energy sources, like biofuels, wind power, and solar power.  This shift in investment (change we can believe in) will benefit the environment and produce jobs and economic growth. 

It is pretty clear that the economic growth part of the equation is nonsense.  The only sources of energy that are economically viable on a large scale are fossil fuels (oil and coal) and nuclear power.  Windpower and solar power are viable only with massive government subsides, which is to say that resources have to be shifted from the more productive parts of the economy (powered by coal, oil, and uranium), to make them work.  They drain energy and money, rather than producing either.  Of course it may be that government subsides will generate technological advances and these alternatives will become viable.  But it isn't happening yet, and there is no reason to assume it will happen. 

President Obama's "cap and trade" legislation isn't going to happen.  House Democrats are pushing a piece of energy legislation that would put the screws on every part of the economy that is actually productive.  In one way, this isn't stupid.  If you really think carbon emissions are causing catastrophic global warming, then you have to want to reduce carbon emissions.  But the only way to do that is to retard economic production.  Maybe alternative energy will produce big gains in the future, but right now it is an economic sponge and that's what you want if you want short term reductions in carbon emissions. 

Of course that means that almost all Americans will have to accept lower living standards.  Unfortunately for the Democrats, the costs will not be evenly distributed.   Voters from districts that produce energy or use it to manufacture stuff are going to be hurt by legislation that makes energy more expensive.  That may be why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi backed off her claim that global warming legislation would be passed this year. 

I am very skeptical regarding the chances of this kind of legislation.  With soaring deficits and the world economy stuck in a major funk, are we really going to pass a bill that intentionally retards economic growth? 

But aside from all that, alternative energy is bad for the environment.  This has been clear for some time with biofuels.  Tearing up virgin prairie to grow corn for ethanol isn't good for the environment.  I posted recently on the environmental and economic costs of windpower.  Nations that have heavily invested in windpower have seen their carbon emissions rise.  So what about solar power?  Well, it looks like the environmentalists are gong to war with each other over this one.  From the Huffington Post:

California's Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies seeking to develop renewable energy.

To generate even a miniumally respectable bit of juice, solar power needs a vast stretch of desert bulldozed for solar panels.  It also needs a whole Hell of a lot of water.  Apparently, the turtle lobby is out of its shell over this. 

Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on a parcel of 500,000 desert acres, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Friday such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public.  "It would destroy the entire Mojave Desert ecosystem," said David Myers, executive director of The Wildlands Conservancy.

Well, there you have it.  Solar power is not only prohibitively expensive, it tears up deserts and kills turtles.  Modern environmentalism is a basket case.  But apparently the President and Congress are in the basket. 

Waterboarding Ourselves

Were the "enhanced interrogation" practices used by the CIA on at least a handful of terrorists torture or not?  Answer: yes, in the same sense as flag football is football.  Consider this from David Rivkin and Lee Casey in the Wall Street Journal:

An Aug. 1, 2002, memo describes the practice of "walling" -- recently revealed in a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which suggested that detainees wore a "collar" used to "forcefully bang the head and body against the wall" before and during interrogation. In fact, detainees were placed with their backs to a "flexible false wall," designed to avoid inflicting painful injury. Their shoulder blades -- not head -- were the point of contact, and the "collar" was used not to give additional force to a blow, but further to protect the neck.

The memo says the point was to inflict psychological uncertainty, not physical pain: "the idea is to create a sound that will make the impact seem far worse than it is and that will be far worse than any injury that might result from the action."

Shackling and confinement in a small space (generally used to create discomfort and muscle fatigue) were also part of the CIA program, but they were subject to stringent time and manner limitations. Abu Zubaydah (a top bin Laden lieutenant) had a fear of insects. He was, therefore, to be put in a "cramped confinement box" and told a stinging insect would be put in the box with him. In fact, the CIA proposed to use a harmless caterpillar. Confinement was limited to two hours.

The memos are also revealing about the practice of "waterboarding," about which there has been so much speculative rage from the program's opponents. The practice, used on only three individuals, involved covering the nose and mouth with a cloth and pouring water over the cloth to create a drowning sensation.

This technique could be used for up to 40 seconds -- although the CIA orally informed Justice Department lawyers that it would likely not be used for more than 20 seconds at a time. Unlike the exaggerated claims of so many Bush critics, the memos make clear that water was not actually expected to enter the detainee's lungs, and that measures were put in place to prevent complications if this did happen and to ensure that the individual did not develop respiratory distress.

All of these interrogation methods have been adapted from the U.S. military's own Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (or SERE) training program, and have been used for years on thousands of American service members with the full knowledge of Congress. This has created a large body of information about the effect of these techniques, on which the CIA was able to draw in assessing the likely impact on the detainees and ensuring that no severe pain or long term psychological impact would result.

Now I suppose there is some doubt whether any of these techniques meet the legal definition of torture, turning as I understand it does on things like "severe pain or degradation."  But common sense can tell you what torture is without the assistance of lawyers.  When you subject someone to conditions unpleasant enough that he will "break," i.e., reveal a secret he is disparately trying to keep in order to escape the experience, that's torture.  That caterpillar thing, considered but not used, is a pretty good example.  Waterboarding is another.   I am hoping that the "thousands of American service members" subjected to these techniques were undergoing basic training and were not, say, asked who baked marijuana brownies in the mess hall.

But this is a very peculiar kind of torture.   It's torture designed by lawyers.  It's how a security force behaves when a) it wants very badly to get information that might prevent the next terrorist attack or protect our troops, and b) feels obligated to abide by an extensive and vague range of moral and legal scruples.  Anyone who thinks that these practices indicate rampant lawlessness on the part of the Bush Administration or the CIA has no clue what "law" and "rampant" mean. 

The Obama Administration decided to release the infamous memos and at the same time announce that the CIA operatives who carried out the interrogations would not be prosecuted.  From the  Washington Post:

"For those who carried out some of these operations within the four corners of legal opinions or guidance that had been provided from the White House, I do not think it's appropriate for them to be prosecuted," Obama said.

That struck me as a reasonable decision.  Are we really going to put people on trial for trying to stop the next terrorist attack?  There is no way to predict how public opinion would form around such an event, and it might well be that most Americans will think that the CIA was too damn nice.  But the Left screamed like it had a caterpillar on it's ass, which it should have because that, after all, is it's job.  So the Administration did what Administrations do.  It flip-flopped (half twist). 

"With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that," he said. "I think that there are a host of very complicated issues involved there."

What that very complicated bit seems to mean is that President Obama is open to prosecuting the lawyers who advised the Bush Administration that the techniques were legal.  Let me get this straight: we are going to give the people who did the waterboarding a pass, but prosecute other people for giving their legal opinions?  That is utter nonsense.  If anything is clear, it is that President Obama and every other President needs to get the best legal counsel available, and his lawyers have to be able to speak freely without fear of prosecution. 

We tortured some of the people we detained in the war on terror.  We did so with more scruples than any of our enemies would have dreamed of.  The question is whether it was worth it.  To be sure there is some moral cost.  But did the torture work?  Maybe that matters.  If you say that it doesn't, consider what the effect of a few more successful terrorist attacks might be.  Most Americans feel pretty secure around their barbecue pits, but the next terrible thing might change that.  Enough fear, and this or the next Administration will pursue the war on terror in a decidedly less scrupulous fashion.  If you think we shouldn't torture, you may be right.  But you might want to think about how to prevent the unthinkable from happening.

Brokaw, Consolidation, and the Decline of Citizenship

Tom Brokaw looks at America and sees the problem: too much local government.  It's just too darned inefficient.  He points to the Dakotas and the preponderance of universities up here in the Northern Plains:

In my native Great Plains, North and South Dakota have a combined population of just under 1.5 million people, and in each state the rural areas are being depopulated at a rapid rate. Yet between them the two Dakotas support 17 colleges and universities. They are a carry-over from the early 20th century when travel was more difficult and farm families wanted their children close by during harvest season.

I know this is heresy, but couldn’t the two states get a bigger bang for their higher education buck if they consolidated their smaller institutions into, say, the Dakota Territory College System, with satellite campuses but a common administration and shared standards?

If you read Brokaw's entire piece you'll see that his complaint isn't that we've got too much government, but that we've got too much local government and not enough state and national government.  In Brokaw's mind, efficiency, brought on by consolidation and centralization, is the hallmark of good government. 

Patrick Deneen begs to differ.

Brokaw - that chronicler of “The Greatest Generation” that did so much to dismantle the localities of our nation in the oil and auto rush of the 1950’s - sees only inefficiencies and antiquated resistance to “progress” or “evolution.” Quite remarkably, his short memory overlooks our recent experience with $140/barrel oil, and the sudden “new” experience of travel not being quite so easy as we’d grown accustomed to in roughly 30-40 years - a very short time in human history, and one that hardly justifies dismantling those local communities that pre-existed the age of oil and will be desperately needed when we depart that short-lived era. But perhaps more importantly, these institutions are the starved remnants of a period of far greater self-government and the places where a sense of common weal and public good could be articulated by actual citizens. While largely eviscerated by the logic of our age, our impulse should not be to further dismantle them, but to strengthen those local places that still exist while thinking inventively and experimentally to create new places where a felt-sense of self-government can be fostered and cultivated. We should reject calls for “efficiency” and instead install in its place calls for “citizenship.”

Indeed, if anything should be learned from our current crisis, it is that the very apparent “efficiencies” of larger and more consolidated entities actually decrease our capacity to govern ourselves.

Read the whole thing. 

Is it any wonder that as our government and economy have succumbed to ever increasing centralization, that the feelings of inefficacy and the inevitable apathy that follows have risen?  The notion that our lives are governed by impersonal forces beyond our control has taken hold in many minds, and has done so with considerable justification.  It is in these "inefficient" local governments, city councils, county boards, school boards, etc., that the habits of citizenship are cultivated.  To eliminate them is to be penny wise and citizenship foolish. 

A Real Inconvenient Truth

This is the thirty minute version of IOUSA, a documentary produced by the Peter G. Peterson Foundations.  Please take the time to view the whole thing. 

Stem Cell Policy Moderation

As anticipated, President Obama has moved to liberalize Bush's policy on Federal Aid to embryonic stem cell research.  Here is how the New York Times describes Obama's policy:

Guidelines proposed by the National Institutes of Health to carry out an order made last month by President Obama would allow research with federal financing only on stem cells derived from surplus embryos at fertility clinics. The money would still be prohibited for stem cell lines created solely for research purposes and for embryos created through a technique known as therapeutic cloning.

Whether you think this is the right policy or not, it is clearly an exercise in moderation.  This is to say that it unites both extremes against the middle. 

Many scientists praised the new guidelines as an expected compromise.  “I think it’s a big step forward,” said Richard O. Hynes, a cancer researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “although there are aspects of stem cell research that will still be outside federal funding.”

Others called the proposed rules a sellout.  “I’m disappointed,” said Dr. Irving Weissman, the director of the Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute at Stanford. Dr. Weissman accused the health institutes of “putting this ideological barrier in the way” of treating disease.

Abortion opponents predicted that the administration would soon embrace less restrictive stem cell policies.  “This is clearly part of an incremental strategy to desensitize the public to the concept of killing human embryos for research purposes,” said Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee.

Clearly,one end of the political spectrum would like to ban all embryonic stem cell research, while the other would like to allow the creation of embryos specifically to be harvested for new cell lines.  Obama's policy clearly incorporates the concerns of both sides.  He wants to give researchers more material to work with, but recognizes that there is something more than a little ghoulish in creating new, potentially viable human beings to be mere objects of medical research. 

One thing I find interesting in this is that Obama's position is, in principle the same as that of President Bush.  Bush's policy was also an exercise in moderation, allowing funding for research in existing stem cell lines (some of them obtained from discarded embryos), but closing the door to new lines from that source.  Of course the pro-lifers may be right.  Obama may be planning to open the door to embryo creation later on, once the present policy is accepted.  But we can't assume that. 

If new research into embryonic stem cells proves fruitful, I think it pretty clear that the door will be opened.  But right now there is no reason to expect this.  Embryonic stem cells have never shown much promise, as opposed to specially created adult cells. Still, it is interesting to note that Obama and Bush agree on principle, even if they disagree on the application of principles.

Bush Hatred vs. Obama Hatred

My cherished friend and frequent interlocutor A.I. has a comment on my last post that is worthy of response in a new post.  I argued, against many in the press, that the Tea Party events were no more given to hatred than the anti-war rallies during Bush's term.  A.I. has this:

If there were any rallies against our actions in Afghanistan, I missed them. It was all about Iraq.

Wrong.  The anti-war rallies didn't really get started until after Bush moved against Iraq.  But the European Left was just as vehemently opposed to the invasion of Afghanistan as it would be to the invasion of Iraq.  The same is true of the hardcore anti-war movement in the U.S.  It took me minutes to find dozens of images with "out of Afghanistan" on the signs.  Let this one from San Francisco suffice:

Notice the words "in Afghanistan" in the sign.  As long as Bush was President, anti-war rallies always had a lot of such signs.  To be sure, the Iraq War was the major issue for most of those who showed up at the rallies.  But organizations like Answer, which organized the rallies, were instinctively opposed to the American action in Afghanistan.  I have more pictures if you need confirmation. 

Any hatred from port was generally rooted in opposition to policy and certainly was not directed at "Israel and America in general" (which is, excuse the snark, a place I can't seem to find on a map).

Wrong again. 

And there is this:

So "Israel and America in General" is all over the map. 

The Bush Administration liked to blur the line between itself and America thus making protesters unamerican threats to God, mom and apple pie. But that was just a semantic contrivance designed to deflect criticism, denigrate opponents and intimidate some critics into silence.

Really?  I would be interested to see a single piece of evidence that this is true.  I have heard such things said over and over, and I have frequently challenged the sources to show me where and when the Bush Administration did any such thing.  I am still waiting. 

To elaborate a bit, anti Bush/war rallies were born out of opposition to real policy. The tea parties ostensibly protested Obama Administration tax policy which makes little sense since the bulk of the protesters are receiving tax cuts. Yes, some expressed legitimate concerns about deficits, but their anger generally seemed unfocused on the policy front and laser-like against Obama.

If I read your comment right, it means that the anti-Bush/war rallies were motivated primarily by opposition to Bush policies rather than hatred of Bush himself.  I don't doubt the genuine opposition to Bush policy, but it is ludicrous to doubt the genuine seething hatred of Bush himself that was on constant display at the rallies (not to mention on the Left blogosphere).  Case in point:

I note that the dog in my previous post wasn't expected to pee on Bush's policies.  It was expected to pee on Bush (however much of him it could reach). 

I think you are altogether wrong about the "laser-like focus on Obama" at the tea parties.  I have viewed a lot of pictures of the tea party rallies, and there are some offensive anti-Obama signs.  But most of the signs at every venue were policy oriented.  You may not think their point is valid.  Fair enough.  But they have a point and they are making it in the good ole' American tradition.  If I challenged you to produce photos of signs depicting President Obama in an unflattering way at Tea Party rallies, and promised to match you more than two to one with unflattering images of Bush from anti-war rallies, I would win hands down.  Case in point:

Or this:

Find me anything like that from a tea party rally!  The truth is that the Tea Party protesters were more civil and sober, on balance, than any anti-rally during the Bush years. 

Of course the anti-war movement is now conflicted.  Part of it wants to stoke the engine and oppose the war in Afghanistan.  Most of it has lost all of its steam (see Moveon.org.)  What's the problem?  The U.S. Anti-War Grannies are disgusted that the Left isn't moving with them to oppose President Obama's Afghan policy.  From the Christian Science Monitor:

The Granny Peace Brigade is not just the most colourful anti-war group in the United States today -- it's one of the only ones.

"It's pretty pathetic," said Joan Pleune, 70, one of seven grandmothers aged 65 to 90 who went to court Tuesday in New York to face disorderly conduct charges.

"We've done all these symbolic actions. We get arrested here and there, but it's symbolic," grey-haired Pleune said. "We need masses in the street."

The absence of those masses reflects significant change in the United States, where the occupation of Iraq drew fierce opposition, but the escalating deployment in Afghanistan retains broad support.

So why are these Gray Panthers out there all alone?  Could it be that a significant part of the wave of passion against the war was really not policy-oriented, but Bush-oriented?  Obama's war just doesn't arouse the same indignation as Bush's war.  Just saying. 

Protest and Offense

Back when George W. Bush held the wheel of the ship of state, and steered us into Afghanistan and Iraq, a lot of the passengers, not to mention the deck hands, gathered in great anti-war demonstrations.  Those of us on the starboard side of the boat pointed out that there was a lot of hatred to port.  Pictures of Dubya with Nazi emblems embedded abounded, along with hatred for Israel and America in general.  We thought it not amiss to point out that many of the rallies were organized by socialist groups with a fondness for such guys as Kim Jong Il. 

But some of us managed to point out that such rallies were as American as cheez whiz, and were a pretty good idea anyway.  Rallies are designed precisely to attract everyone attractable, and that means a lot of very odd and interesting folks, none of whom have to take responsibility for the whole package, let alone the agendas of the organizers.  Presidents should have to look out and see a sea of unfriendly faces from time to time.  The word for this is democracy. 

My esteemed Keloland colleague David Newquist directs our attention to History Professor Joeseph A. Palermo, who doesn't see the humor in the Vox Populi when it ain't speakin' with his vox. 

The hatred was palpable today on the State Capitol's steps. Hatred for taxes, hatred for government, hatred for state workers, hatred for teachers, hatred for Democrats, and hatred for all of the straw men that leap from the imaginations of talk radio jocks. But the most hated figure of all at today's "Tea Bag" anti-tax rally in Sacramento was President Barack Obama. One of the first placards I saw as I entered the Capitol grounds read: "Wake Up! Fresh Prince of Belair is Destroying Us -- Stop Drinking the Red Koolaid."

Well, if by "hatred" Palermo means "opposition," that's fair enough.  But of course opposition is not the same thing as hatred, even if it is often accompanied by anger.  What generated the tea party thing is anger over the fact that the President plans on about a trillion dollar deficit every year for the next ten or more.  Maybe he has the right idea, but opposition to that sort of thing has a longer pedegree in American politics than anti-war rallies. 

To be sure, there were a lot of offensive signs at tea parties.  The Huffington Post has a sample, and it includes one with Obama's head on Hitler's body, and another warning of "White Slavery."  Both are hysterical and embarrassing, and the latter reaks of racism.  Everyone on the right needs to see that this kind of thing discredits their positions, and so the Left is doing us a favor when it points them out.  And consider this one:

Now that is hitting below the beltway.  But if you go back to the anti-war rallies, you will see the same or worse.  Consider this, from a 2003 anti-war rally in LA. 

It would be nice if large political protests could be done tastefully.  If you expect this, you are naive and in line for disappointment.  Democracy is often ugly, except in comparison to all the other forms of government.  The trouble with free expression is that people freely express themselves.  Conservatives pointed out the excesses when the Left was gathering in mass.  It's the Left's job to do the same now.  But if you are fair, you will recognize the hatred and bad taste on both sides. 

Cap And Trade Costs Money For South Dakota

From the American News:

South Dakota electricity rates could increase nearly 50 percent by 2015 if proposed carbon cap and trade legislation is enacted, according to a report released by the state Public Utilities Commission.

Emissions trading would limit the amount of pollutants utilities could emit. Companies emitting more than the caps allow would have to buy credits from counterparts with fewer emissions. The idea is to reward companies that pollute less.

The potential 48 percent increase comes on the heels of news that natural gas prices have decreased almost 75 percent, although natural gas heating bills are not expected to dip that much.

Coal is the top fuel source in the United States, according to the PUC report. It's popular because it's inexpensive and plentiful, said Commissioner Dusty Johnson. But it's also considered to be a dirty fuel, emitting twice as much carbon dioxide as natural gas, Johnson said.

Conversely, wind, hydro and nuclear energy don't create any carbon dioxide, Johnson said.

Coal provides 74 percent of the electricity generated in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota Kansas and Missouri and nearly half of the nation's energy, according to PUC statistics. In South Dakota, 47.6 percent of electricity is hydrogenerated, but most of that is sent to other states as part of an agreement reached in developing Missouri River dams.

Coal is the source of 46.5 percent of all South Dakota electricity, according to the PUC.

Read the whole thing.

Wind Powerless. Update!

Two things may be said about current environmental policies across the developed world: they have never been so heavily subsidized, and they have never been so untethered from reality.   Case in point is President Obama's "Green Jobs" policy.  The argument behind his proposals, including "cap and trade," is that green policies will provide environmental benefits while also promoting economic growth and jobs.  A good test of whether this is plausible is to look at the 'renewable energy' component of his proposals, in particular, wind power. 

Wind power is a good test because it has already been extensively promoted in Europe and elsewhere, and indeed the President has appealed to Spain, Germany, and Japan as examples.  He isn't alone.  Google 'Spain' & 'wind power' and you will get more articles praising Spain's success than there are wind towers in those three nations combined.  But when you look at the articles, you will discover that what they mean by "success" is that Spain has a flippin' lot of wind towers.  What you won't get is evidence that Spain has achieved either economic or environmental benefits from all these turbines.  That is because there aren't any. 

Consider this from the London Telegraph:

E.On [the German company building the towers] is coy about profit margins. The European operations are flirting with break-even cost, but the company's huge 10-mile wind farms in the Texas outback have reached the magical level of €50 per megawatt hour (with US government subsidies), far below natural gas at the current market price.

To unpack that, E.On's showcase windfarm produces power at a reasonable price with government subsides.  How much does the U.S. kick in?  E.On isn't saying.  It's always instructive to find out what the money doesn't want to hear.  Well, we now have some idea about Spain, which produces about 40% of its power from wind.  From Fox News:

A new report out of Spain says if that country is any indication, Americans shouldn't be depending on green jobs to help the U.S. economy.

Gabriel Calzada Alvarez, a professor [at King Juan Carlos University in Madrid], has released a study with startling claims about what's happened in Spain and what he predicts will play out in America.  Calzada says for every green job that's created with government funding, 2.2 regular jobs are lost and that only one in 10 green jobs wind up being permanent.

Here is the problem: when an industry is heavily subsidized, that means that resources are going to it that would otherwise be invested elsewhere.  The subsidized industry might be more productive than alternative investments, but if it were it would not need to be subsidized.  Of course, a subsidized industry might become productive after an initial government investment.  But you would look for that to happen pretty quickly, if the technology is really viable.  It ain't happening in Spain. 

Likewise, the case of Denmark leads one to doubt the environmental benefits.  From the Financial Post:

Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).

Flemming Nissen, the head of development at West Danish generating company ELSAM (one of Denmark’s largest energy utilities) tells us that “wind turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions.” The German experience is no different. Der Spiegel reports that “Germany’s CO2 emissions haven’t been reduced by even a single gram,” and additional coal- and gas-fired plants have been constructed to ensure reliable delivery.

Indeed, recent academic research shows that wind power may actually increase greenhouse gas emissions in some cases, depending on the carbon-intensity of back-up generation required because of its intermittent character. On the negative side of the environmental ledger are adverse impacts of industrial wind turbines on birdlife and other forms of wildlife, farm animals, wetlands and viewsheds.

Nor is the case of Denmark encouraging on the economic side. 

Its electricity generation costs are the highest in Europe (15¢/kwh compared to Ontario’s current rate of about 6¢). Niels Gram of the Danish Federation of Industries says, “windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense.” Aase Madsen , the Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament, calls it “a terribly expensive disaster.”

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in 2008, on a dollar per MWh basis, the U.S. government subsidizes wind at $23.34 — compared to reliable energy sources: natural gas at 25¢; coal at 44¢; hydro at 67¢; and nuclear at $1.59, leading to what some U.S. commentators call “a huge corporate welfare feeding frenzy.”

This is not rocket science.  Wind power is frighteningly expensive.  It sucks up dollars and jobs.  And because of the unreliability of wind, it has to be backed up by other, carbon-emitting, power sources.  But those sources are less efficient if they have to be frequently powered up and down.  There is no reason to believe it reduces greenhouse emissions or dependence on fossel fuels.  So why are so many developed nations subsidizing it? 

The answer is that everyone likes the idea of wind power, and so far, developed nations have the resources to invest in pretty but unproductive ideas.  All this is just good fun if you weren't eating off of one of those 2.2 lost jobs and if good environmental policy isn't really that important.  But if we really care about environmental policy we are going to have to start thinking rationally about it.  We aren't doing that.  All those wind turbines are just devices for turning fancy into federal dollars. 

Update: the Calzada Alvarez study can be found here. 

The Pope May Be Right About Condoms & AIDS

My previous post, giving credit where it is due to George Bush for his AIDS in Africa policy, did not deal with the important question of how to prevent the spread of AIDS in developing countries.  On a trip to Africa this March, Pope Benedict XVI "angered health workers by restating the Vatican's opposition to the use of condoms to fight AIDS."  That's from Reuters.  You can find the clip here, at The Alligator.  What did the Pontiff actually say?  Here is my transcription:

I would add that the AIDS problem cannot be solved by money alone, even if necessary.  It cannot be solved with the condom distribution.  The condom distribution only makes matters worse.  The solution can only be this: first, a humanization of sexuality and a spiritual renewal which implies new behaviors.

That's what I heard from the clip, which is a translation of the Pope's actual words, and is innocent of the context that might be provided by the entire exchange.  I provide it, because I couldn't find even that much elsewhere.  All the print accounts, and there are many, cut up the Pope's words. 

Now I am not nor have I ever been a Catholic.  I have no moral objections to the use of birth control devices that do not involve abortion.  But is the Pope right that "condom distribution only makes matters worse"?  That is an empirical question, and one would want evidence to evaluate it.  Unless, of course, one knows what the right answer is and one wants to shut down any opposing opinions.  Here is the Washington Post editorial on the Pope' comments:

While on a flight to Cameroon on Tuesday to begin a weeklong journey through Africa, Pope Benedict XVI said, "You can't resolve [the AIDS epidemic] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem." In a perfect world, people would abstain from having sex until they were married or would be monogamous in committed relationships. But the world isn't perfect -- and neither is Pope Benedict's pronouncement on the effectiveness of condoms in the battle against HIV/AIDS. The evidence says so.

Well, does the evidence indicate that condoms are effective in the fight against AIDS?  The WaPo provides no evidence at all.  That's because the evidence, such as it is, is on the Pope's side.  Edward C. Green is the head of the Harvard based AIDS Research Center. He is also a Senior Research Scientist at The Harvard School of Public Health.  He has weighed in on this question at the Washington Post:

In 2003, Norman Hearst and Sanny Chen of the University of California conducted a condom effectiveness study for the United Nations' AIDS program and found no evidence of condoms working as a primary HIV-prevention measure in Africa. UNAIDS quietly disowned the study. (The authors eventually managed to publish their findings in the quarterly Studies in Family Planning.)

Since then, major articles in other peer-reviewed journals such as the Lancet, Science and BMJ have confirmed that condoms have not worked as a primary intervention in the population-wide epidemics of Africa.

In a 2008 article in Science called "Reassessing HIV Prevention" 10 AIDS experts concluded that "consistent condom use has not reached a sufficiently high level, even after many years of widespread and often aggressive promotion, to produce a measurable slowing of new infections in the generalized epidemics of Sub-Saharan Africa."

And this, also by Professor Green, from the London Times:

In an interview with the National Review Online, Mr Green said: “We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.”  

Well, yeah.  After 25 years of trying something, it doesn't work probably means it doesn't work.  But common sense surely supports condom distribution.  Condoms may fail, and they are not always used consistently, but if they are used at all that ought to add up to something.  Why doesn't it?  Green offers some possible explanations:

One reason is "risk compensation." That is, when people think they're made safe by using condoms at least some of the time, they actually engage in riskier sex.

Another factor is that people seldom use condoms in steady relationships because doing so would imply a lack of trust. (And if condom use rates go up, it's possible we are seeing an increase of casual or commercial sex.) However, it's those ongoing relationships that drive Africa's worst epidemics. In these, most HIV infections are found in general populations, not in high-risk groups such as sex workers, gay men or persons who inject drugs. And in significant proportions of African populations, people have two or more regular sex partners who overlap in time. In Botswana, which has one of the world's highest HIV rates, 43 percent of men and 17 percent of women surveyed had two or more regular sex partners in the previous year.

These ongoing multiple concurrent sex partnerships resemble a giant, invisible web of relationships through which HIV/AIDS spreads. A study in Malawi showed that even though the average number of sexual partners was only slightly over two, fully two-thirds of this population was interconnected through such networks of overlapping, ongoing relationships.

Now that "giant, invisible web of relationships," looks to me like the fundamental cause of the epidemic in Africa.  If enough sexual partnerships involve third persons, one has an efficient vector for the transmission of a sexually transmitted virus.  Hence, Green asks:

So what has worked in Africa? Strategies that break up these multiple and concurrent sexual networks -- or, in plain language, faithful mutual monogamy or at least reduction in numbers of partners, especially concurrent ones. "Closed" or faithful polygamy can work as well.

In Uganda's early, largely home-grown AIDS program, which began in 1986, the focus was on "Sticking to One Partner" or "Zero Grazing" (which meant remaining faithful within a polygamous marriage) and "Loving Faithfully." These simple messages worked. More recently, the two countries with the highest HIV infection rates, Swaziland and Botswana, have both launched campaigns that discourage people from having multiple and concurrent sexual partners.

Now I am no expert in epidemiology, but I understand this much: the way to control an epidemic is to shut down the vectors of transmission.  It looks like condom distribution is not effective. Policies encouraging marriage (even polygamous marriage) are effective.  Maybe we should concentrate our efforts on what works.  I don't know if the Pope is infallible, but maybe he isn't always wrong.  He might even be smarter than the Washington Post. 

Navy Seals Rescue American Captain from Pirates!

Barack Obama 1, Captain Hook 0.  From USAToday:

Capt. Richard Phillips was a free man Sunday after jumping overboard and escaping his four Somali captors. A U.S. intelligence official has confirmed that three of his pirate captors have been killed and one has been taken into custody after President Obama gave approval for military intervention.

The rescue operation was conducted while one pirate was aboard the USS Bainbridge for negotiations on Phillips' release, officials said.

Navy SEALS are believed to have killed the three remaining pirates after Phillips leaped overboard from the lifeboat where he had been held.

The slain pirates were killed before they could pull their own triggers, CNN reported, citing an unnamed government official.

Maybe the Pirates should stick to French ships. 

Happy Easter

Pardon me if I simply repeat what I wrote last year along with posting a picture I took a few years ago of the Aberdeen Ramada Inn. 

Christianity is unlike most faiths.  It is common in world religions to see that we live in a fallen state that requires some sacrifice to "set things right" with God.  Christianity is no different in that respect.  But it is unique in that it is not we who make the sacrifice to God, but God who sacrifices himself for us.  It is this recognition of an act of profound love on the part of God that sets Christianity apart from any religion I am aware of.  We are meant for a mystical union with the Body of Christ, a union made possible by Christ's sacrifice of himself.  On Good Friday Christ conquered sin and on Easter the wages of sin, death, was overcome.  Uniting ourselves with that loving act through faith and charity allows us to share in this victory over sin and death. 

From Malcolm Muggeridge's Jesus: The Man Who Lives:

Either Jesus never was or he still is.  As a typical product of these confused times, with a sceptical mind and a sensual disposition, diffidently and unworthily, but with the utmost certainty, I assert that he still is.  If the story of Jesus had ended on Golgotha, it would indeed be of a Man Who Died, but as two thousand years later the Man's promise that where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them, manifestly still holds, it is actually the story of a Man Who Lives. 

George W. Bush Saved A Million Lives in Africa

In case you missed it, George W. Bush saved millions of lives in Africa.  From the Mercury News in Silicon Valley:

Former President George W. Bush's AIDS initiatives have saved a million lives in Africa, according to a Stanford study published Monday.

The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, was implemented in 2003 as a five-year, $15 billion program to fund AIDS treatment and care in Africa. Stanford researchers compared data from the program's 12 "focus" countries with 29 other African nations hit hard by the disease.

They found that the HIV/AIDS death toll in PEPFAR-funded countries was cut by 10 percent between 2003 and 2007, according to a Stanford School of Medicine statement.

The New York Times notes it too, but with this headline: "U.S. Initiative is found to reduce deaths from AIDS, but not new cases, in Africa."  That Bush.  He is always screwing someone, somehow.  Besides, we know who gets the real credit:

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the $15 billion program begun by the Bush administration in 2003, cut the AIDS death toll in its African target countries by more than 10 percent, but did not prevent new cases, according to a new study.

Gritting its yellowed teeth, the Times cannot quite deny the basic story.  Bush policy saved millions of lives in Africa.   Here's how the Washington Post, a liberal but less jaundiced paper puts it:

PEPFAR, the brainchild of President George W. Bush in 2003, has targeted Vietnam, Haiti, Guyana and 12 sub-Saharan nations for HIV testing, counseling and treatment. Statistics through Sep. 30, 2008, show that more than 2 million men, women and children have received antiretroviral treatment because of the program. This would include almost 1.2 million pregnant HIV-positive women. As a result, 240,000 infants were born free of HIV infection. The upshot, according to the Annals of Internal Medicine: a 10.5 percent reduction in the AIDS death rate in 12 PEPFAR countries in Africa compared with neighboring nations.

This is, of course, irrelevant to judging other Bush policies.  But it is still an enormous achievement, and one few Presidents can boast of.  Consider the moral weight of that single statistic: "240,000 infants were born free of HIV infection."  That is a positive good. 

When the Bow Breaks

One of the most fascinating things about Presidential Administrations is how they can turn a small problem for themselves into a larger one, when anyone with sense could have told them to leave well enough alone. 

President Obama bowed to the Saudi King Abdullah when he met him recently.  That was silly lapse in protocol.  Heads of state do not bow to one another, or at least not when they meet as representatives of sovereign states and not as vassal to emperor or Pharaoh.   But this was no big deal (except on Arab TV).  Obama hasn't been President for long, and new Presidents occasionally make mistakes. 

You don't have to be a master of diplomacy to see that the Administration should simply have acknowledged the faux pas.  That would have ended the story.  Instead, Obama's people are claiming that he didn't bow.  He just had to bend over a bit to shake King Abdullah's hands.  Well, here is the video:

That looks like a bow to me.  We all say we want honesty in a President.  We aren't going to get it.  It wasn't just Bush but all Presidents who find it very hard to acknowledge error. 

Update: A.I. in the comments gives us this delightful bit of fun at Dubya's expense. 

I have no idea whether holding the hand of another head of state is a lapse in protocol or not.  But it has other things to recommend against it.  Like this clip. 

Congressional Black Caucus Caresses Castro 2

My friend and frequent interlocutor BB has this in response to my last post:

The time to normalize relations with Cuba is long past due. The people are the ones that bear the brunt of the American embargo not Castro. Historically, the United States has supported regimes that are as unsavory as that in Cuba. It seems a bit hypocritical of you Ken to call foul on Cuba when you were such a staunch supporter of Bush...secret prisons, special rendition. Just who do you propose the rule of law applies too?

This is what I like most about blogging.  I may disagree with Blarney Bob on a lot of things, but he keeps me on my toes and asks very provocative questions.  Well, I am once again thankful for being provoked. 

BB: I took no position on the question of normalization.  I am tempted by the argument that normalization would undermine the regime, but so far I have not given into temptation.  But I am hardly sure you are wrong. 

It is true that the U.S. has supported more unsavory regimes than Cuba.  Stalin against Hitler comes to mind. If you think, as I do, that that was the right call at the time, you have to agree that such decisions are part of the necessities of foreign policy. 

Even if your comparison of Bush policies with Castro were not absurd, you would have to recognize that it works both ways.  If you dislike Bush for his policies, you would have to dislike Castro at least as much.  The Congressional Black Caucus members who went to Cuba indeed hate Bush, but they don't dislike Castro at all.  They admire him.  He is a household hero to one of them.  They fawn over him.  That this is pathological was the point of my post. 

Your comparison is in fact absurd.  The Bush Administration will be held to account for its conduct of the war on terror.  There were surely some nasty things done, and maybe President Obama should move to put someone on trial for them.  He ain't gonna.  If all the facts are laid out in public, the New York Times will be appalled (if it still exists).  But most Americans might go the other way, figuring that applying "strong medicines" as Machiavelli put it, was the right thing to do.  I doubt that the Obama Administration will want to put this to the test.  Better to leave vague charges of torture hanging in the air.  Besides, all the signs are that Obama doesn't want to give up any of the executive powers that Bush claimed.  See Czar Obama at Slate.  I predict no trials. 

But whatever sins the Bush Administration committed in its efforts to protect Americans against terrorism, he didn't arrest a single domestic critic.  No Democrats or journalists were subject to show trials.  Bush didn't round up homosexuals.  He didn't make it a crime to lend out books that were not approved by the Department of Homeland Security.  So far as I know, millions of Americans haven't taken to the sea to escape the Bush Regime.  When Dubya lost a case before the High Court he accepted the decision and worked around it.  If he had lost the 2004 election, he would have gone home to Texas four years earlier.  So I don't think it the least bit hypocritical of me to like Bush more than Castro. 

Congressional Black Caucus Caresses the Castros

The American Left has always had a soft spot for Castro.  While President Obama was off schmoozing the French and the Turks (a necessary if largely fruitless business), the Congressional Black Caucus was visiting the Saruman of the Caribbean Fidel, and his brother Raul.  They put up no resistance to the sweet voice of tyranny.  This from the LA Times:

How's this for hope and change: U.S. officials flying to Cuba, not to interrogate prisoners at Guantanamo Bay but to meet with the Castro brothers in order to ease the 50-year tensions between the two nations.

The aging, ailing, cigar-smoking icon Fidel Castro had three members of Congress visit with him today in Havana, which resulted in the bearded one asking, "How can we help President Obama?"  In an effort to improve the relationship between Cuba and the U.S., Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) and Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) were the first U.S. officials to meet with the 82-year-old former dictator since his intestinal surgery in July 2006.

"I'm convinced Raul Castro wants a normal relationship with the United States," Lee said after the meeting with the 77-year-old, the Associated Press reported. "He's serious."

"I think that what really surprised me, but also endeared me to him, was his keen sense of humor, his sense of history and his basic human qualities," Rush said. "I intend to do everything that I can when we get back to the States to make sure that normalization with our relationship with Cuba is given proper consideration both within the House of Representatives and the neighborhoods of America."

Mona Charen has some interesting comments:

"This is the dawning of a new day,'' exclaimed Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill. "In my household I told Castro he is known as the ultimate survivor."

Funny how easy it is to survive when you don't hold elections. And when all of your opponents wind up in prison or dead. And when even those who dare to whisper a word of dissent to your absolute rule find themselves harassed, beaten, humiliated, and imprisoned. According to the Black Book of Communism, more than 100,000 Cubans have served time for political offenses in Cuba's equivalent of the Gulag Archipelago since Castro came to power in 1959. Among those particularly singled out for persecution were human rights activists, homosexuals, and religious believers.

Castro is a tyrant.  What is it that makes him so attractive to people who never have to worry about being arrested in the middle of the night?  Why this fondness for a man and a regime that view independent librarians as a disease to be cured? 

Culture During Depression

My latest in the American News:

Our troubled economic times invite comparison to the Great Depression. In addition to the obvious economic factors, the Depression era also left a cultural legacy that we might look to see replicated in our day.

The Depression years produced many memorable songs written by some of our nation's greatest songwriters. Irving Berlin used Herbert Hoover's laughable statement that “prosperity is just around the corner” as the basis of a song that stated, “Just around the corner/There's a rainbow in the sky/So let's have another cup of coffee/Let's have another piece of pie.”

Nowadays we can appreciate songs that discuss bank failure. The Gershwin brothers, Ira and George, showed they could even turn that subject into Hit Parade gold. In “Who Cares” they wrote “Who cares/If the sky/Seems to fall/In the sea/Who cares what banks fail in Yonkers/As long as you've got a kiss that conquers.”

Perhaps the most famous song from the Depression is Yip Harburg's and Jay Gorney's “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” A lament of the unemployed, the song's lyrics say, “Once I built a railroad/I made it run/Made it race against time/Once I built a railroad/ now it's done/Brother, can you spare a dime?”

One fact that makes the Great Depression worse than today is that financial collapse corresponded with the Dust Bowl years. The farm economy was caught between the Scylla of drought and the Charybdis of bank failure. That's probably what Country Music Hall of Fame songwriter Cindy Walker had in mind when she wrote “Dusty Skies,” a song that concludes with the lines, “These ain't no tears in my eyes/Just sand from these dusty skies.”

Hollywood movies responded to the Depression. Some of that response was in the form of escapist films such as the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals or Gene Autry Western serials. Other films made comment about the times. In “My Man Godfrey,” William Powell's title character shows that no man is too poor to be a gentleman or too rich to be a churl. Frank Capra's “You Can't Take It With You” extols the value of family and friends against the claims of money.

John Steinbeck's novel “Grapes of Wrath” was popular both in print and on the big screen in its depiction of ruined Dust Bowl farmers trying to make it in California. Steinbeck might be the American novelist most influenced by the Depression. The hard-boiled detective story also gained popularity during the Depression. The popularity of such novels as Dashiell Hammett's “Maltese Falcon” and Raymond Chandler's “The Big Sleep” might be attributed to the jaundiced view of justice some had in that era.

Perhaps one silver lining of our economic downturn might be the creation of popular culture that is truly popular. Another difference between our times and the Depression is that we have created a culture of niches. In that sense, there is no popular culture as there aren't many songs, movies or books that have the same broad appeal as the entertainment of the 1930s. Perhaps the artists of our day can respond to economic distress by telling stories in which we all can share, sometimes helping us understand our situation and sometimes helping us escape it.

Stop Spending Our Future

Kumar Goes to White House

In case you didn't notice, Lawrence Kutner died.  There is no reason to be broken up about it.  Kutner didn't really exist in the first place.  He was a member of the fictional medical team on House.  On Monday's show Kutner didn't show up for work, so Doctors Foreman and Thirteen went to his apartment.  They found him dead, apparently by his own hand. It was a great episode, even by the standards the show has set.  It is easily one the best written shows on TV.  I greatly admired how the writers gave no hint of what was coming, to illustrate the shock that sometimes comes with suicide. 

It turns out that the writers didn't know what was coming.  Kal Penn, who played Kutner and, more famously, Kumar in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, has been tapped by Barack Obama to be "Hollywood Liaison."  Thus his abrupt departure.

Hollywood Liaison?  I would like to say that this is more 0bama amateur hour stuff, but the office seems to have existed under the Bush Department of Homeland Security.  The Liaison works with scriptwriters when they deal with security related issues.  Okay, that sounds reasonable.  But I am not so sure that hiring someone most famous for a movie celebrating the joys of marijuana was the shrewdest possible move.  I say hire the guy who played the chief terrorist in True Lies. 

Obama Goes to Baghdad. Well Done.

Our Commander in Chief made a surprise visit to Baghdad to honor our troops there.  Well done.  Here is a bit of his speech, from Breitbart:

"You have given Iraq the opportunity to stand on its own as a democratic country," the president said as he made a brief inspection of a war he opposed as candidate and now vows to end as commander in chief. "That is an extraordinary achievement."

Yes.  It is.  This is the President at his best. 

Gay Marriage, Citizenship, Courts and Democracy

My esteemed Keloland Colleague Cory Heidelberger celebrates the Iowa Supreme Court's judicial activism with a bad argument. 

The Iowa Supreme Court's declaration that non-heterosexuals are full citizens too has some significant political implications. Among them: Four more years for President Obama.

I am not sure what bearing this issue will have four years down the road, but I know that Cory is confused about citizenship.  I don't know of any marriage laws that distinguish between citizens and non-citizens.  Maybe Cory can fill me in. 

I can think of one aspect of citizenship that is denied to homosexuals: eligibility to serve in the armed forces.  If homosexual Americans are denied that eligibility under "don't ask, don't tell," as it seems they are, there one has a claim that homosexuals are denied full citizenship rights.  I think it's time to abandon that policy, and I am sure Cory agrees.  President Obama has promised to do something about it, but so far he hasn't had the time. 

Restrictions on marriage to heterosexual couples involve no distinctions in citizenship.  They do not single out any group of persons.  No man has a right to marry another man under such restrictions.  It doesn't matter whether the men are homosexual, heterosexual, resident aliens or Seventh Day Adventists.   When a law is applied the same way to everyone, it can't raise questions of equal protection or second class citizenship.  Sorry if logic is sometimes inconvenient. 

The Iowa Court seems to think its a matter of treating homosexual couple differently from heterosexual couples, but couples don't have rights until they are incorporated in some legal fashion, and that is begging the question.  Logic again, alas.  Besides, it is obviously legitimate to distinguish between couples.  Two people one or both of whom are underage, two people who are too closely related, two people one or both of whom are already married, lots of citizen couples aren't eligible to marry and shouldn't be.  The criteria for legal marriage involve judgment calls, and are therefore political rather than legal. 

I am not opposed to gay marriage, but there is a right way to get it.  Vermont shows the way, and several states look likely to follow suit.  That's what democracy looks like.  It's also what citizenship is all about. 

Obama Politicizes Justice Department

The Bush Administration continues to be subject to enormous criticism for "politicizing" the Justice Department.  Whether Bush was more prone to that than previous administrations was not often considered.  My guess at the time was: a little more, not a lot more. 

The choice of Eric Holder as Attorney General should have been a clue that stopping such "politicization" was not a big priority, so long as Justice gets politicized in the right way.  Holder was most famous for bending the law around Bill Clinton's slimy pardons in the last days of that administration.  It turns out he was well fit for his new job in the Obama Administration.  Carrie Johnson at the Washington Post has this:

Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster.

Edward Whelan, also writing in the Washington Post, explains:

In the course of its usual task of reviewing pending legislation to identify constitutional problems, the [Office of Legal Council] determined that the D.C. voting rights bill, which would give the District of Columbia a voting member in the House of Representatives, is unconstitutional. The acting head of OLC, David Barron -- a liberal Harvard law professor appointed by Holder -- signed an opinion setting forth OLC's conclusion. That conclusion is no surprise, as it has been the Department of Justice's consistent position, under presidents of both parties, at least as far back as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 1963 and as recently as two years ago.

When Holder, a longtime supporter of the voting rights bill, learned of the OLC determination, he acted to override it. He contacted another of his appointees, deputy solicitor general Neal K. Katyal, to ask whether Katyal's office could, under its usual standards, defend the bill in court. Katyal said it could, and Holder then overruled OLC.

Now, it's legitimate, if exceedingly rare, for an attorney general to contest OLC's advice. The office is, after all, exercising the advisory function the attorney general has delegated to it. But there's a right way to overrule OLC, and then there's Holder's way. The right way would have been for Holder to conduct a full and careful formal review of the legal question. If that review yielded the conclusion that Holder's position was in fact the best reading of the law -- an extremely unlikely conclusion, in my judgment -- then Holder would sign a written opinion to that effect.

Holder instead adopted a sham review that abused OLC's institutional role. In particular, the answer he solicited and received from Katyal was virtually meaningless. Holder didn't ask for Katyal's best judgment as to whether the D.C. bill was constitutional. He instead asked merely whether his own position that the bill is constitutional was so beyond the pale, so beneath the low level of plausible lawyers' arguments, so legally frivolous, that the Solicitor General's office, under its traditional commitment to defend any federal law for which any reasonable defense can be offered, wouldn't be able to defend it in court.

Holder hasn't signed an opinion setting forth his grounds for reversing OLC, and he also refuses to make the OLC opinion available.

Now let's get this straight:  1) Attorney General Holder gets an unfavorable opinion from the OLC; 2) Holder asks a different lawyer a different question, and on the basis of the answer rejects the OLC opinion;  3) he neglects the proper process of a formal review, and makes sure he is not on record as saying anything; 4) and best of all, he is refusing to release the OLC opinion to members of Congress. 

So much for the Administration's promise of transparency!  This is a blatantly politicization of the process at Justice.  You might suppose that the New York Times, which is deeply offended by the "flagrant partisanship" of the Bush Justice Department would be all over this one.  Well, I've done several searches at their website, and so far I can't find anything about it. 

Barak Obama: Chicken Hawk?

One of the barbed arrows repeatedly shot at President Bush was that he was a “Chicken Hawk.”  He escaped service in Vietnam, and as President sent Americans into battle.  Well, President Obama is sending a lot more Americans to fight in Afghanistan, but he never served in the military.  Does that make him a Chicken Hawk?

Of course Obama, unlike Presidents Bush and Clinton, didn’t have to evade military service, let alone service in Vietnam.  But that was Barack’s good luck and nothing more.  Obama didn’t serve in the military in any capacity.  Bush did serve in the National Guard.  Clinton weaseled out. 

In fact, President Obama has nothing to apologize for.  Presidents have to make military decisions based on their appraisal of the national interest.  It doesn’t matter what they did when they were younger men.  I think Obama’s decision was obviously the correct one, and it is what President McCain would have done.  McCain’s military service and heroism were worth mentioning in the campaign just as John Kerry’s service was, but such things would have done nothing to justify any decisions either might have made as Commander in Chief.  Likewise with President Obama. 

The chicken hawk argument was a piece of dishonest political rhetoric.  Or to be more precise, anyone who made it against Bush and does not make it now against Obama is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.  That bears mentioning now. 

The NYT's Goes Incoherent Over the Stevens Reversal

The New York Times gives us an editorial that is a wonder in intellectual dysfunction.  Consider this:

For eight years the Bush Justice Department cynically put politics and ideology above the law. So it is gratifying to see how Attorney General Eric Holder is handling the case against Ted Stevens, the former Alaska senator who was convicted last year on seven felony counts of ethics violations.

Okay, great.  Eric Holder is stepping in to do right by a Republican Senator.  Of course it doesn't cost the Obama Administration anything.  The Senate election is over and Stevens isn't get his seat back.  And the Times is quick to point out that the reversal doesn't mean Stevens was innocent. 

The prosecutors’ bad acts do not necessarily mean that Mr. Stevens was innocent of misusing his office. But in light of the prosecutorial wrongdoing, and the fact that Mr. Stevens lost his Senate seat last November, Mr. Holder was right not to choose to retry the case.

Well, that's right.  But was Stevens guilty of misusing his office in the case for which he was convicted, and because of which he lost his senate seat?  Here is some interesting news from the same New York Times:

Mr. Stevens was charged in July with lying on Senate disclosure forms by concealing an estimated $250,000 worth of goods and services he received, mostly to renovate a chalet he owned in Alaska. Prosecutors said he had received the bulk of the goods and services from Bill Allen, a longtime friend who had made a fortune by providing services to Alaska’s booming oil industry.

But in their filing on Wednesday, government lawyers said they had recently learned that trial prosecutors had concealed from Mr. Stevens’s defense lawyers the notes from a 2008 interview with Mr. Allen that raised significant doubts about the charges. Among other things, Mr. Allen asserted in the interview that the work on the Stevens home was worth only about $80,000, they said.

Now this raises the very real possibility that the Senator was railroaded.  But, as I have pointed out, it was more than miscarriage of justice affecting an individual.  It came during the final stages of a senate campaign.  So far, so good.  The Times conclusion:

Given the flagrant partisanship of the Bush Justice Department, it is especially reassuring to see Mr. Holder ignore party lines to do the right thing by Mr. Stevens. It has been far too long since the attorney general seemed interested in enforcing ethics and nonpartisanship in a department that has been shockingly lacking in both.

Now, maybe I am confused, but Bush was a Republican, wasn't he?  And Stevens was also a Republican, wasn't he?  So if the Bush Justice Department was so "flagrantly partisan," why did it go to such pains to bring down a Republican Senator and move the Democrats one seat closer to a filibuster proof majority?  The Times' argument makes no sense.  It is of course the Gray Lady that is engaging in flagrant partisanship here, to the point of incoherence. 

Why did the Justice Department run roughshod over the law to get Stevens?  That is a very interesting question.  A genuine newspaper would ask it. 

Attorney General Holder Urges Reversal of Steven's Conviction

Am I the only one who thinks that this is an important story?  It's not on the front page of the Washington Times site, or the USA Today site or, no kidding, the New York Times site.  It did appear on the USA Today print edition front page.  Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska was convicted on a number of charges of corruption prior to his defeat in the recent election.  More charges were pending.  Now that the election is safely over, all charges have been dropped.  But it gets better.  From USA Today:

Legal analysts and lawmakers on Wednesday blasted prosecutors' conduct in the prosecution of former Alaska Republican senator Ted Stevens, while welcoming Attorney General Eric Holder's move to have the conviction thrown out.

It turns out that the team prosecuting Stevens withheld pertinent information from the Senator's lawyers.  That is flagrant prosecutorial misconduct.  You can read about it on the Washington Post Online, if you know to do a search. 

During the corruption trial of former Alaska senator  Ted Stevens, federal prosecutors were chastised by a judge for letting a witness leave town. They got in trouble for submitting erroneous evidence and were reprimanded for failing to turn over key witness statements. An FBI agent has since complained about the prosecution team's alleged misconduct.

Yesterday, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that he had had enough. The Justice Department asked U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to drop the case after learning that prosecutors had failed to turn over notes that contradicted testimony from their key witness.

The discovery by a fresh team of lawyers and their acknowledgment that the material should have been shared with Stevens's defense team led Holder, a former public corruption prosecutor, to conclude that the department's biggest public corruption case in a decade could not be salvaged.

This seems to me to be front page news.  Even the conservative papers are ignoring it.  Maybe they don't want to remind everyone of what kind of guy Stevens was, and he weren't no saint.  But a conviction of a sitting Senator obtained by fraudulent tactics just in time to determine the outcome of an election, that's not just a crime against Ted Stevens, it is an offense to Republican government. 

All charges have been dropped against Stevens, and it looks like his conviction will be reversed.  Now: where doe he go to get his Senate seat back?

Herseth-Sandlin Votes For More Debt

Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin voted "yes" on what is essentially the Obama budget.  This bill racks up $9.3 trillion in debt over the next ten years, and that is before Obama's nationalization of health insurance, which his budget pays for with funds "to be determined later."  Outside of her support for gun rights, it is becoming difficult to see in what sense Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin is a "moderate Democrat." 

It should be pointed out that this is a vote only for the budget authority outlined in Obama's budget.  Congress will not actually appropriate money until later this year. 

Daily Kos: Thune Appears Secure For Re-election

Emailed today:

The latest Research 2000 poll commissioned by Daily Kos looks at how South Dakota Sen. John Thune fares against potential Democratic challengers in the 2010 election.

Full results here:

   http://www.dailykos.com/statepoll/2009/4/1/SD/280

I've also appended the results below.

While no one has publicly challenged Thune as of yet, we pitted him against the Democrats' top two politicians in the state -- former Sen. Tom Daschle (who Thune ousted in 2004) and at-large Rep. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin. The poll finds that Thune remains very popular in his state, with a 57/32 fav/unfav rating (+25). Herseth is +18 (53/31), and Daschle is only +7 (50/43).

In head-to-heads, Thune starts of the cycle above the all-important 50 percent mark, defeating Daschle 53-40, and Herseth-Sandlin 51-39. As of this time, Thune appears secure for reelection.

Fell free to drop me a line if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Markos Moulitsas, publisher
Daily Kos

p.s. While Daily Kos is a progressive political community site, we use the independent Research 2000, like dozens of newspapers around the country, precisely to get an accurate and unbiased read on the races we poll. Daily Kos releases all the polls it commissions, including those that aren't favorable to its favorite candidates (like this one), and releases all the crosstabs to avoid cherry picking of data.

Obama's No Good Very Bad Day in London

The President and I have something in common.  I point this out because, like British PM Gordon Brown, I need all the magic dust I can get.  We are both traveling at the moment.  I am in Chicago, attending the Midwest Political Science Convention.  He is in Europe.  For some strange reason, he is attracting more attention than I am. 

On the other hand, so far not a single protester has shown up to blame me for anything.  Our President is not so lucky.  While he tries to smooth talk the Chinese and the Russians, thousands of anti-capitalist protesters (dressed, one suspects, in clothes that were not produced by any government) made mayhem in the streets of London.  Well, one should not be surprised that the forces of noxious numbskullery are alive in Europe.  One need merely watch a televised soccer game. 

But President Obama has not been getting a much better reception from the Eurocrats, let alone the aforementioned more easterly gangster princes.  Apparently they want the U.S. to take full blame for the current international economic krapola.  Obama seems to have obliged them with a mea culpa, but that did what it always did: it whetted their appetites for more.  The French and Germans want global financial regulations that put the American finance system at least partially under international control.  I can’t wait to see how that plays out in the Senate. 

If you are expecting me to blame all this on Barack Obama, prepare for a disappointment.  Presidents McCain, or Clinton, or Huckabee or Kucinich would have been in the same situation.  It was a lot of fun to blame friction between our allies and not-allies-so-much on George W. Bush’s arrogance, but maybe the basic problem was always, as the President likes to say, “structural”. 

The only thing unusual about Barack Obama was the Messianic glow that surrounded him when went abroad during the campaign.  Clearly the European Left, and Center, was pulling for the American Messiah.  Obama clearly enjoyed and exploited that glow.  Perhaps he should have considered what happens to the Messiah later on in the story.