Continuous commentary from The American Prospect Online.
This is a crisis for labor as such for any number of obvious reasons. In terms of labor’s role in the Democratic coalition, it’s a crisis most basically because it means union voters can no longer turn elections. The massive improvement in political advocacy and GOTV efforts that organized labor achieved under John Sweeney -- a transformation Bai can’t find the space to mention even once in 8,000 words of text -- has now been sufficiently undercut by the decline in union density to prevent labor from doing for the party what it was able to do just a few years ago. (That’s a bottom-line reason; the more profound reason why organized labor’s crisis in organizing is also a long-term crisis for liberalism is that, well, it really is impossible to imagine a serious progressive movement without organized labor at the center of it.)
So the crisis is one of union density. It’s a question of organizing and how best to structure institutions and allocate limited resources so as to bring about some truly radical accelerations in the pace of organizing across sectors. The overarching context for this crisis and the intra-labor debate is deindustrialization and America’s transformation into a service economy. As Newman points out, this is not a discussion that Stern just broached out of the blue last year, and there are plenty of reform proposals on the table besides Stern’s that address the crisis to varying degrees. Stern thinks the situation is so hopeless that a truly radical and sweeping overhaul is the only possible way labor can be saved; others disagree, either with the sentiment or Stern’s specific proposals (or both). Bai somehow manages to obscure these basic points, and that’s the biggest shortcoming of the piece.
--Sam Rosenfeld
Still, Democrats know that if they are going to find a way out of the minority, they must do more than simply block the White House, a tactic that led Republicans to define the last Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, as an "obstructionist" and contributed to his defeat in November. They will need to come up with their own idea for revamping Social Security, and Mr. Reid promised they would - but not before Mr. Bush puts forth some specifics. [emphasis added]I see that Noam Scheiber has beaten me to the punch in questioning this completely unsubstantiated analysis of Tom Daschle’s loss. I second everything he says, and will only add that Daschle’s former communications director was pretty emphatic, when talking to me recently about the obstructionist tag, that the conventional wisdom on the subject is just b.s.:
The Thune campaign never ran a single spot in their paid advertising about Daschle’s obstructionism. It was used in right-wing direct mail fundraising, and they would talk about it in the Senate Republican Caucus meetings, but the whole obstruction thing never had salience with voters.The real problem facing Democrats is not the obstructionist label but the popular conception that the party doesn’t stand for much. That’s the real opportunity this fight presents, one that Democrats haven’t yet quite seized to the fullest extent: to remind Americans why they like Social Security, and hammer home the point that this is a Democratic program -- conceived and implemented by Democrats, protected for seventy years by Democrats against Republican assaults, and embodying core Democratic principles about the power of government to meet collective needs. It’s an ideological fight as much as a partisan, political one, and what matters more than any alternative proposals Democrats may or may not offer is how the system itself is described to the public by its protectors and champions.
Nancy Pelosi made an impressive effort on that score this morning in her portion of the Dems’ State of the Union prebuttal. But the identification of Social Security with a legacy of Democratic action and principles will be something to emphasize more and more, particularly if the Democrats actually win the legislative fight and the battle to shape its electoral fallout gets underway. Mark Schmitt thinks that Republicans might still have “plenty to gain by losing” if they successfully manage to paint themselves as bold fighters for a prosperous future, thwarted by stodgy Democratic defenders of the status quo. Surely it’s possible for Dems to make sure the Republicans “lose by losing” -- by reminding people of the value of this system they may have taken for granted before, and by making it as clear as possible which party wants to destroy it and which party does not.
--Sam Rosenfeld
--Mark Leon Goldberg
--Jeffrey Dubner
Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said she would prefer to wait and see how “experiments” in new personnel systems at the departments of Defense and Homeland Security work before implementing them at all federal agencies — as the administration has said President Bush will request in his fiscal 2006 budget.What’s more, while Collins’s House counterpart, Government Reform Committee chairman Tom Davis of Virginia, has been mum on the White House’s proposals so far, his record on civil service issues is fairly moderate owing to the huge number of federal employee constituents in his suburban D.C. district. With the relevant committee chairs in both chambers refusing to endorse the White House’s designs on the federal workforce, this looks like it could be an uphill battle in Congress once the president submits his budget proposal next week.“I think it is prudent to see how these systems fare before deciding whether to expand the reforms to other federal agencies,” Collins, R-Maine, said in a written statement.
That suggests that Collins is on the same side of the issue as congressional Democrats and labor unions in what appears to be a major fight over federal personnel rules.
--Sam Rosenfeld
The personal account shifts the timing of existing Social Security costs, but doesn't add costs. A comprehensive personal account plan might move a portion of existing costs off of our children and grandchildren and into the near term.That would be an arguably accurate interpretation of events under a privatization plan where the Republicans intended to actually pay those forward-shifted costs. But instead, having shifted the costs forward in time, they propose to borrow the money to pay them, thus shifting the costs back to where they were on the first place. Meanwhile, bondholders are supposed to swallow this massive quantity of new debt based on a promise to cut benefits in the distant future long after most of the relevant legislators will have left office.
--Matthew Yglesias
In the 1950s, there were about 16 workers paying for every beneficiary. Today, there are about three -- and eventually, there will be only two workers to support each person on Social Security.Right. Social Security survived the transition from a 16:1 worker/retiree ratio to a 3:1 worker/retiree ratio and now the Republicans expect us to believe that moving from 3:1 to 2:1 is impossible? The answer to the riddle, of course, is the magic of productivity growth. One worker circa 2005 -- armed with his higher median level of education, five decades of additional capital accumulation, massive technological improvements, and Flynn effect-driven increases in raw intelligence -- can produce the goods and services of many workers circa 1955. Similar trends will continue into the future and sharply mitigate the adverse demographic trends. That's to say nothing of the intelligent robots who'll be doing our work for us by the time the supposed crisis is upon us, giving us years of solvency in the time before they overthrow their masters.
--Matthew Yglesias
Learn more and get involved in the fight to protect progressive priorities with Moving Ideas' 109th Congress legislative guide. "109th Congress: What to Expect," provides a brief outline of the 109th Congress' legislative agenda, resource materials on the Republican and Democrat priorities, articles and reports from the policy community, and ways to get involved.
Moving Ideas is a project of The American Prospect.
--Diane Greenhalgh, MovingIdeas.Org
So who does this embattled former English and French teacher and part-time rancher think is best poised to lead the Democratic party? In what is sure to be good news to the folks over at the New Democratic Network, Dahlman told me her top choice is Simon Rosenberg with Howard Dean coming in a close second.
Dahlman began with lukewarm feelings about Rosenberg. “When I heard him speak in Sacramento, he didn’t immediately appeal to me.” Further, Rosenberg’s former affiliation with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council didn’t resonate too well with the self-described progressive.
However, her initial impressions changed soon after the two chatted one on one. “Simon was fantastic. He told me that DNC members need to be put to work -- and he’s right.” Lamenting that she felt like window dressing at the convention in Boston, she thinks lower-rung DNC members like herself are not called on enough by the party. Rosenberg, she says, would change that.
While Dahlman does appreciate all that Dean has done for the party, and thinks that he would make a fine spokesman, she worries that his profile and penchant for off-the-cuff remarks may distract from the party’s business. “I’m worried that as party chair Dean, not the party, would be the story,” she told me.
Despite her preference for Rosenberg, the anti-Dean movement gaining strength among some state party chairs is having just the opposite effect on her. If the anti-Dean people become too aggressive with their tactics she may switch her alligience and become a full fledged Dean supporter.
Nevertheless, for now, she still prefers Rosenberg. “I give Simon the edge over Dean. Simon has passion. As much as we need money -- and Terry McAuliffe was a skilled fundraiser -- we also need passion.” Dahlman continued to sing Rosenberg’s praise, “I think Simon’s a pragmatist too. I’m an idealist, and for president I’m looking for Plato's philosopher king, but for party chair we need a pragmatist.”
No doubt this is good news for the "blogospheric elites'" favorite candidate.
--Mark Leon Goldberg
--Matthew Yglesias
Members of the United Iraqi Alliance already are thinking about how to include some Sunnis in the government. Ahmad Chalabi, who holds a high position on the slate and was a longtime member of the Iraqi opposition that sought to overthrow Saddam Hussein, said he was confident that a Sunni would get a high position.That's absurd. The Transitional Administrative Law governing Iraq makes it clear that the prime minister's job is far more important than the other two. The assembly speakership, meanwhile, is the least important job out there. Iraq's new leaders are free to do what they want, but this is not looking like a good start on incorporating Sunni Arabs into the political process."A Sunni will get one of the top three jobs: the presidency, the prime minister's job or the speaker of assembly," Chalabi said. "My view is that the speaker of the assembly is the most important job because the assembly will run the show."
--Matthew Yglesias
Near as I can tell, all the outstanding policy issues remain the same. Contrary to the initial hopes of American officials, Sunni Arabs will remain marginalized by the formal political process and unlikely to see it as a viable means of protecting their interests. Iraq will be governed by the same group of exile parties that have been governing it since the days of the Iraqi Governing Counsel and the Coalition Provisional Authority, albeit perhaps with some shuffling of cabinet portfolios. The American military, the insurgency, and various party-affiliated militias will remain more effective sources of power than the official state security apparatus. Underlying questions about American intentions, the status of Kurdistan, the disposal of Iraq's oil wealth, and so forth remain unanswered.
In essence, the policy options facing the United States remain as well, except we no longer have the interim goal of muddling through until election day to defer discussion of the longer-term questions. The president and his supporters will doubtless portray yesterday's events in more glowing and transformative terms than I have -- but if they want to proclaim the election a stunning discrediting of their critics and declare victory, then start preparing to bring the troops home, rebuild the American military, and retrain their focus on al-Qaeda and other global issues, I'd happily take that bargain.
--Matthew Yglesias
--Jeffrey Dubner
Secondly, there’s this too-perfect graf:
In another presentation, Senator John Thune of South Dakota introduced senators to the meaning of "blogging," explaining the basics of self-published online political commentary and arguing that it can affect public opinion.I'm sure John Thune's new colleagues learned some useful lessons from his recent experience with blogs, even if attendees from the White House were a few steps ahead.
--Sam Rosenfeld
The Columnists
- David Brooks. Bush says he won't change any of his policies and you should ignore his speeches, but secretly I know he will.
- Nicholas Kristof. Sure this sounds like a good idea, but it might prevent me from putting my whoring on the expense account.
- Jim Hoagland. Iraq is like a Conrad novel. In a good way!
- George Will. Cutting everyone's Social Security benefits is just like giving them all free land. Really.
- Maureen Dowd. Ah, torture jokes. September 11 really did change everything.
- Thomas Friedman. If everyone used less oil the price would go down and then we'd get
higher consumption and higher prices againdemocracy everythere!
- Robert Wright on what Bush doesn't understand about freedom and capitalism.
To the increasing consternation of government officials, the demand for flu vaccine has fallen so sharply that millions of doses remain available across the country. What last fall seemed an imminent national shortage yesterday was deemed "unprecedented supply-and-demand mismatches" by the director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention....It's no secret that public health issues are best handled outside of the political arena, but the specter of clinics throwing away flu vaccine doses because the heavy politicization of this issue scared off takers nonetheless makes that point extremely plain.The situation in the area mirrors the national dilemma. At least a couple of thousand doses of flu vaccine are on hand in public health departments, and numerous agencies are soliciting residents to get vaccinated. Private clinics that were canceled hastily last fall are being rescheduled. The District and Maryland have completely dropped the guidelines that prioritized who should get a shot based on medical conditions or age; Virginia is maintaining them, but loosely.
Everyone's goal is to move remaining supplies fast, before the influenza season peaks late next month and before unused doses must be thrown out.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
On the first claim, of course, Thompson is right; those four stripes on the chief's sleeves don't grant him particularly lofty powers. I'm more skeptical of Thompson's second claim, that Scalia could become "a bulwark against the fusillades coming from everywhere else." While Scalia does thwart conservative goals on occasion, he more frequently tries to push decisions further than the Court's moderate conservatives, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, are willing to go. He's criticized their preference for handing down limited decisions rather than sweeping doctrines; as chief justice, would he move closer to their camp, or would he use what power the post does possess to march forward faster than they like?
But it's the third benefit of a Chief Justice Scalia that seems least likely. Thompson suggests that Senate Dems "demand that the president nominate a moderate associate justice in return and threaten filibuster and gumming up of the Senate in other ways if the deal falls through." Leaving aside how little incentive George W. Bush has to cut such a deal, and how rarely he's voluntarily reached for the smaller piece of a cake, there's the fact that an identical situation brought Scalia onto the Court in the first place. Upon Warren Burger's retirement, Ronald Reagan elevated the arch-conservative (by the Court's standards at the time, at least) William Rehnquist to the chief's seat. Rehnquist made it through a bruising 65-33 vote -- and then the more conservative Scalia won confirmation as an associate justice with a 98-0 vote. The Democrats clearly didn't follow Thompson's bargaining advice, and there's no way to know what would have happened if they had, but I find it hard to believe the outcome would have been much different.
That said, Thompson makes a good case.
--Jeffrey Dubner
--Jeffrey Dubner
UPDATE: On another note, does anybody find it odd that Cheney donned this duck-hunting outfit the same day the D.C. Circuit reheard the old energy task force case?
--Jeffrey Dubner
The ceremony at the Nazi death camp was outdoors, so those in attendance, such as French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, were wearing dark, formal overcoats and dress shoes or boots. Because it was cold and snowing, they were also wearing gentlemen's hats. In short, they were dressed for the inclement weather as well as the sobriety and dignity of the event.It's not like the United States has never sent a representative to an event at Auschwitz previously, so the protocol of such events is well known in diplomatic and executive circles. Cheney's flagrant violation can, Givhan rightly suggests, be considered an affront to the dignity of the ceremony and signal that Cheney took it less seriously than previous leaders have. At a time when the United States is widely reviled internationally for its brusque and imperious ways, such an arrogant disregard for protocol can only further damage America's international image.The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower.
Cheney stood out in a sea of black-coated world leaders because he was wearing an olive drab parka with a fur-trimmed hood. It is embroidered with his name. It reminded one of the way in which children's clothes are inscribed with their names before they are sent away to camp. And indeed, the vice president looked like an awkward boy amid the well-dressed adults.
Like other attendees, the vice president was wearing a hat. But it was not a fedora or a Stetson or a fur hat or any kind of hat that one might wear to a memorial service as the representative of one's country. Instead, it was a knit ski cap, embroidered with the words "Staff 2001." It was the kind of hat a conventioneer might find in a goodie bag.
It is also worth mentioning that Cheney was wearing hiking boots -- thick, brown, lace-up ones. Did he think he was going to have to hike the 44 miles from Krakow -- where he had made remarks earlier in the day -- to Auschwitz?
It's hard to imagine what Cheney was thinking when he prepped for this event. The Bush administration has been more attuned to the complex semiotics of fashion that virtually any other group of politicians I've seen. Laura Bush's white coat during the inaugural ceremonies alone constituted a complex communication with female viewers about the forward-looking nature of the administration, with undertones of purity, fresh starts and new centuries. For someone in her position to retire the mid-century dictum of "no white after Labor Day" in favor of the fashionable reality of winter white, which is trendier than ever this year, constituted the final stake in the heart of an informal rule at least as old as the Social Security program. The Bush twins routinely dress in the best-regarded emerging American designers favored by the In Style set and are such regulars at chic D.C. boutiques like Sassanova and Urban Chic that Sassanova now posts a picture of the First Lady behind the counter.
There's no question in my mind that Cheney knew what he was doing when he chose to play the role of ugly American in his embroidered parka and knit cap. Perhaps he was trying to signal something about America casting aside the constraints of history. If so, it was a message ill-suited to the occasion. As Paul Fussell noted in his acclaimed book Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, even in the United States the wearing of any items of clothing with writing on them signals a lack of sophistication and education on the part of the wearer, and an intention to engage in leisure activities.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
--Garance Franke-Ruta
It's just one poll, but it's a bit more support for the argument against overemphasizing the role of "values" in 2004. On another note, though, Pew really should find a way to reword the question opposing the statements, "Military force is best way to defeat terrorism" and "Too much force creates hatred that leads to more terrorism." Sure, that dichotomy forces respondents to say which of two non-contradictory statements they identify with more, but I'd like to know how each statement fares on its own. Do Kerry voters accept that military force is the most important component of the fight against terrorism? Do Bush voters recognize that blowback is a legitimate concern? That's something Pew didn't try to find out.
--Jeffrey Dubner
This kind of debate over the ICC was somewhat of an inevitable result of the court’s existence, but the Bush administration’s zealous mission to undermine the court at every turn is making this Security Council showdown more awkward (and irrational) than it should be.
The Bush administration can't be seen as being "against" prosecuting those responsible for genocide, so it has fielded two seperate ideas for bringing the guilty to justice to counter the ICC referral. First they’ve recommended that an independent, ad hoc tribunal be set up somewhere in the region; second, they’ve toyed with the idea of referring the cases to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.
Considering that the ICC is competent to try these kinds of crimes and is already open for business, setting up an ad hoc tribunal for Sudan would be unnecessarily costly and time consuming. Because the duplicative process would be entirely at the United States' urging, we would have to pick up most, if not all, of the tab. On the other hand, referring the Darfur war crimes charges to Rwanda would set the genocide trials up for failure. Unlike its sister court for the former Yugoslavia, the Rwanda tribunal hasn’t been much of a success. Referring certain cases to national courts and training local judges should remain the Rwandan tribunal’s top priority.
Hawks in the Bush administration fear that allowing crimes in Darfur to be tried at the ICC might confer some sort of American legitimacy over the court. This fear displays a level of irrationality towards the court to which, sadly, I’ve grown accustomed. Here we have an operating court with some of the world’s best trained investigators, prosecutors, and judges. Not only that, European countries would basically foot the bill for the whole show. Yet the Bush administration still won't go along. They are being handed a win-win situation for dealing with the genocide in Darfur, yet they are seemingly too blinded by their own ideological opposition to the very idea of an international criminal court that they can’t fathom that the court, in practical terms, might actually serve U.S. interests.
Of course, as I speculated a few weeks ago, the United States may simply opt to let China do its dirty work by vetoing the resolution. Either way, this is sure to make for some uncomfortable moments as Bush meets with leaders across Europe next week.
--Mark Leon Goldberg
Under the new plan, employees will be grouped into eight to 12 clusters based on occupation. Salary ranges will be based, in part, on geographic location and annual market surveys by a new compensation committee of what similar employees earn in the private sector and other government entities. Within each occupational cluster, workers will be assigned to one of four salary ranges, or "pay bands," based on their skill level and experience.This is only one front in a very aggressive White House mobilization against federal labor structures and the civil service unions (who are set to sue DHS over the new changes), an initiative that has met with mixed results during Bush’s first term but that looks to be ramped up in the coming years. I’ve written before about the Office of Management and Budget’s civil service privatization initiatives, the political project undergirding them, and the resistance they’ve encountered in Congress. As battles over the civil service unfold it will be interesting to watch the political dynamic in Congress, and in particular to see how GOP congressmen with large numbers of federal employee constituents and normally mixed-to-warm relations with the civil service unions -- like Tom Davis of Virginia -- play their hands.A raise or promotion -- moving up in a pay range or rising to the next one -- will depend on receiving a satisfactory performance rating from a supervisor, said officials with homeland security and the Office of Personnel Management.
…
Union officials have long contended that the administration's goal was to limit the influence of organized labor rather than to improve homeland security. They said yesterday that the new restrictions on collective bargaining go beyond legal bounds set by Congress in the 2002 law.
Yesterday, union leaders decried provisions that would curtail the power of labor unions by no longer requiring DHS officials to negotiate over such matters as where employees will be deployed, the type of work they will do and the equipment they will use. They also object to provisions that would limit the role of the independent Federal Labor Relations Authority and hand the job of settling labor-management disputes to an internal labor relations board controlled by the DHS secretary.
The system also calls for limiting to about three months an employee discipline and appeals process that now can take much longer to complete. And while employees would still be able to protest what they regard as unfair treatment before the independent Merit Systems Protection Board, the board would have more limited authority to overturn managers' decisions.
--Sam Rosenfeld
The non-selection of Bolton for the Feith slot is interesting precisely for what it portends for Iraq policy. As Lawrence Kaplan described in an excellent March 2004 profile, Bolton's manichean worldview is similar to that of Jack Nicholson's character in A Few Good Men. I’d go one step further and say that he has traces of Colonel Kurtz in him as well; he’s no neocon but an aggressive realist whose policy recommendations for Iraq would most certainly include a revving up of American military action to quell the insurgency.
If Bolton really is somewhat out of favor, it may hint that a post-election toning down of American counterinsurgency strategy in favor of committing more troops to train Iraqi security forces (a la Gen. Gary Luck's recommendations) may be in the works.
--Mark Leon Goldberg
--Jeffrey Dubner
Now, just stop and think a minute. If there were a black, woman Democrat who was nominated for a position and Republicans were doing the same things like this. “I don't really like being lied to repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally. It's wrong. Undemocratic and it's dangerous.” If some Republicans said that, well, one, the press would jump all over him and Democrats will be jumping all over him, calling them racist and so on.This is rather lazy argumentation. Is Barnes saying that the Democrats’ attacks on Rice actually were racist? If not, what is he arguing? In his online column today, Howard Kurtz puts the matter aptly when criticizing Barnes’s weird non-argument:
…But isn't that playing the race card hypothetically: suggesting that Rice should be above criticism (even on as serious a matter as the Iraq war) because she's black, simply because you imagine that Dems might have made similar charges if the tables were turned?No one's pretending that Dems are averse to playing politics with race, but the separate and rather striking fact remains: A dispute involving a minority conservative simply cannot take place without right-wing pundits bringing up his or her ethnicity. One winces to anticipate what some of the "color-blind" crowd will have to say when the Democrats actually put up a fight against Alberto Gonzales’ confirmation tomorrow.
--Sam Rosenfeld
In 2000, the last full fiscal year of the Clinton Administration, the federal government spent $38.6 million on 64 contracts with major public relations agencies. In 2001, the first year of the Bush Administration, the federal government spent $36.6 million on 67 contracts with major public relations agencies.In 2004 alone -- an election year, perhaps not coincidentally -- the Bush administration spent 17 percent more on PR than the Clinton administration did in its last two budgets combined. The 2004 numbers are still incomplete, too, as many agencies have yet to report full data. (Not that, say, Homeland Security has spent much on PR. Speaking of which, do you have a transistor radio?)In 2002, the first fully budgeted year of the Bush Administration, federal spending on PR contracts increased to $64.7 million on 67 contracts. This spending level remained steady in 2003, during which $64 million was spent on 95 contracts. In 2004, spending by the federal government on PR contracts rose again. Last fiscal year, the federal government spent $88.2 million on 60 contracts with public relations agencies.
As soon as the Armstrong Williams scandal broke, everybody was rushing to say, "The Clinton administration did more of this." In terms of dollars, obviously, they didn't. I'm told there's a GAO report in the works that may shed some light on whether the Clinton administration engaged in either pay-for-play misbehavior or released video news releases in an illegal fashion, so soon we'll know about that aspect as well.
--Jeffrey Dubner
President Bush on Wednesday ordered his Cabinet secretaries not to hire columnists to promote their agendas after disclosure that a second writer was paid to tout an administration initiative.However, also at a news conference today, the president called on and took a question from Jeff Gannon of Talon News, a conservative outfit run by a Republican activist that has been the subject of some tough media criticism in recent years for its cozy relationship with the Bush White House. Gannon, who virtually brags on his Web site that he's a conservative plant with orders to counter the questions of the mainstream press, asked the president this total softball of a question:The president said he expects his agency heads will "make sure that that practice doesn't go forward."
"All our Cabinet secretaries must realize that we will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet," Bush said at a news conference....
Bush said there "needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press, the administration and the press."
Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. [Senate Minority Leader] Harry Reid [D-NV] was talking about soup lines. And [Senator] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you've said you are going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?Media Matters is on the case and has the goods on Gannon and his whole outfit:
Although Gannon is a regular at White House press briefings and Talon News claims to be a news organization, Talon appears to be little more than an arm of the Republican Party. Talon News' editor in chief, Bobby Eberle, is a Republican activist who served as a delegate to the 1996, 1998, and 2000 Texas Republican Conventions and to the 2000 national Republican Convention. In 1999, Eberle "was recognized with a unanimously approved resolution of commendation by the Republican Party of Texas for service and dedication to the Republican cause." His biography on Talon's website notes: "Bobby has devoted considerable time and energy to the Republican effort" and "Bobby is a member of Texas Christian Coalition and Texas Right to Life."Now there's a "nice, independent" reporter for you!Eberle is also the president and CEO of GOPUSA.com, a "conservative news, information, and design company dedicated to promoting conservative ideals" that carries articles and commentary by Gannon and Talon News. GOPUSA is also affiliated with MillionsofAmericans.com, a conservative advocacy organization run by Bruce Eberle, a relative of Bobby Eberle and a conservative fundraising consultant. Gannon's articles for Talon News frequently appear on GOPUSA.com....Bruce Eberle and his company have made extensive financial contributions to Republican Party candidates and committees.
Gannon identifies himself on his personal website as "A Voice of the New Media" and "a conservative journalist embedded with the liberal Washington press corps." The top item on his website reads:
"NOTE TO MY LIBERAL COLLEAGUES: Bush is here for another 4 years. Get over it!
"You threw everything you had at him, even phony documents and he still beat you. Give up."
--Garance Franke-Ruta
Now I do have to admit that Reid is opening himself up here to the charge that he's mischaracterizing Bill Thomas' views on the need to bring more racial discrimination into American social policy. The logic of Thomas' statement was that we should make Social Security more, not less generous to African-Americans. But there's a way out! You may notice that while would-be privatizers love to talk about the plight of short-lived African-Americans (yet they tend not to talk about ways we might improve black life expectancy), they never talk about Hispanics, normally the right's favorite minority group. The reason is simple: Latinos make out like bandits under the current system and the Thomas Plan would cut their benefits commensurately. What does George W. Bush have against Hispanics? And, for that matter, white people? These are the questions Americans are asking.
--Matthew Yglesias
The Condoleezza Rice hearings and floor debate have managed to revive this phenomenon, which I’ve noticed in some of the more brow-furrowed press coverage, as during Barbara Boxer’s appearance on Newsnight with Aaron Brown last night. Brown asked her a variation on the standard, incredulous question one hears a lot when the subject of dishonesty comes up, in which the concerned interlocutor says “you said so-and-so was being dishonest when they said such-and-such -- does that mean that you’re actually calling them a liar?” If you take a look at the transcript, you’ll see that Boxer acquitted herself nicely when fielding this question; in particular she alluded to one Condi remark that’s always struck me as a pretty clear-cut lie: her road-to-war assurances that Iraq’s aluminum tubes could only be used for uranium enrichment. As an intelligence analyst told Spencer Ackerman and John Judis in 2003, “You had senior American officials like Condoleezza Rice saying the only use of this aluminum really is uranium centrifuges. She said that on television. And that's just a lie."
What’s the sense in beating around the bush with this stuff? It was refreshing to see someone like Mark Dayton of Minnesota harp on the “l” word with no hesitation at all:
“Too many Republican senators allow Bush's top aides "to get away with lying," said Sen. Mark Dayton, a Democrat who opposed the war and will face reelection next year in the swing state of Minnesota. "Lying to Congress, lying to our committees and lying to the American people. It's wrong, it's immoral." The only way to stop it, Dayton said, is to keep the administration from promoting officials "who have been instrumental in deceiving Congress and the American people, and regrettably that includes Dr. Rice."Once Evan Bayh musters the gumption to throw out a line like that, I’ll be really impressed.
--Sam Rosenfeld
--Sam Rosenfeld
--Jeffrey Dubner
--Matthew Yglesias
From Canada to Tokyo, the group has committees in over 30 countries and is recognized by the DNC as a “state.” As such, Democrats Abroad will send eight DNC members to February’s meeting. Of those eight, one has already endorsed Howard Dean, three remain uncommitted, and the positions of the rest are unknown.
Much like Sam Spencer's efforts in Maine, the group’s Web site is hosting an online poll for its members to weigh in on the race. So far, Dean has an enormous lead, capturing 78 percent of the 628 votes, with Donnie Fowler Jr. a distant second with 8 percent.
Of course, this kind of internet polling is far from reliable. Nevertheless, both the poll and the stated positions of the Democrats Abroad DNC delegates seem to further contribute to the growing body of (anecdotal) evidence I’ve gathered from the non-bigwig DNC types over the past couple of weeks. So far, all the DNC members whom I have spoken with fall into one of two categories: undecided or fully committed to Dean. There seems to be a level of commitment to Dean among DNC backbenchers which simply doesn’t exist with the other candidates.
--Mark Leon Goldberg
The annuity estimate looks fishy as well. Anyone selling me a $49,639 annuity for $521,276 is going to lose money if I live 11 years or more. According to the CDC (PDF) white male life expectancy at 65 is 16.6 years and white male life expectancy at 70 is 13.2 years. My retirement income, in other words, would be dependent on the idea that insurance companies can't read simple actuarial tables. Note also that in the real world, insurance companies like to make a profit when they sell things (and that annuities markets suffer from adverse selection effects), so it would not, in fact, be possible for me to get even the actuarially fair $34,751 annual payment.
Interestingly, the Heritage Foundation's privatization propaganda calculator is telling me that I can expect an annual Social Security benefit of $36,708 -- which is way better than what the Cato calculator is telling me to expect from privatization, once you correct for their most obvious errors. Once I told Heritage my zip code, the calculator seems to have decided I'm black and revised my life expectancy downward to 72.7 (note that a responsible calculator would recognize this number to be irrelevant; African-American male life expectancy at 65 is 14.6 years, not far from white male life expectancy) and decided that I'll have a whopping $1,534,045 in my private account. No explanation is given for how they arrived at that figure, but apparently it will buy me a $149,952 per year annuity. As with the Cato annuity, however, the math only comes out right on this estimate if you use the wrong life expectancy number and falsely anticipate that I'll be able to get an actuarially fair rate.
All this, needless to say, tells us relatively little about Social Security and a great deal about the methods of pro-privatization think tanks. They should try, at least, to get their calculators to agree with each other. Reality would be a stretch.
--Matthew Yglesias
In his AARP article, for example, aside from quotes from the organization itself, [AP reporter David] Espo referred to the savings accounts three times as "personal accounts." Yet last October 17 and December 6 (the latter co-authored with Deb Reichmann), Espo used the phrase "private accounts" eight times, without ever resorting to the warmer and fuzzier usage, "personal accounts." "Personal Accounts" didn't appear in Espo's writing until early December, when the Bush administration was ramping up its publicity campaign to push its agenda for Social Security. On December 7, Espo used "private accounts" -- the phrase frowned upon by the president -- seven times, opting for "personal accounts" just once. By January, the tables had turned and "private" had disappeared from Espo's reporting -- reappearing only yesterday in his story about the spat between the AARP and the Republican pollster.Whether the change was conscious or not, it happened, and reporters shouldn't be letting the White House dictate their word choice for them. The story here is unambiguously out in the public record. The people who devised this plan called it "privatizing" Social Security and called the accounts they wanted to create "private accounts." The issue was debated on those terms for years, and never became popular with the public. Then, in response to focus group data, the privatizers decided to rename things. Obviously, the GOP is welcome to use whatever talking points it cares to devise, but the national media doesn't work for Ken Mehlman and there's no need for them to change anything.When asked about the change, Espo told CJR Daily he was unaware of the adjustment in his own choice of terminology, and said that "on balance" he identifies the savings accounts as "personal accounts." He said if there is an AP directive mandating a particular usage, he is unaware of it.
--Matthew Yglesias
Congress' and the [Education] Department's purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children, particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television," Spellings wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to Pat Mitchell, PBS president and chief executive.The response from the Human Rights Campaign was swift:
The Secretary's first act in office denies children an education about the diversity of American families," said HRC Political Director Winnie Stachelberg. "Teaching children about respect for differences promotes tolerance of their fellow human beings. Those are the values our children should be learning. Instead, Secretary Spellings is sending the message that differences should concealed. This creates a dangerous environment for children's growth. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth are disproportionately at risk for suicide. Creating a climate in which children are taught that differences should be feared does nothing to promote understanding for peers."Spelling's reaction is as though PBS was running episodes of
--Sarah Wildman
--Sam Rosenfeld
“Tim Roemer just called,” she told me last week. “We talked about how the party needs a strategy for winning the south.” She agrees, but Roemer is just too conservative for her -- though she concedes that “the south is not so liberal either.”
Nevertheless, she won’t give up on Howard Dean, “I’m not willing to give up on my beliefs just to win elections. I know this is politics and that’s what you’re supposed to do, but I can't do it.”
--Mark Leon Goldberg
A measure in the transitional basic law approved last spring allows just 3 of the country's 18 provinces to nullify a draft of the constitution if two-thirds of their residents vote against it in a referendum. Sunnis are a majority in at least three provinces, and Sunni leaders are now bringing up this measure as leverage to put Shiite, Kurdish and American officials on notice that the minority Sunnis expect a place in postelection politics.The purpose of incorporating countermajoritarian measures like this into a political process is that, hopefully, it will force the leaders of all three major Iraqi communities to reach a compromise that's acceptable by all. The flipside is that when you have a countermajoritarian process, it's often impossible to do anything. Think of the U.S. Constitution, whose amendment process is extremely cumbersome. The result is that we almost never amend the constitution. So far as that goes, that hasn't led to anything terrible and is, in fact, the system operating as designed. The difference, however, is that when constitutional amendments fail, the wheels of government just keep on rolling as before.
Putting steep countermajoritarian hurdles in the way of approving a new constitution raises non-trivial risks that no constitution will be approved at all. Will any document that's acceptable in the three Kurdish provinces and the three Sunni Arab-dominated provinces pass muster in 10 of the 12 remaining provinces? Perhaps not, especially because the people who will be running the interim government won't have an especially strong interest in securing the approval of a new constition seeing as how the status quo would just leave them in charge. As has long been the case, there are real paths out of this mess if everyone opts to bargain in good faith to try and achieve a farsighted compromise. The problem, thus far, is that not everyone has been willing to do so. If that dynamic changes, that will be all for the best, but barring some dramatic shifts in U.S. policy, I see little reason to think that it will.
--Matthew Yglesias
--Jeffrey Dubner
In the spring of 2002 I had the dubious honor of meeting Sheik Omar. At the time, I was studying new religious movements at a London school; the sociology department invited him, along with a host of other leaders of more unconventional religious movements, to a panel discussion on religious recruiting on campuses in Britain. Al-Muhajiroun, which takes its name from the group of particularly devoted emigrés who traveled with Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD, had become mired in some controversy about pressuring Muslim students to join their cause, which includes replacing Britain's parliamentary democracy with the rule of ulema and the imposition of sharia.
But that concern was so 2002. According to this New York Times piece from last April, we know that he has urged European Muslims to join al-Qaeda. After Osama bin Laden’s call for a truce with European countries following the Madrid bombing, Sheik Omar had this to say:
All Muslims of the West will be obliged," he said, to "become [Osama bin Laden’s’ sword" in a new battle. Europeans take heed, he added, saying, "It is foolish to fight people who want death — that is what they are looking for."Now, as today’s piece points out, it seems Sheik Omar has set his sights on aiding the Iraqi insurgency.
His rhetoric aside, the New York Times article highlights the dilemma facing British law enforcement as they scramble for ways to legally silence him via deportation. This is similar to the position that Britain’s Home Office was in back in April, as they struggled to find ways to deport the radical leader of the Notorious Finsbury Park mosque, Abu Hamza. Luckily for them, the U.S. government issued and arrest warrant for Hamza -- charging, among other counts, that he tried to set up a terrorist training facility in Oregon.
Because the United States and Britian have a bilateral extradition treaty, British authorities were able to scoop up Hamza in May. Whether or not Hamza will actually be extradited has yet to be determined. In a pre-trial hearing, British authorities successfully landed a handful of charges against him.
Today's article did not point this out, but in April 2003, two British citizens of Pakistani descent blew themselves up in a Tel Aviv cafe. One of those two had meetings with al-Muhajiroun. I’m no lawyer, but I imagine that if Sheik Omar has similarly solicited young Britons to travel to Iraq to kill American soldiers, as the article suggests, then our own Department of Justice should be able to pursue the case.
--Mark Leon Goldberg
All that notwithstanding, however, it should be said that the Senate Dems under Harry Reid and Byron Dorgan have already been very impressive in using their leverage to make points and cause a little mischief when the opportunity arises. An article like this gives one the impression of a caucus that has blessedly resisted the myth that "obstructionism" is politically deadly and to be avoided. I've been hoping to see (or maybe write) a nice debunking of the conventional wisdom about what it was that caused Tom Daschle to lose his re-election race in South Dakota, but it looks like the Senate caucus at least doesn't require any such education.
--Sam Rosenfeld
The subtext behind the question? According to a Times insider, it's "no secret" that the search for a successor to the paper's big-gun conservative columnist, William Safire, began "two or three years ago." Mr. Safire, who is 73, has been a columnist since 1973. "I don't think there's been a date set, but you can just look at his age and when columnists typically and reasonably have retired," said the source. "There's not forced retirement for writers at The Times, only for editors, but I think it's been on their mind for some time who would succeed him. And I think that they've actually found the best possible person, in that he's a lovely guy and he's a good writer."Now there's nothing obviously wrong with the Times moving from a one-conservative format (as before September 2003) to a two-conservative format on a permanent basis, but that's not a change that should go unnoticed as if there have been two rightwingers on the page since time immemorial. I'm a pretty young guy, but remember the old regime quite clearly. Meanwhile, I don't see The Washington Times or The New York Post lining up to hire two liberal columnists or even milquetoast Nick Kristof/Tom Friedman types, and I certainly don't see them running op-eds by some left-wing equivalent of the thoroughly discredited Charles Murray.
--Matthew Yglesias
Incidentally, one might be inclined to observe that the Social Security status quo discriminates against gay and lesbian couples because it allows surviving spouses (usually wives) to inherit a portion of their dead spouses' benefits. Since gay and lesbian couples can't get married, they can't take advantage of this. Under a system of private accounts, homosexuals could bequeath their assets to their partners or anyone else. Far be it from me to encourage opportunistic deployments of homophobia, but ...
--Matthew Yglesias
--Jeffrey Dubner
You don't get the money till you're 65; meanwhile, the average black man dies at 54. Black people should get Social Security at 29. We don't live that long. Hypertension, high blood pressure, NYPD -- something'll get you!Evidently Congressman Thomas was listening, and he felt Rock’s pain. No word yet on whether the chairman will suggest benefits at 29 in committee discussions.
--Sam Rosenfeld
Of course, the deeper problem of organized labor’s shrinking presence in society is what the movement is properly concerned with at the moment, and presumably a long-term rejuvenation of labor’s organizing capacity and a reversal in its decades-long decline as a sector of the workforce are the only things that will ensure for it a more central role in the liberal coalition and a broader public reacquaintance with labor issues. Still, some initiative in publicizing labor issues -- specifically union-related issues -- from outside the ranks of organized labor itself wouldn’t hurt. While Newman is right to point out that Democratic officials are actually more resolutely pro-labor now than they’ve been historically, I have to say that the absence of any mention of collective bargaining rights in either the Senate Democratic caucus’ just-unveiled legislative agenda (as poined out by a commenter at Max Sawicky’s blog) or the House Dems’ New Partnership for America’s Future is a bit frustrating. The Senate Dems' agenda is very impressive on a number of fronts, and it doesn't lack for solid pro-worker initiatives. But there’s no mention of strengthening labor law, no pledged support for the card check legislation that virtually all congressional Dems back already and that stands as the labor movement’s last, best hope for survival and revival. No reference at all to a basic right to start or join a union at your place of work. It’s a disappointment, because this is an area where I suspect liberal bloggers and activists, for all their blinkered class biases, might actually stand to learn a little and take their cues on the subject from the Democratic leadership in Congress. If a rejuvenated labor movement is a prerequisite for a long-term, durable liberal politics in the United States, it'd be nice if liberal politicians highlighted these issues every once in a while.
UPDATE: Don't miss this terrific primer on the unfolding intra-labor struggle, written by Christopher Hayes in a handy Q&A style tailor-made for clueless bourgeois liberal bloggers. Check it out.
--Sam Rosenfeld
Amidst all this, Thomas managed to bring some semblance of coherence and talking points-style emphasis to his suggestion that the payroll tax be abandoned for some kind of value-added consumption tax. This was the first time Thomas has stated a preference for a specific kind of tax reform, and his backing of a consumption tax aligns him with Jim McCrery, who’s just taken the gavel as the new chair of the Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee and has also stated a desire to combine the debates on Social Security and tax reform.
Thomas’ most recent statements might lend some credence to Noam Schieber’s speculation about what the chairman is trying to do -- that is, attempt to create a situation wherein all sorts of fundamental issues relating to the tax system and Social Security get thrown up and mixed together, and out of the stew will hopefully come actual legislation with cooked numbers that George W. Bush can embrace as the fulfillment of his intentions for Social Security and that other Republicans get behind for the tax reforms at its center. As one senior House Republican told Congressional Quarterly today, “Bill Thomas believes that the more moving parts there are the more chance there is of reaching an agreement.”
The politics of all this seem so unwieldy, though, that it’s hard to say. The chief dispute between the White House and congressional Republicans at the moment has to do with whether or not to shoot out of the gate with votes making the president’s first-term tax cuts permanent. The White House wants to wait on any such moves until the tax reform commission publicizes its findings in the summer, and it wants to do Social Security reform first; Congressional Republicans are cool to the notion of taking on Social Security at all, but more particularly they want to render the tax cuts permanent right away, before the Social Security battle and questions about spent “political capital” endanger their chance. Thomas obviously wants to link a Social Security debate with a discussion of taxes, but his position on the whole question of what the timing should be in making Bush’s first-term tax cuts permanent is unclear. His Meet the Press chat didn't make that, or anything else, any clearer.
--Sam Rosenfeld
On the flipside, George W. Bush won 77 percent of the votes from the 16 percent of the electorate that thinks it should be "always illegal" and 71 percent of the votes from the 26 percent of the voters who think it should be "mostly illegal."
This provides enough fodder to support a political strategy that's in line with just about any substantive view on the issue. If you're an anti-abortion Democrat -- or harbor anti-abortion sympathies -- you note that Bush is winning these huge majorities among the "mostly illegal" crowd and that Democrats could win elections by cutting that number down to, say, 60 percent. Conversely, if you're a pro-choicer who's uncomfortable with much pro-choice rhetoric you can point to the fact that Kerry didn't do nearly as well among the moderately pro-choice "mostly legal" plurality as Bush did with anti-choice moderates and argue that rhetorical repositioning could do the trick.
Alternatively, if you're vehemently pro-choice, there's a strong argument to be made that Democrats should make their rhetoric more incendiary and the debate more divisive and polarizing: If Bush had won every "always illegal" vote and Kerry every "always legal" vote while holding the moderates constant, Kerry would have won the popular vote.
My two cents are that Democrats never do nearly good enough a job of highlighting how extreme the GOP view is. President Bush was never asked, for example, whether or not he agrees with his party's platform statement that "the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children" -- an endorsement of the "always illegal" position favored by fewer Americans than any of the alternatives. How many Americans really think girls raped by their fathers should have to carry the resulting pregnancies to term? At any rate, nobody asked this question in 2004, but according to the LA Times' 2000 exit poll, Gore won among voters citing "Supreme Court appointments" as a voting issue.
--Matthew Yglesias
--Jeffrey Dubner
It is a sign of Republican ascendance that the party is already forcing its opponents to re-examine some of their most strongly held positions. Democrats, for example, have been openly discussing whether to decrease their emphasis on one of their touchstone issues, abortion rights, after an election in which Mr. Bush ran aggressively as an opponent of abortion. [emphasis added]Is that even remotely true? Do you remember that slew of hard-hitting anti-abortion TV spots the prez's campaign ran? I don't either. I hardly recall abortion surfacing as a major election issue last year at all.
A confluence of factors -- the early, misguided notion that moral values voters decided the election, the ascension of pro-life Harry Reid to Senate minority leader, the candidacy of pro-life Tim Roemer for DNC chair, and discussion of the looming Supreme Court nomination fight -- have had the odd effect of turning an issue that barely factored at all (at least explicitly) in the last election into the very crux of Democratic soul-searching and internal struggle. There are all sorts of important debates to be aired about this issue, and about the Roe decision and its effects on American politics over the last 30 years, but, as with the battle over Social Security, it's really important not to let the actual contours of last year's presidential election get retroactively scrambled in the process.
--Sam Rosenfeld
--Jeffrey Dubner
Reporters also might be interested in the Cato Institute's view that "Private Accounts Will Boost National Saving," published on December 23, 2004. Since the term was apparently in good standing with privatization's leading advocates as little as three weeks ago, I see no reason we shouldn't keep using the term. Indeed, Cato's privatization advocacy Web site contains several hundred instances of the term. And in December, the president gathered supporters of his economic agenda for a "conference" in Washington, and "private accounts" are all over the transcript. The Social Security Administration's official description of the 2001 commission report that is the basis for the president's proposal goes like this:
Full report and extensive documentation of the Commission appointed by President George W. Bush in May 2001 to recommend to the President ways to modernize and reform the Social Security system--in particular, by developing options for adding private accounts to Social Security.The SSA also describes Hungary and Poland as having Social Security programs that incoprorate "private accounts." We're also told that Sweden features "unified social insurance plus mandatory private accounts." Perhaps the president should rethink his longstanding opposition to "revisionist history."
--Matthew Yglesias
--Jeffrey Dubner
Shiite leaders say their decision to move away from an Islamist government was largely shaped by the presumption that the Iraqi people would reject such a model. But they concede that it also reflects certain political realities - American officials, who wield vast influence here, would be troubled by an overtly Islamist government. So would the Kurds, who Iraqi and American officials worry might be tempted to break with the Iraqi state.It would be nice to get some more detail on what, exactly, the American role here was. It's also not entirely clear to me what's being conceded here. Filkins reports that "The senior leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance ... have agreed that the Iraqi whom they nominate to be the country's next prime minister would be a lay person, not an Islamic cleric." Adnan Ali of the al-Dawa party says "There will be no turbans [i.e., clerics] in the government." Much discussion of "Iranian-style theocracy" follows, but this was never in the cards simply because none of the senior clerics in Iraq are going to be on the ballot and therefore eligible for office.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was always the only cleric who was realistically in a position to obtain high office. If Iraqi leaders want to exclude him from consideration, that's their right, but I'm not sure what purpose it serves. Most observers think that SCIRI will be the largest party in the National Assembly, and as the head of the party he'll therefore be an important figure. Under the circumstances, it seems that things would go more smoothly if that importance were formalized by giving him a role in the government. Either way, he'll be influential after the election, as will Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, even if they don't hold office, just as politicized Christian leaders are important in shaping American policy without normally standing for election personally. One helpful fact the article brings to light is that Muqtada al-Sadr, who's been quiet of late, will likely re-emerge as a source of trouble for the new government, particularly if it seeks to appease Kurdish and secularist public opinion by not going forward with a thorough Islamicization of government policy.
--Matthew Yglesias
--Jeffrey Dubner
The Columnists
- David Brooks. If the president had told me he didn't really mean any of that freedom stuff, I could have avoided embarrasing myself like this.
- Nicholas Kristof. My little prostitute-buying gambit didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.
- Maureen Dowd. Bush is like SpongeBob SquarePants, except less gay.
- Thomas Friedman. Must . . . invade . . . France.
- George Will. Dean is evil, but only he can stop the greater evil of Hillaryism.
- Jim Hoagland. I don't even have Brooks' excuse.
- Olivia Judson on science and sex differences.