JustOneMinute

Weekend Reading

The weekend "Must Read" is not online yet but watch this space  - the NY Times magazine will have a cover story by Peter Maass titled "The Salvadorization of Iraq". [Story here.  Sir Humphrey delivers a good review.]

The author follows one of Iraq's top generals, whose US advisor, James Steele, led and trained Special Forces in El Salvador.

The theme - do we want to win if we have to be this nasty?

Also, the NY Times magazine spends time with Jack Abramoff, a rising star of the Tom DeLay scandals.  I can't even tell you if they make news (but others will!).

Still more:  Fareed Zakaria reviews Tom Friedman's new book, as does Joseph Stiglitz.  We mocked Friedman's related column below.

Finally, sexism in the art world - why is contemporary work by women consistently less valuable than work by men? 

I have a theory so sexist I daren't reveal it, at least until I can run it past a couple of friends of mine who work at the auction houses.

UPDATE:  Per the Maass article, Iraq is not Vietnam; per Stephen Morris of John Hopkins SAIS, Vietnam was not Vietnam either:

The War We Could Have Won

For all the claims of popular support for the Vietcong insurgency, far more South Vietnamese peasants fought on the side of Saigon than on the side of Hanoi. The Vietcong were basically defeated by the beginning of 1972, which is why the North Vietnamese launched a huge conventional offensive at the end of March that year. During the Easter Offensive of 1972 - at the time the biggest campaign of the war - the South Vietnamese Army was able to hold onto every one of the 44 provincial capitals except Quang Tri, which it regained a few months later. The South Vietnamese relied on American air support during that offensive.

If the United States had provided that level of support in 1975, when South Vietnam collapsed in the face of another North Vietnamese offensive, the outcome might have been at least the same as in 1972. But intense lobbying of Congress by the antiwar movement, especially in the context of the Watergate scandal, helped to drive cutbacks of American aid in 1974.

...In 1974-75, the United States snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Hundreds of thousands of our Vietnamese allies were incarcerated, and more than a million driven into exile. The awesome image of the United States was diminished, and its enemies were thereby emboldened, drawing the United States into new conflicts by proxy in Afghanistan, Africa and Latin America. And the bitterness of so many American war veterans, who saw their sacrifices so casually demeaned and unnecessarily squandered, haunts American society and political life to this day.

Fearing Almost Nothing

From Daniel Henninger in the WSJ:

What was once a mostly exclusive liberal country club--television, the press, book publishing, even the campuses--has become heavily integrated with aggressive, even crude, conservatives.

As described by Mr. Anderson, a writer with the Manhattan Institute, conservatives established their first beachhead in the early 1990s with talk radio. Then Fox conquered cable news and finally a virtual Mongol horde of conservative-to-libertarian bloggers swept across the Internet. In the 2004 election, these electric horsemen (apologies to Jane Fonda) pulled down Dan Rather and haunted John Kerry's war hero with Swift-boat ghosts.

Glenn has more, including info on his Achilles heel.  This history suggests other parallels (On to Baghdad!), and so does this genetic study.

For myself, a comparison to the Mongol Hordes is fine.  But don't put me and the Swift Vets in a movie with Jane Fonda!

UPDATE:  We fear almost nothing - and we have gone nuclear!  Check this NY Times story:

Los Alamos Bloggers Take Director to Task

A blog rebellion among scientists and engineers at Los Alamos, the federal government's premier nuclear weapons laboratory, is threatening to end the tenure of its director, G. Peter Nanos.

The Los Alamos blog is here; there were rumors of a replacement chief a few weeks back.

Well, stand back.  I've got a burrito and a blog and I'm not afraid to use them.

Krugman On Ideology

Classic wisdom from the Earnest Prof:

You see, America is ruled by conservatives, and they have a private obsession: they believe that more privatization, not less, is always the answer. And their faith persists even when the evidence clearly points to a private sector gone bad.

I could cite many examples of this obsession at work.

This was discovered in an earlier previously unpublished draft from Bizzaro World:

You see, Europe is ruled by liberals, and they have a private obsession: they believe that more government intervention, not less, is always the answer. And their faith persists even when the evidence clearly points to a public sector gone bad.

I could cite many examples of this obsession at work.

Meanwhile, I will run two paragraphs together and beg Prof. Krugman's acolytes to reconcile them for me.  The subject is health care:

The report even takes a Panglossian view of uninsured Americans - one that is completely at odds with the grim statistics I cited above - suggesting that "many of them may remain uninsured as a matter of choice," perhaps because "they are young and healthy and do not see the need for insurance."

Now, here are the grim statistics:

Over a 12-month period, 41 percent of the uninsured were unable to see a doctor when needed because of cost; 56 percent had no personal doctor or health care provider.

Now, maybe I am wrong, but isn't this survey telling me that 59% of the uninsured were either not interested in seeing a doctor or not deterred by the cost, and that 44% had a doctor or health care provider?  And is that "totally at odds" with the Administrations use of the word "many"?

Just wondering.

On the broader theme, I am not inclined to leap to the defense of our current system for delivering health care.  However, I have serious reservations about the concept of "insurance" as it is bandied about here.

To illustrate my concern with an example - homeowner's insurance covers catastrophic losses because they are infrequent and (for most of us) unaffordable.  An easy way to think about it - homeowners each put aside a small amount in a reserve which is paid out to the rare unfortunate who experiences a fire.  This turns a large, unpredictable, unaffordable expense into a small, predictable one.

But homeowners insurance does not cover the cost of re-painting the home - that expense is predictable and affordable (or not).  Furthermore, if it were covered by insurance, there would be a tendency to "overconsume" - some people would change the color of their home every summer at the expense of the other participants in the "paint insurance" pool.

Similarly, auto insurance covers accidents but not oil changes.

Yet health insurance is in crisis if folks don't have coverage for routine visits to the doctor?  I can see a role for catastrophic insurance.  I can even admit that encouraging folks to consume a bit of preventive health care now may save money later (and we should quit smoking and start exercising).  But this is not a simple issue.

Brad DeLong has the wisdom of his days with HillaryCare to guide us.  And eventually Krugman may actually propose something.

UPDATE:  From our Department of Wild Guesses - if and when Prof. Krugman presents a health care plan, it will be based on the principle that access to health care is a right that should not be rationed by price or affected by income.

However, that principle will not be characterized as "ideological".

Good Debunking By The WSJ

The Wall Street Journal debunks a phony stat introduced by conservatives opposed to gay adoptions.  This notion that the conservative media can refute conservative disinformation prompts a raised eyebrow at World o' Crap.

Well, we understand that the concept is unusual - we are still waiting for anyone on the left to take up the mystery of the silly Sojourner study purporting to demonstrate that abortions went up under George Bush.

Let's name some names:  Matt Yglesias made reference to this "abortions rose" meme last fall, and Kevin Drum nodded approvingly.

John Kerry made the point on Meet The Press.

Nick Kristof used it in a column on March 16.

And Hillary actually seems to have a staffer who read the study, and tried to make sense of it, but Michelle Malkin wacked her anyway.

Well.  We have made these points before, to no effect.  And Nick Kristof actually offered a (deeply unconvincing) defense of the study in his reply to Ms. Malkin.

So, hats off to the Journal.  If Diogenes passes by, we will point him that way while we await word from the Reality Based Community on this "abortions rose under Bush" question.

In Another Country

Tom Friedman informs us, presumably with a straight face, that George Bush has no domestic vision to promote entrepeneurialism and innovation:

It's no wonder that the second Bush term is shaping up as "The Great Waste of Time."

On foreign policy, President Bush has offered a big idea: the expansion of freedom, particularly in the Arab-Muslim world, where its absence was one of the forces propelling 9/11. That is a big, bold and compelling idea - worthy of a presidency and America's long-term interests.

But on the home front, this team has no big idea - certainly none that relates to the biggest challenge and opportunity facing us today: the flattening of the global economic playing field in a way that is allowing more people from more places to compete and collaborate with your kids and mine than ever before.

...India and China know they can't just depend on low wages, so they are racing us to the top, not the bottom. Producing a comprehensive U.S. response - encompassing immigration, intellectual property law and educational policy - to focus on developing our talent in a flat world is a big idea worthy of a presidency. But it would also require Mr. Bush to do something he has never done: ask Americans to do something hard.

Well.  Here in the United States, George Bush has promoted No Child Left Behind as a first step toward education reform.  He has promoted lower income taxes, lower taxes on investment income, and personal Social Security accounts as part of his vision for an "Ownership Society".  And (although it may provoke an earthquake in his own party) he has broached the idea of immigration reform.

Now, if Mr. Friedman thinks these initiatives are misdirected, he should explain why.  But first he should inform himself as to their existence.

MORE:  We always enjoy listening for non-barking dogs.  In this case, the long term rivals to the US noted by Mr. Friedman are India and China.  We agree, but what do Europhiles think about this?

And I should add that energy reform (as Mr. Friedman has noted previously) would be a big idea, if Bush really went nuclear and promoted conservation.  The Viking Guy had a good link on this.  We had thoughts on Greens and nukes a while back, and an interesting caveat about China's nuclear program.

Rocks, Paper, Scissors....Oh, Shoot!

Game theory made simple - when in doubt, ask a kid:

It may have been the most expensive game of rock, paper, scissors ever played.

Takashi Hashiyama, president of Maspro Denkoh Corporation, an electronics company based outside of Nagoya, Japan, could not decide whether Christie's or Sotheby's should sell the company's art collection, which is worth more than $20 million, at next week's auctions in New York.

... he resorted to an ancient method of decision-making that has been time-tested on playgrounds around the world: rock breaks scissors, scissors cuts paper, paper smothers rock.

In Japan, resorting to such games of chance is not unusual. "I sometimes use such methods when I cannot make a decision," Mr. Hashiyama said in a telephone interview. "As both companies were equally good and I just could not choose one, I asked them to please decide between themselves and suggested to use such methods as rock, paper, scissors."

What to do, what to do?

"The client was very serious about this," said Jonathan Rendell, a deputy chairman of Christie's in America who was involved with the transaction. "So we were very serious about it, too."

Kanae Ishibashi, the president of Christie's in Japan, declined to discuss her preparations for the meeting. But her colleagues in New York said she spent the weekend researching the psychology of the game online and talking to friends, including Nicholas Maclean, the international director of Christie's Impressionist and modern art department.

Mr. Maclean's 11-year-old twins, Flora and Alice, turned out to be the experts Ms. Ishibashi was looking for. They play the game at school, Alice said, "practically every day."

"Everybody knows you always start with scissors," she added. "Rock is way too obvious, and scissors beats paper." Flora piped in. "Since they were beginners, scissors was definitely the safest," she said, adding that if the other side were also to choose scissors and another round was required, the correct play would be to stick to scissors - because, as Alice explained, "Everybody expects you to choose rock."

OK, so the Christie kids say, start with "scissors".  How about over at Sotheby's?

Sotheby's took a different tack. "There was some discussion," said Blake Koh, an expert in Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby's in Los Angeles who was involved in the negotiations with Maspro. "But this is a game of chance, so we didn't really give it that much thought. We had no strategy in mind."

"No strategy in mind".  Here's a hint to corporate strivers everywhere - even if that is true, don't admit it.  The counterpart to "I'd rather be lucky than good" is, "Justifying a plan that failed is easier than justifying the lack of a plan".  Or, as Joe Torre says just about every night now, you can't always control the result, but you can control the effort.

The rest was destiny:

After each house had entered its decision, a Maspro manager looked at the choices. Christie's was the winner: scissors beat paper.

Go with the kid.

MORE:  Don't spoil my fun - obviously, there is selection bias here, and this story only made news because of the outcome.  And for all I know, the folks at Sotheby's also asked some kids, and are now being adult enough not to blame an eleven year old.  I still think the Sotheby's folks should have announced that they had employed three statisticians, a psychologist, an astrologist, and a supercomputer before picking "paper".

UPDATE:  Dan Drezner joins in.

"Favoritism"?

In this era of the New Puritanism, the Washington Post seems to be straining for le mot juste:

Mfume Accused of Favoritism At NAACP

Ex-President Denies Rewarding Women

Allegations detailed in a confidential NAACP report claim that Kweisi Mfume gave raises and promotions to women with whom he had close personal relationships while he was president of the nation's oldest civil rights organization.

Readers who are sufficiently patient or intrigued to reach the sixth paragraph will eventually get a hint of the real charge, and no, it is not exactly "favoritism":

Mfume took over the group from interim head Earl T. Shinhoster in 1996 when it was still reeling from the turbulent 16-month tenure of Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. Chavis was removed in 1994 after he agreed to secretly pay $332,400 in NAACP funds to settle claims of sexual discrimination by a female aide.

Ahh!  If the past is any guide, Mfume is being accused of sexual discrimination.  The eleventh paragraph is a bit less coy:

Speaks could mount a credible claim of workplace harassment because of "the impression [that was] created that a woman must provide sexual favors to Mr. Mfume or his associates in order to receive favorable treatment in the workplace," the lawyer wrote in the memo.

The WaPo mentions "workplace harassment" and "sexual favors", but avoids "sexual harassment".

Well, well.  Mfume is the former head of the NAACP and a possible Democratic candidate for the US Senate.  When time permits, we will see whether the WaPo was as discrete in describing the allegations against folks like former Senator Kissy-face.

UPDATE:  Betsy Newmark does not like trial by innuendo.  Hmm - how does she feel about stonewalling and cover-ups?

Capt. Ed ponders the implications for the 2006 Senate race in Maryland.

MORE:  OK, sex in the workplace is a complex topic, and "sexual harassment" can cover a wide range of behaviors.  At one end of the spectrum would be a boss chasing a subordinate around the desk while yelling "You've got to give head to get ahead".  Most folks would agree that such behavior constitutes harassment.

However, the spectrum also includes inappropriate behavior without a quid pro quo (Sen. Packwood), inappropriate language without a quid pro quo (Clarence Thomas, allegedly), and the insidious office romance situation evidently being described with Mfume, where the boss hits on lots of people, and just happens to develop a better working relationship with those who say "yes".

Is that last category "sexual harassment"?  The woman who say "no" and get passed over certainly think so; however, the women who enjoy the attention and the promotions often do not complain.  Consequently, the "consenting adult" defense misses the point.

The CEO of Boeing made news recently for his entry into this sweepstakes.

And all Democrats will remember Paula Jones, whose allegation against Bill Clinton was that the girls who did Bill did better.  Professionally.  The search for corroborating stories led to Monica Lewinsky, the only one of eighty White House interns to be offered a paying job in the White House.  And the rest is (ghastly) history.

LAST: I am sure I gleaned that tidbit about Ms. Lewinsky being the only intern to land a WH job from the NY Times, back in the day.  However, I am not able to quickly verify it, and now I am wondering if my steel-trap is a bit rusty.

Ken Starr has not been much help.

How Soon They Forget

Glenn smacks the Times in a (probably futile) attempt to jog their memory, describing their latest editorial on Iraq to be "out and out dishonesty":

The only plausible reason for keeping American troops in Iraq is to protect the democratic transformation that President Bush seized upon as a rationale for the invasion after his claims about weapons of mass destruction turned out to be fictitious.

We have been down this road before with the Times - they displayed similar amnesia about the rationale for war back in Nov 2003, and Andrew Sullivan (the old Andrew) was there.

Relatedly, here is an EJ Dionne column from Jan 2003 criticizing Bush for offering three reasons to liberate Iraq, and asking him to settle on just one:

But Bush still has a problem that goes beyond style: We don't know if this war is primarily about (1) taking weapons of mass destruction out of Saddam's Hussein's hands, or (2) removing Saddam from power, or (3) bringing democracy to Iraq and revolutionizing the politics of the Middle East.

Supporters of war argue that all three goals are compatible. In principle, they are. But because the administration has gone back and forth about which of these goals matter most and how they fit together, its policy has been open to easy challenge.

Some bonus links - here is the President's Feb 26, 2003 speech to the AEI which inspired the Feb 2003 NY Times editorial mentioned by Andrew above; here is the President's Sept 2002 speech to the UN, which concluded with this:

If we meet our responsibilities, if we overcome this danger, we can arrive at a very different future.  The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity.  They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world. These nations can show by their example that honest government, and respect for women, and the great Islamic tradition of learning can triumph in the Middle East and beyond.  And we will show that the promise of the United Nations can be fulfilled in our time.

Neither of these outcomes is certain.  Both have been set before us.  We must choose between a world of fear and a world of progress. We cannot stand by and do nothing while dangers gather.  We must stand up for our security, and for the permanent rights and the hopes of mankind.  By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand.  And, delegates to the United Nations, you have the power to make that stand, as well.

Thank you very much.

Now, with all that evidence against them, where might the Times be coming from on this?  My guess is, projection.  (Or is it transference?  My psycho-babble is even weaker than usual tonight). 

Folks like John Kerry said, in supporting the war (or disarmament, or vigorous negotiation, or whatever Kerry was supporting when he voted "yes") back in October 2002, that the only reason for war that was acceptable to him was disarmament:

Let me be clear, the vote I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies.

Years later, the Times may be imagining that, since disarmament was the only reason that liberals wanted to hear, it must have been the only reason Bush offered.

Well, they knew better at one time, and perhaps they will again.

UPDATE:  Somewhere there is someone with something nice to say about Kerry's Senate speech rationalizing his support for the war resolution.  But not here.

Germany Facing Recession

Fears Mount That Germany Faces Recession says the Times:

After four years of lackluster growth, the downward revision - to 0.7 percent from 1.5 percent - illustrates that economic forecasting in Germany has become mostly an exercise in finding ever-more-precise ways to measure stagnation, economists say.

With GDP growth at 0.7 percent, and (we assume), productivity growth higher than that, Germany should be within sight of a DeLong recession of higher output but falling employment.  And yes, since Germany has had several years of lackluster growth, it has been da long DeLong recession.  Which is probably good for Da Bears.  Stopping now.

Labor market inflexibility is cited as a major problem; could it be that journalists and economists are competing for a secret prize in which the ten millionth commentator to note structural problems with the German labor market wins a prize?  Let's review this entry:

...The German government, meanwhile, seems at a loss for a quick fix. It has begun to overhaul the labor market, through a package of measures known as the Hartz reforms.

Mr. Rürup said that if Germany had a more flexible labor market, it could create jobs with a lower growth rate.

Critics say these measures, while helpful, are only a half step. They make it easier for employers to hire temporary workers and create entry-level jobs for people who have been out of work. But they do not attack the job-protection rules that make it hard to lay off workers.

"They need to face down the unions," Mr. Mayer at Deutsche Bank said. "But they won't - neither the government nor the opposition."

 

Perhaps they need a clever slogan to get people excited about these reforms - I wonder if "Hartz 'til it hurts" would translate well.

Stopping again.

Back To Waziristan (Cont.)

When last we checked in on Waziristan, Osama was on the run in drag.  Now, a story has developed that is big enough to make the Times:

KABUL, Afghanistan, April, 26 - Americans have been training Pakistanis in night flying and airborne assault tactics to combat foreign and local fighters in the tribal areas of Pakistan near the Afghan border, the United States commander here, Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, said Tuesday in an interview.

It is the first time the American military has acknowledged the training. The presence of American troops in Pakistan is regarded as extremely delicate.

General Barno said he had visited the Special Services Group headquarters at Cherat, near the Pakistani city of Peshawar, on Saturday and watched a display by the units trained by the Americans in their new Bell 4 helicopters.

Of course, this is all very sensitive, so perhaps General Barno should not believe his own lying eyes:

Pakistan's chief military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, said there were no American military trainers at Cherat and that General Barno had probably been referring to joint military exercises between the two countries.

"The Pakistan Army has been training with many countries of the world," General Sultan said in a telephone interview. "We have also been conducting joint military training with the U.S. Army many a time earlier. They benefit from each other's experience. They learn from each other. That's what has been happening, and nothing else."

The comments came as the Pakistani Army is gearing up to go into what is considered one of the last redoubts of Al Qaeda and foreign fighters, the tribal area of North Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan. Last year the Pakistani military moved against foreign militants in South Waziristan, killing some 300 fighters and losing about the same number of their own soldiers.

The remnants of the foreign and local militants made their way into North Waziristan. According to some reports, the Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri may also be in the region.

"They are working this hard," General Barno said of the Pakistani military. "It's too early to say that there is a new offensive, and I don't know what direction this is going to take, but there is no question, from the vice chief of the Army staff down, that they very much intend to determine how to best get at the enemy."

General Barno, who leaves next month after 18 months in Afghanistan, said Pakistan had successfully disrupted militants financed by Al Qaeda in South Waziristan...

So, is a new offensive being planned by the Pakistanis?  Gen. Barno made similar comments last April 19 in Islamabad, which prompted denials from the Pakistani Corps Commander Peshawar Lt. General Safdar Hussain, and a supportive editorial in the local press.

Time will tell.

Small v. United States

The NY Times fascinates us with their description of Tuesday's Supreme Court ruling on a gun-related case:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday curbed the reach of a federal law that prohibits convicted felons from possessing guns, ruling 5 to 3 that the law does not apply to those who were convicted by courts in foreign countries.

The majority arrived at that conclusion by interpreting the statute's reference to a conviction in "any court" to mean "any court in the United States." Justice Stephen G. Breyer's majority opinion said that in the absence of any indication that Congress even considered the issue when it enacted the law in 1968, the court should apply a legal presumption that "Congress ordinarily intends its statutes to have domestic, not extraterritorial, application."

Now, you may ask, isn't this the same Supreme Court that recently cited international standards in striking down a capital punishment case?  Where is the deference to international courts now?

Or, you may wonder, how do the "Original Intent" Justices feel about a decision in which the clear language of the law is ignored?  Surely, one might imagine, Congress knew about foreign courts even in 1968.

As to deference to international courts, who can predict the fealty of such judges?  But read on:

Dissenting, Justice Clarence Thomas said the majority had stretched to create an exception that the law itself did not provide. "In concluding that 'any' means not what it says, but rather 'a subset of any,' the court distorts the plain meaning of the statute," Justice Thomas said.

He also objected to the majority's assumption that application of the law to Mr. Small would give it an "extraterritorial" dimension.

"The statute criminalizes gun possession in this country, not abroad," he said. "In prosecuting Small, the government is enforcing a domestic criminal statute to punish domestic criminal conduct."

Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy joined the dissenting opinion. Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined the majority. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who had just begun treatment for thyroid cancer when the case was argued on Nov. 3, did not participate.

Well, Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the capital punishment case (Donald Roper v. Christopher Simmons), so he apparently earns consistency points for his position. (We are also curious to see whether he wrote a separate dissent.) [Opinion/Dissent here, statute here.]

MORE:  Glenn Reynolds and Juan Non-Volokh opine.  Juan Non-V addresses an interesting point raised by the Appalled Moderate in the comments:

I also think the Small decisions are interesting because they completely avoid the elephant in the room: the Second Amendment. Even though the petitioner did not challenge the statute on Second Amendment grounds, or even suggest that the statute should be given a narrow reading so as to avoid potential Second Amendment problems, I might of thought one of the justices might have dropped a footnote to note the opinion did not address any potential Second Amendent concerns. Justice Thomas did this in his Printz v. United States concurrence, so I found it interesting that neither Justice Thomas nor any other Justice did so here.

Well, yes - Can a decision of a foreign court infringe a US citizen's right to bear arms?  Might Congress have intended that, and would it be constitutional?  One is left wondering what Justice Thomas thinks about that.

James Guckert Back In The News

Faux-reporter James Guckert is back in the news, if we can call "The Raw Story" the news.  Apparently, James Guckert sometimes went to the White House on days when no press briefing was scheduled, did not always sign in (or out), and sometimes left by a different exit than where he entered.

Steve Soto has fun with the questions for the conspiracy-minded, but eventually get to the one question that needs to be answered before the others are relevant:

I wonder how many other reporters have similar anomalies with their Secret Service security records?  Just asking.

Exactly.  At this point, we have no idea whether Guckert's sign-in behavior is unusual. 

Now, the two Dem Congressfolks who filed the FOIA request for Guckert's records are more interested in creating controversy than establishing the truth, so we don't fault them.  In fact, we admire Congresswoman Slaughter, who is back on the horse after a humilation with the Guckert-Plame connection that might have daunted a lesser woman.

However, if my interest was news rather than controversy - if, for example,  I were a regular White House correspondent - I would file a FOIA request for my own sign-in records, and see if there were gaps, oddities, and discrepancies.  One way or another, a story might emerge - either Guckert's case is odd, or White House security is a bit slipshod, or something.

(Possible caveat - it may well be that, like legislation and sausage, security procedures don't look good up close.  Maybe, just maybe, the White House regulars are ocassionally cut a bit of slack by the security folks, and publicizing that will only annoy the guards, force a crackdown, and inconvenience the reporters.)

MORE:  A commenter at Steve's mentions that some days Guckert signed in that did not include a press briefing did include a photo-op.  Oh, boy, unraveling already?

In His Copious Free Time

US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who is Special Counsel on the Valerie Plame investigation, seems to be keeping busy with his day job:

The names read like a who's who from some faded blotter left behind at the Chicago Police Department's old State Street headquarters: Joseph (the Clown) Lombardo, Frank (the German) Schweihs, Frank (Gumba) Saladino, and on and on.

But on Monday, 14 men, including several who have for years been reputed to be in the city's top level of organized crime leaders, were being rounded up in connection with 18 murders that stretch back over four decades and had gone unsolved and, in some cases, been nearly forgotten.

...Describing the 9-count, 41-page racketeering conspiracy indictment as putting a "hit on the mob," Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney here, said in a written statement, "After so many years, it lifts the veil of secrecy and exposes the violent underworld of organized crime."

The WaPo had a gushing profile on Fitzgerald.  Folks who wonder what he could earn in the private sector, or wonder about his political ambition, can reflect on this:

His thoroughness, his relentlessness, his work ethic are legendary," says terrorism expert Daniel Benjamin, a former member of the National Security Council.    

Seeing Fitzgerald in action, says Los Angeles lawyer Anthony Bouza, a college classmate, is "like watching a sophisticated machine." Colleagues speak in head-shaking tones of Fitzgerald's skills in taking a case to trial. A Phi Beta Kappa math and economics student at Amherst before earning a Harvard law degree in 1985, he has a gift for solving puzzles and simplifying complexity for a jury.

He is registered as an independent, and claims to have no political ambitions.

Missing Stories

Rummaging through our "to-do" list, we stumbled across a reminder to note a few "Missing Stories".  Forthwith, some stories that will be making news in the days ahead (and your nominees are welcome!)

France, "Non", and TINA - there is no alternative if France votes "Non" on the proposed EU constitution next May 29.  Daniel Drezner is on this like a fedora on Matt Drudge; we will get worried if he does.  And let's be fair - the Times has not ignored this (permalink not available).

The Dem's Contract With America - at some point, the lack of an alternative Democratic agenda had the potential to become mildly embarrassing - sure, they are against Bush's Social security reform, and his judges, but what are they for? 

Now, via The Poorman, we see that Senate Dems have a nine-point plan.  In their problematic intro, they warn us that "If Republicans proceed to pull the trigger on the nuclear option, Democrats will respond by employing existing Senate rules to push forward our agenda for America.” 

Hold on!  We are heartened to see that their "Metaphor Mangler" is in worse shape than our own, but really - shouldn't that be "Push the button" on the nuclear option?  Won't this confusion about firearms and nuclear launch mechanisms cost the Dems much needed credibility on both guns and national security?

Oh, well.  Here are the nine points.  Perhaps a numerologist could tell me, why nine?

1. Women’s Health Care. “The Prevention First Act of 2005” will reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions by increasing funding for family planning and ending health insurance discrimination against women. [Link]
   
2. Veterans’ Benefits. “The Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2005” will assist disabled veterans who, under current law, must choose to either receive their retirement pay or disability compensation. [Link]
   
3. Fiscal Responsibility.  Democrats will move to restore fiscal discipline to government spending and extend the pay-as-you-go requirement. [Link]
4. Relief at the Pump. Democrats plan to halt the diversion of oil from the markets to the strategic petroleum reserve. By releasing oil from the reserve through a swap program, the plan will bring down prices at the pump. [Link]
5. Education. Democrats have a bill that will: strengthen head start and child care programs, improve elementary and secondary education, provide a roadmap for first generation and low-income college students, provide college tuition relief for students and their families, address the need for math, science and special education teachers, and make college affordable for all students. [Link]
6. Jobs.  Democrats will work in support of legislation that guarantees overtime pay for workers and sets a fair minimum wage. [Link]
7. Energy Markets.  Democrats work to prevent Enron-style market manipulation of electricity. [Link]      
8. Corporate Taxation.  Democrats make sure companies pay their fair share of taxes to the U.S. government instead of keeping profits overseas. [Link]    
9. Standing with our troops.  Democrats believe that putting America’s security first means standing up for our troops and their families. [Link]

On point 4, Laughter at the Pump, we will recycle the Times editorial from roughly one year ago, which mocked Dems for pandering on gasoline prices and raiding the SPR.  C'mon, the Dems are the party of conservation and higher gasoline prices - get over it.

UPDATE:  Harmonic (Con)Fusion: yesterday, Ron Brownstein of the LA Times told us that "Internet, Polarized Politics Create an Opening for a Third Party".

Today, careful readers have noticed that Sen. Harry Reid's press release is titled:

Deomcrats Moving Forward With Promise Of America Agenda

Who are these "Deomcrats?!?  And are they any relation to "Dummycrats" or "Dimmycrats"?

Maybe someone on Reid's crisp, professional staff ought to install "SpellChuck".

UPDATE 2:  The MinuteMan gets results!  An alert staffer has fixed the typo, thereby spoiling my afternoon.  But they can't take away my morning!

And someone equally alert on the other side has saved a screen shot.  (Not that it proves anything in this Photoshop world....)

LAST GASP - Props to valued commenter "Appalled Moderate" for tracking down links to the Dem agenda.

Interesting News On Alzheimer's

Forbes, the WaPo, and Reuters report on some research into Alzheimer's [and here is the press release].  From the WaPo version:

Injections of genetically altered cells into the brain appear to nourish ailing neurons and may slow the cognitive decline in patients with Alzheimer's disease, scientists reported Sunday.

However:

...Tuszynski and other experts cautioned that the study was designed to test the technique's safety, not its efficacy, so the hints of improvement — while tantalizing — are unreliable. And although the results do offer evidence that nerve growth hormones may prove useful, the surgical implantation of gene-altered cells is considered to be too complicated a technique for the routine delivery of those hormones.

"This would not be a practical way of going around treating 4 1/2 or 5 million Alzheimer's patients, although it would be a boon for neurosurgeons," said Zaven Khachaturian, a science adviser to the Alzheimer's Association in Chicago and former director of the Office of Alzheimer's Research at the National Institutes of Health. For that reason, a simpler system of getting the hormones into the brain is now being tested.

According to Forbes, the article is supposed to be available at the April Nature Medicine,  but I don't see it.

Here is CNN describing the study at the outset; the lead doctor, Mark H. Tuszynski, M.D., Ph.D,  has won some awards.

Texas Death Cage Match

I want these two guys to match up.

And I have to take issue with this:

I run 30 miles a week and bench press my weight regularly to keep my body mass index the same svelte 20 as it was in college days (believe it!)

Back when I was running marathons and benching more than my weight, "svelte" was not the word I heard - a bad day was "scrawny", and a typical day was "skinny".  "Slender" or "lithe" - never.  And that was with a BMI of 21.5.

The Assault Weapons Ban

An olive branch from the Times.

MORE:  Well, the first page is an olive branch, anyway; time does not permit...

UPDATE:  Here are the Times editors deploring the demise of the ban last fall.

And Alphecca rounds up the politics of guns control in 2004, with fun photos of Kerry in camo.

Their Worst Nightmare

To what we imagine is the dismay of health professionals, David Brooks delivers an almost perfect misreading of the latest report linking obesity, overweight, and early death.  Briefly, the study may be confounded by the difference between "fit" and "fat" - for example, buff guys can score as overweight.  However, contra Brooks, the study surely did not conclude that exercise was futile, or harmful.

John Luik of TCS provides some nuance while bashing the study.

Developing...

MORE:  Ogged pummels Brooks, so we don't have to.  However, we feel obliged to extract this as the silliest idea from Mr. Brooks' silly column:

...it seems that Mother Nature has built a little Laffer curve into the fabric of reality: health-conscious people can hit a point of negative returns, so the more fit they are, the quicker they kick the bucket. People who work out, eat responsibly and deserve to live are more likely to be culled by the Thin Reaper.

No, no, and no.  Here is a link to the full study; we extract this caveat:

We used the current federal definitions of overweight and obesity, which are based only on BMI, not on body composition. Our estimates give numbers of excess deaths associated with different levels of body weight, but the associations are not necessarily causal. Even if body weights were reduced to the reference level, risks might not return to the level of the reference category. Other factors associated with body weight, such as physical activity, body composition, visceral adiposity, physical fitness, or dietary intake, might be responsible for some or all of the apparent associations of weight with mortality. Additional investigation of the effects of body composition and visceral adiposity on mortality would be of interest.

So, contra Brooks, the authors did not attempt to sort out the possible health benefits of physical fitness (I blame this on data limitations, although that appears to have changed in 1999).  Here is what they tell us:

The final model included BMI categories, sex (male, female), smoking status (never, former, current), race (white, black, other), and alcohol consumption categories...

But no measures of physical fitness.  And, it is important to keep in mind that that the study focused on deaths.  The authors add this:

We did not examine other health problems caused by obesity. A recent population-based study has found that overweight and obesity have a strong and deleterious impact on important components of health status, including morbidity, disability, and quality of life, and this impact is disproportionately borne by younger adults.⁴⁰ Nor did we examine cause-specific mortality. Overweight and obesity may be more strongly associated with cardiovascular mortality than with total mortality.

Finally, folks who want an easy number to factor in to the BMI calculation can simply check their waist measurement - for men, a waist measurement above 40 inches is associated with increased risk; for women the key number is 35.

STILL MORE:  It's all here somewhere - the NIH Clinical Guidelines for Overweight and Obesity, the New England Journal of Medicine Guidelines for Healthy Weight, and this study telling us why the Body Mass Index is so widely accepted.

Fit versus Fat is discussed in a WebMD article featuring Campos and Cooper - Campos is the author of "The Obesity Myth", and Cooper is the Cooper Institute, founded by Dr. Ken Cooper.  And from the President's Council on Physical Fitness (2000) we see another Cooper-inspired article on the protective effects of fitness which flatly contradicts Brooks:

The studies reviewed above demonstrate a strong protective effect for physical activity and physical fitness on the health risks associated with   obesity. Consistent differences in health risks were evident between fit and unfit individuals among all body composition categories.

We contrast that with Brooks:  "People who work out, eat responsibly and deserve to live are more likely to be culled by the Thin Reaper."

AHHHH!

The Evil Empire

In a convergence that brought together the tech bloggers and the political commentators, the NY Times went after Microsoft:

Microsoft Comes Under Fire for Reversal on Gay Rights Bill

The Microsoft Corporation, at the forefront of corporate gay rights for decades, is coming under fire from gay rights groups, politicians and its own employees for withdrawing its support for a state bill that would have barred discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Many of the critics accused the company of bowing to pressure from a prominent evangelical church in Redmond, Wash., located a few blocks from Microsoft's sprawling headquarters.

The bill, or similar versions of it, has been introduced repeatedly over three decades; it failed by one vote Thursday in the State Senate. Gay rights advocates denounced Microsoft, which had supported the bill for the last two years, for abandoning their cause. Blogs and online chat rooms were buzzing on Thursday with accusations that the company, which has offered benefits to same-sex partners for years, had given in to the Christian right.

TigerHawk and Ann Althouse comment on the media slant here; the very short version is provided by Danny Carlton, whose post is headlined "Microsoft criticized for not meddling in politics".

On the other side, let's drag in Edward of Obsidian Wings, who thinks the folks at MSFT were cowards, and Henry Abbott, who sees this as a simple human rights issue.  Lots more reaction at Memeorandum.

And let's have a bit of background on the bill itself, and the reasons it may have failed this year.  All fifty-five Washington House Democrats joined with six House Republicans to pass this bill in the House a few months ago.  However, per the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, two Senate Democrats joined twenty-three Republican to defeat the bill 25-24.

Well, the voters can sort this out at the next election.  I found this cross-current to be interesting, from the Komo 1000 link:

Supporters struggled to distance the issue from the ongoing legal battle over gay marriage. The state Supreme Court heard arguments on a case challenging Washington's ban on gay marriage on March 8, and will rule in the coming months.

Sen. Marilyn Rasmussen, D-Eatonville, who represents a rural and somewhat conservative district, successfully amended the bill on the Senate floor to add a caveat saying the state doesn't endorse "any specific belief, practice, behavior, or orientation," and clarifying that the anti-discrimination law should not affect marriage laws. She has opposed the measure in the past, but voted for the bill with the amendment.

If we can take this seriously, the lawmakers were worried that passing this seemingly sensible anti-discrimination law might prompt the court to take a more expansive view of gay marriage.  Put another way, fear of an activist court going beyond the bounds set by the legislature discouraged the legislature from advancing the bounds (don't give the courts an inch, or they'll take a mile).

 

We prefer the Connecticut approach.  And we will ride the Tiger here - I am not sure why MSFT ever got involved with this issue, other than whatever benefits "they" (i.e., the corporate PR geniuses) thought might be associated with favorable PR and employee morale.  However, corporations are not people - they don't have a conscience to vote, or even to follow.  Once this measure got more attention, and employees at MSFT were found to be on both sides of it, there was no reason for the company to choose a side. However, blaming the religious right is an irresistible lead, especially in a two-fer that can wack fundamentalists and Microsoft.

That said, one wonders why the other corporate backers mentioned did *not* reverse course - surely Boeing and Nike are still viewed as having a bit of clout in the Seattle area, and I bet we could find some conservatives at a defense contractor like Boeing.

MORE:  The Seattle Times is pretty good on this.  A quote from the pastor who purportedly brought MSFT to its knees:

The pastor said he didn't care what the company's policies were regarding gay employees as long as they kept it within their business. "What I was upset about was when they tried to step outside their four walls and make their policy my policy. That gave me the right to step out of my world into theirs."

 

 

Ratzinger And The Election - When Does The Coverage Start?

The NY Times tiptoes up to the question of whether, and how, the newly elected Pope intervened in the last Presidential election.  However, they don't actually present either key evidence or a clear conclusion.  Their strongest statement is this:

Catholic voters, long overwhelmingly Democratic, have become a critical swing vote...

At the same time, some American bishops have become more assertive in urging their congregations to vote in accord with Catholic teachings on those issues - and in moving to chastise Catholic officials who disagree, in a few cases by threatening to deny them Communion. The bishops acted with the support and encouragement of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the new pope, who at the time headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

This standoff has pitted church leaders against some of the leading Democrats in the country, and came to a boil last year around the presidential candidacy of Senator John Kerry. He is a Catholic who supports abortion rights, and argued that he could not impose "my article of faith" on others who did not share it.

Well.  As noted in this post, there were Catholic hardliners who thought that, although he provided a bit of early "support and encouragement" to hardline Bishops, Cardinal Ratzinger eventually pulled the rug out from under them.

This WaPo story certainly suggests that, since it reports Archbishop Burke of St. Louis backing down from his position that proper Catholics could not vote for a pro-choice candidate. (Although views differ.)

So which is it - did Ratzinger encourage the hardliners, or hold them back?  (Or both?)  The Times may never know, and never tell. 

There is certainly plenty to mock about the press coverage of this - per the WaPo story, Ratzinger wrote a key letter in June, the full text of which was reported in an Italian newspaper.  However, it was not until September that some bright light in the media found a paisano who could translate some of the critical paragraphs.

That said, the Catholic News Service seemed to capture the key issues on July 8, 2004:

In a recent memorandum, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger laid out the principles under which bishops or other ministers may deny Communion to Catholic politicians who consistently promote legal abortion.

At the same time, he said it is not necessarily sinful for Catholics to vote for politicians who support abortion, as long as they are voting for that candidate for other reasons.

... Cardinal Ratzinger's comments on Catholic voters -- in private communication briefly outlining principles for consideration rather than exploring them in depth -- came at the end of the memorandum. It touched on an evolving issue that is important to many Catholics during the 2004 presidential election campaign: The presumptive Democratic candidate, John Kerry, is a Catholic who supports legal abortion.

Two U.S. bishops -- Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis and Bishop Michael J. Sheridan of Colorado Springs -- recently said that Catholics who knowingly vote for pro-abortion politicians would be committing a grave sin.

Cardinal Ratzinger's note underlined the principles involved for the Catholic voter.  (Ed. Note: As described above)

Well, that sounds like Ratzinger reined in the hardliners.  Don't tell the Times.

UPDATE:  Good job by Benedict, who sorts through a bait-and-switch by one of the American bishops.  But was Ratzinger playing the fool, or playing along?

It's All About Roe v. Wade

David Brooks does not like the nuclear Constitutional option, and he does not like Roe. v. Wade.  OK, we are with him on this.

The Times had an interesting article imagining life after Roe last February (my thoughts).

Nathan Newman railed from the left against Roe in "Why Roe was Bad for Abortion Rights".

The general theme, as expressed in the Times - overturning Roe would not be so bad for the left, and could be good:

Since the last presidential election, reflective discussion among Democrats has included the once unthinkable proposition that the end of Roe might not prove an unqualified disaster after all - that the political process, and Democrats themselves, might have something to gain from the tumult that such a ruling would set off in the states.

That said, the Times counted votes and did not see it happening anytime soon:

Roe is not going away anytime soon, it must be remembered, and might not, ever. Those hanging-by-a-thread warnings that issue occasionally from abortion rights advocates are based on a 5-to-4 count that places Justice Anthony Kennedy among Roe's opponents; many court watchers think that's a misreading of Justice Kennedy's abortion opinions, and that the actual count is 6-3 in support of the central holding in Roe, that women's fundamental right to abortion trumps states' power to ban or restrict it. If the 6-3 count is right, it would take an especially precise sequence of events to bring about a full reversal of Roe v. Wade. Two pro-Roe justices would have to leave the court (in other words, two besides the reliably anti-Roe Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who is expected to retire at the end of this term). Their two replacements would have to be sure votes against the principle of a constitutional abortion right. An appropriate case would have to work its way up the appellate system to be accepted for review. And all of this would have to conclude before a Democrat could become president and get a chance at realigning the Supreme Court all over again.

MORE:  Juan Non-Volokh is interesting.  It can't all be about Roe - as examples, "Impeach Earl Warren" bumper stickers, the school prayer issue, and "Dirty Harry" preceded Roe v. Wade.

The Incredible Shrinking Obesity/Morbidity Link

What is up with these obesity statistics?  Last March, Fox News ran this:

Group Challenges CDC's Obesity Claims

..."America is now suffering from an epidemic of obesity myths much more than an epidemic of obesity," said CCF senior analyst Dan Mindus.

Mindus authored a report that attempts to shatter "obesity myths" and takes direct aim at what Mindus says is the principal culprit for obesity hysteria in America — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (search).

Last year, the CDC publicized a study that said 400,000 deaths annually can be attributed to obesity

"The CDC has misled the American public, has compared obesity to the black death, has told us that obesity is going to kill more people than tobacco," Mindus said. "They're completely wrong. They know they're completely wrong and yet they're trying to sweep under the rug all the evidence to support that."

But Fox also provided a "fair and balanced" counterpoint:

The Center for Consumer Freedom also has its skeptics. The group gets most of its funding from some of the biggest names in food, including fast-food chain restaurants and food manufacturers.

One medical director who treats overweight people full-time as director of George Washington University's weight management program said quibbling about the numbers blurs the true story.

"Let's assume that it's not 65 percent, let's assume that it's 50 percent. Let's assume that it's 40 percent. It's still a lot of people," said Dr. Arthur Frank. "I think [the consumer group is] being petty and I think they're being silly."

"Silly"?  Well, who looks silly now?  This latest CDC study, as described in the Times, is a shocker:

People who are overweight but not obese have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight, federal researchers are reporting today.

The researchers - statisticians and epidemiologists from the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - also found that increased risk of death from obesity was seen for the most part in the extremely obese, a group constituting only 8 percent of Americans.

...The new study comes just 13 months after different researchers from the disease control centers published a paper warning that obesity and overweight were causing an extra 400,000 deaths a year and were poised to overtake smoking as the nation's leading preventable cause of premature death.

That conclusion caused an uproar, and scientists, particularly those who examine the consequences of smoking, questioned the study's methods. In January, the agency's researchers corrected calculation errors and published a revised estimate of 365,000 deaths.

Now the new study says that obesity and extreme obesity are causing about 112,000 extra deaths but that overweight is preventing about 86,000, leaving a net toll of some 26,000 deaths in all three categories combined, compared with the 34.000 extra deaths found in those who are underweight.

Dr. Donna Stroup, director of the Coordinating Center for Health Promotion at the C.D.C., noted that the previous study had used different data and different methods of analysis.

"Counting deaths is not an exact science," Dr. Stroup said.

"Not an exact science".  That, I believe.

Now, these doctors know more about this than I, and presumably have given it more thought.  However, two points strike me:

(1)  the Body Mass Index is based purely on height and weight, with no adjustments for age, gender, or physical activity.  This leads to odd results, such as the news that First Fitness Fanatic George Bush (6 ft, 190 lbs.) is overweight, or that Alex Rodriguex is nearly obese.

(2)  Correlation is not causation: Physical fitness seems to be a much better predictor of health than a simple overweight/underweight calculation, because it is possible to be fit and fat, or sedentary and skinny.  However, "overweight" and "sedentary" tend to be correlated, which may be confounding the stats.

Dr. Williamson, one of the authors of this study, would also like to thank you for not smoking.

The Pope And The Election

Is it true that new Pope "intervened in the 2004 US election campaign ordering bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters including presidential candidate John Kerry", as reported by the AFP?

Not really.  As in, "not really close".  Here is an ardent Catholic traditionalist criticizing Ratzinger for being too coy, and backing down from the hardline position for which he had hinted support.

The Washington Post has a story from September that also presents a view with a bit more nuance:

Catholic Voters Given Leeway on Abortion Rights Issue

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's arbiter of doctrinal orthodoxy, has given Roman Catholic voters leeway under certain circumstances to vote for politicians who support abortion rights, U.S. Catholic officials said yesterday.

In keeping with Ratzinger's pronouncement, Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis last week clarified the remarks he made earlier this summer, when he said any Catholic who votes for a politician who supports abortion rights is committing a grave sin and must confess before receiving communion.

...Ratzinger's statement came at the bottom of a one-page confidential memorandum that he sent in June to Washington's Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, head of a commission of U.S. bishops on Catholics in political life. It was published in full by the Italian press this summer, and the section dealing with voting was first reported yesterday by the Detroit Free Press.

"A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia," wrote Ratzinger, who is head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican department charged with ensuring fidelity to church teachings.

But Ratzinger added: "When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons."

Now, Bishop Burke of St. Louis was a disappointed hard-liner, but there it is.  In fact, one might argue that, since Ratzinger forced Burke to backpedal a bit, it was Kerry who benefited from Ratzinger's intervention.

Prof. Bainbridge has more.

STILL MORE: This is what the NY Times had to say in their sidebar:

Benedict has insistently spoken out against abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research and cloning. In his book "God and the World," published in October 2000, he painted a grim picture of the results of genetic research, writing, "There is a last boundary that we cannot cross without becoming the destroyers of creation itself."

In July 2004, the magazine L'Espresso released part of an unissued memorandum to American bishops in which he gave guidelines for denying Communion to politicians who supported abortion rights.

Inconclusive, one might say.

 

Kerry For President!

The Dour One continues his re-branding for 2008:

Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, have introduced the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which would allow a pharmacist to refuse to dispense certain drugs as long as another pharmacist on duty would.

And Santorum?  Presumably he is moving himself a bit towards the center in anticipation of a tough Senate race against Democratic state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr. (son of the former pro-life Governor, who was or was not denied a speaking spot at Clinton's 1992 convention because of his pro-life views).

The Problem With Eliot Spitzer

The WSJ runs a guest piece about Eliot Spitzer, decrying the problems caused by a politically ambitious prosecutor.  Folks with a bit if a memory will recall that Wall Streeters felt just that way about St. Rudy back in the late 80's.

The Son-In-Law Also Rises

Buried in an article about Hillary's fund-raising prowess is this tidbit:

Two potentially strong opponents - Rudolph W. Giuliani and Gov. George E. Pataki, both formidable fund-raisers, have shown little interest in running against her in 2006. At this point, the most likely Republican candidate is Edward F. Cox, a lawyer who is the son-in-law of President Nixon.

First, if George Pataki has any interest in a Presidential run in 2008 (some say he does), St. George must slay this dragon in 2006.  It's a longshot, but the whole notion of his gaining the nomination rests on a series of longshots.

Secondly, since Hillary served as a (bitterly controversial) lawyer on the House Committee that voted on Nixon's impeachment, running against a Nixon family would seem to fulfill her destiny.  And everyone's confusion will be compounded by the names - yes, folks with hazy memories will recall that "Cox" was a good guy in Watergate.

For those who can't tell the players without a scorecard - Archibald Cox was the "The original Watergate special prosecutor who was fired by Nixon in the famous "Saturday Night Massacre" after he refused to back down on subpoenas for White House tapes."

So, are the two related?  Good question!  And it was a good question even at the time:

Asked whether the nominees were related in any way to Edward Finch Cox, President Nixon's sons-in-law, Richardson started to say no, did a double take and confessed amid a round of laughter.

"I didn't ask him, come to think of it."

The two are not related.

Pejman has thoughts on the genius of Hillary.

I will say this - part of Hillary's political strength is her ability to raise huge sums on behalf of herself or other Dems; set against that, Reps can raise huge sums for anyone willing to run against her.

Which suggests that her best role would be as Dem party kingmaker (Queenmaker?  Royal-maker?  Always Camilla, but never a Queen?  I need a new Metaphor Mangler).

What Were Once Bubbles Are Now Baselines

Paul Krugman is defining deviancy down in his latest column:

In the 1970's soaring prices of oil and other commodities led to stagflation - a combination of high inflation and high unemployment, which left no good policy options. If the Fed cut interest rates to create jobs, it risked causing an inflationary spiral; if it raised interest rates to bring inflation down, it would further increase unemployment.

Can it happen again?

A fair question, although views certainly differ as to the causes of the 70's stagflation - Milton Friedman argued that "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon", and, IIRC, neither Germany nor Japan experienced stagflation in the 70's, although both certainly used oil.  And of course, oil and energy are smaller parts of GDP now than in the 70's, which should mute the effect of $50 oil.

Regardless, it is here that the Earnest Prof runs off the rails:

Last week fears of a return to stagflation sent stock prices to a five-month low. What few seem to have noticed, however, is that a mild form of stagflation - rising inflation in an economy still well short of full employment - has already arrived.

Few seem to have noticed?!?   Few seemed to have noticed that the Yankees are in last place, too.  Well, other than the few, the proud, the sentient, that is.  [UPDATE:  History was made, and I was there.  Again!]

Let's see - in the case of rising inflation coupled with a not-fully robust labor market, "the few" who have noticed would seem to include the Federal Reserve Board.  I only say that based on the recently released minutes of their March 22 meeting, which provoked these headlines:

The WaPo, April 12:  Minutes Highlight Federal Reserve Concerns About Inflation

 The NY Times, April 13:  Last Month, Fed Officials Voiced Inflation Worries

Reuters, April 12:  Notes From March Fed Meeting Show Concerns Over Inflation

Now, Krugman is well aware that the Fed is worried about inflation, and says so:

Why, then, has the Fed been raising interest rates? Because it is worried about inflation, which has risen to the top end of the 2 to 3 percent range the Fed prefers.

So, since he acknowledges that few other than the Fed with their much-scrutinized minutes are concerned with inflation, what is his point?  My guess is that he hopes to define deviancy down and keep hope alive for Dem partisans:

It all adds up to a mild case of stagflation: inflation is leading the Fed to tap on the brakes, even though this doesn't look or feel like a full-employment economy.

We shouldn't overstate the case: we're not back to the economic misery of the 1970's. But the fact that we're already experiencing mild stagflation means that there will be no good options if something else goes wrong.

"We shouldn't overstate the case" will probably be interpreted as "stagflation is back".   One might have thought that "stagflation" was persistently low growth with persistently high inflation and high unemployment.  However, in Krugman's new construction, "stagflation" seems to mean any rate of growth less than optimal combined with any level of employment less than full, and any rate of inflation high enough for the Fed to notice.  Which is to say, in the recovery phase of almost every business cycle we can be described as experiencing "stagflation" (subject, presumably, to a Republican occupying the White House).

There is a real economic puzzle underlying this, as noted by Brad DeLong - if productivity is high enough, we can have output growth during a labor market recession.

There is also a real comparison problem, which we will describe as "What were once Bubbles are now Baselines" - are comparisons to the peak economy of 2000 appropriate, or was that an unsustainable bubble?  QandO has more.

But don't worry about that!  Bush=Stagflation, and it's on to 2006.

Education - The New Civil Right

Timesman Brent Staples tackles education and civil rights on the editorial page of the NY Times.  He gets off to a confidence-draining start:

The civil rights establishment was once a fiercely independent force that bedeviled politicians on both sides of the aisle and evaluated policies based on whether those policies harmed or helped the poor.

"The poor"?  Is that what Brown v. Board of Education was about?  The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act?  Fine, Martin Luther King planned a Poor People's March, and it has been a constant source of puzzlement to Dems that poor rural Southern whites seem to vote something other than their pocketbooks, but I am not convinced that the CW is that the civil rights movement has focused on "the poor".

Whatever.  The poor get jettisoned, and the rest of the article focuses more conventionally on (non-Asian) ethnic minorities:

Over the last two decades, in fact, the old-line civil rights groups have evolved into wholly owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party. The groups are disinclined to turn on their friends - or to openly embrace even beneficial policies that happen to have a Republican face.

This posture has been painfully evident in the debate surrounding the No Child Left Behind education law, a signature Bush administration reform that also happens to be the best hope for guaranteeing black and Latino children a chance at equal education. The law is not perfect and will need adjustments. But its core requirement that the states educate minority children to the same standards as white children breaks with a century-old tradition of educational unfairness. The new law could potentially surpass Brown v. Board of Education in terms of widening access to high-quality public education.

Well, well.  Is the Times giving a nod to the notion that "No Child" might be something other than hopelessly bad?  Yes, they are, and we can only imagine the Eduwonk's surprise.

MORE:  She Was A Young Un-American...  The Times finds a folk hero for the Anti-Child side (Hmm, that can't be what they call themselves).  The Eduwonk weighs in on the Un-American activities, with transcript.

For myself, since the name of the Secretary of Education is Ms. Spellings, I feel obliged to link to this article.

The Greatest Trick The Devil Ever Pulled

The optimistic Orin Kerr thinks that, despite the limitless appetite for conspiracy theories on the left, he can somehow hold back the meme launched by Jeff Rosen in the NY Times magazine.

C'mon - if the "Constitution in Exile" movement didn't exist, the Times would have to invent it (hmm, where am I going with this?).

Andrew Sullivan liked the pathbreaking journalistic technique almost as much as he loved the photos.

Lots of reaction at Memeorandum.

This Dog Won't Hunt. Or Run. And It Forgot To Bark.

Bob Kerrey for Mayor of the greatest city in the world?  The Times giveth, and the Times taketh away, a bit.

Please.  We so enjoyed the Senator's star turn as Hamlet during the Clinton budget brawl that we feel obliged to excerpt this, as a bit of flavor for the current drama:

Early on Friday the Administration found itself still shy of a victory by just one vote, the holdout being Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, known among his colleagues as "Cosmic Bob" for his epic bouts of indecision. What struck White House officials most about Kerrey's resistance was what a senior Administration official described as the "inchoate" nature of his demands.

OK, enough nostalgia.  Well, one more. 

Now, I have no more idea than Kerrey does as to whether he will run or not.  But I know this - as a call to arms, his initial explanation to the Times is not likely to put people in the streets:

Mr. Kerrey said he began thinking about running for mayor as he watched the House of Representatives vote to repeal the estate tax. At the time, he said, he was filling out his own tax return and was reminded of how many New Yorkers had been hurt by provisions of the tax code - the Alternative Minimum Tax - which has had the effect of eliminating the deduction of state and local income taxes for many Americans.

"I am angry about the way New York City is being treated by Washington, D.C.," Mr. Kerrey said. "Who is fighting these guys? What would Giuliani and Koch be doing now? They'd be raising hell!"

Can you hear the people sing, singing the songs of angry men?  Me neither.

But the big non-barking dog in this story is 9/11.  Kerrey mentions it once, saying that "The hard truth of this is I became a New Yorker on the 11th of September, 2001.  "Now it's in my gene code. I lived here for four years, but thanks to Sept. 11, this is now my city. I care about what happens to it."

Good for him.  But for heaven's sake - Kerrey sat on the 9/11 Commission!  Surely he is deeply informed about the risks to which NYC is exposed, and the adequacy (or not) of the job being done by Bloomberg, Pataki, and Bush to protect the city.

If he is going to base his mayoral run on anything, shouldn't it be the safety of the city, rather than the alternative minimum tax?  Or, if he is not even mentioning that, is it fair to conclude that he considers Bloomberg to be strong enough on security that Kerrey won't find traction there?

Well, let's not get carried away - Kerrey may decide to run, realize that he needs a more compelling message, re-read his own resume, and base a campaign on city security.  But it is interesting that security does not seem to be his first concern, despite his mention of 9/11.  (Or maybe these quotes were unfair to him - who cares to hazard a guess at a possible Times agenda here?)

Developing...

Clean Air Clown Show

The NY Times has abandoned any pretense of reporting, and handed the keys to the activists (File under "What Else Is New").

The latest co-option of the front page by the editorial staff occurs with this bit of clown show reporting on the new version of the Energy Bill of 2005 to emerge from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce:

Change to the Clean Air Act Is Built Into New Energy Bill

Deep in the energy bill that was approved by a House committee this week, under a section titled "Miscellaneous," is a brief provision that could have major consequences for communities struggling to clean up their dirty air.

If it becomes law, it would make one of the most significant changes to the Clean Air Act in 15 years, allowing communities whose air pollution comes from hundreds of miles away to delay meeting national air quality standards until their offending neighbors clean up their own air.

The provision could especially affect states like New York, which has some of the nation's dirtiest air, and other Northeastern states that have always had difficulty meeting federal standards for ozone, a leading cause of smog, because much of any state's pollution originates in states to the south and west.

Under the new provision, the "downwind" states would not be required to meet clean air standards until the "upwind" states that were contributing to the problem had done so. Currently, states can get more time but only if they agree to added cleanup measures.

Proponents of the measure in Congress, as well as a spectrum of industry groups, say that the change would give state and local governments the flexibility and discretion they urgently need to deal with air pollution from distant sources. Otherwise, they would have to impose much stricter limits on pollution from local sources, including power plants, factories and automobiles.

But House members who fought against the measure, and other opponents, say flexibility and discretion are just other words for delay, saving money for industry and posing risks for millions of people living where the air does not meet health-based standards.

Opponents also say that the new provision would undermine a muscular rule announced last month by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, which sets new power-plant emissions for three major pollutants for the eastern half of the United States. One of those pollutants, nitrogen oxide, is cooked by sunlight into ozone, or smog.

Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and author of the provision, added the same provision to the House energy bill in 2003 when House and Senate leaders began negotiations on a final bill. The effort failed over other issues, and it remains unclear whether the provision would remain in a final bill this time.

And they go on.  Mr. Barton is on one side; and the Times finds a Congressman on the other side:

"Bottom line, no longer will there be any incentive for states or municipalities to clean up more air pollution, and the E.P.A. has no ability to force them to do it," said Representative Tom Allen, a Maine Democrat whose motion to kill the Barton provision failed by a 29-to-19 committee vote, largely along party lines.

Mr. Allen said that tougher air quality standards announced by the environmental agency since the failure of the 2003 energy bill and the new interstate rule made Mr. Barton's provision unnecessary and "would lead to a lot more asthma than is needed."

John Millett, an E.P.A. spokesman, said the agency had taken no position on Mr. Barton's provision, but a high-ranking agency official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the agency, said "a real debate" was under way among agency officials about its potential effectiveness and its effect on the Clean Air Act.

Quick, someone file a missing persons report!  Two NYC congressman are on the committee - Eliot Engel is proudly serving the Bronx, Westchester, and Rockland, and Edolphus Towns is down in Brooklyn.  Since the Times introduced the story with the notion that the provision might aid NYC, maybe the Times should get a reaction from two local Democrats who had a chance to vote against it.  Maybe they could even tell us how they voted (yes, maybe I could, too, but talk is cheap, and my time is deplorably mismanaged today.)

And the Times might wonder why the Ranking Democrat, John Dingell, did not single out this provision in calling for amendments a few weeks back.  The story does tell us that an amendment failed in committee - why did Dingell fail to rally the troops in advance?  Was he snookered, had he failed to notice this provision, did he want to let it slide - is Dingell suddenly shy as well, or might the Times try for a comment?

Well, the uncritically accepting view of the Times version is offered by Pudentilla.

Mae Magouirk - Happy Ending?

Is it safe?  The always-readable, sometimes-believable World Net Daily, which launched the Mae Magouirk story, now tells us this:

It appears there will be a happy ending to the story of Ora Mae Magouirk, the 81-year-old Georgia widow whose family has been at loggerheads over her medical care, visitation privileges and whether she should be "allowed to die" but now is reaching agreements on key issues.

Sarah Foster of WND has been following this.  She is surely a busy woman, and has not responded to my e-mails, so I can not say that she has been apprised of the news (essentially confirmed by NBC) that Ken Mullinax was a staffer to Democratic Congressman Ike Hilliard of Alabama.  However, she does not report that tidbit.

"Sound the Trumpet" had Mr. Mullinax's clarification of the original WND story.

Prominent lefties Ms. World o' Crap and Mark Kleiman kicked the tires of this story, but found no traction.  Mr. Kleiman did break it down thusly:

One way or another, this is a significant story. Either the nephew's accusations are true, in which case the hospice and the judge got some 'splainin' to do, or they're false, in which case we have one more instance in which a judge is subjected to death threats at the whim of World Net Daily and cognate media.

Well, that was on April 11; evidently, events have downgraded the "significant story".

Wizbang wonders, why the partisan outrage?  My two cents - some folks on one side really do think that a portion of the other side has no respect for law or life; some folks on the other side think that some/all of the Religious Right really will intrude into every family decision.  Did the involvement of a (former) Dem Congressional staffer confound those calculations?  Beats me.

Ken Mullinax appeared on Hannity and Colmes on April 13, and the Political Teen was there.

Here is an e-mail statement from and a phone chat with the controversial Judge Boyd,  who has since removed himself from the case.

Meanwhile, I am pretty firmly with Beth of the personal (yet Vast) RWC - I am hoping someone can tell me what happened.

I'm Sorry I Read That

The NY Times had a story a few weeks back making the vaguely amusing point that a person's name is sometime their destiny:

Think of baseball's Cecil Fielder and Rollie Fingers, the news executive Bill Headline, the artist Rembrandt Peale, the poet William Wordsworth, the pathologist (not gynecologist) Zoltan Ovary...

The whole notion only stuck with me because I never thought Cecil Fielder would be remembered for his glove (and what do they make of Pete Rose?)

Well, today the NY Times updates us on the Larry Summers controversy about women in science.  And one of the heroines of their piece?  Dr. Jo Handelsman, who apparently does.

Also featured is Dr. Cynthia Friend, who I suppose could be.

Dare we address the substance?  The Times duly notes that tenured professors hold on forever (and old Deans never die, they just lose their faculties.)  However, they never refer to this study they cited earlier:

A report released Friday by the American Institute of Physics offers a contradictory conclusion: after they earn a bachelor's degree in physics, American women are just as successful as men at wending their way up the academic ladder.

...Dr. Ivie said the main reason fewer women made it to the top in physics was simply that fewer started at the bottom. At each job level, she said, the fraction of women matched what would be expected for women advancing at the same rate as men. And at top-tier universities, the percentage of female physics professors is low because many current professors earned their Ph.D.'s in the 1970's or earlier, when the field was almost entirely male, and have not yet retired.

Instead, the sex disparity arises earlier in the pipeline, between high school and college. Nearly half of students taking high school physics are girls, but fewer than a quarter of the bachelor's degrees in physics go to women.

In discussing all of the possible obstacles facing women, the Times also mentions mentoring but slides right past an obvious point, which I will belabor here - suppose a fifty year old tenured prof has the thought of taking under his wing a promising thirty year old tenure-track professor.  Possible candidates include a young woman, a young white man, and a young black man.

"Mentoring" will include flying off to conferences and spending long hours in the lab and office with the youngster.  After several years of collaborative effort, it is possible that a decision will be made to not offer tenure to the young prof.

So, I would love to hear from some academics on this (I have my own thoughts about the answer as it relates to the corporate world) - assuming the three candidates are equally qualified, it seems to me, as an ill-informed outsider, that there are obvious reasons to prefer to steer away from office gossip and possible discrimination charges by hanging with the white guy.  Is this a reasonable guess?

As a bit of evidence, I will even cite the Nancy Hopkins tale told in the current NY Times story:

Professor Hopkins, who in January walked out of the academic conference where Mr. Summers made his controversial remarks about women in science, said she nearly lost out on a large grant years ago because she had been left out of the information loop by some of her male colleagues. After reading in a newspaper that a biotech company was awarding grants to M.I.T. scientists, she asked a colleague if he knew how to apply for the money, she said. He told her he knew nothing about the grant, she said, though she later learned that he was urging another man in their department to apply for the money.

Professor Hopkins said she then went to her dean, who submitted her application to the company, asking for $30,000, The company gave her $8 million, which allowed her to expand her cancer research and led to the discovery of a pair of cancer genes.

Sexual discrimination, or normal academic rivalry?  Or, dare we say it, maybe he just was not that into her.

My point would be, well, obvious.  Feedback welcome.  PC police, try not to be too tedious and predictable (that is my turf).

Comparing Headlines

Embattled Tom DeLay had a press conference yesterday.  Since I had been advised by a commenter that Delay was "backing away from DeLay" with respect to judges, I laughed when I saw the Times coverage.  Try to guess which is their headline and lead (no peeking):

(a) DeLay Tempers His Statements

House majority leader admits 'inartful' remarks after death of Schiavo

The embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, increasingly under fire for what critics describe as ethical lapses and political overreach, offered a rare apology yesterday for "inartful" remarks criticizing federal judges.

(b)  Under Fire, DeLay Apologizes for Criticizing Judges

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, increasingly under fire for what critics describe as ethical lapses and political overreach, offered a rare apology today for what he said were "inartful" remarks criticizing federal judges.

(c) DeLay Apologizes for Comments

Leader Wouldn't Say Whether He Wants Schiavo Judges Impeached

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) apologized yesterday for heated comments he made about possible retribution against federal judges for their handling of the Terri Schiavo case, but declined to say whether he favors impeaching those judges.

(d)  DeLay Asks House Panel to Review Judges

Deflecting all questions about his ethical conduct and political future, Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, on Wednesday stepped up his crusade against judges, announcing that he had instructed the Judiciary Committee to investigate federal court decisions in the Terri Schiavo case and to recommend possible legislation.

(e)  DeLay Apologizes for Schiavo Case Rhetoric

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay apologized Wednesday for using overheated rhetoric on the day Terri Schiavo died, but refused to say whether he supports impeachment of the judges who ruled in her case.

(f) DeLay Seeks Congressional Review of Schiavo Case

U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who denounced judges involved in the court battle over Terri Schiavo, said on Wednesday he has requested a congressional review of the brain-damaged woman's ``right-to-die'' case.

For folks scoring at home, that is the LA Times wire release, the LA Times, the Washington Post, the NY Times, the AP, and Reuters.  This time, the Times manages to get to the left even of the Reuters crowd.

In the body of her story, we learn what Ms. Stolberg meant when she said that DeLay "stepped up" his attacks:

Mr. DeLay's subsequent criticisms of the courts - at one point he suggested that the judges responsible could be impeached and at another point said that they would be held responsible - have brought ridicule from Democrats. They have also prompted some prominent Republicans, including Mr. Bush and Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, to distance themselves from him.

Asked last week about Mr. DeLay's attacks on judges, Mr. Bush would only say that he believed in an independent judiciary, in a system of checks and balances, in judges who strictly interpreted the Constitution.

On Wednesday, Mr. DeLay seemed to adopt the president's language: "Of course I believe in an independent judiciary," he said. He also apologized for the impeachment comment, even as he insisted it was well within the purview of Congress to rein in the courts.

"Sometimes I get a little more passionate," Mr. DeLay said, "particularly during the moment and the day that Terri Schiavo was starved to death. Emotions were flowing."

"I said something in an inartful way," he added, "and I shouldn't have said it that way, and I apologize. I apologize for saying it that way. It was taken wrong, and I didn't explain or clarify my remarks as I'm clarifying them here."

Mr. DeLay was not specific about what legislative changes, if any, he would like to see emerge from the Judiciary Committee's review. But in announcing that he had asked Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican and the committee chairman, to examine the actions of federal judges in the Schiavo case, Mr. DeLay said the House had previously passed legislation limiting the jurisdiction of the courts and breaking up the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a bill that died in the Senate.

"We set the jurisdiction of the courts," Mr. DeLay said. "We set up the courts. We can unset the courts."

So, is this is a "stepped up" attack, or is Mr. DeLay engaging in a face-saving lateral to Sensenbrenner's committee, where the topic can die in dignity (and without Congressional or media scrutiny)? 

Ms. Stolberg presents no expert quotes from anyone suggesting that legislation will actually emerge from this wreckage.  However, she does offer the subtle hint that, as part of his "stepped-up" attack, DeLay did not propose any specific legislation.

And folks complain that the Times does not have a comics section!

[LATE UPDATE:  Frank Rich rallies to my cause in the Sunday Week in Review:

You can see why Dick Cheney and President Bush in rapid succession distanced themselves from Mr. DeLay's threats of retribution against judges who presided in the Schiavo case. If an Eric Rudolph murders a judge in close chronological proximity to that kind of rhetoric, they've got a political Armageddon on their hands. Mr. DeLay got the message, sort of. At his Wednesday news conference, he tried to dial back some of his words, if only as a way of changing the subject from Indians and his own potential outings in a court of law.]

UPDATE:  The Times could not pry a reaction quote out of James Sensenbrenner, but here is what he had to say last week:

In the same interview Thursday, Sensenbrenner was asked about recent comments by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, in which DeLay said he wanted the House Judiciary Committee to review the conduct of the judges in the Terri Schiavo case. DeLay has assailed the federal bench over that case and others, calling it "arrogant" and "out of control," saying Congress should "reassert our constitutional authority over the courts." But DeLay hasn't specified what he wants Sensenbrenner's committee to do.

Asked if DeLay has made any specific request of the panel, Sensenbrenner said, "No, he has not."

Nor did Sensenbrenner say what he thought the majority leader had in mind.

"I saw the same press conference you did," he said of DeLay's comments.

Sensenbrenner has criticized the court's handling of the Schiavo case, but he appeared cool to talk by some conservatives about "impeaching" judges. "We can disagree with the federal judiciary on the decision, but the answer to that is to make sure the courts look at cases a little more carefully," he said.

Sensenbrenner said his preference was to pass legislation spelling out that incapacitated people without living wills have the right in such cases to judicial review in federal court.

He was not exactly breathing fire.

MORE:  Was this just an honest difference of opinion on the part of Ms. Stolberg, or part of the Times jihad?  The LA Times actually tries to put the Times story in perspective, but DeLay still looks like a leader:

At least 39 members of Congress have engaged in the controversial practice of paying their spouses, children or other relatives out of campaign funds, or have hired companies in which a family member had a financial interest, records and interviews show.

...DeLay, a Texas Republican, has defended the payments to his wife, Christine, and his daughter, Danielle DeLay Ferro, saying his family members provided valuable service to his campaign. They received $473,801 over the last two election cycles, records show.

...Among the recipients of the largest payments were members of DeLay's family and those of Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy). Pombo paid his wife and brother $357,325 from his political fund over the last four years for duties listed as bookkeeping, fundraising, consulting and other unspecified services, records show.

...Including Pombo, five of the top six congressional families in The Times' analysis of two election cycles were Californians. The campaign fund of Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) paid $251,853 to her husband's firm, according to the candidate's campaign filings. She was followed by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-North Hollywood), $205,500; Rep. Bob Filner (D-San Diego), $154,504; and Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), $152,362.

Looks Like Democracy

It looks like democracy, and we hope the spirit is catching - the legislators in Connecticut are poised to pass a bill creating gay civil unions, with an amendment specifically stating that this is *not* marriage.  The Republican Governor had been coy on the earlier bill (lacking the cosmetic amendment) already passed by the State Senate but has said she will sign this one.

And the Times puts in the closing paragraphs what I would put near the top (and what Newsday put in the lead):

If the civil union measure becomes law, Connecticut would become, after Vermont, the second state to allow the unions, and the first to do so without pressure from the courts. Vermont and Massachusetts, which last year began allowing same-sex couples to marry, adopted their policies after courts found that gays were being denied constitutional rights.

Emphasis added.  My goodness, I know Connecticut is a strange shade of Blue - we are home to Joe Lieberman, the Democrats beloved by Reps, and Chris Shays, the Republican beloved by Dems.

But surely, there is some other Blue State where Dems could try this radical-for-their-party approach of writing a bill and then passing it, rather than relying on the courts to advance their party's agenda.

MORE:  Church and State in Connecticut.  Incredibly, I go to the other Episcopal Church, so my local coverage and insight is woefully lacking.

UPDATE:  Here is the WaPo lead:

Connecticut's House of Representatives passed legislation Wednesday that would make the state the second to establish civil unions for same-sex couples, and the first to do so without being directed by a court.

And from an earlier story:

"The importance of how this is happening here can't be underestimated," said state Sen. Andrew McDonald (D), one of Connecticut's few openly gay legislators and chairman of the judiciary committee. "Those who are most adamant about denying these rights say they were being forced on the public by judges. We have elected officials leading the way."

"Can't be underestimated'?  Tell the Times.

UNScam Indictments - Who Is David Chalmers?

Via Glenn (who has more), the NY Times tells us about indictments in the UNScam case:

A  Texas businessman, as well as a British and a Bulgarian citizen, have been indicted in New York for reportedly paying millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq as part of the United Nations oil-for-food program.

The Texan, David B. Chalmers, a principal of Bay Oil U.S.A. Inc., and an associate of the oil trading company, Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian and permanent American resident, were arrested this morning at their homes in Houston.

And who is David Chalmers?

Mr. Chalmers made the news last fall - the LA Times ran an Oct. 9 story, with an Oct 18 follow-up, about Americans and American companies named in a CIA report on Oil for Food.  He was also subpoenaed by Hyde's committee early this year.

Now, the LA Times first report and follow-up provide grist for right-wing conspiracists (Hmm, shouldn't my hand be up?).  Their Oct. 9 lead:

Three U.S. citizens, all of whom campaigned against Iraq sanctions, were among those who received special grants from a scandal-ridden oil program overseen by Saddam Hussein, according to congressional officials and a CIA report released this week.

From the Oct. 18 follow:

At least one of the men attempted to broker a peace deal between the U.S. and Iraq in a last-ditch effort to avoid war. Others waged campaigns to put an end to United Nations (news - web sites) sanctions against Iraq, portraying their efforts as humanitarian gestures to help the Iraqi people.
   
At the same time, all were donating to U.S. political campaigns. Since 1991, Wyatt and his wife, Lynn, for instance, have given more than $700,000 to federal campaign and political organizations, most to Democrats and most after Wyatt and his firm began to buy oil from Iraq in 1997, according to records maintained by the Campaign Finance Analysis Project.

It is worth noting that Mr. Chalmers was not named in this CIA report.  However, his company, Bay Oil, was, and the LA Times tells us that "Chalmers was an ex-business associate of Wyatt's, according to Platts, an oil-industry trade publication."

Now we need to switch sides momentarily.  Mr. Chalmers also made the news for his involvement in some oil for arms deals with Saddam back in the 1980s, when Saddam was the good (or at least, less bad) guy in his war with Iran.  Fans of Bill Safire will remember his attempts to rouse our interest in illegal efforts by the US to arm Saddam (and let's eagerly note the possible Hillary connection!).

Forbes had coverage last November 15; the Financial Times reprised this in April 2004 (and I got help from Stephen of the AcePilots).   

A check of FEC donations showed David Chalmers of TX (and Bay Oil) giving inconsequential amounts - $1,000 to Dems, $300 to Reps.  But I am not satisifed that I have cracked the code for PAC and corporate donations - my totals for the Wyatts (Oscar and Lynn) are several hundred thousand short of the $700,000 figure cited by the LA Times.

OK, there are lots of leads to follow - where, for example, is my link to the CIA report from last fall?  I welcome some help on this.

UPDATE:  The NY Times delivers a David Chalmers profile with an interesting tidbit - Mr. Chalmers left Prescott Bush country (Connecticut) for Texas in 1993.  They also mention a Forbes article, which may well be the one to which I linked.  However, they overlooked, or buried, the Iraqgate connection - and they call this dirt?

Maybe Lugar And Kerry *Did* Mess Up

The NY Times has a follow-up to yesterday's widely debunked AP story about loose Senatorial lips sinking ships:

Though Mr. Armstrong had been identified in news reports two years ago about his dispute with other officials over intelligence involving Cuba, that was when he was the national intelligence officer for Latin America, and his name was no secret. When the Bolton nomination resurrected the old accounts, however, the C.I.A. asked news organizations to withhold his name.

On Monday, Mr. Lugar announced that aides on the Foreign Relations committee had interviewed Mr. Armstrong. Later, Mr. Kerry mentioned him by name while questioning Mr. Bolton. The hearings were televised, and transcripts were widely published. On Tuesday morning, The Associated Press mentioned the disclosure and identified Mr. Armstrong.

"Did Otto Reich share his belief that Fulton Armstrong should be removed for his position?" Mr. Kerry said during the hearing on Monday, reading from committee records of interviews its staff had conducted. "The answer is yes."

Mr. Bolton was not ruffled. "As I said," he replied, sticking to the alias, "I had lost confidence in Mr. Smith, and I conveyed that."

At a time when a special prosecutor is investigating how the identity of another undercover C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame, was leaked to the press, the disclosure of Mr. Armstrong's name did not go unnoticed by reporters on Capitol Hill. Asked about it on Tuesday, Mr. Lugar said simply, "No comment."

Mr. Kerry defended himself. "Senator Lugar had already mentioned it," he said, "and it had already been in the press."

It is interesting to see how seriously the Senators took this request for secrecy from the CIA.  Holman Jenkins of the WSJ is recycled by James Taranto with more.

And since it reminds us of Kerry's response, let's pitch in Cliff May's "Everybody Knew" defense of Robert Novak and the White House aides on the Plame leak.

Some Like It Hot

It's spring, the sun is shining on the mountain peaks, the snow is melting in the mountain passes, and a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of Waziristan and a renewed offensive against Al Qaeda.

The CSM tells us that for Osama, being on the lam from the CIA, the ISI, and the Pakistani and US militaries has become a drag.  Or maybe Osama has simply been filling his free time enjoying the old Tony Curtis / Jack Lemmon / Marilyn Monroe comedy classics:

When bin Laden's group moves, says Hussain, they go in caravans and dress in women's clothing to avoid detection by satellite.

"Now I have also given orders that when every vehicle is checked, the women are asked to say something so that you can make out whether it is a male voice or a female voice," he says.

A Chris Shays Republican!

Congressman Chris Shays, ostensibly a Republican, recently called on Tom DeLay to step down.

Righty Blogger Steve has some follow up Sturm und Drang echoing Shay's call.

For those who have not followed his career, Chris Shays has been actively leading a House Subcommittee investigating UNSCAM.

However, folks with a longer memory will recall that "McCain-Feingold" is also sometimes referred to in the House as "Shays-Meehan".

And going even further back, five House Reps declined to impeach Bill Clinton.

MORE:  Hmm, did I sidestep the DeLay question?  No kidding.  And no guts, no glory.

My current official editorial position is that taken by Jack Benny when a stick-up man threatened him with "Your money or your life".

Tuesday Cat Blogging

Don't vex me with facts - give me the "End This Madness" petition to sign, and I'll sign it.

Joe Gandelman has more.

MORE:  Hmm, here is an estimate that "feral cats kill 47 million to 139 million songbirds a year" in Wisconsin.  137 million songs that will never be sung!  But no body count estimates for rats, mice, moles, voles, and squirrels.

Here is more coverage, and a seemingly unrelated hot chick photo - blondes in Wisonsin, who knew?  The proposal advances to the next stage, which seems to be certain death in the legislature.

Finally, for the not-yet-fully enraged:

At least two upper Midwestern states, South Dakota and Minnesota, have allowed wild cats to be shot for decades.

Well, this morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas...

Props To The Captain

Captain Ed Morrissey did an outstanding job toppling the Canadian government in the last few weeks (a small sample here).

Now, if he can just use his vast powers to prevent the NHL from re-opening...

UPDATE:  The Christian Science Monitor has coverage.

Asset Returns And Wages

This NY Times article ties in to the earlier debate on prospective asset returns.  Folks who enjoy a bit of table-pounding might enjoy this old post, where I argue that falling real wages may drive higher asset returns.  I will cherry-pick some supportive excerpts from the Times in the continuation:

John Tierney - Never Boring

John Tierney, the new columnist taking the space of (but never replacing) William Safire, explains the benefits of insider trading as it relates to knowledge dissemination, and tells us why the presence of uninformed investors can be a good thing.

All in the context of betting on the background and identity of the next Pope, of course, and he goes back half a millennium for a history lesson on that topic as well.

This site has the current betting (look under the tab for "Current Events").  They have a perma-link feature, and I would welcome assistance with that.

Nick Kristof Worries About Media Credibility

Nick Kristof worries about media credibility; I worry about Nick Kristof.  Let's have some comic excerpts:

A recent report from the Pew Research Center, "Trends 2005," is painful to read. The report says that 45 percent of Americans believe little or nothing in their daily newspapers, up from 16 percent two decades ago.

...Those of us in the press tend to get defensive about our dwindling credibility. We protest that we've been made scapegoats by partisan demagogues, particularly on the right, and I think that's true. But distrust for the news media, even if it's unfair, is the new reality - and we will have to work much, much harder to win back our credibility with the public.

In any case, it's not just right-wingers who distrust the media these days. The Pew Research Center found that while only 14 percent of Republicans believe all or most of what they read in The New York Times, even among Democrats the figure is only 31 percent. Other major news organizations face the same challenge. The Fox News Channel is considered credible by fewer than one-third of the Republicans - and an even smaller number of Democrats. Indeed, it's a rare news organization that is trusted by more than one-third of the people in either party: the one thing Democrats and Republicans agree on is that the news media are not trustworthy.

So Fox faces "the same challenge" as the NY Times, yes?  Let's look at the darn study - 14% of Reps and 31% of Dems trust the NY Times; that is a more than 2-1 ratio, a 17% spread, and (we boldly presume) statistically significant.

The numbers for Fox are that is is trusted by 29% of Reps and 24% of Dems, which may well be statistically meaningless.  Or, per Kristof, it may be "the same" as the Times - you make the call.

To compound the comedy, most of data from this media survey, including the figures cited by Kristof, were from the summer of 2004, i.e., pre-RatherGate, pre EasonGate, and (for my lib friends) pre-Guckert.  In fact, since the surveys were from May and June of 2004, they preceded the formal collapse of Joe Wilson, whose media star had been launched in large part by Nick Kristof himself (Mr. Kristof's "defense" is here).

Eventually, Kristof does arrive at the obvious solution, and imagine my embarrassment, since I was shouting at my newspaper while laboring through several silly paragraphs.  What was I shouting?  Roughly, "C'mon, clown, the reason I don't trust the Times or Fox is they are both in the tank for someone."

Mr. Kristof is more stylish:

We also need more diverse newsrooms. When America was struck by race riots in the late 1960's, major news organizations realized too late that their failure to hire black reporters had impaired their ability to cover America. In the same way, our failure to hire more red state evangelicals limits our understanding of and ability to cover America today.

I think we're nuts not to regulate handguns more strictly, but I also think that gun owners have a point when they complain that gun issues often seem to be covered by people who don't know a 12-gauge from an AR-15.

OK, we appreciate his sentiment, but let's dutifully note that there are conservatives  that are neither evangelicals or gun nuts gun rights's enthusiasts.  He's biased even in discussing his biases!  There is work to be done.

MORE:  On media bias, the Pew Study is fascinating:

When it comes to describing the press, twice as many say news organizations are “liberal” (51%) as say they are “conservative” (26%), while 14% say neither phrase applies. This was also the case in surveys conducted in the mid-to-late 1980s and, not surprisingly, there is a significant partisan cast to these perceptions.

Republicans see the press as more liberal than conservative by nearly three to one (65% to 22%). Among independents, the margin is two to one (50% to 25%). And while a third of Democrats say there is a conservative tilt to the American press, a slight plurality (41%) says the press is more liberal than anything else.

Hmm, lots of honest but off-message Dems wandering loose.

MORE:  Kristof worries that reporters are perceived as "arrogant" - his LOL e-mail defending a silly column shows why that might be.  (We are tossing all of our hats in Michelle Malkin's direction).

Good Baseball Day In Boston

The Red Sox got their 2004 World Championship rings with the Yankees watching, then beat the Yanks in their home opener, on a day when both fans and players showed a lot of class:

"You're probably a little jealous," Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said. "But they deserved it. You have respect for what they accomplished, and you know how difficult it is to do."

So on a crisp afternoon when they could have been in their clubhouse, the Yankees found no shame in witnessing the celebration of a rival. As the Red Sox gave out 45 World Series rings before their Fenway Park opener on Monday, the Yankees watched from the third-base dugout, even clapping now and then.

It was a tasteful gesture, the Red Sox thought, and the Yankees continued to oblige. They did nothing to spoil the party, which continued to the end of an 8-1 Red Sox victory. For 33,702 fans and a throng of Red Sox alumni, the first look at a championship home team turned out perfectly.

Mariano Rivera has become a fan favorite in Boston, and he played along with good humor.

Joe Torre also got a big ovation.  The radio folks mentioned that when he returned from prostate cancer surgery, Tore's first game back was in Boston and he got a huge ovation then as well.  This little vignette is a tiny part of the explanation for his popularity:

The exasperation at his team's collapse against the Boston Red Sox in a stunning blitz of four straight losses last October had sunk in for Joe Torre. He knew there were no more games for his Yankees, no more decisions for him and an eternity to dissect the most monumental choke in baseball history.

Torre was alone with his disappointment, staring at the black telephone on his desk. He could have called his wife for comfort or he could have called George Steinbrenner, the principal owner, for discomfort. He lifted the receiver and, surprise, called Boston pitcher Tim Wakefield instead.

"I just told him I wasn't happy," Torre said, "but I was happy for him."

In dialing the four-digit extension to the visiting clubhouse, Torre wanted to acknowledge the pitcher who had left Yankee Stadium as a loser in the previous American League Championship Series.

After Wakefield gave up Aaron Boone's homer in the unforgettable seventh game in 2003, he worried that he might become another Bill Buckner. But Wakefield helped the Red Sox stifle the Yankees in the A.L.C.S. and end an 86-year-old famine by winning the World Series last year.

"He walked off the mound after giving up Boone's homer, and it must have been a long year for him," Torre said. "He had done nothing but get us out in that series, and, all of a sudden, he's got to walk off to that."

...Wakefield was in the middle of a long overdue party in the Bronx shortly after last fall's comeback when a clubhouse attendant told him he had a call. It was Torre, Wakefield was told, and it quickly became apparent that it was not a prank.

"Words can't describe how I felt," Wakefield said. "To have one of the most respected managers in the game call me after they've lost, I can't tell you how that felt. It was phenomenal."

Enough, already.  Play ball.

Show Us The Numbers

Byron York is a shameless tease:

Michael Moore and the Myth of Fahrenheit 9/11

He claimed his movie was popular all across America. It wasn’t true.

...Fahrenheit 9/11 did an impressive business, earning far more than any other documentary in history. And many reporters and analysts, spurred on by Moore and his publicity team, interpreted the movie’s success as evidence of a deeply felt and growing anti-Bush sentiment among the public, not just in the blue states, where the movie might have been expected to do well, but also in the red states won by George W. Bush in 2000.

But a little more than four months later, after Election Day, things looked much different. Not only had Moore’s movie not propelled the Democratic candidate to victory, but some Democrats wondered privately whether Fahrenheit 9/11 and all the attendant fuss might have done more harm than good. What went wrong?

The answer, although no one beyond a few Hollywood executives, and probably Moore himself, knew it at the time, was that Fahrenheit 9/11 never had the sort of national appeal that its maker and its publicists claimed. The truth was just the opposite; deep inside the dense compilations of audience research figures that are used by movie studios to chart a film’s performance was evidence that Fahrenheit 9/11’s appeal was narrowly limited to those areas that were already solidly anti-Bush.  Moore’s daily pronouncements about the movie’s success in pro-Bush areas, and the growing anti-Bush movement it was supposedly engendering, were little more than wishful thinking.

And how does Mr. York know this?

...I came across a source in the movie business who had access to the details of the film’s box-office business, and of other releases’ performances, as well. He provided me with an Excel spreadsheet of numbers — compiled by Nielsen EDI, a division of the famed Nielsen media measurement firm — which revealed a picture of Fahrenheit 9/11’s performance that bore almost no resemblance to Michael Moore’s hype.

Oh, he's got what I want!  And the Baseball Crank would wallow in this stuff.  Put it up, Byron.

Krugman On Health Care

Paul Krugman's column on health care gives me a heart attack!  Oh, we will leave the heavy lifting to Tim Worstall, and just take a few cheap shots:

General Motors now spends about $1,500 on health care for every car it produces.

Well, yes, they have almost as many retirees (and dependents) as current workers, and apparently under-reserved on their pension and health care funds.  Now, of course, they want to shift this burden to the Federal government (and John Kerry wanted to help).

In the long run, medical progress may force us to make a harsh choice: if we don't want to become a society in which the rich get life-saving medical treatment and the rest of us don't, we'll have to pay much higher taxes.

Comic emphasis added - what do you mean, "us", Mr. Princeton Prof with the tony book deal?  Enough, already, with the faux-populism; those Wall Street traders who live down the street from you in Princeton make a lot more than you do, and I'm sure it's troubling, but I'll bet that with your book deal and speaking fees, you still count among "the rich".  To crack the top 5% takes an annual income of $150,000 (and your spouse can work, too) - give me a break here.

The fact is that in health care, the private sector is often bloated and bureaucratic, while some government agencies - notably the Veterans Administration system - are lean and efficient.

The VA is "lean and efficient"?  Now he tells us - last fall, it was the target of unpatriotic Bush budget cuts.  Earlier, Bush was squeezing vets to finance tax cuts for the rich.  Now, the VA is lean and efficient - well done, W.

We spend far more per person on health care than any other country - 75 percent more than Canada or France - yet rank near the bottom among industrial countries in indicators from life expectancy to infant mortality.

I'll take your word for it, but... some of those measures surely reflect other aspects of American life, such as gun violence, illegal drug use, higher immigration, higher income inequality, and dubious dietary choices.  Here, for example, is a table relating obesity to income.  Evidently, you really can't be too rich or too thin, but it is easy to be poor and fat. 

What is going on with obesity (and what that implies for consumer sovereignty) is an important question that seems to be somewhat separate from the question of whether we need higher taxes and single-payer health care.  That said, we have seen calls for the "fat tax", and to the extent that poor health outcomes are due to poor lifestyle decisions, one might wonder whether a single-payer system subsidizes poor decision-making.

MORE:  A while back I began writing a side-splitting semi-rebuttal to the Jim Glass post but the margin was too small to contain it.  Developing...

I CAN STOP ANYTIME: 

Over the next few weeks I'll back up these assertions, and talk about what a workable health care reform might look like, if we can get ideology out of the way.

Maybe this is a heads-up to his acolytes that Krugman is about to break lockstep with Dem orthodoxy.  Maybe.  But my bet is that it is the Reps that will be expected to set their ideology aside.

Best Muddy Boots In The World

Robert Kaplan travels to Niger to observe some elite Marines train soldiers in the Nigerien army.

Although you have read it a hundred times, you should read it again (if you can sneak past the subscription wall - I had to sit in my dentist's waiting room) - the US military may have the coolest high tech gadgetry, but we also have the best trained, best led soldiers out there.

An excerpt and related links at Liberals Against Terrorism (I thought that was just about all liberals...).

Mickey Gains A New Recruit

The "Stop Kerry 2008" effort led by Mickey Kaus has picked up a prestigious new volunteer - John Kerry himself, whose silly whining about voter intimidation ought to disqualify him right now.

And speaking of intimidation, John, have you found a pen yet so you can sign your Form 180?

UPDATE:  Count every vote?  First, you need to find every vote.

Nuclear Summer

Mickey Kaus is not afraid of the filibuster; LA Times editorial page editor Andres Martinez is looking for intellectual honesty and consistency in Washington, and within the Democratic Party.

I will say this - suppose the Senate passes tort reform, after which the Republican leadership goes nuclear on judicial filibusters, and the Democrats bring all Senate business to a halt.  Then the Reps can blame the Dems for failing to take up either the Social Security or immigration impending train wrecks, and can take credit on the right for their bold stand on judicial nominees.

Works for me.  But does it work for Karl?

As to the nuclear option Constitutional option itself?  Reps ought to harmonize - if greater judicial accountability is really an objective, then a package that makes both the appointment and removal of judges easier could make sense.  For example, ending the filibusters, and giving new judges a fourteen year term limit, could make sense.

Or, it could lead to a greater politicization of the judicial process.  It's hard to believe that proper conservatives want to tinker with the Constitution that way, but I do hear that idea as I dial-spin on talk radio.

My first choice would still be to have an opposition party that actually believed in legislating through the legislatures, but that appears to be unrealistic.

SIDEBAR:  Dahlia Lithwick says this at Slate:

[Mark Levin] offers four random examples of "activist decisions" which mysteriously include Dred Scott v. Sandford (which was nothing of the sort).

Hah!  Go tell Abe Lincoln, who argued that the portion of the Dred Scott decision that overturned the Missouri Compromise was exactly judicial activism.  This old post actually finds both sides of the debate, but I had even more fun here.

UPDATE:  Can't stop the comedy - the LA Times did have space for this filibuster piece, shredded as liberal talking points by Patterico.